Undefined and open centres

Meaning

A centre is undefined when no defined channel reaches it. The bodygraph leaves it white, or in Ulune the colour of the page. Most charts have several undefined centres, and some have only one or two defined.

Human Design reads an undefined centre as a place of openness. It has no fixed way of working of its own. Instead it takes in the energy of that centre from the people and places around it, and it amplifies what it takes in. Someone with an undefined Solar Plexus can feel a friend’s sadness more keenly than the friend does. Someone with an undefined Root can feel an office’s rush as an emergency.

Ulune draws a further line, used by many teachers. An undefined centre with some of its gates active is called undefined. It takes in what others bring, mainly in the themes of those gates. A centre with no active gate at all is called open. It takes in whatever comes, with no particular filter.

The tradition sees two sides to this openness. One is conditioning: absorbing pressures, moods or wishes that are not one’s own, and living as if they were. The other is wisdom. An undefined centre samples many people. It can therefore learn to read that energy well, and to tell what is healthy from what is not. Human Design describes the move from the first to the second as one of its central aims.

In practice

• Noticing what is borrowed: the simplest practice is to step away. A feeling, a pressure or a question that fades when one is alone was probably taken in from others.
• The mind and the voice: an undefined Head may chase questions that are not its own. An undefined Ajna may pretend to be certain. An undefined Throat may feel it must speak.
• The self: an undefined G may look for direction everywhere.
• The motors: an undefined Heart may try to prove its worth. An undefined Sacral may not know when enough is enough. An undefined Solar Plexus may avoid conflict, and an undefined Root may hurry to be rid of pressure.
• The Spleen: an undefined Spleen may hold on to what feels familiar rather than what feels good.
• These are signals, not faults. The tradition treats them in the same spirit as the not-self theme of each type: a sign to return to one’s strategy and authority.
• Hanging gates: a coloured gate whose partner is not coloured is a hanging gate. Another person, or a planet passing, can supply the missing half and briefly define the channel and its centres.
• The Reflector: in a Reflector every centre is undefined, which is why this type samples and mirrors its surroundings so fully.

Across traditions

• Conditioning is an idea Human Design shares with psychology and many contemplative paths. Much of what a person takes for themselves was learned from others. The system’s novelty is to map where in a chart each kind of influence enters.
• Astrology has a loose parallel in empty houses, which are read through their signs and rulers rather than as missing parts of a life.

Origin and history

Ra Uru Hu taught the difference between defined and undefined centres from the first presentations of the system after 1987. He called the undefined centres the place of conditioning and also of potential wisdom. The finer distinction between undefined and open centres is used by many later teachers and charting programs, in differing ways.

How Ulune calculates it

Ulune colours a gate when any of a chart’s 26 activations stands in it: 13 bodies at birth, 13 in the Design. A channel is defined when both of its gates are coloured, and a centre is defined when a defined channel touches it. Every other centre is not defined.

For each centre that is not defined, Ulune counts its active gates and shows, for instance, “2 of 7 gates active”. With at least one active gate, the centre is labelled undefined. With none, it is labelled open. A channel with only one coloured gate is shown as one half, with the body that colours it. The Personality and Design views repeat the count with one layer’s activations only.

Correspondences