What is the Enneagram?
The Enneagram is an ancient and universal body of knowledge concerning nine fundamental aspects of reality which are reflected within the human being.
Taught and transmitted by various esoteric schools throughout history, the form of the Enneagram we know today offers us a detailed map of nine fixations, or character-types, that allows us to recognize our personality and the way it distorts reality.
The DLT includes the Enneagram as a tool for self-awareness, while enriching this understanding by adding the spiritual dimension of Essence.
Enneagram and Essence
The nine faces of the soul
In childhood, our souls develop an ego structure – the personality – to compensate for the gradual loss of contact with our Essential Nature that occurs during the process of growing up. We internalize images and concepts that “fix” the content of our experience, becoming the lenses through which we see ourselves and our relationships.
In the vision of the DLT, behind each of the nine Enneatypes lies an Essential Quality that the ego is attempting to imitate. This quality is the ideal which our soul aspires to in its most authentic form.
An experiential map of the Enneagram is used in the DLT work as a tool for personal and spiritual transformation. It is helps us understand our Essential Nature, and functions as a tool to help us of reconnect with the Qualities of Being we lost contact with in childhood.
Through the work, we learn:
- the main elements of the Enneagram;
- the fundamental energies of the nine personalities or fixations;
- the relationship between the psychology of each fixation and the Essential Dimension;
- the origin, survival strategies, and characteristics of each fixation;
- the Essential Qualities hidden behind the mask of personality.