Evolution of Conciousness ( Post 4) - Personality

Personality Based Consciousness

We have seen the list and attributes of  7 – Types of Man in the earlier post.

Now, among the seven types the first 3 – Types are “normal/common” people. 

All the first 3 Types possess Personality-Based Consciousness with strong 

attitudes related to the dominant center.

From Type-4 onwards one moves away from Personality-Based consciousness 

to Essence-Based consciousness depending on the hard work one puts in.

 What is personality-Based Consciousness ?

We are familiar with the term ‘Personality’ and know what it is about. 

According to Gurdjieff,

Personality is an acquired, learned or imposed trait from outside world,

Where as ‘Essence’ belongs to the original self and is innate. 

It is difficult to pin point or find out the qualities of one’s Essence because 

one is almost entirely enveloped by the personality.

 There are lots of theories about Types of personalities and their attributes.

 We are not going into that precisely because; we are going to ‘dump’ the 

personality to reach the essence.  Not exactly, rather we will put personality 

where it belongs and use it where it is necessary like a tool.

One acquires Personality while growing up in a particular Political, Social, 

Cultural and economic background.

One do not consciously cultivates personality in the beginning but 

unconsciously adopts values to gain acceptance and a place in the family/clan

/society.

First one adopts unconsciously, and then it is acquired, imposed and learned.

Development of Personality is unavoidable and it is pretty useful in our 

personal and societal life.

The problem with it is, according to Gurdjieff , Over time it  becomes  the  

sole identity of the person not only for others but also for himself. 

The person eventually lose sight of the fact that it a imposed/cultivated trait 

to serve him and takes it as the SELF itself. 

Once Personality is perceived as the True Self, then one tend to believe that

-         one is  awake and aware

-         one is making choices out of ‘Free Will’

-         Responses are consciously made

-         Desires and Ambitions are freely chosen and so on.

but in actuality all the values, ambitions, pursuits, desires, behavior, choices 

and reactions are dictated by the personality.

And one is mechanically acting it out in their life like a robot. 

Gurdjieff further observes, ‘Strong Personality’ can also damage qualities of 

one’s  ‘Essence’.

We will see more of it!