Out of the Box Coaching and
Breakthroughs with the Enneagram, Mary R. Bast, Ph.D. 
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved. Revised: January 09, 2012  

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Holy Ideas

According to A.H. Almaas, in Facets of Unity: The Enneagram of Holy Ideas, each Enneagram style is an egoic perspective resulting from loss or absence of the enlightened perception of one of the Holy Ideas:

"Each Holy Idea is a view of reality which reflects an understanding of the wholeness and unity of the world or universe, of human beings, and of the functioning of reality... While perceiving the world through all of the fixations, each individual will perceive the world most strongly through the Holy Idea associated with his or her ennea-type. The fixated mental perspective of each is simply a blind spot, and the specific blindness is the lack of perception of the Holy Idea for that type." 

These very brief excerpts from Facets of Unity give a glimpse of the Holy Ideas:

One – Holy Perfection, the recognition that Reality is inherently perfect, and we are part of that reality, so the purpose of working on ourselves cannot be to try to become better or to make our lives better.

Two – Holy Will, the awareness that Reality flows with a certain force, and the easiest way to deal with this force is to move with it.

Three – Holy Harmony, seeing that all experience is part of the great reality illuminated by the transcendent view. To stop striving, we need only to fully realize we are not separate doers, and spiritually surrender even though we may feel profound vulnerability, fragility, inadequacy, and weakness.

Four – Holy Origin, the perception and understanding that all appearance is nothing but the manifestation of Being; I am connected to Holy Origin and so is everyone and everything else.

Five – Holy Omniscience, which includes all that exists in its various manifestations, yet this diversity does not negate the fact of unity.

Six – Holy Faith, a matter of realizing that Being is the inner reality and inner truth of every human being.  To completely recognize Essence means to recognize the three qualities of satchitananda – it is a real presence, it is intrinsically good, and it is the way things are supposed to be.

Seven – Holy Plan, seeing there is a specific design to evolution and transformation and we don't need to meddle with it; the Holy Work is letting ourselves trust and be in the present.

Eight – Holy Truth, which helps us understand what exists beneath the appearance of things.

Nine – Holy Love, the heart of truth, the quality of lovableness of reality when it is seen without distortion, rather than through the filter of the ego.