Insights into Nondual Enneagram
Trip Advisory: This topic is leaving the realm of the Enneagram of personality types and entering the realm of nonduality – looking at the Nondual Enneagram – if you will. Exploring the relationship between the Enneagram and nonduality means we are leaving behind any orientation toward personality work, improving our type, and all goal orientation.
The Enneagram has become an increasingly popular system for understanding the nine basic personality types that humans tend to embody. While beneficial for emotional and psychological growth and self-discovery in its own right, the Enneagram can also serve as a gateway to realizing nonduality – recognizing a unified field of existence beneath the illusion of separation.
What is Nonduality?
Nonduality is the philosophical, spiritual, and scientific understanding that despite appearances, there is no fundamental separation – we are all one at the deepest level. This “oneness” is not an abstract concept, but a living reality that can be directly experienced once the veil of illusion is lifted.
Some key points about nonduality:
- It recognizes that the perception of separation between self and other, observer and observed, is simply appearance. Only the field of Being or presence shapes all perceptions and forms.
- Everything that exists is a manifestation of this presence. The world is not separate or opposed to this presence, but an expression of it, absolutely arising from and infused with presence.
- When the appearance of separation dissolves, the physical world takes on more vibrancy as we perceive all imbued with essence. When free of conceptual filters, things become more defined, substantial, and meaningful.
- Nonduality does not eliminate diversity or polarity. Differences continue to exist in unity without the illusion of separation.
The Enneagram Points to Nonduality
The Enneagram describes nine personality types, each associated with a particular worldview, coping strategy, passion, fixation, and Holy Idea. While the types differ significantly, the Enneagram teachings clarify that all nine paths can potentially lead to nondual realization.
In particular, Enneagram points 8, 9, 1, and 5 directly address nonduality.
These points give a clear understanding about the most important salient features of nondual reality. Such as the indivisible unity of the ground in point 8 or the lack of separation between all of its expressions in forms and phenomena in point 5. The other holy ideas (2, 3, 4, 6, 7) give the understanding of how the individual is related to such truth, and how the individual lives it in the various circumstances of life. – A. H. Almaas
These types share an ability to penetrate beyond surface illusions, making them capable of recognizing the ground of Being:
- Type 8: Can cut through the facade and see to the heart of the matter. A healthy eight moves beyond self-concern to perceive underlying unity.
- Type 9: Possesses a unifying intelligence that intuitively connects the dots and reconciles opposites. At their best, nines become aware of the indivisible wholeness of life.
- Type 1: Brings idealism, integrity, and discernment to the search for timeless Truth, transcending division. ones can realize perfection lies beyond all concepts.
- Type 5: Has a penetrative, probing mind that seeks to comprehend the universe’s workings. fives can become aware of the limitless ground of Being underlying diverse forms.
While these types may have a particular affinity for nonduality, all nine Enneagram points offer a doorway. Working through the psychological issues our type represents, we experience Being in that particular flavor. For example, Type twos may experience Being as unconditional love and Type threes as dynamic creative flow.
Using the Enneagram for Self-Inquiry
The Enneagram provides a framework for self-inquiry, helping us trace our experience back to its source. We can use the insights from our type to look unabashedly at the beliefs and perceptions that reinforce living the life of separation:
- What core fears, attachments, and strategies characterize your personality type? How do these reinforce an illusion of division between self and other?
- What is your relationship to your passion, like anger, greed, or deceit? How does it create conflict rather than flow?
- What is the essential truth that your fixation causes you to miss? What might open your vision to a bigger picture?
- How is your holy idea already present, but obscured by your type’s filter? What would it mean to live from that holy perception?
As space opens, we become conscious of the restrictive patterns embedded in our personalities, and their grip loosens. Room for an unfiltered view of reality opens, no longer split into false compartments like my experience versus the external world, body versus spirit, eternal versus ephemeral.
Living from Nonduality after Realization
While moments of nondual realization can happen spontaneously to any Enneagram type, integrating this perspective into one’s life is an ongoing process. It is not enough to have an experience – we must find ways to continue activating and actualizing that understanding.
Ongoing spiritual practice helps stabilize nondual seeing. Meditation, self-inquiry, and inner work with a teacher provide continual access to presence beyond the thinking mind. Importantly, we must learn to function with open-hearted awareness in everyday life. Going beyond one’s type does not mean eliminating personality; openness, curiosity, and acceptance allow essence to infuse us as we become a transparent vessel. Nonduality manifests uniquely through us, through our gifts and capacities.
For example, a type four artist may begin to see beauty shining in all things and create work that reveals unity amid diversity. A type six counselor may open to a more profound wisdom flowing through their advice, sensing their client is another facet of themselves. A type seven explorer, rather than compulsively chasing the next peak experience, may taste nondual presence in each ordinary moment.
While the path is unique, the process progressively realizes true nature in all facets of human living. As teacher A.H. Almaas writes, when the absolute dimension is recognized in everyday reality, “each atom, each form, has its depth.”
The Enneagram provides a rich and rewarding framework for the journey toward nonduality. It helps us become aware of the mental constructs reinforcing the illusion of separation within our personality. If we are willing to courageously shine the light of self-awareness, we can support the dissolution of these barriers. Eventually, all types can open to the ground of Being that permeates each of us. The Enneagram supports us in embodying that nondual presence in our distinctive ways, offering the world the gift of our authentic selves.
Diamond Approach: Working with the Enneagram
We need to have some access to our spiritual nature for vitrues to make sense. Virtues are the expression of true nature as it impacts our individual consciousness heart. Holy ideas is the understanding of the boundlessness of our true nature as we see it underlying and constituting all forms and phenomena, including our individual body and mind. – A. H. Almaas