In addition to the Passions, which are more feeling and heart oriented, our reaction to the loss of awareness of Unity and the Holy Truths includes Fixations which are more mental. These are persistent and pernicious ideas and perspectives that we act out on a regular basis. They are:
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.
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.