Existential Attitude: Fear of death
Instinctual Perception: Like/dislike
Body association: Digestive system
Living Question: “How am I?”
Reason: Analogical
Ego: Historical
Instinct: Conservation
Psychic Poison: Greed
Super Form: God
The Conservation Instinct covers survival at a physical level and is conservation of the body through food, drink, shelter, and all sorts of material goods related to our conservation as a feeling persona or ego. [3]
Our Awareness of conservation manifests in these somatic impressions and presents one of the innate instinctual questions, which for the Conservation Instinct is "How am I?" We are constantly looking for an answer to how we are in the sense of how we feel. Thus, we can say that the Conservation Instinct is a preoccupation about being and perceiving in terms of like or dislike with the logic of empathetical reason. [4]
The Conservation Instinct develops the Existential Attitude of the horror of death, and this is the origin of our existential sadness and depression. This is the lower manifestation of the Instinct. In its higher manifestation, the Existential Attitude becomes one of searching for real Being in a permanent Transcendental Self and in the search for immortality
The inner preoccupation or the function of the Conservation Instinct is the experience of and the search for Being; in Integral terms, this triad numbered 8, 9 and 1 is known as the Being Group. The great concern of this group is to become a person with all the attributes and powers that are directly connected to our sense of God and immortality. This is to say, the problems of the Conservation Instinct, since they are related to the questions of the 'Being as such,' are ontological. [3]
The desire of the Being Group is to be liked and appreciated, producing the concomitant depression of not being liked felt as sadness and abandonment. [4]
The physical Conservation Instinct perceives through the sensations (Feelings) of the viscera and, in general, interprets its own reality in terms of like or dislike, or of taking or repulsing any given element in accordance with the survival principle that is the foundation of this Instinct. [3]
Thus, the mother represents the Conservation Instinct and a profound Awareness of like or dislike in the area of somatic and psychic Feelings. [4]
The mother, who represents the nucleus of the family, is the primary source of conservation for the infant. Thus, there is a direct relation between our sense of being (how we feel we are being cared for) and the maternal love that in the most basic way provides sustenance for maintaining life (Instinct of Conservation) [4]
The conservation instinct is the psychic manifestation of the alimentary tract in our body, or the expression of that body system as a psychic function. [1]
In the abdominal area of the viscera (Center of Feelings) where the somatic sense of our body is centered, the hormones insulin and glucagon regulate the synthesis and breakdown of glycogen and stabilize blood glucose which, together with the hormones leptin and ghrelin, regulate our Feelings or sensations of hunger and satiation essential to the primordial demand of the Conservation Instinct, which is the instinctual motive to eat in order to survive. The Feelings of pleasure when satiated or pain when hungry are signals that actually occur in the cerebral cortex and in the brain stem, though our Awareness of these Feelings or sensations causes them to be felt directly in the abdominal area and more specifically in the stomach. [4]
The living question for the conservation instinct is, 'how am I?' This living question is present all the time. It is there even when we don’t notice it. It is noticed when the conservation instinct is threatened. The least threat will put you in a panic of survival. This is because the roots of life are in the conservation instinct. The interpretation of Orpheus is the Unity that tells us how to be, what our self is. [1]
We know this directly by instinct. We do not need to consciously ask the actual question, but the need to eat means that we have to get food. What it means here is that we have to work and involve ourselves in a certain activity in order to obtain this food. [2]
In earlier books by Oscar Ichazo, more specifically The Human Process for Enlightenment and Freedom, Ichazo notes that the primary logic of the conservation instinct is analogical, manifesting the historical ego. However, in Sarah Ichazo's book, The Enneagrams of the Fixations, this is changed to empathetical reason. [5]
The living question of the conservation instinct is manifested as analogical reason. This reason makes comparisons all the time, asking, 'how am l, how is this, and how is that?' This analogical reason projects the same question onto everything. It makes comparisons, measuring all the time. The function of this reason is permanently analogical. We take care of ourselves by making analogies. We do not use analytical reasoning in the matter of survival. Reaction has to be fast. We have to trust in and react to what our alimentary tract is telling us, a feeling that is sensed as a shock in our lower belly. Suppose we are facing a tiger, instantly we make the analogy that we cannot fight the tiger. We run. Thus it is the analogy that defends our life. This is the principle of survival. Suppose, instead of making an analogy, we were to use analysis, we would become terrified and paralyzed instead of reacting appropriately following the conservation instinct. This is why we Say in this Theory that in such a moment we must let our kath (the point of awareness of our alimentary tract) run us, take care of us: we must never let our mind try to complete a task that would only confuse it with the panic of contradictory thoughts. So with analogy we immediately measure ourselves against everything in the animal world. The big fish go after the little fish; the little fish never try to eat the big ones. Whenever we confront the animal kingdom, it is this way. However, we do not live in that kind of environment. We live in a human environment, in a society. This makes differences, and things become more subtle. [1]
The first ego, the analogical, is the historical-ego. It is called the historical-ego because it remembers the past—how we have been in the past. This picture of past memories is always present in us. If we do not remember our past completely, we will not transform our karma. The analogical ego is always making comparisons by remembering how things happened in the past. And it is also concerned with how things will happen. It is a Suspicious ego. [1]
The Historical Ego gives us our sense of property and possession, and it makes our strategies for accumulating wealth and whatever else we need in terms of satisfaction of our instinctual demand to be well covered 'conservation–wise' in a generalized sense. Because of this, the Conservation Instinct through the Historical Ego answers the instinctual innate question of 'How am I?' in relation to the world. If we sense our conservation is not well covered, we feel that our state of being, in the sense of 'being well' or not, is threatened. Our entire self will center its attention on this lack that is felt as a threat to our survival. [2]
The Conservation Instinct is plagued by the couple of senseless flurry (yang) and universal discontent (yin). [2]
This instinct develops into the psychic poison of greed, referring to the type's need for ever more food and material gain for the sake of satisfying the digestive system. Greed derives into three separate poisons. The first is avarice, which develops the Historical Ego into Ego-Vengeance (Over-Justice-Maker,) the second is greed, which develops into Ego-Indolence (Over-Non-Conformist), and the third is possessiveness, which develops into Ego-Resentment (Over-Perfectionist.) [2]
The first triad, the Being Group, depends on the Super Form of God and the 'Being as such,' and this triad needs to be studied from the point of view of ontology, the study of the 'Being in itself.' This triad is composed of point 8, Divine Truth, as action (Neoplatonic "proceeding"); point 1, Divine Perfection, as the reaction ("returning"); and point 9, Divine Love, as the result ("sustaining").
In the triad of the Being Group, Divine Truth (point 8) is the point of action (proceeding) that is coming from the result (sustaining) point of Divine Love (point 9). Thus, it is an actual manifestation of Divine Love in the Form of Innate Awareness of the 'here and now.' The action (proceeding) of Divine Truth moves in the direction of the point of reaction (returning) of Divine Perfection (point 1). Thus, Divine Truth is the action point and Higher Presence capable of producing Transcendence or the Innate Awareness of the Divine. Therefore, Divine Truth means the affirmation of the existence of the One Divine God.
[1] The Human Process for Enlightenment and Freedom - Oscar Ichazo
[2] Letters to the Transpersonal Community - Oscar Ichazo
[3] Enneagrams of Divine Forms - Sarah Ichazo
[4] Enneagrams of Fixations - Sarah Ichazo
[5] Notes of the wiki editor