From ego to soul

DR. JOSEPH BENTON HOWELL, the founder of the Institute of Conscious Being, is interviewed by PURNIMA RAMAKRISHNAN about his personal journey and the founding of the Institute. He delves into his work on consciousness, the soul child, the Enneagram, and spiritual growth, exploring the journey from ego to soul and celebrating the attitude of evolution and growth. 

Q: Let us begin this interview by talking about the evolution of consciousness.

JBH: Our species is a product of biological evolution. We know how to learn and do things that are not in our current skillset through adaptation, and also through competition and practice. The evolution of consciousness is very much like biological evolution. It is an adaptation, too, but it’s a consciously willful adaptation.

As our consciousness develops, it adapts to the spiritual universe, just as the biological being adapts to the physical universe. Adapting to the spiritual universe is a very different thing. What our ego may think is important may not be important to the soul and vice versa.

Q: What inspired you to establish the Institute for Conscious Being, and how did your journey shape its vision?

JBH: The Institute for Conscious Being came into existence because my wife, Lark, and I decided to share with others what we had learned about consciousness. Tragically, we lost our only son when he was 26, and that was a tremendous blow to us. It was a time when he should have been taking off in his life.

He was gifted and received honors at university. But a disease hit him and he declined and was slowly taken away from us and this world. As parents, when you love your children, your future is hinged on them, what they do, how they are going to be in life, how they’re going to carry on what you believe in, the values you’ve instilled, and of course the hopes and dreams you have for them. When that doesn’t happen, it makes you wonder, “What have I been living for?” All of those years, holding a baby, helping him as a toddler, getting him into sports and school, and having him go into the best academics possible, teaching him how to love and be loved, and then it’s all taken away. That is what we call in the Enneagram studies a shock point, and we all have those shock points.

Our greatest shock point at that time was losing our Ben. We recovered by working on the spirituality of the Enneagram. The truths within the Enneagram led us away from our egoic wants and opened us to the spiritual terrain of our lives. Being transported to the spiritual, away from the egoic, deepened our faith in God. Yet specifically, the Enneagram helped us become conscious of how our egos blocked the healing of our grief. So, when we discovered this powerful dynamic, we wanted to share it with others. Removal of the ego’s veils is one of the most important steps to becoming more conscious. Thus, The Institute for Conscious Being came into existence.

Q: I am so sorry about your loss. Please, could you elaborate on how shock points influence our spiritual growth?

JBH: Shock points come in various degrees at different times in our lives as we spiral upward into consciousness. They range from traumatic experiences to any experience that makes us see reality more accurately. After experiencing a shock point, we either advance beyond the experience to a higher level of consciousness, or we regress down the spiral. If we do not progress, it generally means we can’t adapt to a new way of living based on what we became conscious of thanks to the shock point.

The ego’s narrative is 
the human mental structure of how life should go. 
But the spiritual path has another, deeper intention, 
and that is to progress the soul.

A shock point can raise existential questions. One such question is “Why?” Another is “How do I go on?” When we asked God the hows and whys of going on, tremendous pieces of knowledge were made clear to us. He revealed that we are souls, not our egos. We are spiritual beings in physical bodies, but that didn’t register with us. The thing that registered was that our egos were not working to carry us through this world. The ego’s narrative is the human mental structure of how life should go. But the spiritual path has another, deeper intention, and that is to progress the soul.

We began to know that we were comforted by a power beyond ourselves. Through prayer and meditation, we were able to access that power. We were able to see with the eyes of the spirit rather than just the physical eyes. We began to see wonders and signs everywhere, even in the trees and in the stars. When we operate only in the ego mind, the ego filters out the tremendous radiance of the real Reality, the spiritual Reality. It does this for the practical reason of sticking to its narrative instead of being distracted by spirit. However, the ego mind that has amalgamated with the soul gives us a healthier and spiritually dynamic way to live.

In this new life, the new state of consciousness afforded to us helped heal our grief. We were not left to dry up and wither away, or to devolve into despair, hopelessness, anger, resentment, addiction, or denial.

Q: How did the process of overcoming ego reshape your understanding of life and spirituality?

JBH: We had a way to live and it was a joyous way to live. Now, when I say joy I don’t mean happiness and the absence of pain, along with partying or hearty laughter. I’m speaking of abiding happiness and peace even in the toughest of circumstances. Terrible things are not experienced as hopeless catastrophes. Abiding joy undergirds everything. The spiritual life is to remain on a plane of equanimity. It is the peace that in my tradition is called the peace that passes understanding. We were excited to find this new way to live and wanted to share it. Many people were not living from their hearts, not living from their souls, but in their ego minds. They too had terrible suffering and had reached a critical mass of suffering.

We began to know that we were comforted 
by a power beyond ourselves. 
Through prayer and meditation, 
we were able to access that power.
We were able to see with the eyes of the spirit
rather than just the physical eyes.

Lark and I began teaching and going to various organizations to share this wisdom.  After years of doing this, someone said to us, “You have voluminous amounts of handouts for your lectures. Please put them in a book.” The book, Becoming Conscious, the Enneagram’s Forgotten Passageway, was thus written. It caught on, and people liked it and asked, “How can I learn more? We need to know what this is all about,” and so the Institute for Conscious Being was formed. Now we have a two-year certification program and a one-year advanced certification program. We also have an ongoing program for the graduates of the two certification programs. 

Q: Tell us about your book, Becoming Conscious. How does it stand out in the study of the Enneagram?

JBH: I believe the book has a life of its own because spirit has blessed it. We teach spiritual practices. From sound therapy—you may have seen the singing bowls—all the way to forest bathing, writing, and Heartfulness Meditation. The community in and of itself is a wonderful laboratory in which to apply the principles of the Enneagram.

A main teaching in our institute is the wisdom of the Enneagram. Since the mid-1980s, I have evolved in my understanding of the Enneagram. It became very important when my wife and I needed to consult something regarding deeper consciousness and the soul. The Enneagram augmented our faith and our strength in powerful ways. I have loved understanding, because it has taken me from personality to soul. It helps understand the qualities of the soul, which are far more profound and essential than personality may be.

Our Institute’s teaching is on three different weekends a year from a Thursday to a Saturday. Readings and video teachings are assigned in between the intensive events. That schedule may sound very short but they’re very packed with information. That’s why they’re called intensives. The intensives are lectures and interactive exercises, such as theater, to understand personality and soul.

Each intensive focuses on one of the following—the heart center, the mind center, or the body center. And our exercises, teachings, and group work are correlated with each theme. People come from all over the United States. Now we also have an online presence and international students receive certification online. Please check out www.theicb.info, which gives the current programs and conferences.

Sometimes, faith as we experienced it as children can become stale, and may sound like platitudes. Yet, however worn out the language may be, it is still based on eternal truths. The language of consciousness gives us the ability to re-imagine our faith, to see it with new eyes, and to experience its truths in new ways. One of the wonderful tenets we teach is that we began life as a soul, and we were a child, so we call that our soul child. That soul child is innocent, tender, and vulnerable and only knows to give and receive love.

That same child is in you and is in me, but we do not usually access it because our egos cover that tender, vulnerable little being inside of us. That inner child is our real identity, our soul’s identity. It has all the qualities our soul was inherently brought here to manifest. Our soul child lives without the major influence of the ego. Going back to that soul child is a powerful experience because it puts us in direct contact with our soul. We teach methods of returning to our soul child, to re-inhabit it. 

The Enneagram augmented our faith and 
our strength in powerful ways. 
I have loved understanding, because 
it has taken me from personality to soul. 
It helps understand the qualities of the soul, 
which are far more profound and
essential than personality may be.

Q: You’ve touched on some profound concepts, like the soul child and the essence of who we are. For readers who are encountering these ideas for the first time, what would you say is the first step toward reconnecting with the soul’s true nature?

JBH: We teach “self-remembering,” which comes from the spiritual teacher, Georgij Gurdžiev. Self-remembering is the process of being taken back to our original and true nature and reuniting with that sacred identity. We “self-remember” our essence and access who we really are. We do soul child meditations to directly experience the soul and to embody our soul child. People say, “I forgot how beautiful I was. I look into the eyes of my little soul child picture.” People bring a photograph of themselves when they were 2, 3, or 4 years old, and look into the eyes of that little child. They weep because they have come in contact with their pure, true nature.

Somebody may say, “I had a very disturbing childhood. If I think of my childhood, I cannot see my innocence and tenderness because of the negative things that happened to me as a child.” I say to them, “What was it in that little child that knew what was happening to them? What was it that understood it was not good, it was wrong?” The answers to such questions give us a wealth of information about the qualities of our soul. 

The great teachers of the Enneagram in the United States—A.H. Almaas, Sandra Maitri, and others—are each a facet of God like a diamond has facets. I have been associated with the Ridhwan School. One of the tenets of A.H. Almaas and his teachers is that we are a facet of divine purity and that there are nine major facets. These nine facets are based on the law of three. The teaching goes on to explain that after early childhood—the years of the soul child—we lose touch with the facet we were created to be. You and I, as one of the nine energizers, then switched to another way to move in the world. We switched from our soul to our ego. The Enneagram is a map to help us return to the soul.

You were born with one of the nine soul energies, which I call a soul type. I go over those nine soul types in my new book, Know Your Soul, Journeying with the Enneagram.

The first soul type is Number One, sacred righteousness, which is alignment with the Divine. Number Two is sacred, compassionate benevolence. Number Three is sacred action—action not for selfishness, but for the good of all. Number Four is sacred creativity, being able to look at any problem with a creative mind because it’s transparent to divine creativity. Number Five is sacred wisdom, which receives direct experience of divine knowledge. Number Six is sacred kinship, which understands that we are greater than ourselves alone when we have like-heartedness in community. Number Seven is sacred joy, the deeper abiding joy that gives equanimity regardless of circumstances. Number Eight is sacred power, the power of humility and truth. Number Nine is sacred loving peace, which is the parent of all the others.

Q: Thank you! How has your association been with Heartfulness?

JBH: Last year, my book, Becoming Conscious, found its way to Daaji. Later I met Daaji and we discussed the book and how it dovetails with Heartfulness. One of the things he loves is the “Chain of Consciousness,” which is near the beginning of the book. It has to do with the ego and environment. The environment is being destroyed because of unchecked ego. The soul, on the other hand, as our true nature, works in the natural order to preserve our planet. I have been very fortunate to have spent time with Daaji. It is life-changing for me to be with him, learn from him, and speak of all we have in common.

After learning Heartfulness Meditation, Lark and I made it a part of our Institute’s curriculum. We also have a trainer come to our institute to conduct meditation. I am totally impressed with Heartfulness and find it a way of life for me. To be associated with Daaji is a lifetime honor.

You and I, as one of the nine energizers, 
then switched to another way to move in the world. 
We switched from our soul to our ego. 
The Enneagram is a map to help us return to the soul.