The Enneagram of Personality is a rather modern psychological tool [from Gurdjieff (a bridge between the mystical and the more psychological uses) to Ichazo and Naranjo in the late 1960s]. It allows people to better understand themselves and others, and why people do what they do. We can take this in two directions: We can use the information to command power in psychoemotional dynamics, or we can use the understanding to generate compassion and thereby improve oneself and relationships.
There are many online tests, many people proclaiming to be the experts, devising their own tests and whatnot, and it’s all for fun, because people relish in understanding themselves better. They typically love their “number” known as their enneatype and secretively do what they can to minimize its negative aspects (or at least laugh at them)!
But it isn’t truly about the number…it’s about transcending the number. It’s about being all numbers and no numbers.
The earliest Enneagram usage dates to antiquity through Pythagoras, the Kabbalah and other schools such as Sufi mysticism. The Sufis and Gurdjieff (and later, Naranjo) used dance to express its concepts and the ultimate return to the “zero” at the center, the point of pure consciousness – no ego, just being.
We can bridge spirituality and personality, or totality and separateness, gleaning the essence of the numbers, dividing essence from personality (as Gurdjieff taught his students to do), and acknowledging that the essence of all numbers as one constitutes the totality of being.
We can be closer to center only when we seek balance, which is the goal of all forms of holistic wellness. Like the bearings of a wheel, a ceiling fan, etc., like how a top wobbles and ultimately ceases to spin when the load isn’t evenly distributed, we aim to spin our energy field evenly, distributing the load evenly. Too much wetness in the chest can become pneumonia. Too much dryness in the bones can become fractures. Too much acid in the stomach can form ulcers. It is the same with our psychoemotional state. We need balance.
We ultimately need to balance the body (enneatypes 8, 9, and 1), the heart (2, 3, and 4) and the mind (5, 6, and 7). We should be neither over-expressed or repressed within our general type. Dance, tai chi, sex, exercise and other physical activities are wonderful ways to balance people who spend too much time in thought that turns neurotic and fearful, and also to balance those who spend too much time in their emotions. Likewise, those who are mostly physical, obsessed with their gym membership or spending hours each day walking/running/cycling can benefit from reading until the art of balance is achieved.
A good portion of this balance can be achieved simply by allotting time to each of the three (mind, heart, and body). Making time each day to develop the holistic self in this fashion will slowly but surely smooth the rough surfaces in time.
Once we get a good balance, we find ourselves in the center (at the zero point with nine wings), which the Sufis have symbolized so beautifully in their whirling dervishes. The egoless center is a paradox of being everything and nothing. It is the sacredness of the Enneagram that existed long before the thin veneer of psychology cloaked its wisdom.
Yet the later developments have added something light and fun, creating surface, which makes the depths more enticing. Perhaps Ichazo and Naranjo were doing us a greater service than they were aware of!
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(North Central West Virginia residents, feel free to contact me for an informal series of holistic self-development sessions.)
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