Acharya Prashant (AP): Vikram is asking, “Sir, I can kind of see that personality is a mask, but then why is the world giving the personality so much of importance? Why does everybody seem to be giving the personality so much of importance?” Right, Vikram, that’s what you are asking?
Vikram, the reason is simple. You need to talk to me, correct? When you are talking to me, then you need to have some sense of who I am. As Vikram gets up and speaks to me, he must have some idea of who is he talking to?
Now, there are two ways of trying to understand who I am.
If Vikram is intelligent, he would have heard what I said, looked at it carefully, and seen that he can talk to me, that I am worth talking to. correct? That is one way of determining who I am. Vikram wants to see who I am. So, the first way Vikram looks at me clearly, and from that clear seeing comes his understanding of who I am. For this to happen, he must be attentive. Right?
But if he is not attentive, he will have a substitute method of knowing who I am. What would be that substitute method? He will say, “Look at his clothes, what kind of clothes is he wearing?” He will say, “Ah! Look at his language, is he using flowery language? Is he fluent in one particular language? Look at his background, where does he come from? What kind of jobs has he done? Where has he studied? Or, Look at his religion. Which religion does he belong to? Which country? Which caste?” If Vikram cannot look at me directly, if he cannot look at my essence, then you would use other means to look at me. Correct? What are these other means called as?
Questioner (Q): (everyone) Personality.
AP: Personality. you need personality because the world is inattentive. Are you getting this? The other person cannot see your essence. The world is blind. It cannot know your essence. All that it can know is- what kind of shirt are you wearing? What’s the brand, the make of your shoes? Which car do you ride? How wealthy is your father? - this is all that the world can see. The world is unable to look at your essence, and hence all that the world sees is your personality. The intelligent man will never look at your personality. He will look directly at your essence. He has the eyes to look at your essence. He will not be impressed by your language. You cannot fool him. You cannot deceive him with your appearance. He has the eyes to penetrate deep into your essence and look directly at that. It is the blind man who looks at personality. Are you getting it?
Only the blind man looks at personality. The one with eyes looks at the essence. He will just know what you are. He will not bother about the way you walk, talk, the brand you wear, and the kind of voice you have. He will not bother about this trivia. Yes. Getting it? Alright.
