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, after checking into a motel, the man I was traveling with headed for the sauna while I
did some stretching routines to release the
physical tensions of car travel. I "knew" he would doze off in the sauna and come back late for dinner, but I said nothing. When he did just as I
anticipated, a huge anger rose in me. He, 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 for the night, I continued to hang in, feeling as if engaged in an
exorcism. I wasn’t trying to defeat the anger; I simply stayed present to
it. This went on for what seemed like hours. Then suddenly, it let
go, as if my ego said, "Oh, she really means it." I had a glimpse of
enlightenment.
