Personality is a sum total of your masks

The following excerpt is from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Acharya Prashant (AP): What has been our education all about? When we talk about assignments, what has been our education all about? What did you start studying? What have you been studying till now? You have studied the languages, English, and Hindi. You have studied History and Geography. You have studied Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, and now you are a student of Technology.

But let me ask you, are you the languages? Are you the rivers and the mountains? Are you the details of History? Are you the particular formulae of the number system? Are you this air conditioning unit that you study in your Technology classes? Are you this electromagnetic motor here? You are not any of that. What is common between all elements that you have studied so far? What is common between all of them? Come on identify. What there has been common between everything that you have studied so far?

Questioner (Q): We are studying them.

AP: You are studying them. What were you studying? You are always studying something external, right? Always studying something external and what did you call that something external? You call that the ‘Subject’. You call that as the Subject, ‘this is the Subject I am studying’ (pointing to a student) What…