Sandra Maitri is an author, a principle teacher in the Diamond Approach, and a bestselling author of books on the Enneagram. In this dialogue we will consider the following questions: Where are we in the overall unfolding of spirituality in a historical context? What are your views with respect with the question of whether people need to orient in one particular tradition or path, or whether there is spiritual benefit in partaking of multiple paths and traditions? How can one partake of multiple traditions without becoming a dilettante? What is the role of spirituality in addressing the ecological crisis? What is the role of the feminine in the unfolding of a World Spirituality? Does the enneagram have particular gifts to offer to this unfolding? And more. . .
Spirit’s Next Move: World Spirituality and the Enneagram
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 Sandra Maitri is the only prominent teacher of the system of the enneagram to have learned it when it was originally taught by Claudio Naranjo, M.D., beginning in 1970. She is currently one of the principal and supervising teachers of the Diamond Approach® to Inner Realization, leading groups in the San Francisco Bay Area and in the United Kingdom, is director of teacher training in California, and a member of the leadership council of the Ridhwan School, home of the Diamond Approach®. Her first book, “The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram: Nine Faces of the Soul”, was published in 2001 by Tarcher/Penguin; and her second book, “The Enneagram of Passions and Virtues: Finding the Way Home”, was released in 2010. In addition to her artwork, she is working on her third book, about relationship and spirituality. Mariana Caplan, PhD, is a psychotherapist, professor of yogic and transpersonal psychologies, and the author of seven books in the fields of psychology and spirituality, including the forthcoming: The Guru Question: The Perils and Awards of Choosing a Spiritual Teacher and the seminal Halfway Up the Mountain: the Error of Premature Claims to Enlightenment. Her recent release, Eyes Wide Open: Cultivating Discernment on the Spiritual Path, won five national awards for best spiritual book of 2010. She has spent 20 years researching cutting edge and controversial topics in Western Spirituality, and focuses her consultation and psychotherapy practice on somatic approaches to healing trauma and spiritual issues. She is the co-founder of The Center for World Spirituality and an adjunct professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies and Naropa University. She has degrees in cultural anthropology, counseling psychology, and contemporary spirituality, and is a teacher and practitioner of yoga philosophy and asana. |
The Enneagram, which I have studied now for over 20 years, and done extensive research on, particularly in the area of the Self-Image, language use and Core Motivation of each Type, continues to fascinate me. In terms of spiritual evolution, when one truly understands and can observe that their Enneagram type runs like a robot, like the opperating system of a computer, the next logical question then is, who am I? If I am not these Enneagram traits, the same traits which can be seen so clearlly in another of the same type, who am I? This question helps us find our higher self, the part of us that is not identified with our ego traits. Walking up to your type is like waking up in the movie The Matrix. //David Fauvre