Personality Vs Individuality

Is It really worth putting any energy into improving my personality?

NO... The personality has to be dropped so that your individuality can be discovered. The personality is not you; it is a mask people have put over you. It is not your authentic reality, it is not your original face. And you are asking, “Is it really worth putting any energy into improving my personality?”

Put your energy into destroying your personality. Put your energy into discovering your individuality. And make the distinction very clear: individuality is that which you have brought from your very birth. Individuality is your essential being, and personality is what the society has made of you, what they wanted to make of you.

My whole teaching is, don’t cling to personality. It is not yours, and it is never going to be yours. Allow your nature full freedom. And respect yourself, be proud of being yourself, whatever you are. Have some dignity! Don’t be destroyed by the dead.

Personality is a dead thing. Drop it! — in a single blow, not in fragments, not slowly, today a little bit and then tomorrow a little bit, because life is short and tomorrow is not certain. The false is false. Discard it totally! Every real human being has to be a rebel… rebel against whom? — against his own personality.

Respect man, love man. Respect his individuality, respect his differences. And that is possible only if you respect your individuality. That is possible only if you are grounded in your own being and you are unafraid.

The disappearance of your person is not your disappearance, remember; on the contrary, it is your appearance. As your person disappears, your personality falls away; your individuality, your individual arises. To have a personality is hypocrisy. To be an individual is your birthright.

The Japanese-American was a long-time customer at this Greek restaurant, because he had discovered that they made specially tasty fried rice. Each evening he would come in the restaurant, and he would order “FLIED LICE” This always caused the Greek restaurant owner to nearly roll on the floor with laughter. Sometimes he would have two or three friends stand nearby just to hear the Japanese customer order his “flied lice.”

Eventually the customer’s pride was so hurt that he took a special diction lesson just to be able to say “fried rice” correctly. The next time he went to the restaurant he said very plainly, “Fried rice, please.”

Unable to believe his ears, the Greek restaurant owner said, “Sir, would you repeat that?”

The Japanese-American replied, “You heard what I said, you flucking Gleek!”

How long can you go on pretending? The reality is going to come up some day or other, and it is better that it comes sooner.