University of California at Berkeley;
Berkeley, California, USA

16 October 1969

Human individuality is a self-torturing personality.
Divine individuality is a self-discovering personality.
Man does not have to lose his individuality and personality. Man has to feel and
realise his all-pervading, divine individuality and all-serving, divine personality.
When we speak of individuality, we immediately see that it is composed of pride,
vanity, desires, frustrations, fear, anxieties, worries and so forth. This kind of
individuality can be observed in our ordinary day-to-day life. But there is another
kind of individuality, which we call the divine individuality. Divine individuality
is totally different from the individuality of pride, vanity, ego, earth-bound
desires, limited achievements and limited fulfilment. Divine individuality is a
direct expression of the Divine in us.
God is One. At the same time, He is Many. He is One in His highest Transcendental
Consciousness. He is Many here on earth in the field of manifestation.
In the Highest, He is Unity. Here on earth, He is Multiplicity. God is the Lotus,
and He has many, many petals, each representing an individual aspect of Himself.
He is manifesting Himself in infinite ways and in infinite forms.
When we speak of human personality, we immediately think of something
coming from our physical consciousness or the physical body. A man, with his
inborn capacities, tendencies and talents and all his characteristics, forms a kind
of personality. When a man stands in front of me, his personality spreads like
water flowing onto a flat surface. When we think of a person or a thing,
immediately our own individuality enters into the personality of that person or
thing. Right now I am here with you at Berkeley, this august University. But if
my mind carries me to someone in India, my own individuality immediately
becomes one with the person there. I have entered into the person who is now in
India, and I can use his personality on the strength of my union with him. I have
not lost my individuality. I feel that my individuality has been transformed into
an all-pervading and all-serving personality. The moment I think of anybody, my
consciousness enters into him and pervades him. When my consciousness takes
me into a person, I become part and parcel of him. Then I expand my consciousness
there. When my consciousness expands, his consciousness also
expands. We always serve the moment we consciously enter into something other
than ourselves.
In our true Self we are all one. But in our outer self, we are many. Among the
‘many’, we see that one is serving the other; and the ‘other’ may not take an active
or even a conscious part in the process. For example, I am giving a talk here. You
may feel that I am serving you with my knowledge and my spiritual light, but I
wish to tell you that you are also serving the Supreme in me through your
communion with me and your understanding and appreciation of my offering to
you. This is what we call the all serving-personality. The moment we stand before
a person, even if he does not take an active or dynamic part in the interchange,
our very presence constitutes an important part of the consciousness of that
person. An ordinary person does not understand the language of a flower, but
when he stands in front of a flower, what actually happens? He appreciates its
beauty, and the beauty of the flower appreciates his consciousness. There is
mutual appreciation, mutual love, mutual service.
I am serving you with all that I am and all that I have. You are serving me by
becoming totally one with my consciousness. That is true service. In this kind of
service we do not lose our individuality. My individuality remains inside you, and
your individuality remains inside me. It is the extension of our personality in the
form of this widened individuality which the Supreme expresses in infinite ways.
Although a tiny drop of water can be taken as an individual drop, when it
merges into the infinite ocean it does not lose its so-called individuality. On the
contrary, its individuality is expanded into an infinite expanse of ocean. When we
look at the ocean, we see the ocean as an immense being, a huge personality that
has inside it billions and billions of living beings. It is a living being itself. By
merging into the ocean, the drop becomes as great as the ocean. Similarly, when
we enter with our individuality into our divine personality, we see that our
individuality is transformed into the infinitely vast and all-pervading personality
of the Divine.