The Wisdom of the Enneagram

by Don Richard Riso

THE CORE TRUTH that the Enneagram conveys to us is that we are much more than our personality. Our personalities are no more than the familiar, conditioned parts of a much wider range of potentials that we all possess. Beyond the limitations of our personalities, each of us exists as a vast, largely unrecognized quality of Being or Presence—what is called our Essence. In spiritual language we could say that within each person is an individual spark of the Divine, although we have forgotten this fundamental truth because we have fallen asleep to our true nature. We do not experience our own Divine nature; nor do we experience others as manifestations of the Divine. Instead, we often become hard, even cynical, treating others as objects to be defended against or used for our own gratification.