BEYOND PERSONALITY

I once knew a genial high spirited soul whom we shall call Naseem. Naseem
charged any gathering she was part of. Overflowing with bonhomie and
energy, she was quick to take the initiative, to lead the group in fun and
laughter, and much else. People loved her. They flocked to her. At any time her
house overflowed with votaries begging to do things for her, begging to be
told what to do. Servants were hired and fired at her behest. She decided
which schools their children should attend, and where to holiday that year.
Hoe the others wished they were like Naseem. What charisma! What
personality!

Today is indeed the age of personality. With self improvement courses

cropping up like cell phones, everyone, including the teaboy, is taking lessons
in self assertion, on how to be a winner, how to control the workplace, how to
score with the opposite sex, how to create the right image.

At the centre of these concerns is the belief that personality revolves around
controlling circumstances, people and events. The perfectly suave winner so
beloved of the advertising world, always coming upon the top, the life and soul
of the party, the cynosure of all female eyes.

Most of our heroes fit this masterful, in control mould. There’s Napoleon and
Churchill. Closer home there’s Indoor Gandhi. Seen from this standpoint,
personality becomes an amalgam of externals.

True personality, however, is an internal manifestation, It emerges from

controlling oneself. Not external circumstances. True personality need not be
propped up by swishy clothes or accessories, fancy accents, or adulation. The
real mark of a true personality is that it will neither control nor be controlled.
Unlike Naseem, true personality takes no prisoners. It respects them too much.
It will never make other peoples decisions for them, for that will only stunt
their growth and sense of responsibility. True personality is characterised by
freedom and spontaneity. True personality has nothing to prove. True
personality is as invisible and as fragrant as the scent of a flower.

Such people don’t make heroes or good press. They aren’t dramatic ; they are
as quiet as water seeping underground. Not for them the drama of rattling
sabres and awe-struck fans. They are simply content to be. Look around. You’ll
find many such. Asking little of the world. Giving much. Being in their presence
is as restful as sitting under a shady tree. They exude peace and tranquility.
They allow you to be you for they want nothing from you.

Charisma and magnetism are fascinating attributes, but all too often, they
enslave us. Have you noticed how difficult it is to be yourself around these
people? We sit there trembling and dumbstruck with awe and reverence. We
loose all sense of self-determination. Our sense of discrimination falters. In
their thrall we comply with all they ask us, for are they not infinitely superior?

But how does this happen? What is the source of charisma’s strange power? In
his book, The Celestine Prophecy, James Redfield throws some light on the
matter when he talks of the various ways in which we draw energy from each
other. Intimidators do it by controlling others, weak people by making others
feel guilty. In the same way charismatic people feed off our feeling of
admiration and awe. They could no more exist without our admiration, than
we could without their masterful domination.

The seminal difference between the false and the true personality is, to use
Redfield’s analogy of energy, that the true personality is plugged in to itself for
energy. He or she does not need any external source. It is this freedom from an
external source that releases them from the need to control or dominate
others, or be dominated by others. As a matter of fact, it frees them from all
needs. Life becomes luminously simple.

It is one of the many exquisite paradoxes of life that the truly great are among
the simplest and the most unassuming of people. They move among us so
quietly that it is very easy to overlook them. And that, my friend, is a profound
loss.

A year ago, I had the great honour of meeting the mystic farmer, Masanobu
Fukuoka, the author of The One Straw Revolution. A pioneer in natural
farming, Mr. Fukuoka’s is one of the most profound and beautiful books I have
ever read. But it was the man who stole my heart. A twinkle eyed little sparrow
of a 70 year old, he has a face so benevolent, gentle and cheerful, that one is at
once at kinship with him. The fact that he didn’t know English nor I Japanese,
didn’t matter. His boundless goodwill swept away all superficial differences in a
silent acknowledgement of mutual humanity.

That’s personality.