Episode 202 Obstacles of Ego, Law, and Relationships

In this episode of The Real Enneagram, we continue our two-part series on overcoming obstacles and challenges in life, focusing specifically on the obstacles posed by our own ego.  We delve into the teachings of George Gurdjieff and the concept of the "fourth way," which emphasizes the importance of the soul in navigating our three centers of intelligence: the head, heart, and body.

We discuss how the ego seeks control, validation, and security through these centers, but ultimately, these pursuits are fleeting and illusory. Instead, we explore how love—the universal law—infuses our experiences and helps us transcend the limitations of the ego. We reflect on the idea that true security and validation come from a connection to the divine, rather than external circumstances.

Throughout the conversation, we emphasize the importance of personal responsibility and the need to view obstacles as opportunities for growth and learning. We also touch on the role of mindfulness and spiritual practices in helping us recognize our triggers and reconnect with the divine love that sustains us.

As we wrap up, we invite our listeners to reflect on the obstacles in their own lives and consider what truths they may reveal about their hearts. Thank you for joining us, and we hope you find inspiration in this exploration of love, ego, and personal growth.

To learn more about the Institute for Conscious Being, visit: theicb.info

Transcript

Scott:
You are now listening to The Real Enneagram, a podcast by the Institute for Conscious Being. To learn more about the Institute and its offerings, visit theicb.info. That's T-H-E I-C-B dot I-N-F-O.

Nanette: Well, welcome back to The Real Enneagram, a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Conscious Being. I'm Nanette Mudiam. I'm here with Dr. Joseph Howell and with Scott Smith. Hey, guys.

Scott: Hi, Nanette. Hey, Nanette. We doing okay today? We're good. I'm good. I can't speak for anyone but me. How are you? I'm very good.

Nanette: I'm excited about today. Well, we don't have that obstacle to get over then, do we? We're here in a two part series on the second week, talking about obstacles and challenges in life that we need to overcome or You know, it's kind of that what what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, I suppose. But this week, we're going to talk about the obstacles of our own ego, what happens in in universal, the universal law of love, and then obstacles in people. So, Joe, you had an interesting reflection that you expressed in our daily reflections, which are emailed out to those who subscribe to that in a free subscription for your daily reflections on the fourth way, which is, I suppose, could be summarized in overcoming the ego as the real obstacle. Can you talk about that?

Joe: Yes, the fourth way is actually the name of George Gurdjieff's teachings. And of course, you know, he's the one accredited with having found the Enneagram at the beginning of the last century in a monastery in the northern regions, probably of Afghanistan or Uzbekistan. They haven't found that monastery yet. But he learned from the spiritual teachers there about our three centers of intelligence, the head, the heart, and the body or the gut. And he also learned that our ego uses those three methods to negotiate this world, and that the ego comes by that on us, so to speak. But he said, there's another way besides those three ways. There's a fourth way, and that is to go the way of the soul, which infuses the spirit into the other three centers of intelligence. So you have four ways to move in the world, but the fourth way uses all the three centers of intelligence, because it adds something different to those centers of intelligence than the ego adds. The ego adds only It's mental manipulation of those centers, because it is a mental structure. But the soul sees each of those three centers as born of spirit, not as a purely mental structure.

Nanette: Okay, so let's break this down, if you can, a little bit. basically, we can kind of summarize that the gut or the body's center of intelligence is mostly looking for control, right? We can say that the heart center of intelligence, which by the way, the body is eight, nine, and one on the enneagram, heart two, three, and four, is mostly looking for relationship, appreciation, validation, And that's what the heart is looking for. And then the mind center of intelligence is really, of course, five, six, and seven, looking for security. So if these are the ego's mental construct, what they're seeking to secure, what is the fourth way, how does it play into those three needs, control, appreciation, and security?

Joe: It infuses every perception with the law of love.

Nanette: Uh-huh, okay.

Joe: Which, as you said earlier, is the overall universal law. And love is what we say God is. God is love. And that love is the most powerful force in the universe. It's the perpetuation of life. It's the evolution of the spirit. As Teilhard de Chardin said, it is the alpha and omega.

Nanette: Well, because that makes me think, just as I was kind of giving that simple summary of the centers of intelligence and what their drives and motives fundamentally are, that no matter what you think, you're never actually in control. You can never find validation in this world outside of God. Security cannot be secured or manufactured. That ultimately, it is love which holds us, that we have to trust in, that the ego will always pursue those things, but it's like, you know, sand slipping through your fingers. You just can't hold it. It doesn't work.

Joe: But it's good.

Nanette: But we think.

Joe: It does some great imitations. I know that in my own life, when my bank account is up, I have a tremendously false sense of security. But it's it's a good sense. It's I feel good that day that I've got enough to cover bills and, you know, maybe more than I thought that I would have and I just feel rich that day. But, you know, it could all go away in a flash. All of our assets can go away in a flash. Our home can go in a flash. Our health can go in a flash. But when we're in the ego, we don't look at that. We only look at what the ego tells us we have. And it wants us to rely on that bank account, that good report from the doctor, the fact that our house has a burglar alarm and a fire alarm. The ego will say, if you do what I tell you to do, you're home safe.

Scott: It wants to create its own security control validation out of temporary things that it's mistaken as static things. But it's also never enough. What is enough security validation and control? Because you could always have a higher balance. You could always have a more sophisticated security system. You could always have a dozen more sycophants whispering quote unquote validations entry here. Like what is enough? The ego, at least the unconscious ego, it obliterates the concept of enough because it's trying to create something that I think is already there. But it's lost the ability to feel that because all these things, definitely security and validation are available in the present moment or available in the divine. And in a way, control, not in the form of I'm going to exert my will on reality and make it the way I want it to be, but maybe in the form of autonomy, like I'm not separate from the divine, but I still have my individuality if I don't have my independence. And I guess that's the tricky one in a way.

Joe: But what I like about what you've just outlined is that you're saying all of the nine types, regardless of which center they're in, if they access love and the non-dual realities, they do not have to look at the ego's false imitations of what security is, or what love is, or what health is.

Scott: Oh yeah, absolutely.

Nanette: And this is where the challenges that we face in our life, the obstacles, the suffering, the loss, whatever it is, it is ultimately there to lead us to our souls, to reveal that though we may not be in control, that we can trust that the divine is. Though we may feel alone, that the universe is still holding us. That though we may have lost all of our security, somehow there is a divine plan and order for our lives.

Joe: That will lift you up.

Nanette: Yeah, because we've all had these moments where we've lost in one of these areas and we didn't think we could survive. And yet we have, and it's because the universe has held us. The soul rose up in the ego's loss and reminded us that there is real love holding us.

Scott: The ego that's desperate for control fears that in the absence of their control there will be chaos. When you can feel that universal love, you know that it's not chaos. It's harmony that comes in when you let go of trying to control every last thing. It's not like you just become like a rag doll or a puppet to the divine. You still have your own agency, but now you're moving with reality instead of against it. away trusting that you're a part of something greater that is in control and you do not need to establish it on your own.

Joe: And in some of Ole Miss's writings it's called the personal essence, the pearl. Yeah.

Nanette: our hearts are ultimately invited to trust at this point. When we come upon the obstacles, we're invited to believe that it's there to serve us. And in a culture which I have to honestly say, in my estimation, is pretty obsessed with blame. Our culture tends to want to blame another. Every obstacle is someone else's fault. Every obstacle is because of government. It's because of this injustice. It's because of this group of people. It's because of this bad boss or this bad parent or, but at some point, we have to recognize that somehow that this is actually here to serve us. It doesn't mean that we may not need some therapy, some healing, some work, but at the end of the day, that we can take personal responsibility for our lives. and to the challenges that have been given to us and trust that somehow there is a divine pinning and a way to move forward. Would you agree with that, Dr. Howell?

Joe: Yes, ma'am. I would agree. It's essential that we understand these underpinnings, as you say. I loved it when you said, no matter what we go through, there's something that's going to lift us up if we realize we're tethered to that. Those who do not realize that they're tethered to that tremendous energy that keeps the cosmos in motion, they can drop out. They can submit to despair. They can submit to bitterness. They can submit to hatred. I was looking at a documentary on television not so long ago and there was a daughter of a famous actress came into her own and she was described by the narrator as a miserable soul who was a hater. She was a hater. And I listened very closely to that explanation. And to me, somebody who opts to have most of their energy go into hating is somebody who is out of the loop of love.

Nanette: Wow. Yeah.

Nanette: It is such a tragedy that so often the obstacles that we do face do seem to manifest as people, right? As the other. And in an angry, reactive ego, we can find hate in ourselves. But when you begin to do this work, you realize, well, first off, sadly, that energy never leads to any positive output. Let's think about any hate that's ever existed in our world, how it led to anything good, never. It really honestly makes me think of Martin Luther King, how he could have responded in hate. It would have been justifiable and understandable the injustice that had gone on for so long. And yet somehow he knew intuitively that the response had to be greater than hate. It had to come in love. It's what sparked the most remarkable movement our country has ever seen.

Joe: And of course it came from his having been a student of Gandhi.

Nanette: Yeah, yeah.

Joe: From that country, India, which has been a yard bed of spiritual growth.

Nanette: Yeah.

Nanette: That really modeled the nonviolent movement, which is obviously what we need so much in this country today, is a resurgence of nonviolence and peace and love, as we've talked about recently in podcast. One thing I find really difficult about the obstacle of people is how often they actually reflect my own heart. It really makes me think of just the Bible story that says, be sure before you remove the speck in your brother's eye that you first take the plank out of your own. That we have to know that the speck and the plank are the same. They're the same. And I don't know that we will overcome our obstacles until we start to see them in and ourselves.

Scott: I think that's where spiritual practices become important, like mindfulness, like things that help us notice when we're triggered, when we're activated by another person. I know in my own experience before I started meditating, I would get triggered by people in my life, usually loved ones. I wouldn't even realize that it was happening until, until we were arguing about it. Mindfulness helps with that. It helps me notice it as it's happening and gives me choice to disengage from that I want that narrative because it's a narrative from my ego, essentially. And more so spiritual practice helps us to experientially realize that tether that you talked about, Joe, that divine love that tethers all of us, because it's for me, at least it can't just be an idea. You know, if it was, this would be so easy. You know, we, we just do one podcast episode and say, Think this idea, think this phrase, I am tethered to divine love. Okay, you're fixed. It has to be like a felt thing that we experience and we can experience it. And it's a process. So whatever it is for you, some kind of spiritual practice is crucial for helping to resensitize ourselves to the reality of divine love.

Nanette: Because those practices, whatever they may be, mindfulness, meditation, maybe yoga, really just going for a walk, sometimes getting your body, it takes us out of that narrative of the ego that is so consumed, that is so selfish, you know, which is so focused on their own needs, wants, desires, my own needs, wants, desires. It's very easy at that point, in that point of the ego, to shift blame to another because then I get to shirk the personal responsibility.

Nanette: In closing,

Nanette: Our egos, the fourth way, the universal law of love, all these face their own obstacles and barriers, but they're actually just the heart's greatest teachers of love. A simple truth that has helped me so much in life is just to look at everything as, well, what is this here to teach me? Every frustration, every small thing or every big thing to just say, oh, this must be here to teach me something.

Nanette: White headaches.

Nanette: Yeah. I mean, it's absolutely true. So, you know, I was a 30-year migraine sufferer. And I really, really, it was my own path and journey, but it was really important to me for some reason, to listen to my body. I didn't want to take more medications. And so I started to ask me, what is this here to teach me? What is the message that the body was telling me? And honestly, it's going to be different. And I am not saying to all migraine sufferers, this is your answer, because it's definitely unique to each individual. But for me, through much therapy, I recognize that a migraine really helped me to escape my circumstances. And as an ego type nine, who likes to avoid conflict, it got me home into a safe dark space. And once I started recognizing that, I could really, really reflect on that when I got into a circumstance in which so I start feeling a migraine and I had to ask myself like, Oh, What is my body telling me? And what I learned, what I learned in that so much is ultimately what this obstacle did teach me is that your body is answering you. We do have motivations for the things that we we do that sometimes we're not even aware of. That's the beautiful insight of this work is that it does help us to be self reflective. All of these spiritual practices, hopefully reveal They reveal our ego in such a way that also comes with a beautiful response of the soul. It's not a, here's your problem and there is no answer. It's, oh, this is who we really are, but also the soul already has an answer. So I believe the soul has an answer to the obstacles that we face, whatever they might be. As we close today, and thinking about these, these obstacles as great teachers of love, here is your inquiry for reflection. Who in your life feels like an obstacle? And what truth about your own heart? Might they be showing you? Thanks so much for joining us.

Scott: Thank you, Nanette. Thank you.

Scott: Thank you for listening to The Real Enneagram, a podcast by the Institute for Conscious Being. To learn more about the Institute and its offerings, visit theicb.info. That's T-H-E I-C-B dot I-N-F-O. The music for today's podcast was composed and performed by ICB faculty member Drexel Rayford.

Nanette: Thanks for listening today. We hope you liked what you heard. If you did, please subscribe, leave a review, and share this with your friends and family.