If the center is defined (colored in)
A fixed way of thinking and processing information; stable opinions and concepts.
A defined center is your constant. It works the same way in any company, and it’s how you influence others, even in silence.
If the center is open (white)
A flexible mind without fixed opinions; the wisdom lies in the ability to see many points of view. The Not-Self pretends to be certain.
An open center isn’t a flaw. It’s the place where you feel others keenly and, over time, gain wisdom: so many other people’s states pass through you that you learn to tell them apart. The only important thing is not to take what belongs to others for your own.
What this center is responsible for
The Ajna is how you process information and arrive at conclusions.
How definition shows in life
A steady way of thinking: you arrive at the same conclusions and know how to hold your point of view. From outside this looks like clarity.
You explain to your nephew how to calculate loan interest in exactly the same words you used with a colleague three years ago. The argument with relatives about school repeats every November almost word for word, and your arguments haven’t moved an inch. In the department everyone changed their minds within a week and started talking differently, while you stand where you stood, and a month later it turns out it was a mistake not to listen to you. From outside this reads as clarity and reliability. From inside there is no feat in it: the mechanism was assembled once, and it turns without your participation.
What openness turns into
Your opinion changes — and that is not flightiness, it is the design. Trouble starts when a person pretends to a certainty they don’t have, in order to seem reliable.
On Monday you prove to your brother that a mortgage right now is a trap. On Thursday, after a talk with the accountant, you explain at home why you should take one immediately. Both times without lying. At an interview they ask which approach is right, and you hear your own voice produce an ironclad formulation you don’t even believe in, and then you feel awkward about it all evening. But about ten years on, at the table you are the only one who holds both sides of the argument in mind and is in no hurry to name a winner.
The wisdom of the open center
Don’t pretend to be certain. An open Ajna knows how to look at a question from every side — that is its strength, not its weakness.
The Gates of this center
Each Gate is a specific theme through which the center shows itself.
How the center connects to the rest of the chart
The set of defined centers makes up your Type and inner Authority — that is, it’s the centers that determine what you make decisions with. A center “switches on” when a whole channel forms between its Gates and the Gates of a neighboring center.
If this center is defined and there are no others above it in the hierarchy, it gives Mental Authority.