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The enneagram now
1
February 16, 2005
Meeting rules
1. Nothing discussed here leaves this room; everyone can feel secure to speak their heart.
2. Continually observe yourself during this meeting: body (tension, breath)
feeling (“autonomous” emotions)
mind (focus, storytelling, lying)
3. No lying. When speaking, watch yourself for (unintentional) lying and stop. Know what ‘lying’ is.
4. The enneagram is practical. No theoretical discussion for the sake of theoretical discussion.
5. Reside in truth; be true.
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Start: a brief sitting.
Reading: appendix 1
Basis of the enneagram
The law of one
There is only one absolute truth. The truth is static, unchangeable and eternal. This is the ultimate, transcendent (above all) reality.
The law of one can be visualized as a point.
The law of three
Every process requires action, and action requires force.
The law of three states that three forces (active, passive, neutralizing) drive every process.
The law of action and reaction shows that for every action (active force) there is a reaction of opposite direction (passive force). This hinders the progression of a process and favors the status quo.
If either the active or the passive force “wins” there will be a result, but this result will be temporary and is lost when the power balance shifts again.
A third, neutralizing, facilitating or reconciling force is necessary to make a result permanent. The third force can therefore be considered a fixative.
Examples: getting up in the morning, losing weight, completing a project, personal development.
The law of three can be visualized as a triangle.
The law of seven / the law of the octave
The law of seven dictates the progression of every process.
The law of seven shows that every process progresses through distinct steps and encounters barriers that can only be overcome by outside impulses or “shocks”.
Without these impulses the process stops or continues in an unintended direction.
The law of seven can be visualized as the diatonic scale:
DO RE MI FA SOL LA SI DO note
360 405 450 480 540 600 675 720 Hz absolute frequency
1 9/8 5/4 4/3 3/2 5/3 15/8 2 relation to ground-do (360 Hz)
9/8 10/9 16/15 9/8 10/9 9/8 16/15 increase from preceding note
The enneagram
The enneagram was introduced to us by George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (1877-1949)
The enneagram combines the laws of one, three and seven.
The enneagram: Personality structures vs personal development
The enneagram has been used as a system to study personality structures. Personality is changing, impermanent and ultimately not truth. Its study tends to be strongly formatory.
Personal development deals with the transcendent reality of the true Self, which is unchanging, eternal and true. The unchanging, true Self is nearly always covered by the ever-changing personality.
True personal development is indeed personal, completely practical and on a level that allows only a generalized description. Personal development requires a teacher, coach or guru.
Personal development
Personal development is a process and is therefore governed by the law of one (for its source), the law of three (for its driving force) and the law of seven (for its progression).
Personal development can be viewed as a process leading from being governed by many cosmic laws (48 according to Gurdjieff) to progressively fewer.
A seemingly different viewpoint is to regard personal development as “trading” the guidance by the fickle and divided ego and the resulting misery for the guidance and resulting bliss by the Absolute/Universe/God/the Self.
Suggestion: perhaps we could view “the ego” as consisting of many (48?) largely independent and conflicting “I’s”. Personal development would then be the process of shifting control from those “I’s” via an intermediate stage of a magnetic center (one “I” that is more dominant) to a single unified “I”.At the same time, let’s stay aware of the formatory trap.The enneagram as road map for personal development
Since personal development is a process, the enneagram can be used as a road map to describe its progression as governed by the laws of one, three and seven.
· The enneagram visualizes the three laws together:
o The law of one as the middle point
o The law of three as a triangle
o The law of seven as a hexad
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The law of one is miniscule in the center: a point. It does not display action and does not directly interact with the laws of action (three and seven).
· The laws of three and seven never join each other although they do intersect: an endless and eternal “dance” (Shiva Nataraja).
· The law of seven is represented as numbered positions along the circumference of the circle according to the (repeating) outcome of the division of one by seven (1/7): 0.142857.
· The law of three indicates barriers (corner positions 3,6,9) that obstruct progression along the law of seven.
The cosmic enneagram and the internal enneagrams
Every step along the “big” (cosmic) enneagram is in itself a “small” (internal) enneagram. This internal enneagram, in turn, contains seven internal enneagrams. This process continues for several rounds with each successive sub-enneagram representing smaller yet more concrete steps until each step becomes too small to be practically meaningful.
The implication is that even at the beginning of personal development we already have experience of the entire enneagram, just not at its cosmic level. We have gone through and continue to go through numerous internal enneagrams. This means everyone can have or obtain a “flavor” of the entire cosmic process.
Our questions + answers by Paul van Oyen
One question concerns the interaction of different triads. As I understand it the neutralizing third force of one triad can form the active force of a new triad. What is unclear to us is:
1. whether this necessarily results in an ascending octave.
2. whether the neutralizing force can also form the passive force of a new triad.
Part of the ambiguity seems to result from the nomenclature of active and passive which seems misleading. The active force is not necessarily “building up” and the passive force is not necessarily “breaking down”. Even the terms of building up and breaking down seem incorrect: you can build something up (for example a habit) which can at the same time mean a step back on the octave of personal development.
1. The third force dominates both ascending and descending lines.
If the third force “falls” on the active side in the next triad this will result in an ascending line of development to more consciousness and the development of human qualities in us.
If the third force “falls” on the passive side there will be only a memory of how it once was and how it could have been or become. The misery and painful thing about the Gurdjieff and also Ouspensky organizations is that they master this aspect very well and can tell you exactly what Mr. Gurdjieff once told us and how beautiful things once were and how far away they are now. But new design, breaking new ground and exploring and being adventurous is “not done”. And so the past is only perpetuated and everything only gets older until it dies. This is true for almost all spiritual organizations. It is quite unique to find a living and contemporary tradition that is many centuries old while continuously regenerating itself.
2. Why are there no internal lines between 0 and 1 and between 8 and 9? In a way they seem like the most difficult steps: there is nothing you can “do” from 8 to 9, because you must be called, and from 0 to 1 could take many lives (and it seems it may still require a call/grace/luck/good karma to finally get a chance to start).
2. Of course there is no line from 8 to 9 nor from 0 to 1. “Going” from 8 to 9 is impossible unless the 9 calls. At 8 you therefore wait – just like the virgin bride in the bridal suite –until the bridegroom enters. You never know when he arrives; this is the theme of the biblical story of the foolish virgins – just read it.
As for going from 0 to 1: The impulse to move towards 1 is completely dependent on the individual person’s karma and on that person’s education and upbringing. Nowadays this education and upbringing (especially in the US) is in an extraordinary and very, very sad state. It is an outright disgrace for a civilized society to so neglect the younger generation and to let it be so dominated by the bogus of political correctness. Political correctness prescribes that if the majority considers the earth as flat we therefore all hold the opinion that the earth is flat and act accordingly. What education does such a system provide? Exactly: none. You can at best learn tricks, something at which our American brothers and sisters are extremely adept. Preferably in endless many beautifully designed glossy books.
It is no more than a shortcut to disaster. This problem is as old as the road to Athens because Socrates already confronted it. I advise you to read the following dialogues by Plato in a fluent, modern translation: - the Apology - Symposium - Phaedoon – Phaedros - The Republic
3. What struck us was that the line from Sol to La is a direct hexad line (the only hexad line that directly follows the progression of the cosmic enneagram) while there is still an interval at 6. Is that because the interval at 6 originates from the second enneagram (with do at 3)? Still it seems curious you can “just” go from Sol to La, especially since it would seem like such a tough step to make.
3. Your question about the hexad jump from 5 to 7 is not completely clear to me, but your own reaction to this question is not wrong. In the musical octave there is no interval between Sol and La and they are directly connected in the regular musical progression of the octave. The interval at 6 is an implicit interval which only works from the subconscious (i.e. from the second octave that starts at position 3 and has its own position 3 interval at 6).
It is an extraordinarily difficult “hump” because you don’t really notice it. The result is a yet even greater ego-arrogance than at position 3 where the arrogance is pretty blatant. Not so at 6. There everything appears to be love and light …
2
February 23, 2005
Let us remember the meeting rules.
Reading: appendix 3
Symbolism of the enneagram
Because the enneagram contains the three laws that govern every process in the cosmos it is said to contain all knowledge; therefore its symbolism is endless. For us, from the viewpoint of personal development, some symbols are especially interesting:
· The middle point. The ultimate source from which everything projects out onto the circumference. Also the ultimate end point to which every fully completed process returns.
· The triangle. Embodies Gurdjieff’s teaching of self-observation. In personal development, our desire to work is an active force, our disinterest and unwillingness to work (48 laws of resistance) a passive force. Self-observation can be the third, neutralizing force which eventually facilitates and allows the work.
· The hexad. Indicates how each new stage in self-development is only reached after repeatedly traversing the enneagram and “visiting” several positions that appear to lie ahead or behind.
·
The circumference of the circle. Represents the outward appearance of the process. Can also be viewed as a representation of the outside world, the madly spinning wheel of fortune, the endless dance of life and death, birth and rebirth.
· The three regions marked by 9-3, 3-6, 6-9:
o 9-3 physical world: action, senses
o 3-6 subtle world: thinking, intellect
o 6-9 causal world: emotion
· The 0 or 9: Beginning and end, low and high “Do”. In reality 0 and 9 are the same note “Do” but in different octaves.
The nine points or positions
The nine positions of the enneagram represent stages in personal development: eight levels of personal development (0,1,2,4,5,7,8,9) and three barriers (3,6,9). Each has a number, a musical note (do-si, Pythagoras), a numeral indication by Gurdjieff and a description which can be found in the ancient Yoga Vâsishtha (see also appendix 2):
position
Gurdjieff
note
Pythagoras
Yoga Vâsishtha
Translation from Sanskrit
0
“zero”
Do (low)
DO-minus: the Lord, the Absolute
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ignorance, unawareness, disinterest
1
man no. 1
Re
RE-gina caelorum: queen of the heavens, the moon
shubheccha
true impulse
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