I Know What Endarkenment Is

I don’t know what enlightenment is, but I know what "endarkenment" is … a way to get endarkened really well is to be narrow, to only see things one way (Charles Tart, Enneagram Monthly, March, 1999).

So many people I talk to describe their own transformation process in terms of shifts in awareness, a sense of stepping outside a frame of reference they'd always held. And it does feel like stepping out of the dark and into the light.

"The most profound moments in my life," said one woman who's an Enneagram Eight, "were actual events where I came out on the other side." Eights are strong, responsible people who avoid signs of weakness or feelings of vulnerability. So you know the enormity of this shift she described: "It had to do with others’ voices being totally eliminated. Their rules for my life were blown out of the water. Gone. Totally invalid. And it scared the f------ shit out of me!" (Eights have strong language!) "It was like moving into my own morality," she continued, "except, before I got there, there was this space of…nothing…I mean it was, ‘F---, now what do I do?’ That state, that existence in the void or the abyss, was terrifying--and yet somewhere in there was exhilaration."

For many of us it's difficult to garner the courage to step into that abyss. It helps me to know where the process is leading—then I can handle the pain that arises as I "see" myself:

At the first level (of development) people simply realize … how much of the time they spend on automatic pilot. The second level of insights are … psychodynamic or personality revelations. People begin to see more clearly patterns to their motivations and behavior … There can arise a clear vision of the dissolution of self from moment to moment, and this often leads to a realm of fear and terror … Later there arises … a spontaneous process of letting go of personal motivation, and … a vision of the true connection between all of us (Jack Kornfield, "The Seven Factors of Enlightenment", pp. 56-59 in Paths Beyond Ego)

Understanding your Enneagram style can be enormously helpful as a roadmap for what automatic patterns to observe. One psychological pattern I discovered in myself as an Enneagram Nine, for example, was how I'd made myself passive-aggressive by setting myself up to feel discounted. This usually happened when I’d failed to state my needs clearly (it’s difficult for Nines to know what they want). Then, when someone failed to read my mind and act on my needs, I became passive-aggressive and the other person felt I'd set up a trap. And of course, I had.

I readily identify with Tart’s statement, " I know what ‘endarkenment’ is!" We all do this. We set up and feed into interpersonal systems that play out and reinforce our narrow views. The trick is to see the truth about ourselves. Our egos would have it otherwise.

On a trip years ago with someone I dearly loved, after checking into a motel he headed for the sauna while I did some yoga routines to release the physical tensions of car travel. As he left I "knew" he would fall asleep and come back late for dinner, but I said nothing. When he did just as I anticipated, a huge anger rose in me—my cue that ego was becoming very involved. My friend, of course, had done nothing "wrong"—he was simply fatigued from a long day of driving. I stayed with the anger, sitting quietly through dinner, neither acting on the anger nor suppressing it. Later, after he fell asleep, I continued to hang in, feeling as if engaged in an exorcism. I wasn’t trying to defeat the anger; I was trying to stay centered and not let it wrestle me down. This went on for what seemed like hours. Then suddenly, it let go. It was as if my ego said, "Oh, she really means it." And in that moment I "saw" how my pattern had played out.

Why go through this? It can be painful. "Because it’s real," says my Eight friend, "Because it’s true, because that’s what it is!"