THE SECRETS OF THE ENNEAGRAM: KNOWING OURSELVES

THE SECRETS OF THE ENNEAGRAM: KNOWING OURSELVES

As I write this, I’ve just arrived home from the “Celebrate Your Life” conference in Phoenix.   It was a blast and insightful in many ways.

For instance, the presenters all seemed to be addressing a similar theme. Namely, how to “break through to your best life;” “find your inner healing” and most important, “know yourself.”

Knowing oneself is important because until we become aware of how our attitudes and defenses hold us back, it is hard to reach our potential.  Fortunately, I believe humanity has discovered a method to precisely view ourselves — which I want to tell you about, using my personal experience as an example.  But first, let’s discuss how our negative patterns develop in our personalities in the first place.

UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM

During the process of growing up, each of us has to learn to become an independent person.  Along the way, we are directed and sometimes “put down” or “criticized” by others, beginning with our parents.

Because we grow up in this critical world, we learn to defend ourselves from people who are trying to be smarter, more capable, and yes, more powerful, than us.  In response, we use particular ways to push back against those who seem to be lowering our energy and self-esteem.  Gradually our defensive habits form a pattern through which we seek to maintain our self-esteem and a sense that we are capable in the world. This repeated pattern becomes a life script that keeps us going in circles instead of embracing our unfolding spiritual destiny.

The solution is to be able to see and transcend these habits through spiritual practice.  As I mentioned above, there is a tool that greatly helps with this process.  I’m talking about using the “Enneagram” — an ancient symbol of human growth and awakening that is now being understood in a deeper way.

DISCOVERING THE AUTHENTIC YOU

The way I am about to explain the Enneagram is relatively new, but I believe long time Enneagram researchers are all evolving toward this spiritual interpretation.

First and foremost, the Enneagram symbol should be thought of as describing the spiritual process that each human being experiences in life.

As you can see in our Enneagram diagram, the Enneagram is comprised of 9 numbers placed around a circle and triangle.  These numbers are also linked together by lines with arrows to other numbers.  From a spiritual perspective, the Enneagram numbers represent a distinct aspect of God Consciousness that humanity is seeking to download in ever greater amounts. Downloading more of God Consciousness is the process of human spiritual evolution.

Each human being seems to come into this world linked primarily to one of these Divine aspects, and this is the key to understanding oneself.  This Divine “aspect” becomes an urge to wholeness that calls to us and becomes, once we open up to this connection, our key to spiritual peace and centeredness.  Plus, it becomes our key to identifying our talents and finding fulfillment, as we display and give this aspect of God to others.

The 9 Divine aspects or urges are:

1. The Urge to Evolve toward Perfection
2. The Urge to Give and Help Others
3. The Urge to Create and Achieve
4. The Urge to Find an Unfolding, Individual Destiny
5. The Urge to Intuitive Discovery
6. The Urge to Gain Security
7. The Urge for Bliss and Happiness
8. The Urge to Leadership
9. The Urge to Unity

For those who might resist the idea of being typed, let me just say this system gives a lot of room for individualizing yourself, as you’ll see below. The numbers represent just a basic drive and set of talents. They can be lived out personally in countless ways.

Once we know our number, we know three things about ourselves.  First, we know our general calling in the world — i.e. the part of God Consciousness we are here to open up to and teach to others. Secondly, we become aware that our Defenses (our Ego pretensions intended to make us feel secure and okay even though we are not fully Connected Spiritually) are always crafted as a distorted version of our God urge. Once you find your number, it sheds light on the usual way you cope with the world that holds you back.

Lastly, once we know our number, we can see how we have to integrate the “God Urges” of other numbers to break out of our defensiveness.  In other words, we have to expand our primary God aspect within our consciousness by blending in other God aspects.  Doing that deepens our Spiritual Connection, and all that comes with that  — intuitive guidance, synchronistic opportunity, and a flow of destiny toward your mission in life.

Let me use my own case as an example. I’m a 5, which is the urge to discover a deeper truth.  To find my number I had only to read the descriptions of all nine numbers and then chose the one that rang true in my life.  When I read about the urge to Discover, I immediately knew this was my Spiritual Orientation, my Divine link, and talent.  From childhood, I was always an intellectual explorer, wanting to discover deeper truths about life and living.  Sometimes this gave me meaning and direction, and other times I felt cut off and out of sync with this ability.

Although I wasn’t aware of the Enneagram earlier in my life, the way Enneagram suggests 5s have to grow would have made my personal evolution much easier.  Remember our ego defenses are always a distortion of our number’s Spiritual Orientation.  As a 5  (following my natural orientation to discover,) I had crafted my defenses naturally in a specific way.  Because my spiritual connection was weak, I defended myself in exactly the manner the Enneagram would have predicted.  When I felt insecure, I would withdraw from the world into my own pretended world of discovery, trying to push away my anxiety by losing myself in research, any research.

When pressed by others, I would claim I was working on some search for knowledge, acting aloof and busy.  In a sense, it is my ego faking and pretending that I was working on something important.  That’s why Enneagram theory sees all coping devices as a distortion of our primary aspect or urge.  All 5‘s do some version of this pattern.  And if I had understood the Enneagram earlier I would have known exactly what to do to breakthrough to my authentic direction of spiritual growth.

FINDING OUR “DIRECTION OF GROWTH”

If you look at the Enneagram Symbol again, the direction of growth for each number in the Enneagram is pointed out by the arrows leading to the next numbers. To enlarge our Spiritual Connection and let go of behaviors that limit us, we have to embrace the God aspect of the next number in line and blend it with the aspect of our primary number and do the same with the next number in line as well.

Again, I can use my own case as an example.

Since I’m a five, my old habits of Aloofness and Mystification, that kept me going in circles, had to be expanded by blending with the next numbers in my line of growth.  According to the direction of growth shown by the arrows in the Enneagram, a person with a five orientation needs to integrate more of the “number 8” God Aspect.”  The 8 God Aspect is the urge to be a genuine “Leader,” but not just any leader.

If you follow the arrows from 8, the line goes to 2, the number representing the “Divine Urge to Give.”  To reach my potential, not only did I have to become a leader, but I also had to lead like a 2, always thinking of the best interest of others, and crafting my work in this manner.  Five’s can be self-protected and isolated, not particularly interested in others.  But I finally did what the Enneagram says is necessary. I pushed myself to focus on research that brought a benefit to others, so I could be proud to lead people as I found new information.

Blending my 5 urge with the aspects of the 8 and 2 opened me up to a larger download of God Consciousness, and hence, opened me up to much more security, intuitive guidance, and an ongoing flow of destiny in my life.  Everyone has a path of growth, so regardless of which number you think you are, there is a specific method of growing spelled out by the Enneagram.

Best of all,  once you step on that path, synchronicity begins to bring into your life people representing the specific other God Aspects you need to adopt.  It is the essence of spiritual community.  That’s what makes the Enneagram perfectly synced with the Celestine Insights.