NINE: The Domain of Spirituality
The Domain of Spirituality
When we complete the full circle of the Enneagram journey, we reach the Nine space, the Domain of Spirituality. Nine is at the top of the Enneagram symbol, overlooking all other spaces. This is the space that includes and transcends all, incorporating the spirituality of each of the other spaces. Nine is across from the Void, the empty space between Four and Five, the place of struggle where our work is transformed from personal to societal or corporate. These aspects of everything and nothing can be simultaneously overwhelming and paralyzing, making it hard to get anything done. It’s easiest to just go back to sleep.
Body on its own cannot rise to spirit. The personality cannot fix the personality. The symbolic understandings of the Enneagram allow us to carry our inner work to another level. When we complete the cycle at Nine, we have a brief window to decide whether or not we will integrate what we have learned on this last turn around the circle. The fundamental question we must answer at Nine is, “Will you or won’t you do this piece of work that is set before you?”
Polarities
The polarities of the Nine space are sacred and profane. In classical Rome, these words originally referred to the spaces inside and in front of the temple.[1] The space inside the temple (sacrum) was reserved for the gods. The space in front of the temple (profanum) represented the marketplace, the activities of daily life. In this context, profane does not mean crude or blasphemous. It just means of the material world.
Word pairs the describe the Domain of Spirituality are:
| Sacred | Profane |
| Spiritual | Material |
| Mystical | Worldly |
| Cosmos | Chaos |
| Order | Hazard |
| Belief | Doubt |
| Self-Care | Self-Forgetting |
These word pairs distinguish between matter, spirit, and the balancing of our relationship to these worlds. A barrier to this balance is self-forgetting – a loss of connection to ourselves. At Nine, we are not efficient with energy. The movement back and forth between the poles of sacred and profane can be exhausting, but it’s not meant to be. Self-care allows us to step back and return to the work refreshed, but we must remember to come back to our work and not just stay stuck in our laziness.
Order and Hazard
An unusual word pair in this domain is order vs. hazard. J.G.Bennett described and developed the idea of hazard, an element of unpredictability necessary for the working of free will in humans. Hazard, pronounced in this context with an emphasis on the second syllable (haz-ARD), derives from the French hasart, a game of chance that uses dice. Some sources also attribute the origin of the word to az-zahr or al-zahr (“the die”) in an Egyptian Arabic dialect, but this is uncertain. (“Die” is singular of “dice”.)
Hazard builds on a very old idea that the randomness of dice is connected to fate and that winning at dice is a sign of favour from the gods. The evolution of this idea is that an unplanned or unpredictable element in any action is necessary for that action to be truly free. Predestination, the idea that there is a foreordained plan for the universe, does not imply predetermination, the specific working out of that plan. Predestination implies order; freedom from predetermination implies hazard. The divine plan may be predestined, but it is not predetermined. It has an element of free will over which God has relinquished some measure of control.
Spirit of Enlightenment
When the poles of sacred and profane are in balance, the Spirit of Enlightenment can arise and rule over this domain. Enlightenment is the experiential knowing that light, love, and grace permeate the universe. Since Nine is the domain of spirituality, it includes the spirituality of each of the other eight domains. The spirit of each domain elaborates one way that enlightenment is embodied in the world. We can prepare the ground for enlightenment to come by doing our inner work of contemplative practice, but it comes when it will.
If we are out of balance between the two poles, this shows up in our three centres of head, heart, and gut. Our head centre tries to ignore the exhaustion and unclarity that results from imbalance. The heart centre gets caught in a two-pole rhythm of liking or not liking our present experience, which is a very low form of desire. In the gut or body centre, we simply push through the exhaustion we feel.
Balancing Sacred and Profane
When we can balance between sacred and profane, the head centre opens and becomes very spacious. We can approach our experiences with a beginner’s mind and truly say, “I know nothing”. This is very countercultural; in our society we are most valued if we know something well. This is obviously useful in skilled tasks, but the not-knowing of beginner’s mind is essential for our continued growth. We cannot learn something if we already know it, or think we do.
In the heart centre, our desire, our will, is aligned with the divine will. We understand that we are as nothing before the mystery of God. This is not the same as the ego saying, “I don’t matter.” In spirit, I can say, “I am nothing,” yet in the midst of this, I am love and I am loved. This is the mystery of love.
In my body, I do nothing, but do it actively and consciously. The awakened state of the body centre is to be grounded, of the earth. In this state, I can totally inhabit my body, accepting both its strengths and its weaknesses. When head, heart, and body are aligned in this way, any action that follows will be loving.
Inhabitants: The Prejudices
When we cling to either the pole of the sacred or the profane, the Inhabitants that show up are The Prejudices. Prejudice is lazy thinking and a lazy understanding of human nature. Rather than pausing to take in new information and respond consciously, our response at Nine might be to speak in a reactive stream-of-consciousness mode (“rabbiting on”) or in a formulaic mode that requires no new thought (“platitudes”). In these modes of speech, there is no discrimination or shaping of thought before it is spoken. Both are forms of laziness.
The Prejudices prejudge everything:
- “I’ve heard it all before.”
- “Those people…!”
- “Well, what did you expect?”
- “It’s not important.”
- “I’m not good.”
- “Don’t confuse me with facts!”
- “My mind’s made up.”
The Prejudices are very destructive. They shape our reactions before they have time to integrate anything new or alive. They keep us settled and therefore trapped in our minimal way of being. We have the choice of living with The Prejudices or waking up. Through contemplative practice, we can work with our reactivity, balance the poles of sacred and profane, and ultimately achieve union with the divine.
Totems
Religion is a totem of the Nine space. The purpose of religion is to foster enlightenment and liberate the spirit. Much of modern religion is mired in The Prejudices, making this impossible. True religion allows for the polarities of sacred and profane to come together and hold the tension between them.
Board games, with the use of dice (hazard) are totems of Nine. Other totems include churches (cosmos), dance clubs and bars (chaos), and poetry (bringing the material and spiritual together through literal and figurative language).
[1] Frank, A. (2009). The Constant Fire; Beyond the Science vs. Religion Debate. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.