INDIAN PERSPECTIVE ON PERSONALITY

 There are 4 motives—

o Artha—authentic career, livelihood and prosperity
o Kama—relationship and creativity
o Moksha—self-understanding and realization
o Dharma—spiritual and emo growth
o These are similar to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
 6 personalities acc to Buddhism:
o Ragacharith—attachment
o Doshacharith—aggressive
o Mohacharith—dull, idle
o Buddhicharith—rational
o Vithakacharith—imaginative
o Sadavcharith—disciplined

Yoga psychology

 Yoga means union—a method to attain the super consciousness

 There are 4 methods
o Karma
o Bhakti
o Raja
o Gnana

Structure of Mind:

Buddhists describe a person as composed of 5 aggregates

 The body (rupa) includes all the sense organs

 Sensations and feelings (vedana), coming out of contact bw sense organs and obj
 Perceptions and ideas (samjña), especially manifest in our ability to recognize things and
ideas.
 4. Mental acts (samskara), especially will power and attention.
 5. Basic consciousness (vijñana).
 The last four are called naman, name, meaning the psyche.
 Namarupa (name-form) is therefore the Buddhist term for the person, mental and physical,
which is nevertheless anatman, without soul or essence

Four Noble Truths

 Life is suffering: life at very least if full of suffering—suffering is an inevitable part of life
 Suffering is due to attachment. Much of our suffering comes out of ourselves—out of our
desire to make pleasure, happiness and love last forever, and to make pain, distress and
grief disappear from life altogether
 Suffering can be extinguished. Suffering added to the inevitable suffering can be removed.
Or can be diminished
 Nirvana. Tradition name for state of being or non-being—here all the clinging and all the
suffering has been eliminated

Eightfold Path
 The Eightfold Path is the equivalent of a therapy program, but one so general that it can
apply to anyone. The first two segments of the path are referred to as prajña, meaning
wisdom:

 Right view – understanding the Four Noble Truths, especially the nature of all things as
imperfect, impermanent, and insubstantial and our self-inflicted suffering as founded in
clinging, hate, and ignorance.
 Right aspiration – having the true desire, the dedication, to free oneself from attachment,
hatefulness, and ignorance.
 Right speech – abstaining from lying, gossiping, and hurtful speech generally. Speech is often
our ignorance made manifest, and is the most common way in which we harm others
 Right action – behaving oneself, abstaining from actions that hurt others such as killing,
stealing
 Right livelihood – making one's living in an honest, non-hurtful way
 Right effort – taking control of your mind and the contents thereof.
 Right mindfulness – mindfulness refers to a kind of meditation involving an acceptance of
thoughts and perceptions, a "bare attention" to these events without attachment
 Right concentration – meditating in such a way as to empty our natures of attachments,
avoidances, and ignorance, so that we may accept the imperfection, impermanence, and
insubstantiality of life.

Levels of Consciousness:

 Concentric sys is like series of rings/sheaths

 These 3 types of consciousness are interconnected
 Outermost circle—contains awareness of physical body, of the vital body or sheath, and the
mental sheath
 Inner circle—composed on inner mind—in touch w the universal mind of the supreme
energy
 Innermost circle—psychic being which is a spark of the divine (supreme energy)—present in
everyone and everything—aka Atman

Buddhist personality types:

 1st described in the text—The Path to Purification

  Three types of personalities stem from the belied in Buddhist philosophy—that unhealthy
thinking has three primary roots; greed, aversion and delusion
 Greed temperament is compelled by desire and seeks comfort and pleasure
 This type wakes up slowly—enjoy and savor their meals and delicious foods, will sleep well,
seek harmony, avoid conflict in interactions eve if it means being dishonest
 In grasping for more—there can be many probs—over-indulgence, pride, self-centeredness,
jealousy, addiction etc
 Aversive temperament—characterized by judgement and rejection
 This type, wakes up annoyed/anxious, worry abt obligations of the day, rush thru meals, feel
tense and rigid—quick to note and point out probs
 If aversive nature is left unchecked—it will create probs like anger, hatred, aggression,
cruelty
 Deluded temperament—becomes easily lost in uncertainty and confusion
 They will miss their alarm, wake up late, eat messily—feel scattered at work, unsure of how
to interact in grps—often copy what others are doing
 Give rise to doubt, negligence, ignorance and anxiety

Triguna and Personality Psych

 Concept of guna dates back to Atharva veda—discussed in Bhagwat Gita—later included in

Sankhya Darsana
 Concept of triguna utilized to explain concept of personality in modern era
 Devep of consciousness is apparently rooted in the concept of triguna
 These are known as sattva—stability, purity, peace and harmony, rajas—activation,
ambition, passion, spontaneity, and tamas—inertia, ignorance, jealousy
 Manas has been ascribed the func which are mental func and mental process
 They are considered to be the manifestations of the triguna
 These gunas preserve the mind—indirectly the body and maintain it in a healthy state
 Any disturbance in this equilibrium results in various types of mental disorders

Sattvic:

 It’s the spiritual quality

 When this guna is dominant—person has inherent desire to be good and caring
 Theres resolute constancy of mind and senses
 The light of wisdom shines thru the individual
 A person w sattvic intellect clearly understands diff bw desirable and undesirable, undutiful
and dutiful
 Characteristics:
o lightness, consciousness, pleasure and clarity.
o It is pure, free from disease and cannot be disturbed in any way.
o It activates the senses and is responsible for the perception of knowledge.

Rajasic

 It is the active quality

 This guna gives rise to passion and desire
 Causes greed, activity, undertaking of words, relentlessness and desire
  Rajas dominant—full of attachment, longings for fruits of action
 The most active of the three gunas
 It has motion and stimulation as its characteristics
 All desires, wishes, fickle mindedness if the result of rajas

Tamasic

 This guna is the material quality

 Arises from hope and illusions
 Produces ambiguity, idleness, fantasy and persistence
 Charac of tamas guna:
o Cautious
o Apprehensive
o Revengeful
 It also suggests disillusionment and cynicism
 Causes disturbances in perception and other activities
 Delusion, false knowledge, laziness, apathy, sleep and drowsiness are a result of Tamas

Conclusions:

 In any human being though all these three qualities will be present in varying proportions,
generally one of these qualities will be more predominant than the other two.
 For example,
 Saints and sages are predominantly sattvic.
 A politician or a sports star will be predominantly rajasic.
 People who easily get hooked to drinking or drugs will be predominantly tamasic.
 Tamsik person does not work. He has no interest in life. he is totally ignorant.
 Rajsik is desire ridden, passionate and is stressed.
 Satvik is at goodness stage, superior and attains glory. He is always calm and peaceful "
 Rajas and tamas can be unbalanced by stress and negative desires such as
o kama (lust),
o irshya (malice),
o moha (delusion and hallucination),
o lobha (greed),
o chinta (anxiety),
o bhaya (fear) and
krodha (anger).

Gunas and Rebirth:

 Karma—Sanskrit word of action/deed

 Any physical/mental action is called karma
 Acc to Hinduism—life is infinite chain of result of our actions/karma in the past
 Simple words—it’s the law of cause and effect
 The way the results of karma are delivered in the life is called the law of karma
 Tri-Gunas (Sattwa, Raja, Tama) are the driver behind the thought, thought is the driver
behind the action (Karma).
 Karma is the driver behind the life (of cause and effect) that we live.
 Trigunas are the seeds and karma is the tree
  Consequence of karma is the fruit—which is the life
 Sattvic guna—sattvic karma—sattvic fruit—person is closer to God
 Tamas guna—tamas karma—tamas fruit—person is farther away from God

Imp of Gunas

 To balance doshas.
 To build immunity.
 To achieve sprituality.
 Health, happiness, Success
 To achieve goal of life