Newest Thinking on Unique Self, from a dialogue with Bert Parlee and Marc Gafni, at the recent Integral Leadership Collaborative.

Your Unique Self: Giving Your Gift — Dr. Marc Gafni

Bert Parlee: Marc has an incredible breadth of wisdom and
knowledge, not only in the spiritual traditions, but his doctorate is
from Oxford, he’s a scholar, speaks various languages, and the way
he weaves stories, drawing from all streams of life that he brings
into his very embodied organic teaching style. Welcome Marc.

Marc Gafni: We’re here to talk about “Unique Self.” I’d like to
lay out for you a teaching I’m calling “New Enlightenment of
Unique Self.”

• Publications and where to find more information:

• “Unique Self in Non-Dual Humanism.” I’ve published this
work in a formal academic way through SUNY Press. It
traces a 2,000 year-old Aramaic lineage, which is one of the
sources I’m drawing on in Unique Self.

• My personal website: www.marcgafni.com

• “Journal of Integral Theory and Practice,” an academically
peer-reviewed journal; I edited edition Journal 6.1 which is on
Unique Self. We called it the “new chapter in Integral
Theory.”

• “Your Unique Self: The Future of Enlightenment” –
forthcoming. More of a public “dharma” book.

• What I want to share with you is a deep unfolding, deep within
lineages, deep within your own source code, and brings together
the best of pre-modern, modern, and post-modern streams of
insights. It forms the newest chapter of integral theory from
one perspective, and also the next stage of what I’m calling the
“future of enlightenment” from a different perspective.

• Who cares about enlightenment? That’s our first powerful
question. Or said differently, “What is enlightenment?” If we
knew what it is, we might be able to figure out who cares.
• Unique Self is, first and foremost, an enlightenment teaching.
That’s the frame we’re in. An enlightenment teaching does not
claim that the teacher is enlightened. It just claims that it’s an
enlightenment teaching, and we all teach what we need to learn.
What Is Enlightenment?

• Enlightenment is sanity… to be sane. We usually think of
enlightenment as a very sophisticated, high-end, leading edge of
accomplishment, which is realized by a few old men, and perhaps
a couple of women, hidden in the back streets of Jerusalem and
the peaks of the Himalayas, Nepal, maybe a Sufi somewhere in
the Middle East, etc.

• If that’s true, enlightenment is interesting, but obviously not
that compelling, because it doesn’t talk to a lot of people; not a
lot of people realize it, right? And, it doesn’t have much to do
with mainstream culture or the way we live.

• A more precise definition which leads us toward the
“democratization” of enlightenment is: “Enlightenment is sanity.”
That’s a big deal… who doesn’t want to be sane? To be “not
enlightened,” or to live in “normal” consciousness, is insane.

• What does that mean? Let’s look at that together. What does it
mean to be sane? It means to know who I am; to know my
identity.

• If I said to you, “hey, I’m Bert Parlee,” eventually if I kept
insisting that was true, at some point people would start
labeling me crazy; “he doesn’t know who he is.” So to be sane
means to know my identity. I know who I am; I know my true
nature; I know my true identity.

• My identity is not that of being a limited, small self, not merely
being a skin-encapsulated ego. My identity is not only the small-
self separate personality of Marc Gafni. That’s only part of
who I am. My “partness” is not my wholeness. My partness is
actually part of a larger whole, the larger One, the seamless
coat of the universe.

• I’m not merely a separate self, but as I move beyond the
illusion of my separate self, and access my identity, which is
my true nature, then I’m living in my “true self” – from separate
self to true self – and my true self, my true nature, my true
identity, which is that I am part of a larger whole, the great
fabric system depth of the cosmos. I’m not separate.

• Because if I’m separate, all that I have available to me is the
limited power, the limited love, the limited laughter, the limited
energy, the limited joy, the limited prosperity, of my separate
self. Which is pretty limited.

• But if I actually experience myself as I truly am, that I am
part of this larger field of being and becoming, that’s alive and
moving through me, in me, and as me, and there’s separation in
the mind of god, the uni-verse, the one great verse of reality
which courses through the verbs and adjectives and dangling
modifiers in my life… when I realize that to be not a dogma, but
a dharma truth that is lived and accessed in the first-person,
then I begin to access and live from infinite power, infinite love,
infinite laughter, infinite energy, infinite joy, and infinite
prosperity. I move beyond the limitation of the illusion of the
separate self. And that’s a big deal.

• So why does that matter? Because normal consciousness is
insane. How do I know that? Normal consciousness produces
“dukkha” – suffering. Normal conscious who lives under the
undispelled illusion of being merely a separate self, grasps;
desperately seeks in all the wrong places, to reify that sense of
not existing.

• The person who lives in the illusion of the separate self wakes
up in the morning and says, “I exist,” but they don’t really
believe it. Then they (I) spend the rest of the day trying to
prove to myself that I exist, because I don’t have a genuine
sense of my own existence.

• Trying to prove to myself that I’m actually eternal beyond the
fragility of my mortal self, I don’t actually have a lived sense of
my eternity, of my own depth, of my own infinite goodness, value
and beloved nature. So I grasp for what I have. I don’t actually
experience myself as being inside the circle of love, inside the
circle of Eros, inside the circle of infinity. I don’t really
experience myself as being in the interior face of the cosmos;
I’m not really on the inside.

• So I place you on the outside, giving me an illusion of being on
the inside. And I draw a line in between us. That’s the beginning
of hatred, war, all that causes brutal destruction.

• If this sounds to you like an interesting spiritual idea, but –
Hello! let’s get down to real life! – just notice that 100 million
people were brutally killed in the last century by people who
lived in normal consciousness. So normal consciousness is
insane. To kill 100 million people in a century, for no genuine
reason – not to assert or move anything forward, just because
the human ego thinks that it is merely a separate self,
desperately lashing out in order to feel its own sense of
existence, placing so many others outside of the circle in order
to have the pseudo-erotic illusion of being inside the circle.
That’s insanity; utterly crazy.

• When we live on an Earth in which there’s enough food and
resources to feed us all five times over, and 20 million children
die of starvation every year, and we’re talking about being sane?
Normal consciousness is insane.
• So enlightenment is about sanity. Sanity is about love. Love is
about the force of attraction. Love is about mutuality,
recognition, union and embrace. Love is the realization that we’re
all bound by invisible lines of connection; that we’re all part of
a larger whole; and if you’re not eating, then I’m starving.

• So enlightenment is about love. And the way to get to love is to
love your way to enlightenment. What does that mean? We’ll talk
about that later.

• The difference between “Bert” and “Marc” – we’re both men,
about the same height and weight, same general age category. To
mistake between me and Bert is a pretty minor mistake. A few
details here and there. Basically, we’re the same general genre
happening. It’s not that blatant of insanity.

• But to actually mistake your separate self as being all you are,
and not realize that you are a True Self, which is an in-
eradicable and indivisible part of the seamless coat of the
universe? The gap between that lack of realization, that illusion,
that limited sense of self? That’s truly insanity. So that’s
enlightenment, and it’s why we care about enlightenment.

#2: If that’s what enlightenment is; if it’s that important, that
transformative; if it is actually the source of love and
compassion, the source of all that’s virtuous and good; if it
actually would allow us to move beyond suffering, which is
precisely the promise of enlightenment teachers, then why isn’t
everybody rushing to buy this incredible product (putting it in
lower-right marketing terms)? Why isn’t everybody rushing to buy
it off the shelf? Why isn’t there an incredible desire for everybody
in the world rushing to become enlightened?

• Not only is that not happening, but actually, people don’t really
care about enlightenment. In my new book, “Your Unique Self,”
I insisted on putting a subtitle on it, “The Future of
Enlightenment.” The problem with putting “Enlightenment” in a
book title is that you automatically cut your audience by 2/3.
Because who cares about enlightenment?

• So it doesn’t make sense, friends. If enlightenment is that
important, if it’s knowing your true nature, if it’s sanity, if it
has the transformative potential to shift the way we live
together in this global commons, to end war and slavery because
there’s been a shift and deepening of our perception and knowing
of our True Nature and identity, and expanding our sense of
small-self and becoming Big Heart and Big Mind; if that’s truly
the case, and it is the case – that’s the great teaching of all
the enlightenment traditions – then why doesn’t anybody care?
Why isn’t this more popular? Why is this on the fringes of
society? That’s our second question.

#3: So what’s the answer? Some people say it’s because
enlightenment is hard; you have to practice a lot. People don’t want
to give up the comforts of the ego. People are unwilling to die to
their separate self. The enlightenment teachers tell us this, and
there’s some truth in it. But there seems to be more. Is it really
that people are too lazy, they’re really just afraid to die to their
separate self? Don’t people realize this would be an incredible, wild
gift to everyone? What’s the deeper reason that enlightenment
teachings actually don’t take hold in the general culture? Why
does it remain such a fringe part of our conversation?

• It’s not just that people aren’t willing to die to their separate
self. It’s more like people aren’t willing to lose a sense of their
uniqueness.

• People feel, “my uniqueness is my personal identity; that’s who
I am. But if I become enlightened, I’ve got to leave that whole
separate self thing behind, and I just become part of the One,
which feels kind of blah. I become ‘blah-ified,’ amorphic. I
lose my distinguishing characteristics, my uniqueness. I don’t
want to do that, because to lose my uniqueness, my distinction,
I feel is actually to lose myself; it’s actually to disappear.”

• It’s the fear of disappearing that prevents people from engaging
in enlightenment conversations.

#4: People are actually right, and most enlightenment teachers are
actually wrong. That is to say, that fear of getting lost, of losing
that sense of being a unique self, that sense of being
distinguished, that’s a correct fear. In fact, much enlightenment
teaching suggests that in order to be part of the One, you need to
leave that sense of your uniqueness behind.

#5: If you engage the dharma deeply, you realize it’s actually not
true [that you lose your unique self].

#6: You realize – and here’s the core of what we’re saying here,
the essence of what this Unique Self enlightenment teaching is -
we need to posit a central and compelling distinction between
“separateness” and “uniqueness.” That distinction allows for a
higher integral evolutionary embrace of the best teachings of East
and West, and allows us to evolve the dharma and evolve the very
trajectory of our own personal lives, and change everything.

#7: When we say “enlightenment,” what does that evoke in you?
“Enlightenment” comes from two separate places. On the one hand,
there’s Eastern enlightenment, dying to the separate self. That’s
true. That’s one form of enlightenment which says, “move beyond
your separate self, because your separate self is the source of
all suffering, and realize that you’re not a separate self, but you’re
a True Self. “

• That’s the Eastern enlightenment teachings, as well as appearing
very strongly in Western mystical esoteric traditions, and appears
in the first and second generations of Hasidism within Hebrew
mystical tradition. It appears in Meister Eckhart’s version of
Christianity and many other Christian thinkers. It appears in
certain versions of Islam.

• For the time being, we’ll refer to it as an Eastern teaching, to
identify it more readily, because it’s heavily associated with
Advaita Vedanta, with Theravadan Buddhism, Mahayana and
Vajrayana Buddhism, etc.

• This Eastern teaching is: 1) move beyond your separate self; 2)
the separate self is the source of all suffering; 3) when you
leave your separate self behind, you identify with your True Self
and come to know your True Nature, and begin to live in
fullness, enlightenment and joy.

• That’s one version of enlightenment. The problem is that
enlightenment is also evoked in another arena in history. When
you think about Enlightenment, you think about history 300-400
years ago, the mid 18th-century, the emergence of Western
Enlightenment, which, not coincidentally, uses the same word.
The purpose of Western Enlightenment which emerges in history
is not dissimilar from the purpose of Eastern Enlightenment… to
move beyond suffering.

• How do you do that? For Western Enlightenment, the way you
move beyond suffering is not to move beyond separate self, but
to affirm the dignity of separate self. When you don’t confirm
the dignity of the separate self, then you get suffering. When
the separate self isn’t a separate dignified monadic unit, not part
of a larger frame, i.e. a Church frame or a feudal frame, etc.,
that’s the source of suffering. So to move beyond suffering,
says Western Enlightenment, we need to affirm the separate
self.

• That’s the problem; the reason enlightenment teaching doesn’t
take root in the West’s notion of individuality, which is the
affirmation of the dignity of the separate self as the root
source of moving beyond suffering.

• We have these two different teachings; each one representing a
major wellspring of knowing, gnosis, which live together today in
our Western world, and contradict each other exclusively. The
contradiction hasn’t, heretofore, been articulated. Therefore, we
don’t understand why the Western body-mind-heart resists
Eastern enlightenment. Because it violates the core source code
meta-structure of the Western psyche-body-heart-mind. So
what do we do?

#8: How do we resolve this tension in our hearts and souls, in the
heart-body-mind of culture, within our yearning and striving, within
our myths by which we want to live our lives? What is our grail
quest? To move beyond separate self, or to confirm the dignity of
separate self? What are we looking for?

#9: To understand what our grail quest is and bring the Eastern and
Western impulse to a higher evolutionary integral embrace, we need
to posit this central distinction in point #6 between separateness
and uniqueness. If we do this, we take an evolutionary momentous
leap.

• Both the West and East enlightenment teachings confuse
separateness and uniqueness. East says: move beyond your
separate self, and assume that your uniqueness was part of
being a separate self. One teacher and good friend says that
there’s no such thing as a “unique” spiritual experience. She
was teaching the classical dharma of Eastern enlightenment.
Move beyond your separate self, and your uniqueness is, ipso
facto, part of your separateness.

• The Course in Miracles says, if you think in any sense you’re
special and unique, you will not find peace. Because
specialness/uniqueness is a property of the separate self-ego.

• You’ll find this in many forms throughout this teaching, and it’s
a mistake. Because actually, if you clarify the dharma, you
realize that you can move beyond your separate self… Bert and
Marc can both move beyond their separate selves. We’re no long
skin-encapsulated egos. Bert and Marc both realize that we are
both together part of the seamless coat of the universe which,
while it’s seamless, is not featureless.

• Bert and Marc are each unique expressions, unique features, in
this seamless coat of the universe. Although Bert and Marc
participate in the same essence, we’re both “personal faces,”
personalized expressions of that essence. Although Bert and
Marc are part of the same True Self, and the total number of
True Selves are One, Bert and Marc are completely distinct as
Unique Self.

• I can move beyond separate self, realize my True Self, but then
understand that there is no absolute True Self in existence in
the manifest world. Because every True Self sees through a
unique set of eyes. That perspective of True Self is Unique
Self.

• In the old enlightenment teaching, enlightenment had no
preferences and no perspective. Because there wasn’t the
understanding that perspective shapes reality. In the pre-modern
period, the notion of perception was that you were perceiving
what is. When we all perceive what is – the True Nature of the
Great One – then we’re all going to be part of that.

• But when I have the post-modern realization as the ontology of
perspective comes on line, I realize that enlightenment has
perspective, because everything has perspective. That’s precisely
what post-modernity teaches us. There is nothing that lives
independently of perspective. Everything is seen through the
prism of your unique perspective. In fact, your True Self plus
your unique perspective is your Unique Self.

• True Self + Perspective = Unique Self

• You are the personal face of essence, the particularized infinity
of God expressed through your unique face. That’s a big deal.
To wake up doesn’t merely mean to wake up beyond your
separate self to True Self, it means to wake up and realize
you’re not merely True Self, you’re Unique Self. You’re a
unique, particularized expression of All That Is, that lives in
you, as you, and through you. Therefore you have unique gifts
to give to the world that no one else in the world that ever was,
is, or will be, can give other than you. Your unique gift flows
directly from your unique perspective, your unique way of
seeing the world. The eyes to see that live in you are eyes that
give vision to the Divine, to All That Is, in a way that no one
else does.

• From a Unique Self perspective, to love God (being all three
faces – 1st, 2nd, 3rd person – of All That Is) means to let God
see through your eyes. To not love God is to become bland, to
blend, either into one great undifferentiated blob of True Self,
which is often how classical enlightenment is presented, and not

to actually realize your distinction as a personalized face of
Essence.

• That’s a big distinction. We say to our Eastern Enlightenment
friends: yes, we need to move beyond separate self in order to
heal suffering. But when we move beyond separate self, we don’t
actually eradicate uniqueness, because separateness and
uniqueness are two different things. I can not be a separate
self and absolutely be a Unique Self, which is the unique
expressive perspective of my True Self.

#10. The West makes the same mistake in its enlightenment
teaching. The West says that in order to achieve enlightenment you
need to affirm the dignity of your separate self. But that’s
actually not true. Why?

• The West says that all love, relationship, accountability,
responsibility and virtue is based on two separate selves being in
relationship to each other. If you leave behind separate self and
become part of the One, then you lose relationship and lose
responsibility and you lose love. But that’s not true; it’s a
mistake in the Western dharma. Because actually, in order to
have love, relationship, virtue, accountability and responsibility,
you don’t need separate self; you need only Unique Self.
• The West can actually accept the East; you can move beyond
your separate self, and not lose the core basis of Western
ethics, which is relationship, love, accountability and virtue.
Because they exist between Unique Selves, who realize that

they’re not separate; they’re part of the seamless coat of the
universe which is seamless but not featureless, uniquely
expressed in their unique face’s features.

• The limitation, the mistake of the Eastern dharma of
enlightenment is a confusion between separateness and
uniqueness from one perspective. And the mistake in the
Western version of enlightenment is also confusion between
separateness and uniqueness. Unique Self becomes the higher
embrace, the apex, which receives the best of West and East,
merging them into a genuine higher embrace; a powerful
expression of West-meets-East in the highest and most
beautiful way, the Unique Self, which transcends and includes
the best of Western and Eastern Enlightenment.
• Eastern Enlightenment is always a state, moving beyond your
separate self to realize your True Self. Western Enlightenment
is a structural stage, a recognition of your uniqueness and an
infinitely dignified individual. Unique Self is where states and
structure stages meet. Unique Self is both the highest state
experience of enlightenment, and it’s also the highest structure
stage of enlightenment.

• That gives us a pretty gorgeous vision, a direction, an obligation
to actually realize, to clarify, our perspective. To clarify the
obfuscating prisms of false self, to clarify the obscuring
grasping of small-self ego, to clarify our perspective. So we see
the world in a particular way, and what emerges from that
perspective is our unique gift that only we have to give.

• Then we’re filled with incredible joy; we realize that we’re
ultimately needed. Our deed is God’s need. That which we can
give, we can gift to the world as Unique Self, can only be given
by us, and is needed by All That Is. No matter what I do; work,
meditate, chant, pray, clarify myself to be the most enlightened
being on the planet. And I’ll never be able to give the unique gift
of Bert Parlee. Each of us has our Unique Self gifts to give
which bring us essential joy. Bert and Marc can meet, not in the
place of egoic grasping, jealousy, brutal subtle competitiveness
that often exists between men, but actually in a place of wild
love!

• Because love at its core is not an emotion. In the inter-
subjective space between people – love is a perception. Love is
to have eyes to see, for each of us to see other and say, “oh
my God, that’s gorgeous! What a unique set of gifts he has
that he’s giving in the world, and there’s no way I can give
them.” But I don’t need to have to give them. Because only my
grasping ego wants to give Bert’s gifts. Only a disconnection and
alienation from my uniqueness. When I’m actually living in my
uniqueness, paradoxically when I meet Bert, I’m opened up to
his uniqueness. And I’m utterly delighted.

• This is where the Course in Miracles makes a mistake. It says
that you’re not special. Wrong. You are special. The Course in
Miracles fails to distinguish between levels of consciousness.
At the level of grasping, egoic, separate self, you’re not special.
That’s the apparent specialness of the pseudo-ego, grasping for
its pseudo-Eros. But when I move beyond that limited, narrow,

brutal sense of being special, which is destructive and often
malicious, I realize in classical enlightenment my True Self,
then awaken to the new enlightenment of Unique Self, that every
True Self sees through a unique set of eyes, then I’m special
and you’re special. Awesome! Let’s be special together. We can
delight in our specialness.

• Then we begin to engage in a Unique Self Encounter, which is
when we meet and realize we each have a piece of each other’s
story. The ethics of our encounter is when we exchange with
each other those pieces of each other’s story. Wow, that’s a
whole different world.

Bert: Your message inspires in me the passion to recognize one’s
obligation to fulfill one’s manifest destiny; to realize the sanity as
the heart of the natural enlightened self, which is different than
the craziness of the ordinary self in the world, where, as you
identified, so many bad things happen, even with the best of
intentions.

• You’re identifying the nature of Unique Self striving for a rich
contribution of an individual’s offering which only they can give
in this place and time, and for us to live out our spiritual
destiny is to live into that place, not deny it, bring it forth and
create a world of greater goodness, truth and beauty, based on
love, and yielding happiness in the best sense of the word.

• You mentioned malice, a very important principle in spiritual
practice, actually. Sometimes in our sensitive selves, the parts

of us that want to, rightfully, embrace diversity and the range
of multicultural strivings in the world, we sometimes feel shy
about naming that one [malice]. One of the things I love about
your teaching is that you’re willing to go there. We’re going to
be looking at where we’ve been, and of course there are many
challenges on the road ahead, many things unfolding in the world.
What might you say, in terms of how Unique Self may try to
address what many might call “evil” in the world? And how do
we address this “malice” problem?

Marc: In my forthcoming book, “Unique Self: The Future of
Enlightenment,” there is a chapter on malice. Some people asked
what malice was doing in it; mostly they were from the human
potential and new-age movements. There’s a lack of recognition of
malice. It’s caused more mistakes, in judgment, in policy… I’ve had
enormous experience with it over the years and have looked at it
very closely.

• Malice is the opposite of love. Love is a unique self-perception.
Malice, in the interpersonal realm, is denial of Unique Self. Love
in the evolutionary third-person realm (Dante’s “the force that
moves the sun and the stars”), love as the Eros of evolution, as
the connectivity, mutuality, recognition, union, and embrace –
malice is its flip-opposite; again, in the third-person force, it’s
the force of disintegration, of alienation, of disconnection, or
the opposite of religion (re-ligere), the deconstruction in all of
its forms.

• Malice is the denial of Unique Self. When one denies another’s
Unique Self, and identifies them with whatever particular
weakness one has been able to find (and we can find one in
everyone), then one exaggerates and expands that weakness, and
distorts it, magnifies it, we get malice.

• The failure of the new age to recognize malice is an enormous
failure. Someone can talk to a new age leader and completely
character assassinate another person, and the new age leader
will think, “wow, that must be really legitimate, it must come
from a really deep place.” They actually don’t recognize that
they’ve just met Malice. One of the great things that Scott
Peck did – I think his best contribution was a book called
“People of the Lie.” It deals with malice; he recognizes malice,
and puts it in a kind of Christological frame, which I think is
unnecessary, but from an existential perspective, malice is real.
I think the best person who wrote on it was a British
psychoanalyst named Joseph Burke, “The Tyranny of Malice,”
which is an excellent and classical work.

• It’s critical to recognize malice, because when we don’t, we
don’t factor it into our policy decisions, in our realpolitik.
Malice is a real force.

• Can malice be transformed? Sure it can. But first it has to be
recognized. Even malice that you don’t act out can emerge in
you, and you recognize, “wow, that’s malice.” That’s a big deal.

• One of the easiest ways to find malice, Bert, is to find jealousy.
Jealousy is one of the ways that, while it might not devolve into
actual malice, it’s a place we can access a twinge of malice.

• Another place we can access malice in the world is in the
blogosphere. There’s a lot of the Good, the True and the
Beautiful in the blogosphere, but it’s also often motivated by
malice. Where you have people who are self-appointed vigilantes,
who never have an actual face-to-face conversation with anyone
in a genuine way. Face-to-face means Unique Self to Unique
Self. “Face” is an expression of Unique Self, the 45 muscles
in the face which are about unique expression. There’s never a
face-to-face contact, there’s never a desire for transformation.
There’s a person, sitting in their basement blogging away,
attacking people they don’t know, they’ve never sat and had dinner
with.

• They attack, gather information, distort it, and they’re motivated
by the energy, often, of malice. It’s an animating energy. Malice
has energy, it has power. It moves things. Just like love moves
the sun and the stars, malice negatively animates and drives
people.

• So while I wasn’t going to take the conversation in that
direction, I very much appreciate your pointing it out. Malice
usually emerges from a person who hasn’t realized any
dimension of their Unique Self. The shadow of malice emerges
when a person’s Unique Self is so distorted, so obscured, that
they cannot have a sense of the fullness of their own life, so
they only derive energy through a kind of gratuitous, distorted,
exaggerated attack on other, that gives them a sense of meaning.
• I know that people listening would rather hear me talk about
love and light, and I love to talk about love and light. If I want
to be anything in the world, it’s a lover… of men, women, children
and goats. Love not in the sexual sense, but in the beautiful
recognition of union and embrace.

• We can’t be evolutionary lovers unless we’re willing to recognize
malice as it arises in our self, as it arises in our “we” space, to
actually address and confront it directly. That’s such an
important perception, I completely appreciate you bringing that
forth, Bert.

Bert: I appreciate you finding the incredible value and importance
of that part of the shadow, which is, of course, so much of
what spiritual practice does well to involve us with, if we’re really
going to deepen ourselves into realization, enlightenment, whatever
we might call that living out as our fullest, deepest purpose as
Unique Selves, we do well to look at our shadows.
• One of the things that comes up with any new way that we
have to realize ourselves, and you’re developing a whole great new
model here, how would you say we protect ourselves against
sometimes very clever “spiritual materialism of the ego,” as
Chogyam Rinpoche called it, when, even unbeknownst to
ourselves in some ways, we narcissistically reify and glamorize
in our vanity, ourselves; the Tibetans call this “rudrahood”… an
attempt at enlightenment of the ego, by the ego. Which of
course doesn’t happen, but does create a clever façade and a
story of self-deception. What do you say to people who want
to embrace the light, realization and love of cultivating Unique
Selves, and how to guard against this very tricky way we can
fool ourselves into being, narcissistically, the One?

Marc: That’s an awesome inquiry. My reframed articulation of
your question is, how do we prevent the ego from hijacking Unique
Self? [Bert: Yes.] First I want to say that the ego hijacks
everything. The fact that something can potentially be hijacked… I
have a good friend who teaches about identifying with the
evolutionary impulse, which is a core Aurobindo teaching. He says,
well, that’s better than Unique Self because you’re identifying
with the evolutionary impulse; the ego’s not going to hijack it. My
response is, why won’t the ego hijack the evolutionary impulse?
The ego hijacks everything.

• The fact that something has a shadow side, sexuality for
example, doesn’t undermine sexuality. The fact that Unique Self
can be distorted as the grasping ego doesn’t in any way undermine
the central efficacy and necessity of realizing our True Nature
as Unique Self. We need to distinguish between ego and Unique
Self. That’s enormously important.
• In my upcoming book, there’s a chapter on 25 distinctions
between ego and Unique Self. Part of the practice of Unique
Self Enlightenment is to make these distinctions. For example,
your ego thinks you’re special because you’re better or worse
than other people. Your Unique Self knows you’re special
because you’re yourself. For the ego, “special” means “better
than.” For your Unique Self, “special” or “different” means
“distinct and free from any comparison or point of reference.”
For your Unique Self, you’re special because of your
spontaneous expression of your essence. That’s just one
example.

• A second example is: Ego reacts, Unique Self acts. Your ego is
constantly in reaction to outside stimuli; it never thinks a
spontaneous thought. It rarely acts because it’s moved to do
so by a freely arriving thought or desire. Unique Self, by
contrast, is moved to action by the power and joy of its own
authentic original impulse.

• By the way, Bert, all these distinctions can be applied to
business as well… ego imitates, Unique Self is original. Your ego
is trapped in imitation. The ego is, by its very definition, in
limitation. And limitation leads to imitation. Ego is always living
the life of imitation based on limitation, which leads to mindless
(not effective) competition, which leads to compulsive
comparison to satisfaction. But originality, which is a quality
of Unique Self, freed from comparison, is by its nature self-
satisfied. It feels good in itself. Your ego never thinks an
original thought; originality emerges from your unique face,
which is a vote by contact with your True Self, your original
face.

• That’s one of the key issues: satisfaction or greed; enough or
more. The Unique Self story vs. the ego story. Joy vs. fear;
Eros or grasping; authentic freedom or pseudo-freedom; victim
or player; loyalty or betrayal; there’s a long list of distinctions
which I try to develop; authentic friendship or pseudo-
friendship; are you saying yes (Unique Self) or no (ego-
contracting). Even when your ego says “yes,” it’s only because
it’s afraid to say “no.” Your Unique Self is always expanding to
say “yes”; even when you say “no,” it’s only to make room for
more authentic “yes.” In other words, the distinctions are very
deep. I think part of the practice of Unique Self Enlightenment
is to be constantly making those discernments… who’s talking?
Is this ego talking?

• You can also make these distinctions from a feeling perspective;
emotional work, where you actually feel the difference between
ego and Unique Self. You can do kinesthetic/body work, have an
embodied distinction whether you’re acting from ego or Unique
Self. We always need to do the practice to not allow the ego to
hijack the Unique Self.
Jennifer Grove: I love your work and admire your journey. Malice
is an issue that I see a lot in the integral community I’m a
member of. I see both the malice, and the denial of it. It seems
to be my karmic place to point that out. Then I get responses
that I’m just projecting. I’m riding on that karma and accepting it,
looking at it from “not-it.” Do you have suggestions as to a “full”
way to deal with this? Especially in the integral community, it just
gets rebuffed – “you’re the one in the hall of mirrors; you’re the
problem; you and your malice get out of here and everybody will be
just fine.” How do we deal with that?
Marc: There’s a lot of love and goodness in the integral
community; and there clearly are shadows of malice that exist in
different dimensions of the community, whether in the blogosphere
or other places. I think they need to be called out, named as
such. To say, hey, I’m sure there’s a lot of love here, but malice
is also at play here. Malice is a real thing; we need actually to
begin to name it. That’s one.

• Two is that we have to avoid being seduced by malice. One
example: when Bill Clinton was president, he had an engagement
with Ms. Lewinsky. Whatever that was, it wasn’t relevant to
national politics. About 30% of the country obsessed over it,
and Republican leadership, in a completely partisan way, used it
to really paralyze the country. As Laura Kipnis, a major feminist,
points out in the fourth chapter of her book, “A Female Thing,”
virtually all the people who attacked Bill Clinton on the
Republican side were all having similar Lewinsky experiences in
their lives that they hid. Meaning, it was driven by malice. What
happened was that we allowed ourselves to be seduced by
malice. The reason it remained on the front pages and kind of
stopped the country was that everybody was interested… they
fed off of it. The same way the blogosphere sometimes feeds
off the lowest common denominator. We need to call malice
out, and tell people, “don’t be fed by it.” The result of that

malice, for example, was the Iraq war. If Al Gore had been
elected president with a little bit more votes, we wouldn’t have
done the Iraq war. The reason Al Gore wasn’t elected president
was that Bill Clinton couldn’t campaign for him, because he was
tarred by this Lewinsky story. So the malice at the root of this
story, and the seduction by that malice by the American people,
actually caused the Iraq war. My point, of course over-
dramatizing, is that malice is real, so a) it needs to be called
out, and b) we need to refuse, as a community, to let ourselves
be seduced by malice.

Samir: One question is: how is the concept of Unique Self
different from the Eastern concept of dharma? A second question
is: what can one do to get more exposure to Unique Self, because
it is a very scary proposition, as you’re dancing a very thin line with
the ego. What is your Unique Self and what is your separate self?
Marc: In terms of the distinction between Unique Self and
dharma, I think you’re referring to the Bhagavad-Gita, which, by
the way, was the basis for the movie, “Bagger Vance.” That notion
of having your dharma. That notion in Hinduism of “Atman is
Brahman,” could be interpreted as Unique Self. You could also
interpret it as Buddhist “no-self.” It’s kind of unclear. I’ve had
conversations with Sally Kempton, Swami Dirgananda, and Professor
Dick Mann, head of Transpersonal section of SUNY Press, who’s
an old-time Siddha Yoga practitioner. Both of them are students of
Muktananda, who is the Siddha Yoga lineage, which is rooted deep in

Hinduism, a place where you have glimmers of Unique Self, but
it’s not quite clear. Sally would quote Muktananda, “God appears
in you as you.” Her interpretation of that was a kind of “no-
self/True Self.” I argued that he was actually referring to Unique
Self. It’s never quite clear in Hinduism. It’s clearer in Sufism,
where you have a clearer idea of the personal face of Essence.
• Ken and I talked about whether Unique Self is an evolutionary
emergent, or is Unique Self rooted in the old traditions? I
would say that Unique Self is foreshadowed in some of the
great traditions, in certain ideas of soul, but not others. In
Judeo-Christianity, soul is sometimes the glorified spiritual ego.
That’s not what we mean by Unique Self. At other times, soul
is used more like Unique True Self. You have to be careful.
• In Sufism, in Kabbalah, in Kashmir Shaivism, in esoteric
Christianity, you have proto-Unique Self ideas. What happens in
the evolutionary emergent is that what comes online in
Modernity/Post-Modernity is perspective. We used to think that
we see the world as it is. Once we realize that we see the
world through a perspective, that changes everything, including
our notion of enlightenment. If in the classical world we see
the world as it is, so classical enlightenment is non-distinct.
Because I’m not seeing the world through my prism, I’m seeing
the world as it is, and all of our prisms are basically the same.
But if I realize that’s not true, that I see the world through a
unique prism perspective, then even when I attain enlightenment,
it’s still through that prism and perspective. That’s Unique
Self. The notion of perspective is very important.

• Two, the notion of “self” per se is a modern idea. “Self” doesn’t
appear in the dictionary until the Renaissance. So “self” and
perspectives are related. So it was very hard for an earlier notion
of spirit to talk in full Unique Self terms, because there
wasn’t a value of uniqueness.

• For example, the idea of one person, one vote would have been
absurd a thousand years ago. The Buddha could have never
dreamt of democracy. As we feel into democracy, which is an
affirmation of the unique perspective of every individual, we then
begin to realize that perspective is central, and that
enlightenment has perspective, and that to be enlightened is not
to lose your perspective, but to clarify your unique perspective.
When I stop imitating Samir, and begin being Marc, not from an
egoic place of grasping, but from an expression of my clarified
second-tier perspective, then Unique Self begins to come online.
Modern notions of development play into it; when we realize that
higher levels of development, whether ultra-violet or Yellow,
depending on your model, all embrace Unique Self as an
expression of second-tier development, and have done the
empirical work to validate that. All of that was unavailable in the
pre-modern traditions. In that sense, I would say that Unique
Self is an evolutionary emergent, one of the core expressions of
what the World Spirituality Council is calling World Spirituality,
bringing together the best of pre-modern insight into the great
traditions, modern insight of individuality, and post-modern
insight of perspective. That’s the nature of Unique Self.

• Where can you find this now? You can get the Journal of
Integral Theory and Practice. I’m editing a series on integral
spirituality. Sean Esbjorn-Hargens and I just edited an edition on
Unique Self. You can order that from SUNY Press.
Bert [from Jennifer Blalock]: How do you teach the Unique
Self to different memes, “meeting people where they’re at”? How
can this principle be appealing to people who are making meaning at
different levels?

Marc: Unique Self appears at every level of consciousness. That’s
critical to understand. And we can talk about it at every level. For
example, at Amber/Blue, the mythic meme of consciousness, the
Unique Self is the special gift you have to give to your society.
It’s a special obligation you fulfill as a member of the polis. At
Orange rational level, Unique Self is about your unique potential
for achievement, for emergence and creativity. At Green
multicultural pluralistic level, uniqueness is about the
irreducibility of difference. One of the great Green institutions in
America is Spirit Rock, a Buddhist meditation center. The entrance
to Spirit Rock has a banner that says “We believe in diversity.” A
beautiful expression of Green consciousness. For Green
consciousness, diversity is that everybody’s unique. The weakness,
of course, is there’s no hierarchy. But there’s an affirmation of
the uniqueness of everyone in every tradition, every religion, every
individual. At second-tier, the notion of unique obligation, unique
creativity, and the irreducible uniqueness of the individual come
together to create the empowered second-tier individual who’s
giving their unique evolutionary gifts for the sake of all that is.
It’s a kind of liberating uniqueness, a uniqueness that is the law
of the individual, incarnate as the individual unique expression of
divinity, of the Divine will. It’s the knowing that when I access my
own will, I’m accessing the Divine will, when I strip away all the
layers, when I’m actually merging with all that is, which is
Divinity, the Tao, Atman, Brahman.

• So uniqueness appears at all these levels. At Beige, it’s the drive
to survive; it’s worth my surviving. Although it’s an
unconscious recognition of uniqueness, it’s “I need to survive,”
I’m not just another one. I’m responsible for my own survival,
which is an implicit recognition of my uniqueness. At Purple,
magic/mythic consciousness, all of magic is based on the
recognition of the unique spell, the unique place, the unique
tribe, etc. It’s a recognition of distinction, and my place in the
tribe, etc. So Unique Self will appear in different ways at every
level of consciousness. But as you get closer to a true
recognition of your True Nature, to second-tier, which is where
that comes online, your Unique Self becomes clarified.

• Finally, I would say that one of the ways Unique Self appears
at all levels of consciousness is in a flow state. In a flow
state, no matter what level of consciousness you are, your
Unique Self will often appear, because the ego gets out of the
way. What then happens, though, is the particular directive or
imperative of your Unique Self is then interpreted through your
level of consciousness. That’s always worth noting.

Bert: One of the things that comes to mind for me is not only
how it relates with different orders of meaning making, but what
have you been learning about the nature of Unique Self as it
shows up respectively in masculine and feminine energies, in men
and women, males and females?

Marc: At the Integral Theory Conference I was privileged to give a
talk on this question: the masculine and feminine as it relates to
Unique Self. The essential idea I tried to put forth there is as
follows: There are no two hermaphrodites (a combination of
masculine and feminine) that are the same. One of the expressions
of my Unique Self is a unique calibration of masculine and
feminine within who I am. That’s one of the formulas for Unique
self. When my Unique Self is out of kilter, it’s often because I
have a distorted or unlived dimension of masculine and feminine.

• In Kabbalistic nomenclature, the word “shalom” means peace or
wholeness. What it means in the original Kabbalistic framework
is the whole complete integration of your precise masculine and
feminine. Any part of your masculine or feminine that’s unlived
or distorted will disturb your peace, your shalom, your
equilibrium. Because your peace and equilibrium only comes
from the fullness of your Unique Self. In Hebrew, the word
for uniqueness is “yichud,” which means both “unique” and
“unification,” particularly of your masculine and feminine.

• Unique Self shows up differently in the masculine and feminine.
In the masculine, Unique Self might show up in a particular
kind of purpose-driven life, which is about certain kinds of

masculine accomplishment in the world (whether it’s expressed
through a man or a woman). In the feminine, it might show up
in unique ways of nurturing, caring, embracing, a radical
commitment to unique relationship, etc.

• In both men and women, of course, these masculine and
feminine poles show up. Unique Self is definitely refracted
differently, both through the prism of the masculine and
feminine, and through the prism of the unique calibration of
masculine and feminine in every unique hermaphrodite.
Bert: Are there particular ways that masculine and feminine
energies can get fooled by their efforts to realize True/Unique
Self? Have you discovered any differences gender-wise in the ways
that we both realize it and fool ourselves?

Marc: For sure. The simple way to say it would be that the
feminine often uses relationship to cover over the need to access
her particular unique expression of divinity. The special love, the
special relationship becomes, in lieu of the genuine location and
articulation of uniqueness. In the masculine, that which is used
to obfuscate, fool, cover over, to allow one to not engage a full
encounter with their uniqueness, is often work. Professional
function, for the masculine, often covers up unique purpose. The
masculine needs to be careful not to use professional function,
or competence, to cover up uniqueness. The feminine needs to be
careful not to allow relationship, relatedness, to cover up that
uniqueness.

Sex, Ethics and Injury, with Marc Gafni

Spiritually Incorrect; Sex, Ethics and Injury

This is an article that I wrote in 2007. It has been on my website for three years. I indicates my thinking on these issues clearly and I have lived in the integrity of that position. I have also written on these issues in formal integral forums, on my website and in numerous other places.

I submitted a different version of this paper for the ITC conference in 2010. I asked that version of the paper not to be published because it is still incomplete. However, I believe the paper as it stands now, even in its incomplete form, clarifies the core issues.

One of the reasons that I held my post conventional relationships in a private container is that I did not want to engage this issue as my primary teaching. I still do not want to do. I am much more interested in the issues on which I have taught in the last years: The Three Stations of Love, Unique Self, The Democratization of Enlightenment and the articulation of World Spirituality based on Integral principles. I am also passionately interested and committed to writing about Eros and Sexuality. But not specifically about sexuality’s post conventional expression. I would have preferred to live my private life privately and to stake intellectual ground in this very subtle and nuanced area. Certainly I do not want to make the possibility or impossibility of a teacher dating a student the core of my teaching. Moreover the issues of polyamory and monogamy while important also are not at the top of my list to engage. And I am even less wanting to about my own personal journey in this area simply because it should not be that interesting to anyone. Nonetheless it appears that I cannot avoid these topics altogether so I will publish a series of monographs on some of these topics over the coming months.

If the Integral community is going to engage in conversation that is truly integral in nature then we need to do some serious thinking and writing. We need more than dubiously motivated and grandstanding blog posts which engage in superficial slogans, deploying tired old categories, lacking rigor and depth. That is particularly true when such blog posts do not take into account in a serious way the AQAL framework which is the very core of Integral. We need to do better then “As they said in the army, Don’t fuck around the flagpole” is not going to cut it as integral discourse.

The dismissal of post conventional sexuality as addictive or narcissistic based on information from the blogosphere which allegedly established a pattern and then interprets that pattern, will do even less to encourage Integral conversation.

Pronouncements which do not take quadrants, levels or lines into account will not serve us. That is actually precisely the nature of first tier consciousness.

Now to be perfectly clear, post conventional sexual possibility DOES NOT = second tier. Of course not. There is first tier post conventional sexuality and second tier post conventional sexuality just like there is first tier conventional sexuality and second tier conventional sexuality. There is first tier monogamy and second tier monogamy and there is first tier polyamory and second tier polyamory. On these two forms of sexuality I will write in a later post.

In concluding my introduction, it needs to be said that from an AQAL perspective we need to take into account how all four quadrants are at play in every situation, including how the blogosphere creates scandal and then comments on it, the hidden motivations of all the parties in all four quadrants that create a “situation” and more. Integral Love and forgiveness will only emerge when everyone involved in a difficult situation sits around a table and says, “Wow, I really have a part in this. I fucked up. I could have done better; I regret that I did not do a better job. I will do my inner work and with the grace of god, be more skillful, graceful and loving in the future”.

All that by way of introduction:

At this point I offer the article below on Sex Ethics and Injury as an initial consideration of issues at hand.

Part Two:

Our topic is the question of whether it is possible for a student and a teacher to engage in sexual engagement in the New World of contemporary American Spirituality. While it is a story that is for me intensely personal, I will not address it in this article from that perspective. However I began contemplating this issue as direct result of a personal cataclysm in my life which produced virtually immeasurable pain and loss, and with it a paradoxical liberation from my personal story, a kind of surrender and some stunningly beautiful glimpses of what has been called by some Metanoia. It is from that place that I will one day return to the story. About, pain, personal responsibility, forgiveness and grace I will write, if at all, in a different context.
And yet a moment of personal reflection, as I pick up my pen might be required.
The solace of the work I do lies in this; only there in the silences of the writer can reality be re-ordered, reworked and made to show its significant side. It is only here that we can move from spectacle to depth, from grasping at understanding to coming to grips with reality, and here we can discern the deepest teaching that divine love offers us.

Our common actions in reality are simply the sackcloth covering which hides the cloth of Gold, the meaning of the pattern. Indeed Jung, was right when he reminded us that only “in the Shadow is the Gold”.

I have given up being a spiritual teacher in the old sense of the word. I tried to teach my uncertainty. I thought that love could hold the ambiguity of paradox. I also thought that the vessels of the sexual and its implicit commitment and integrity, were enough to overcome all else. But I learned that this is only so very particular times and places. Places where fear has not overwhelmed love, where petty truths are not hijacked to attempt great murders, and where the ulterior motive of piety does not occlude the forgiveness we need to hold each other’s greatness. And yet I remain madly in love with God and man, committed, as I have always been to share whatever gifts of aliveness I have been given. So I have become a spiritual and social artist. It frees me of certain obligations, projected shadows, and constraints that teachers are made to bear.

As a spiritual and social artist, I will paint my love of god and man on the canvas of my pain and joy. I have a path to show. That is my gift to give. For it I was born. For it I am alive. It is more intense and demanding that it has ever been. It is born of the agony and ecstasy of my sacred autobiography. This is the only art that I know. It is all that I have to share.

For artists, there awaits the joyous compromise through art with all that wounded or defeated us in daily life. In this way, we do not evade destiny, but fulfill it in its true potential. So I pray that the taste of this writing should have taken something from its living subjects- their breath, skin, voices, – weaving them into supple tissues of human memory; the memory which is the hope of the future. The memory which heals and transforms.
I want us all to re- live it all again to the point where pain becomes art.

So, to our topic. My goal here will be to answer our question on the possibility or impossibility of such relationships. Some questions are better and wiser than their answers. Instead, I will try to suggest a framework which might free of us of orthodoxies that hide deeper realities of spirit. These frameworks might allow us to begin to imagine this question in a new way.

Three Levels of Consciousness:
The method of raising questions I will invoke is simply to introduce a new framework into this conversation. I refer to the three levels of consciousness, which elaborate a three-tiered lens which is remarkably helpful in elucidating reality.

I evoke these levels, translate and evolve them, from the Kabbalah of the Baal Shem Tov.3
The Baal Shem talks of three levels of spirit which I read as levels of consciousness. The first is Hachna’ah which is well translated as submission. The second Havdalah, literally meaning separation, which I translate as autonomy or individuation. The third is Hamtaka, literally translated as sweetness and often referred to in other spiritual literatures as the stage of surrender. The implications of the three levels are enormously important in understanding Kabbalistic thought in particular and reality in general. To understand these categories of spirit, it is helpful to point out the approximate analogy between them and the three levels of consciousness discussed by developmental thinkers. They are called by some contemporary theorists the pre-conventional, conventional and post conventional. These same general three levels are also often referred by other theorists to as pre- personal, personal and the transpersonal.

Before applying these levels to the relationship between teacher and student or staff, it may be useful to deploy these three levels in a couple of different contexts of ‘We space’, so we get a sense of the ground to which they really intend.

The first example is in the realm of Community and its relationship to the Individual.
Level One, termed ‘submission’ by the Baal Shem, might be a cult. A religious cult such as (Jim Jones and Jonestown) is pre-conventional and pre-personal. The personhood of the individual is effaced. No conventional law can override the internal law of the cult. The cult laws based not on principles of justice but on the will of the cult leader, and the leader’s will is not subject to verification by any external or internal standard.

The Personal, that is, the assertion of individuality and autonomy and the rejection of arbitrary authority, characterize the second level of consciousness. This is termed by the Baal Shem as ‘separation,’ which we have translated above as individuation. This is the level of the personal as well as the conventional. Impersonal Law, which protects the infinite adequacy and dignity of every individual’s unique personhood, is the order of the day. Any challenge to the personal, any encroachment on personal space is viewed as as pernicious, predatory and threatening.

The third level of consciousness, Hamataka, Sweetness, is often
manifested by an authentic Sangha. Sangha is that wonderful Sanksrit term which I use to refer to a true spiritual community where love, interconnectivity and ecstasy are demarcating characteristics. Here, the individual might at times give up his own separateness to melt into the bliss of the larger whole, but this is never demanded. The post-conventional overrides the conventional. The law of the group might at times override the conventions of the dominant outside culture. The transpersonal invites one to transcend the personal.

Now here is a critical point. Viewed from the outside, levels One and Three might seem strikingly similar. Both are not personal. Both are not conventional. Yet in fact, they are not similar at all. As already noted by Hegel, the nature of ascending levels of consciousness is that the higher level always transcends and includes the emergent qualities of the previous level. This metaphysical principle deployed in our case would mean that the transpersonal, level three must transcend the previous level, the personal, but also include its main qualities. It can never be pre-personal. This would mean that the transpersonal must included the values of personal dignity, a human autonomy and individuality. It must also however transcend the personal. It must invite the person beyond the limitation of the lonely skin encapsulated ego, who, even as s/he constantly interfaces with others, lives alone in splendid isolation. It must enfold in bliss the quiet desperation of the never embraced lonely man and woman, holding them in divine rapture. The individual who transcends the personal to the transpersonal is raised by the ecstasy and love of a community committed to a common vision of spirit, compassion and joy to and experiences of sweetness which he never dreamed possible in his previous level of personal conventional consciousness. This third level, appropriately called Sweetness by the Baal Shem, is both the transpersonal and the post conventional possibility.

In the realm of Love and Relationship, the experience of falling in love is typically a Level One experience of submission, in which we enact a pre- conventional and pre-personal state. In falling in love, one gives up one’s own personhood and submits in joy or rapture to the love itself and to the other. One gives up one’s own boundaries of personhood in order to penetrate and be penetrated by the other. Convention falls by the wayside, and lovers at this level, like Romeo and Juliet, will defy any and all convention to be together and fulfill their love.

Level Two is individuation and separation: falling out of love, which is always the stage after falling in love. Personal boundaries snap back into place. The demands of convention so flagrantly flouted in level one, come back to demand their due. Each party moves to re-assert some level of boundaries and to reclaim some or all of the personal space, which they had previously ceded. Sometimes this is so painful that one of the pair jumps ship, jettisoning the relationship in order to seek a new Level One ecstasy experience. Some people remain on this level one – level two – level one merry go round for their entire lives of love.
On the other hand, one can decide to stay and do the work. And then one can move to transcend and include the individuation of level two, even as one reaches for the sweetness of Level Three.

In Level three, after all of the pain and complexity of Level Two have been worked with and integrated, both people give themselves over to love once again. In Level three the couple are once again touching ecstasy. But this is not puppy ecstasy. It is a rich, textured, mature Eros, which gives birth to a kind of rapture and depth unimaginable at level one. Of course, as is always the case when viewed from outside, level one, the Pre-personal and pre-conventional and level three, the transpersonal and post conventional, seem strikingly similar. But in their Interiority there are of an entirely different quality and joy. Or said more succinctly level one is the pseudo-satisfaction and surface ecstasy of submission. Level three is the infinite bliss of surrender. Submission and Surrender.

Now let’s apply these general levels of consciousness to our discussion on the possibility of mutually agreed upon dual roles which might include a romantic and or sexual dimension, between teacher and student or teacher or teacher and employee. At the first level of consciousness, submission or pre- conventional and pre-personal, the individual submits to his instincts, primal desires and needs. This is the stage before the individuation of the unique personae whose separate integrity and boundaries need to be affirmed and honored.

It is both a stage in history of humanity and a stage in the development of every human being. Ontogeny is mirrored in phylogeny and the reverse. At this level for example, the warlord or the priest might well make use of the virgins of the tribe either to serve his own sexual needs and desires or the economic and spiritual needs of the tribe, or both. The personal is not yet valued. It has not yet emerged as a level of consciousness.

An example of pre-personal consciousness in contemporary reality might be all forms of sexual misconduct between people in genuinely asymmetrical position of power. This might include the classical forms of sexual harassment or what Lin Farely has called the sexual shakedown. In this classic scenario, the boss – usually male, says to his subordinate, usually female, implicitly or explicitly; “hey if you want to be promoted, you better provide me with sexual favors”. Or in different version a teacher might say to his student, implicitly or explicitly, “hey do you want to go to heaven, or achieve liberation, then sleep with me and I will bring you close to the Dharma.” This is a kind of emotional rape. Of course the more prosaic and terrible forms of rape, incest, child molestation, which all grossly violate personhood, would all fall into this category as well. All of this sexual conduct is pre-personal.
At the second level of consciousness, that of the conventional, the personal, individuation or havdalah in the Baal Shem’s terms, the sacred integrity of the individual must be honored. The personal reigns supreme and must never be violated or sacrificed. It is at this stage in human history that individual rights are introduced and the distinct and dignified individual emerges. This process begins in the biblical period, attains fuller form in the renaissance and achieved crystallization in the enlightenment. At this level the warlord, priest, teacher or medicine man are all proscribed from engaging a woman sexually with whom they are working, if that engagement is based on the exercise of their power. Since they have more formal power, the assumption is that the woman’s consent is somehow incomplete and therefore the relationship is in some sense inappropriate and possibly even abusive. This is the standard read given to all relationships between people, in what seem to be asymmetrical positions of power.
Sex in the Forbidden Zone:

In the teaching of my master, Mordechai Lainer of Izbica the model for conventional ethics of Havdalah is the biblical figure of Joseph. The Joseph archetype in Lainer’s thought is defined by rule ethics. There are hard and fast rules, which attempt to codify reality into law. They brook no exceptions. The Joseph archetype is all about law and is by nature obvious, clear and dogmatic. The Joseph archetype is positively phobic about any exceptions to the rules. The Joseph archetype distinguishes clearly between the permitted and forbidden zones of life. When reads the writings of people like psychologist Glen Gabbard and his school, popularized by Peter Rutter in his book, Sex in the Forbidden Zone one encounters the absolutist language of the Joseph archetype. Sentences whose most important clause is “absolutely never”, “Never at all”, “There are no exceptions whatsoever” dot and define their work.
I will severely critique and dialogue with these writings in another context. For now suffice it to say that their work, which deals almost exclusively with what they consider male power figures sexually exploiting female subordinates of various kinds, is almost suffocated by their fundamentalist dogma.
It is dogma because it presented as a kind of divine truth even though it is backed up by flimsy and questionable psychology. Like all dogma there is a core insight and truth to their work. However, as in all fundamentalist writing, that insight is stretched way beyond its capacity to provide wisdom or understanding.

The core insight of profound truth in their work is related directly to the case of the analyst and patient. The contract between analyst and patient is that the client brings her psychological sickness replete with symptoms to the analysts couch. In the theory of transference and counter transference, which is central to the explicit contract of the analytic encounter, the therapist re-enacts the role of the parent or primary caretaker, and client the role of the child. It in this very re-enactment that healing becomes a possibility.
If the analyst uses the vulnerability of this encounter to satisfy his own sexual needs or to heal his own woundedness then according to Gabbard and Rutter, he has violated the forbidden zone and committed a symbolic act of incest. For this reason sexual contact between client and analyst must be proscribed irrespective of whether it is initiated by client or therapist. At the same time it worth noting that both Gabbard and Rutter believe that even an analyst – like Jung for example- who crossed into forbidden zone can be rehabilitated after a one or two year period of therapy and inner work.

I agree with this core position. However, even it should not be taken as Dogma. For example no less a figure then Scott Peck in his authoritative best seller, The Road Less Traveled, suggests a very different view. In Peck’s perspective there are situations in which sexual engagement between the client and analyst might be both loving and healing. Peck rejects the ultimacy of the symbolic incest model and suggest implicitly a very different vision for client analyst interaction. While I agree with Gabbard and with the Joseph model in this context, I mention Peck only to point out that even this position should not be elevated to absolute dogmatic truth.

None the less, Gabbard’s analysis is insightful and compelling in this regard even if it is also incomplete and limited. The Joseph archetype, expressed by Gabbard, reflecting the conventional level of consciousness, focus virtually exclusively on masculine shadow, masculine power and masculine violation of the feminine. All of these are, of course, real. All of them possess a long and dishonorable history in human affairs.

However times changes, dynamics of power unfold, and the relationship between the masculine and the feminine shifts. Every era ushers in new and complex emotional, psychological spiritual dynamics in the dance of love and power between the masculine and the feminine.

Moreover within every era there are many containers that that this relation occurs within, and analyst and therapist is but one of them. Every relationship is governed by a different covenant. Some allow dual relations and others do not. Furthermore every particular manifestation of every single type of masculine feminine relation is different and needs to be governed by the unique will of God as it reveals itself in the specificity of the situation. Writes Lainer, “The God of yesterday becomes the idolatry of today”.

It is the nature of dogma to be unable to make distinctions. It is extremist in its nature and brooks no subtly nuance or alternative paradigms. It is for this reason the Zen masters taught; if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill Him. For yesterday’s Buddha all too easily becomes today’s victim feminist or Sexual fascist righteously fomenting the new Sexual McCarthyism.

Sexual harassment activism began as a sacred initiative manifested by feminist activism, seeking to express its newfound voice and wield its new power in favor of the powerless. There are those would say that it has been degraded by the abuse of power, the abuse of sexual intimacy through the filing of false and distorted complaints. In these complaints the feminine hides behind a false cloak of powerlessness from which she derives her power to inflict pain and suffering. No distinctions are drawn by Gabbard or the victim feminist school which formed him, between different forms of power. There is no acknowledgement of the complex way in which different forms of power are distributed. What began, as an honoring of the Goddess, has become her disgrace.

To give but one example Gabbard and Rutter claim there is absolutely no essential distinction between a married fifty year old psychoanalyst and his married 18 year old patient and an unmarried 45 year old university professor and an unmarried thirty year old graduate student over whom he has no formal structural power.

As we will see below the spiritual/psychological covenant between these two pairs is fundamentally different. To equate them is absurd.

The distribution of power in the second instance may well be equal. Each of them possess different forms of power, including to name but a few of the forms, the power of the student in a post feminist world to file a complaint and have it be taken very seriously, the students power of feminine radiance, the teachers power of wisdom and age, the power of the professors status and the students power of youth and vitality.
It is however is the nature of dogma to be unable to hold the complexity and uncertainty inherent in distinctions. In both cases according Gabbard and Rutter all of the power is with male. The female to borrow Rutters phrase, is completely “powerless”. The male is a predator and the female is a victim. This position dishonors both the masculine and the feminine and is simply not true. It is not difficult to see why this conventional version of ethics violates reality. To violate reality by defacing it with dogma is to degrade the divine.

Like all dogma, the source of Gabbard’s brittle intransigence, is ignorance and fear; its result is injustice. Gabbard extends well validity of his original insight. In Gabbard and Rutters view of the world there is no subtlety, no uncertainty, no questions marks and no understanding of what the Talmud terms “the wisdom of distinctions.” James Hillman observations apply well to Gabbard and Rutter’s world view; “there is no chaos and therefore there can be no Eros”.

It is for this reason that Mordechai Lainer, in a number of esoteric passages equates the Joseph archetype with idolatry. Lainer’s analogy to idolatry is not without force. Idol worship is the greatest anathema of Hebrew spirit. According to this Hassidic master it appears in modernity in the form of the Joseph Archetype. The result of idolatry in Hebrew wisdom is always To-evah, literally abomination. The Joseph archetype today in the form of Gabbard and Rutter, despite its ostensibly noble intention, often produces abominations of spirit and truth.

That is not however to say that the Joseph archetype has no place. Indeed it does and an honored place at that. However it must, according to Lainer remain in perpetual tension and conflict with a second archetype, one beloved of Lainer, what he calls in so many words, the Judah Archetype. The Judah archetype is for Lainer the incarnation of eros. Eros is the full aliveness to the invitation of whatever is present. It is the experience of interiority, fullness of presence, participation in the yearning of being and the experience of wholeness through the realization of the ultimate interconnectivity of the all with the all. This might be termed, based on a careful read of Lanier and his Zoharic and Lurianic sources, Shekinah Consciousness.

The Judah archetype is, in my understanding, is Lainer’s unfolding of the third level of consciousness found in his lineage master, the Baal Shem Tov, that of Hamtaka, Sweetness.

This third level, remember, roughly approximates what we term in developmental thought, the post conventional or the transpersonal. While the very basic and proper goal of the conventional is to simplify, the very basic and proper imperative of the post conventional is to complexify. In the conventional, peace and harmony overwhelm truth and Eros. In the post-conventional the search for a deeper truth and Eros might at times overwhelm superficial stability as well as conventional wisdom and norms.
The post conventional possibility unpacks a far more complex reality. In this understanding Sexual or Romantic encounters between teacher and student are not always forbidden zone material. Indeed they can be potentially beautiful, profound, and life transforming whether or not they lead to any form of permanent stable relationship.

It is only when the consciousness of the individual expands to what Lainer refers to as an “enlightened” or “expanded” stage, writes Lainer that the Judah and Joseph archetype can be integrated.

Let’s look at each of these three levels of consciousness.

In level one, the pre-personal or pre-conventional, we classically find a teacher or employers engaged romantically or sexually with students and employees. These engagements are typically based on an unequal power dynamic, in which the teacher or employer uses their power to seduce or compel the student or employee. At this level the relationship, with the teacher {or God} is basically on the level of a protection racket. You obey me or you will lose out. These engagements are properly seen as inappropriate. The Baal Shem calls this level of consciousness “submission”, This might be the submission of the teacher to the power to psychological need or desire, resulting in the inappropriate sexual submission of the student to the teacher. There is a violation when the teacher inappropriately deploys his power either with threats or promises to bring his student to the dharma. These relationships are by their very definition in violation of the personhood of the student.

In Level Two, that of the personal or the conventional, teacher and student {as well as human being and God} are seen as completely and ineradicably separated by their roles. This is the level of individuation, termed by the Baal Shem as Separation. Teachers and students, Employers and employees inhabit different universes and there is no permission for the universes to interface on the romantic, erotic or sexual plane. Teachers and students in the conventional universe of separation, are sexually and romantically forbidden to each other. There are no exceptions.

At level three, that wall of separation becomes again more permeable. This is the level of post conventional possibility appropriately termed by the Baal Shem, the rung of sweetness. At this level teacher and student or employer and employee are no longer necessarily phobic to each other. There may be in particular circumstances the possibility of both romantic or sexual interaction or both. Dual roles are no longer always anathema. Sometimes they can foster delight, depth and growth. Moreover it is precisely the allowing for dual roles that might foster authenticity, beauty and sacred Eros of un- imagined possibility in the world of separation. The possibility of dual roles allowing not only for linear transmission but also for erotic interface between teacher and student {as well as man and God} comes paradoxically from the glimmering realization of non-duality.

Level One Level Three Confusion:
Now, the natural danger is that there will occur, what I called many years ago {in a different but not unrelated discussion of levels of consciousness,} a level one/level three confusion.
Submission and Sweetness, which is also called surrender, might be confused. Ken Wilber has called this same phenomenon, noticed by many schools of spiritual thought, the pre-trans fallacy. The pre-conventional becomes confused with the post conventional; the pre-personal becomes mixed up with the transpersonal.

Freud falls into this trap consistently, confusing genuine transpersonal experience with the pre-personal oceanic consciousness of the infant. A reductionist mistake. The transpersonal is reduced and mistaken for the pre-personal. It is for that reason that he fails to take spirit seriously thus severely limiting the therapeutic effectiveness of many of his proposed interventions. By contrast Jung and his predecessors, the romantic philosophers, make an elevationist mistake. Anything that is not personal is elevated to transpersonal. Thus pre-personal mythic consciousness is often given an inflated status in Jung’s system which is significantly out of balance with the requirement of personal ethics.

The question in every student/staff and teacher relationship is always- is it pre-conventional and pre-personal or post conventional and transpersonal? Or is some appropriate or inappropriate combination of the two?

We have to be very conscious of both the reductionist and elevationist mistakes that we might make in Level One/Level Three confusion. One mistake would be to elevate level one to level three and the second mistake would be to reduce level three to level one.

The first mistake – to elevate natural pre-conventional lust with the grandeur of post conventional desire became a major motif in the writings of my teacher Mordechai Lainer. In response to this confusion, he introduced a spiritual practice, which he called Berur Teshuka, the clarification of desire. Its sole purpose was to provide tools FOR distinguishing between what in his system was the pre-conventional and conventional norms on the one hand and the post conventional possibility of the Judah archetype on the other.

Because of the difficulty in identifying from the outside whether one is looking at a pre or post conventional situation there is great potential vulnerability for both teacher and student. For the teacher the failure to discern or to identify partners who can discern, between pre and post mistake might be deadly.

The student because she may want a post conventional engagement with her teacher, might be seduced by his elevationist claim. He may make an elevationist claim, claiming a post conventional engagement when in truth he is merely using her to gratify his pre-conventional sexual desire or psychological need. This would be a form of sexual misconduct.

Or, the teacher may have a genuine set of post conventional relationships with students or staff over a number of years. This might be in one of two contexts. It might be in the context of companionship or sexual engagement, which is mutually pleasurable and desired by both sides. This may well create a depth of relationship, which might not otherwise have been available. Having had this engagement might well nurture years of friendship between the two, long after the sexual component of the engagement is not actual. Or in a second context, the teacher might be looking for a life partner. Over several years he may naturally develop dating relationships of different kinds with some of the people in his close circle including people who may be students or staff.

Sometimes this second context ends by mutual agreement and it settles into some form of the first context. As in any relationship, it is up to the parties involved to make the rules. The partners may require exclusivity with each other or one or both of the sides may decline to agree to exclusivity. In any event the sides need always to relate to each other in gentleness, love and forgiveness, as is always the requirement in every meeting of the masculine and the feminine.

Herein, however, lies the huge vulnerability of the teacher.
Feelings change, and with them, our perspective on our relationships. A romance that began out of a shared feeling of intimacy in one moment, may devolve later into mutual misunderstanding, hurt feelings, and unmet expectations. When this happens, either party may begin to view the relationship through a very different emotional lens. The encounter that appeared loving and free, now is reduced from an experience of post conventional mutuality and beauty to a status of pre-conventional ugliness and abuse.
Since level three and level one look very similar from the outside, this shift in perspective on the part of the partner can place the teacher in a highly exposed situation. For example, an agreement to hold the relationship private may be reframed as an imposed secrecy. If one of the women learns that she was not the “only one’, feminine shadow may be evoked – even if there was never any claim or commitment to exclusivity. The women may then cluster in rage, plug into a victim feminist hermeneutic about male abusers, and retroactively reduce what were at the time post-conventional relationships characterized by mutuality and autonomy into sinister abusive relationships. Often this kind of dynamic is subtly encouraged the masucline shadow players manipulating the feminine to their advantage even as they claim to be “protecting the women”.

This is often intensified when the women talk to outside parties who were not party to the interiority of the relationships. These outside parties will inevitably look at the relationships through the perspective of their own level of consciousness, and personal history. Their view of what occurred may be skewed by their own histories, needs, and professional agendas, many of them hidden from the women, the public and often from themselves.

Everyone knows that when a man or clusters of men are hurt or outraged and those emotions are filtered though an un-evolved masculine consciousness things sometimes go bad. This is no less true from a woman. When a woman is hurt or when a mutually re-enforcing group of hurt women gather, a fierce angry energy can gather. If this energy is refracted through the prism of un-evolved feminine consciousness it becomes all too easy for the group to dehumanize the teacher. The teacher can then become the target of vengeful acts, which are then regarded as justifiable retaliation.

War is often the result of masculine shadow. This does not make war less of a form of murderous abuse. The spiritual attempt to destroy a teacher’s reputation or career may sometimes be the result of feminine shadow or masucline shadow manipulating the feminine. This does not make it less of an act of murderous abuse.

These then are the great dangers of the level three – level one confusion. As with all post conventional erotic realities, a great deal of integrity, depth and courage is required by the parties themselves and by third party interlocutors in order to behave in a way that is holy and ethical. This is especially so if there are parties who experience themselves as hurt.

Between Level One and Level Three; The Conventional and the Post Conventional.
In order to enquire as to whether a relationship or set of relationships were pre or post conventional, a number of variables, need to be examined. Such examination can only happen through in depth interviews of all sides. The rendering of judgment and infliction of damage on one part without carefully speaking with all parties, without honoring the basic human dignity of all parties, although usually justified by noble rationalizations, is virtually always driven by fear, egoic self protection, cowardice or even malevolence.

The first consideration to examine might include the nature of the power relationship between the parties. The conventional view holds a very narrow view of power, which assumes the teacher always has the power and that the student is powerless. The post conventional view distinguishes between different forms of power. The post conventional view interrogates power in a more evolved fashion and reveals that power is distributed in far more complex and egalitarian ways then we might have expected.

Feminist writer and professor Bell Hooks writes, “One of the newest areas where the assertion of female agency {power} is under attack is in the debate over whether erotic relationships between teachers and students are ever possible”. Hooks believes that they are. Feminist Professor and thinker Laura Kipnis, supporting Hooks position writes simply “Power comes in more then one guise”.
Even if however there is a power differential, the post conventional view is that this does not mean that the relationship is necessarily exploitative.

Says Bell Hooks,” Feminine agency is undermined when we obscure recognition of the way desire can be acknowledged in relationships between individuals where there is unequal power without being abusive.”
According to Hooks and many other “power feminist” writers, “countless female students have chosen to have liaisons with their teachers. {Herself included, both as a student and teacher}. Many of these teachers have had relationships with many of their students over a period of years. It is wrong writes Hooks to assume “that exploitation and abuse are the natural outcomes of such encounters”. “There are many more male professors involved with students that are not exploitative then those that are”.

The post conventional view also asserts that women are desiring subjects who act and not merely desired objects who are acted upon.

Kipnis writes a scathing critique of one particularly well known victim feminist accusation of sexual abuse: An accusation leveled against Prof. Harold Bloom of Yale University by a former student of Blooms. Bloom was known, I am told to have had complex dual relations with many students over the years. One of these students, twenty years later attacks Bloom in a New York Magazine article.
Kipnis responds in an assertion of what has been termed power feminism versus victim feminism. She writes, “If anything has made recent feminism ..irrelevant and ridiculous, it this reductiveness about desire and the embrace of victimology”.

Adds feminist Prof. Chrisina Hoff Sommers, “If you take away from women students the idea that they are moral agents responsible for their own behavior you diminish them as human beings. It’s edgy. It’s demanding”. It is “nothing less then a third stage of feminism”.

It might also be more then worth mentioning that in a post feminist world where complaints of sexual harassment or abuse by themselves have the power to destroy careers, all without any due process or fair enquiry, the female student by definition has infinitely more formal structural power then the male teacher. A teacher who gets involved with a student today is in effect giving over his power to the student. This was clear to me when I got involved with people in my inner circle, and had multiple explicit conversations with them in this regard. I was promised in beautiful language, safety and integrity. I decided I would choose love and intimacy over fear. I chose to trust. We are only betrayed by people we believe could never betray us. This is the very definition of betrayal. While I regret my choice I am not spiritually embarrassed by it.
A second radical post-conventional consideration might be the authenticity of spirit in dual relationships themselves. There might be a particular wisdom in sexuality itself as a delightful means to undermine the power hierarchy between teacher and student. It is the very job of the teacher to undermine hierarchy even as it is maintained. Dual relationships may be the most accurate reflection of that dialectical relationship in a postmodern post conventional reality.

Feminist Professor and thinker, Jane Gallop writes about her seduction of her teachers.
“Our cliché included two teachers both in their thirties …these two turned me on to the latest ideas in the field I was studying, this was the cutting edge. These guys were brilliant. I wanted to do work that would impress them. I was fortunate to have both of them on my dissertation committee. I pursued and developed personal relationships with each of them….”
“I wanted so badly to sleep with these guys. And I did my utmost to seduce them. Both of them turned me down more then once. But over time I did what I could to sway them. Trying not to be to obnoxious I watched for opportunities that might present themselves prepared to take advantage and press my suit. During my last year of graduate school … I finally managed to have sex with them {each separately to be sure, but oddly coincidentally in the same week}…”

“Casual Sex. Even thought my relationship with each of them was anything but casual. Their opinion of me mattered profoundly; their teaching had forever changed the way I understood the world. To be honest I think I wanted to get them in bed in order to make them more human, more vulnerable. {They} had enormous power over me. I don’t mean their institutional position but their intellectual force. I was bowled over by their brilliance, so superior. I wanted to see them naked; to see them like other men. not to stop taking them seriously as intellects; I never did, but .. to feel my own power in relation to them,…. They let me see them as men.”

A third issue to explore might be the intended nature of the relationship. Before words like abuse are thrown around they need to be understood. Abuse derives from the Latin and means to violate proper or intended use. For example in the analyst client relationship the intended use, the covenant of relationship is such, that it precludes romantic or sexual interaction. However in the post conventional view, one might consciously negotiate a very different covenant with a teacher. Or the covenant might be consciously changed even after the relationship has been initiated.

Of course the conventional view would say that no such negotiation could take place, even if it happens before any relationship begins, viewing all teacher student interactions as situations in which the student is powerless. This is however a classic example of dogma becoming corrupted. Even if the conventional position originally arose to express an important truth, when held dogmatically it risks losing it’s alignment with reality and thus desecrating the name of God.

It is at this point, while talking about the power dynamic, that it may be worth pointing out the implicit weakness and condescension inherent in the incest model of Gabbard and Rutter as applied to teacher student or teacher employee relationships.

Feminist writer Bell Hooks explicitly rejects the thinking of Gabbard and Rutter in this regard,
“Most individuals who oppose consensual romantic bonding between teacher and students act as though any surfacing of sexual desire between teachers and students ….within an institutional hierarchy where one has greater {surface} status and power then the other is necessarily a context of victimization.” This position covers itself with a psychological fig leaf by “representing students as children and professors as parents. They see any erotic bonding between the two as symbolic incest.. “

To which Hooks responds, “Not surprisingly it is students who are among the groups that oppose such thinking. They understand whose interests are serves when students are infantilized” Clearly it is the interests of patriarchy. “Professors most wedded to the conventional hierarchy seem most wedded to the parent child analogy.”

The formal psychoanalytic relation in particular schools is unique because it an intentional, formal re-visiting of the parental relationships, e.g. transference and counter transferences. It is for that reason that in these contexts there must be a sexual forbidden zone. It is here that Gabbard, Rutter and company has made an important contribution. However this is the case in a host of other relational frames where there are complex and asymmetrical distributions of power.

That is not to say that the symbolic incest dynamic is not at play. It is always at play. We know very well today that romantic partners often if not almost always choose a mate, which will allow them to recapitulate successfully the unfinished business of parental bonds. That does not mean that we should not get married or have sex because, among a thousand other hermeneutics there is also a symbolic incest hermeneutic.

A fourth issue to explore might be, what is the nature of the teacher? Who is the teacher? Huston Smith wrote an important essay distinguishing between different types of teachers. Distinctions need to be drawn between an Indian Guru or Zen Master who teaches radical submission to the to the teacher as the central practice of egolessness, and a spiritual teacher who specifically teaches, encourages and even demands personal autonomy and healthy ego strength in his students. In my teaching the assumption of personal autonomy on the part of the student was an absolute axiom to which I returned time and again. In the case of the former I believe liaisons with students of any nature are unworkable. In regard to the latter the issue is much more nuanced and complex, and ultimately there may well be a genuine possibility of appropriate engagements between this kind of teacher and his students or staff.

A fifth issue to consider might be around issues of privacy. Is privacy a genuine possibility for a spiritual teacher or must all relationships be transparent? Can the request for privacy as a condition of engagement, a request received and honored at the time, be later legitimately construed as having been “sworn to absolute and eternal silence”. This kind of retroactive reconstruction is especially troubling if the student or staff person was a full co-creator of the relationship, had every opportunity not to agree to confidentiality and not engage in the relationship, or perhaps even requested confidentiality themselves. Perhaps this kind of retroactive reconstruction of reality not itself a form of abuse? It is my belief today {Sept. 2011} that a teacher cannot legitimately entertain relationships that are not transparent. Not necessarily however for intrinsic ethical reasons, but simply because it is far to dangerous to him, his students, past present and future, and all those who have invested in him and his vision. *The container makes the teacher, their family and vision vulnerable in a way that is simply unacceptable.

There is however a second reason that has become clearer to me that was not as obvious to me two months ago. A private container necessarily involves obfuscation and lying. While lying is clearly not always wrong, the ability to discern between what one might call acceptable and even appropriate and non- appropriate lying is very rare. And for everyone -myself included it is slippery slope. It has also been pointed out to me recently that the experience of holding a container may be hurtful. I hear that and I believe that when one makes a committment to privacy then to unilaterally break that committment is not okay. And at the same time I hear the pain in holding a container and the lying it may necessitate and as a result have changed my position on this issue. I know feel that in virtually all cases a container is not possible or desirable. I have written more on the the issues of privacy and transparency in a recent blog post.*

A sixth issue to consider might revolve around the basic posture towards sexuality that imbues a spiritual scene. Might there not be is a hidden anti sexual bias? Or at least a bias against the kind of sexuality which not lead to committed, monogamous relationship? Might not this hidden anti sexual bias, all too easily provide the ground for overlaying legitimate sexual engagements with a retroactive hermeneutic of abuse. Is the erotic basically the context for exploitation or might the erotic be also being a context for growth, even when relationships do not remain stable and permanent?

A seventh issue to consider might be a thoughtful re-examination of the conventional view that males are fundamentally predators and women essentially victims. Do we need to accept or challenge what Katie Rophie has called the “feminist consciousness of victimization”. Do we need to accept or reject the denial of feminine agency paradoxically shared by the far right and contemporary victim feminism?
An eighth issue to explore might be to ask if there is a standard beyond consensuality and even emotional mutuality which every relationship of this nature might be required to meet? Is there, what we might want to frame as a categorical imperative of Eros. One such imperative that I have worked to formulate in this past year might be, ‘ Is this relationship for the highest good of both sides’? This is a very different standard then consensuality and mutuality. A relationship might be both consensual, mutual and co-creative and still not meet this standard. Is it the teachers’ obligation to make that determination for both himself and his student? That is to say even if the student claims it is for their highest good the teacher is still responsible to determine that this is not the case in order to protect the student. That would certainly the position of the conventional. Patriarchal as it may sound that well may be the case. Or as the post conventional might assert, do we not have an obligation to undermine patriarchy here, free the student from victim consciousness, and respect her feminine agency and power.

However there are other considerations the post conventional might have to take into account. Can we trust the first person evaluation of either the teacher or the student. Is not every person somewhat of a genius when it comes to self deception?

And we might also have to expand our consideration of the third person as well. In determining whether the relationship is in the highest good of both parties the teacher would have to consider first, second and third person perspectives. First person would address the interiority of the teacher and student, second person would address the dynamics of their relationship and third person would address the cultural, legal and social realties. The teacher might also have to include in this third person the impact of the relationships on all of his past students as well as all of his future students through the generations.
All of these questions and many more would need to be raised if there were to be a serious post conventional conversation about the possibility of romantic sexual relations between teacher and student.
Such are the demands and work required to engage post-conventional possibility.

More often then not it is safer and more ethical to remain in the conventional. The Joseph archetype according to my teacher, Mordechai Lainer, applies to most of life. However the Judah archetype, the complexity of dual relations, the gorgeousness of full Eros, in particular situations, between teacher and student, may well reflect the higher messianic consciousness for which some of desperately yearn.
It is however crucial to remind ourselves that, levels of ascending consciousness always – in Hegel’s language need to “negate and preserve”. Or in Ken Wilber’s positive reformulation of Hegel, each ascending level of consciousness must transcend and include the previous levels. What this means in our discourse is that any transpersonal or post conventional possibility must taken into account the core truths of the previous level of consciousness, the conventional and the personal. Practically that means three things. There must be a genuine awareness of the autonomy of the student as the cornerstone of his or her personal dignity. Second it means that there must be a genuine and open dialogue between them about what they seek in the nature of their relationship. Third there must be an authentic and sophisticated conversation between them about the complex power dynamics, which define there every particular and specific relationship. All my relationships in my spiritual community fulfilled these requirements.

Finally we must always remember that a hermeneutics of devastation is a choice and not a necessity. Even however if people are hurt, that in no way justifies the explosion of feminine shadow that turns hurt into malevolence. it is also important to bear in mind that is often masculine shadow hijacking the feminine which drives the tragic and unjust destruction that often result in these situations.

It is in this regard that I choose to this short reflection with Rabia, the great Indian mystic. She herself was according to one historical account, a true victim of sexual abuse. I address Rabia’s words however not only to the student that has been genuinely hurt by a teacher but to the teacher who has been genuinely abused by a student. I address Rabia’s words to the teacher who has been betrayed by lovers and whose character and person have suffered the pain of distortion and falsehood. I address Rabia to the teacher who feels in one moment held by graces in the palm of liberation and in the next moment devastatingly alienated from source which is God. I cite Rabia to myself. In her words is Metanoia.
May her words be my guide.

My Body is covered with wounds
this world made

But I still long to kiss her,
even when God said

Could you also kiss the hand
that caused
each scar
for you
will not find me
until
you do

*****

i I mix my words freely with those of Robert Durell in his great work Justine.

ii Even here however their work goes to far and prohibits relationships forever. The termination of therapy is irrelevant for Gabbard, He makes the fundamentalist assertion that relationships initiated in a particular form cannot shift and re-configure themselves. Many leading analysts whom I have interviewed disagree and the reality falsifies Gabbards Dogma.

Living the Questions: Holy Audacity and Sacred Humility of World Spirituality with Dr. Marc Gafni

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http://marcgafnireports.com/

http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Marc-Gafni/1914037

http://www.flixster.com/actor/marc-gafni

http://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Love-Marc-Gafni/dp/0743442202

http://www.mp3.com/artist/marc-gafni/summary/

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dr-marc-gafni/a/602/540

http://www.incorrectinc.com/

http://www.centerforworldspirituality.com/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mariana-caplan-phd/spiritual-living-10-spiri_b_609248.html

Marc Gafni

Live Before You Die with Dr. Marc Gafni

http://www.ievolve2.com/

http://twitter.com/marcgafni

http://marc-gafni.org/

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=45577760781

http://marcgafnireports.com/

http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Marc-Gafni/1914037

http://www.flixster.com/actor/marc-gafni

http://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Love-Marc-Gafni/dp/0743442202

http://www.mp3.com/artist/marc-gafni/summary/

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dr-marc-gafni/a/602/540

http://www.incorrectinc.com/

http://www.centerforworldspirituality.com/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mariana-caplan-phd/spiritual-living-10-spiri_b_609248.html

Marc Gafni

What is the Evolutionary Emergent of a World Spirituality? A Video with Marc Gafni

The Evolutionary Emergent of World Spirituality:
Techno based conditions make World Spirituality possible.

Marc Gafni explains that the world is evolving from simple to complex. Religion and spirituality needs to evolve with the globalization of the world. For the first time in the history of the planet every citizen can access all of the great religions. This access promotes a spiritual revolution that allows for a World Spirituality.

http://www.ievolve2.com/

http://twitter.com/marcgafni

http://marc-gafni.org/

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=45577760781

http://marcgafnireports.com/

http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Marc-Gafni/1914037

http://www.flixster.com/actor/marc-gafni

http://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Love-Marc-Gafni/dp/0743442202

http://www.mp3.com/artist/marc-gafni/summary/

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dr-marc-gafni/a/602/540

http://www.incorrectinc.com/

http://www.centerforworldspirituality.com/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mariana-caplan-phd/spiritual-living-10-spiri_b_609248.html

Marc Gafni

The Three Faces of the Divine – Marc Gafni

Marc Gafni

http://www.ievolve2.com/

http://twitter.com/marcgafni

http://marc-gafni.org/

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=45577760781

http://marcgafnireports.com/

http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Marc-Gafni/1914037

http://www.flixster.com/actor/marc-gafni

http://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Love-Marc-Gafni/dp/0743442202

http://www.mp3.com/artist/marc-gafni/summary/

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dr-marc-gafni/a/602/540

http://www.incorrectinc.com/

http://www.centerforworldspirituality.com/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mariana-caplan-phd/spiritual-living-10-spiri_b_609248.html

Integral Spiritual Experience with Marc Gafni

Dear Friends,

For years the global Integral community has sought a flagship spiritual event that would unite every major tradition in an integral embrace of exploration, practice, and community.

We are very pleased to announce that the time has come…

INTEGRAL SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE This is a very special pre-invitation to join us as we embark on a 5-year journey to explore, practice and share humanity’s first world spirituality at the leading edge of evolution. This groundbreaking gathering will be led by the world’s leading lineage holders from every major spiritual tradition and represents the flagship event for the spiritual community worldwide. It will address the great evolutionary questions that confront us at the leading edge in the grand adventure of Spirit. What does it mean to be spiritual in the 21st century? How do we practice Integral spirituality, the first truly world spirituality? What is the unique purpose of your life and your unique contribution to the universe? How do states, stages, shadow and self form your unique spiritual constellation? How can we cultivate more deeply the three faces of spirit? And many others…

The first year of ISE starts with you. Integral Spiritual Experience I: Unique Self will explore the unique purpose of being alive on the planet at this particular time and place and the unique purpose of your life. It is a foundational element of the 5-year journey.

This 5-year journey has been designed to celebrate the coming of every New Year and will be held on the edge of the beautiful Pacific Ocean at the Asilomar Retreat Center in Monterey, California. Integral Spiritual Experience I will be held December 29, 2009 to January 3, 2010. The Integral Spiritual Experience will be limited to 400 people who are committed to exploring the leading edge of Integral spirituality as a group, so please save the date.

Spirit is evolving every moment, so won’t you join us in humility, love, intelligence, and creative audacity to share a great time together in this adventure? Registration will be open soon and we’ll send you full details in the coming weeks. We hope to see you…
Loving regards,

Robb Smith

Integral Spiritual Experience is a partnership event created by Integral Life and iEvolve

http://integrallife.com/contributors/marc-gafni

http://www.catalystmagazine.net/content/view/646/

http://www.amazon.com/Soul-Prints-Your-Path-Fulfillment/dp/0743417003

http://in.integralinstitute.org/contributor.aspx?id=34

http://www.free-press-release.com/news/200809/1220289578.html

http://www.emailwire.com/release/15747-Marc-Gafni-Evolutionary-Spirituality.html

http://www.prlog.org/10112382-marc-gafni-has-published-new-website.html

http://www.simonsays.com/content/destination.cfm?tab=3&pid=360232

http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/directory/person.asp?id=155

http://www.24-7pressrelease.com/press-release/new-web-site-marc-gafni-and-friends-unplugged-launched-71827.php

http://www.ievolveglobalpracticecommunity.com/

http://www.marcgafni.com/?lan=english&cat=6

http://www.marcgafni.com/?lan=english&cat=29

http://www.mp3.com/artist/marc-gafni/summary/

iEvolve: Global Practice Community Updates

iEvolve: Global Practice Community Updates

iEvolve: Global Practice Community is a new global, integrally-informed practice community co-founded by leading Integral Spiritual teachers Sally Kempton, Diane Musho Hamilton, Marc Gafni and Sofia Diaz.

You may have seen the announcement of the Integral Spiritual Experience event sent out by Integral Life and iEvolve: Global Practice Community. And in case you are wondering “Who is iEvolve?” – we are inviting you to come and check us out!

The Integral Spiritual Experience is an iEvolve and Integral Life partnership event, initiated by Dr. Marc Gafni, Sally Kempton, Diane Musho Hamilton, and Sofia Diaz.

Visit iEvolve: Global Practice Community and check out our upcoming events, visit our teacher’s page, join the iEvolve mailing list, listen to our featured dialogue between Spiritual Artist and Rabbi, Dr. Marc Gafni and Integral Rock Star and Comedian Stuart Davis, or sign up for our home study programs.

You can also join us our iEvolve Facebook group!
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iEvolve Events

Sexuality, Spirituality, & Shadow:

The Three S’s of Personal and Dynamic Evolution
A Three-part Event Series

With iEvolve co-founders and faculty
Diane Musho Hamilton, Marc Gafni, and Sofia Diaz

Part 1: February 13-15, 2009
Salt Lake City, Utah

Investment: Early-bird price $385 (regularly $450, offer expires Feb. 1st)

Scholarships are available
REGISTER today!

Join us for the kick-off on an integrally-informed community practice series, exploring the interconnection of sexuality, spirituality, and shadow.

By interweaving wisdom from the three traditions of Diane Musho Hamilton Sensei, Rabbi Marc Gafni and Natya Priya Sofia Diaz, we will explore why it is critical to integrate sex, spirit, and shadow on the spiritual path.
Through yogic practice, meditative inquiry, and interpersonal intimacy, we will deeply discover and refine how we engage these domains in our personal and professional lives.

Working in groups, with partners, and individually, you will:

*      Explore the connection between sexuality, spirituality, and shadow
*      Learn why it is important to include these three domains in your spiritual journey
*      Untie knots in order to experience greater freedom, clarity, and compassion in your personal and professional life
*      Break down barriers that prevent you from living your Unique Life mission
*      Uncover shadow material that prevents you from living with an open heart
*      Expand your mind and consciousness through perspective practices
*      Learn how to conduct body, breath, and energy to gain greater intimacy
*      Offer your deepest presence and love even when you are contracted

Rarely are contemplation, ecstatic movement, holy consideration and community evolution brought together, delighted in, and made manifest as an effective teaching vehicle.

If you crave great company, the profound pleasure of growth and laughter, and being challenged to the greatest depth of your gorgeous and evolving being, you will not want to miss this great adventure.

February 13-15, 2009
Salt Lake City, Utah

Investment: Early-bird price $385 (regularly $450, offer expires Feb. 1st)

Scholarships are available
REGISTER today!

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iEvolve Home Study Programs

Integral Zen: A Year Long Intensive with Diane Musho Hamilton Sensei

Integral Zen is the application of what is known as the Integral map to Zen, itself. By applying the Integral map to Zen Buddhism, not only is the Zen tradition seen in context for the first time, but new insights start to emerge.

If you are a student of Zen, or are interested in becoming one, what can you expect when you enter and practice within the Zen Buddhist tradition, and does it change if you are practicing with a Zen lineage holder informed by the Integral Map?
In this year-long Integral Zen intensive, Diane Musho Hamilton Sensei will guide you through the various dimensions of an Integral Zen practice, from your relationship with the teacher, to the particulars of form, including the various structures that hold it all in place from a four-quadrant perspective.

Join Diane Musho Hamilton Sensei for an Integral Zen year-long intensive home study program.

During this year-long intensive, you will explore, engage and learn:

•    The basics of zazen practice
•    The Big Mind process – a truly Integral practice- developed by Zen Master Genpo Roshi
•    How to cultivate awakening and compassion on your spiritual journey
•    How to apply the Integral approach to your Zen practice
•    Everyday Zen for everyday people

For more information and to register, please visit our iEvolve Home Study Programs

http://integrallife.com/contributors/marc-gafni

http://www.catalystmagazine.net/content/view/646/

http://www.amazon.com/Soul-Prints-Your-Path-Fulfillment/dp/0743417003

http://in.integralinstitute.org/contributor.aspx?id=34

http://www.free-press-release.com/news/200809/1220289578.html

http://www.emailwire.com/release/15747-Marc-Gafni-Evolutionary-Spirituality.html

http://www.prlog.org/10112382-marc-gafni-has-published-new-website.html

http://www.simonsays.com/content/destination.cfm?tab=3&pid=360232

http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/directory/person.asp?id=155

http://www.24-7pressrelease.com/press-release/new-web-site-marc-gafni-and-friends-unplugged-launched-71827.php

http://www.ievolveglobalpracticecommunity.com/

http://www.marcgafni.com/?lan=english&cat=6

http://www.marcgafni.com/?lan=english&cat=29

http://www.mp3.com/artist/marc-gafni/summary/

Integral Journey of Love with Marc Gafni: Part 4

http://integrallife.com/contributors/marc-gafni

http://www.catalystmagazine.net/content/view/646/

http://www.amazon.com/Soul-Prints-Your-Path-Fulfillment/dp/0743417003

http://in.integralinstitute.org/contributor.aspx?id=34

http://www.free-press-release.com/news/200809/1220289578.html

http://www.emailwire.com/release/15747-Marc-Gafni-Evolutionary-Spirituality.html

http://www.prlog.org/10112382-marc-gafni-has-published-new-website.html

http://www.simonsays.com/content/destination.cfm?tab=3&pid=360232

http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/directory/person.asp?id=155

http://www.24-7pressrelease.com/press-release/new-web-site-marc-gafni-and-friends-unplugged-launched-71827.php

http://www.ievolveglobalpracticecommunity.com/

http://www.marcgafni.com/?lan=english&cat=6

http://www.marcgafni.com/?lan=english&cat=29

http://www.mp3.com/artist/marc-gafni/summary/

The Integral Journey of Love with Marc Gafni: Part 3

http://integrallife.com/contributors/marc-gafni

http://www.catalystmagazine.net/content/view/646/

http://www.amazon.com/Soul-Prints-Your-Path-Fulfillment/dp/0743417003

http://in.integralinstitute.org/contributor.aspx?id=34

http://www.free-press-release.com/news/200809/1220289578.html

http://www.emailwire.com/release/15747-Marc-Gafni-Evolutionary-Spirituality.html

http://www.prlog.org/10112382-marc-gafni-has-published-new-website.html

http://www.simonsays.com/content/destination.cfm?tab=3&pid=360232

http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/directory/person.asp?id=155

http://www.24-7pressrelease.com/press-release/new-web-site-marc-gafni-and-friends-unplugged-launched-71827.php

http://www.ievolveglobalpracticecommunity.com/

http://www.marcgafni.com/?lan=english&cat=6

http://www.marcgafni.com/?lan=english&cat=29

http://www.mp3.com/artist/marc-gafni/summary/