Meeting rules
1. Nothing discussed here leaves this room; everyone can feel secure to speak their heart.
3. No lying. When speaking, watch yourself for (unintentional) lying and stop. Know what ‘lying’ is.
4. The enneagram is practical. No theoretical discussion for the sake of theoretical discussion.
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Reading: appendix 1
There is only one absolute truth. The truth is static, unchangeable and eternal. This is the ultimate, transcendent (above
all) reality.
The law of three states that three forces (active, passive, neutralizing) drive every process.
The law of action and reaction shows that for every action (active force) there is a reaction of opposite direction (passive
force). This hinders the progression of a process and favors the status quo.
If either the active or the passive force “wins” there will be a result, but this result will be temporary and is lost when the
power balance shifts again.
A third, neutralizing, facilitating or reconciling force is necessary to make a result permanent. The third force can therefore
be considered a fixative.
Examples: getting up in the morning, losing weight, completing a project, personal development.
The law of seven shows that every process progresses through distinct steps and encounters barriers that can only be
overcome by outside impulses or “shocks”.
DO RE MI FA SOL LA SI DO note
360 405 450 480 540 600 675 720 Hz absolute frequency
1 9/8 5/4 4/3 3/2 5/3 15/8 2 relation to ground-do (360 Hz)
9/8 10/9 16/15 9/8 10/9 9/8 16/15 increase from preceding note
The enneagram
The enneagram has been used as a system to study personality structures. Personality is changing, impermanent and
ultimately not truth. Its study tends to be strongly formatory.
Personal development deals with the transcendent reality of the true Self, which is unchanging, eternal and true. The
unchanging, true Self is nearly always covered by the ever-changing personality.
True personal development is indeed personal, completely practical and on a level that allows only a generalized
description. Personal development requires a teacher, coach or guru.
Personal development
Personal development is a process and is therefore governed by the law of one (for its source), the law of three (for its
driving force) and the law of seven (for its progression).
Personal development can be viewed as a process leading from being governed by many cosmic laws (48 according to
Gurdjieff) to progressively fewer.
A seemingly different viewpoint is to regard personal development as “trading” the guidance by the fickle and divided ego
and the resulting misery for the guidance and resulting bliss by the Absolute/Universe/God/the Self.
Suggestion: perhaps we could view “the ego” as consisting of many (48?) largely independent and conflicting “I’s”.
Personal development would then be the process of shifting control from those “I’s” via an intermediate stage of a
magnetic center (one “I” that is more dominant) to a single unified “I”.
At the same time, let’s stay aware of the formatory trap.
Since personal development is a process, the enneagram can be used as a road map to describe its progression as
governed by the laws of one, three and seven.
• The law of one is miniscule in the center: a point. It does not display action and does not directly interact with the laws of
action (three and seven).
• The laws of three and seven never join each other although they do intersect: an endless and eternal “dance” (Shiva
Nataraja).
• The law of seven is represented as numbered positions along the circumference of the circle according to the
(repeating) outcome of the division of one by seven (1/7): 0.142857.
• The law of three indicates barriers (corner positions 3,6,9) that obstruct progression along the law of seven.
Every step along the “big” (cosmic) enneagram is in itself a “small” (internal) enneagram. This internal enneagram, in turn,
contains seven internal enneagrams. This process continues for several rounds with each successive sub-enneagram
representing smaller yet more concrete steps until each step becomes too small to be practically meaningful.
The implication is that even at the beginning of personal development we already have experience of the entire
enneagram, just not at its cosmic level. We have gone through and continue to go through numerous internal
enneagrams. This means everyone can have or obtain a “flavor” of the entire cosmic process.
One question concerns the interaction of different triads. As I understand it the neutralizing third force of one triad can
form the active force of a new triad. What is unclear to us is:
1. whether this necessarily results in an ascending octave.
2. whether the neutralizing force can also form the passive force of a new triad.
Part of the ambiguity seems to result from the nomenclature of active and passive which seems misleading. The active
force is not necessarily “building up” and the passive force is not necessarily “breaking down”. Even the terms of building
up and breaking down seem incorrect: you can build something up (for example a habit) which can at the same time
mean a step back on the octave of personal development.
2. Why are there no internal lines between 0 and 1 and between 8 and 9? In a way they seem like the most difficult steps:
there is nothing you can “do” from 8 to 9, because you must be called, and from 0 to 1 could take many lives (and it
seems it may still require a call/grace/luck/good karma to finally get a chance to start).
2. Of course there is no line from 8 to 9 nor from 0 to 1. “Going” from 8 to 9 is impossible unless the 9 calls. At 8 you
therefore wait – just like the virgin bride in the bridal suite –until the bridegroom enters. You never know when he arrives;
this is the theme of the biblical story of the foolish virgins – just read it.
As for going from 0 to 1: The impulse to move towards 1 is completely dependent on the individual person’s karma and on
that person’s education and upbringing. Nowadays this education and upbringing (especially in the US) is in an
extraordinary and very, very sad state. It is an outright disgrace for a civilized society to so neglect the younger generation
and to let it be so dominated by the bogus of political correctness. Political correctness prescribes that if the majority
considers the earth as flat we therefore all hold the opinion that the earth is flat and act accordingly. What education does
such a system provide? Exactly: none. You can at best learn tricks, something at which our American brothers and sisters
are extremely adept. Preferably in endless many beautifully designed glossy books.
It is no more than a shortcut to disaster. This problem is as old as the road to Athens because Socrates already
confronted it. I advise you to read the following dialogues by Plato in a fluent, modern translation: - the Apology -
Symposium - Phaedoon – Phaedros - The Republic
3. What struck us was that the line from Sol to La is a direct hexad line (the only hexad line that directly follows the
progression of the cosmic enneagram) while there is still an interval at 6. Is that because the interval at 6 originates from
the second enneagram (with do at 3)? Still it seems curious you can “just” go from Sol to La, especially since it would
seem like such a tough step to make.
3. Your question about the hexad jump from 5 to 7 is not completely clear to me, but your own reaction to this question is
not wrong. In the musical octave there is no interval between Sol and La and they are directly connected in the regular
musical progression of the octave. The interval at 6 is an implicit interval which only works from the subconscious (i.e.
from the second octave that starts at position 3 and has its own position 3 interval at 6).
It is an extraordinarily difficult “hump” because you don’t really notice it. The result is a yet even greater ego-arrogance
than at position 3 where the arrogance is pretty blatant. Not so at 6. There everything appears to be love and light …
Reading: appendix 3
Because the enneagram contains the three laws that govern every process in the cosmos it is said to contain all
knowledge; therefore its symbolism is endless. For us, from the viewpoint of personal development, some symbols are
especially interesting:
• The middle point. The ultimate source from which everything projects out onto the circumference. Also the ultimate end
point to which every fully completed process returns.
• The triangle. Embodies Gurdjieff’s teaching of self-observation. In personal development, our desire to work is an active
force, our disinterest and unwillingness to work (48 laws of resistance) a passive force. Self-observation can be the third,
neutralizing force which eventually facilitates and allows the work.
• The hexad. Indicates how each new stage in self-development is only reached after repeatedly traversing the
enneagram and “visiting” several positions that appear to lie ahead or behind.
• The circumference of the circle. Represents the outward appearance of the process. Can also be viewed as a
representation of the outside world, the madly spinning wheel of fortune, the endless dance of life and death, birth and
rebirth.
• The 0 or 9: Beginning and end, low and high “Do”. In reality 0 and 9 are the same note “Do” but in different octaves.
The nine positions of the enneagram represent stages in personal development: eight levels of personal development
(0,1,2,4,5,7,8,9) and three barriers (3,6,9). Each has a number, a musical note (do-si, Pythagoras), a numeral indication
by Gurdjieff and a description which can be found in the ancient Yoga Vâsishtha (see also appendix 2):
0 “zero” Do (low) DO-minus: the Lord, the Absolute --- ignorance, unawareness, disinterest
1 man no. 1 Re RE-gina caelorum: queen of the heavens, the moon shubheccha true impulse
2 man no. 2 Mi MI-crocosm: earth suvicârana decision, effort, reason and equitability
4 man no. 3 Fa FA-ta: the planets tanumanasâ refinement, spiritual flexibility, firmness
9 man no. 7 Do (high) DO-minus: the Lord, the Absolute Turîya the transcendent
15. “The mouth of Truth is covered with a golden veil. O Sun of my soul, please remove it so that I who love the Truth may
behold it.”
The great obstacle for modern man is the remarkable and conflicting idea about “freedom” he cherishes. That idea is
rooted in the axiom that defines freedom as doing as you please unless society indicates boundaries (then again, if
nobody’s watching …). This whole idea of “freedom to do as you please” in turn is based on the illusion that we can do
something. As long as this illusion exists, any notion of true freedom will remain foreign to us. All our “doing” is completely
dependent on the circumstances in which we find ourselves and the material and psychological infrastructure within which
we function. Our “doing” is a product of our entire environment together. That environment acts upon us with forces and
influences that motivate us and impose an intention onto our every move. Only when we begin to develop an “eye” for this
will we be able to understand how our “doing as we please” truly functions. Without suitable conditions William the
Conqueror could have never invaded England. Without suitable conditions Kaiser Wilhelm would have never started
World War I. Without suitable conditions Hadewijch could have neither “seen” nor passed on her unparalleled mystical
poems and visions. The barrier at this position 3 implies that man (the ego) is completely uninterested in this point of view.
For by taking away the “doing” the ego is no longer the center of attention and is no longer nourished. Then it dies.
Progress requires an outside impulse in the form of a guide or coach or a very upsetting event: a shock. This means
subjecting to discipline, just like a sportsman reaching for the top.
The coach can bend man’s self-contentment towards a willingness to self-investigate and to go deeper.
This means further stilling and a willingness to serve and follow.
A painful “season clearance” is held where all old and surplus items must go at all cost.
The right desire joins with reason and lets go of all that obstructs the Truth.
Ultimately Truth is unveiled from behind self-contentment.
It is a completely new and different knowledge that is no longer rooted in scholarship and intelligence, but in
understanding and insight.
The memory of this Truth now becomes the third force and is Gurdjieff’s self-remembering.
It enters the system and pulls it up in its entirety to a completely different and new level.
This self-remembering acts as a great energy shock and is very liberating and releasing because all that is worldly is now
left behind.
Spirituality and the transcendent reality are now the end goal of the next phase.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9/0
DO RE MI || FA SOL LA SI || DO
do re mi || fa sol
The entire “crisis” of position 3 is reprised but this time at a subtle and spiritual level.
Now all subtle and even the most personal attachments lose their binding power.
This means another dilemma or crisis in which a coach is needed to help with the letting go of the past.
Then he becomes a different man and enters a completely new world.
Everything becomes much more fine and subtle.
Man learns to handle this finer essence so that he himself becomes a more refined being.
In his book “A new model of the Universe” P.D. Ouspensky points out that Jesus continuously indicates that the Kingdom
of Heaven is not about a hereafter after death but that it represents a state of being in that man can realize here, on Earth,
in this embodiment.
Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in
his kingdom.
(Matthew 16:28; Luke 9:27, Mark 9:1)
With the Kingdom of Heaven Jesus implies the inner circle of humanity where humans are no longer dominated by their
personality, but connected to God in a way that allows them to continually function from that inner connection. This man is
the personification of Thy will be done. His inner connectedness marks this man as a “Son of man” and in the passage
above “Son of man” does not refer to Jesus but to this man who has risen above the barrier at position 6 and who has
come to true surrender. As mentioned, this man belongs to the inner circle of humanity.
This entire journey through seven levels or steps of consciousness, once started when man at the base level woke up and
decided to get up and go on his way.
The Law of Three demonstrates that there is nothing to do but to look and listen.
Once we really look and really listen the road opens up and then it is as if everything happens naturally.
The entire human system then becomes subservient to the observing gaze that provides the knowledge and information
to go to work.
If there were no inner blockades in the form of all kinds of hidden impressions and therefore hidden agendas we could
travel the road in no time.
But this is not the case because we are so tangled up in ourselves. It is that tangle that we must try to cut or unravel. That
takes time and we are given that time.
The tangle is formed by our thinking that we are separate, a unit separated from our environment. To that separation we
surrender our soul and bliss and proceed to call it “I”. This “I” makes us believe that we must do all sorts of things and are
responsible for them. This is the deeper meaning of the biblical statement in the book of Genesis (III,18):
Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt
thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou
return.
3
Reading: appendix 4
If we consider the first sub-octave (meaning step 0 to 1 on the cosmic octave), then the cosmic meaning of the high Do (of
the sub-octave) is right impulse, right desire. The entire octave then describes the transformation process that leads from
a mechanical world of living to that first step:
A true understanding of symbols cannot lead to difference of opinion. It deepens at the knowledge and cannot remain
theoretical, for it strengthens the desire or real results, for the union of knowing and ‘being’, i.e. for The Great Doing. Pure
knowledge cannot be transmitted. But once expressed in symbols, she is covered by a veil that becomes transparent for
those wish to see and know how to see.
In this sense one can speak of the symbolism of language, even though the symbolism is only rarely understood. For
understanding the inner meaning of what is being said, is only possible at a certain level of development and only when
the listener makes the necessary effort and is in a certain states. When someone hears something that is new to him and
when he begins to oppose and to reject it, instead of trying to understand it, and when he puts forward an opposing
opinion which according to him is the correct one, but which typically has nothing to do with the subject, he loses every
possibility to receive something new. To understand the inner meaning of the language when it becomes symbolic, he
must have already learned how to listen. When language is used to express objective knowledge and the union of
diversity and oneness, every attempt to understand literally is doomed to fail beforehand and in most cases it only leads to
new digressions.
It is necessary to reflect on this so extensively because the intellectualism of contemporary education imprints upon
people a tendency to seek logical definitions and logical arguments for everything they hear. Their desire for exactness in
areas where exact definitions become inexact in meaning due to that very exactness forms an unconscious barrier.
Appendix 2.
It is curious how little research has gone into Gurdjieff’s true source of information. Usually an idea or concept of the Sufis
has a parallel within the Vedic tradition, and this also appears to be true for the enneagram. Within the Vedic tradition the
idea of the “journey of 7 steps” on the path to knowledge is well known. The idea can be traced back to the works of the
great Indian philosopher Patañjali (approx. 200 A.D.) who in turn based his teachings on oral transmissions of the
ancient tradition that reaches back to times long-gone. Within this oral tradition the standard work known as the Yoga
Vâsishtha is regarded as the source of this idea of a developmental journey through consciousness in seven steps. The
legendary or perhaps mythical sage Vâsishtha was the teacher of Prince Râma, to whom the great Indian heroic epos the
Ramâyana is devoted. To pay due homage to the original source, here is the text of the pertinent passage from the Yoga
Vâsishtha:
Râma, he who has passed through these seven states is truly a great soul. These people are truly free and liberated.
They are no longer assailed by whichever consideration of happiness or unhappiness. Some of them continue to function
in this world, others have completely withdrawn and live like a hermit. They reside in the self and are completely content
with it. Their bliss has become independent and lasting. This highest state can be attained by every creature, even
animals and the most simple humans. It is about realizing wisdom. He who realizes that level has become truly wise and
is a great man. That man deserves all honor and reverence.
Q: How important/interesting/wise is it to try to figure out where one “stands” in the enneagram?
PvO: For now it is better to regard it impossible to know where you are in the enneagram. Most people with some
discipline in their system and a true interest in a more subtle level and on top of that a willingness to consider where they
have come from (as a soul) and where they could be going are considered to be
The fullness of position1 in the enneagram (the note RE) is characterized by right impulse.
The rightness of the impulse is determined by the goal. If I want to play football the right impulse is to read about it, to
watch football on TV and to join a football team. If I want to play tennis I should NOT join a football team but a tennis club.
This means that the classic idea of good and evil, right and wrong is medieval, old fashioned and irrelevant. Right is
whatever has to do with the journey home (through the enneagram) and wrong is anything that leads away from it.
A man of the first level (RE) is receptive to all impulses that point to the end goal (merging with God, Self-realization,
Enlightenment, etc.) but this man is not only receptive for it, he can also emit these impulses. This is the case within the
Gurdjieff Foundation and also within the Ramakrishna Vedanta Society and here in Centre Plenum.
Most people who are active within these kinds of organizations are of the RE kind or are on their way to RE (in seven
steps). The next step of Re to MI (position 2) makes a enormous difference and is a giant step: the development of reason
and true common sense. It is important to realize that reason is the ability to bring everything back to its origin in a cosmic
relationship so that every issue points back to the original unity. It means that inner harmony has been crystallized and
available. Even more so, man at 2 (MI) can speak and act from this inner harmony.
In addition the positions 1 and 2 (RE and MI) are connected with 7 and 8 on the other side (the emotional side). These
positions are implicitly present and resonate inaudibly but noticeably. This is the meaning of implicit. Once you view these
positions in this way you will get some idea of the cosmic scope and
To develop from man 1 to man 2 is truly a landslide. Most leaders of ashrams, cults, spiritual groups are at this level. At 3
is the crisis of the ego and nobody can take that barrier without outside help from someone who has already reached the
other side.
Whoever reaches FA is truly intelligent, flexible as a reed and with endless patience. His or her feature is an ability to true
service and true surrender. This is already very rare in today’s world.
Appendix 4: reading – Paul G. van Oyen, “Het ennegram nu”/“The ennegram now”
When God’s spirit hovers over the waters, something in man begins to move. His magnetic center begins to take shape
and begins to open up to right impulses. He begins his journey, pulls the door of his past shut behind him and lifts his
gaze towards truth and reason, even though they are as of yet unknown to him. He needs knowledge and guidance and
will soon find himself facing the separation of darkness and light: the first day (Re).
The decision is made: he seeks the light, he exerts himself and works hard. His effort is aimed at learning to handle the
God’s spirit which hovers over the waters and remembers the reality of unity and limitlessness. This means that he learns
to take everything and to place it in his own limitlessness and only observe it. Under that observing look, and with the
effort it takes, new knowledge slowly begins to rise up. That knowledge creates space and acts as a new dimension, as
an expanding firmament. That firmament takes care of the chaos and fragmentation of the physical world (the waters
below) as well as of the chaos and fragmentation of the world of the mind (the waters above): the second day (Mi).
The waters of chaos and fragmentation are separated from the earth of fertile soil in which the seed can be sown. The
seed is the seed of dharma: right thoughts, right feelings, right ideas, right principles, right laws and right understanding.
That right seed ultimately takes root and gives a manifold harvest. This man becomes a veritable horn of plenty. One can
ask him anything and he will always have an adequate and relevant answer. This man has released a great burden of
ballast and has become lighter and it makes his journey much easier. He has developed a creative power and knows how
to use it: the third day (Fa).
Now he stands on the crossroads of country road and main road and also of light and darkness. He can see all pairs of
opposites because his vision has become very clear. His inner light is so strong he has become as the sun and also the
moon. When the sky is clear there is the sun, but in darkness there is the light of the moon. This man is never without light
for he has become light, and a shining example: the fourth day (Sol).
Day 5: Genesis 20-23
[20] And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the
earth in the open firmament of heaven.
[21] And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly,
after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
[22] And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the
earth.
[23] And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
The hallmark of this level is the ability to let everything be as it is. There is no more wish to interfere from a personal
desire or ambition. This way the moving of living things can arise in the inner limitlessness and as a seer this man sees an
abundance of signs in this expanding dimension. This man has taken on a truly cosmic dimension. He knows that the
secret of multiplication division, or sharing, is and that the secret of division the indivisibility of the remainder is. He is
everywhere at home, both on earth and in heaven: the fifth day (La).
Only on the second-last day (step) God creates man in His own image. Man still remains a reflection of God himself.
Therefore there still remains subject and object, duality, of man and woman. Man is still “imprisoned” in creation, but he is
able to completely fulfill that creation from abundance. This ability is based on the polarity of active and passive, with as
neutralizing force the observing look itself. Here abundance automatically rises up and this man knows to leave it at that,
for behind the abundance appears the source itself. This is why he has been given reign over the entire multitude of living
creatures in the universe. That reign is not given to man’s ego based on what that ego thinks it can do and not do. This
man’s only motivating force is Thy Will be done. He is a “good shepherd”. The sixth state has been likened to the
contemplative state of samâdhi. “And, behold, it was very good”: the sixth day (Si).
Day 7: Genesis 2:1-3
[1] Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
[2] And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work
which he had made.
[3] And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God
created and made.
This is the perfect unity, the “unio mystica”. Man no. 7 has completely merged with God and has thereby come to perfect
rest and peace. No duality remains, no separate I comes into view. In this complete freedom only the Creator and
Creation remain as one great unity. He has crystallized a causal body and is therefore a thrice-born. This man and this
Creation have indeed come to fulfillment, for that is the ultimate goal: to fulfill: the seventh day (Do).