Essence and Personality

From 'A Question of Presence', by Sergio Antonio.

Essence and Personality

From Gurdjieff (Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, pp. 161-62): It must be understood that man consists of two parts: essence and personality. Essence in man is what is his own. Personality in man is what is 'not his own.' 'Not his own' means what has come from outside, what he has learned, or reflects, all traces of exterior impressions left in the memory and in the sensations, all words and movements that have been learned, all feelings created by imitation, all this is 'not his own,' all this is personality.… Essence is the truth in man; personality is the false. But in proportion as personality grows, essence manifests itself more and more rarely and more and more feebly.

Essence conditions our tastes. We can find it by remembering what we liked as children. Or what we still like now in a way we can't give up. For me it's the sea. I can't go too long without diving under its surface. I like a lot of things, but the sea—that feels like a primary need.

This written page is read by personality. Essence is simpler than personality. In principle, a farmer will be more in essence than an intellectual. Therefore, a peasant's company could stimulate essence more than that of a professor. A great help is the presence of small children, dogs, cats, and other animals, even plants—all of which can evoke our essence. We can also observe it when we try to communicate with people with whom there is no common language. Without words, personality is cut off. We speak with gestures, with smiles, we share our food.

One’s essence is linked to one's center of gravity. Many people who have a job that doesn't suit their essence will choose to cultivate a passion, a hobby, because an unexpressed essence makes them feel dissatisfied. Someone with a center of gravity in the moving queen might choose to go dancing or riding. A moving jack might relax with crochet, a king, with complex handicrafts. An emotionally-centered person could subscribe to a concert season, or volunteer for a humanitarian association, or spend time following celebrity scandals. Activities related to our center of gravity keep us in essence, which provides a wordless sense of well-being that personality cannot give.

Our essence is also linked to our body type, which we’ll talk about later. Body types are essence types; each has its own tendencies and preferences, its metabolism, its way of thinking and interacting with the outside world.

Spontaneous attractions and repulsions are linked to essence.

Not expressing negative emotions allows essence to grow and mature.

Studying the arts and nourishing oneself with beauty educates essence.

A certain kind of vanity—personality’s desire to be funny or witty— is a force that blocks essence. By renouncing it, one enters into essence.

In false personality we try to conform to others. Essence recognizes and respects differences.

Problems of essence: it can be coarse or violent, gullible, fragile, impressionable. It tends to identify with what it observes. Without presence, essence is only a mechanical creature—an animal.

One cannot arrive at a true state of presence through personality, which is only a set of artificial mechanisms. True presence is essence aware of itself.

Join the discussion

Painting by François-Hubert Drouais,

Children of the Marquis de Béthune Playing with a Dog