In the fast pace of today’s world, we all face stressful situations due to which we tend to be more and more unhappy with our living conditions, living standards and relationships. We always want more and something better and are never content with what we have which results in an unhappy and unsatisfied life.

We can all relate to incidents in our lives where we are unhappy for a couple of hours or even a number of days because we have reacted to something or someone.

The neighbours have bought a better car, the mother-in-law has said something unkind, my child didn’t get good grades, the cook didn’t put enough salt in the food, assistant came late, have not reached the target for sales this month, insufficient funds for buying a new TV………..

We can all identify with these thoughts which increase the stress in our lives.

Are these situations by themselves stressful or is it our attitude towards them?

Where does this attitude come from?

The subconscious mind - It is a storehouse of all our past actions and reactions, preserved in the form of centres or impressions. Defects in our personalities stem from these centres, which in turn lead to incorrect reactions, actions or thoughts. A jealous person is never happy when someone else does well. Imagine how often he is unhappy because one would come across a number of instances where others have achieved something!

How can we better our life is the key question and through this article we give an overview of the benefits and a solution of the spiritual practice of removal of personality defects.

The root cause of these personality defects lies in the sub-conscious mind; therefore we need to work at the sub-conscious level to erase these defects. Auto-suggestions are a very helpful tool for this. For further information please see the link at the end of the article for the personality defect removal process. Seekers have found tremendous improvement in their worldly and spiritual lives. If one implements this process the benefits are many:

Benefits in undertaking the spiritual practice of removal of personality defects

1. Reduction in Stress: It has been observed that 70 – 80% of thoughts in our mind are useless (based on a WHO study). These thoughts are a drain on precious mental energy. A major source of such thoughts is our personality defects (like daydreaming, anxiety) e.g. the personality defect of procrastination leads to an attitude of “I will do it later”’ resulting in a lot of unfinished tasks piling up and so one is constantly trying to remember what one has to do. A lot of the mind’s energy gets wasted attempting to remember these unfinished tasks. This leads to stress.
2. Reduction in Ill-health: A major contributing factor in various disorders like acidity, high blood pressure, cancer, heart attacks and various psychosomatic ailments is stress. Psychologists have now found a link between negative emotions and some illnesses, a few examples are: Anger leads to paralysis, envy often results in heart attacks and depression can cause cancer.
3. Reduction in expectations: One of our main obstacles in getting continuous happiness is expectation from others. When expectations reduce, our cause for unhappiness also reduces. When we realize that happiness or unhappiness is a result of our attitudes we start to expect less from others and more from ourselves.
4. Increase in concentration: Due to reduction of unnecessary thoughts our ability to concentrate increases.
5. Increase in efficiency: Efficiency is directly proportional to good working habits like planning, being on time, team spirit, positive attitude etc. and inversely proportional to stress, jealousy, narrow-mindedness, laziness etc. Let us consider the example of a personality defect such as laziness.
   

   A lazy man gets up late in the mornings and has to hurry to reach his office on time. In the process he forgets some things, has to cancel some activities and gets anxious and irritated. Thus, everyday he gets stressed and a lot of mental energy is drained. The laziness may be reflected in other work areas too, which again affects the efficiency adversely. By undertaking the personality defect removal process the laziness gradually reduces and the efficiency increases in equal proportion. In the above example it is evident that this person’s personality defect will adversely affect the efficiency of his family members as well as his colleagues.

6. Increase in self-confidence: We are better able to face any situation with calmness and inner strength. Through techniques of positive visualisation of negotiating stressful situations (like public speaking in front of a large audience etc) and repeatedly visualizing that one is doing well enables one to overcome their fears. One seeker could never travel in a closed elevator as she suffered from claustrophobia. She has now successfully overcome this fear through this same process.
7. Improving relationships: Due to reduction of reactions and our basic defects of pride, anger, greed, desire, jealousy, passion and lust, our relationships with others improve.
8. Developing the quality of being in learning mode: Also as our defects start reducing, our good qualities increase and we develop the quality of being in a learning mode. Through an attitudinal change we see each situation as a learning experience even though it may be unfavourable.
9. Spiritual Benefits: One of the aims of spiritual practice is control and finally dissolution of the mind. Without spiritual practice we are slaves to our mind and our behaviour is constantly ruled by the impressions in our sub-conscious mind. This process frees us from our negative qualities and at the same time we imbibe positive divine qualities such as humility, calm when faced with adversity and love without expectation. Along with these changes within us, our faith and devotion towards God increases.

The steps in the process of removal of personality defects

Step 1: Maintaining and writing a diary about one’s improper actions and reactions that surfaced during the entire day. This may have been noticed either by yourself or by someone else. This includes

• Studying the situation that caused the improper actions and reactions and noting them down.
• Analysing the improper actions and reactions by asking oneself the proper questions.
• Based on the introspection finding the root personality defect and preparing a list accordingly.
• Then noting down the proper action and reactions for that situation.

Step 2: Prioritizing the personality defects and choosing 2 dominant personality defects to work on at any given time.

Step 3: Based on the 2 personality defects prepare auto-suggestion for each of them. The autosuggestion needs to include the situation where the personality defect occurred along with what the correct thought or behaviour should have been.

Step 4: Based on the intensity of the personality defects decide the number of sessions required and do those sessions everyday for a week.

Step 5: By self-analysis and getting feedback about your progress from others, take further suggestions about the percentage of progress achieved.

Step 6: Once a personality defect is controlled, select another personality defect to work upon based on priority and give auto-suggestions.

The Sanatan Sanstha has published the following books that explain in detail how one can shed their ego and achieve happiness through the above mentioned spiritual practice.

• Vol 14B: Spiritual Practice for Destroying Ego
• Hypnotherapy for Happiness