Gate 40 — Deliverance — The point of transition between struggle and freedom

Full breakdown

In 1995, in Spain, I began a detailed line-by-line analysis with my students. I'm closing out that process now with the basic information on the Ego and G centers. When I started teaching Human Design, alongside the objective need to explain the essence of the Design, I looked at the gates and lines. In 1998 I'll close out that process by teaching the nature of the channels. The Heart center and the Self carry enormous significance for us. In the second Grey Course we only briefly touched on how significant they are. The G center and the Heart center are part of the primary infrastructure built into us, the foundation of foundations. Their qualities often get blurred together — this is the relationship between the Self and the "I." Over the next few days we'll draw a clear distinction between them, so you can see the nature of each clearly. I've put an image of the tribal circuit here so you get a sense of how important the Heart center and Ego are in our everyday life, in our daily existence. It's essential for humanity to function from its Ego. That's exactly why our civilizations and cultures — friendship, I think, is one of the best examples — are so consumed by Ego, so caught up in their own greatness, past or present.

The essence of the Ego is inseparably tied to the nature of the tribe. Everything belonging to the tribal circuit is rooted in the Ego. What's more, even gate 51 (missing from this diagram) is also tribal, while being deeply individual at the same time, and as part of the individual circuit it still serves the tribe. It's directly connected to the tribe. We'll look at the Heart center through the lens of its two primary functions: willpower in gate 40, which leads into gate 51, and the right of ownership — possessiveness — belonging to the "I" in gate 26, which leads into gate 21.

The Heart center is very complex. Selfishness — the quality of the "I" with its sense of ownership — is misunderstood and, obviously, harshly condemned in the Western world. If we turn to the Ego, we're looking at a biological complexity unlike anything found in any other center. Let's take these very important functions one at a time. Willpower begins with the stomach in gate 40, which is part of the heart center; the actual heart muscle correlates with gate 21; the gallbladder with gate 51; and the thymus, which runs our immune system, sits in gate 26. This is an extremely complex center in terms of how its information is arranged and moved within our biological structure.

The stomach and the heart let us reach deep into the nature of the Ego, into the very core of how it works. The Ego, the will, can never operate continuously. That's essential to grasp. Willpower can stay engaged for quite a while under certain circumstances, but it eventually has to stop making the effort. In exactly the same way, the heart needs a pulse. It can't stay clenched under tension forever. There has to be a gap between two beats — a moment of tension followed by relaxation. The same holds for the stomach. You can't keep stuffing it all day long. It's simply not possible. The stomach needs time to rest, and then it needs time to work.

As for the nature of the Ego, it's crucial to understand that it's always seeking rest. And that's usually not understood at all. It isn't trying to go out and shine, spreading its will everywhere. As a rule it's looking for rest, unless an especially fitting moment for releasing its energy arrives — one where that energy will work productively, and ideally with maximum productivity. Only the Ego itself knows how long it's able to work. In other words, if you don't have will, you're not climbing that mountain. Broadly speaking, the situation is this: the Ego knows it absolutely needs resources, and at the same time it knows it needs rest in order to get them. Because of this, the people around it don't always find Willpower easy to be around — this particular motor isn't like any other. When the generator turns on, it turns on for life and runs until death, sending out frequency after frequency, vibration after vibration, endlessly. When the emotional system turns on, its wave lasts a lifetime. When the adrenal system turns on, its pressure never lets up — it just keeps pressing. But the Ego works, and then it rests — literally, it takes a vacation. That's its nature.

The Ego is mechanical. As the white book puts it: will, or the lack of it, to provide for those in need. That's the role of gate 40. In English, the word "deliverance" carries several meanings. Jesus delivered people from their sins. Being delivered is also an equivalent of approaching satori, or enlightenment. "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" — words from the Lord's Prayer. On top of that, the word carries an everyday, practical meaning as well — to be the one who delivers is equivalent to being the provider. If you nourish, supply, and deliver, it means you're bringing groceries home so everyone can eat. Deliverance also carries a deep mystical and spiritual meaning.

The very name of this gate speaks to the real demands placed on the Ego. The tribe needs the Ego to show its strength. Willpower doesn't run on one fixed model or pattern — it has a mobile pattern. We all know this from how we eat. You can keep to a very strict eating schedule, eating with exceptional regularity, or you can eat however happens to come up — and between those two extremes lies every possible variation. It's only once the Ego system genuinely comes to readiness that it will actually use its willpower. And when willpower does show up, its purpose is to provide for those who need it. A byproduct of this can be the provider's own material well-being, but what actually moves the Ego to act is the needs of the people calling out to it. Classically this shows up in the Community channel, 40-37, in the form of a marriage contract (in terms of human sexuality, this is the channel of the marriage contract). The reality is that gate 40 is expected to deliver exactly this kind of rescue, in the form of material provision. Everyone else counts on gate 40, together with its Ego, going out into the world and grabbing whatever it can — conquering the material plane. In return, the Ego gets pampered in every way imaginable.

What needs to be understood about gate 40 is that it doesn't carry a powerful will on its own (powerful will is found in gate 51) — what its willpower is capable of depends on how much it's called on by the people around it, who literally crank up or build its potential through their demands. The Ego is simply lazy by nature and, as a rule, wants to rest. "Yes, I can do that, but please understand, I need rest first — before I take this on at all." Before the Ego undertakes anything, someone on the other side needs to say, "You're wonderful!" or "There's nothing in the fridge, and you need to do something about it — go on, do something!" The point is, real effort has to go into getting the Ego to engage. It has to be flattered, coaxed, or properly pumped up. If that doesn't happen, the Ego says, "Sorry, I'm tired today and not up for work. I'd rather just sit here and rest…"

The key to the essence of gate 40 is in the gloss over the lines: the point of transition between struggle and freedom. There's nothing more to understand than that. It sets aside time to struggle, and then it needs deliverance — freedom from the struggle. No Ego can stay in a state of struggle forever. That's crucial to understand. All that's possible is to push and prod the will up to a certain point.

The structure of any hexagram begins with the first line of the lower trigram. Remember that the lower trigram has no idea the other end of the channel even exists. That means these lines aren't social (even though the channel itself is social — it's the channel of the social contract, the marriage contract) — and they're genuinely surprised when someone pushes them to do something. The first three lines carry no social gifts. They're only interested in the foundation. On their own, they'd rather stay invisible. In other words, you won't be able to find people with this kind of Ego when you're about to tell them the fridge is empty. They're quietly dozing somewhere out back. They want nothing to do with it. And while they're lying there, the first thing they're trying to figure out is whether willpower has any value at all.