Enneagram Type 5 The Investigator

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Hari Prasada: To do justice to the fives in the world and, and help us all really understand the importance of this particular personality type. So let's start with the essence qualities, as

Rasanath: always. Thank you. So the Type Five is called the investigator, and at the core the Type Five, the essence of the Type Five is clarity, illumination, and objectivity.

Fives. From my experience are very misunderstood in the Enneagram world and I have also struggled with falling into the stereotype and it's, uh, it's just learning so much more about the five that makes us recognize that the essence of the five is all about the excitement of curiosity. And we have all had experiences in our life when, you know, we get it.

At that moment when I see in my daughter's two years old, there's something that I've been trying to teach her and when she gets it and when she understands how something works, there's just this excitement about that experience and at the core. That is what clarity is. When we have clarity, when we get it, there's something very alive, something very confidence building about knowing how I can keep my steps.

And the five stands for that clarity and the excitement of that curiosity, that unending curiosity to find out how things are and bring that to world. Wonderful. So what is the basic fear? So the basic fear, drawing from the essence qualities, the basic fear of the five is to feel ignorant, foolish fives.

Also, uh, our teacher Russ, who identifies himself as a five, uh, speaks so wonderfully about the basic fear, my place in the world. The fives place in the world is the bringing of knowledge. And that's what I live for, to understand, to explain, to create that clarity for the rest of humanity. And that's what knowledge is.

We confuse many times knowledge. We confuse knowledge with information. And so when we talk about knowledge, we might miss identify that with information. But knowledge has a certain depth and gravitas attached to it. It's understanding something so deeply and I would say the resultant action that that depth of knowledge can bring about, can affect the world very deeply.

We see how scientific discoveries and inventions have done that, and we also see how knowledge about psychology has done that. We also see on its highest knowledge of spirituality has done that. So that's why the, the fear for the five is not having that clarity, being, feeling ignorant, feeling foolish, not being the knowledge bearer for the world.

Thank you. And so the basic desire, if we flip that around, is to feel knowledgeable, is to feel encyclopedic, is how we we describe it. It's just knowing everything. If possible, everything about everything, but at least everything about something. Mm-hmm. And then I have a place in the world because that's what I would like to do.

Hari Prasada: Yeah. So walk us through the levels of consciousness and uh, let's start with the creative,

Rasanath: at the creative levels of, uh, consciousness Fives are scrutinizing and. Curious. They have this, and I explained this when we talked about the essence qualities. There is a childlike curiosity about the five. There is an innocence attached to it.

I am just genuinely interested and that interest may not necessarily have a goal. So to say, I'm not trying to manufacture something, or I'm not trying to build a business. I'm just, just genuinely, and some of us were like, well, if you, what's the point then? Right? But that's the beauty of the five. It's just knowledge for it's knowing.

And we miss so much because we, we have lost that spirit of curiosity in our own lives. It is pretty incredible. To witness how some of the most simple things that I say, things that we take for granted in this world happens. You, you watch a flower bloom, you watch the different shades of a flower, and it's incredible to see how it works.

These are very simple things, and then there are so many more things that are way more complex like the human brain. And we have become a society that is so much focused on application and the results that we derive from application that we have lost touch with the childlike curiosity about,

Hari Prasada: well, how is something working?

In speaking the heart of the five, you're speaking my own heart even though I'm not a five. I relate so intensely to what you're expressing. And one, one example that comes to my mind along the lines of what you described is, so I'm staying at, uh. My wife's parents' home in Toronto for a couple of weeks, and my mother-in-law has a garden that she's tending to, and I saw zucchini grow for the first time in my life and it blew my mind.

I just couldn't believe that that thing came from that plant and that I got to see it happen, and I got to see it from nothing. To something tiny that was like magically appearing to something great that is like hanging on the stem. And it, it, it was so mystifying to me. I kept thinking, my God, I was like, it was intoxicating and I kept wanting to see more.

I was snapping photos of it. I almost took a video even though there's nothing really to video. I was just so enthralled. And that really is the experience of the five. At the creative consciousness. It's that feeling of being enthralled, enthralled all around me. There's so much wonder, there's so much wonder.

We take it for granted. We don't even see it. We're blind to it.

Rasanath: It's sad, right? And when you think about how much we complain about a flight being late, or the internet being slow, and it's understandable that there is frustration because we expect something to function in a certain way. But it also is a reminder for us about the complexity.

Of things that we take so much for granted. If we were to ask the question to anyone, well, how does the internet work? Like it's mind blowing. There are so many things that have to work together in a particular way at a particular time in order for us to write an email, which we

Hari Prasada: take so much for granted.

The fives are so responsible for understanding how things work, even before there's anything like that to work. That's it. They're able to discover and bring things into the world that did not exist prior because they could understand the potential of how something could work if I invented it or if I discovered the technology, which is incredible.

And a lot of

Rasanath: fives will also say this, that they didn't discover something because they were looking to invent something. They invented something because they were experimenting with what they were finding. And then it became something that was just so profound that was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing.

And there is something so powerful about that kind of curiosity. And as you said, enthralled, exhilaration is the word that, the other word that comes to mind when you are a witness to the magic

Hari Prasada: of how things work. I'm reminded of Albert Einstein, so many famous fives who've brought us, you know, incredible insights, realizations, life changing, world changing understandings.

And Einstein is one such five. And he would say, I'm doing this all because I, I wanna understand the mind of God. I wanna under, I just wanna understand how did he bring all of this into being? What was he thinking? How like, I wanna be tracking and on page like, amazing, so inspiring, you know. Just the last thing I'll say on this in terms of like how this relates to us and our stuckness not being able to see that wonder.

I was so refreshed by a coaching session I had that began with founder who I was coaching, a founder who's very, very successful, like wildly successful, and. He took a moment to just show me the garden of where he was staying, very much like the garden we have here in Toronto. And he picked up on the fact that I was in awe of it and I, I had just been in this mode from seeing the garden here and he picked up on it and he was like, oh, let's look around.

And then at the end of the call he said, I'm so glad that I got to show you the garden. And for me that was like, you know, this very hard driving results oriented, super productive, uh, you know. Person who is just like, I'm so happy that I got to show you the garden where I'm staying. Because it's really cool to see all of these things growing.

Like that's the five energy that we need. So true.

Rasanath: And, uh, I'm experiencing a little bit of that because of 2-year-old. Yeah. And the, the kind of curiosity and excitement that they have about discovery and, uh, I feel like I have lost that. The course of my life and I find it very refre, extremely

Hari Prasada: refreshing, and it takes so much patience and sacrifice.

Like, you know, he was taking his time. There was no rush, even though we were in our coaching session and it's his time, there was no rush. And that's the five energy, also that patience to really diligently understand and, and be with things. Thank you. So, so take us into the controlling, how does this get off base with the

Rasanath: ego?

So, um, as with any type, when the ego becomes insecure about its place in the world that doesn't get its validation. And in this case, for the five, the validation is about being the knowledge bear. And it happens many times because fives, they're interested in so many different things. And sometimes the topics that they're interested are, many times the topics that they're interested are not topics that somebody else is interested in, uh, to talk about.

It could be anything. It could be mushrooms, it could be aircraft from World War II and how they were manufactured in their design. It could be anything. And the fives again. This can give us this feel like, oh my God, the fives are obscure. No, they're not. I just think that a lot of the world doesn't have the time or the curiosity.

Yeah. I love that stuff. I'm super fascinated by all that stuff. Yeah. To, to, to, to appreciate. I've heard so many people say, oh, history, that's just boring. Oh my God, I love it. I'm, I'm so, I'm so interested in history. Yeah. And uh, then even within history, there are certain parts of history that. Um, not as interested in as certain other parts, but then there are people who are very interested in certain parts, uh, certain parts of history that then when I'm actually trying to communicate that to somebody else as a five, I am speaking very excitedly about a topic, and fives are typically, they don't necessarily let themselves connect with other

Hari Prasada: individuals.

Uh, in that way don't necessarily convey the excitement that they may be feeling, and, and it may not be an exciting experience on the other end. And this is so important to

Rasanath: understand both for the fives and for other people, that the excitement of the fives comes in the form of this rush of knowledge that may feel like information over, over for the other person.

Vegetation also. And, uh, it's, at many times it's possible that because I have studied so much that even for the five, I have lost touch with the exhilaration of it, that I just become such a, I have basically gathered information about something and yes, I'm curious, but it's, it's mechanical. It's mechanical.

It's started to get dry for myself as well. And now when I'm, when I'm reproducing that other people feel like, oh my gosh, this is obscure. It has the feeling of being obscure. This person is not making a connection with me, and this person is, is just, it's just downloading. And it's also a topic that I'm not really interested in, so, so the natural response.

I would say if we were, no, no. If we know better the Enneagram, and I understand this about the five, we might be more sensitive, but sometimes the natural response and many times the insensitive response can just be excused. My like, excuse me, I need to go to birds. Right? And the five, then feeling very disappointed and feeling like, oh my gosh, I probably came across as stupid incomplete about my sharing of this topic.

And so the fives internalized that as well. I'm ignorant and then I go back further into my world. I buy all the books that I need to buy about a specific topic about mushrooms because I can talk in a very educated way about it. And now when I come out and talk and lecture about this, the world will listen to it, and now it's starting to get the fives isolate themselves.

I'm isolating myself now. I'm just spending a lot of my time in the books and. My mind is on an overdrive and, uh, it's also experimental overdrive. I start to become very impractical with how I'm thinking about things. And a lot of fives at this level of consciousness have also talked about insomnia, where the mind is just thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking, uh, about very obscure things, uh, and putting things that are so disconnected together in its experimental drive.

I just can't stop this, for example, so I can, and Bra Rus likes to, I'm quo him directly because, uh, I feel it could be very personal. He talks about, well, what will happen to the earth's axis till spike two and a half degrees, and how will the earth surface crack when that happens? And you know, the death around and people falling and, you know, brains flattering on the walls.

Uh, like this kind of just unrestricted imagination, is that not destructive? It is starting to get there, it's starting to get dark, but even at the higher levels of the controlling, the best way you can describe it is, uh, there, there is almost, uh, uh, it's, it's starting to move towards the math scientist.

Meaning at the lower levels of controlling, I would say not yet at the destructive. Right. Still the medium to lower levels of controlling. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the image that we

Hari Prasada: give is the man.

Rasanath: Yeah. It's starting to get like, uh, it's starting to get a little crazy. Eccentric is the word that I would, uh, use at this level of consciousness and others experience that.

And also the fives at this level are basically saying, well, the world will never get it anyways. And it's, it's true. They are way ahead of their time. Their, in their discovery. But, but in the process, what they have also done is dismissed. Uh, they're not acknowledging their own feelings of disappointment, and because they don't acknowledge them, they're so out of touch with their own feelings, feelings.

Are very foreign for the fives. They already have a relationship with feelings, where feelings can come in the way of my curiosity and my objectivity to study something so like the threes work, but differently, differently motivated. The fives also put away their feelings. They don't necessarily fully understand feelings as well.

It's foreign for them because of their orientation and in the, in the controlling levels of consciousness going down to the destructive, that just gets amped up even more where I'm not genuinely making a connection, a human connection with myself or with

Hari Prasada: anybody else. We talked about with the four how feelings are not trustworthy.

They're always fluctuating. The fives have that sense of. Feelings are not trustworthy. People are not trustworthy. I mean, people can come and go. They can be right, they can be wrong. They can do this, they can do that. But information is, facts are trustworthy. I go towards facts. Yeah. And they can be extremely artistic.

They're not only scientists, but it's like the, the approach is a certain way. It's based on knowledge and based on experimentation. And there's a process and a way in which I'm trying to. Push the bounds on what we know. That's right. So what can we do then to get up the levels of consciousness again? I mean, it's very dark in, in the destructive.

Do you want to just, you know, yeah. Work on that and then, and then take us up.

Rasanath: No. The destructive levels of consciousness, um, it can, it can become very, very dark for the fives. Fives, they withdraw from the world, just like the force would. And the mind is on such a drive. At the same time, our, our teacher, Russ, likes to say that many times, fives because they just can't, the mind is just so much on a drive at this level of consciousness.

The only way they feel they can stop it is basically by killing themselves. And the way they can, they tend to do that, is by blowing their brains. 'cause that's the only way they can actually stop this, because that's the darkest that it gets to. But then there is also very dark. It can also be dark around, you know, without the killing or, or suicide.

It can also get dark, very dark experiments. Uh, there is an obsession with death because that's the only thing that you can't really know what lies behind it. So the practice, the practice for the fives, it's very important to make a human connection. That means getting to know our feelings and learning to make friendship with our own feelings.

Uh, again, five pride themselves in being objective, but in the process, their knowledge, which can be so incredibly rewarding for the entire world. I can't find an outlet because the channel of giving knowledge is the human connection. And when they fail to make a human connection, the treasure house of knowledge and also their own sense of identity can't be realized.

So the fives have to keep in mind to go that extra mile to make a genuine human connection before they can share their incredible wealth of knowledge. Try to connect with someone on a human way. Do not dismiss their interests. This is where it gets subconsciously. I just dismiss what other people are interested in to just share what I'm interested in.

Just really try to find out more about other people. Fives are naturally curious. If you channel that curiosity with a heartfelt way of making that human connection, then you'll also find that your knowledge has a natural gateway to getting on the other side.

Hari Prasada: Connection means feelings, like relationship means exchange of emotions.

So if we don't, we don't have emotions that we are aware of or comfortable with, then we can't really do that. I was also just thinking, you know, in, in closing, that there's such a difference between knowledge and knowledge which touches the heart. That's right. And when you feel the awe and you feel the enthralled experience.

Of the creative five, and this is available for any of us. We all have that five energy in us. That potential, it is always touching the heart. Wow, there's something that, it inspires in me deeply. I feel something that's right, and when I divorce myself from that because it's uncomfortable or it feels untrustworthy, my feelings then.

It's not very satisfying and I certainly can't engage with other people in a fulfilling way. So just to underscore what you're saying, that really hit me this, uh, in this conversation. Thank you so much. I'm so grateful. Thank you. And it's a pleasure to also just, you know, witness your own transformation and in understanding, connecting with the five.

It's beautiful. Thank you so much. Thank you.