THE SECRETS OF THE ENNEAGRAM: KNOWING OURSELVES
The 9 Divine aspects or urges are:
1. The Urge to Evolve toward Perfection
2. The Urge to Give and Help Others
3. The Urge to Create and Achieve
4. The Urge to Find an Unfolding, Individual Destiny
5. The Urge to Intuitive Discovery
6. The Urge to Gain Security
7. The Urge for Bliss and Happiness
8. The Urge to Leadership
9. The Urge to Unity
For those who might resist the idea of being typed, let me just say this system gives a lot of room for individualizing yourself, as you’ll see below. The numbers represent just a basic drive and set of talents. They can be lived out personally in countless ways.
Once we know our number, we know three things about ourselves. First, we know our general calling in the world — i.e. the part of God Consciousness we are here to open up to and teach to others. Secondly, we become aware that our Defenses (our Ego pretensions intended to make us feel secure and okay even though we are not fully Connected Spiritually) are always crafted as a distorted version of our God urge. Once you find your number, it sheds light on the usual way you cope with the world that holds you back.
Lastly, once we know our number, we can see how we have to integrate the “God Urges” of other numbers to break out of our defensiveness. In other words, we have to expand our primary God aspect within our consciousness by blending in other God aspects. Doing that deepens our Spiritual Connection, and all that comes with that — intuitive guidance, synchronistic opportunity, and a flow of destiny toward your mission in life.
Let me use my own case as an example. I’m a 5, which is the urge to discover a deeper truth. To find my number I had only to read the descriptions of all nine numbers and then chose the one that rang true in my life. When I read about the urge to Discover, I immediately knew this was my Spiritual Orientation, my Divine link, and talent. From childhood, I was always an intellectual explorer, wanting to discover deeper truths about life and living. Sometimes this gave me meaning and direction, and other times I felt cut off and out of sync with this ability.
Although I wasn’t aware of the Enneagram earlier in my life, the way Enneagram suggests 5s have to grow would have made my personal evolution much easier. Remember our ego defenses are always a distortion of our number’s Spiritual Orientation. As a 5 (following my natural orientation to discover,) I had crafted my defenses naturally in a specific way. Because my spiritual connection was weak, I defended myself in exactly the manner the Enneagram would have predicted. When I felt insecure, I would withdraw from the world into my own pretended world of discovery, trying to push away my anxiety by losing myself in research, any research.
When pressed by others, I would claim I was working on some search for knowledge, acting aloof and busy. In a sense, it is my ego faking and pretending that I was working on something important. That’s why Enneagram theory sees all coping devices as a distortion of our primary aspect or urge. All 5‘s do some version of this pattern. And if I had understood the Enneagram earlier I would have known exactly what to do to breakthrough to my authentic direction of spiritual growth.
