Holy Plan points to how each moment, and all of existence, arises out of the prior moment. Everything is formed in perfect accordance with the immediately prior circumstances. Each moment is a natural outgrowth of the moment before it. Here the analogy of waves is helpful again. Waves move as they do because of the force behind them of the prior moment, not because the Ocean plans for them to reach the shore and then plots their course.

Our lives, and all existence together, is formed by the circumstances of the immediately prior moment. There isn’t a pre-determined direction we or anything is headed towards. Ultimately, there is only this moment. Our typical concept of planning also involves time, particularly our notion of the future. What is the future? A current idea in the present moment. There is no actual “future” we can identify or experience, beyond the ideas we have about it. The same is true of the “past”. All we know of what we call the past are the ideas we have about it. These ideas of past and future are only ever happening in the present moment, which is the Eternal Now.

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We can also look at Holy Plan like we would an architectural plan. Everything is arrayed in their proper spots, all unified by the paper on which the plan is printed. Here there is no time involved. Instead, there is a static snapshot of reality at a specific moment. Each snapshot is like a frame in a movie and it’s the movement of the film that generates a sense of time and continuity, though these are both illusions. It could just as well be that each frame could be radically different from the others and, from our perspective within the snapshot, we’d have no idea. This is all to say that our ideas of continuity and direction and a plan in our habitual sense of the word are all figments of our imagination.

If there’s no directionality to our lives, we could be quite concerned! However, Holy Wisdom tells us that all that is unfolding is exactly as it should be. Why? Because it’s what’s happening! God-centric wisdom traditions tell us “if you want to know the will of the Divine, look around you”. All that is happening is going exactly according to the no-plan.

Holy Work tells us that in every moment, the unfolding of Unity through Multiplicity is happening. The effort is being made. By who? All of us and everything, simply through our existence, through our being brought into being. It’s all happening, and it’s all going perfectly. This “perfectly” doesn’t mean it aligns with what think should happen, but that, if we could take a broad enough view, we’d see that it all makes sense, the totality of the entire universe at each moment is aligned.

Thank you for reading this post, I welcome your comments and questions below. Please share this with anyone you think may be interested. To learn more about classes, discussion groups or one-on-one consultation please contact me at keith at theawakenedenneagram.com.

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From the Tao Te Ching (Verse 42):

The Tao gives birth to the One

One gives birth to Two

Two gives birth to Three

Three gives birth to the ten thousand things

The ten thousand things means everything, all we can see and not see, every experience and state, every aspect of our lives. All of this is continually arising out of the Whole, ongoing creation, the creative expression of the universe. All together while also distinct. It’s a lot to grok!

In the phrase “All is One,” the focus of Holy Unity is the “One.” Holy Omniscience is recognition of the “All.” Every single thing arises from Unity, Ocean becoming Waves. This is the incredible multiplicity that we experience. The vast variety of things, experiences, feelings, thoughts – really every single thing we experience (and even those that we personally don’t) in the immediate present and in the course of our entire existence.

Holy Omniscience points to the truth of this manifestation, it supports and validates the reality of the world around us. With one caveat that we usually miss. Yes, there is manifestation of discrete things and experiences. However, none of these things exist on their own, none are separate from each other and the Whole. This truth validates our experience of the Waves, while keeping us connected to the fact that they are fundamentally Ocean.

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Holy Transparency is a related Truth. It addresses a problem that can arise. Sometimes we see that everything else is part of the whole but leave ourselves out! But we are also “transparent” to the ten thousand things. “Transparent” points to an inherent openness, to the fact of the boundaries and edges of “me” not being so fixed or rigid. This sense of being solid and separate, is it accurate? At times I feel most real when my sense of solidity is less strong. Where I end and the world begins becomes less certain. Yet I feel something akin to a homecoming, a welcoming. Perhaps there are no boundaries at all. I arise when and as the ten thousand things arise. I come into being as all of the rest comes into being.

Again from the Tao Te Ching (Verse 16):

The ten-thousand things arise together…

Holy Transparency reminds us that though we experience ourselves as a discrete entity, we are not separate from all the other entities and we are not separate from the Whole. Not only can we perceive the Ocean and its Waves, we ourselves are one of the Waves! In the midst of perceiving what Holy Omniscience shows us, we should not forget that it is true for us as well. We are also part of Unity’s unfolding.

Thank you for reading this post, I welcome your comments and questions below. Please share this with anyone you think may be interested. To learn more about classes, discussion groups or one-on-one consultation please contact me at keith at theawakenedenneagram.com.

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The first and most fundamental existential truth, according to the spiritual teaching of the Enneagram, is of Holy Unity. Most simply put – All is One. This is the same truth highlighted in other non-dual teachings – India’s Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism’s Zen, and the mystical teachings of other wisdom traditions. It’s easy to say and hard to perceive, though I believe all of us have occasional inklings of it.

The most helpful metaphor I’ve encountered is that of the ocean and waves. The vastness of all existence is the Ocean. Infinitely wide and deep, silent and beyond all conceptualization. Beyond what our minds can picture or even understand. Then, as in the ocean, there is movement and a wave forms.

This wave is something becoming manifest, something appearing – the chair I’m sitting on, the weather outside, this idea I’m writing down right now, a distant star, my entire life and each moment in it. Like a wave, each manifestation lasts as long as it lasts, then returns to the ocean. Even as it is manifest it is still the ocean. Each wave is made up entirely of ocean, there is nothing that arises in life that is not entirely ocean. In this way there is only ever One thing happening in the entire universe, which is the entirety of the universe, continuously and completely unfolding as one entity. Complete, absolute Unity. This Unity is referred to by different names – Consciousness, Tao, God, All That Is, the Universe and more.

Ok, “great!”, you might say. How can I experience this? In the end, there is nothing “I” can do to cause an experience of this Truth. The totality of this Unity is unfolding in unison, and my individual self has no control. In fact, this “I” that I’m convinced exists independently is itself a mis-apprehension. More about this as we explore the other Holy Truths over time.

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In the meantime, our lives appear to happen not only on an “ultimate” level, but also on a “relative” level. The relative is our day-to-day lives, the ones we’ve always lived and felt, circumscribed by our individual and collective understanding. The teaching of “two levels of truth” can be found in multiple wisdom traditions and is very helpful in the practical living of our lives and engaging in the spiritual path.

The Ultimate is the all-pervading source of everything (the Ocean) and what appears as life is the Relative (the Waves). So while perception of the Ultimate isn’t up to us, we continue to live our Relative lives. At the level of the Relative we can work with each of the Holy Truths. Working with each Truth can help us to grow in wisdom and reduce our own suffering and, perhaps, the suffering of others.

Regarding Holy Unity, on the Relative level, we can reflect on the interconnection of all things. The Vietnamese Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh called this “Interbeing.” Everything we see and interact with is connected to everything else, every thought and feeling we have is part of a vast interplay, every event in our lives and the lives of others is part of and embedded with every other event.

This perspective is perhaps beyond our grasp most of the time, but I think all of us experience it occasionally, and we can practice viewing the world “as if” we understood this. It’s a bit like the image below, is it an image of two faces or a vase?

It’s both and it takes some mental exercise on our part to see each. Likewise, we can make a mental exercise of seeing the inherent wholeness of all things. The exercise doesn’t bring Ultimate understanding, but it can affect us in our Relative lives.

How do you feel when you start to recognize this wholeness? I could offer some of my experience but I wouldn’t want it to interfere with your own. Suffice to say, I feel something meaning-full from this inquiry, something that prompts me to suggest it to you as well.

The implications of Holy Unity are deep and multi-faceted and form the basis of the remaining Holy Truths of the Enneagram, which will be explored in future posts.

Thank you for reading this post, I welcome your comments and questions below. Please do share this with anyone you think may be interested. If you’re interested in classes, discussion groups or one-on-one consultation please contact me at keith at theawakenedenneagram.com.

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• Indolence

• Cowardice

• Vanity

• Vengeance

• Stinginess

• Planning

• Resentment

• Melancholy

• Flattery

Again, not a flattering list.

However, as we develop our capacities for self-awareness, we will see that the Fixations are more accurate than we would like to admit. As with the Passions, seeing and admitting the working of the Fixations within us will allow them to be released. If we do not, they will function unconsciously and we, and others we come in contact with, will suffer as a result. As with the Passions, we experience all of these and one in particular will be especially strong for us based on which of the Holy Truths we have been most distressed to have forgotten.

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We can see these Fixations at work already in the pattern of our original loss of awareness of the Divine and the Holy Truths. The initial forgetting is repeated again and again in the Fixation of Indolence. We don’t inherently want to wake up to the fact that we are asleep and we will go to great lengths to avoid recognizing this and the spiritual path as a whole. Those of us drawn to spiritual efforts will have to continually rouse ourselves to make effort, not unlike how Dorothy and her companions had to make great effort to pull themselves out of the poppy fields surrounding the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz. The second stage of existential terror leads to the abiding Fixation of Cowardice, wherein we see threats where they don’t exist and shirk from things that give rise to fear. The process of forming of the False Self, which we do to shore up our underlying insecurity, gives rise to the fixation of Vanity, a continuous obsession with our False Self and how it appears to ourselves and others.

Each of the Fixations is a tactic we’ll try in order to keep the False Self going. Through our work of self-observation we can come to see and abandon these ultimately ineffective approaches. When we do, we’re opening ourselves to a broader and more spontaneous way of living.

Thank you for reading this post, I welcome your comments and questions below. Please do share this with anyone you think may be interested. If you’re interested in classes, discussion groups or one-on-one consultation please contact me at keith at theawakenedenneagram.com.

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• Sloth

• Fear

• Deceit

• Lust

• Avarice

• Gluttony

• Anger

• Envy

• Pride

Not a pretty list!

However, we each have each of these feelings within us and recognizing them is part of the path of these teachings. The fact that we all have these Passions can make it a little easier to accept. We’re definitely not alone. They are so universal that different spiritual traditions acknowledge many of these traits as requiring awareness and effort to overcome as part of the spiritual work. For example, the Enneagram Passions overlap substantially with the “Seven Deadly Sins” (originally eight or nine) identified by the earliest Christian monastics, the Desert Fathers and Mothers in third-century Syria. Of course, it’s easier to see these traits in others than ourselves! What we can see and acknowledge in ourselves can pass through, what we ignore and deny can get “stuck” and may cause us unnecessary problems.

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While all of us have all of these Passions and will need to work with each on the path, one of them in particular will be especially strong in us. This is because of our experience of loss with the Holy Truths. While we lose awareness of all of the Holy Truths, each of us is especially sensitized to the loss of one particular Truth. The loss of one of these hits us particularly hard. Which one of these losses is most difficult varies from person to person and these teachings don’t posit a reason for why this is true. The impact though is that the Passion associated with that Truth will become a central motivator in our lives, it will become the emotional core of the False Self.

We can see these Passions at work already in the pattern of our original loss of awareness of the Divine and the Holy Truths (see prior post here). The initial forgetting is related to Sloth – the original “falling asleep” to our True Selves and indicative of the difficulty we’ll have rousing ourselves to engage in the path of waking up. The second stage of existential terror is part of the Passion of Fear. The forming of the False Self is a function of the Passion of Deceit. We each have each of these Passions, along with the rest, and as we traverse that path we will need to engage with each of them in their time and place. Engaging with them honestly and clearly (more on this later) can make room for their energy within us to dissipate, allowing us to open more to life as it is.

Thank you for reading this post, I welcome your comments and questions below. Please do share this with anyone you think may be interested. If you’re interested in classes, one-on-one consultation, or a conversation to help you clarify your likely Personality Type, please contact me at keith at theawakenedenneagram.com.

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The loss of our awareness of Unity is a fundamental existential wounding, as if the Divine Itself has pushed us out of the nest. We go from knowing we are part of the Whole to feeling we are completely alone and on our own with no support. For an infant this is particularly terrifying as our very bodily survival feels at stake. Naturally we have a strong reaction to this, a reaction that is consistent for each of us. These teachings outline three stages in this reaction:

• First is this loss of awareness of our connection to the Divine, to Unity and each of the qualities pointed to in the Holy Truths. This loss is likened to falling asleep to our individual and universal True Self, falling asleep to the Divine and our relationship with It.

• This gives rise to fear as we now feel cutoff, abandoned, exiled and alone. In fact, I would call this more than fear, I would name it abject existential terror.

• This terror demands a response to this tremendous loss. Our response is to develop something we feel we can replace the True Self, something we feel we desperately need to survive and navigate life and so we each form our False Self.

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The False Self is a fractured self. Having lost its sense of wholeness and awareness of the Holy Truths, it’s pieced together from feelings and ideas and approaches to living that we desperately grasp onto. This grasping follows predictable patterns and each person’s False Self is constructed from the same building blocks.

The basic building blocks are the core emotional reaction to this loss – the Passions – and our core mental stances we assume – the Fixations. We’ll take a closer look at these in subsequent posts.

Thank you for reading this post, I welcome your comments and questions below. Please do share this with anyone you think may be interested. If you’re interested in classes, one-on-one consultation, or a conversation to help you clarify your likely Personality Type, please contact me at keith at theawakenedenneagram.com.

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The teachings of the Enneagram as a spiritual path rest on a collection of related spiritual truths. It’s the loss of awareness of these truths that gives rise to the False Self and each particular Personality Type. These Holy Truths (also called Holy Ideas) are not unique to these teachings. In fact, the most fundamental Truth is recognized by mystics in many religions and spiritual paths.

The first and foundational Truth is that of Unity. All is One. Everything that arises and appears in all of existence is part of a single Whole. (Everything that doesn’t arise and doesn’t appear is also part of this Whole as well.) Another way of pointing to this Truth is to say that “nothing is separate from anything else”. This goes beyond interconnection, it is what the Vietnamese Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh calls “Interbeing”. The Hindu mystic tradition of Advaita Vedanta that elucidates this understanding literally means “not two” – A-dvaita. These are the teachings known as “non-dual”. Other wisdom traditions understand this as well.

If All is One, why do we see so many different things around us? In fact, it seems that all of life is separate things! This is because of the second Truth – that of Manifestation. Unity is continuously pouring itself forth as the vast and differentiated universe that we experience. It’s like the ocean creating waves. Watching the ocean, we see wave after wave after wave, but none of these is anything but ocean, there is no part of a wave that is not ocean. In that same way, nothing we experience, nothing about ourselves or others or any aspect of existence, is anything but the One.

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We can experience both of these truths, together or separately. We can experience them deeply or just catch a glimpse. I think we experience these truths, and the other Holy Truths, more often than we recognize. One reason for writing about these Truths is so that, when we do have a moment of awareness of one or more of them, we’ll recognize the moment for what it is – a moment of being awake. The word “Buddha” means “awake”. In such moments, we’re in good company!

More Holy Truths arise because of the first two. Here they are below. I encourage you to read them slowly and feel within yourself which ones resonate most strongly, which ones you already recognize. These Truths are functioning continuously in the bringing forth all of existence, right here and right now. They are available to your awareness, right here and right now.

THE HOLY TRUTHS

• The first truth is Unity, all is One, all Consciousness, the ocean.

• The second truth is Manifestation, multiplicity, the waves.

• All boundaries and separate existences are illusory

• Everything arises optimally, according to no-plan

• Each thing and all things collectively are complete and perfect

• Unity is the source of all things

• All that exists and happens is the expression of Unity

• A moment of remembering any of these truths is a moment of Liberation

• Everything that arises is an expression of the ever-changing pattern and nothing is not part of the vast unfolding

• Every apparent individual thing is in complete accord with this unfolding

• This unfolding is optimal

• This unfolding is worthy of our trust

• This unfolding supports and is supported by each and every expression

• Taken altogether, these Truths express what we experience as Peace, Harmony, Love

Each of these Truths is an aspect of Unity, each rests upon and with each of the others. Because of the truth of Unity, each of the others is true as well. I don’t think this list is exhaustive of the deepest truths of existence. I don’t think we can make such a list. I don’t think we can ever fully perceive the vastness and complexity of the wholeness of reality. We can experience these Truths however, and in so doing experience moments and even lives marked by freedom.

Thank you for reading this post, I welcome your comments and questions below. Please do share this with anyone you think may be interested. If you’re interested in classes, one-on-one consultation, or a conversation to help you clarify your likely Personality Type, please contact me at keith at theawakenedenneagram.com.

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At its most basic, the word “Enneagram” refers to the nine-pointed (“ennea”) symbol (“gram”) below. This symbol can be used as a map of various aspects of human experience. In these writings I am interested in tracking those enneagram maps that help us awaken to the true nature of our existence. These maps can help us see what a liberated life looks like, the impediments to our experience of that life, and how we can be free of those impediments so we can experience a life of liberation.

The core map we’ll be exploring is the Enneagram of Holy Truths (also referred to as Holy Ideas). These are deep truths about the ultimate nature of reality, our own true nature, and our lived experience of each of these. The Holy Truths are:

• Holy Unity

• Holy Omniscience, Holy Transparency

• Holy Wisdom, Holy Plan, Holy Work

• Holy Perfection

• Holy Origin

• Holy Will, Holy Freedom

• Holy Law, Holy Harmony, Holy Hope

• Holy Faith, Holy Strength

• Holy Love, Holy Peace

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The spiritual teachings of the Enneagram say that we have fallen asleep to these Truths. This falling asleep is painful and distressing and as a result we naturally have strong emotional reactions to our situation and develop inaccurate ideas about what our lives are in reality and how they actually unfold.

These emotional reactions are detailed in the Enneagram of Passions and the inaccurate ideas are articulated in the Enneagram of Fixations. These Passions and Fixations constellate in consistent patterns that drive our perceptions, feelings, thinking and behavior which together form our Personality Type. The Enneagram of Personality Types is what is commonly known as “The Enneagram” in contemporary circles and has received the most attention in popular culture. The Personality Type is a survival strategy and, asleep as it is to the Holy Truths, it is called the False Self.

The spiritual path of the Enneagram is for each of us to be released from the False Self and to rest more deeply in the True Self. The approach is to observe the functioning of the False Self and to witness its Passions and Fixations and assorted other habits and patterns. Through this process these things naturally release their grip on us. We will more and more consistently experience the True Self. This True Self is more often awake to the Holy Truths, more often experiences helpful traits (elucidated in the Enneagram of Virtues) and is more open to life as it happens in the present moment. The True Self realizes its wholeness with all things and, awake to this unity, is free.

For easier reference, here are the enneagrams I’ve mentioned and that we’ll be exploring in future articles:

• Enneagram of Holy Truths – fundamental facts about existence

• Enneagram of Passions – the charged emotions that arise as a result of us falling asleep to the Truths

• Enneagram of Fixations – the inaccurate ideas that arise as a result of falling asleep to the Truths

• Enneagram of Personality Types – the constellations of Passions, Fixations and resulting patterns that form who we take ourselves to be, our False Self

• Enneagram of Virtues – the qualities that naturally arise as the influence of the False Self recedes

Thank you for reading this post, I welcome your comments and questions below. Please do share this with anyone you think may be interested. If you’re interested in classes, one-on-one consultation, or a conversation to help you clarify your likely Personality Type, please contact me at keith at theawakenedenneagram.com.

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