“The great gift of the Enneagram is that it describes who you are not. It shows the veiling of pure, pristine consciousness by habits of egoic identification. When these habits of mind are exposed, there is a clear choice to end all false identification and realize your true nature. When there is a willingness to confront the basic lies that go into the creation of the ego, the Enneagram is a wisdom mirror, pointing to that which the mind tries to avoid.” —Eli Jaxon-Bear. Fixation to Freedom: The Enneagram of Liberation.
Image by John Hain from Pixabay
True Nature or Character Fixation
Everyone wants to be happy. It is part of the human condition to want to feel secure, enjoy life and be fulfilled. So why are so few people fulfilled and filled with love and happiness? We tend to blame our circumstances. If only we had more, or better or different. So we go about accumulating more, better and different, whatever the desired objects may be. For some it is money, for others success, for others family, or pleasure and for others security. Yet the pursuit of these goals has never led to true fulfillment. The only obstacle to true happiness and fulfilment is a mistaken identity rooted in suffering.
The Enneagram of Liberation was developed by Eli Jaxon-Bear as a reference to the nine different egoic masks of character fixation. Used in the service of freedom and love, the Enneagram of Liberation is a sacred tool, a potent vehicle to uncover everything that you have mistakenly identified as yourself. Once this false self is completely seen through, what is revealed is your true self: the undefinable silent ground of being—pure bliss, peace and happiness.
Graphic Credit: The Faceman
A Brief History of the Enneagram
Jaxon-Bear reflects on the Enneagram’s rich history, “It starts with the first Greek philosopher, Pythagoras around 500 BC. He invented the symbol to explain certain universal laws of mathematics and vibration. He started the first mystery school, and, while Pythagorus never wrote anything down, the Enneagram first appears in the notes of one of his students.”
In the early part of the 20th century, the Enneagram model was brought to the western world by Armenian spiritual teacher, George Gurdjieff, who claimed to have learned it in the mystery schools.
In an excerpt from a transcribed document of his public meetings in London and Chicago in the early 1920s, Gurdjieff says, “You wish to know yourself as a man, but you are not a man yet, only a machine; so, you must begin to study yourself as a machine.”
In 1987, Eli Jaxon-Bear published his first book on the Enneagram entitled, Healing the Heart of Suffering: The Enneagram of Liberation. Jaxon-Bear writes that at the time, “there was only one other [book] available on the subject, written from a Jesuit perspective.” He acknowledges Oscar Ichazo (1931 – 2020) as the modern father of the Enneagram. Ichazo, a Bolivian-born philosopher, was the first to link clearly defined psychological patterns to the nine points of the Enneagram.
Jaxon-Bear continues, “Claudio Naranjo learned it in Ichazo’s Arica Institute, in Chile, and brought it to the U.S. I learned it from Claudio and his students, but saw that calling it the Enneagram of Personality was a fundamental flaw. It did not describe personality but character fixation. People with the same character fixation can have very different personalities. From this the Enneagram of Liberation was born.”
Image by Please Don’t sell My Artwork AS IS from Pixabay
The Enneagram of Liberation as a Vehicle for Self-Inquiry
The Enneagram of Liberation is taught at the Leela School to support the awakening of all beings. If you are ready for deeper realization, you can discover how your psychological structure creates a false sense of self. The movements of mind, emotions, and the physical body, as they show up in your circumstances, become clear, and you can see how these movements reflect the mind’s story of “me and my life.”
In the exploration of the fixated egoic trance, there is the possibility to discover what is not fixated, and in that discover the deeper truth of who you are. Therapists attending the Leela School Enneagram of Liberation course can discover how useful it can be to recognise a client’s fixation, as well as discovering ways to work with different fixations.
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To join the upcoming sacred Enneagram of Liberation retreat on Thursday, 28th July please visit: https://leela.org/shop-all/fundamentals-of-the-enneagram-seeing-yourself-in-the-wisdom-mirror-retreat-with-eli-lisa-and-jared/
https://www.healing.echo.net.au/the-leela-foundation-and-the-leela-school/
By Charlene Russom.
Eli Jaxon-Bear is the author of The Awakened Guide, An Outlaw Makes It Home, Wake Up and Roar, Sudden Awakening, and Fixation to Freedom: The Enneagram of Liberation. He has worked as a mailboy, dishwasher, steel worker, teacher, and organic farmer. He was a community organiser in Chicago and Detroit before entering a doctoral program at the Graduate School of International Studies in Denver, Colorado. He currently resides in Ashland, Oregon, with Gangaji, his partner of 45 years. Eli meets people and teaches through the Leela Foundation and the Leela School.
