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Hari Prasada: We're really excited today to walk through the dimension of the Enneagram that we consider to be The most important of all I'm with Rasanath. It's great to be with you for this most critical piece of the Enneagram puzzle, the levels of consciousness. Thank you. Hundred. We'll get right into it. Why is this the most important piece?

How does this underpin everything else and everything about our work at Upbuild in working on ourselves to be our best?

Rasanath: Up to your credit, you actually really brought the name to the fore means to uplift one's consciousness. And our whole vent is to understand how the ego, when we really become very intimately aware of our egos, we also begin to see how it covers our consciousness and.

Puts us in, uh, sort of a days where we are acting in ways that we don't want to act. We all have the experience of that. So the levels of consciousness really explains well, why does that happen? So, uh, when usually people approach D Enneagram, and this was true about me when I first started with the Enneagram as well, I was really excited about the types and to know which type I am and.

Which type other people are. There is excitement about knowing other people, which is natural, and at the same time in the process of our, our initial excitement, also sometimes our naive desire to master the personality typology, we actually forget that the most important pointer of the Enneagram is to become very intimately aware of our egos.

To rise above it, and it is the levels of consciousness that really talks about how do we rise above the repeated unhealthy patterns of our egos so that we can become free from our egoic way of showing up. So the vertical dimension of the Enneagram. Which we call the levels of consciousness without really having that vertical dimension of the Enneagram.

We can understand the types, but we lose a lot of the nuance around, well, why do this people of the same type show up differently? And how do we begin to learn to take responsibility for the more unhealthy patterns of hormone type and grow above it? That is explained. By the levels of consciousness, which is why we think, uh, that the levels of consciousness is even more important than understanding the text.

Hari Prasada: Yeah. This subject alone about why levels of consciousness is so, so. It's funny, it's so important to discover why the levels of consciousness are so important. We could have a two hour session just on that alone. And I was thinking about how we love to speak about the differences in the types according to levels of consciousness that, you know, reveals everything.

And just to give like such an extreme example, Saddam Hussein and and Martin Luther King are the same Enneagram type. Osama Bin Laden is the same Enneagram type as Nelson Mandela. So you get a sense of how these types are so rich and there's so much difference between them according to the level of consciousness that is everything.

Absolutely. Uh, which

Rasanath: is also why for us, this was such an exciting framework and unlike so many other typologies that we have experienced even in our own lives. The Enneagram stood out, not just because of the nine types, but because of how dynamic it is on the vertical dimension of the levels of consciousness.

Hari Prasada: Yeah. And this is how we can figure out how to become our best within our type. Like what could be more important. So walk us through what are the levels of consciousness?

Rasanath: This human consciousness is a gray scale, and when we talk about the healthier, brighter sides for consciousness. It's white, it's clean.

We are very aware, and as we go down the levels of consciousness, it gets dark and can get really, really dark. We experience that in the world that we live in now. We see that at any given point, at any given day, the human consciousness tends to fluctuate between the brighter sides and the darker sides.

We have factual experiences. I have factual experiences of that every single day. It happened in the morning. Today. I woke up, I was able to do two hours of meditation in one shot, and then I was running late to our podcast today morning. The heat of in the heat of running late to the podcast, you know, by my wife was trying to brush, you know, my daughter's teeth.

And I said, Hey, this happens every day. You get really late. And I found myself being triggered by that situation. So this just happens. We, we move so quickly from the brightest sides of our consciousness to like feeling triggered, responding in ways that we don't wanna respond. So for the sake of understanding how that is classified, we divide the levels of consciousness broadly to three parts, which we call creative, controlling, and destructive, creative, controlling, and destructive.

The creative consciousness is the healthy, more aware, the brighter side of that spectrum. The controlling consciousness. You could say there is some light there, there is some awareness there, but the capacity to act on my awareness, this speak, and also my awareness is now being tainted by fierce, which are starting to run my my life.

I find myself more and more helplessly giving into my fears, and at the same time in the controlling consciousness, I tend to disguise that as inspiration, which is a interesting nuance and down in the destructive, as the name suggests, it is destructive at this level of consciousness. My actions are completely coming from a place of no awareness and it is destructive both for myself.

Hari Prasada: So give us a little bit more color on each of these. Let's start, you know, just a tiny glimpse into the creative. We'll go from there to controlling and destructive.

Rasanath: The reason why we choose to call the healthy levels of consciousness creatives. Is to bring the aspect of creativity, not like how we think about creativity as in, you know, music or writing or art, but creativity.

Because even in the most difficult situations, I have the awareness to understand all the possible choices available in front of me to respond, and I have the strength to choose that option. That is beneficial for everybody around me and myself, and that takes a lot of creativity. That takes a lot of help.

Now, mind you, the option that I choose may not be comfortable for me to work with, and that's a very important distinction, usually in the creative levels of consciousness. The reason why we call this creative levels of consciousness is because it's almost like I'm, I'm walking against the natural current of my ego.

I'm walking against the national current of my ego. Uh, this is where I can experience the strength of my character. It is not easy, it's not comfortable because in walking against the national current of my ego, I also see my egoic tendencies. I become acutely aware of my ego dependencies, my egoic desires.

Painfully aware of it, but despite being painfully aware of it, that painful awareness only gives me the strength to respond in a way that is free, relatively more free from my natural economic patterns, which is why we call that level of consciousness creative. Again, when we talk about the creative levels of consciousness, we might think about it as like, well, I, I have no egoic desires.

I have no egoic needs. That's not true. It is important to note that in the creative levels of consciousness, we are deliberately, intentionally, willfully walking against the national currents of our ego, and we are very aware

Hari Prasada: of those currents. It's paradoxically the most natural and fulfilling place to live, and yet it's so rare to be there and it's such a struggle when we're there.

At the same time, it's not the happy go lucky experience of life, but it does feel most meaningful. And as you said, free and like, okay, this is as valuable and beneficial as it gets. And wow, is it hard work? I'm sweating, but it's like, uh, the sweat of a workout. Except when you feel like, oh my God, my ego is like taking too much out of me, but I still have to try to be my best.

And then there are moments of real pain, but overall even that is worth it. Totally. Also, what

Rasanath: happens every time we act from that creative place, there is a taste that develops to live in that space. It just, it feels like what you experience after a really good workout. Yeah. And there is certain addictive quality to it that we can experience that and anchor that experience and then live, do that again and do that again.

And even when it gets difficult, there is a way in which, when we remember how that felt like, we develop the strength to live

Hari Prasada: and respond from that creative place. So give us, um, more of a sense of what controlling feels like. What's the controlling consciousness?

Rasanath: So when the waves of the ego become really, really strong and drown us, that brings us to the controlling levels of consciousness and how does that look like?

Our egos need validation from the outside world, and this is the basis of the Enneagram. Every type on the Enneagram needs a specific kind of validation in a specific way, and this is what consolidates the ego. We all need validation. And, uh, when the ego doesn't get its validation, the ego becomes insecure, which is what really brings us to the controlling levels of consciousness.

Not the insecurity, but the giving into the insecurity. Even in the creative levels of consciousness, we will experience that insecurity of not getting the validation, but we know too much. We know how this is an ego game, but in the controlling levels of consciousness. We lose the capacity to see that this is the game of the ego.

And sometimes even when we see it, we lose the capacity to act on that knowledge that this is an ego game. And so when the validation doesn't come, we become insecure. We give into that insecurity and now we are acting on the insecurity. We are almost acting to get the ego, the validation that it needs.

That's the controlling levels of consciousness. And the reason why we call it controlling is because at this level of consciousness, not only are we controlled by our ego, but we also are controlling of other people to give us the validation that we seek. No one likes to be controlled, and this is also the level of consciousness where there are a lot of interpersonal conflicts, painfully.

And even as we become aware of our ego tendencies and we become aware of how we are perhaps causing harm to other people, somehow at this level of consciousness, we feel justified. And there is also a lot of rationalization that starts to happen about. My actions based on insecurities, and as I mentioned earlier at the start of today's podcast, at the controlling levels of consciousness, we actually find ourselves rationalizing even when we become aware.

We justify, uh, our insecurities get justified as

Hari Prasada: inspirations. Thank you, and there's so much unconsciousness that it can actually feel good, especially at the upper levels of the controlling that we can feel like, you know what? I'm getting my ego validation. People like me, things are working. You know, I know how to play in this material world.

I know how to navigate things and things are pretty good, but there's so much suppression and unconsciousness that. It's not helpful and ultimately it will catch up to us, unfortunately.

Rasanath: Absolutely, and as impressive as it looks, and we talk about this a lot, it is the emperor not wearing any clothes. But when we look at that situation collectively from a place of collective consciousness in the world, we see that when everybody is playing the game off the controlling levels of consciousness, we don't even understand.

We are there. We also begin to

Hari Prasada: admire that level of consciousness. Unfortunately, we put it on a pedestal and 99.9% of people are functioning in the controlling consciousness. We say we find ourselves there. Look for yourself in the controlling consciousness. That's where we find ourselves the vast majority of the time.

As you said, we worship that and we strive to find better ways of controlling and make it look more impressive and feel really good about it. That's the tragedy of the way our culture is set up currently, but we have a chance to actually go against that, and if we don't, then we wind up in the destructive.

Eventually it will catch up to us If we keep pushing on controlling and things don't work in our favor, then. Give us just a, a, a brief look into the destructive thank you. At the destructive levels

Rasanath: of consciousness, as the name suggests, it is really destructive. The ego has taken so much control of our real self.

It's running amuck, and at this point in time, I'm so desperate for the validation, or I should say the ego is just so desperate for the validation that it doesn't care about what happens to other people. I'm gonna get my validation at any and all cost. And if it is going to come at the cost of people, perhaps even people's lives, so be it.

And when we talk about the different Enneagram numbers in the creative controlling and the destructive, each Enneagram number, each Enneagram type has a very unique flavor in the creative, in the controlling, and even in the destructive. So some types may look less externally destructive, but it gets pretty dark for all the types and the destructive levels of consciousness.

Hari Prasada: Thank you. So just before we close, give us one way that we can climb up the levels of consciousness and be our healthiest, our best creative selves.

Rasanath: Uh, this question again ties back to how we started. Which is talking about why the levels of consciousness. We consider the levels of consciousness to be the most important dimension of the Enneagram.

The idea here is to become more aware of our controlling behavior and to relentlessly take responsibility for it, which is why this work in true growth. We talk about how true growth doesn't feel comfortable. Sometimes we try to climb up the controlling levels of consciousness. By being in the controlling levels of consciousness, which is okay, just gimme a formula here and, and then I can just like be free from the ego.

It doesn't work that way. The only way that it works is we become very acutely aware of our controlling and our destructive behaviors, as you said, ha We find ourselves in the controlling levels of consciousness and in becoming aware is when we learn how to pick. Relentless responsibility for it. And when we do that, when we take relentless responsibility for our controlling behaviors, we see we start to dip into the creative.

And over time then eventually become free completely from the shackles of our ego. The Enneagram as a tool is exclusively meant for bringing that kind of awareness into our lives.

Hari Prasada: You're speaking my heart, Rasanath. Thank you. Thank you. Fantastic. So there's infinitely more to be said about the levels of consciousness, but we'll close here.

Deeply appreciate this time with you.