What is Unique?
What is Self?
What is 2.0?
Dr. Marc Gafni argues that the Enlightenment traditions made the big mistake of denying identity and selfhood. He attempts to rectify this mistake and celebrate human uniqueness as the only way to survive the meta-crisis.
The state of our world is in such a fragile place right now, which means it’s up to all of us to step up to the plate and do our part to make it better. You can’t be that agent of change, however, if you don’t know your self…
Explore the concept of self and be prepared to tackle the three most important questions any human being has to answer as Dr. Marc Gafni returns for another deep dive into cosmo-erotic humanism in this Living 4D conversation with Paul Chek.
Paul Chek is a world-renowned expert in the fields of corrective and high-performance exercise kinesiology, stress management and holistic wellness.
In this conversation Paul Chek and Marc Gafni explore what Self really means. Discover the three most important questions a human being has to answer and the one thing we need to get right to not go extinct!
Note: On this website link below, right underneath the one hour video version, you’ll find the longer audio-version:
In this episode Marc Gafni shares his ideas about Conscious Business, Conscious Leadership, purpose and the importance of developing yourself as a conscious leader, manager and, in fact for any human being, in order to serve others. He elaborates on the idea of ‘The Unique Self for leaders and their business in todays world’.
Marc is a visionary thinker, spiritual teacher, social activist, passionate philosopher, and author of ten books, including the award-winning Your Unique Self: The Radical Path to Personal Enlightenment. He holds his doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University, is a rabbi and had a talk show on Israelin television.
Together with John Mackey , CEO of Whole Foods Market and entrepreneur Kate Maloney he brings revolutionary ideas on how business should and can be meaningfull far beyond the individual benefit but serving for the better of society and the world.
Marc is known for his rare combination of brilliant mind and overflowing heart. He is a leading public intellectual and has been called a trail-blazing visionary in opening up new possibilities for love, Eros and relationship.
In that regard he is the co-founder and president of The Centre of Integral Wisdom and at the end of August he will be in Belgium leading a retreat called the ‘Eros mystery School’. If after listening you feel like you want to participate to this great event, you can use the link below.
In this beautiful conversation between Andrew Cohen, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Sally Kempton and Marc Gafni, they are talking in depth about their respective views of the nature of Self.
In this exciting dialogue from 2013, Dr. Gafni and Dr. Schwartz discuss the exciting potential integration of the Unique Self teaching and Internal Family Systems.
You can find an earlier dialogue between them here from 2012 where they explore the contribution of Unique Self to family therapy and other aspects of psychology. This is what Marc Gafni wrote after this wonderful dialogue:
In a long discussion with my friend and colleague Richard Schwartz, founder of Internal Family Systems Theory, I shared with him my perspective on the relation of Ego and Unique Self and the larger set of core distinctions that comprise Unique Self teaching. Dick excitedly concurred and added important empirical validation from his clinical perspective and sent me this written communication after our conversation:
Many spiritual traditions make the mistake of viewing ‘the ego’ as the problem. At worst it vilified as greedy, anxious, clinging, needy, focused on wounds from the past or fear in the future, full of limiting or false beliefs about you, the source of all suffering, and something one must evolve beyond in order to taste enlightenment. At best it is seen as a confused and childish — to be treated with patience and acceptance but not to be taken seriously or listened to. My 30 years of experience exploring internal worlds has led to very different conclusions regarding the ego. What is called the ego or false self in these spiritualities is a collection of sub-personalities I call ‘parts.’ When you first become aware of them, these parts manifest all the negative qualities described above, so I understand why this mistake is so widespread.
As you get to know them from a place of curiosity and compassion, however, you learn that they are not what they seem. Instead, they are spiritual beings themselves who, because of being hurt by events in your life, are forced into roles that are far from their natures, and carry extreme beliefs and emotions that drive their limiting or suffering perspectives. Once they are able to release those beliefs and emotions (what I call burdens) they immediately transform into their natural, enlightened states and can join your evolution toward increasing embodiment of your true nature, what Marc Gafni importantly refers to as correctly, your Unique Self.
Thus, if instead of trying to ignore or transcend an annoying ego, you relate to even the apparent worst of your parts with love and open curiosity you will find that, just like you, they long for the liberating realization of their connection with the divine and provide delightful and sage company on your journey toward enlightenment. In this way you will be relating to these inner entities in the same way that Jesus and Buddha taught us to relate to suffering, exiled people.
The dialogue here is about a possible integration of Unique Self into psychotherapy and especially the IFS Model.
Richard Schwartz is a leading expert in the field of psychotherapy and recognized as the founding developer of Internal Family Systems Theory, an influential therapeutical model which combines systems thinking with an integrative view of the mind and its discrete qualities.
Kathy Brownback, Board Member of CIW and academic teacher in the religion and philosophy department at Phillips Exeter Academy:
Dr. Marc Gafni flew into Boston on his way back from Holland in early June 2012, and came up to Exeter an hour north to meet with us (Phillips Exeter is an independent boarding school for students with strong academic promise from around the United States and the world). Students in the mysticism class in the religion department, who were nearly all seniors just about to graduate, had read and really liked Marc’s unique self teaching and were thrilled to hear that he was coming. When eros is named and separated from the solely sex-shop connotation of “erotic,” they all know what it is and they understand why it is important to expand and reclaim the word.
Marc linked it directly to the electrical thread of uniqueness in their own lives and to their obligation to find and follow it. It means a lot to them not to have this framed as a “head vs. heart” or “mind vs. body” conundrum—in his teaching the two are inseparable and give access to each other. Marc’s work speaks to students in a remarkable way—they often seem to have an almost instinctive feel for and response to what he is saying, which does give the sense of an evolutionary process unfolding. I have written about his impact in this class before and will do so again.
This was Marc’s fifth visit to the campus and was deeply received by students and faculty alike. We are delighted that a new course was recently approved at Exeter which will directly draw on Unique Self theory. We are confident this will be part of larger movement to evolve secondary school education with the principles of Unique Self theory. It was simply outstanding to witness the great teaching work and the depth of conversation with the Exeter faculty and students. Take a moment and enjoy the recording of the Assembly (some 1300 students and faculty were present).
