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When the ego’s heart breaks, then the heart closes and contracts. When the Unique Self’s heart breaks, the heart opens through the pain into greater love.

The divine is dependent on us. In the direct language of the Unique Self Kabbalist, “Your actions either weaken or empower God.” When you expand, the divine surges with power and ecstasy, and expands with you and as you. When you recoil into your small petty egoic self, the divine contracts with you and as you. But in the contraction, God also feels your pain. We may live lives of quiet desperation, but here are truly no lives of lonely desperation, for God is always with us in our pain.

You are invited to imitatio dei, the “imitation of the divine.” Imitate no one except God. Just as God never forsakes the personal for the the sake of the process, so too never let go of your empathy and compassion, even for self-inflicted suffering.

The prophets never close their hearts. When someone hurts, they say, “Oh my God, you hurt so badly! Let me hold you and love you. I know you may have done this to yourself, and I will bust you for it tomorrow. But at this very moment, I do not care. I just want to hold you and make it better.”

Your Unique Self (in press) Dr. Marc Gafni Page 131

Dr. Marc Gafni
Your Unique Self
(in press)
page 92

For more information on private study or to book a public teaching, contact Dr. Marc Gafni at support@ievolve.org

It used to be that enlightened living was for the elite The few great lovers, saints, and sages throughout history reminded us that something more was possible, that there was a better way to live, that joy and overflowing love could and did exist, at least for some, as the animating essence of everyday life.

This tiny elite of subtle and evolved minds and hearts held alive for all of us the possibility that human beings could genuinely realize a transforma- tion of identity, that they could truly evolve from their small constricted egos into spacious, dynamic, enlightened beings. In days gone by, we relied on this elite to guide our world Today, that age has passed The old elite no longer has the power to guide us We can no longer hope that in some room somewhere, in the halls of spiritual power or the inner chambers of an ashram or temple, there are holy, wise people upon whom we can rely for our salvation.

In a globally interconnected world, one person acting alone or a small group of ignorant individuals has the ability to literally destroy humanity This is a pointing-out instruction by the universal love-intelligence Said simply, reality is telling us something that we desperately need to know The lesson is clear for better and for worse, the age of ruling elites, be they spiritual or political, is over.

Democracy is the evolutionary unfolding of love-intelligence in our era It began with the democratization of govern- ments Now it must move to the democratization of enlightenment, and enlightenment of your True Self beyond personality and ego, which then expresses itself in the full glory and power of your Unique Self
Enlightenment is a genuine possibility, and therefore a sacred obli- gation, for every single person. You are not obligated from without You are obligated in love by your own highest possibility.

The disciples of one master liked to explain this radical Unique Self principle with a story:
A precocious child was convinced that the king was not as wise as people claimed And so he set out—as young people are wont to do—to prove his point He came before the king with a question “Sire,” he said with great audacity, “it is said that you know the future and can answer any question posed Well, I have a question for you ” The assembled court gasped at his insolence But the boy went on “I have in my closed hand a butterfly, sire Tell me, is it alive or dead?”
The boy thought to himself, “If he says ‘alive,’ I will simply squeeze and kill it, and if he says ‘dead,’ then I will open my hand and let it fly away ”
The sage was silent for a moment, even as the room grew very silent When he finally spoke, it was with the gentlest voice the boy had ever heard “My son,” said the king, “whether the butterfly lives or dies depends on you ” It depends on us On each and every one of us.

From Your Unique Self, The Democratization of Enlightenment, Forthcoming, Chapter 3, Pages 19, 20

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In Hinduism the goddesses hold you in radical personal embrace. In classical Judaism the G-o-d loves you and knows your name, while in Suffism and Kabbalah she is your most intimate erotic partner. None of this is dogma. It is the first and second personal realization that the interior face of the kosmos is the infinity of intimacy. And it is the revelation of the infinite, who yearns to love you personally and uniquely.

Dr. Marc Gafni
Your Unique Self
(in press)
page 92

For more information on private study or to book a public teaching, contact Dr. Marc Gafni at support@ievolve.org

LISTEN TO THIS 4-MINUTE FREE AUDIOCLIP!

For more information on private study or to book a public teaching, contact Dr. Marc Gafni at support@ievolve.org

Listen to this free audioclip

The breakthrough to the other side happens in every facet of existence. It happens in an erotic conversation, when time stands still. To be engaged erotically, means the same as to be holy: being in the inside of an event.

The Maggid of Mezritch, a great Hassidic master once said “if you can hear yourself talking, sit down”! That is the exile of speech Galut Ha-dibbur in Hebrew. In this speech is the Goddess Divine, Shekinah. The exile of the divine is when you can hear yourself talking, because you stepped outside.

The Zohar, the book of Aramaic Hebrew mysticism says “a river flows from Eden” – to be in that river is to be in the flow, which is exactly the Eros space. In another Kabbalist story, Hanoch the Kabbaler stitches his shoes, and the text say “the heavens begin to move and transform”. What is he doing when he stitches his shoes? Nothing else, but stitching his shoes. He is totally one with that action: he is in the inside of it and so he becomes the Shekinah, the erotic itself. The divine is in exile, when the inside and the outside are disconnected.

For more information on private study or to book a public teaching, contact Dr. Marc Gafni at support@ievolve.org

You are then radically shocked and wildly ecstatic when you realize the complete and total identity between your purpose and God’s purpose. This is the true meaning of evolutionary alignment with the ecstatic God-impulse that lives in you and calls you to service.

Your Unique Self
(in press)
Dr. Marc Gafni
Pages 132, 133

For more information on private study or to book a public teaching, contact Dr. Marc Gafni at support@ievolve.org

The second quality of the Erotic of Shekinah of the Zohar is fullness of presence. This is not the same as being on the inside. You can actually be fully present, but not in the inside. There is a story about a 19th century Kabbalist master, Levi Isaac of Berdichev, who was able to be fully present. Once a Jewish girl joined the convent and that was completely unaccepted at that time so she shouldn’t have been there. The community sent all the wise men of the region to the convent to persuade her to leave. On one day Levi Isaac of Berdichev went there and sat behind a tree and started to wait. He had been waiting for three days altogether. Two days went by and nothing happened, but on the third day, the woman walked there after the convent and she said: “Oh, it’s you! Thank you for waiting!” What did she sense in the temple? What did the master do? Dr. Gafni explains it in this audio clip, along with the notion, that Eros is about presence.

Berdichev was present; the woman sensed it and responded to that presence. Presence is about fullness, the opposite of emptiness. The ability to hold the fullness of presence even in the face of emptiness. We always seek fulfillment in our culture – we want to be full and filled at any cost. Life is what we do with our emptiness. Not the Buddhist emptiness, but the simple emptiness. We have a difficult time to stay in the void, we therefore do a-void-dance, but the only way is not dancing around it, but going through it. And we can do this by precisely staying in the emptiness.

For more information on private study or to book a public teaching, contact Dr. Marc Gafni at support@ievolve.org

Your Unique Self,
(in press)

Marc Gafni
page 161,162

For more information on private study or to book a public teaching, contact Dr. Marc Gafni at support@ievolve.org