Relating without Blame: Split Definitions and the Penta
The Human Design System Penta by JovianArchive
In this article we'll be taking a look at relating with awareness.
Functional relationships are at the core of what makes civilization work and what allows us to thrive in the many social processes that we get involved in throughout life. And given the nature of the world we are raised in, such relationships need to be fought for. They cannot be taken for granted, they are precious and rare. The legacy of the Not-Self that pervades cultural models, stereotypes and moral ideals include co-dependency, indebtedness, blame and fault-finding - and this is not what relating is about.
This article features valuable quotes not only from course material on split definitions from Ra, but also information from my BG5 Career and Business Consulting on the nature of the Penta.
The Penta is the group entity that determines group and family dynamics and therefore much of the household scenarios that form our early life conditioning.
In my experience as a Broad Split design, what I have seen along the way is the complex interrelation between the split definition that is prone to blaming and the emergent stress or toxicity from group fields (Pentas that essentially do not have the energy they need to be successful). These things come together to create dynamics of scarcity, blame and hurt that are unnecessarily personalized and internalized. It becomes a part of our Not-Self story and we carry it with us into any new context we enter into. When a new context is similar enough in configuration to our family of origin, this can be especially triggering and bring out a version of the Not-Self we thought we had left behind.
If you're unfamiliar with the Penta, further below I will describe concisely what it is and the implications it has for human society, community and households - after introducing the split definitions.
Relating Without Blame - Split Definitions and the Penta
The Broad Split
"It says, “Look, I've got this broad split. I need, I need to have this. It’s what I'm about. This is what I'm here to experience; this is what I’m here to learn. If you cannot give this to me, then this is not a relationship that is correct. If you cannot give me, as in this case, the intimacy, if you can’t give me these things, if you don’t give me the marriage and the bonds of the 19/49 or the romance (of the 39/55), if you can’t give me these things, it’s not going to work. And I don't need them all. But, if we are going to work together, this is what I need from you.”
This is not about saying to somebody that they are not correct. What happens to the not-self with these broad splits is that they’re always just simply blaming. And again, blaming in the context of bitterness, frustration, or anger instead of understanding that because of their very design, anyone who will bridge that split of theirs with that broad split is ready to hear what they need from them, because they’re already bringing it.
“This is what I need from you.” It goes deeper than that because I want you to really understand that this is not about dependencies. It isn’t. These broad splits, in all of their relationships, have big problems because they're always saying there's something wrong with them instead of saying there is something I need from you. There’s something you can give me. And in that, we can form a more perfect bond, because that’s really what it's about.
Until the broad split gets to that place where they can be comfortable in their skin, then looking out there and seeing that they’re not good enough and that they're not good enough is simply the conditioning mechanism, and in fact, they are good enough, can be, but you’ve got to let them know what you need.
Two sides of the split definition process:
The single bridge learns what it needs for its relating life and then educates its partner.
The broad split lets its partner know what it needs and then the relationship can flower.
This is the fundamental responsibility that is there in the split definition.
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Everything about the split definition is that they're here to teach relating. But they do it in different ways. The [simple] bridge split says that you’ve got to be able to do this. The broad split says you’ve got to be able to give this.
We have an enormous problem in the nature of communion. Human beings operating out of mental authorities are full of fears. Relationships, whether they are going to succeed or fail, can be very threatening. There are all kinds of pressure that is attached to these things.
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All the many, many years that I did readings—I've done readings for thousands of people who are divorced, separated, angry, frustrated, bitter, or disappointed, all of those things. Nobody teaches a child how to be correct. Nobody teaches adults how to be parents. Nobody teaches human beings how to be correct together in respect. Nobody teaches these things. They don't. And the teachers that we need are lost in the maia.
Imagine, the next time you see somebody, one of these people who tell you all about relating and how people should get along, you make sure that you get to check their data, because you'll see that they're usually single definitions and they don't know what the hell they're talking about. They don't. It’s only the split definition that’s really going to be able to make a difference in that. We need to be properly educated. We need to not be afraid to recognize who knows something.
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If they’re not aware, then we're going to have nothing but problem relationships. Yet at the same time, you can see that it takes a great deal of awareness to be able to come to grips with your design as a split. It takes awareness. It takes real awareness to get past the traps of the bridges as conditioning traps to begin to see that this is what you're here to master and teach in the way of relating.
None of the rest of us, none of us single definitions, triple splits, quads—we are incapable of evolving in terms of relationships; incapable. It's not our responsibility. It’s not built into us. It puts enormous pressure on that 46% of humanity who are split definitions, because the responsibility then becomes theirs to make the relationships work. And of course, it goes back to what I began with. It is a very difficult thing. Only the split definition can see a relationship as bringing wholeness. Nobody else can.
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If I'm ever going to give another training for relationship teachers, I will only invite splits. I won’t invite anybody else, because the reality is that they're the ones who have the gift and those gifts can be so special. A lot of it has to do with what it means to accept and be open to outer authority. This is something, when it comes to relationships, is often very difficult. Yet at the same time, to recognize that it is inherent in any split definition to be a true outer authority for what it means to be together and to be able to maintain the quality of our bonds. This is what they’re about."
- Ra Uru Hu (Excerpts from 'Split Definitions & Relationships' IHDS, 2009)
I'll start off by highlighting this bold statement by Ra: "None of the rest of us, none of us single definitions, triple splits, quads—we are incapable of evolving in terms of relationships; incapable." I'm not sure to what extent this is actually true. What does your experience tell you?
Personally, the split definition does stand out to a significant degree when it comes to healthy relating for me. The other kinds of definition don't appear to be very interested until they are educated in one way or another to see the value or until they make it a part of their spiritual or vocational path.
Yet, I have also seen single definitions who have worked very hard to relate with awareness and wisdom about the nature of giving and receiving from the other with clear communication. And as a young split definition there were many things I learned from single definitions for me to be able to relate correctly.
The limitation however, was that in most cases there wasn't the understanding of the mechanics at the time. And therefore much of the examples I saw looked like honourable attempts to forge a lasting bond, with the people involved learning a lot about not disrespecting oneself or the other, but they didn't actually work out as a functional relationship in the end.
Usually the single definition distorted their own nature to the point they got fed up with their partner. I've also seen a weird dynamic of "I'm not blaming you ( -but I'm blaming you)," emerge more than once. Which is almost as funny as it is sad.
When this was not the case and both people felt very content with themselves and the other, it was because they felt like they could be themselves and do their own thing without needing to compromise that. And yet, all of this is still categorically different from the mechanical nature of being a split definition and the outer authority this can lead to.
Image by Sumeet Mishra
One of the reasons why relationships are difficult is that they can get very confusing rather quickly, and most of us want to do it right without knowing exactly what that means. The Not-Self doesn't only want to do it right, it wants to be in the right. It wants to win in the relationship, if you know what I mean. Whether it is by being really 'good', really 'bad' or really 'normal' - either way it wants to be victorious and is willing to pay a very high price for that.
Few people alive today grew up with parents who could role model for them what relating with awareness is like. One of the reasons for that (beyond not knowing their Designs) is that the moment you're together with both of your parents at the same time, or they're together with you, none of you can fully express yourselves. You're in a Penta. Parents may have a very different relationship that is available to them when they are alone with each other than when they are suddenly joined by their children. They may have a private relationship the children may never actually know about.
As soon as three people or more come together, the Penta takes over the social dynamics with only one goal in mind: to be a successful family (group) according to whatever societal / material model they espouse. It's about accomplishing the lifestyle and being able to demonstrate that success to other families, inevitably in a competitive way.
The communion that is possible between two becomes something else once we reach three. It was quite a shock for me to come to see this when I first studied the Penta, and recognized I actually didn't know who my parents were.
So what is a Penta?
Here's a quote from some of my BG5 Consulting work to explain the concept to clients:
The graph that you see above is called a PentaGraph, with its various structural components. It is the Design of the Penta as a Form, in the same way that we have a Human Design, or the various Designs of Mammals, Plants, Cells, etc., which are all different.
You can learn more about this in Ra's lecture series titled 'The Architecture of Life' in which he shares with us the Design of Forms.
At the BG5 Business Institute we use this graph to work with families, teams, communities, organizations in order to learn how to create a social and productive group organism that is functional and effective.
For this article, what is important to take note of are the empty spaces in the PentaGraph. As you can see, some boxes are colored in and some are left grey. These grey boxes are empty. Those that are colored in are the energies that the team members bring into the group field. These empty places are called 'Gaps'.
When a Penta has Gaps and is supposed to be a unit of its own, it generates a particular sense of scarcity in the field. The atmosphere and energy of the group becomes oriented around that scarcity and starts to focus on it. This in turn has an effect on the minds of the participating group members; their attention is hijacked to focus on 'what's missing' or 'what's lacking' and 'who is supposed to bring this in?'. And so this is what the mind will start to think about, and subsequently what everyone will start talking about.
When they can't find that energy, you can imagine the Penta becoming 'ill'. It starts to generate a kind of toxicity in the field that incentivizes the members to seek out the missing energy resources or competences. When acted out, this translates into toxic behaviour and communication. Most of the social dysfunction we see in society is a consequence of getting pulled into incomplete Pentas and being blind to their existence and conditioning influence on human beings. Like liver cells being blind to the fact that they are part of and determined by the liver as a transcendent whole.
Take the PentaGraph in the previous image as an example, you can see that they are missing four vital energies (which we call Skills in BG5). The skills at the bottom you might recognize as being associated with the 5th, 14th and 29th Gates in the Sacral Center. They are the generative power of a Penta, without them the group cannot hold together continuously nor attract the resources necessary to empower their creative direction. There's no sustainable lift-off of whatever vision they might have.
In a Penta these energies do not operate like Gates, their frequencies are modulated and they become something else within the construct of the Penta. Something that we can recognize as the productive energy flow of businesses (and material projects of all sorts) in which human beings come together to generate an income, resources or rewards.
This is the flow that families create. Generate the income that puts the food on the table, pays for the mortgages, pays for schools, pays for the car, the fancy clothes, etc. Assume responsibility for your role in securing everything a family 'should' have in order to be materially successful in the world, to be competitive enough so that its members can 'thrive' as part of society.
Communion goes out of the window here when the Penta can condition everyone to look at everyone else through that material lens. 'Are they upholding the model?', 'Are they fulfilling the role properly?'. And this is what opens the door to dynamics of blaming in the household when the Penta doesn't have the energy it requires. The mind thinks 'We can't seem to succeed in realizing the dream - whose fault is it?'
What I call a 'Blaming Atmosphere' is especially the case when there is a Gap in the Skill of Commitment. When this energy is lacking, the group is running on empty promises while nobody can actually follow through on their commitments. Among many other things, people start to make excuses and accuse each other for not putting in the necessary effort to make things work.
So now imagine what happens when we bring several split definitions into this kind of environment... They have a predisposition in the Not-Self to blame themselves and the other for lacking what is needed, and then this whole idea of 'blame' and 'fault' becomes amplified by the Penta and its scarcity conditioning. And eventually this becomes a cultural norm that is part of our lifestyle. It is a milieu we are raised in, it's something that we can take for granted as 'just the way human beings work'. It becomes an internalized part of our psyche.
And yet it isn't true - there is no awareness in blaming.
On the other hand, by respecting each others' Designs and understanding our context, we can speak transparently about what we perceive, about what we notice, about what is needed in order to make things work, and how scarcity could be overcome.
Free from expectations, free from blaming and fault-seeking. We can be unattached in a healthy way about actually 'achieving the model' or not.
We can be anchored in the present and with awareness have a healthy dialogue about our experiencing, about our learning, and navigate together moment by moment without disconnecting, disassociating or falling out into blind aggression, contempt or violence due to the mind's fears.
It all starts by understanding who you are, who the other is, who you are together and what context you're participating in.
It starts with awareness and the willingness to relate.
Enjoy your movie,
Hagen
