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What do we need to give “our children” so they can prosper and grow into their highest potential—even though we don’t know what kind of challenges they will face in their lives?
That’s the real question underlying this beautiful talk by our Academic Director Zak Stein.
What would be a “seed bank” of ideas that—if preserved—would allow us to recreate civilization from the ground up, in case humanity survived some sort of an apocalypse?
Playing off of Noah’s Arc, Zak calls it the “Nous Arc.”
In order to engage these questions, we need Meta-Theories. What are Meta-Theories?
While theories take the world as data, Meta-Theories take theories as data. Meta-Theories norm the norms of discourse.
The core structural principle from Integral Meta-Theory involved in the formation of a Unique Self Symphony is the scientific principle of self-organization. The idea of self-organization is according to many the single most important scientific idea to emerge in the last sixty years. It exists at every level of reality and across all four quadrants. While many scientific accounts focus only on self-organization in systems and structures in biology or cybernetics (i.e., Lower-Right reductionism), there is a whole history of work in psychology and social theory dedicated to modeling how minds and cultures are complex dynamical systems, that evolve and self-organize in remarkable ways.
Multiple scientific fields, when held in an Integral embrace, tell us that self-organization is a basic principle of reality at all levels. Most forms of evolutionary emergence are a function of this ubiquitous tendency of all life and matter toward self-organization. This leads to the idea of an inherently creative cosmos, always evolving and organizing at higher and higher levels. Throughout the evolution of the world it appears that self-organization is often catalyzed via the leveraging of uniqueness. When you look at the emergence of complex processes in nature that display remarkable forms of self-organization, such as an ecosystem like swamp or rainforest, they are always complex symbiotic systems in which there are an endless number of unique niches.
This is why one of the core ideas behind the new politics of outrageous love is enabling self-organization at the level of human culture. So we must ask, what enables self-organization at the level of human culture? The answers is clear and in keeping with both the best of what we know about evolutionary theory and the best of our ideas for political and personal Enlightenment: the catalyst of self-organization in human socio–cultural systems is the Unique Self. Paradoxically, this means that the “shape” every human needs to assume in order to contribute to the creation of a healthy social organism is unique. Strange as it may sound, a just and healthy society needs to “socially engineer” for uniqueness, especially the institutions that shape human personalities and self-understandings: schools, news media, entertainment industries, computer technologies industries, etc. The whole social system would be like an incubator for uniqueness.
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The Center for Integral Wisdom and our core Dharma of Unique Self, Outrageous Love, and the Evolution of Love have been featured and reviewed in the media. Here are some examples:
Dr. Marc Gafni & John Mackey shared their innovative views in the May issue of Science of Mind magazine, on sale now at Barnes & Noble!
Kudos to Science of Mind for putting together such a great collection! The article on Marc is well done, highlighting his important new work and teachings on the dharma of Outrageous Pain and Outrageous Love.
Electronic versions at the moment are only available to subscribers of Science of Mind.
Physical Fitness l Mental Fitness l Emotional Fitness | Spiritual Fitness
Marc Gafni and podcast host Brandon Epstein explored “Discovering Your Unique Self.” The conversation was a deep dive into Unique Self & Outrageous Love.
Brandon Epstein also featured Marc’s work in his new eBook Zen Dude Fitness.
Marc Gafni’s book Self in Integral Evolutionary Mysticism: Two Models and Why They Matter was recommended by Stevo’s Book Reviews on the Internet in the May 2015 list. Steve Brock has been well-known in the book industry for over 30 years, and his recommendations are read by over 200,000 people a month.
Paul R. Smith, author of Integral Christianity: The Spirit’s Call to Evolve, wrote the following review:
When I look at the ten thousand books on spirituality, mysticism, and evolutionary religion in my library, I can tell, at a glance, without looking at titles, which ones were most helpful to me. They are the ones with Post-it notes sticking out from the top, marking pages that I found quite valuable. Self in Integral Evolutionary Mysticism by Marc Gafni is one of those few dozens with numerous colorful sticky notes flaming out from its top edge. Gafni’s previous book, Unique Self, was a breakthrough opening in understanding the Self in relation to union with God. This book continues by focusing on an opposing popular postmodern view of self and pointing out the crucial differences. With laser-like insight Gafni lets his view remain the only one I can joyfully endorse as an integrally-informed Christian mystic and scholar. This book shines with radiant luminosity and spiritual depth.
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Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory integrated with the Unique Self dharma as articulated by Dr. Marc Gafni is the basis for the Unique Self Emergence Process. Its articulation of the human journey through the necessary individuation we call the separate self to the realization that we are part of the “seamless coat of the universe” to the recognition that we are each a unique expression of the Ultimate Reality provides an elegant and practical framework for growth.
The Unique Self is not a concept but a quality of presence that is embodied as we awaken to our interconnectedness and grow beyond our sense of separation. We believe it is the purpose for existence because it is from here that we can most fully offer our gifts to the world.
Researchers have given us irrefutable evidence that humans continue to grow throughout our lifetime. Spiritual teachers ancient and modern echo that truth. As our world becomes increasingly complex, it is imperative that we grow into deeper and wider stages of development in order to navigate and assist our world’s evolution.
Our desire to assist in the transformation of the world has resulted in the Unique Self Emergence Process as a powerful change technology that taps into Creative Source to engage your unique potential and facilitate its emergence as your Unique Self. Because the process facilitates getting to the heart of whom you are and how the creative impulse of Ultimate Reality wants to express through you, it has many applications. Whether you are seeking spiritual connection and development, wanting to understand why your life is no longer fulfilling or exploring your life’s purpose, this process will help.
Barbara and Claire are long time spiritual practitioners who believe spiritual development is the cornerstone of human transformation. Individually we were coaching clients using the Integral Coaching approach, with an emphasis on spiritual development using the Unique Self Teachings. These teachings, offered by Marc Gafni and which Ken Wilber has called “a new key chapter in Integral Theory,” are deeply rooted in the wisdom of the world’s spiritual traditions and informed by modern psychology.
When we met we embarked on a journey of developing and synthesizing our work and the Unique Self Emergence Process was born. We knew we would offer it to other professionals, who like us, believe true transformation integrates both psychology and spirituality.
The Unique Self Emergence Facilitator Training is a nine month certificate program. It is designed to support change agents who wish to deepen their experience of their own Unique Self while learning a practical and elegant process rooted in the Unique Self Teachings. Upon completion of this program, participants are certified to facilitate the Unique Self Emergence Process with individuals and groups and join a collective of amazing people from diverse background – coaches, consultants, spiritual directors, therapists and body workers whose vision is to facilitate the emergence of Unique Self in men and women of all ages so they may live happier, more successful and purposeful lives in service to the world.
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In her recent white paper from January 2014 Kathy Brownback, Instructor in Religion and Philosophy at the highly respected Phillips Exeter Academy, discusses how the Unique Self teaching goes to the heart of the deepest questions that students have asked her throughout the years. In her words:
Most likely you’ve asked yourself some of the same questions I’ve been asked by […] students:
- “People keep telling me to be myself, but I don’t really know who that is. I feel pulled in so many directions.”
- Do we have free will, at all? Or are we totally determined by our genes, and conditioned by our environment?”
- “Why, in the midst of all they have, are so many people angry and dissatisfied? Can I hope to avoid this? Why is there so much addiction? Why depression, among people who have so much to offer?”
- “I haven’t found any kind of God I can believe in, yet I somehow feel there is something more to life. Your thoughts?”
- “Are science and religion looking at the same world? They seem so contradictory. Your husband is a physicist. Do you argue about this?”
- “Is there such a thing as truth? Is there anything I can be certain of?”
- “Do you think life has some kind of point, or meaning? Or is it, as Shakespeare said, ‘a tale told by an idiot’? It really feels that way. Then all of sudden, even though I have no real answers, the feeling goes away.”
She also asks what role contemplative practices should play in education and academic life and what they might have to do with the study of science, or the humanities and the arts. Should they have a place in the curriculum?
Contemplative practice can encourage the ability to focus and enter into a subject with minimal distraction and interruption. It can help a great deal with stress reduction.
Moving more deeply, it can foster the capacity to hold apparent contradictions in tension with each other without immediate dismissal of one side. It can encourage you to listen to and help develop the ideas of others from a less egoic perspective—and to see connections between disciplines that infuse their understanding of each other. It helps provide the space for deeper creativity and inspiration.
At its most profound level, contemplative practice has the potential to help you reconnect with a deeper sense of purpose, meaning, and value in your life.
This spring term Kathy Brownback taught a class in Mysticism for uppers and seniors.
From the course description:
It has been said that all religions converge in the contemplative tradition—the great world illuminated by the swamis and yogis of Hinduism, the core meditation practices of the Buddha, the Kabbalist teachers of Judaism, the Sufis of Islam, and the Christian mystics. What can we learn by reflecting on their teachings and their practices? How do they connect with current research on the mind-body connection? How do these make possible a deeper sense of self, or what we might call the “unique self”? What does it mean to speak of wisdom as a kind of knowledge? We will consider selections from all the major faiths, from the ancient texts of the Upanishads to the poets Rumi and Meister Eckhart to modern writers such as Marc Gafni and Pema Chodron.
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