Fulfillment Vs. Unfulfillment
Yesterday was a challenging day, sitting with levels of unfulfillment, being curious as to what defenses I have erected against fulfillment. I wanted to run away from this tension, but sat with it. The following will be somewhat disconnected points, but each seems to hold a piece of relevance to this issue.
Yesterday morning Pat and I read the description on Enneagram THREEs, my type, in what strikes us as brilliant writing in Sandra Maitri’s The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram. Maitri’s writing felt dead-on for my type, but was painful to read. She even spoke to this being the hardest type to work spiritual development because we THREEs can fake anything, including our spiritual development. While Maitri’s descriptions felt correct and while I resonated with them from within, they brought me much pain in facing all that challenges me in my spiritual warfare.
This morning in meditation it arose that what up for me was my dualistic perspective of fulfillment vs. unfulfillment — the either/or of my dualistic consciousness. Next I saw that in my THREEness, I was longing for external structure in which I could frame my spiritual development, mark its progress, and take satisfaction in my spiritual growth. But what if the structures I hold onto, Pathwork or otherwise, concepts or practices, are not real or are not ultimate truth. What if I am fixated, my spiritual development arrested, at specific structures along the way? I could see these points of fixation would be my blocks to spiritual growth, for truth is a dynamic moment by moment unfolding, not a fixed thing toward which I am aiming. Besides, truth looks different, very different, at the various stages of development we grow through.
The idea of a structureless existence scares me. I want roots to which I can tie my identity. This existential fear relates to SIXness, the fear point of the enneagram, and one I can also relate to. For this type Maitri quotes Jiddu Krishnamurti in saying, “Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along and particular path.”
I spoke of my finding fulfillment as a Pathwork teacher of helper. How can one teach a pathless path? Pathwork no less? Is this truth part of what blocks me? I notice that I thrive and am nourished by reading Pathwork lectures and applying them to my life in the moment. This is an unstructured way that take in the material. Perhaps my not teaching comes in part from seeing any systematizing of the material as robbing it of its spontaneous power. It speaks differently at each level of consciousness, while systematizing it may lock its message into only one level of consciousness. Recognizing this, perhaps I resist the teaching role, at least in a traditional teaching way.
Pat and I had another great coffee time this morning. When I shared my wrestlings regarding fulfillment, teaching, etc., she wisely remarked that maybe my task is to live the Pathwork rather than teach the Pathwork. If others get anything out of this, fine, but this would be a byproduct to my doing my work. This felt very right to me. I could see that perhaps my blog entries speak to this. Perhaps as I share my wrestlings, my ups and downs, this sharing, with its many ups and downs, twists and turns, my life, is my teaching.
In this moment I am feeling satisfied and happy. I’ve ridden another wave of the journey.