One of my most beloved teachers is Dr. David Daniels, who wrote “The Essential Enneagram” and who has the capacity to elegantly simplify the complex.   I’m sharing an article he wrote as he is identifying the two core components of our work at LFH Group, Integral Life and Enneagram Studies in the Narrative Tradition.   

It speaks to the importance of evolving into more expanded ways of knowing (Integral) and he points to self-awareness of one’s habits (the Enneagram)  as a tool that serves human development.  

Most of us no longer have to survive the ice age or fight tigers and bears to survive. Yet, there are more demands than ever before and we need a more expanded perspective to meet the current demands of an interconnected, global world.   

Evolving past ego-centric or ethnocentric ways of knowing may be the minimal requirement for our species to survive…

This work is exciting as it has applications throughout  fields as diverse as business, politics, religion, spirituality medicine and psychology. 

I find myself frequently asking myself the question, “What are my obstacles to greater awareness and compassion? What are my blindspots here? To what worldview am I clinging that is creating suffering for self and other?”   

Here is David’s article…enjoy.

So Why the Enneagram?

by David Daniels

“The need is not really for more brains,

The need is now for a gentler, a more tolerant people

Than those who won for us

Against the ice, the tiger, and the bear.”

From the “Immense Journey” by Loren Eisley

This is one of my very favorite quotes. For to me it represents our crucial human need to develop past our earlier levels of being on the planet. We need an expanded appreciation of the positive possibilities for our species. And the Enneagram offers a key way to evolve ourselves into expanded and more inclusive levels of consciousness.

For the Enneagram is all about understanding ourselves and others; all about appreciating differences; all about reclaiming a separate self from which we can truly join in union with others; all about opening our hearts to ourselves and others in nonjudgment; and all about reclaiming and integrating in our higher qualities – all representing the work of transformation. 

In terms of levels of development simply put we will in the process become more world centric. I have simplified the levels from integral psychology into four basic ones. We can readily understand these.

• Pre-conventional: Impulsive and Self-protective (ego centric). We all know that we can do destructive behaviors when upset. But this impulsive, totally self-referenced level explains why we as a species can so readily kill and pillage others who don’t give us what we want or need. Others are simply objects, basically nothing more.

• Conventional: Conformist (ethno centric). Here we can love those with whom we are identified – our religious group, race, culture, and even team. But we can denounce and even annihilate those who aren’t in our group. They are children of a lesser god so to speak. We all know this from “ethnic cleansing” and the daily news. This explains how mothers (and fathers too) send off their sons into battle for the sake of the church, country or whatever. 

• Post-conventional: Self-aware to Autonomous (world centric). Here there is an ability to include diversity, to expand the boundaries of inclusion and see other groups’ point of views. The down side results from belittling the “lesser” levels. 

• Non-conventional: Integrated and Unitive (universe centric). This is a rare “species”. This is live beyond ego and ethnic identifications. Very, very few of us have reached this level, certainly less than 1%. Yet it remains a possibility. 

The Enneagram work helps us move into the world centric stance thus providing hope for the future for all who embrace it.. I believe this move represents a core value of the various Enneagram schools. It gives hope to Loren Eisley’s words of our need for a more “gentler, a more tolerant people than those who won for us against the ice, the tiger, and the bear.”

The job of a spiritual friend is to insult you.  Why?  If you are to become a loving person, you have to notice where you are “hookable.” Where you get stuck, is where you have a blindspot.  So to all you provocateurs, thanks for the hook. (I think)