The page you are trying to reach is part of our Great Library Stacks & Archives. If you already signed up for our FREE Great Library card, please log in to access this content.
If you are not yet a Library Card owner, you can sign up to get access.
The page you are trying to reach is part of our Great Library Stacks & Archives. If you already signed up for our FREE Great Library card, please log in to access this content.
If you are not yet a Library Card owner, you can sign up to get access.
Looking for more on the wisdom tradition that aligns you with your deepest creativity? In a three-part excerpt from the long version of Soul Prints, Marc Gafni writes that we can transform and raise our passion and artistic creativity into a powerful drive for the sensual and the holy, realizing that, in a redeemed world, they are one and the same. As long as our spirituality remains vapid and empty, we indeed need to repress the more primal, creative passion, lest it overwhelm us. Primal passion unrealized is soul print or Unique Self destiny unrealized.
You can view Part II of this essay in full by clicking here>>
You can view Part III of this essay in full by clicking here>>
by Dr. Marc Gafni
from “The Way of the Dragon“ in the long Soul Prints.
Part I.
In biblical spirituality, information about God is relevant for one reason only. Information about God is information about us. We are commanded to be little Gods – to imitate God. Just as God stood at the abyss of darkness and said let there be light, so are we commanded to stand at the abyss of our darkness and say let there be light. A little bit of light dispels so much of the darkness. Further, just as God is a creator – creating, sculpting, painting, composing a gorgeous physical world – so, too, are we invited to create, to sculpt, to paint, and to make music.
Mozart, Bach, Schubert, Rembrandt, and Michelangelo created. And yet, creativity is still viewed as suspect by much of the religious community. Art per se and artists to be sure are suspected of being amoral at best and, more probably, immoral. Acting, painting, sculpture, song are held in both high esteem and moral disdain. Why? The answer, which we have already introduced in our earlier discussion, emerges from an understanding of the deep linguistic and conceptual relationship between the biblical myth terms Yetzer and Yetzirah. Yetzirah means creativity; Yetzer is best translated as primal instincts, including but not limited to libido (Freud), the drive for power (Adler, Nietzsche), and the need for meaning (Frankel). In the Hebrew language, which is the ultimate source of all biblical myth thought, Yetzer and Yetzirah are the same word, linked etymologically and conceptually. The point: I cannot create without connecting deeply to my most primal instincts.
In my earlier twenties, I attended for a short time a prestigious drama workshop in Greenwich Village in New York. When we would be preparing for a murder scene in a play, we would do exercises to help us access the murderous rage lurking untapped in the corners of our souls. I cannot create drama about murder without unlocking the murderer in myself. To create anything – and certainly for the ultimate creation, the creation of myself – I need to be able to access the most primal passions of my being. Herein lies the attraction and the danger. My primal instincts when not integrated into my fully developed self are often not channeled properly and can potentially destroy worlds. Witness Germany. My mother, who was there, told me almost every day as I was growing up that the same people who gassed Jews in the morning, listened, with great primal passion, to Mozart in the evening.
In response to this psychological reality, Biblical myth spirituality taught: “Who is heroic, he who is (Kovesh) conquers his Yetzer.” And if the price is also to sacrifice certain forms of creativity, so be it. Better to be moral, holy, and not creative, than creative and immoral.
And yet having to choose between the primal passion of creativity and morality is far from satisfying!!
Visit centerforintegralwisdom.org for more wisdom teachings from Dr. Marc’s writings and the other teachers of the Center for World Spirituality.
Everyone of us wants to be a lover. We want to love the people in our lives. We want to love ourselves. And we want to love the world. But, what does it really mean to live as a lover? And is love something we can practice?
In this workshop, we’ll explore three powerful and necessary skills that let us receive and give love–in any and all circumstances. Powered by Marc’s revolutionary insights and concept-busting humor, Sally’s gift for bringing meditation alive, and Marc and Sally’s shared capacity for heart-to-heart transmission, this workshop will be illuminating, heart-softening, dynamic and fun.
Where: Pacific Coast Church, Pacific Grove, CA
When: Sunday, April 14, 2013 1:00PM to 4:00PM
Cost: $50.00 at the door
The page you are trying to reach is part of our Great Library Stacks & Archives. If you already signed up for our FREE Great Library card, please log in to access this content.
If you are not yet a Library Card owner, you can sign up to get access.
The page you are trying to reach is part of our Great Library Stacks & Archives. If you already signed up for our FREE Great Library card, please log in to access this content.
If you are not yet a Library Card owner, you can sign up to get access.
We have two exciting teachings on the Peninsula coming up on March 17 and April 5.
Marc and Sally are now in the third class in their series of nine monthly classes at Pacific Coast Church, “Loving Your Way to Enlightenment: Living the Way of the Lover.” Last month, Sally shared her wonderful wisdom on Hindu feminine deities based upon her newest book, Awakening Shakti, and led us in a deeply warm contemplation and communication with our Inner Beloved.
On this Sunday, March 17, Marc will be returning from teaching at the Wisdom School of Shalom Mountain, and leading us along the “The Path of Outrageous Love.” Deep 
thanks to Dr. Bill Little and the staff and members of Pacific Coast Church. (click flyer to enlarge)
We are delighted that Marc has been invited to share an evening hosted by The Pilgrim’s Way Bookstore on Friday, April 5th, 7;00pm, with the talk held across the street at the Carmel Art Foundation, on Dolores between 5th and 6th. The title of the evening talk is “The Seven Levels of Pleasure in Unique Self-Realization.” Life is meant to be pleasurable, and we will explore Pleasure as Spiritual Practice. Marc’s recent book, Your Unique Self: The Radical Path to Personal Enlightenment, won the 2012 USA Best Book Award in the General Spiritual category.
This event on Evolutionary Tantra was held last week at the Wisdom School, co-founded by Shalom Mountain and the Center for World Spirituality, which is the locus for Marc’s teachings on the east coast of the United States.
This was the 10th Wisdom School that has gathered in the last several years, each one with its own theme and exploration of a particular dimension of Enlightenment. Each Wisdom School is dedicated to the practice of evolving the Source Code of Consciousness in a particular area of spiritual practice or enlightenment inquiry. This Wisdom School shared the same theme as the recent program held at Venwoude Retreat Center in February, The Seven Tastes of Sexing. The Shalom Mountain retreat was led by Dr Marc and facilitated by two close friends and students in the private study circle, Jeff Hilliard and Shelly Reichenbach. Jeff and Shelly are Shalom Mountain leaders and have been studying closely with Marc at the Wisdom School for a long period of time.
Jeff Hilliard and Tom Goddard are leading the development of the Unique Self process, in its particular expression at Shalom Mountain. Jeff, Tom, Nance and Marc, along with a group of leaders, are very excited to be actively engaged in developing the first Unique Self process led by Shalom leaders. Marc has taught Unique Self extensively over the last few years at Shalom Mountain, and is now working together with this fabulous leadership group of teachers in transmitting the dharma and empowering Shalom to take up the Unique Self teaching in their own gorgeous Shalom fashion.
News from The Seven Tastes of Sexing program at Venwoude Reteat Center, Feb 8-10, 2013We are delighted to report that The Seven Tastes of Sexing Tantra Weekend (Feb 8-10, 2013) at our retreat center in Holland, the Venwoude Retreat Center, was simply stunning. Marc taught eight major dharma sessions with exercises and intimate move teachings offered beautifully by Leon Gras and Sujata van Overveld. Sujata and Leon did a wonderful job deepening the space through the practice of intimate moves, taking the dharma and making it embodied and alive and breathing in the very cells of all the participants.
Marc transmitted a dharma that he has been working with for the last four years which provides what we think is the most advanced dharmic understanding of the nature of sexuality. 
Marc outlined eight major forms of sexing, and led us on an embodied visionary journey to access the unique contours, tastes and substance of each of these forms of sexing. The net result of this tantric immersion was a profound transformation of the nature of the sacred sexual experience for every one of the participants.
Actualize: The Source Code of SuccessWe are delighted to report that the Actualize event, “Actualize: The Source Code of Success,” led by Eben Pagan and Marc Gafni this past January 23-27, 2013, was itself a smashing success. Eben said, “At this event, we were able to take things to the next level.”
Participants reported deep experiences of awakening, evolution, and transformation. A field of meaning, entrepreneurial creativity and deep dharmic insight were woven together in what turned out to be an event that surpassed all of our very high expectations in preparation for this gathering.
Eben brought to bear his profound understanding of entrepreneurship, creativity, and marketing. Eben entered the stage, gathered the tribe, and gave deep transmission as the great pragmatic philosopher that he is. Marc transmitted deep structures of new evolving consciousness” maps of Pleasure, maps of Self, and a vision of Outrageous Creativity and Outrageous Love. Marc and Eben’s teaching literally danced together in a higher integration, producing a dazzling experience of interior awakening, a vision of the patterns that connect, and a glimpse of what might be yet to come in the evolution of consciousness.
Two major themes ran through the entire event. The first, in Eben and Marc’s language, “Actualize is a memory of the future.” This was a theme returned to again and again. Accessing the memory of our potential future as the strange attractor drawing us to the evolution of our Highest Self.
The second theme articulated by Marc and Eben was the Democratization of Enlightenment, and the Democratization of Greatness as the next step in the evolution of Love. It was a great event, and the ripples are still now being felt wide and far, all over the globe, with new creative projects being born, new relationships formed, and new seeds of emerging consciousness planted in the fertile soil of Actualize.
Many people have asked whether there will be an Actualize event next year. Our answer”¦ It’s too early to tell. It might not be called “Actualize” because we never do the same thing twice, but there will be a next step. The tribe will gather again to take the next emergent step required, demanded and invited by the evolution of Love.
By Marc Gafni
Note: The following article appeared in the December 2012/January 2013 issue of Common Ground Magazine.
If you stop to think even for a short moment, you realize that sex really is the great mystery of our lives. Two groups, however, suggest very different approaches to sex, and both of them are wrong.
One powerful group of forces is arrayed in culture to prevent us from getting sex. They tell us that sex is somehow wrong, immoral, or sinful. Even when we think we have gotten free of them, they pop up again inside our hearts or heads, wagging their fingers disapprovingly. And they remind us constantly of all the trouble sex has gotten the world into ”” from the Trojan War to the Clinton/Lewinsky drama. Not to mention the trouble it has gotten you and me into””emotionally, psychologically, personally, professionally, and physically. You have to admit that the sexual conservatives have a point. If you want to keep life simple, clean, and orderly, forgoing or limiting your sexual experience might be an excellent choice. If you like spiritual exercises, take a few minutes to list all the times sex has gotten you into trouble.
Lots of conventional moralists and organized religion fall into this category. Religion wants to affirm love and passion as virtues but to divorce them entirely from sex. So moralist religion works hard to erect boundaries that will protect us from the pitfalls of sex. Yet while we all know that sex requires some discipline, and that context and commitment count, most of us know in our hearts that the moralists are wrong, and that sex is ultimately””and overwhelmingly””good, and not merely a side benefit of achieving loving relationship.
To read the entire article, download it as a PDF file.
Marc Gafni and Adam Gilad in DialogueSunday, February 24, 2013 at 12pm San Francisco Ӣ 3pm New York Ӣ 8pm London
Unique Self: “To be awake is to be a lover: alive, aflame and open as love. Therefore, at its heart, to be a lover means to be willing to participate in the transformation of consciousness.”
Sex is play. Sex is surrender. Sex is profound and dangerous and exhilarating discovery – of our truest selves and the selves of our lovers.
After all, the ancient Hebrew mystics didn’t say, “And Adam banged Eve.” They wrote, he “knew” her.
How can your sexual self be the crucible of knowing yourself anew? Of knowing your lover with both profundity and lightness, with both fierceness and the tenderness of a newborn’s touch?
Sex can be entertainment, distraction, obsession — or it can be revelation of our truest selves, our most infinite consciousness. Through our bodies touching, we can touch the divine.
And we can feel – when we drop our anxieties, our bills, our status, our egos – what we can be as human in the act of “becoming.”
Few speak on this subject with Adam Gilad’s remarkable insight and infectious enthusiasm. The 50,000 followers of Adam’s dating and relationships newsletter already appreciate his unique mix of global wisdom traditions, spiritual cheekiness, advanced education and expansive practices. His legendary audio trainings and special programs cover topics like: learning the “language” of the other gender; cultivating a dance of the sexes rather than a battle; playing the spectrum of sexual polarity; and always, always, always, opening to fearlessness in self-awareness, self-evolution, compassion, forgiveness and really good wine.
Now you can join Adam and his guests for a 6-session live, interactive video course — part of the Evolver Intensives series for the emerging consciousness culture — that will stoke your imagination and answer your questions. Each session will be a dialog between Adam and one or two featured guests. And you will be part of the discussion, able to ask your questions on camera, just like a Skype call.
Continuing our theme of connecting your intimate life to the evolution of the species, in the third Evolver session he enters into dialogue with Marc Gafni, Director of Center for World Spirituality. Steeped in kabbalistic and other world wisdom traditions, Marc brings a unique blend of perspectives to love, Eros and the divine. Marc will lead you into a profound appreciation for what he calls your “unique self” – where ancient understandings of being one-with-all meets post-modern insight into the dignity of personal, individual perspective.
How can you raise pleasure into “the Eros of divine pleasure” – literally “God’s” pleasure in self-evolving through you and your body? In this session, you will access some mind-blowing ideas, synthesized and delivered by one of the most eloquent and heart-opened teachers of our time.
Dr. Marc Gafni holds his doctorate in philosophy from Oxford University and rabbinic certification from the chief rabbinate in Israel. 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 World Spirituality. A rabbinic lineage holder in Bible, Talmud, and Kabbalah, Gafni self-describes as a “dual citizen” of both integral World Spirituality and classical Hebrew practice. His latest book, Your Unique Self: The Radical Path to Personal Enlightenment, was named #1 in Spirituality by USABookNews in 2012.
Course description provided by Evolver Intensives.
The Center for World Spirituality is pleased to share with you a letter we received from Rob McNamara, an author, performance coach, psychotherapist, and professor based in Boulder, Colorado. Rob’s book, Strength to Awaken, An Integral Guide to Strength Training, Performance & Spiritual Practice for Men & Women (2012) is a definitive work which is reshaping the integral spiritual approach to embodiment and physical fitness.
Dear Friend,
In my work and teaching, I am committed to helping people resolve their persistent painful limitations to become more powerful, proficient and aligned with what matters most in life. Becoming more elegant and aligning yourself with your largest excellence is the most important action we can take right now. Creating, refining and stabilizing your larger abilities as a human being is my passion.
That is why I’m confident that you will love this free dialogue with myself and Marc Gafni, one of the most brilliant minds in spirituality today. We will be discussing the rich intersection of our books Strength to Awaken and Marc’s new book Your Unique Self: The Radical Path to Personal Enlightenment.
This Free Call is this Thursday, Feb. 21st at 6pm PT / 9pm ET. To join us reserve your place as soon as you are able:
Our call will be about an hour long. This conversation will highlight some of the central teachings Gafni’s new book outlines and we will explore fitness and spirituality in a way that simply is not available anywhere else. We will close with a short Question and Answer session to field some of the biggest questions you have regarding spirituality, awakening and it’s intersection with strength, fitness and embodiment.
Looking forward to connect!
Rob McNamara
author of Strength To Awaken and The Elegant Self
PS: You can get Your Unique Self HERE and Strength To Awaken HERE if you haven’t already.
The page you are trying to reach is part of our Great Library Stacks & Archives. If you already signed up for our FREE Great Library card, please log in to access this content.
If you are not yet a Library Card owner, you can sign up to get access.
By Marc Gafni
Note: The following article appeared in the December 2012/January 2013 issue of Common Ground Magazine.
The true nature of your values is always revealed in death. In eulogies, both in what is spoken and unspoken, there is something of the essential nature of your life and loyalties. Sometimes, however, before you die you are strangely privileged to declare where your ultimate loyalty lies.
It was September 11, 2001. The planes had just crashed into the Twin Towers in Manhattan. Victims had moments to use their cellphones. No one called asking for revenge. No one offered philosophical explanations or profound insights into the nature of reality. People did one thing and one thing only: they called the people close to their hearts to say, “I love you.”
“I love you” is our declaration of faith. Implicit in those words is everything holy. Yet we no longer know what we mean when we say it.
It used to mean, “I am committed to you. I will live with you forever.” Or it might have meant, “You are the most important person in my life.”
But it no longer seems to mean that. And when you no longer understand your own deepest declarations of love, you are lost. You become alienated from love, which is your home. Despair, addiction, and numbness become your constant companions.
To read the entire article, download it as a PDF file.
John Peterson is a lifelong visionary organic farmer, and a highly regarded member of the Center for World Spirituality’s Wisdom Council because he is such a powerful voice in Conscious Agriculture.
We hope you will give a boost to John’s recently launched Kickstarter campaign to complete the renovation of Angelic Organics’ barns to create a vibrant cultural hub for biodynamic farming, food & education. This wildly special farm deserves our crowd support to ascend to a new level of community and educational engagement.
Farmer John writes:
Through this Kickstarter campaign, I’ll be able to make essential roof repairs, install interior stairwells, emergency lighting and fire escapes, and complete the renovation of the barn and the corn crib so they can serve as classroom space and community center.
The completed farmstead will serve as both vibrant campus and robust farming hub. We presently harvest and pack about 1600 Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) boxes per week during the growing season. That’s a lot of robust farming activity!
Angelic Organics Farm and the Learning Center draw thousands of guests annually for workshops, tours and agricultural meetings. You may have been a guest on our farm or you may someday eat the vegetables grown by a future farmer who was trained on this farm.
The improvements will transform a successful working farm into the premier gathering place for children’s groups, beginner farmers, members of our CSA, national organic and biodynamic farming associations, and people who just yearn for the chance to smell fresh-cut hay in summer, hold a newly-hatched chick in their hand, and taste a carrot still cool from the earth.
I believe that all of us need a farm to love, and I want Angelic Organics to be such a farm for you.
John has managed Angelic Organics, one of the largest Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Biodynamic farms in the United States, since 1990. John was featured in Taggart Siegel’s 31-time award-winning documentary film The Real Dirt on Farmer John, a powerful story of transformation and renewal heralding a resurrection of farming in America. John melds the traditions of family farming with the power of art and free expression, all integral to the ever-unfolding social organism of the farm.
Join us today and tomorrow for two exciting new dialogues with thought leaders and spiritual teachers in the World Spirituality scene.
Join Us for “Classical Enlightenment and Living Your Unique Self,” with Dr. Gabriel Cousens and Dr. Marc Gafni on Tuesday, January 29, 2012, at 6:00 p.m. PT (9 p.m. ET)
Join us for “Spiral Dynamics and Unique Self,” with Dr. Don Beck and Dr. Marc Gafni. Wednesday, January 30, 2012 at 12:00 p.m. PT (3 p.m. ET)
The page you are trying to reach is part of our Great Library Stacks & Archives. If you already signed up for our FREE Great Library card, please log in to access this content.
If you are not yet a Library Card owner, you can sign up to get access.
By Marc Gafni
The following text is a transcript of a short video, part of “Awakening to Your Unique Self,” originally published in May 2010.
(Silence.)
So that’s how a pointing out instruction works.
If you feel into the silence, pointing out instruction, I distinguish between silence of presence and silence of absence.
As we open our eyes and step back into the personal space, the personal that’s now been breathed on, infused, touched by by the transpersonal. We would talk about it in Integral language as a state-stage. Or in Sufism, the distinction between hakim and makim. It invites us in. We engage in what Luria called “I see God from behind.” Aftertaste.
Watch the video and read the transcript:
Read the full article…
The page you are trying to reach is part of our Great Library Stacks & Archives. If you already signed up for our FREE Great Library card, please log in to access this content.
If you are not yet a Library Card owner, you can sign up to get access.
Dear Friend,