Source Text
The mystical and transcendental point of this doctrine is that we know the eternal Ideas prenatally and that we can re-discover them only by tracing our mind back to its natural origin, which is unborn and whose supreme quality is its ability to reflect itself in the eternal Ideas or Platonic Forms.
In my system the transformative power of the Holy Ideas receives the technical name of Psycho-catalyzers that function in the same way as simple chemical elements, known as catalyzers, which produce chemical alterations by their presence without being altered themselves. The Holy Ideas have to be envisioned as nine rays projected by the Divine One and Holy Mind, and when they are present together, the pleroma is produced and their original, natural, unborn, and immortal state is unveiled and realized.
This attitude underlies the popular conviction that “growth work,” including psychological work, can lead to spiritual transformation. That conviction reflects a lack of understanding that the basic paradigms of our world view, which determine our everyday experience, are an intrinsic part of the web of ignorance that binds us tightly within egoic experience.
That conviction reflects a lack of understanding that the basic paradigms of our world view, which determine our everyday experience, are an intrinsic part of the web of ignorance that binds us tightly within egoic experience.
What goes through a radical transformation is specifically our view of what truly exists, and the mode of this existence. In other words, spiritual liberation is a matter of one’s experience and perception moving to another dimension of existence that has its own perspective, and further, of this dimension becoming the center and foundation of experience.
Reaching the fullness of our potential entails resuming our development, which leads beyond the psychological to the realm of Being or spirit.
These Ideas are objective views of reality; their realization brings freedom from the deluded views of egoic experience and therefore, from the realm of the fixations. Our approach to the Enneagram of Holy Ideas is grounded in our perspective and methodology of spiritual development, the Diamond Approach.
The personal level involves the actualization of Being as the essence of the individual soul; the latter involves recognizing Being as the true nature of the cosmos as a whole. This transition, then, is the shifting of the identity from the personal to the universal.
The nine-pointed symbol of the Enneagram first made a significant appearance in the modern West through the teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff, an Armenian mystic, around the turn of the century. Gurdjieff appears to have learned it from a secret school in the Middle East, a school steeped in a spiritual tradition that is at least two thousand years old.
According to Naranjo, the idea that the figure of the Enneagram embodies an objective map of reality in its various manifestations and dimensions originated in this ancient school. Using the map of the Enneagram, one can acquire detailed understanding of any dimension of experience. Two categories of Enneagrams
AI Summary
Facets of Unity by A. H. Almaas presents key insights from the Diamond Approach tradition. The 10 passages above capture the essential teachings.
Core Themes:
- [To be expanded]
Key Passages: Highlights 1, 3, and 10 are particularly representative.
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