Essence and Personality

Personality is all that is learned in one or another way, in ordinary language, ‘consciously’ or ‘unconsciously’. In most cases ‘unconsciously’ means by imitation which, as a matter of fact, plays a very important part in the building of personality. Even in instinctive functions, which naturally should be free from personality, there are usually many so-called ‘acquired tastes’. that is, all sorts of artificial likes and dislikes, all of which are acquired by imitation and imagination. By nature, people should like what is good for them and dislike what is bad for them. But this is so, only as long as essence dominates personality, as it should dominate it, in other words, when a person is healthy and normal. When personality begins to dominate essence and when a person becomes less healthy, they begin to like what is bad for them, and to dislike what is good for them.

Adapted from ‘The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution’, by P. D. Ouspensky

https://amzn.to/48XR9Xy