Today's Considerations
To review: these pointers were offered in the last two
postings:
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.
Yet there is also an irony - a "Catch-22" of
sorts - involved with the Eastern plan of being freed from
all personality identifications, an irony which Maharaj discussed.
More on that in the next post.
There seems to be an irony in that (a) there is a set of ancient non-dual
teachings which for thousands of years advised seekers to be rid of body and
mind and personality identifications and that (b) Maharaj shared that same advice as well; yet he said that some tiny speck of one’s primary personality
style will always remain.
To clear up the seeming contradiction: He did not mean that one’s primary personality type will
remain and will continue to subconsciously control all thoughts and words and
actions. He meant that the primary style will remain, even if "Realized"; hence, consider the words that
have been used by some over the decades to describe Maharaj, all of which are
at the core of a “non-Realized” Type Four’s Personality (or, if “Realized,” can
manifest as a Type Four’s style). Those can include:
“defiant” and “questioning” and “mutinous” and “a maverick”
and “intractable” and “rebellious” and “revolutionary” and “disobedient” and “ungovernable”
and “radical.”
Now here’s the difference in “type” and “style”: if one is
being driven subconsciously by the hidden agenda of a Type Four, then the
traits above will manifest and can generate self-defeating behaviors,
relatively speaking, and all of those traits will serve as
subconscious influences and will manifest without any “method to their madness.”
If (on the other hand) one is totally conscious, totally awake,
and totally aware, then a style of “defiance” and “rebellious” will be
observable and the “defiance” and “rebellious” will be against one’s ignorant and
insane programming and conditioning and one's delusional culture and perverted home
environment and a distortion-generating society’s efforts to brainwash and
indoctrinate.
In the process of "a Realized one" that is working with seekers who are seeking
freedom from all of that as well, then there will be “method to the supposedly madness”
as a conscious stand can be taken against all of the learned ignorance and insanity
associated with the Ultimate Sickness in an effort to allow seekers to be freed
from the effects of those roots of the Sickness.
The rub: most persons will never seek to find the real cause
of their problems; most will never seek the real Medicine which can treat the
Sickness; and of the ones who do seek, many will become addicted to the seeking and
to playing the role of “The Seeker” which their egotism will eventually upgrade to the often-subconsciously-assumed
identity of “The Super Seeker.”
This was shared by one who came to understand – via the
use of enneagram testing and explanation – the actual results of assuming “The
Super Seeker” role: “My longings can never become fulfilled because I now
realize that I am attached to ‘the longing’ and not to any specific end result.”
One enneagram site shared this story to illustrate the point:
There is a Sufi story that relates to this about an old dog
that had been badly abused and was near starvation. One day, the dog found a
bone, carried it to a safe spot, and started gnawing away. The dog was so
hungry that it chewed on the bone for a long time and got every last bit of
nourishment that it could out of it. After some time, a kind old man noticed
the dog and its pathetic scrap and began quietly setting food out for it. But
the poor hound was so attached to its bone that it refused to let go of it and
soon starved to death.
Maharaj's take on endless seeking: “All depends on you. It is by your consent that the
world exists. Withdraw your belief in its 'reality' and it will dissolve like a
dream.”
If that is to happen, then some degree of the Type Four’s
style - including some degree of being “defiant” and “questioning” and “a
maverick” - must be tapped into, but grasp the difference:
Post-realization, there was no “Maharaj,” no “person” and no
"Personality Type Four" who was speaking to visitors. The consciousness spoke, and
the consciousness spoke in the style of a Four which will invite questioning
and rebellion against all that had been previously accepted and believed in the
absence of factual and empirical evidence and in the presence of blind faith
instead.
The task at hand for earnest seekers that would cultivate that
style in order become truly free and truly independent? Such a one must understand the total implication of Maharaj’s
point when he says that “it is enough to know who you are not.”
What different outcome could manifest in the cases where 59%
of the women killed every year in the U.S. are killed by males who had been
playing the role of “The Lover” or “The Husband” with those women? What change could happen were
males to know that they are not “The Lover” or “The Husband” before that role assumption
(and that identify being "threatened") results in their murdering women who
simply choose not to play the co-dependent, counterpart role required for those males' false, assumed identity to continue to be played?
All such assumed or assigned roles must go if one would be totally
free and at peace, yet even more basic to the cause of being restored to sanity
and being freed from learned ignorance and being freed from being driven by the
subconscious agendas of 80 or 90 false, culture-based identifications is the necessity
of being freed from having one’s thoughts and words and actions all being
determined subconsciously by the hidden agendas of the nine basic personality
types which affect every person on the planet to one degree or another.
Moreover, if those nine types are not cleared away, they will determine and control the manner of seeking that seekers become attracted to and attached to, including
methods of teaching that will never end in realization and freedom and including
this or that type of yoga which will never result in realization and total freedom.
That will be discussed on Wednesday. Meanwhile, before reading that post tomorrow, consider which
of these nine types you might be able to relate to in one degree of another:
The Perfectionist who judges self and others, who
criticizes, who condemns, who wants to reform “the world."
The Helper / Savior who is driven to give and give and give
to others in order to help them so that they will love you (an effort driven by
the subconscious belief that not enough love was received during childhood,
often from a father who was absent as a result of death or divorce or who was physically
present but otherwise unavailable).
The Achiever / Performer who is concerned with form over
substance and who seeks applause and admiration.
The Four Romantic or Escapist (or Seeker of Authenticity)
The Type Five who is The Jnani, the Seeker of Knowledge, The
One Who Would Show Off His or Her Knowledge and Intelligence.
The Type Six Loyalist who is fear-based and dependent and
who will play the loyal role in order to be taken care of.
The Type Seven who is The Seeker of Escape who wants to play
and to avoid responsibility.
The Type Eight who is “The Boss” or “The Control Freak.”
The Type Nine who is "The Passive-Aggressive Avoider" of anything and everything
that might challenge one’s inner desire for peace.
As an exercise in “self-discovery” (that is, in “false-self discovery”)
you might write out those nine types and then indicate how much on a scale of 1-10 each is showing
up with “you,” 1 being “very little” and 10 being “a
great deal.”
Please enter the silence of contemplation.
[NOTE:
The four most recent posts follow. You may access all of the posts in
this series and in the previous series and several thousand other posts
as well by clicking on the links in the "Recent Posts and Archives" section.]
