MAHARAJ: “There’s No Such Thing As Peace of Mind” (Especially When a Mind is Packed Full of False Personality Identifications) Part One

Today's Considerations

A few are far more prone to seek and to find than most. Who is prone to realize and who is not? 

Consider: sages have long understood that the problem with humanity is that persons are guided by body-mind-personality identifications. Sages have also long understood that stored within the mind are varying degrees of the nine basic personality types or styles which determine - usually unconsciously -  all of the thoughts which persons have.

They have also understood that thoughts determine all of the words spoken and that all thoughts and words determine all behaviors. Many sages have also long understood that (a) all persons may eventually assume scores of identities during an average-length relative existence but that (b) all start out with varying degrees of the nine basic types.

The only way to measure and understand the presence and degree of influence of those nine types is by way of the enneagram personality inventory and a discussion of the results with one that is well-versed in the enneagram and what it reveals. 

Here, over the years, seekers who have come for a retreat or who have taken advantage of the enneagram testing and analysis package, including a Skype discussion of their results as offered above, have gained enough insight to be able to list 80-90 roles that they have assumed and played over the years. 

But they have also come to understand:

(1) that each of the nine basic roles or personality identifications having a basic desire and a basic fear and up to 7 specific motivators or drivers or interests;

(2) that each of those roles is constantly fighting inside the mind to advance its own selfish agenda over that of other assumed roles;

(3) that a person with 80 assumed identities (which each has its own voice within the mind that uses mind-speak to advocate for its cravings) will set the stage for those 80 identities to have a thought-voice expressing its primary desire and its primary fear and its seven areas of interest; and that

(4) that scenario will generate the noise of 720 thought-voices (80 x 9) inside the mind.

And that is why the noise in the mind has been compared to the chatter of a thousand monkeys; that is why it is said here that no “non-Realized person" ever drives down the road alone because every person is carpooling with hundreds of “others” chattering away non-stop between her or his ears; and that it why it is said here that every photo of a "non-Realized person" is really a group portrait if the truth be known, what with the dozens and scores of unseen “others” in the mind (and what with their having far more influence over what persons do than the elemental plant food body in the picture can ever have).

All of those assigned and assumed personalities notwithstanding, every human starts out with nine basic types manifesting to one degree or another, the primary type having usually been determined by the age of six.

For hundreds of years, an ancient Sufi teaching tool called the enneagram has been used to determine the degree to which those nine types are present and used to measure the exact degree to which each type is subconsciously controlling a person's thoughts and words and deeds.

Why take the test and have the results explained: Psychotherapist Marie Lachney explains it this way: “You may as well learn all that you can about your primary personality type as well as the related types that influence you. For most people, it will determine everything they do and everything they feel during their entire lives. Only a small percentage will ever be liberated from the dominance of personality.”

In the U.K., two who use enneagram testing and analysis to provide insight into the subconscious forces that drive persons are Veronica and Chris Croft explain it this way:

“For most people the word ‘Enneagram’ means nothing, yet it has guided our lives since the moment we were born. Whether we have been aware of it or not it has always been there, shaping our destiny. The Enneagram is the map of consciousness that underpins all aspects of your life. It illuminates the nine ways of being in the world, and gives deep insight into nine fundamentally different personality types, each with their own way of seeing the world, their own attitudes and ways of thinking, reacting and behaving.

“It is an ancient body of wisdom that holds the key to unlocking true understanding of both ourselves and other people. It reveals the genuine simplicity of life by unravelling the apparent complexities of human beings behaviour in profound ways that modern psychology cannot. When we understand the Enneagram the patterns of our lives finally make sense, we experience profound self-acceptance and clarity of purpose, and discover how to live through positivity and find lasting personal fulfilment.

“The Enneagram equips us with the tools to bring about profound change within ourselves and our lives, bringing us into balance and giving us the ability to sail over the hurdles in life instead of letting them bring us down. It provides a clear understanding of who we are on a fundamental level and what our intrinsic gifts are, resulting in a rapid increase in self-acceptance, raised self-esteem and greater ability to find new purpose and fulfilment. Our self-defeating patterns of thought and reaction finally make sense - and, more importantly, we discover how to change them. It explains why some relationships flourish whilst others flounder and equips us with the knowledge of how to improve them all.”

The point offered here is this: Most people will go to their graves without ever understanding why they think the thoughts that disturb their peace; why they say words that are not always in the best interests of themselves or others; why they do the things they do that are not always in the best interests of themselves or others; and why they feel the way they feel even when their feelings sometimes seems inexplicable.

That can change for you, beginning right now, by understanding how personality styles determine the thoughts and words and actions of all people without their even knowing it, it all happening on a subconscious level (even as we believe we are making conscious choices and are in control).

The nine basic types are these:

The Type One = The Perfectionist - desires power in order to judge and change and reform.

The Type Two = The Helper - desires the power to make everyone like or love him or her.

Type Three = The Achievers / Performers - desire the power to make all people admire and applaud them in order to attain the success that Threes want.

Type Fours = The Seeker of Authenticity – desires to rebel against rigidity and magical thinking and authority, to be free (1/2 of 1 % of all humans).

Type Fives = The Knowers, The Analysts - desire the power to know it all and the power to convince people that they really do know it all.

Types Sixes = The Dependent Type - loyal to authority in order to be taken care, to be dependent, to be so-dependent (50% of all humans).

Type Sevens = The Adventurers, The Addicts - desire the power and wherewithal to escape, to party, to have a good time.

Type Eights = The Controller, The Boss, and - potentially - The Sociopath - desire to control people, will do all that they can to try to accumulate the power that will provide them control.

And Type Nines = The Avoiders, The Passive-Aggressive Ones - are addicted to the avoidance of anything and everything and anyone that would disturb their "inner peace," though that peace too is an illusion. 

Of the nine basic personality types discussed earlier, only one – the Type Four – is “pre-wired” to question everything, to heed no authority, and to refuse to trust with blind faith. As examples, consider these with a Type Four as their primary type, many of whom are poets, artists, actors, sages, teachers, etc.

First and foremost for Advaitins and Nisargans: Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. Other well-known Type Fours include:

John Lennon, Thomas Merton, Kurt Cobain, Bob Dylan, Angelina Jolie, Frédéric Chopin, Edgar Allen Poe, Anne Frank , J.D. Salinger, Miles Davis, Marlon Brando, Johnny Depp, Joni Mitchell, Jim Morrison, Edvard Munch (“The Scream"), Pink Floyd, Edgar Allen Poe, Prince, James Taylor, Spencer Tracy, Jack Kerouac, Michaelangelo, Claude Monet, Jim Morrison, Liam Neeson, Paul Simon, Vincent Van Gogh, and . . . yours truly.

So, if the Type Four is “pre-wired” to Realize, and if all persons have some degree of all nine types, then why will so few ever Realize? Because only ½ of 1% on the planet  have a primary Type Four influence. Maharaj's process attempted to share what a Four almost innately understands with those who were not primary Type Fours but who were seeking the understanding which is almost innate with so many Type Fours.

Unless “Realized,” the Type Four personality - as is the case with all personality types - can be a double-edged sword, bringing both “positives” and “negatives” (thus making clear why personality and duality always co-exist).

Years ago, a friend invited me to spend a week visiting with her and Russ Hudson in The Netherlands in a small town nestled in a forest south of Amsterdam. Russ, the co-founder of the Enneagram Institute in the U.S., had this to say about Type Fours:  

The point offered here with non-Advaitins who take the enneagram test and then enter into a discussion of what the results can reveal is this:

In the West, it is noted that people have some degree of each of the nine basic personality types. The key to a healthy life is balance, so in the West, the ideal is to be “well-rounded” and “balanced.”

The point offered here with non-dual seekers who take the enneagram test and then enter into a discussion of what the results can reveal is this: 

So powerful are the personality styles that control people that, in Eastern teachings, a primary goal is to be free of personality’s influence completely.

To be continued.

Please enter the silence of contemplation.

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