Classroom Talk
Summer 2001 Archive
Essence? Don't you believe it! Posted by John on September 05, 2001 at 23:07:34:
In Reply to: Re: Essence posted by lou on September 04, 2001 at 16:50:12:
This *spirited* discussion about "essence" catches me by surprise! I'm so glad it has come up, because I see at once that there's nothing else as
important right now for the good of the whole class as this *golden* chance for me to clear this issue up now, once and for all!
Yippee! Now . . . . . how the heck am I gonna do that? Heh-heh.
First of all, I'm surprised when anyone seems to suppose that I might be asking you students to believe in the existence of anything. I do not. This is
not a class where you are asked to believe in *anything*. Lou has got it right. Everything that can be learned in our class can only be learned through
your own aware observations.
So I'm not asking any of you here to believe in the idea of an essence (which plays such a key part in the model of a human being that is used in the
explaining of the awareness game). What I'm trying to do is coach each of you to be able to see essence on your own, in high-relief, *tangible*, obvious
and apparent, in your own direct experience of it.
By now, each of you has probably got some kind of fixed attitude about the meaning of the word "essence" that you've gotten out of the different
spiritual study backgrounds that you've come out of. Perk, for instance, uses it in an entirely different way than I do, based on a Sufi model, and
probably close to the way Almaas writes about it, whom so many of you love and admire as a teacher of awareness.
I remember now, many, many years ago, when I decided to use this term in the awareness game. It was a mistake. I did it to imitate Gurdjieff, who
juxtaposed "personality and essence" in a way that seemed similar to the way that I intend to do that here. Notwithstanding, "Gurdjieff Work" is also
largely grounded in Sufi teachings, and, serendipitously, in the use of the Enneagram, too. Yet Gurdjieff seems to juxtapose personality and essence in
the way that I am intending here anyway! I think both of us may have done this in an effort to make the esoteric idea of essence more tangible and
concrete for students.
I think it's safe to say that Perk has learned to use the term essence in two ways when he's been talking with me over the years about mysticism in
daily life—in the way he prefers, in his daily Sufi practice, and in the different way that I use the term . . . . which I presume is quite understandible
and logical to him, as well. I wish it could be the same with the rest of you here. Go ahead and think of essence the way that you ordinarily think of
essence, but, in our class, think of it differently in the way that I use the term, as well.
This is what the term "essence" means to me, in the coaching of this game: Essence is the underlying natural strengths and qualities that we are born
with. These strengths and qualities are obvious and apparent when they are seen (if a student knows what they look like). They are underlying the
usual patterns of ego-driven personality that are going on more conspicuously during so much of our daily lives.
As I said, it is apparently a mistake that I once was so enthusiastic about Gurdjieff's model that I adopted "personality and essence" as juxtaposing
terms for my own use. Gurdjieff could "get away with it." And I admire his model as much as I ever did . . . more! But I'm not getting away with it,
right here and now. {big smile} Or else this confusion wouldn't be around. (And I think I can expect, in my coaching perspective, that if one of you is
confused about any point, there are five or six more of you around here who are confused about it too, within our small population in Classroom Talk
and the Bleachers.) [Daily visit numbers are running 50% higher on the Hitometer this semester now, by the way.]
Instead of using the term "essence," I would be better off if I'd simply used my definitition of it, "natural strengths and qualities." Then, in our
awareness game terminology, instead of referring to personality and essence, I could just be speaking of personality and natural born strengths. And
our wheelbook would be called: "The Personality and Natural Strengths Wheel." Can you all dig that?
That's all I mean by the term "essence." In Perk's preferred perspective, essence is *beyond* both personality and natural strengths, a quintesential
union with the totality of it All. Allah is great. And he also understands what I mean when I say "essence" here. . . . . .
Oh, Lordy! I hate to even think of the job of going back through all of the classes in this website and substituting natural strengths every place I've
said essence. I wish I had caught on to this problem sooner, and could do that in retrospect. But at least I could be more clear about this from this
point onward. Heh-heh. Yet *another* warrior task for yer ol' Coach to undertake now (along with monitoring equivocating) as a mindfulness
challenge in the interest of change, change from a weak coach to a strong one, and to better serve all of you. Hurray!
So, best of all for our purposes here, let's forget all of those definitions of "essence" that all of us have become conditioned to in the past (including me),
and stop worrying if essence exists or not. Don't you believe it, please! All I'm asking of you students when you are studying here is to see if you can
start catching on to what I mean by the *obvious* natural strengths and qualities that you were born with . . . . . . the inborn strengths and qualities
that underlie those obvious aggressive and passive patterns of your ego-driven personalities.
Rob, what are the natural strengths that you were born with? What do you do well? What are you naturally good at? What makes you hum and
"sail along" when you are home, and at the office, and out in the world of people? Jeff? Lou? Class? I maintain that all of you were born with
certain recognizeable strengths and qualities. I say that everyone else has a certain amount of those same strengths and qualities as you . . . but that
you were born with an extra big helping of certain strengths and qualities that stand out in you, if you can discover them . . . if you can remember
them, as Deirdre put it the other day.
And the awareness game is about remembering these "essential" strengths and qualities, and deliberately playing them in the game of life, on purpose,
instead of letting the knee-jerk reactions of your ego-driven personality run the whole show by sheer conditioning.
Before you can remember the natural strengths and qualities you were born with, you have to recognize them, know what they are—not in some
belief in an ideal fantasy, of course—but in the obvious characteristics of their real-world existence, that you can *see* when you pause and take an
objective look.
In the wheelbook in the Playground, I've attempted to suggest what eight fundamental types of human strengths and qualities look like in the real
world—eight forms of "essence," I've called it there.
If you go to the first pages of Essence wheels in the wheelbook, you will see that the characteristics given there are quite basic. 1. Strength (going
around the wheel counter-clockwise), 2. creative imagination, 3. wisdom, 4. artistic sensitivity, 5. endurance, 6. inspiration, 7. tenderness, 8.
responsibility.
These very basic qualities could be expressed as: 1. the ability to stand up, move forward, and do it. 2. the ability to think and conceptualize ideas
about it. 3. the ability to weigh, measure, and balance it, and make logical sense of things. 4. the ability to add fine touches of beauty to it. 5. the
ability to make it easy, and to get enough rest. 6. the ability to be excited and to follow new ideas. 7. the ability to care very deeply about it. 8. the
ability to recognize what needs healing and the natural concern to nurture others.
As I say, we all have some of each of these in our make-up. If we didn't we couldn't get through our lives. And each of us is a specialist, you could
say, in several of these specialized strengths.
Each one of you in this class has more innate energy in several of those areas than in the other areas. Each of you have a different profile of obvious
skills and talents (I might have used "natural skills and talents" for my juxtaposting term here, instead of "essence" — personality and natural talents—
i.e. the Personality and Natural Talents Wheel). Every one of you has got some amount of all eight of these qualities, or talents. But each of you have
got bigger helpings of talent in several of them.
If you can tie your shoes, you've got some Can Do Person/Dictator in your make-up. If you can drive a car then you've got even more. Do you see
what I mean? Make note of that. But if you're one of those people who can step up at the last minute when nobody else is doing it, take hold, and do
the competent, hands-on things that make a real-time gathering happen (like Suz did for us awhile back with Instant Messenger), then you've got *
talent*. You've got a big helping of can-do-ness in your make-up. You are more reliable to step up as a competent person than the next several people
who come along. People learn who they can turn to and rely on for that specialized Can-do quality. Do you all see what I mean?
Go to those Essence wheels, all of you, and check them out, if you will, please. See what the specific characteristics are of these eight types of Essence,
these eight types of strengths and qualities.
Can-Do Person: strength . . . being able to overcome things manually . . . pushes out, picks up, puts together . . . walks, takes hold of things,
manipulates them, and *makes*! If it takes strength, if it takes boldness, the Can-Do person can step right up to it. They can do it. They can make it!
The Can-Do Person *makes things* happen . . . builds a house, for instance. The Can-Do Person is good with his or her hands (could be with a
computer mouse, too!), good at making things, fixing things, building things.
There is a theme in this. Do you sense what I mean? Does this theme fit with you, as you know your life . . . or not. Chances are, many of you here
can fix things, make things. But is it, characteristically, what your life is about?
When my exercise machine arrived—in pieces, of course—I knew better than to assemble it on my own. That's just not "my thing." In an emergency,
I'd have given it my best shot. But, instead, I called upon my Can-Do Man son to come on over and put it together for me. That's "his thing." He did
it all in half-an-hour, smiling all the way. I know it's strong now, and works properly. He's good at that kind of thing. Much of his life is about
exercising that kind of competence. People who know him know he has that kind of quality about him. People turn to him for it, recruit him, in fact.
Each one of you knows someone like that.
If you wish to know more about a person's essence, notice what they are good at, what they like to do . . . what seems to "come natural" to them.
What comes natural to you?
Look over the eight types of Essence in the wheelbook, and see if you can tell which of those types there best describe you. Then you will be able to
see what I mean about "essence."
Now, you will notice that each of the types of essence in the wheelbook corresponds to one of the types of personality. That isn't arbitrary! There is
a close relationship between personality and essence in this approach. What I wish for you to catch-on to in this approach, is that, fundamentally,
personality and essence are the same. Take the Can-Do Person/Dictator again. The strength, and bravery, and manual-dexterity, and the ability to
competently deliver the goods that you will read about in those Essence wheels is a common thread that permeates the whole of the Can-Do Person/
Dictator.
But Essence, or natural strength, becomes Personality *when the person goes too far*! When you see strength and bravery used in power trips, in
pushing other people around, in forcing people to follow your orders, and the other aggressive things that Dictators may do (by unconscious habit),
that is when you see natural strength turning into personality. Personality is that same natural strength and competence when it is carried too far by
unconscious habit.
You don't need to be aggressive to be powerful. If you will exercise the full extent of your Can-Do strength alone, people will follow you through hell
and high water, when there is occasion for it, because they see what you can do.
If we are interested in doing something about this unconscious going-too-far that we all do in our ego-driven personalities (for instance, if we are
interested in undertaking intentional transformative work), then one must start by making these unconscious habits of going too far *conscious*. As
Lou points out, we must become aware of it.
Around the wheel, it is the same with all eight of the types. The Teacher/Con Artist is naturally imbued with skills and talents like creative
imagination. The Teacher is good at finding ingenious ideas for things, inventing and planning, imagining brilliant possibilities, and being naturally
persuasive and inspiring about it. When the Teacher goes too far and becomes the Con Artist, it is when he or she starts using these innate and
valuable natural intellectual skills for tricking other people and taking advantage of them.
So with the Judge, wise and balanced, naturally logical and reasonable, skilled in measuring and straightening things, arranging and managing, who
gets angry at people when they don't agree with him or her and punishes them for it with harsh judgments. The Player goes too far, and, using the
same innate strengths and qualities, acts-out the Judge, the personality side of the Player.
Well, if I'm to be a strong teacher, I need to leave the space for you students to do most of this work on your own. It's in the wheelbook. You can
look it up. I'll try to give examples from all the types as we go along. But the hard work that you may put into this learning process, exercising your
own initiative with it, is going to be what makes this knowledge your own. And, you can find out in the wheelbook what the characteristics of your
Essence look like, *as we use that term around here*.
If you already have caught on to the principle types of your ego-driven personality that can be a big help in remembering hidden talents that are in
you. Pay attention to those types in particular, when you're studying the Essence wheels. You probably have all eight of the types of strengths and
qualities listed in those wheels in you already, to some extent. But in the several areas where your personality types act-out the most frequently, the
most blatantly, where you habitually go-too-far . . . those may be the very same areas where some of your most interesting forgotten strengths and
qualities lie. In those areas where your personality most fills up the space of your ongoing daily life, see if you can remember if some of those hidden
underlying strengths and qualities (as shown in the wheelbook), those obscured skills and talents underneath that, are really *who you are*.
If you can stop playing the "who you aren't" of your ego-driven personality, on purpose, and start playing the who you are of your essential talents
with awakened Will, well . . . . . see what happens then in your life, Folks! That's what this game is about.
And, as to the validity of the strengths and qualities that are enumerated in the Essence section of the wheelbook, let me pose a challenge to any and
all of you here in class. Just for the fun of it, mind you! Take me up on this, please! See if you can think of some human strength or quality that ISN'T
included in the wheelbook spectrum of Essence that's presented here. If you can think of anything I seem to have left out, please point it out here in
Classroom Talk. And let's see if I have a strong feeling that it *does* fit in with one of the eight types we are using here, or not—and, if so, let me see
if I can explain that to your satisfaction.
Well, I slept in until mid-afternoon today. It amazes me that I can do that. It goes to show one of the natural strengths and qualities of my Hard
Worker/Doormat type. I am definitely an expert at getting sweet rest.
The other day, I fell down a flight of stairs. Would you believe that? I was definitely not being awake at the time, carrying down a tray of breakfast
dishes, heading back to the kitchen. And I was lost in thoughts. And mind you, going up and down my circular staircase is one of my routine
mindfulness exercises *every time I do it*! But this time, I was off in la-la-land. I missed the third step from the bottom, and was off flying in mid-air,
and then flat on my face on the floor below.
I remember it so very vividly. I remember being out there in space. There wasn't time for me to think about it. And wham, I was there on the floor.
I honestly don't know how it could possibly be—me with osteoporosis pretty bad—that I didn't get hurt at all. Amazing. I lay there, quietly taking
stock of my reality, and I was as calm as if it hadn't happened. I realized that I had fallen softly. I had fallen completely limp. And I hadn't broken
anything! I didn't even hurt!
As I said, there wasn't any time for me to think, or figure out what to do. I could only lie there thankfully, realizing that—somehow???—it was my
natural instinct to fall without resistance. I hadn't tensed up with fear. I hadn't tensed up with anger. I had just let go, and fallen softly. Only after
the fact, I could realize that's a quality of my Hard Worker/Doormat, to be able to let go and "rest into it" that way. I had—get this!—*endured* my
way through it!
Now don't get me wrong! I'm not saying I would try this stunt again and sell tickets for it. Heh-heh. I'm sure I'd better be more careful and awake
from now on . . . . . especially now that I've seen that it *can* happen. In fact, I do remember it on the downward journey since then. But I do think
it's possible—on this occasion, at least—that my work on my Self has paid off for me in this fall. And, without ego-driven personality popping up and
offering any resistance whatever to the experience of it, I was able, by grace, to let my Essence handle the whole thing for me this time. The
underlying strengths and qualities of my natural Being carried me through.
And . . . thank you, Lord! E mahalo nui, Malaea na hale Loulu Naiwi! Allah is great!
Goodnight all. And I am keeping my word this time, and posting again here now on "Wednesday." It's a good sign.
Coach
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