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Prof. Richard C. Schwartz, Ph.D. in Dialogue with Dr. Marc Gafni

April 23, 2012 at 12:19 pm by Leave a Comment

Richard Shwartz

By Marc Gafni

In a long discussion with my friend and colleague Richard Schwartz, founder of Internal Family Systems Theory, I shared with him my perspective on the relation of Ego and Unique Self and the larger set of core distinctions that comprise Unique Self teaching. Dick excitedly concurred and added important empirical validation from his clinical perspective and sent me this written communication after our conversation:

Many spiritual traditions make the mistake of viewing ‘the ego’ as the problem. At worst it vilified as greedy, anxious, clinging, needy, focused on wounds from the past or fear in the future, full of limiting or false beliefs about you, the source of all suffering, and something one must evolve beyond in order to taste enlightenment. At best it is seen as a confused and childish — to be treated with patience and acceptance but not to be taken seriously or listened to. My 30 years of experience exploring internal worlds has led to very different conclusions regarding the ego. What is called the ego or false self in these spiritualities is a collection of sub-personalities I call ‘parts.’ When you first become aware of them, these parts manifest all the negative qualities described above, so I understand why this mistake is so widespread.

As you get to know them from a place of curiosity and compassion, however, you learn that they are not what they seem. Instead, they are spiritual beings themselves who, because of being hurt by events in your life, are forced into roles that are far from their natures, and carry extreme beliefs and emotions that drive their limiting or suffering perspectives. Once they are able to release those beliefs and emotions (what I call burdens) they immediately transform into their natural, enlightened states and can join your evolution toward increasing embodiment of your true nature, what Marc Gafni importantly refers to as correctly, your Unique Self.

Thus, if instead of trying to ignore or transcend an annoying ego, you relate to even the apparent worst of your parts with love and open curiosity you will find that, just like you, they long for the liberating realization of their connection with the divine and provide delightful and sage company on your journey toward enlightenment. In this way you will be relating to these inner entities in the same way that Jesus and Buddha taught us to relate to suffering, exiled people.

Richard Schwartz is a leading expert in the field of psychotherapy and recognized as the founding developer of Internal Family Systems Theory, an influential therapeutical model which combines systems thinking with an integrative view of the mind and its discrete qualities.

Filed Under: Featured, Health & Medicine, Shadow & Psyche, Unique Self Tagged With: , , ,

Top 10 rules for building a unique Online Presence

April 19, 2012 at 12:53 pm by Leave a Comment

Sunglasses

Note: Adapted from content originally published in December 2011 on Awake, Alive & Aware.

Scientific research has tentatively suggested that how a person shows up online actually is very much like how they show up in real life. The same mannerisms and tics, values and qualities of character, personality traits, etc. And if you have lots of friends and are very social in the real world, you tend to also make many virtual friends, too. So we must give some credibility to the hypothesis than when we are talking about your “Online Presence” we are actually talking about a part of yourself — that part appearing, as the Integral Theorists say, in the Lower Quadrants. Put simply, your Online Presence is really YOU.

And yet there are few guidelines telling us how to navigate the waters of social media, blogging, website and to really claim our online “self” as truly part of us. There are few guides, in any case, that really grasp deeply the interpenetration of psyche and cyberspace, philosophy and Facebook, temperance and Twitter. So several months ago, I attempted my own guide for myself to follow in helping my Unique Self show up more often than my False Self.

1. I Will Not Distract Myself. I will not use social media as a distraction to keep me from doing more pressing work in the world. I will recognize that moment when it becomes a distraction because I will begin to feel that I am procrastinating on something that is more enlivening and rewarding but which requires delayed gratification.

2. I Will See My Online Presence as a Mirror. My Online Presence will be a unique reflection in the objective and intersubjective realm of my Unique Self. It already is; but by cultivating awareness of this feature of my life I can further develop the use of social media as a spiritual discipline. Since I am constantly loosening in identification with my ego and expanding in identification with my True Self, I can expect ongoing surprises and transformations in my blogging from time to time.

3. I Won’t Give Much Weight to Opinions. I will not forget that the Online Presence is not “me,” nor will I write from the vantage point of merely stating opinions. Online Presence is about enacting my Unique Self which is just as alive in its uncertainties as it is in its convictions. I will inhabit perspectives lightly, and not get fixed into flatland thinking. I will avoid criticizing others’ opinions by merely expressing a counter-opinion; instead, I may disagree, but it just might be by helping them (and me) to find a path beyond opinions.

4. I Will Always Add Value. I will endeavor to not pass along links without adding a value that only I can add at this particular time for this particular audience, whether through writing commentary or by selecting a link out of dozens or hundreds because it seems to carry some value for aiding in the development of a more whole, loving, and compassionate world. I will read and like links others have passed along when they move me.

5. I Will Not Avoid Controversy. I will not hide from controversy or strongly stating the judgments which arise within the wisdom held by my True Self, nor will I allow fear of others’ criticism or desire of others’ praise to dictate what I say. I will exercise discernment in whose words I choose to pass along with favorable notice, but will not “play politics” by writing with motives that are not owned.

6. I Will Speak My Truth with Kindness. I will pay attention to what I’m choosing NOT to write about, and let my words expess my Unique Self’s perspective by virtue of exercising wisdom in not repeating dubious gossip, slander, or idiocy. I will write with kindness. I will ask myself if the seasoning of snark and sarcasm is really my Full Self before sprinkling it into cyberspace. I will react less to news; I will write things that can help myself and others to create news. My Unique Self is a creative artist, not a robotic human news feed.

7. I Will Read More Than I Write. I will read the content of the links that I pass along, or let my reader know if I haven’t. I will reflect on how the topics I write about mirror my Full Self. If I notice that my interests are too narrow, partisan, or ethnocentric, I will stretch myself by endeavoring to notice when I am moved to write about topics outside my comfort zone and challenging myself to go there.

8. I Will Not Blog Asleep From the Neck Down. I don’t need to wear all my emotions on my sleeve; I just need to find a place where I’m comfortable that the person who is showing up online really reflects me, including my emotional side. At the same time, I will not retreat into a narcissism of writing only about my own feelings, my own backyard, and my own likes and dislikes. I will not be afraid to feel into the heart of the universe, and express the voice that comes from the joy and sadness, fear and anger, of the world’s soul.

9. I will Make Things Personal. I will get to know, at least a little, every one of my Facebook friends, Facebook fans, and Twitter followers … and recognize them as also part of my Full Self. I will read their Facebook profiles, if their privacy settings allow it, so I know who my readers are. I will respond to the vast majority of comments and inquiries with public responses, and engage some of them with direct messages.

10.I Will Forgive. When I fall short of my resolutions, I will go easy on myself and correct what I can.

Photo Credit: Brigitte Deisenhammer

Filed Under: Arts & Culture, Learning & Work, Unique Self, World Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Daily Wisdom: Unique Shadow

April 18, 2012 at 11:03 am by Leave a Comment

Shadow

By Marc Gafni

From Your Unique Self:

The Unique Self is the Eros, the life impulse that drives us forward. Shadow is Eros turned around against itself. By integrating your shadow, you are liberating the trapped life energy of your Unique Self. Your life energy is not generic. It is your life energy. The portal to your energy is none other than your Unique Self. Your most persistent shadow-structure is also your most abundant wellspring of energy and life. The reclaiming of life energy happens through shadow integration. Thus, the tantric masters of the left-handed path saw shadow integration as a process of revelation by which the previously hidden Unique Self—the secret mystery—manifests as inspiration and Eros.

Filed Under: Daily Wisdom, Shadow & Psyche, Unique Self Tagged With: , , , , ,

Daily Wisdom: The Alchemy of Love

April 16, 2012 at 12:00 pm by Leave a Comment

Dragon

By Marc Gafni

From Your Unique Self:

“IT DEPENDS ON LOVE.” In this old Aramaic phrase, “it” refers to shadow. This phrase will guide you on the path of shadow integration that the old Unique Self masters called the “left-handed emanation” or the “way of the dragon. ” The left hand implies the power of transmutation, while the right hand symbolizes the power of force. The left-handed path is referred to by the Tantric Kabbalists as Derek Hataninim, which I have often translated as “the way of the dragon ”. The way of the dragon invites not the slaying of the dragon, but rather its befriending and healing.

To follow this way is to serve and to grow through the light and energy that emanates from the darkness itself.

With the understanding of the New Enlightenment, the energy that emanates from the darkness is not foreign to us. It is none other than the displaced fullness of your Unique Self and the dis-owned freedom of your True Self. It is the energy of the radical breaking of all boundaries. You have shattered the limits of your skin-encapsulated ego, and stepped into the fullness of your distinct expression of all that is. You have realized your full identity with the divine, and all false boundaries crumble before the audacious power of your penetrating love. This is the ultimate expression of Eros.

The energy of darkness is but the pseudo-Eros of breaking boundaries in the world of illusion. When you follow the attraction to the boundary-breaking pseudo-Eros to its root, it is revealed to be the yearning for the full enlightenment of Unique Self manifestation. The coiled boundaries of separate self melt before the radiance of Unique Self.

Filed Under: Featured, Love, Sex & Ethics, Shadow & Psyche, Unique Self Tagged With: , , , , , ,

A critique of Jeff Salzman’s view of Mitt Romney as having an Integral worldview

April 16, 2012 at 10:03 am by 1 Comment

Mitt Romney

On the Daily Evolver, Boulder Integral co-founder and integral pundit Jeff Salzman takes a contrarian position on Mitt Romney’s philosophy, character, and worldview. Unlike many of his friends who regard the Republican candidate for U.S. president as a joke, Salzman thinks Romney has a “whipsmart mind” that presents a credible option for voters.

Salzman writes:

I argue that Romney has an Integral view of the world, even though my lefty friends will strongly object (as I am sure we will see in the reaction to this dialogue!) If you look at Romney’s life, you see a straight shooter. No big scandals (yet), doesn’t drink, and seems like a reasonable guy. His family is a strong presence in the progressive wing of the Mormon Church. He believes in rules and fairness in managing his employees, and has been highly successful in the modern financial market—even though you could argue that Bain Capital did not actually create jobs, but instead created lots of increased revenue for its owners. And Romney, at various points in his career, has supported progressive positions in health care, gay rights, and gun control from a moderate Republican position.

In my view Salzman makes some salient observations, but I think he misses a hugely important aspect in his analysis.

I agree with Salzman that Romney’s view of the world shows some markers of an integral consciousness: listening to many perspectives, taking positions that appear to be mid-way between left and right, and so forth. David Reardon and Jeff Salzman attribute different levels of development to aspects of Romney’s worldview — red, blue, orange, green — in a manner common to Integral Theory, which informs their thinking.

However, if we grant that Romney has an integral consciousness, it must still be acknowledged (I think) that he is tremendously flawed in many basic measures of social ethics: advocating tax policies which could wipe out the poor and middle class safety net in favor of millionaires and billionaires; doubting the reality of climate change; setting the gay rights movement back massively; appointing “strict constructionist” judges to the Supreme Court that could pave the way for the most radical re-making of America in a hundred years; deporting millions of undocumented workers, making havoc and destroying many thousands of Hispanic families; repealing health care reform; and so on, and so on… Who can doubt that Romney is seriously, dangerous flawed as a candidate?

If Mitt is a poster child for Integral, no wonder there are plenty of people who think there’s a shadow to Integral that is producing such deformities of political worldview. Marc Gafni has recently written eloquently on “A hidden danger of high states and structure stages: unkindness.” Could it be that Integral consciousness — call it yellow, teal, or turquoise, post-postmodern if you will — places so much value on cognitive complexity and flexible framing and positioning, that Integral’s own shadow comes to the fore in Romney’s character?

Consider if these are traits of an Integral worldview:

  • Janus-faced duplicity
  • Pandering, craven hypocrisy
  • Treating people as ends rather than means
  • An instrumental, machine-like ability to manipulate outcomes
  • Saying what you need to say to every audience, lacking a backbone
  • Forgetting core values such as love, kindness, and decency in favor of expediency and efficiency
  • Instead of owning his own path of development or evolution, Romney sometimes lies about it, claiming to have always had the same views
  • Willingness to throw people under the bus, sacrificing the dignity of individuals in favor of a collective spirit (see how Romney destroyed Newt Gingrich’s reputation)

Maybe Mitt Romney is an Integral poster boy. That strikes me as a scary possibility. There are certainly well-informed integralists who believe that he is, even if they say they will “probably end up voting for Obama.” And perhaps it is our own integral shadow that we project on Romney. But that ought to give people pause who think that an Integral Consciousness or Integral Revolution will transform the world in itself.

A World Politics based on Integral principles needs to be careful to be alert to these important shadows. I have no doubt that Mitt Romney is a good family man who wants a better world for his grandchildren; but with the extreme and backwards features of his worldview, is he really the best person to put in charge?

Love, compassion, justice … these are the principles upon which a World Politics ought to be based. Certainly the AQAL Integral Framework must inform our analyses, but not to the point where we are sanctioning craven politicians who will say anything to get elected and, once elected, re-write America’s laws in the most extreme regressive agenda of any candidate in recent history.

Romney, for all his beautiful wonderful individuality and sacred dignity, is (I think) not an authentic character. I haven’t met him so I can’t speak from personal experience, but pundits all describe him as “plastic” and “phony.” That his “authenticity problem” does not appear high on the radar screen of Jeff Salzman and David Reardon should be a telling sign that they may not have fully absorbed the importance of Marc Gafni’s Unique Self teaching for World Politics.

Authenticity — a deep centered presence in the True Self, manifested in ways that people instinctually feel are genuine and love-based, is the key to understanding how many voters approach the ballot box. The Integral worldview without authenticity can get stuck in its own ugly shadow.

Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

Filed Under: Love, Sex & Ethics, Unique Self Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Teaching Marc Gafni’s “Unique Self” Enlightenment in the classroom

April 15, 2012 at 11:05 am by Leave a Comment

Exeter

By Kathleen Brownback

Note: This blog post is adapted from “Teaching Marc Gafni’s ‘Unique Self’ Enlightenment in the Classroom: Reflections from a Phillips Exeter Class in Mysticism (for the annual conference of the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education, November 2011, Amherst College).”

A new course introduced at Phillips Exeter Academy in the spring of 2011 began with these words on the syllabus:

What we are about to explore has many names. It has been called the mystical tradition, the perennial tradition, the direct path, the path of the heart, the journey to (and with) the beloved, the practice of yoga, and the contemplative tradition. Aldous Huxley called it “the science, not of the personal ego, but of that eternal Self in the depth of particular, individualized selves, and identical with, or at least akin to, the divine Ground.” What these traditions share is the understanding that there is the possibility of union between the self and whatever we might call Ultimate Reality or God or Spirit, and that this union is primarily realized through a path of spiritual practice.

There is no possible way to make a comprehensive study of all these traditions in one term, and no need for us to do so. The main goal here is to locate various paths within the religious traditions, and to begin to understand what is meant by “spiritual practice.”

As the first teacher of this class, my main goal was to engage the students in a deeper understanding of ego development and the way in which the contemplative or mystical dimension of religion could help them both intellectually and practically as they move into their adult lives.

Phillips Exeter is a secular independent secondary school in New Hampshire, an hour north of Boston, with a 200-year history as an academic powerhouse for boys. It became coeducational in 1972 and has retained its high academic distinction, with all students headed for college and many to the top schools in the country.

The students are bright and lively and curious. But as anywhere, they struggle at times with nonacademic life circumstances that have the capacity to affect their intellectual engagement—a superficial and highly commercialized teenage (and often adult) culture, a pervasive unease about the future of their society in an era of environmental and economic challenge, and for some, personal or family histories of addiction or depression. For this reason I sought out texts and readings that were inclined to prompt questions at the interface of psychology and religion. I had the sense that these would speak to students in both an academic and a personal way, as in fact they did.

In this paper I will first describe student background and interest, then give a brief overview of the course, then focus on the work of one scholar and teacher, Marc Gafni, whose writing in particular spoke to the students in a powerful way.

In the course of the term I had to develop and articulate to myself my own changing philosophy of teaching, which I began to explore in a 2009 article in the Exeter alumni/ae bulletin entitled “In Pursuit of Truths.”

I will describe this evolution more deeply at the end of the article, but also briefly mention it here.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Featured, Learning & Work, Unique Self Tagged With: , , , , ,

Could uniqueness become extinct? Lessons from monkey faces

April 14, 2012 at 1:10 pm by Leave a Comment

Monkey Face

By Joe Perez

One of the most interesting puzzles of science today is to be found in primatology research. Primate researchers have been stymied to explain why the faces of monkeys are so amazingly, disconcertingly unique. Could the answer to this riddle lead us into greater understanding of the significance of human uniqueness and all of culture?

A recent report on io9 explains:

New World Monkeys are the strangest-looking primates on Earth and they all look nothing like each other, from the bald-headed, demon-like Uakari to the lion-maned golden marmoset to the massively mustachioed emperor tamarin up top. What’s behind this insane variety?

That’s the question UCLA researcher Michael Alfaro set out to answer that question. The monkeys of Central and South America represent a truly staggering amount of facial diversity, with many species like the emperor tamarin sporting truly epic facial hair. But it’s unlikely that all these monkeys evolved such bizarre appearances just to amuse us so what’s really going on here?

Alfaro and his team realized the monkeys’ faces weren’t the only thing that had unusually strong variation. The social structure of the different species also varied greatly, with some living almost completely solitary existences while others lived in huge populations of a hundred or more….

They discovered that the monkeys with the most complex faces tended to live by themselves, while those who lived in groups tended to have plain faces. Another factor behind facial diversity seems to be the proximity of other species. When lots of different monkey species live in close quarters, they will tend to have much more complicated faces than more isolated species.

The study has implications for understanding culture, the report suggests:

Our species, generally speaking, has quite simple, bare faces, and of course we’ve also evolved what is arguably the most sophisticated system of communication in our planet’s history. Language itself might never have emerged if we were lion-maned or hugely-mustached or even polka-dotted basically, anything that would have kept our ancestors from producing crisp, clear facial expressions.

via Why are monkeys’ faces all so bizarrely different?.

Uniqueness itself, in a biological sense, is an evolutionary emergent. And as culture evolves, we know that some of the ways uniqueness emerges become more or less prominent. If highly distinctive, unique faces may become more a thing of the past, what is to stop a massive homogenization of culture in the future?

These are questions worth asking in an age in which the leading, most prolific and influential enlightenment teachings (but not Marc Gafni’s Unique Self teaching) encourage a sort of radically undifferentiated sort of realization. Is spiritual uniqueness itself something that could become extinct unless we preserve and cultivate it?

Filed Under: Arts & Culture, Belief & Practice, Unique Self Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Daily Wisdom: On the inside of the inside, Yes is the answer

April 14, 2012 at 12:00 pm by Leave a Comment

Jewel in Case

By Marc Gafni

From Marc Gafni’s Your Unique Self:

Remember, we come into this world trailing clouds of glory with core knowledge of our omnipotence, beauty, infinite power, and infinite potential. And then we hear a chorus of voices for the first ten years of our lives, and the only word they seem to be saying is No, No, No. We gradually come to associate maturity with saying No. When an idea or new direction comes up, our first response is why it can’t work. We are brilliant at it. Even the most simpleminded person becomes a genius when it comes to saying No. We can think up twenty reasons why it will not work before we can think up two reasons why it could. We have all become Dr. No with advanced degrees. 
But somewhere deep inside, the Yes remains, an eternal child of your Unique Self. We know on the inside of the inside that Yes is the answer.

Photo Credit: Paul Gutman

Filed Under: Daily Wisdom, Love, Sex & Ethics, Shadow & Psyche, Unique Self, World Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Social inequality is a cause of disease in itself, scientists say

April 14, 2012 at 10:03 am by Leave a Comment

Macques
By Joe Perez

Despite thousands of years of prophetic religious teachings telling us to lift up the poor and identify with the outcast, and hundreds of years of Western Enlightenment teaching about that all people are created equal, we live in a world of massive social inequality. When we aren’t completely ignoring the problem, scientists research the phenomenon to shed light. In “Why Low Social Status Causes Health Problems,” on Big Think, comes word from the study of macaque monkeys that inequality leads to disease:

[S]cientists have determined that your social rank substantially affects your health, with those on the lower end being most prone to health problems. Using a population of macaque monkeys, researchers at the University of Chicago observed that social position caused different sets of genes to fire.

The traces of inequality are even visible in biological markers, with blood able to predict social status with 80 percent accuracy. Sensisitve to any misunderstandings that their research is implying that biology equals destiny, the scientists add:

While that smells like destiny, scientists also found that outside forces, such as a promotion in the social hierarchy, were enough to change those chemical compositions.

The democratization of Enlightenment — or, in theological terms, the wide-scale realization that every human being is a personal face of essence, the image of God — is our great calling. There are no status tiers in enlightenment teaching, though there are important distinctions help guide us to ever deeper realizations for ever wider spans of people.

Let’s not put off realizing our Unique Self another minute. Lives depend upon advancing awareness of our personal divinity.

Photo Credit: Yodels

Filed Under: Health & Medicine, Unique Self, World Politics Tagged With: , , , , ,

Critics cool to new film about Aung San Suu Kyi, citing a “cult of personality.”

April 13, 2012 at 6:15 pm by 1 Comment

Aung San Suu

By Joe Perez

ThinkProgress commentator Alyssa Rosenberg poses a challenging question for filmmakers: how do you capture sainthood in a story told on film? In her comments on Luc Besson’s The Lady, a biopic on the life of Noble Peace Prize-winning pro-democracy dissident Aung San Suu Kyi, she says the movie is flawed. She seemed to enjoy the movie more for the performance of Michelle Yeoh and its aesthetic, not its storytelling.

A large percentage of critics also found the movie lacking, according to the Rotten Tomatoes website, but there were defenders of the respectful and dignified tale of the Burmese national heroine. A top critic for NPR, for example was one of the most severe critics, saying that the film is hagiographic: all in favor of “a cult of personality” and which “nominates her for the sainthood.”

Alyssa highlights the key tension:

How do you tell the life story of a saint? In the old days, the formula for a Christian hagiography was simple: isolation, a hint of torment, prayer and the timely intervention of God. But when the saint is Buddhist, and Burmese, and has a husband, you make something rather more like Luc Besson’s The Lady…

It seems to me that movie critics today — professionals, bloggers, and audience members alike — don’t quite know what to do with a story about a saint. Popular culture demands black and white portrayals of morality, heroes who stand up for principle, and (like comic book characters) are endowed with super-human traits and only permitted modest flaws.

I don’t think it would have made the filmmaker’s job any easier if Aung San Suu Kyi were Christian rather than Buddhist; she defies conventions in a way that people appreciate in the abstract but find difficult to relate to in the concrete. Critics lack a worldview which proclaims the divine dignity of each individual, personal unique selves with unique shadows equally fascinating. Having disowned their own sacred essence, they resent it when people are portrayed with their own sacred essence intact. It just seems too immodest.

Those who attack The Lady as sanctifying a “cult of personality,” lack awareness that in certain times and places, it is only through the efforts of strong-willed and admired personalities that the work of peace happens. Burma did not experience progress because abstract forces of evolution worked dialectical miracles; it progressed because millions of people faced difficult decisions and made personally courageous choices.

Until I see the movie I can’t wade deeply into the critical discourse. But I want to strongly highlight that the challenge faced by these filmmakers is an increasingly important one to be navigated in our times. We simply must find ways of understanding human stories as great mythic epics, simply lived stories as grandiose spectacles of human nature and destiny. Ours is a time for claiming the divinity formerly given only to mythic gods and owning its reality here in each of us, present in our Unique Selves.

The unfortunate fact that telling our story in such a way will lead to critical dismissal as a “cult of personality” is just one of the risks we all must bear when we tell our spiritual autobiographies. We have the choice to be the heroes of our own stories, and when we tell the adventure tale of our lives, it need not be about personality, but about character and Unique Self.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Filed Under: Arts & Culture, Unique Self Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Marc Gafni and Joe Perez in Dialogue (II): Where is the World Spirituality Movement at Today?

April 12, 2012 at 7:42 pm by Leave a Comment

CWS Board

By Joe Perez

This is the second post in a series on Awake, Alive & Aware featuring short dialogues with some of the leaders of the World Spirituality movement. Today there is a transcript of a telephone call with Marc Gafni, Director of the Center for World Spirituality.

Continued from Part 1: “Marc Gafni and Joe Perez in Dialogue: What is World Spirituality?”

Joe: Where is the World Spirituality movement today?

Marc: The World Spirituality movement has many expressions in the world. There are many people practicing World Spirituality not in an organized way, not in a theoretically consistent way, often not in a dharmically completely sound way, but they have this core intuition and they are grasping and looking for ways to express it. At some point, we are looking to develop means to allow this grassroots world movement expression, and the book you’re working on, The Rise of World Spirituality, I hope will at least in part, the way you described it to me which sounds really exciting, you’ll be able to point to this, that it’s already happening.

The leading institution in the movement is the Center for World Spirituality. We just finished our second annual board meeting. I want to give you a sense of where we are because it’s really exciting. We’ve decided that our mission, our mantle, is to shift something in the source code of consciousness. The evolution of the source code of consciousness is our core mission statement. Some of our board members, Tom Goddard and Kathleen Brownback, are heading a group to work on this. It’s a fantastic board of people from around the world.

What we’ve done is identify what we’re going to do. We identified two things at the meeting. One, what is the theoretical framework of World Sprituality? And two, what are the action items? The theoretical framework is different, so I’ll talk about the action items.

Joe: So by “action items,” just so my readers are clear, you’re talking about this organization, called the Center for World Spirituality, you’re talking about what this organization has in store for the near future. Is that right?

Marc: That’s correct. The Center is one I founded a few years ago with Mariana Caplan and Sally Kempton, and Ken Wilber was involved as a very important member on the Council, and any number of fantastic leaders and teachers from around the world. We’re partnering with our friends who have a Global Spirituality website and we will be integrating that into the Center in a very deep way.

The center is both a lower-left and lower-right expression, actually an all-four-quadrant expression now that I think about it, whose prime purpose is to articulate the dharma of a World Spirituality and to evolve the dharma of a World Spirituality. That’s the job of the Center. The job of World Spirituality itself is to evolve the source code of consciousness.

What are the methods for doing this mission? We’re focusing on three major areas.

First, the Center has decided to focus on acting as a think tank / publishing concern. We actually chartered approximately 12 – 15 major projects of different natures.

Joe: I’m glad you were able to keep track of them. There were about 25 different people in attendance, and just about all of them committed to some sort of project or other key way of supporting World Spirituality. That’s more than I expected. I heard that too from some of the other board members, the newer ones who didn’t know quite what to expect. Once we engaged with the rest of the board, we got a feel for the caliber of the people in attendance, our expectations were exceeded, and we ended up feeling more optimistic than when we sat in our first meeting.

Marc: That’s great feedback to receive. Even though I knew going into the meeting all of the different pieces, but just hearing all the pieces spoken aloud into the room, hearing the interaction of the board community. Of the 20 projects, if the top 10 happen, we’re in really good shape. The top 10 include a book on The Rise of World Spirituality, a collection of essays on the Enlightenment of Fullness. There will be a major book on World Spirituality based on Integral Principles with Ken Wilber. There will be a book on shadow work – Lighten Up. There will be a World Spirituality practice book. Without going down the entire list, there’s … people like yourself, to Kathy Brownback, to Ken Wilber, to Warren Farrell, Wyatt Woodsmall, Helen, Tom, Mariana. And there were some board members who weren’t there who all have fantastic contributions to make. So we’re very excited about the think tank / publishing dimension.

The second dimension is training. We’re working on creating a new series of trainings which are rooted in World Spirituality and Unique Self technology.

And third we are calling “community lab.” Instead of creating one big World Spirituality Center or Church, there will be smaller circles meeting around the world, circles of people. That’s a big deal, that’s exciting, that’s good. At least at first, those circles will be circles of study – whether in Holland at Venwoude or Shalom Mountain or San Francisco, perhaps in Seattle something will emerge.

And finally a very strong Web presence which we are going to be working on in the next six months. I hope by six months from now the Web presence will reflect this vision of World Spirituality, its five-part theoretical framework – which we won’t get into on this phone call – but which is a beautiful, modular way of understanding the core principles, which you can understand on a popular level and a deep mystical level, will appear as the core of the website as the core module of all the books. It’s a lot.

Joe: We’re running out of time today. On this topic, we could drill into detail on all of these and talk much longer, so we’ll need to look for updates on the CWS website, watching for news as it develops. I know there’s a lot of information coming in the future. But if somebody wants to get started today practicing World Spirituality in Toledo, Ohio, or the jungles of the Amazon, what are they to do?

Marc: We’re not completely yet prepared to fully receive that question, meaning, the framework is not yet completely articulated. I would say, go to the website, go to the teaching tab – “Core Teachings” – and they’ll be able to read the basic principles of World Spirituality, which will give someone a framework for practice which they can immediately implement.

Joe: What about the book Unique Self which we’re all waiting for?

Marc: I don’t have a final word. But the last word I have as of a few days ago is that it’s supposed to come out in mid-June or July. The latest it would come out is the fall. We’ve just completed the transactional pieces of that book. We’re very excited that Your Unique Self: the Democratization of Enlightenment, will be out by the summer. And there’s already some key pieces on the Web. On our website, there’s a keynote address I gave at J.F.K. on Unique Self, and there’s the Journal of Integral Theory & Practice, Vol. 6, 1, on Unique Self. There’s a core article there, a 40 or 50 page article there, which gives you the core of the teaching, which is already available and will be fully fleshed out over the book. We hope over the next 18 months there will be about 5 volumes coming out covering these dimensions even as we’re writing the next stage for the library.

Joe: Thank you for your time today. I’m excited to be working with you on this movement.

Filed Under: Belief & Practice, Featured, Unique Self Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Daily Wisdom: The mysteriously moving creative process is the God-impulse

April 12, 2012 at 12:00 pm by Leave a Comment

Whirling Dervish

By Marc Gafni

From Marc Gafni’s Your Unique Self:

The creative process that mysteriously moves from nothing to something is the God-impulse. To live as your Unique Self means to align yourself with that process, with the ecstatic evolutionary impulse that initiated the kosmos, with the ecstasy of God, which re-creates all of reality in every second of existence.

Are you ready to respond to this invitation, to offer yourself to the infinite love intelligence that wants desperately to show up in the world through and as you?

Photo Credit: neil banas

Filed Under: Arts & Culture, Daily Wisdom, Love, Sex & Ethics, Unique Self Tagged With: , , , , ,
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