Posted by Ryan on February 29, 2000 at 20:22:01:
In Reply to: Law of three...golden key? posted by jfive on February 29, 2000 at 02:05:55:
I've thought about it and stated it before that people of the various enneatypes incorporate the types around them as they become healthier (although people who become psychologically healthier will always keep the same enneatype as their base type). If I were to throw out the crap about the fourth "shadow function" then I'd basically agree with you. You're pretty good at making the obvious seem like something profound, Johnny.
Ryan
> A great thing about the egram is the way
> it can provide a bridge between the core
> of esoteric spiritual ideas in the world's
> religions and the modern western discipline
> of personality psychology.
> The 3 meta-groups of head, heart, gut fill
> the role of 3 interacting basic forces
> creating reality that also find expression
> in the proton, electron, neutron and
> synthesis, antithesis, synthesis, also
> the Christian Trinity, etc.
> Now, the law of 3, and I might as well
> quote J.G. Bennett here, "...exists in very
> many traditions, East and West. We can
> read about it in the Tao Teh King; but perhaps
> the oldest expression of it is to be found
> in the Sankhya philosophy of India, which is
> more than two thousand five hundred years old. The Sankhya teaching about the 3 gunas, or
> qualities of nature, had a profound effect
> on all of Indian thinking. It describes the
> nature of the three gunas -- rajas, tamas,
> and sattwa -- in various ways and says that
> there is a primal state of purity in which
> they are all One. From this One come the mixing
> that produces all the diversity of the world."
> A person who does not make spiritual inner efforts is generally blind to the working of the 3 forces, being only able to see 2 of them
> at a time and hence sets up endless
> false dichotomies. Bennett again, "Because
> of this, he never sees how things really work,
> how they come about, how they can change.
> He is always in a world of pushing or
> resisting and does not see the reconciling
> force. It is only when we can perceive
> through our head, our heart, and our body
> together that the law of three becomes a
> reality for us."
> That seems to be an interesting key,
> a kind of Rosetta stone providing a
> workable way to use the egram to connect
> Jung/Freud/Object relations theory with
> the millenia deep religious traditions.
> Accept momentarily as a hypothesis that
> we all have access to 2 of 3 egram centers.
> This is similar to the Jungian idea that
> we have easier access to our dominant and
> secondary functions but the third is tougher
> and the fourth, inferior function is pretty
> much beyond our conscious reach as it carries
> our shadow and connection to the objective
> psyche.
> By applying the egram and MBTI to ourselves
> we might discover a way to re-incorporate
> some sort of understanding of the relationship
> of all three of the egram centers AS THEY
> MANIFEST IN OURSELVES, and hence can activate
> the third or shadow force moving through our lives. The egram then acts as
> a kind of spiritual map or radar to let us
> have awareness of what is missing in our
> conscious orientation to our lives and that
> otherwise is invisible to us in every situation
> in our lives where we are blocked and
> frustrated by some invisible oppositional
> force that we can't comprehend. What is
> actually blocking us is our mistaken
> dualistic understanding of reality.
> By studying the egram and using it as a
> self-transformational tool we can rebalance
> our inner nature in such a way that we
> can become aware of all 3 forces, at which
> point the deeper implications and possibilities
> of the egram become open to us.