Watch Dr. Marc Gafni’s Video Series
- Part 1 – Introducing the Evolutionary Mysticism
- Part 2 – Structure of this Teaching
- Part 3 – Why World Spirituality, why now?
- Part 4 – Who does World Spirituality address?
- Part 5 – Three Images of World Spirituality
- Part 6 – What is Enlightenment?
- Part 7 – Fallacy in the Traditional Enlightenment Teaching
- Part 8 – Western Enlightenment
- Part 9 – Integral Embrace of Eastern and Western Enlightenment
- Part 10 – What is Democratization of Enlightenment?
- Part 11 – How to Accomplish Democratization of Enlightenment?
Part 1 – Introducing the Evolutionary Mysticism
“Why now? Why is a World Spirituality based on Integral principles which has as its core the democratization of enlightenment, which is the natural emergent of the Unique Self consciousness, why is it a possibility in a way that it never was, and why is it an urgent necessity in the way it never was?”
Part 2 – Structure of this Teaching
“What is World Spirituality? How do we realize this vision of World Spirituality? Who does it address? And why is World Spirituality so essential and possible today, an opportunity that hasn’t existed in 2,000 years?”
Part 3 – Why World Spirituality, why now?
“Why now? Why is a World Spirituality based on Integral principles which has as its core the democratization of enlightenment, which is the natural emergent of the Unique Self consciousness, why is it a possibility in a way that it never was, and why is it an urgent necessity in the way it never was?”
Part 4 – Who does World Spirituality address?
“Who does a World Spirituality address? If we discern carefully, World Spirituality is transformative to the four major types of people in the world. First, there are the hundreds of millions of people who are post-traditional. They’re the people who can no longer locate themselves within a great tradition, a classical religion. Their experience, the way they’ve been brought into the world, their cultural exposures are such that they can’t locate themselves in a religion or a great tradition, and yet they are profoundly engaged and extremely compelled by Spirit…”
Part 5 – Three Images of World Spirituality
“Let’s try to envision World Spirituality for a second. Let me suggest three imges. The first would be an orchestra, a great symphonic orchestra, in which every instrument is playing its music. From the diversity of instruments, what is yielded is a great symphony. In the premodern world, the religions believed that their instrument was the music. But the postmodern world has taught us is that the instrument is the critical context that shapes the music, the texture, the sound, the tonality of the music, but the spirit is not the surface structure. Spirit is the depth. And all the instruments are playing music. From the diversity of this music, of the instruments, comes the symphony…”
Part 6 – What is Enlightenment?
“What’s up in the evolution of consciousness in this moment in time is three components, a kind of holy trinity, what I refer to in my teaching and writing as the democratization of enlightenment. It’s an emergent World Spirituality based on integral principles and as Unique Self consciousness or Unique Self enlightenment. These three emergent structures of thought, emergent structures of being and becoming, are interrelated, inseparable from each other.
What does the democratization of enlightenment mean? Democratization as in democracy on the one hand, and enlightenment on the other hand. It’s the unique nexus of those two powerful, earth-shattering, mind-bending, heart-rending ideas that change the very nature of how we engage all that is. When you merge them together, something new larger than the sum of the parts emerges…”
Part 7 – Fallacy in the Traditional Enlightenment Teaching
“Why now? Why is a World Spirituality based on Integral principles which has as its core the democratization of enlightenment, which is the natural emergent of the Unique Self consciousness, why is it a possibility in a way that it never was, and why is it an urgent necessity in the way it never was?”
Part 8 – Western Enlightenment
“The first way we talk about enlightenment is from a mystical perspective, the shift of consciousness from small self to True Self. But the second way enlightenment is used in the English language is to refer to the Western Enlightenment. And every Westerner is familiar with this Western enlightenment. It’s the same word as used by Eastern or mystical traditions where one attains a new state of Being … the same word is used to refer to Western enlightenment, which is very different because in Eastern or mystical enlightenment the goal is to move beyond the separate self. The separate self is seen to be the source of suffering because as long as I see my self as separate, I have to compete with you, I have to grasp, I have to prove that I exist…”
Part 9 – Integral Embrace of Eastern and Western Enlightenment
“To take the next step, to move towards a higher integral embrace in which we can actually bring the Western and Easern enlightenment in conversation with each other. And again when I saw Eastern enlightenment, I mean also certain forms of mystical enlightenment which appeared in the West, but this is just shorthand. The way to bring them into a higher integral embrace, into a higher evolutionary unfolding, and to invite a kind of awakening in which the great goods of Eastern enlightenment and Western enelightenment are held together we need to understand and point out an essential mistake, an essential fallacy in both the Eastern understanding of enlightenment and Western enlightenment. Both of them made a central mistake which limits their understanding of each other. That mistake, that basic mistake, is a confusion or a conflation of separateness and uniqueness…”
Part 10 – What is Democratization of Enlightenment?
Now let’s begin to understand what we mean by the democratization of enlightenment. Once we bring Eastern and Western enlightenment into a higher integral embrace by disambiguating the confusion between separateness and uniqueness and therefore integrating the best intuition, insight and spiritual breakthrough understanding of both Eastern and Western enlightenment then we can have a genuine conversation about the democratization of enlightenment.
Every human being is a Unique Self. Every human being is a True Self. Every True Self is unique. There is no True Self in the manifest world which is not unique. Once we embrace uniqueness again as the expression of individuation, meaning the individuated expression of True Self, the personal face of essence, that is you, God’s signature written all over you, is God appearing in you as you, that’s Unique Self, we’ve removed the counter-intuitive sense of enlightenment which creates an obstacle and stands between the average human being who experiences their uniqueness and can’t understand an enlightenment teaching which tells them to reject their uniqueness.
Now we understand that the average intuition, the normal teaching of the human being which embraces uniqueness is correct and the enlightenment teaching that tells the human being to leave uniqueness behind because it conflates separateness and uniqueness is incorrect, at best partial…
Part 11 – How to Accomplish the Democratization of Enlightenment
How? How do we accomplish the democratization of enlightenment? The how… The answer to the how question is two-fold. One is intention and the other is practice. Intention means, “I intend towards enlightenment.” My intention in practice is not merely to obey the rules, not merely to satisfy my egoic need to be part of the whole, hot merely to be in alignment with the law.
My intention is to realize the true nature of my Identity and to have my goodness, my virtue, my love, my passion and compassion emerge naturally, spontaneously, organically from my true essence. I am actually commanded by my essence, and the command of my essence, the invitation of my essence, the Eros of my essence is far more powerful and transformative than any externally imposed command.
So the beginning is to set my intention towards my enlightenment, but not in the narcissistic, narrow way; the pursuit of a spiritual materialism, but rather to set my intention in love is to realize my true nature for the sake of the all…
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