What is character?
Every action and thought of ours leaves an impression in our mind. These impressions determine how we behave at a given moment, how we respond to a given situation. The sum total of all our impressions is what determines our character. The past has determined the present. Even so the present—our present thoughts and actions—will shape our future. This is a key principle governing personality development.
What activates the body-mind system?
This is an important question, the answer to which will help us have better knowledge of ourselves. This question engaged the attention of ancient Indian seers and sages. They experimented with themselves—their sensory and mental apparatus—and after a disciplined quest they found out that there is a divine element in human beings, which is the Mind of the mind, Eye of the eyes, Ear of the ears and Speech of the speech. It is this divinity which constitutes the real ’I’ and the eternal element in our personality. This divinity survives physical dissolution of the body. This divinity remains latent in us as long as we identify ourselves with our body-mind and the sensory system. The goal of life, according to the scriptures and the great ones, is to manifest this hidden divinity
What was the central message of Swami Vivekananda?
Swami Vivekananda’s lectures, talks, letters, poems—his life’s work—is published in nine volumes entitled The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. Is there any central message of Swamiji that runs through the pages of these nine volumes? Let us hear Swamiji himself: ’My ideal indeed can be put into a few words and that is: to preach unto mankind their divinity, and how to make it manifest in every movement of life.’ Man’s inherent divinity was Swamiji’s central message. The following famous quotation of Swamiji can be our mantra for personality development: ’Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this Divinity within by controlling nature, external and internal.’
Swamiji was never tired of rousing people to be conscious of their inherent divinity and perfection. He wanted this divinity to manifest in our day-to-day lives. In fact, he held this manifestation of divinity as the sole index of civilization of humankind:
”A nation may conquer the waves, control the elements, develop the utilitarian problems of life seemingly to the utmost limits, and yet not realize that in the individual, the highest type of civilization is found in him who has learned to conquer self. 7
”This universe is simply a gymnasium in which the soul is taking exercise; and after these exercises we become gods. So the value of everything is to be decided by how far it is a manifestation of God. Civilization is the manifestation of that divinity in man.”
This divinity in us is the repository of eternal existence, eternal knowledge and eternal bliss. The more it manifests, the more we experience abiding happiness and get supreme knowledge .
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Compiled From : http://estudantedavedanta.net/Personality-Development.pdf