Hajjah Hamidah
INTERVIEW TO HAJJAH HAMIDAH IN CHINA
What is the Enneagram?
The law of 1, law of Unity, is represented by the circle and shows that everything created is in unity with itself and with everything in existence. Divine Unity, Divine Will. This law speaks about our Identity.
The law of 3, law of creation, is represented by the triangle and shows that for something to be created, are needed three forces meeting at a point. This law speaks about our Origin.
The law of 7, law of the order of manifestation, is represented by the hexagon and shows that the manifestation of any creation or process goes through seven steps with 2 intervals or breakpoints. This law speaks about our Destiny.
How can we use the Enneagram for our personal growth?
As the enneagram is an ancient tool of knowledge, it can be used for understanding the cosmos. Man is a cosmos in himself, a universe within a universe.
Our personal growth is connected with knowing ourselves. We must learn that the forgetfulness (point 9) led us to deception (point 3). When we lose contact with the real in us, a false identity took place. As we couldn’t find our being, we learned to pretend and to imitate being. We filled ourselves with images, and then the fear appeared (point 6). Fear to recognize our deception, to find ourselves empty, to lose that which we think we have, because even we do not find anything of value there, we still cling to it. Holding on to our sufferings, misery and everyday dissatisfaction. So first we must get to know the masks that hide our Reality, our Identity.
The Enneagram shows us that there are only 9 basic types of egos, 9 prisons for human beings according to 9 basic distortions of the emotional and mental functioning. These are the passions and fixations respectively. These arose to compensate the loss of connection to a higher power. This “neutralizing energy” coming from High, which is called Holy Idea, can only be achieved by awakening our consciousness.
So working with the Enneagram will lead the students to contact their internal world of darkness and lights. We cannot grow if we don’t know both sides, our false images and our Real Being.
What is unique in your seminars of Enneagram in contrast with other teachers of Enneagram?
The difference is the approach. In the seminars we work with the Enneagram from the psychological and spiritual point of view. The psychological work shows us the ego behaviour, in all levels, intellectual, emotional and instinctive/motor; and the spiritual work unfolds a higher knowledge that allows us to free ourselves from the prison that we are enslaved. The spiritual knowledge shows us the keys to unlock our cells.
When the spiritual level (represented by the triangle in the Enneagram), touches the psychological level, the Light pervades and the transformation happens.
What are the targeted people of your seminars?
The humanity in all its extension is the targeted people. Everyone has a heart, and every heart is longing to return home. We are spiritual beings living a physical life. If a heart is touched by the Divine, the longing awakens. So everyone that wants to know the Truth about themselves and this existence, which wants to reconnect with his Real Being is welcomed.
What would be the benefits?
The knowledge of the Enneagram will give the students a deep understanding of themselves, about their ego and essence. And the contact with a spiritual and higher energy, will create an opening in the students that will allow them not only to see themselves in a new way, but will also attract an inner change.
What are the differences between seminar level 1 and level 2?
The difference of the two levels is shown not only by the different topics, but also in the depth of the knowledge that is given. The topics of the Level 1 show the fundaments of our psychological structure, and the exit of our patterns of behaviour through the Sufi Enneagram. We work mainly with the 9 psychological types. In the level 2, we go deep in studying our psychological behaviour, like we are looking to it with a microscope. And we teach the Enneagram of the levels of the soul (maqam ul nafs), which is a map that shows the states of being through the spiritual journey. A map that will show the students clearly where they are now, and how to access to the next spiritual station.
Can you tell us more about you, your process with Sufism and with Enneagram? Who were your referents?
My first contact with the Enneagram was 30 years ago in a Fourth Way School, following the teachings of Gurdjieff, where I was doing a transpersonal psychological work, being trained by many masters. I have worked with the Enneagram since then, making this knowledge available to people.
I have been in Sufism for 28 years following the teachings of Mawlana Sheikh Nazim, spiritual Master of the Naqshbandi Sufi Order. His Master, Mawlana Grandsheikh Abdullah ad-Daghestani, transmitted the wisdom of the Enneagram and its laws to George Gurdjieff, who was the first one that brought this knowledge to the western countries.
I have received the knowledge of the two wings, the psychological and the spiritual, that gave me the whole dimension of this powerful symbol, the Sufi Enneagram.
Hajjah Hamida Torres von Drechsel.