As more and more people are discovering, the Enneagram is very helpful in parsing out the basic personality typologies that drive our behavior and our orientation toward the world. But the original purpose of this system arose out of contemplative practice, a way to realize the truth of what we are beyond those structures.
In this 11-month course, Sandra Maitri and Russ Hudson will synthesize decades of Enneagram knowledge and teaching experience with a lifetime of Diamond Approach spiritual development and methodology to help us reconnect to our essential being through the Enneagram.
Russ and Sandra will illuminate the approach presented in A.H. Almaas’s newly released book Keys to the Enneagram, in which he presents a radical new take on the Enneagram: that each of the Enneatypes mirrors and emulates a particular quality of presence, and how we can use inquiry and other practices to open up our typologies so that we can more readily access those qualities in our everyday lives.
In this way, we can understand the Enneagram more completely as part of a larger system of inner work and self-realization. This in turn can help us utilize the Enneagram to actualize our realization—that is, by first discovering and experiencing who and what we are, then living that truth in the world.
Please join us on this journey to better knowing yourself and your true nature as a spiritual being.
“Learn to respond to the world—not from your historic woundings or patterns or defenses, but from a profound, sensitive, compassionate intelligence, which is the root of our humanity."
- Russ Hudson, Co-founder of the Enneagram Institute
An invitation to the full series of live, online weekends led by Russ Hudson and Sandra Maitri that take place once a month from September 2022 through July 2023. All events happen on a Saturday and Sunday from 9:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. Pacific.
Guided practices, teachings, experiential exercises, and the opportunity for questions and comments with the course teachers and a group of fellow spiritual explorers.
Access to a private Facebook group moderated by experienced Diamond Approach teachers and students to help deepen your study and support processing the materials in a safe community space.
A downloadable version of each chapter of Keys to the Enneagram that will be available in the corresponding module
30% off a physical copy of the Keys to the Enneagram book
Recordings of each weekend so you can review the material if you are unable to attend live.
A Certificate of Completion for Keys to the Enneagram upon completion of the program
“Sandra Maitri and Russ Hudson are spiritual seekers, and both are experienced and talented teachers. They have an inclusive and interactive approach to co-teaching and the information they shared during the first weekend was fascinating. The meditations were illuminating, and the break-out sessions allowed further personal exploration with like-minded people. I hope everyone connected with the Enneagram will join this return to its transformative aspects.”
–Mary Bast, c0-author of Out of the Box: Coaching with the Enneagram
“For those who might have been wondering about the marriage of inner work and the map of the Enneagram, this course offers a deep invitation to journey with teachers, teachings and practices while experiencing the support of community … This course holds so much promise for seeding this sacred knowledge along with inner work practices far and wide. May you know if this is for you.”
-Anne A., Course Student
Each session will explore an Enneatype in depth, while also emphasizing that, no matter what our dominant ego style, all the Enneatypes live in us.
Those with no experience of the Enneagram will be able to start from the beginning, from the system’s origins as a spiritual tool for realization. More experienced students of the Enneagram will gain a new perspective and more methodology for deepening and expanding their knowledge.
September 10-11, 2022
To really make use of the teachings explored in the book, they need to be moved out of the conceptual realm and become experiential, rooted in our direct experience. Throughout this course, we’ll learn how to engage our bodies, emotions, and the courage and steadfastness to confront the places of absence in our psyche. This is a process we cannot control, a process that we can’t manipulate or try to make happen. It requires a real surrender to the empty places inside without expectation and a sincere willingness to find out for ourselves what our inner reality is all about. That’s the only way that the keys will indeed become transformative and if you have that kind of sincerity, the keys can truly unlock the treasures of your nature. (Adapted from Keys to the Enneagram, p151-156)
October 8-9, 2022
Working on the obstacles to weakness, or to strength, through understanding our early dynamics, gives us more access to true strength, and integrates this state of Being in our present consciousness. True strength can be a heat or fire in the belly or a flow of red-hot strength. We might feel strong with a sense of capacity or wholeness. It is a strength that does not fade or decrease. It can only expand and deepen, and it gives our life great vigor, aliveness, and expansiveness. That expansion can become unstoppable and endless if we continue our spiritual journey. This is the key to unlocking the knot of the Eight’s fixation. But this also gives us a strength that will be useful in our life, in our spiritual practices in general, and in dealing with the core of all types. (Adapted from Keys to the Enneagram, p38)
November 5-6, 2022
If we are a Six (or any type), personal will gives us the key to unraveling our fixation and tackling its core with more capacity. It is the appropriate tool from the invisible world, and it helps us liberate ourselves from all the distorting, crippling, and problematic patterns and traits. At the same time, we are regaining access to an important aspect of our being that will help us in living our life with confidence and steadfastness, just as it can assist us in our practices with true commitment and certainty. We can focus and stay steady in that focus. We can be mindful and not forget the mindfulness thanks to our natural steadfastness and a genuine nonconceptual commitment. (Adapted from Keys to the Enneagram, p54)
December 17-18, 2022
Besides unraveling the deeper knots of the type and supporting our inner practice, the experience and integration of this aspect is quite an addition to our life. As an enormous enrichment of our heart the merging love can spill over to our relationships and life in general. Our giving becomes genuine, the heart connectedness is real, and flattery and manipulation are no longer needed. In other words, the integration of the merging gold into one’s soul makes type Two more sincere and truthful, more direct and transparent in their interactions and dealings with the world. But you don’t have to be a Two to have this generous heartfulness or this way of approaching life and relationships. You simply need access to the essential quality. (Adapted from Keys to the Enneagram, p66)
January 14-15, 2023
By integrating brilliancy – the essence of intelligence and the true perfection – we learn about our being in a significant way, and we know presence with more depth. Brilliancy is powerful for gaining synthesizing insights from many dimensions because it brings us the capacity for synthesis that is not available to the ordinary mind. And brilliancy also provides the specific key that can unravel the shell of the One type and help penetrate its deeper core. (Adapted from Keys to the Enneagram, p78)
February 25-26, 2023
Looking at our capacity to be personal, our capacity for contact and relating in a real way, and at our functionality, we become open to the arising of the true person that we are. A real person is a human being, free from the mind, the demands of time, and the influence of culture and family – a truly autonomous individual, in the world but not of it. This truth is what feeds the soul as it grows and matures. This maturation becomes an essential individuation, culminating in the station of the pearl beyond price, the royalty of the inner realm. (Adapted from Keys to the Enneagram, p92-93)
March 18-19, 2023
The essential identity is a particular sense of presence and nowness. It is both an identity and a timeless sense of being or presence. At the same time, as we realize and integrate this essential identity, we become free from the patterns of the Four type, and we realize the qualities and characteristics behind the idealization. We are authentic, special in an ordinary way that does not require the limelight or applause, deep and profound without having to announce it to others or create dramas around it. We are original by simply being ourselves, and our creativity tends to be naturally and spontaneously original, without us having to seek out originality. We are complete, and our expressions are true and authentic. We live simply in freedom that does not seek recognition. This is the true inner freedom. (Adapted from Keys to the Enneagram, p106)
April 15-16, 2023
The more we are loyal to the inner truth, regardless of what it is, the closer we are to the Markabah. It is the turn inward, the loyalty to the path of inner truth that can become the shortest route to this multi-faceted vehicle of delight and pleasure. For it is the turning inward toward the truth that reveals itself as the soul’s greatest pleasure – coming home to itself. This discovery can be so deep it can lead to realization and some degree of liberation. This is true for all types, but the vehicle of essential pleasure is particular to the Seven type, and so it is most important for them to examine where their true loyalties and priorities lie. (Adapted from Keys to the Enneagram, p121)
May 20-21, 2023
By experiencing and integrating [Boundless Love] and by recognizing it is a quality of their nature, Nines may see their patterns begin to reveal themselves as historical distortions and impressions. If Nines – or any of us – are lucky or prepared enough to experience divine love itself, then it becomes a nondual awakening to reality, where we experience the unity of being as love and goodness. (Adapted from Keys to the Enneagram, p134)
June 10-11, 2023
Through awakening the essential intellect, Fives are liberated from the limited mental perspective that dominates the shell and this open-mindedness and direct knowing is vital to help penetrate the core of their fixation. But all types will benefit from access to the Diamond Guidance – synthesizing what is known and penetrating what is unknown as it provides understanding and insight for the soul’s journey toward liberation. (Adapted from Keys to the Enneagram, p149)
July 15-16, 2023
Finding and integrating the key for one’s particular type opens the door. But passing through it to greater spiritual development and openness requires accessing all nine keys since ego is composed of all the fixations and their delusions, even though one of them predominates. As we continue to delve deeper into ourselves, we encounter the other fixations and their cores and the need for all of the secret keys to liberation.
Over the last three decades, Russ Hudson has established himself as one of the top teachers and developers of the Enneagram personality typology in the world today. He has been writing and teaching full-time since 1991 and has co-authored with Don Richard Riso five best-selling books on the subject, including The Wisdom of the Enneagram and Personality Types. These books are widely considered to be not only groundbreaking contributions in the field of Enneagram studies, but also important contributions to the literature of psychology. He recently released the audiobook The Enneagram: Nine Gateways to Presence and has more books on the way. Actively involved in the Enneagram community, Russ is the co-founder of the Enneagram Institute as well as a Founding Director and former Vice-President of the International Enneagram Association — a global organization advancing knowledge of the subject.
Sandra Maitri is an artist, an author, an enneagram teacher, and a long-time teacher of the Diamond Approach to Inner Realization. She was among the first group of students to whom the Chilean psychiatrist Claudio Naranjo presented the enneagram system in the United States in the early seventies. She has been teaching the enneagram as part of the larger work of spiritual transformation for over four decades. Sandra leads Diamond Approach groups and enneagram workshops for hundreds of students each year in the United States and Europe. She has also studied with various Eastern and Western spiritual and psychological teachers, focusing especially on Insight and Tibetan Buddhist meditation. She is the author of The Spiritual Dimension of the Enneagram: Nine Faces of the Soul and The Enneagram of Passions and Virtues: Finding the Way Home.
“Ridhwan” is a Sufi word. It means “satisfied and satisfying.” Our school, home to more than 4,000 students across the globe, has the potential to both help you to be fulfilled and to help others be fulfilled. Students learn to ground, sensitize, recognize, and trust the inherent guidance of Being.
The Diamond Approach is the core teaching of the Ridhwan School, a spiritual path that approaches our ordinary experiences, emotions, and sensations in a friendly way of understanding. This radical acceptance of our situation allows something to come through that puts us in touch with our spirituality.
In the Diamond Approach, everything we experience is utilized as a doorway to our spiritual nature. Rather than negating or seeking to transcend parts of our humanness that are considered barriers to realization, we learn to approach each aspect of our physical, emotional, and mental experience with acceptance and open curiosity to discover its truth. We do meditation and other exercises, but the main method is Diamond Inquiry™: non-judgment of what we’re experiencing, which brings crisp clarity into one’s own truth.
When you register for the program, you’ll receive admission to the full series of 11 monthly, weekend events where you’ll learn from Enneagram thought-leaders Russ Hudson and Sandra Maitri. You’ll participate in teachings, guided practices, experiential exercises, and learn from other participants during the questions and comments time as well as having access to a private Facebook group moderated by Diamond Approach Teachers.
You will receive access instructions in your welcome email after you register for the course. The group officially opens and begins to accept members starting on August 20th, but you can submit a request to join anytime.
This is a series of 11 live, online workshops. You will receive access to recordings of each workshop if you are unable to attend live.
Once payment is received you will receive an email with your login details, then you are officially in! You will receive everything in your email inbox, including instructions on how to access the course. Please check your spam folder to locate the email that starts with ‘[KTE 2022].’
Yes! To apply for financial assistance for any of our courses, click here to complete a scholarship application. Scholarship applications for the next live session need to be received by Monday, October 31, 2022, and scholarship awards will be sent via email by Friday, November 4, 2022.
CEUs are offered through a companion consultation group for clinicians, coaches, and similar professionals wanting to use the Enneagram in their work. The group meets once a month for 11 sessions and participants will earn 22 nationally-recognized CEUs. Please note that this group requires separate tuition and registration. To find out more and enroll, please click HERE.
While CEUs are only available through the companion group, all students in the Keys to the Enneagram online course will receive a certificate of completion at the end of the course in recognition of your participation. Details can be found in the online course platform after you enroll.
We’re here to support you on your journey and help with any questions you may have about enrolling and accessing the course. For support please email daosupport@ridhwan.org. Be sure to add this address to your contact list so we don’t end up in your Junk/Spam/Promotions folder. But please check there just in case!
Yes. If you are dissatisfied with the course —for any reason—simply contact us for a refund within 30 days of course start or within 30 days of course purchase if you enroll after the start of the course.
In order to make online spiritual support more accessible to our global community, we also offer a reduced tuition option of $600 for anyone who needs it.
For those who are able to help, you can “Pay It Forward” by selecting the $1200 tuition option and those additional funds go directly to provide scholarship opportunities for others.
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