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.
Join Andre Duqum in conversation with Dr. Marc Gafni.
In Andre’s voice:
This week we explore the depths of Kabbalah, unique self, and Eros with renowned philosopher Marc Gafni. He begins by defining the foundational concepts of Kabbalah, setting the stage for an exploration of the interplay between masculine and feminine energies that shape our reality. He introduces the profound symbol of the Tree of Life and its relevance to personal mastery. As he describes each piece of the 11 stories in the Tree of Life, the discussion unfolds to encompass the realms of imagination, understanding, and the balance between love and boundaries, highlighting the beauty of contradictions and the coexistence of joy amidst life’s challenges.
He then describes the concept of unique self, an understanding of self that transcends the misconceptions of both Western and Eastern traditions. He describes how you can use this knowledge to unlock your true purpose in the world.
As the episode progresses, we delve into how Eros can serve as a portal to deepening intimacy, and ultimately heal our disconnected world. Whether you’re well-versed in Kabbalah or just starting your spiritual exploration, this episode offers valuable insights to inspire you to embrace your unique self and deepen your relationships.I’m always left spellbound by the breathtaking honor of connecting with Dr. Marc Gafni.
When he speaks every cell of my body comes alive, my soul feels ignited, I’m able to literally feel Eros in, as and through me. It brought me to tears. @MarcGafni
We spoke of his new book that I invite you to purchase, First Principles and First Values. Not only did we speak of Eros and Pseudo Eros, but a new word, Erosvalue in response to the meta-crisis. And yet what does this mean to your life and intimate relationships? In this inspiring conversation you will discover…
- The importance of being able to feel the whole of life, not to bypass the hurt or disassociate …but to feel it all, move beyond identity and embrace unique values to experience a never known before possibility.
- How First Principles and First Values allow us to tell a new Story of Value… And how we need to stay in the field of value to create synergies and end the meta-crisis.
- How indeed we live in an intimate universe and yet the intimate universe also lives in us, thus intimacy is literally what we need to survive and embody thriving.
- How we can evolve the story that animates society when we support our evolution reading this book of first principles and first values, a shared grammar… so we are no longer lonely, non intimate, cut off from the interior of each other, isolated in surface existence.
- How, quoting the book, we can create a new story with a plot line that plays out desire that moves toward intrinsic values where we have will, choice, possibilities and freedom, dealing with the crisis of value, (a birth) and a resolution of a new structure of value.
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0:00 Intro 1:40 Defining Kabbalah: A Mathematics of Cosmic Intimacy
9:57 Masculine and Feminine Energy in the Universe
20:50 Introducing The Tree of Life
22:19 Keter: The Profound Power of Silence
30:43 Chochmah & Binah: Ideas, Imagination & Understanding
32:49 Chesed & Gevurah: Outrageous Love & Boundaries
35:31 Tiferet: Laughter & Beauty that Holds All Contradictions
38:51 True Meaning of Beauty & Laughter
49:16 Netzach & Hod: Forever & Surrender
51:50 Yesod & Malchut: That Which Receives & Becomes
52:11 Practical Applications of This Wisdom
1:01:56 Finding Light in the Broken Heart
1:06:48 SEED: Save 25% off Your First Month
1:08:50 Every Place You’ve Been, You’ve Needed to Be
1:10:43 Who Are You? Defining Separate Self vs True Self
1:20:24 The East & West Both Got This Wrong: The Emergence of Unique Self
1:31:08 Infinity Desires Finitude: What True Love Is
1:38:50 Qualities of Unique Self: Looking Beyond Nondual Thinking
1:46:16 Your Risk to Bring Your Gift into the World
1:55:02 Framework for Defining & Unlocking Your Purpose
1:57:16 Shadow-work: Your Pathway to Purpose
2:09:45 Your Unique Obligation
2:17:13 Eros: Desire as a Portal to Deepening
2:31:30 Earth’s Problematic Intimacy Disorder
2:41:49 Human Love: From Soulmate to Whole-mate
2:58:00 Conclusion
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by David J. Temple
AS THE META-CRISIS DEEPENS, THE FATE OF CIVILIZATION AND HUMANITY HANGS IN THE BALANCE.
First Principles and First Values is the tip of the spear in the fight for a humane future. Establishing frameworks for a new school of thought called CosmoErotic Humanism, the book is built around forty-two propositions that provide new source code for the future of planetary culture.
Like Europe in the early Renaissance, humanity is in a time between worlds, at a time between stories. First Principles and First Values contains blueprints for the bridge needed to cross from this world to the next.
“The position argued for in this book is of vital importance . . . it needs urgently to be read.”
IAIN McGILCHRIST, author of The Master and His Emissary
Aubrey Marcus: “If you have watched the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, this podcast will blow your mind. Because hidden within these fictional films, are true stories of value and reality drawn forth into existence by a force even greater than the writers themselves. So what deep mythic wisdom can we find hiding in the Guardians Of The Galaxy story? You’ll have to join Dr. Marc Gafni and I to find out. SPOILER ALERT!
For more on the wisdom from the Soloman lineage, and a deeper understanding of the cosmo-erotic universe, check out the book: A Return to Eros by Marc Gafni and Kristina Kincaid.”
Covered in this podcast:
This is what Sabri Gazail, host of the Lost and Found Podcast, who has since become a valued contributor to the Center, says about this episode:
Wow! This conversation with Dr Marc Gafni blew my mind. I first heard Dr Marc on the @AubreyMarcusPod and felt so much truth in the explanation of self, God, love and life.
We dive into – dealing with trauma and how the western therapeutic approach doesn’t work, what is the self, what is desire, why we are here, what our purpose is, what God is, what our relationship to God is and our meaning of life!
We are adding to this post whenever there is a new dialogue. So come back and scroll down to the bottom of this post to see the most recent dialogue.
Also, if you sign up for our newsletter, you will be notified when there is a new dialogue coming up, and you can be there live.
The first of a monthly series of discussions, Love or Die, in which Marc elaborates on what he has called the Global Intimacy Disorder and CosmoErotic Humanism. How can we rewrite the source code of the present epoch and create a New Story? The stakes are high. It’s Love or Die!
The stakes are high. It’s Love or Die! This week we delve into Hebrew Wisdom and Radical Kabbalah.
The 3rd of a monthly series of discussions, Love or Die, in which Marc and Andrew discuss the meta-crisis, Hebrew Wisdom, and AI.
In this passionate conversation, Marc speaks the unspeakable: about Sabbatai Sevi, the Hebrew Wisdom Messiah, and his wife Sara. Where sex and Eros meet religion and the clarification of desire.
In part 2 of this passionate conversation, Marc speaks the unspeakable: about Sabbatai Sevi, the Hebrew Wisdom Messiah, and his wife Sara, where sex and Eros meet religion and the clarification of desire.
Andrew questions Marc about the famous Tree of Life and the ten Sephirot in Hebrew Kabbalah. An introduction and a radical interpretation. And a discussion on the first Sephirot, Keter, the crown.
Andrew questions Marc about the famous Tree of Life and the ten Sephirot in Hebrew Kabbalah. An introduction and a radical interpretation. And a discussion on the 2nd and 3rd Sephirot: Chokhmah and Binah.
Andrew questions Marc about the famous Tree of Life and the ten Sephirot in Hebrew Kabbalah. An introduction and a radical interpretation. And a discussion on the 4th and 5th Sephirot: Chesed and Gevurah.
Andrew questions Marc about the famous Tree of Life and the ten Sephirot in Hebrew Kabbalah. An introduction and a radical interpretation. And a discussion on the 6th Sephirot: Tiferet.
Andrew questions Marc about the famous Tree of Life and the ten Sephirot in Hebrew Kabbalah. An introduction and a radical interpretation. And a discussion on the 7th and 8th Sephirot: Hod and Nezach.
Andrew questions Marc about the famous Tree of Life and the ten Sephirot in Hebrew Kabbalah. An introduction and a radical interpretation. And a discussion on the 9th Sephirot: Yesod.
Andrew questions Marc about the famous Tree of Life and the ten Sephirot in Hebrew Kabbalah. An introduction and a radical interpretation. And a discussion on the 10th Sephirot: Malkuth.
from the book Your Unique Self by Dr. Marc Gafni
When you fail to hold the personal, you may begin to engage in manipulation or possibly even psychological abuse. When you begin to see yourself as aligned with the process, which was the great teaching of Hegel, you may inadvertently give birth to the worst evils of Fascism, Communism, and Nazism, all of which were very heavily influenced by Hegel’s teaching that demanded that the individual must awaken and identify with the great evolutionary process of divine unfolding in absolute spirit. In Hegel’s powerful clarion call to align with the ecstatic impulse of historically unfolding evolutionary God, the holiness of the individual was somehow crushed in all the grand rhetoric, with devastating results for God and humans. The process must always remain personal.
For me it was always the Hasidic master Levi Isaac of Berdichev who radically reminded me of the primacy of the personal even when in the throes of evolutionary ecstasy. Levi Isaac was once leading the prayers at the close of Yom Kippur services. Yom Kippur is a fast day and the holiest day in the Hebrew calendar. The twilight hours at the end of the fast are filled with potency. According to the evolutionary mystics of Kabbalah, the enlightened prayer leader, during that time may potentially enter the virtual source code of reality and effect a tikkun; that is, effect a momentous leap in the evolution of consciousness for the sake of all sentient beings, in all generations. This is precisely what Levi Isaac—greatest of all enlightened evolutionary prayer leaders—was doing on that Yom Kippur. Night had already fallen, the fast was officially over, but the ecstasy of Levi Isaac was rippling through all the upper worlds. All beings held their breath in awe of the evolutionary power of Levi Isaac’s consciousness. All of reality was pulsating with him towards an ecstatic evolutionary crescendo. Just as the great breakthrough was about to happen at the leading edge, Levi Isaac spotted out of the corner of his eye an old man who was thirsty. The fast had been very long and the old man needed to drink. So in the midst of his ecstasy, Levi Isaac brought the whole evolutionary process to a halt. He immediately ended the fast and personally brought the old man a drink of water.
When Barbara Marx Hubbard, the Grande Dame of Conscious Evolution, and Marc Gafni met, it was truly a meeting of hearts, minds, souls, and Evolutionary Unique Selves.
Since then Barbara has joined the executive board of the center and Marc, Barbara, and Daniel Schmachtenberger have joined forces to work on a ground breaking new book The Conscious Universe: Participating in the Evolution of Love. You can track their collaboration in our new CIW Portal on the Foundation for Conscious Evolution.
“The next stage in evolution is ‘Unique Selves’ joining Genius.”
~ Barbara Marx Hubbard
Enjoy the dialogue here:
Watch and listen to this gorgeous dialogue between four masters of their respective fields in the process of evolving the teaching of Unique Self, Unique We, Couplehood, Imago Therapy, and Unique Self Recovery:
Harville Hendrix is a contemporary psychologist who co-founded Imago Relationship Therapy, along with his wife, Helen LaKelly Hunt.
Harville Hendrix was born in 1935 in Statesboro, Georgia. He was an ordained Baptist minister before he completed his BA at Mercer University in Georgia, in 1957, and his BD from Union Theological Seminary in 1961. He went on to receive both an MA and PhD in psychology and religion from the Divinity School at the University of Chicago.
Hendrix serves as a therapist, educator, and pastoral counselor. He has spent the last two decades practicing and teaching his own form of marriage and relationship therapy known as Imago Relationship Therapy in collaboration with his wife.
Helen LaKelly Hunt (born 1949) is a daughter of H. L. Hunt. She is founder and president of The Sister Fund, which describes itself as “a private women’s fund dedicated to the social, political, economic, and spiritual empowerment of women and girls.”
Hunt currently lives in New York with her husband, Harville Hendrix, a self-help author.
Hunt was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, which cited her as a “[c]reative philanthropist who has used her own resources and others to create women’s funding institutions.”
Lori Galperin serves as a Member of the Board of the Center for Integral Wisdom.
She is a clinician, writer and teacher who began her 27 year career working in the area of sex & marital therapy. Training at Masters & Johnson Institute, she eventually became co-director, co-founded the first inpatient sexual trauma program in the country, and ultimately established and clinically co-directed three such programs. Her work spanned diverse populations including incest families, sex offenders, victims of sexual abuse and individuals struggling with sexual addiction.
Dr. Marc Gafni is a philosopher, public intellectual and wisdom teacher. He holds his doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University, rabbinic certification from the chief rabbinate in Israel, as well private rabbinic ordination. He is also ordained and holds a doctorate in religious science. He is the initiating thought leader, together with Ken Wilber, of World Spirituality based on Integral principles, as well as the leading theorist and teacher of Unique Self Enlightenment. He is the director of Center for Integral Wisdom (formerly World Spirituality), a think tank he co-founded in 2011 with Ken Wilber, Sally Kempton, and Mariana Caplan (now also joined by Lori Galperin) which is creating a body of work to evolve the source code of human existence.
