Russ Hudson – The Enneagram of the Virtues Advanced Program

Most of us have rigid ideas about who we are. Yet, through what the Buddhists call “the right view,” you can find a path to your soul’s development, and in this first module, you’ll discover the deeper perspectives of the Enneagram, which will give you a more expanded view of yourself.

You’ll explore the 3 Centers of the Enneagram (Heart, Head and Body) and their role in the transformational process. Russ Hudson will show you how the centers work together either to create egoic patterns, and illuminate the natural state of relatedness that opens you to experience a deeper, richer sense of your humanity.

Understanding the practical realities of life and the ways you may unconsciously navigate them opens the door to nondual states of awareness.

In Module 1, you’ll discover:

• The overall schema of the 3 Centers and their necessary role in the transformational process
• Perspectives and methods for creating practices that support your work with type structures
• The relationship between your understanding of the Enneagram types and cultivation of presence and awareness
• The specific relationship between the key terms of Enneagram teachings: Passions, Fixations, Virtues, Holy Ideas and Instincts
• How presence in the body and with the Instincts is the key to shifting the heart and mind to deeper ground
• How the Virtues and Holy Ideas reflect the perspectives and qualities of people who have “done the real inner work”

The three basic Instincts as described in Enneagram theory and in Fourth Way teachings are nature’s intelligence acting through us. When these instinctual drives combine with your primary Enneagram pattern, it produces a primary “subtype,” with a particular set of behaviors.

First, though, it’s important to recognize the Instincts as specific energies and sensations in the body. In this module, you’ll explore sense of all three drives and how they manifest in particular behaviors in your daily life. While one of these drives may be more prominent than, all three are operating in you in some way.

A big part of inner work is learning to recognize the deeply ingrained habits in relation to your instinctual drives — and to acknowledge the areas of life you’ve unwittingly neglected.

As you develop awareness and more balance among the Instincts, you create a stable platform for opening to the deeper mysteries of your heart and mind. From this foundation, you can more easily integrate these expansive, spiritual experiences into daily life.

In Module 2, you’ll discover:

• The innate life qualities called Instincts — and how they appear in nature and you
• How to recognize and experience the deep qualities of Instincts as felt sensations, which are part of your body’s wisdom
• 9 Zones within the Instincts that reveal different arenas of life in which these natural intelligences play out
• How the core suffering of the heart shows up in the Instincts, and interferes with their natural functioning
• How to create a set of customized practices for working with the Instincts and creating better balance between them
• How the Instincts are transformed from supports for the ego, to support for your soul realization and maturation

Engaging in the nitty-gritty work being present to your instincts and the entrenched habits around them, reveals an important truth: Your are more than your patterns.

Here, a peaceful spaciousness opens up, giving you more freedom from which you can actually shift more behaviors. The pivot of this balancing act is of course the heart, and the transformation of the reactive, suffering heart to the qualities of the Virtues.

This module will focus on the transformation of mind — from inner chatter boxes and dull states of consciousness, to bright, peaceful and spacious qualities of direct knowing.

These qualities are referred to as the Holy Ideas, nine perspectives or vantage points of nondual awareness or of the Higher Intellectual Center, George Gurdjieff’s term for the Illumined Mind.

The Holy Ideas aren’t to be strived for; nor is their a finish line in this process. Yet, as you bring more presence to the habitual patterns of your thoughts and perceptions, alternative views of reality can empower you to open to a much broader range of understanding and response, softening rigid ego patterns, without rejecting them.

In Module 3, you’ll discover:

• The Holy Ideas — what they are and what they are not
• The Holy Ideas relationship to the Virtues and the Essential Qualities or Gifts of each of the 9 types
• How these deeper states of consciousness or nondual awareness relate to your usual mind and mental patterns, described in Enneagram teachings as the Fixation
• Insights and practices to help you transform chatter and dullness, to an ability to truly think, be internally quiet and know directly and spontaneously
• The Law of Three which you discern ordinary knowing from growing awareness of the deeper qualities of Mind
• Body-centered principles and techniques for working with the Instincts, which supports an opening to Higher Mind and help you live truly in the moment

This module will take you well beyond fixed concepts of yourself. You’ll explore the incredible range of human experience — from deep suffering and desperate egoic-grasping to sublime states of freedom and illumination.

Accepting and presencing the full range of your humanity is the fastest path of development. The transformation from the suffering and reactivity of the Passions to the alchemical gold of the Virtues is the pivot of this process.

It would seem at first that the world of the Instincts and the broad freedom of the nondual states of awareness could not possibly be related. And you might be tempted to just leave the messiness of the instinctual world behind for the wild blue yonder of your unconditioned consciousness. Or, you may view this “nondual stuff” as too abstract or woo-woo, and what you want are tools to help you deal with the challenges of your work and relationships.

Actually, spiritual traditions have grappled with this paradox of human nature since the beginnings of culture, and have attempted to handle it in different ways.

The Christian mystery has at its core this understanding — the Divine made human and personal. The ancient Egyptians talked about the struggle between Horus (Christ Consciousness) and Set (Unbridled Instinct) and the necessity of their resolution.

Qabalistic teachings illustrate this paradox in Divine marriage between Keter and Shekinah (or Malkuth). And the Taoists saw the role of the true human being as the place of heaven and earth coming together. And on and on.

So at its profoundest level, the Enneagram is about this mystical marriage — the coming together of the Divine and the Earthly in your own heart.

In Module 4, you’ll discover:

• The Virtues — what they are and what they are not
• The relationship of the Virtues to the Holy Ideas and the other essential qualities of the types
• The relationship of the Virtues to your usual mind — described in Enneagram teachings as your Fixation
• How to transmute the chatter and dullness of “normal” states of consciousness into the ability truly think, be internally quiet and know directly and spontaneously
• How the Law of Three helps you discern between (and navigate) ordinary knowing and your growing awareness of the nondual reality
• Ways to work with your body and instincts to support you in opening to your Higher Mind and living truly in the moment

The Point Eight is not just a kind of person, but an overall principle of life and a quality of presence. In this module, you’ll explore the particular Passion of Point Eight — Lust, perhaps most easily understood as a tendency to excess and over-effort — and how it expresses itself through the three Instincts of Self-preservation, Sexual (Attraction) and Social.

For people with a dominant Eight pattern, this module will help pinpoint areas of focus, while those who have other dominant patterns will still recognize some of these tendencies.

Regardless of your dominant type, you’ll discover the value of being compassionately present with the underlying hurt and pain at the core of Lust — which is the key to transmuting it into the Virtue of Innocence — a powerful open-heartedness.

This process is aided by seeing how certain tendencies in how you relate to the Instincts keep steering you away from the transformative process and maintain business as usual with your ego patterns. By approaching the patterns from both directions — from the heart and from the Instincts, the process becomes easier and more powerful.

In Module 5, you’ll discover:

• The real meaning of the Passion of Lust — what it is and how can you work with it
• The three basic patterns of Instincts with Lust: the Self Preservation Eight, the Sexual Eight and the Social Eight
• How to work with balancing your instincts with relation to Lust
• The natural state of aliveness and realness — a basic element of authentic presence
• The core suffering of the heart that is at the root of the Passion of Lust, and how it can be healed and transformed
• How the qualities of Innocence and Mercy facilitate your liberation from outmoded habits and beliefs
• Some of the deeper psychological issues at work in these patterns
• The resolution of the primary inner conflict in Point Eight

The Holy Ideas open you up not only your thinking, but your perceptions of reality. They uproot many of your automatic assumptions, and while they might seem strange at first, they’re ways of looking at things you’ve likely experienced many times. The Holy Ideas correspond to seeing the world more in the way even high school science reveals, which is quite unlike the “common sense” reality we muddle along in most of the time.

The more you’re touched by the Holy Ideas, the more the limited nature of your thinking, or Fixation, is revealed. In this module, you’ll explore the effect of the “living truth” upon your thinking.

As you discover how to be more present to your thoughts and feelings, what effect does the living truth of the moment have upon your thoughts and perceptions? How does this affect your heart?

As Truth liberates you from old views of yourself and of reality, it’s easier to engage new behaviors that support authentic balance and the fuller expression of your gifts.

In Module 6, you’ll discover:

• The real meaning of the Fixation of Objectification, and why this term is preferable to Vengeance, the traditional term for the Fixation of type Eight
• The nature and experience of Holy Truth — what is it, what does it feel like and how do you recognize it?
• The relationship of the Holy Truth to traditional teachings of nondual consciousness
• How the Holy Truth can liberate you from objectification
• The Virtue (Innocence) of type Eight also helps reveal the Holy Truth
• How the Holy Truth helps heal your heart from Lust, create inner freedom and work more skillfully with your instinctual drives
• The relationship between your awakened instincts and deeper realization of the Holy Truth

In this module, you’ll look at underlying architecture of Point Nine, both for people with a dominant Nine pattern, and for the Nine in all of us. You’ll look at how the particular Passion of Point Nine — Sloth (or Inertia), often seen as a tendency to disengage one’s full attention and awareness from the particulars of the moment, expresses itself through the Self-preservation, Sexual or Attraction energy and Social Instincts.

For people with a dominant Nine pattern, this will help pinpoint areas that need more of your time and kindness and attention, while those who have other dominant patterns will still recognize some of these tendencies.

You’ll then look at how being compassionately present with the underlying hurt and pain at the core of Sloth begins to alchemically transform it into the Virtue of Engagement — a robust, powerful devotion to the present moment — choosing to be fully here with all of your capacities and qualities.

This heart process is aided by seeing how your unconscious habits with the three Instincts keep steering you away from the transformative process and maintain business as usual with your ego patterns. You’ll look at how these seemingly diverse processes are all really part of one harmonious unfolding of consciousness.

In Module 7, you’ll discover:

• The real meaning of the Passion of Sloth — what it is, what if feels like and how can you work it (Sloth is not laziness!)
• The three basic patterns of Instincts with Sloth: the Self Preservation Nine, the Sexual Nine and the Social Nine
• How to work with balancing your instincts with relation to Sloth
• The natural state of harmonious, grounded presence — the sense of wholeness and flow with life
• The core suffering of the heart that is at the root of the Passion of Sloth, and how it can be healed and transformed
• How the quality of Engagement facilitates your liberation from outmoded habits and beliefs, and why Russ uses the term Engagement rather than Action
• Some of the deeper psychological issues at work in the patterns of Point Nine
• The resolution of the primary inner conflict in Point Nine

In this module, you’ll look at the nature of Holy Love — the sense that all that you are is held in presence, and all that exists is also held in presence. As you notice this, your nervous system naturally relaxes and you’re able to let go of many defenses and old ideas. What effect does the perception of the holding quality of presence have upon your thinking?

Love here does not mean romantic love or attachment. It is more the perception that there is something kind and benevolent at the heart of reality, but not in the way your ego might usually imagine such things. What happens in your experience when you feel the holding quality of life? What happens when you really take in the stars at night?

As you discover how to be more present to your thoughts and feelings, what effect does the holding of those very same thoughts and feelings have upon your experience of reality?

How does this affect your heart? As Holy Love liberates you from old views of yourself and of reality, it’s easier and easier to relax past the places where you could not yield or shift your habits. You can engage new behaviors that support your true purpose in this world.

In Module 8, you’ll discover:

• The real meaning of the Fixation of Ruminating, and why this term is preferable to the traditional Indolence
• The nature and experience of Holy Love — what is it, what does it feel like and you do you recognize it
• How this concept may relate to other traditional teachings of nondual consciousness
• How and why Holy Love begins to liberate you from ruminating
• How the essential quality of Point Nine also helps to reveal the nature of Holy Love
• How the realization of Holy Love supports the healing of the heart from Sloth, and creates inner freedom to work more skillfully with your instinctual drives
• How Holy Love and the Virtue of Engagement are related and help each other
• How the awakened Instincts support deeper realization of Holy Love

In this module, you’ll look at the particularities of Point One, both for people with a dominant One pattern, and for the One in all of us. You’ll explore the Passion of Point One — Angry Resentment. This Fixation often shows up as exasperation and frustration when the the self or the world keep failing an ideal.

You’ll explore how the Passion of the One expresses itself through the three Instincts. What is Resentment in Self-preservation? What is Resentment in Sexual or Attraction energy? What is Resentment in Social Instinct?

For people with a dominant One pattern, this module can help to bring attention to areas that need more of your time and focus, while those who have other dominant patterns will still recognize some of these tendencies.

You’ll then look at how being compassionately present with the underlying hurt and pain at the core of this Angry Resentment can transform it into the Virtue of Serenity — which allows you to respond with full-heartedness, rather than reacting, to difficult or unpleasant situations.

This heart process is aided by seeing how your unconscious habits with the three Instincts keep steering you away from the transformative process and maintain business as usual with your ego patterns. You’ll look at how these seemingly diverse processes can work together seamlessly as part of your natural development.

In Module 9, you’ll discover:

• The real meaning of the Fixation of Resentment — what it is and how you can work with it
• The three basic patterns of Instincts with Resentment: the Self Preservation One, the Sexual One and the Social One
• How to work with balancing your instincts with relation to Resentment and frustration
• The natural state of goodness and soul integrity — the sense of sacredness that you feel whenever you open your heart to your present experience
• The core suffering of the heart that is at the root of the Passion of Angry Resentment, and how it can be healed and transformed
• How the quality of Serenity facilitates your liberation from outmoded habits and beliefs
• Some of the deeper psychological issues at work in the patterns of Point One
• The resolution of the primary inner conflict in Point One

In this module, you’ll explore the nondual experience described as Holy Perfection — the sense that any moment you’re truly awake in reveals an underlying goodness even when difficult things are happening. In this state of presence, your natural impulse is to align yourself with this goodness and resonate deeply with the sacredness of the moment.

Perfection isn’t a static and stable condition or the absence of problems. Rather,
It describes the presence-based perception of the natural order and goodness and its unfolding in the world.

As you discover how to be more present to your thoughts and feelings, how does being in touch with the implicit goodness and intelligence of the moment affect your thinking and relationships? Do you treat yourself and others differently as a result? How does this affect your heart?

As Holy Perfection liberates you from old views of yourself and reality, it’s easier to trust the unfolding of life and let go trying to control your experience. You become a vehicle for or an ambassador of the Sacred in your life.

In Module 10, you’ll discover:

• The real meaning of the Fixation of Judging, and why this term is preferable to Resentment, the traditional term for the Fixation of the One
• The nature and experience of Holy Perfection — what does it mean and feel like and how do you recognize it?
• How Holy Perfection may relate to other traditional teachings of nondual consciousness
• How and why Holy Perfection begins to liberate you from judging and evaluating everything
• How the essential quality of Point One also helps to reveal the nature of Holy Perfection
• How the realization of Holy Perfection supports the healing of the heart from Resentment, and creates inner freedom to work more skillfully with your instinctual drives
• How the Holy Perfection and the Virtue of Serenity are related and help each other
• How the awakened Instincts support deeper realization of Holy Perfection

In this module, you’ll look at the opportunities and challenges of Point Two, both for people with a dominant Two pattern, and for the Two in all of us. You’ll explore the Passion of Point Two — Pride, often seen as a denial of personal needs and vulnerabilities, and a tendency to project those needs onto others and how it expresses itself through the three Instincts. What is Pride in Self-preservation? What is Pride in Sexual or Attraction energy?

What is Pride in Social Instinct? For people with a dominant Two pattern, this can help to pinpoint areas that need more of your time and focus, while those who have other dominant patterns will still recognize some of these tendencies.

You’ll then look at how being compassionately present with the underlying hurt and pain at the core of Pride begins to alchemically transform it into the Virtue of Humility — a heart that embraces without shame your human frailties, needs and limitations.

This heart process is aided by seeing how your unconscious habits with the three Instincts keep steering you away from the transformative process and maintain business as usual with your ego patterns. You’ll look at how these seemingly diverse processes can work together as a unified flow of your natural development.

In Module 11, you’ll discover:

• The real meaning of