The absence of the Holy Idea that we have been discussing leads to the specific delusion of ennea-type Three. It is the belief in a separate and independent doer. We have seen that the delusion of ennea-type Five is the belief in a separate existence, the delusion of ennea-type Two is the belief in a separate will and choice, and the delusion of ennea-type Four is the belief in a separate identity. Here, it is the belief in separate functioning. It is the conviction that one can act independently from the rest of the universe, operating as a separate functional unity. This is an obvious consequence of not perceiving Holy Law, not seeing that everything is the unified functioning of Being. So it is not only the delusion that things happen separately and in isolation in the universe, but specifically, that you are a separate and independent doer, that you can function and accomplish things on your own. In the absence of Holy Law, you perceive things as separate and functioning separately, and so you believe that events happen in isolation. You also see human beings as separate and functioning separately, which means that you believe that you are doing things on your own, independent of everyone and everything else. So the delusion here is not just that everything functions separately, but specifically, that you are an independent doer, that you, as a separate individual, are a source of action. When we say that you are not an independent doer, this does not mean that in the objective view, there is no feeling of functioning happening through you—it is not that you don’t feel you are moving your arms or talking, nor is it the sense that someone or something else is moving you. It is a different perception in which you see that all functioning, all doing, all activity is happening as one thing. What you are doing and what everyone else is doing is all part of the same movement, so there is no isolated functioning separate from that one flow of activity.

The loss or inadequacy of holding in childhood, reflected through this delusion of vanity, leads to the specific difficulty of ennea-type Three. The specific difficulty, as we have seen with each ennea-type, is how the environmental inadequacy in holding in early childhood is reflected in one’s personal experience. Here, there is the belief that one is a separate and independent doer, and at the same time, the experience that the environment is inadequate and unsupportive. You feel abandoned, rather than held and supported, and you have the sense that no one is taking care of you adequately. While feeling the deficiency, difficulty, and suffering of your experience, there is the growing conviction that you are a doer, that you can act. In other words, the inadequacy of the environment cuts you off from the experience that everything is occurring harmoniously without having to do anything yourself, while at the same time, you begin to believe in yourself as a separate doer. You take the inadequacy in the environment on yourself, believing that you should be able to take care of yourself, since through the delusion, you take yourself to be a center of action. So instead of seeing that the inadequacy is in the environment, you come to believe that it is within yourself. Since you aren’t able to provide for and take care of yourself, you not only take it to mean that you can’t do these things on your own, but you also take it as a failure, and feel unable, inadequate, and incompetent. If you did not believe that you are an independent doer, it wouldn’t make sense to believe that you are inadequate or a failure. 

This tells us something about the personality. The personality tries not to be influenceable. It wants to be the influencer, the actor, the doer, the one who’s in control, the one who directs. It wants to do that even in relationship to our Essence. The personality wants to experience Essence, but it also wants to still be in charge. It tries to do this by eliminating its vulnerability, by saying no to it just like it does to everything else. It makes itself opaque. But if the personality understands what vulnerability actually means, then we become receptive to our deeper nature, and it acts on us. We are no longer the actor; we are a permeable membrane. We are acted upon, we are penetrated by our nature, and we allow it to come out. And the work on the personality, which can be seen as refining it, allows that membrane to become increasingly vulnerable to our Essence. The less defended and opaque the personality is, the more it is permeable to Essence. And as Essence manifests through the personality—as it permeates it, as it influences it, as the personality becomes completely one-hundred-percent vulnerable to our truest nature—we begin to see that there is no difference between them. We experience oneness, unity. So, the meek shall inherit the earth. The vulnerable can experience the totality of all the possibilities on earth, at all levels. In fact, the meek will not only inherit the earth, they will inherit everything. Vulnerability is needed for awareness and objectivity, for objective consciousness. This is because objective consciousness means awareness and understanding of exactly what is there. You can’t understand exactly what is there if you don’t want to be vulnerable. Understanding and vulnerability go together. 

This existential helplessness does not make sense unless you believe yourself to be a separate doer, or believe you are supposed to be able to do. As we feel this sense of helplessness and accept it, we are no longer trying to uphold the delusion that we can do. If we stay with the experience, we can penetrate this delusion. It may seem difficult to stay with because the state may initially be filled with pain and the fear that no one is going to take care of you and you are helpless. We have to remember not to completely believe these fears because believing them might cause us to react by defending against the sense of helplessness. Although it is painful, at some point we see that feeling the helplessness has a sincerity and truthfulness because we are no longer lying to ourselves. We are being authentic. This realization by itself can bring about an egoless state without our doing anything. The helplessness, then, opens the door to the action of Being itself. 

So to experience the helplessness without judgment and rejection is to accept our existential situation when we are not in the condition of enlightenment. It is the acceptance that, by the mere fact of being a human individual, you are helpless. This is analogous to the religious notion that it is only God who is mighty and capable, and the experience is similar to being genuinely immersed in prayer. If you really pray, you are acknowledging that there is a much larger force than you as a separate individual. The acceptance of your helplessness has the same sense of surrender and humility, and is in this sense a kind of prayer. Accepting and feeling your helplessness is seeing that you cannot free yourself, nor can you take away anyone else’s suffering. As long as you take yourself to be a separate doer, whatever you do is not going to make a difference, and helplessness is your objective condition. Until you know yourself to be completely Being, you are objectively helpless; taking that prayerful attitude of acknowledging your helplessness in the face of the immensity of Being is not only useful—it also reflects the truth. The attitude of humility and helplessness is accurate as long as there is any remnant of self. From the perspective of pure Being, that prayerful attitude helps to expose the egoic self and to acknowledge its real situation. Then this acceptance of helplessness, without defense, without judgment, without striving, becomes the point of entry into Being and its dynamism. 

It is true that sometimes the personality appears as a monster or a devil. If you look with an inner eye, it might even look like such a thing. But what is this personality that sometimes appears as a devil, sometimes a child, sometimes a man, sometimes a woman, sometimes a frustrator, sometimes a saboteur, sometimes a doer, sometimes an observer, sometimes a rebel, and so on? The personality must have some kind of intelligence, some amazing power, to manifest in all these ways. One minute it appears as an innocent child; the next, it’s a monster. One moment it’s vulnerable and defenseless, the next moment it’s a gladiator. At some point we can perceive that the inner child, the ego, the ego identity, the emotional self, the mind, the false personality, the observer, the doer, the actor, the one who resists, and the one who hates, are actually all one. They’re just different faces of the same thing that we call personality, appearing in different forms depending on the situation. We have seen that Essence is a substantial presence, but we are surprised when we realize that it is not only Essence that is substantial; the personality itself is a substantial existence. You can observe that even your personality itself is a material. It has an inner substance. It is true that there are thoughts and feelings and sensations connected to it, but at some point you feel your personality as a kind of presence. It doesn’t have the sense of immediate reality and freshness, the sense of truthfulness, brilliance, and luminosity of Essence; in fact, it is usually felt as a thickness, a dullness, a heaviness. But personality is not just a collection of thoughts; it exists as its own kind of material or medium.