The Secrets of Personality Development and Creating a Beautiful Character: Character Power E-Book

Edward Beals

• Herausgeber: Mike Thomas
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Finally The New Revised Edition is Available!

Leseprobe

The Secrets of Personality Development and Creating a Beautiful Character: Character Power

Epigraph

“We are coins, the metal of which has been dug from the mines of our inborn intellectual and moral faculties by the will power. If we properly work these mines, we may find metal enough in us to justify a stamp of a very high value. On the other hand, though there is much unmined metal beneath the surface, we often form a character marked with a penny stamp.” —Professor Reuben P. Halleck.

The Springs of Character

Character is, “The peculiar quality, or the sum of such qualities, by which a person or a thing is distinguished from others.” The term as applied to human beings usually is defined as, “The strong intellectual or moral qualities of a person”; but others have sought to emphasize the part played by actions and conduct in human character, and have accordingly suggested the definition of “Character” as “The general rule of conduct governing the acts and actions of a person.” Another definition of “Character,” one offered in a leading reference work, is, “The nature of the individual, manifesting in and as the continuity of his various successive voluntary and habitual acts.”

For the purposes of the present consideration of the subject, we may pass by the technical and academic definitions of the term in question, and content ourselves with the idea or concept of “Character” as, “The essential principle of the nature of the individual which governs and decides his habitual mode of action, and which therefore expresses and manifests his individuality.” As the individual is known to us almost exclusively through his actions, and as his principle of action is his character, therefore the character of an individual is practically “the individual in himself,” so far as is concerned our knowledge of him.

There is frequently found to be some confusion concerning the relation between “character” and “reputation.” Some writers use these terms as if they were synonymous, while others employ them as if they denoted widely separated ideas.

The general opinion of the most careful authorities, however, is that “character” denotes the true nature of the individual, while “reputation” denotes the particular view of the character of an individual, which is favored by public opinion, and which may be far different from the true character of that person. Someone has said that there are three phases of the character of an individual, viz., (1) his true nature and character, as an omniscient mind would perceive it; (2) his own opinion of his true nature and character; and (3) the public opinion of his character, which constitutes his “reputation.”

As there is a “cause and a because” of and for everything—a “reason and explanation” of and for every fact discovered by human knowledge—so there must be a causal reason and explanation of that principle of human conduct and action which we know as “character.” The individual is perceived to have such-and-such character, and to act in accordance with it. He is discovered to possess certain habits of thought, feeling and action, and to express and manifest these characteristic states in his activities of life. This habitual character or nature cannot be supposed to exist in and of itself, without cause, reason or explanation. Rather must it be assumed that this character and nature, like everything else in the manifested universe, has its reason and explanation in an antecedent and preceding chain of circumstances and conditions, influences and determining factors. Accordingly, the psychologist proceeds to seek for and to discover these causes and “becauses,” these reasons and explanations of character.

Halleck expresses the conclusions of orthodox psychology on the subject of the causal sources of character, in the following statement:

“Character is the resultant of several factors—will, heredity, and environment. Let us take an actual case to represent these at work. Shakespeare was born of parents who could neither read nor write. There was something in the boy more than either of them. A part of that additional something was due to his will, which, by always acting in a definite way, often in the line of the greatest resistance, gave him stability when others were wavering like reeds in the wind. Unlike Marlowe, Shakespeare was not killed in an alehouse, although he must have felt promptings to waste his time and nervous force there, as did so many of his fellow dramatists. In resisting these tendencies, in putting the best of himself, not into revels, but into his dramatic work, he acquired character. That heredity was not all in his case is shown by the fact that he had brothers and sisters, who never climbed the heights with him. His limited earlier opportunities show that environment was not all that made him. Besides, environment did not make Shakespeares out of others born in that age. There was will power in him that rose above heredity and environment, and gave him a character that breathes forth in every play.

“The modern tendency is to over-estimate the effects of heredity and environment in forming character; but, on the other hand, we must not underestimate them. The child of a Hottentot put in Shakespeare’s home, and afterward sent away to London with him, would not have given the will sufficient material to fashion over into such a noble product. We may also suppose a case to show the great power of environment. Had a band of gypsies stolen Shakespeare at birth, carried him to Tartary, and left him among the nomads, his environment would never have allowed him to produce such plays as he placed upon the English stage. Heredity is a powerful factor, for it supplies raw materials for the will to shape. Even the will cannot make anything without material. Will acts through choice, and some kinds of environment afford far more opportunities for choice than others. Shakespeare found in London the germ of true theatrical taste, already vivified by a long line of miracle plays, moralities and interludes. In youth he connected himself with the theatre, and his will responded powerfully to his environment. Some surroundings are rich in suggestion, affording opportunity for choice; while others are poor.

The will is absolutely confined to a choice between alternatives.

“Character, then, is a resultant of will power, heredity, and environment. A man cannot choose his parents, but he can to a certain extent determine his environment. Shakespeare left Stratford and went to London. He might have chosen to go to some insignificant town where the surroundings would have been uninspiring. In middle life a man’s decisions represent his character. He will be swayed by the resultant force of all his preceding choices; in other words, by his character.

“What has the will to do with character? Character is largely a resultant of every voluntary act from childhood to the grave. We gradually make our characters by separate acts of will, just as the blacksmith by repeated blows beats out a horseshoe or an anchor from a shapeless mass of iron. A finished anchor or a horseshoe was never the product of a single blow. A man acquires ‘character’ by separate voluntary acts. We apply the term ‘conduct’ to those actions unified into a whole, which relates to the welfare of the self, either directly or indirectly, through the welfare of others. We are coins, the metal of which has been dug from the mines of our inborn intellectual and moral faculties by the will power. If we properly work those mines, we may find metal enough in us to justify a stamp of a very high value. On the other hand, though there is much unmined metal beneath the surface, we often form a character marked with a penny stamp. It may be true that circumstances stamp us to a certain extent, but it is also true that the way in which we use them stamps us indelibly.”

While the above quotation from Professor Halleck gives an exceptionally clear and full view of the representative thought of modern orthodox psychology concerning the springs and sources of character, and is deserving of the most respectful consideration and careful study, nevertheless there is a view of the subject which transcends that of even such able psychological thought, and which enables us to interpret the latter in terms of a higher knowledge. This view is accepted and employed in the present instruction. There is no particular name applied to this higher presentation, however, and we must content ourselves with allowing it to explain and define itself as we proceed to consider it. We may say, however, that it may be thought of as “The New Psychology,” or “Applied Psychology,” with the addition of a certain “spiritual” element. Let us consider this view of the subject by means of its teachings, rather than by attempting to define it or to give it a name.

In the first place, in this new view of the subject the will is not accorded the supreme place. True it is that the will is the most important instrument employed in the development of character—but, at the last, the will is perceived to be but the instrument, not the user of the instrument. The user of the implement of will is that mysterious entity which abides in the centre of the consciousness of the individual, and which is known to him as the “I,” Ego, or “I AM I” principle of his being.

This “I AM I” is that focal centre of consciousness and of will established by that POWER which is the source and origin of All Power. It is the supreme centre of the Personal Power of the individual—it is that Something or Somewhat which is the user of the physical, mental and spiritual tools, instruments and implements of the being of the individual.

This “I AM I” of the individual is the user of the instrument or implement of will in the process of the development of character. By means of this instrument it is able to mold and fashion the character at will, employing in the process, however, the raw materials afforded by heredity and environment— employing them, moreover, in a manner and to a degree not generally recognized by modern orthodox psychology, when the consciousness of the “I AM I” is awakened to self-recognition, self-realization and self-manifestation. In order to understand more clearly how these raw materials are so employed in the fashioning and creating of character, let us briefly consider just what are these raw materials, i. e., heredity and environment, in their last analysis. The last analysis shows each of these in some ways to be less than we had expected, and yet in other ways more than we had suspected; each is, moreover, shown to be a most efficient servant of the “I AM I,” yet in itself by no means the master of character.

Heredity is usually defined as, “Hereditary transmission of physical or psychical qualities of parents to their offspring.” The term, however, has a far more extended meaning than that thus indicated. Instead of being limited to the transmission of the qualities to the individual from his parents, its meaning may be extended to include the transmission of qualities to the individual from the entire line of his ancestors—the racial qualities, the tribal qualities, the general family qualities. Heredity, in fact, is the transmission of the essence of the entire experience of the human race—and even of the experience of the life-forms which were the ancestors of the race of man. At the last, heredity is seen to be the transmitted record of the past experience of the life-forces of the universe.

Heredity is the impressed records of the past experience, the past environment, of the life forms. It must include the best as well as the worst, and all that lies in between. Special combinations of these records may serve to give a “set” or a tendency toward certain lines of action on the part of the individual; but these may be overcome or transcended by the employment of the will; and other combinations may be thus built up or fashioned from the other elements of character which abide in the deeper subconscious regions of the self, just as truly as from those elements lying nearer to the surface of consciousness. The determined will may oust from the throne of character those elements of heredity which seem to be objectionable, and may supplant them by the more desirable elements which abide in the subconscious self merely awaiting the call or demand of environment or will.

It has well been said that we have “the whole menagerie” of heredity within us—the tiger, the ape, the peacock, and all the rest. But equally true is it that in each of us is to be found the Master of the Show, who is able to control the animals; to summon forth those which serve best his purposes, and to confine safely those of an undesirable character. Sometimes, alas! this Master of the Show is asleep, or at least drowsy, and the animals conduct the show themselves; but the Master once aroused into self-recognition and self-realization, he then proceeds to exercise his powers of self-manifestation. The “I AM I” is the Master of the Show—the tamer of wild-beasts, the trainer of the animals of the menagerie of the self.

Heredity, at the last, is seen to be but the transmitted records of the past experiences of the race. These racial experiences were the result of the contact of countless generations of individuals of the race with their respective environments. These reactions to the stimuli of environment, repeated over and over again through innumerable generations, gradually tended to become set or fixed to some degree in the plastic mental substance of the race. We have instances of this transmission and fixation in the case of the “instinct” of animals, which results from the gradual fixing and setting in the mind-substance of certain habits of action, or rather of the tendency toward those habits.

The duck takes naturally to water, the wild goose tends naturally toward migration in winter, by reason of this inherited instinct or acquired habit of action. The water acts as a stimulus to arouse this instinct in the duck; the approach of cold weather arouses it in the wild goose.

Heredity, then, is seen to be nothing more than the transmitted germ of the acquired habits of past generations to respond in a certain way to certain phases or conditions of environment. Habit, in the individual, is the acquired tendency to respond in certain ways to certain forms or conditions of environment. So, as you see, heredity is but one phase or form of tendency or habit to respond to the stimuli of environment. Environment is the real external conditioning and determining factor associated with both heredity and habit—the latter two being the internal factors. From the reaction of the internal to the external, our characteristic actions arise. Thus environment is a most important element in the development and manifestation of character, and it behooves us to investigate the nature of this important element—Environment.

Environment is defined as “that which environs or surrounds, particularly the surrounding conditions, influences or forces.” In short, environment is composed of those forces, influences, or conditions of the outside world which by means of their contact affect, influence and exert a modifying power over us. Careful thinkers have announced their belief that the character of the race, and that of the individual, are determined by the effect of their environment upon them, and by their reaction to their environment. If man were merely an automaton, or a mechanical contrivance, then, indeed, he would be but the helpless slave to environment. But as he is not a mere automaton or machine, he is not the helpless slave so pictured.

As man emerges into the higher forms of self-consciousness and begins to experience the consciousness of Egohood, he also begins to become aware that at least to some extent he can overcome the power of environment. He finds himself able to modify his environment—to change his environment in many cases—by the power of his will. He is able to do this even before he arrives at the stage of fully awakened Egohood in which he becomes consciously aware of the being and power of his “I AM I.” When he reaches the latter stage, he is able consciously to employ his will in the direction of modifying his physical environment, and also of creating new mental representations of environment—this last a most important though but little understood principle and process.

The real environment which affects the individual is not the external environment in itself, but rather the mental representation—the mental images—of that environment. If a person from his birth were deprived of the report of the senses of sight, hearing, feeling, etc., then the effect of the external environment upon him would be lacking—it would not exist for him. In such case he would have no “ideas” of the external things of his environment: and it is these “ideas of things” which so largely influence and determine his character. It is the mental images of things—often of purely imaginary things, for that matter—which exert the greatest effect upon his character.

This being perceived, it may be then realized that if we can supply the person with the right kind of mental images we can do much toward determining and developing his character, especially if from the subconscious regions of his being we can bring up the appropriate tendencies and habits of reaction to these “right kind of mental images” which we have seen have been placed in those regions by the processes of heredity.

This then, in short, is the method of the New Psychology

(with the added spiritual element) of developing and cultivating your character. Let us briefly recapitulate the three important principles involved in the method, as follows:

(1)      You are aroused into a conscious recognition, realization and manifestation of the “I AM I” which abides at the centre of your consciousness, and which is your Real Self; and are taught to apply your new-found power in the direction of working upon the raw materials of heredity and environment which abide within yourself, and at the same time to gather new material of the right kind from determined and selected contact with your external environment.

(2)      You are then taught to bring from the hidden recesses of your subconscious self the right kind of tendencies, habits and inclinations which have been placed there by the processes of heredity. This “right kind” of inherited tendencies, habits and inclinations abide in your subconscious regions, and in those of each and every other individual, no matter how hidden from sight they may be, and how much in evidence may be the opposite characteristics. The race is old, and the chain of heredity is long and extends in countless directions. The best as well as the worst abides in you, and in each and every individual, for each person is really the inheritor of the characteristics of every one of the original ancestors of the race, and of every one of many generations of their successors.

Scientists have asserted that it may be stated as a true general principle that in the veins of each and every individual human being living today there flows the blood of each and every individual living ten thousand years ago and probably even as late as five thousand years ago. This being true, it follows that the mental heredity must follow the same channels of distribution. Each of us then is the heir of the ages—each of us has within us the potential characteristics of each and every individual of countless generations of men and women.