FALSE PERSONALITY AND HAPPINESS

In what does happiness consist? Take your own case. Let us suppose you believe that there is an after-life and that you will go to Heaven and be perfectly happy. How do you conceive of this happiness? Have you thought about it? Some imagine themselves in a state of great magnificence, living in palaces, served by slaves, adored, admired and praised by everyone. They feel that this would make them supremely happy. Now this idea of happiness has to be completely eradicated. It must be torn out of the heart. The crudity and vulgarity of this widespread phantasy was commented on by Christ, when the disciples were quarrelling about who was greatest. He said that in the Kingdom of Heaven the person who served most was the greatest. This transvaluation of world-values must have been a shock to them, as indeed the whole of Christ's life was. Another crude idea regards happiness as consisting in a continual gratification of one or other of the bodily appetites. This is entirely of self and for self and serves nothing but self. But I will pass on to the connection of the idea of happiness with the False Personality. Consider for a moment people whose happiness is mainly to satisfy their False Personality. It cannot be said that they are made deeply happy by doing so. On the other hand, they avoid being made unhappy. By administering to the requirements of the False Personality they have their reward. Indeed, as we shall see, they are spoken of as having already had their reward in the very act of obeying their False Personality. This is interesting. The reward does not come later as it does, say, when a man works on himself over a considerable period and suddenly, apparently without any cause, something opens and in a flash of positive emotion he sees what Truth is. He may not have been, and probably was not, expecting any reward. He was not "working for a result''. I mean that he was not making internal accounts against the Deity, such as: " Here, I've been keeping my temper in for over five minutes. When do I get a reward?" It must be said that some seem to expect a remarkably high rate of interest for making any Work-effort and some take a queer view of their importance. The quality of effort in the Work is poor when it is mixed with inner accounting and too much self-admiration. Since the nature of the False Personality is connected with instant reward, it will not gladly endure the Work, where rewards come by no means instantly. Let us take as examples some things said about False Personality and reward in Matthew vi: "When ye pray, be not as the hypocrites: for they love to stand and pray in the streets so as to be seen of men. Verily, I say unto you, they have received their reward." Or again:

"Do not practise your religious obligations before men in order to be seen . .. do not sound a trumpet before you in the streets as the hypocrites do when they give alms so as to have glory of men. Verily, I say unto you, they have received their reward." Now you will notice that in these examples the reward is instant. No sooner have they sounded the trumpet and given money in public than they have received their reward. What have they done? You will realize that they have satisfied the False Personality and by so doing have had a moment of happiness. I mean that they have had a moment of that particular quality of happiness. Do you know its taste? It is a happiness connected with what other people think of you. It is derived from outside, not from within. In this sense it is external. I mean that its origin is from the world. It arises from audience. It demands an audience. This is due to the character of the False Personality. When you do a thing from False Personality, you expect at least praise of some kind. Even the wagging of your dog's tail may be sufficient. But if you have done the thing without a trace of love of doing it, or love of doing it for someone else - which latter is serving - then you will begin drawing up a long internal account if you get no acknowledgement. Yes, it is very difficult to make effort without getting any acknowledgement. Yet so much of the Work depends just on this. Why? Because, don't you see, otherwise it would increase False Personality. Now the quality of happiness that comes from being first, or having most, or looking best, and so on, is not a genuine or deep happiness since it depends uneasily on what people think and needs continual re-stimulation, being over so quickly, as is indicated in the words: "they have received their reward." So, you see, they want it again and that makes them restless. But there is another quality of happiness which is independent of external things. It belongs to one's inner being. For that reason the False Personality, which belongs to one's outer being, cannot know it. One of its definite effects is to replace restlessness and its kindred anxiety and fear by peace. This peace cannot be shaken by external events if you keep awake. But it cannot be reached as long as consciousness is centred in False Personality and the latter is the active ruler within. That is why the successive layers of False Personality have to be stripped off, like skins. A stripping is painful to vanity, pride, conceit and self-liking, so it takes time, sometimes more, sometimes less. To get one skin off is wonderful. It does not kill you, for those skins are not you. It is the skins that are killing you. Stripping releases you from them, from what makes up the False Personality which is not you. It is a psychological prison. Every generation has its own kind. Observe its action in others, in intonation, in expression, in posture, in movement. Try to do so in yourself; and finally, observe it in life, in novels, in history, in the newspapers, in photographs, especially of yourself in the past, and also in the present. These are three powerfully interacting lines of work.