The Strength of Personality
Monday January 31 2005 07:59 IST
By Karmayogi
Good manners are good. Behaviour and character are more formed and seated
deeply. Personality is beyond the formation of character, swabhava, and is known
commonly as charm or the opposite.
A vendor of sathakudi fruits used to
visit a hostel and sell the fruits – in the sixties – for 30 paisa or 35 paisa.
One student was intrigued by the fact that while some boys paid 30 paisa, others
paid 35 paisa. Boys did not mind a little one way or another, but this
phenomenon was intriguing to one student.
He began to observe the vendor
during his trips. The first boy on whom the vendor would call was one who would
never offer more than 25 paisa. The vendor went around the hostel selling the
fruits and before leaving, he would call on the first boy and sell them for 25
paisa.
This boy was the son of a money lender and was known to be
miserly. The observer tried his best to buy a fruit for 25 paisa, but never
succeeded. His intrigue remained till he was fifty years old. The secret lies in
the strength of Personality.
Shop assistants, hawkers, street vendors,
rickshaw drivers, bank agents and for that matter, anyone instinctively knows
who will give more and who will not. One's own value of money, his ability to
pay, his willingness to pay, his strength of attitude in giving or taking, how
informed he is, his expansiveness, in short, all his strengths and weaknesses
are felt as one single vibration by those who are sensitive in the
trade.
This strength of Personality can be calm, benevolent or cruel and
malevolent, but strength is strength and acts as strength. Unless such a strong
man WANTS to pay, no one can take it from him. Whether it is good or bad is not
the question. The Strength itself is neutral. It can be put to any use the
possessor chooses.
Sardar Patel possessed such a strength and was called
the Iron Man. Nehru was not strong thus. He would consider law, procedure,
custom, courtesy, etc. Patel would consider only the result and accomplish it by
an expression of the strength he possessed. The Principal of a school was a
graduate voter in a Senate election.
On behalf of a candidate, one of his
pets, an old student, approached him for the vote. The Principal was an old
family friend. He was cordial, enquired after the family and asked, ‘‘What can I
do for you?'' The visitor asked for the vote. Promptly and politely he declined
to vote for his candidate. Two days later, a clerk from another school
approached the same Principal for a vote for the same candidate.
The
Principal, who was not so close to him said, ‘‘Well, now that you have come, let
me give the ballot paper in your hands signed.'' He signed it and handed it
over. We call it vital strength. It is the strength of inner Personality. It is
spiritual. One can acquire it by patience.