Essays and Articles

Shalom Mountain

We are delighted to announce that Shalom Mountain has developed a Wisdom School which is deeply rooted in the teachings of Unique Self Enlightenment, Eros, World Spirituality Teaching and the Enlightenment of Fullness.

Dr. Marc Gafni serves as the teacher in Residence. The next session- which will be the eight session of the Wisdom School will be March 8-11th at Shalom Mountain in upstate new york. The teaching is Sold Out however work is being done to make ten more spaces available so if you are interested register now or be put on a waiting list.

For more information click here. 

What: Unique Self Process: Taught for the First Time Ever in Public

When: May 19 – 21, 2012

Where: Venwoude Retreat Center in Holland. Inexpensive flights available.

Who: Dr. Marc Gafni and Mauk Pieper: Unique Self Process: First Three Days

Who: Dr. Marc Gafni and Chahat Corten, Pauline Botden

The Principles and Practices of Unique Self Enlightenment

The Democratization of Enlightenment Begins with You!

Principle and Practice 1: The Invitation and Responsibility of Unique Self

Unique Self: The Evolutionary Context
The Four Pillars of Unique Self
Two Tastes: Being and Becoming

Principle and Practice 2: The Glory of the Story

Personal and Impersonal Enlightenment
Live Your Story: Mythologize Don’t Pathologize
Details Matter: The Time Line and Trajectory of Your Life

Principle and Practice 3: False Core, False Self, and the Trajectory of Identity

Personality Types
False Core, False Self WHOLE WEEK ON THIS

Principle and Practice 4: Awakening: Evolution Beyond Ego

True Self, True Identity
Paths of Practice to Awaken Your Unique Self
Unique Self and Transcendence

Principle and Practice 5: Awakening: Evolution Beyond Ego

Five Differences Between Unique Self and Ego
The Democratization of Enlightenment
The New Enlightenment

Principle and Practice 6: Unique Wound and Unique Shadow

The Shadow: Three Steps Beyond Jung
Shadow and the New Enlightenment
Follow Your Shadow to Your Unique Self

Principle and Practice 7: Unique Gifts, Unique Delight and Unique Obligation

What is your Unique Self?
What are your Unique Gifts?
What is your Unique Purpose?

Principle and Practice 8: Evolutionary We Space

The creation of the Unique We
Five Principles and Practice which invoke the Miracle of We
Public Enlightenment: The Next Evolutionary Leap

Evolution of Love

by Marc Gafni

Are you ready to participate consciously in the Evolution of Love?

If you are then come to study and practice with spiritual luminary Dr. Marc Gafni.

For registration Click Here

More info on Venwoude

Short video

Dates:
3 day workshop 11-13th nov 2011
1 day workshop 15th nov 2011

“I love you.”

Consider the impact that these words””spoken in the right place, at the right time, by the right person, in the right way””have had on your life. In our time, so many of the old words of the sacred have lost their capacity to move us, dethroned by the rigorous critiques of modernity and postmodernity. But the authentic expression of love always holds a radical power to touch and even transform our lives.

We sometimes wait our whole lives to hear “I love you” spoken with total authenticity.

We may wait even longer to be able to say it. But to hear or speak these words sincerely is a complete affirmation of all that is sacred. For many of us today, the words “love” and “meaning” are virtually indistinguishable.

Yet, what do we mean by “love”? Is love simply the tender feeling you have for a friend or a relative, a lover, or a spouse? Or is there something more profound about love’s meaning, something that accounts for its power to transform a life, in every way?

Love is more than just a feeling. Enlightened teachers through the ages have told us that love is the dynamic ground of all reality. If that’s true, then love can be seen as the actual force that drives evolution””the force the Greeks called Eros””as well as the enlivening joy that opens the heart.

So what is love, when we see it from both a personal and an evolutionary perspective? How do we find it, nurture it, and sustain it? Modern science and philosophy point out that all levels of reality are evolving. The world of today is wildly different then the world of yesterday. Matter, body, mind, and even spirit are in flux. When we understand the profound evolutionary context of life, we realize that love must be evolving as well.

Wow: The Evolution of Love

What a wild, important, and profound idea! Simply put: the meaning, purpose, and vision of love is changing. In our time, the great truths about love””taught in different languages by teachers of every tradition are being re-shaped by modern and postmodern considerations. In this unique conversation, we engage these truths through an Integral lens.

The Essence of Relationship is Love

Some hold Love to be the animating core of all of reality. Love is the Eros that drives evolution, even as it is the joy that moves our heart and fills our being. And, put simply: if all levels of reality evolve, then love must evolve as well!

This Evolution Needs Your Participation

We are gathering at Venwoude to explore and experience: The Future of Love – Evolutionary Integral Relationships to transform our “love lives” on a personal level and map a vision of where relationships will evolve for all humankind.

Guiding Inquiries

• ”In an evolving universe, and in our evolving lives, what is the future of love and relationship?
• ”As you evolve personally, how do you tap the great depth and fire locked inside each of your relationships?
• ”How do you turn your relationships into the ultimate spiritual practice?
• ”What startling insights and possibilities come alive for you when your relationships are seen through an Integral evolutionary context?
• ”How do your relationships””your friendships, romantic partnerships, organizational encounters, and spiritual connections””help raise your level of consciousness as an individual? And how do you help raise others?
• ”What is your totally unique way of being in relationship and what unique practices should you be doing to make your relationships even better?
• ”What do the great wisdom traditions reveal about the “second person of spirit”””and how do we move beyond myths of the traditions while living more of the meaning?

Workshop Marc Gafni
November 15th
Integral Leadership: Your Unique Gift.

Every human being has a particular set of gifts that they can offer in the world. What are your unique gifts? The nature of the gift, like the perspective held by every human being, is utterly unique. The ability to offer this gift freely in the world depends on our ability to free ourselves of limiting and false notions of who we are, and identify with our larger service. Some of our gifts are modest, private, and intimate ””some are larger than life and have dramatic impact in the public sphere. However, every Unique Gift arises and may be offered in all four quadrants. From a non-dual perspective, your unique gift creates your unique obligation. In the language of one teacher of Unique Self, Man’s deed is God’s need.

God needs your service. God, in the first, second, and third person, needs your service. To live your Unique Self and offer your Unique Gifts is to align yourself with the evolutionary impulse and fulfill your evolutionary obligation as a Lover.

Living as an Evolutionary Lover is the passionate path of the New Enlightenment. The way you make this path real and alive in your life is by identifying and giving your Unique Gifts. Buddhism teaches the Enlightenment of Emptiness. To do this you must dis-identify with you personality story. And this is fully half the story.

The second half of the story is the Enlightenment of Fullness. To realize the enlightenment of fullness you must fully inhabit, embody and Live Your Story.

There are four key steps in this process:

1. Evolve beyond exclusive identification with ego
2.  Take off the mask of your particular false self
3. Identify your Unique Gift
4. Begin to give your Unique Gift in the world

Join Mike Wombacher and Dustin DiPerna for a series of three discussions in which they will compare the perspectives of the Integral lens and the lens of Evolutionary Enlightenment on three key issues of this emerging new worldview.

The evenings are designed to maximize engagement and intersubjective emergence. Mike and Dustin will set the course for each evening with a 15 to 20 minute discussion in which they will explore various themes related to the evening’s topic. Each night there will be opportunities to be part of a smaller group discussion as well as a larger discussion group facilitated by Mike and Dustin.

The emphasis will be on exploration, discovery and evolved intersubjective engagement as we all build our understanding through collective inquiry into the subtleties of this emerging new worldview. We hope you can join us for this exploration and exercise in community building…and please feel free to bring an interested friend!

Join us in a collective exploration of creative friction as we dive into:

Part 1: The Evolutionary & Integral Context – Thursday, June 9
Part 2: The Unique Self & The Authentic Self – Tuesday, June 28
Part 3: The Evolutionary Approach to Shadow &
The Integral Approach to Shadow – Thursday, July 14
Save the dates!

Rudramandir in the Lotus Room
830 Bancroft Way
Berkeley, CA

Cost – $15 per date
Special Price if you purchase all 3 nights – $39

Register here

*This event is sponsored by The Center for World Spirituality, EnlightenNext, and Bay Area integral.

It seems like just yesterday we gathered at the Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, California for year one of the Integral Spiritual Experience. If you attended or heard about what transpired, you know that the collective intention of the 500+ participants led by teachers like Ken Wilber, Dr. Marc Gafni, Sally Kempton, Lama Surya Das, and Jean Houston raised the energetic roof on a new era in Integral Spirituality gatherings, diving deeply into our Unique Selves. It’s a tough act to follow, but in this extraordinary dialogue, Ken and Marc set the context for the Integral Spiritual Experience Year 2 exploration entitled: The Future of Love – Evolutionary Integral Relationships.

Who doesn’t want to transform their love lives with husbands, wives, partners, family members, and friends? In this dialogue Ken and Marc explore “The Miracle of We”, the space of mutuality that so defines our human experience. When we look into the eyes of love, who is really looking back at us? Are we just separate selves desperately seeking companionship, or are we perhaps each a unique expression of Spirit itself?

In this lively exchange Ken and Marc dive into the following questions:

• What is love?
•  How do we find it, nurture and sustain it?
•  How does our conscious participation change the evolution of love?
•  What are the structural patterns in the Evolution of Love?
• What are the evolutionary Integral skills of love and relationship that have the power to deepen our realization and to liberate our true and unique self?
•  What new gifts for the world can emerge from this evolution?

Click here for more information on Integral Spiritual Experience Year 2: The Future of Love.

Ken Wilber is the most widely translated academic writer in America, with 25 books translated into some 30 foreign languages, and is the first philosopher-psychologist to have his Collected Works published while still alive. Wilber is an internationally acknowledged leader and the preeminent scholar of the Integral stage of human development, which continues to gather momentum around the world. His many books, all of which are still in print, can be found at Amazon.com. Some of his more popular books include Integral Spirituality; No Boundary; Grace and Grit; Sex, Ecology, Spirituality; and the “everything” books: A Brief History of Everything (one of his largest selling books) and A Theory of Everything (probably the shortest introduction to his work).  Ken Wilber is the founder of Integral Institute, Inc., the co-founder of Integral Life, Inc., and the Senior Fellow of Integral Life Spiritual Center.

Dr. Marc Gafni holds his doctorate from Oxford University. He is a rabbi and an iconoclastic teacher of Kabbalah and World Spirituality. He is the director with Ken Wilber, Sally Kempton and Diane Hamilton of the Integral Life Spiritual Center and core founder and faculty member of iEvolve: Global Practice Community. He has written seven books, including the national bestseller Soul Prints, and The Mystery of Love, an exploration of the relationship between the sexual, the erotic, and the sacred. Gafni’s teaching is marked by a deep transmission of open heart, love and leading edge provocative wisdom. Gafni’s path of personal evolution, in both the agony and the ecstasy of what he calls “sacred autobiography,” woven together with profound reverence and reading of sacred texts have formed the context for his teaching. It is from this place of broken-hearted humility, radical joy and sacred audacity that he teaches. Gafni is considered by many to be a visionary voice in the founding of a new World Spirituality.

*Originally posted on Integral Life