It is this human nature that has to be transformed. A lemon cannot become a mango, but it is possible to become a better lemon. People try to imitate an idea or a persona, and when they do that they impose an unnatural behaviour on themselves. Such pretense of being something that one is not is always artificial. An artificial conditioning of purity and piousness and uprightness is believed to be spiritual, and not the natural conditioning of happiness, contentment and fulfilment.
That is the understanding of people. This understanding has to change, and that happens through satsang. The Ramacharitamanas, the Bhagavad Gita and the other spiritual literatures emphasize the need to transform the lower nature and that the first step towards this is good association. However, when the advice given in the scriptures or by the masters is not convenient to your ideas and aspirations, you think that the instructions are not meant for you. You think that rules are not meant for you, as ‘I am special and unique’.
Definitely you are special and unique, your ego is most special and unique in the world. It is this ego that has to be transformed from its tamasic nature to a sattwic nature. From being a scruffy-looking person, give yourself a nice shave, cut the hair, let out the wildness and look civilized and decent. The wild, tamasic, hard quality of the ego has to become sattwic.
The wild nature has to become soft, cultured and refined. As you become soft, cultured and refined, you enter the dimension of sattwa. If you become wild in your understanding, action, behaviour and thinking, you enter into tamas.
From the book “Yoga The 2nd Chapter”, pg. 23, Sw. Niranjanananda Saraswati