Personality Types, Enneagrams and Spirituality
Each of us possesses a set of qualities, personality types that makes us distinct from other people - personality. We can take personality tests and personality quizzes (Gurdieff created Enneagrams) but whatever they may tell us it is through our personality that we experience life and come to know others as well. Are our personalities who we really are? I was once told that the line between being a Shaman and having a multiple personality disorder is a thin one. What if this personality is simply an expression of an unconventional mind? Is there a deeper content to our personalities? Once all of our cultural idiosyncrasies, religious beliefs, gender patterns, chronological age, emotional patterns, sensory responses, and intellect are removed what is left? Inner wisdom!
Inner Wisdom has no personality; it has no knowledge of self and yet it is all knowing. It desires to own nothing and yet everything emerges from it. Inner wisdom does not act, has no goals and no intentions for any result. When personality arises, so does duality. In the realm of duality, all that exists is action and reaction. If we are able to maintain our personalities without excessive or misdirected attachment, we can live well as our authentic selves. Personality combined with misdirected attachments puts the mind to work in all the wrong ways. More often than not, our personalities may cause us to react to circumstances and to desire justice for those actions that we feel have victimized us. This is where the complex cycle of struggle starts. With justice, we may aggressively desire goals and results. To achieve these goals and results we create guidelines, rules of action, and finally, morality. When we have a moral agenda, we act in a certain way that we believe to be the right way. If those around us do not act the way we believe they should, then we react to them; we may even attempt to force or coerce them to take on our systems of morality. This is in direct contradiction to the concept of inner wisdom. Inner wisdom does not desire recognition, power, or moral control over others; it is recognized action.
How are such contradictions possible? It is easy to understand these contradictions if you contrast the treasure that is inner wisdom with the limited nature of Monkey Mind and personality. Where personality involves resistance or the response to resistance, inner wisdom is at every moment aware and available to perform any activity effortlessly. It is virtually impossible to live without personality and yet it must be balanced with inner wisdom.
Therefore, in the day-to-day process of living life it may appear that we are individuals and yet this sense of self may be an illusion. It is inner wisdom that reflects the authentic you. It reminds us that we are all mere drops in the same ocean. Wisdom is not outside of you; it is a universal truth that is everywhere. It lives in me, and it lives in others as well. I may have a family, town, state, country etc. and yet with inner wisdom I can see outside of these distinctions. This is not easy to see for the ordinary person. In order to do so, one must separate from one's desiring self by going deep into one's true, authentic self.
You have mastered the mind when you have learned to "just be." Wriggling about, growing stiff, and being stuck in shallow meaninglessness is what happens to those who are constantly trying to do "this and that." Those who live in surrender to their inner wisdom have a unique attitude towards life. They remain humble, simple, content, moderate, and modest. They seem laid back -weak and soft - to ordinary people and yet are stronger in spirit and wisdom than all others are. They are like bamboo in a hurricane, bending over in the wind but never breaking. Those who are resistant to inner wisdom and are hard and rigid are the ones who struggle in life and fear death. Life breaks them!
People often complain about how difficult life is and how much how struggle is required to survive day to day. In the end, this struggle is based on attitude and the choices that flow from that attitude. If you truly wish to improve the conditions of your life, then you must surrender living a life of mental denial and delusion. Stop placing great value on material wealth and physical beauty. Live simply and merge those things that you want with those things you require for your basic physical and emotional comforts. This will create an environment conducive to a life of contentment. The mind loves rites, rituals, pomp, and ceremony. In the end, it is simply easier to live humbly and quietly and to not seek fame and fortune. Surrender the need to have your ego stroked. Live in non-action and surrender those things that though valuable on the surface are devoid of true depth or meaning. And when your desires are aroused, when you are seduced by these surface things of the Monkey Mind, it is your simplicity and humility that will guard you against the monster of mental and physical excess that is waiting to devour you
Mental Health, Balance, and Healthy Living
No one is asking you to live in poverty or as an ascetic. If fast cars are your passion, go buy a fast car. People should be well fed, have good clothing and have physical health. For without these material things no individual will be free of desire nor will he be able to focus on those things that are most important. Living one's passion, creating freedom, and understanding the affairs of the heart and spirit are all essential elements of living well.
Where there is mastery of the mind there is also peace and satisfaction. There is also the knowledge that it is essential to create a living and working environment that nurtures long-term abundance rather than just short-term gratification. When understood in this light, the truths that are understood through inner wisdom become timeless and applicable in all manners of economic circumstances. When an individual is owned by his desires, what the world has to offer can only bring him misery. The key element is training the mind to live fully in the world while never being owned by the things of the world. Inner wisdom does not wish for us to deny those material things and relationships that are sources of life. They merely want us to recognize that all of these things have their own limitations. With this knowledge, a person may be truly free. With this sense of freedom comes love.
Inner Wisdom has no personality; it has no knowledge of self and yet it is all knowing. It desires to own nothing and yet everything emerges from it. Inner wisdom does not act, has no goals and no intentions for any result. When personality arises, so does duality. In the realm of duality, all that exists is action and reaction. If we are able to maintain our personalities without excessive or misdirected attachment, we can live well as our authentic selves. Personality combined with misdirected attachments puts the mind to work in all the wrong ways. More often than not, our personalities may cause us to react to circumstances and to desire justice for those actions that we feel have victimized us. This is where the complex cycle of struggle starts. With justice, we may aggressively desire goals and results. To achieve these goals and results we create guidelines, rules of action, and finally, morality. When we have a moral agenda, we act in a certain way that we believe to be the right way. If those around us do not act the way we believe they should, then we react to them; we may even attempt to force or coerce them to take on our systems of morality. This is in direct contradiction to the concept of inner wisdom. Inner wisdom does not desire recognition, power, or moral control over others; it is recognized action.
How are such contradictions possible? It is easy to understand these contradictions if you contrast the treasure that is inner wisdom with the limited nature of Monkey Mind and personality. Where personality involves resistance or the response to resistance, inner wisdom is at every moment aware and available to perform any activity effortlessly. It is virtually impossible to live without personality and yet it must be balanced with inner wisdom.
Therefore, in the day-to-day process of living life it may appear that we are individuals and yet this sense of self may be an illusion. It is inner wisdom that reflects the authentic you. It reminds us that we are all mere drops in the same ocean. Wisdom is not outside of you; it is a universal truth that is everywhere. It lives in me, and it lives in others as well. I may have a family, town, state, country etc. and yet with inner wisdom I can see outside of these distinctions. This is not easy to see for the ordinary person. In order to do so, one must separate from one's desiring self by going deep into one's true, authentic self.
You have mastered the mind when you have learned to "just be." Wriggling about, growing stiff, and being stuck in shallow meaninglessness is what happens to those who are constantly trying to do "this and that." Those who live in surrender to their inner wisdom have a unique attitude towards life. They remain humble, simple, content, moderate, and modest. They seem laid back -weak and soft - to ordinary people and yet are stronger in spirit and wisdom than all others are. They are like bamboo in a hurricane, bending over in the wind but never breaking. Those who are resistant to inner wisdom and are hard and rigid are the ones who struggle in life and fear death. Life breaks them!
People often complain about how difficult life is and how much how struggle is required to survive day to day. In the end, this struggle is based on attitude and the choices that flow from that attitude. If you truly wish to improve the conditions of your life, then you must surrender living a life of mental denial and delusion. Stop placing great value on material wealth and physical beauty. Live simply and merge those things that you want with those things you require for your basic physical and emotional comforts. This will create an environment conducive to a life of contentment. The mind loves rites, rituals, pomp, and ceremony. In the end, it is simply easier to live humbly and quietly and to not seek fame and fortune. Surrender the need to have your ego stroked. Live in non-action and surrender those things that though valuable on the surface are devoid of true depth or meaning. And when your desires are aroused, when you are seduced by these surface things of the Monkey Mind, it is your simplicity and humility that will guard you against the monster of mental and physical excess that is waiting to devour you
Mental Health, Balance, and Healthy Living
No one is asking you to live in poverty or as an ascetic. If fast cars are your passion, go buy a fast car. People should be well fed, have good clothing and have physical health. For without these material things no individual will be free of desire nor will he be able to focus on those things that are most important. Living one's passion, creating freedom, and understanding the affairs of the heart and spirit are all essential elements of living well.
Where there is mastery of the mind there is also peace and satisfaction. There is also the knowledge that it is essential to create a living and working environment that nurtures long-term abundance rather than just short-term gratification. When understood in this light, the truths that are understood through inner wisdom become timeless and applicable in all manners of economic circumstances. When an individual is owned by his desires, what the world has to offer can only bring him misery. The key element is training the mind to live fully in the world while never being owned by the things of the world. Inner wisdom does not wish for us to deny those material things and relationships that are sources of life. They merely want us to recognize that all of these things have their own limitations. With this knowledge, a person may be truly free. With this sense of freedom comes love.
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