TODAY’S CONSIDERATIONS
Shared recently have been what can be indicated when excessively high scores appear in any of the nine basic personality types when measured on the enneagram personality inventory test used here.
To summarize, high scores in the following types can indicate what will likely be the high priorities (i.e., potential subconscious, personality-driven agendas) of each type:
High Type Ones: reforming, judging, criticizing
High Type Twos: giving and rescuing in order to gain love
High Type Threes: being a success to develop a positive public image and gain respect and applause
High Type Fours: escaping or seeking authenticity
High Type Fives: analyzing, learning in order to present as an expert or to know it all
High Type Sixes: presenting as loyal to develop dependencies and co-dependencies in order to be taken care of
High Type Sevens: escaping, obsessing
High Type Eights: exerting influence, fighting, controlling, dominating
High Type Nines: avoiding conflict (not to spread peace to others but in order to maintain one’s own peace)
So can low scores in any given type also reveal something about persons' priorities? Absolutely. Low scores in any of the types on the inventory test can indicate what will not likely be a priority for those persons:
Low Type Ones: not especially interested in doing their tasks very well
Low Type Twos: not especially interested in developing love relations
Low Type Threes: not especially interested in work
Low Type Fours: not especially interested in authenticity
Low Type Fives: not especially interested in taking the time to be informed or to understand / analyze
Low Type Sixes: not especially interested in being loyal in relationships
Low Type Sevens: not especially interested in relaxing and taking it easy and truly enjoying life
Low Type Eights: not especially interested in standing up for self or one's rights
Low Type Nines: not especially interested in peace or in facing challenges and issues
Next, much confusion results when personality is discussed, depending on whether the audience hearing the discussion is of an "Eastern bent" or a "Western bent."
THE BENEFITS OF UNDERSTANDING YOUR PERSONALITY STYLES, KNOWING THEIR EFFECTS ON YOU, AND USING THAT KNOWLEDGE TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE FOR THE BETTER
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).
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.
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.” An example of "perfect balance" would exist if all 9 scores on the test were a “16” (there being 144 questions on the test, divided by 9 = 16); obviously, there is no such thing as “a perfectly balanced individual,” but the goal in the West is to try to find the “middle ground” which can bring balance and stability.
Elizabeth Gilbert wrote: “The ingredients of both darkness and light are equally present in all of us. The madness of this planet is largely a result of human beings’ difficulty in coming to balance with themselves.”
Most have heard the Western maxim that “too much of a good thing is bad.”
The Western goal is to be as balanced as we can be, so
Olen Steinhauer said, “Without balance, a life is no longer worth the effort.”
Regarding “being stable in all ways,” the Greeks recommended these concepts: “Nothing in excess” and “all things in balance.”
Again, all of that involves "the Western perspective about personality."
In the East, among those who understand that the Ultimate Sickness is not a "too-little-dogma sickness" and is not a "spiritual or soul sickness" but is a psychological, mind-centered, mental sickness, it is understood that identifying with the content of the mind and identifying with assigned or assumed personalities is at the heart of humankind's problems.
Thus, it is also realized by those with an Eastern, non-dual understanding of personality that it is senseless to take a dualistic approach toward personality and to try to use the approach recommended in the the lyrics of one song:
You've got to accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don't mess with Mister In-Between
It is also realized by those with an Eastern, non-dual understanding of personality that it is senseless to take a dualistic approach toward personality and to try to use the approach recommended by certain religious groups and spiritual programs to
develop your personality assets
while you
eliminate your personality liabilities
or to
enhance your positive personality traits
while you
eliminate your negative personality traits.
Assets vs. liabilities and positives vs. negatives are dualistic concepts, and all dualistic concepts are nonsense.
Moreover, all personality identifications are mirages, nothing more than totally-dreamed-up lies, and, as Maharaj noted, "products of the imagination." So how could working on one's personalities possibly assist one who would be free of being driven by the hidden agendas of false identities and mirages and lies? Would it not be insane to suggest to those persons that they should "develop your imaginings, enhance the mirages you think are real, expand upon the lies you believe and then you will be better"?
Concepts are dreamed up, nothing more than false ideas and beliefs, so what good could it do to advise someone to "come up with your own conception of God" and then "depend on that concept to guide you and to care for you"? Really? Why not go with a four-leaf clover? Why not stick with a rabbit's foot? Why not use a horseshoe mounted above your front door? Why not try to use any other magical concept which can be dreamed up and believed in to bring good luck and good fortune vs. bad luck and bad fortune?
Moreover, all personality identifications are mirages, nothing more than totally-dreamed-up lies, and, as Maharaj noted, "products of the imagination." So how could working on one's personalities possibly assist one who would be free of being driven by the hidden agendas of false identities and mirages and lies? Would it not be insane to suggest to those persons that they should "develop your imaginings, enhance the mirages you think are real, expand upon the lies you believe and then you will be better"?
Concepts are dreamed up, nothing more than false ideas and beliefs, so what good could it do to advise someone to "come up with your own conception of God" and then "depend on that concept to guide you and to care for you"? Really? Why not go with a four-leaf clover? Why not stick with a rabbit's foot? Why not use a horseshoe mounted above your front door? Why not try to use any other magical concept which can be dreamed up and believed in to bring good luck and good fortune vs. bad luck and bad fortune?
Maharaj:
"As long as you are enmeshed in the tribulations of a particular personality, you can see nothing beyond it."
Personality brings "addictions and obsessions."
"The personality is only an obstacle."
"The dissolution of personality is followed always by a sense of great relief, as if a heavy burden has fallen off."
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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