When I first began introducing Human Design, Definition was the very bedrock of what I tried to explain to people. It really was a way of beginning to introduce what it means to be imprinted, what it means to be fixed––to have a place within you that you can trust.

I can remember my very first descriptions of Definition; I talked about what was reliable and consistent throughout your life. Every moment, every breath, every day, every month, every year… It's always there.

After all, when you look at your BodyGraph, and if there is Definition (for the vast majority of humanity there is Definition in their Design) then you can see very clearly that you have a consistent way, a fixed and permanent way in which information moves within you.

It's always reliable because it's you. It is the part of you that is designed to operate consistently and thus it is the only part of you that you can truly trust. That you can trust not so much to be right or wrong, but you can trust to be you.

So often, when newcomers come to Design and they begin to investigate the names of Gates and Channels, when they're looking at Channels they try to add together Gate one and Gate two, but that's not really the way that it works.

The Channel, and Definition, in and of itself is much more than the sum of its parts. It is very much a living force. What is so important about Definition is that this very life force that is consistent and reliable is the counterpoint to everything that is open in you: open to conditioning, to leading you away from your true self and Authority, to the power of the Not-Self and the mind.

Definition leads us directly to what makes Human Design so valuable to humanity. It leads us to Type, and through Type, to Strategy, and through Strategy, to Authority.

Follow your Strategy. Honour your Inner Authority. Trust what's really you.

Ra Uru Hu was the Human Design System’s founder and messenger. Ra dedicated 25 years of his life to the development and teaching of the System around the world until he passed away in 2011.