Evolutionary Love, Intimacy, & Activism with Dr. Marc Gafni – March 4th – 6th in San Francisco, California
January 30, 2011
iEvolve presents…
Madrone Studios | 1417 15th St. (in the Mission)
with Dr. Marc Gafni, Sally Kempton, Jai Uttal, Mariana Caplan,
Terry Patten, Decker Cunov, & Dustin Diperna
Join us as iEvolve, AuthenticWorld, and the Center for World Spirituality communities come together to form an authentic evolutionary community based on the core integral principles of World Spirituality!
This is the weekend in which you will meet some of the people who will walk with you through your life. This is a place to meet people who share your values, your vision, and your evolutionary vitality. This is the weekend in which your core mode of engagement in the world may undergo a significant upgrade.
Our retreat will unfold the three major themes of Evolutionary Love, Evolutionary Intimacy, and Evolutionary Activism through:
- Mind-expanding and heart-opening provocative teachings
- Sitting meditation and Awakened Heart meditation
- Enlightenment practices
- Yoga and Psyche work
- Group and partner work
- Deep immersion in the Sacred Texts of integral evolutionary study
Guiding Inquiries
What does it mean to create an Evolutionary Relationship?
What are the five areas of practice that you must live in your life in order to realize yourself as a good, whole, and happy being?
What is a realization of Evolutionary Love and and why does it literally have the power to change everything in your life?
What are the three core skills of Evolutionary Intimacy?
How do you personally and directly participate in the catalytic force of World Spirituality whose essential evolutionary impulse is the healing and transformation of both self, other, and the world?
Center for World Spirituality Grand Opening
Calling all spiritual creatives to a meeting with our shared evolutionary destiny…
Join us in celebrating the official opening of the Center for World Spirituality in San Francisco, California.
The yearning to articulate a World Spirituality is rippling across the globe in the hearts and minds of tens of millions of people. For some people, the classical religions have lost their power. They seek a path of practice and commitment that transcends the traditions. For others, their intuitive desire is to transcend and include the traditions. They seek to live as dual citizens, rooted in their tradition, even as they locate themselves as citizens in the broader community of World Spirituality.
A World Spirituality based on the shared truths held to be self-evident by all great systems of spirit and gnosis across historical time is urgently needed at this moment in history. Evolving an authentic life rooted in commitment and freedom articulated and lived in the principles and practices of World Spirituality is the next great step in spirit’s unfolding.
Featured Contributors
Dr. Marc Gafni holds his doctorate from Oxford University. He is a rabbi and an iconoclastic teacher of Kabbalah and World Spirituality. He is the co-director of the Integral Life Spiritual Center and Integral Spiritual Experience. He is a core founder and faculty member of iEvolve: Global Practice Community.
Sally Kempton, formerly known as Swami Durgananda, is recognized as a powerful meditation guide and as a spiritual teacher who integrates yogic philosophy with daily life. She is the author of The Heart of Meditation, and writes the popular Wisdom column for Yoga Journal.
Jai Uttal has cut a serpentine swath through the musical world over the course of a recording career that’s spanned more than two decades, with treks into multi-cultural world music, avant-garde jazz, electronic rock and traditional Indian kirtan—or sacred chants—that have become staples in the yoga-practicing community.
Terry Patten is a Certified Integral Coach and a co-author of the book Integral Life Practice. He has worked for many years with Ken Wilber and Integral Institute. He is committed to serving the emergence of Integral consciousness—by writing and educating, and by helping conscious individuals and organizations negotiate extraordinary transitions.
Mariana Caplan, PhD, is a counselor specializing in somatic approaches to psychotherapy. She is a professor of transpersonal and yogic psychologies, and the author of seven books in the fields of psychology and spirituality, including Eyes Wide Open, Halfway Up the Mountain, and Do You Need a Guru?
Decker Cunov is the Executive Director & Founder of AuthenticWorld, committed to inspiring people towards more fulfilling relationships. He’s spent the last decade working successfully with everyone from soldiers to teenagers, from the clinically dysfunctional to doctors & lawyers, from a mechanic in Wisconsin to top level executives across the country, helping them reach unprecedented levels of success in relationship in organic and profound ways.
Nubia Teixeira has been living in the San Francisco Bay Area for the past 9 years teaching regular classes to groups and to private students. Nubia often travels around the world with her husband Jai Uttal teaching workshops in yoga, bhakti dance, and pranayama. She is also a teacher at Omega Institute. Her very popular classes are rooted in the heart of bhakti, incorporating the techniques of ashtanga vinyasa, the alignments of Iyengar, pranayama, prayer, meditation and a passion for all forms of dance. Her teaching style is flexible, spontaneous, and sensitive to the needs of all her students, beginners and advanced.
Dustin Diperna spent two years at Integral Institute from 2003-2005 working for both the seminar team and Integral Spiritual Center. Inspired by all that he experienced, Dustin left I-I to begin writing full time about the nexus of religion and psychological development. He recently completed his first book Developmental Religious Pluralism: A Brief Introduction to Integral Religious Studies – to be released by Integral Books sometime next year.
Meet Our Sponsors
How is the Retreat Structured?
Awakening to the Enlightenment Practices of Evolutionary Love, Intimacy, and Activism is itself an example of Integral practice: it is designed to engage you cognitively, interpersonally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. We will employ a balance of theoretical and experiential, as well as individual and group, learning sessions—all woven together into a vital, comprehensive, and balanced awareness.
We will also focus on helping you develop and strengthen your own spiritual practice, with modules including:
• Meditation and contemplation practices
• Exercise and movement
• Journaling and introspection exercises
• Self-expression and celebratory fun!
One of the primary goals of this practice retreat is to facilitate a network—and an on-going support system—of iEvolve global practitioners.
What You’ll Receive
- A community of friends
- A set of insights that will remain with you and guide the rest of your life
- A sharply calibrated sense of your specific life purpose
- The aftertaste of radical love, ecstatic insight, renewed integrity and energy
- A newly awakened sense of the larger context of meaning in which you lived and loved
- Memories which will bring you back to these people and these practices time and again
Madrone Studios | 1417 15th St. (in the Mission)
with Dr. Marc Gafni, Sally Kempton, Jai Uttal, Mariana Caplan,
Terry Patten, Decker Cunov, & Dustin Diperna
Individual: $399 | Early-bird $299 before February 15th
Couples: $649 | Early-bird $549 before February 15th
More Information
Location: This event is held at Madrone Studios, 1417 15th Street in San Francisco. Madrone Studios is a new media production house and green event space in the SOMA district of San Francisco focusing on spreading the message of eco-economic sustainability.
Schedule: Our three-day retreat begins with Registration on Friday, March 4th at 6pm. Our official program will commence at 7pm and end around 9:30pm. Saturday runs 7:30am – 10pm, with the Grand Opening of the Center for World Spirituality from 5pm-8pm. Sunday runs 7:30am – 4pm. It is highly recommended that you attend the full program to receive the most of our your experience.
Lodging: Lodging and meals are the responsibility of the participant. We recommend the close and affordable lodging of Best Western Civic Center Inn, located on 364 9th Street, San Francisco, California. Toll-free # 1-800-444-5829.
More Lodging:
America’s Best Value Inn and Suites SOMA
10 Hallam Street
(415) 863-1758
www.americasbestvalueinn.com
Becks Motor Lodge
2222 Market Street
(415) 621-8212
www.becksmotorlodge.com
Best Western Americana
140 7th Street
(415) 626-0200
www.somahotels.com
Best Western Carriage Inn
140 7th Street
(415) 55208600
www.carriageinnsf.com
For questions, please email events [at] ievolve [dot] org.
Madrone Studios | 1417 15th St. (in the Mission)
with Dr. Marc Gafni, Sally Kempton, Jai Uttal, Mariana Caplan,
Terry Patten, Decker Cunov, & Dustin Diperna
Individual: $399 | Early-bird $299 before February 15th
Couples: $649 | Early-bird $549 before February 15th
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=45577760781
http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Marc-Gafni/1914037
http://www.flixster.com/actor/marc-gafni
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http://www.mp3.com/artist/marc-gafni/summary/
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http://www.centerforworldspirituality.com/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mariana-caplan-phd/spiritual-living-10-spiri_b_609248.html
Marc Gafni
Awakening to the Enlightenment Practices
of Evolutionary Love, Intimacy, & Activism
Catalyzing a World Spirituality
with Dr. Marc Gafni, Sally Kempton, Mariana Caplan,
& Decker Cunov
March 4th – 6th | San Francisco, California
“Los Angeles produces movies, San Francisco produces movements.”
Join us as iEvolve, AuthenticWorld, and the Center for World Spirituality communities come together to form an authentic evolutionary community based on the core integral principles of Word Spirituality.
This is the weekend in which you will meet some of the people who will walk with you through your life. This is a place to meet people who share your values, your vision, and your evolutionary vitality. This is the weekend in which your core mode of engagement in the world may undergo a significant upgrade.
Our retreat will unfold three major themes, Evolutionary Love, Evolutionary Intimacy, and Evolutionary Activism through:
- Mind-expanding and heart-opening provocative teachings
- Sitting meditation and Awakened Heart meditation
- Enlightenment practices
- Yoga and Psyche work
- Group and partner work
- Deep immersion in the Sacred Texts of integral evolutionary study
Guiding Inquiries
What does it mean to create an Evolutionary Relationship?
What are the five areas of practice that you must live in your life in order to realize yourself as a good, whole, and happy being?
What is a realization of Evolutionary Love and and why does it literally have the power to change everything in your life?
What are the three core skills of Evolutionary Intimacy?
How do you personally and directly participate a catalytic force in a transformative World Spirituality whose essential evolutionary impulse is the healing and transformation of both self and world?
Your Spiritual Guides
Dr. Marc Gafni holds his doctorate from Oxford University. He is a rabbi and an iconoclastic teacher of Kabbalah and World Spirituality. He is the co-director of the Integral Life Spiritual Center and Integral Spiritual Experience. He is a core founder and faculty member of iEvolve: Global Practice Community.
Sally Kempton, formerly known as Swami Durgananda, is recognized as a powerful meditation guide and as a spiritual teacher who integrates yogic philosophy with daily life. She is the author of The Heart of Meditation, and writes the popular Wisdom column for Yoga Journal.
Mariana Caplan, PhD, is a counselor specializing in somatic approaches to psychotherapy. She is a professor of transpersonal and yogic psychologies, and the author of seven books in the fields of psychology and spirituality, including Eyes Wide Open, Halfway Up the Mountain, and Do You Need a Guru?
Decker Cunov is the Executive Director & Founder of AuthenticWorld, committed to inspiring people towards more fulfilling relationships. He’s spent the last decade working successfully with everyone from soldiers to teenagers, from the clinically dysfunctional to doctors & lawyers, from a mechanic in Wisconsin to top level executives across the country, helping them reach unprecedented levels of success in relationship in organic and profound ways.
What You’ll Receive
- A community of friends
- A set of insights that will remain with you and guide the rest of your life
- A sharply calibrated sense of your specific life purpose
- The aftertaste of radical love, ecstatic insight, renewed integrity and energy
- A newly awakened sense of the larger context of meaning in which you lived and loved
- Memories which will bring you back to these people and these practices time and again
Awakening to the Enlightenment Practices
of Evolutionary Love, Intimacy, & Activism
Catalyzing a World Spirituality
with Dr. Marc Gafni, Sally Kempton, Mariana Caplan, & Decker Cunov
March 4th – 6th
San Francisco, California
- Artist: Marc Gafni, PhD
- Title: Track 02
- Album: Pacific Coast Church
- Track: 1
- Length: 5:05 minutes (7 MB)
- Format: Stereo 44kHz 192Kbps (CBR)
Dr. Marc Gafni is a cutting edge, gentle and provocative spiritual artist and teacher, public intellectual, bestselling author, television personality, social activist and lover of people. He is a rabbi and teacher of Kabbalah and Evolutionary Spirituality and received his doctorate from Oxford University. He is also a core founder and faculty of iEvolve: Global Practice Community.
Sally Kempton, formerly known as Swami Durgananda, is recognized as a powerful meditation guide and as a spiritual teacher who integrates yogic philosophy with daily life. She is the author of The Heart of Meditation, and writes the popular Wisdom column for Yoga Journal. A teacher in the tantric tradition of Kashmir Shaivism Sally conducts conducts workshops and retreats on applied philosophy and meditation. She is also a core founder and faculty of iEvolve: Global Practice Community.
Join us at Integral Spiritual Experience
Follow me on Twitter
Join me on Facebook
http://www.holons-news.com/node/252
http://www.kenwilber.com/blog/show/481
http://mileskessler.gaia.com/blog/2009/1/big_mind_intensive_with_genpo_roshi_and_diane_musho_hamilton
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http://www.24-7pressrelease.com/press-release/big-mind-houston-hosting-diane-musho-hamilton-sensei-for-the-zen-of-big-mindbig-heart-workshop-dec-5th-dec-7th-73447.php
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http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=58142854264
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http://www.ievolve.org/
http://www.ievolve.org/about-us
http://www.ievolve.org/teachers
http://www.ievolve.org/dragons-den
http://integrallife.com/group/integral-life-spiritual-center
http://integrallife.com/group/integral-life-spiritual-center/leadership
http://integrallife.com/group/integral-life-spiritual-center/people
http://marcgafniandfriendsunplugged.wordpress.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Gafni
http://www.brainsack.com/marc-gafni-teachings-2009/
http://integrallife.com/contributors/marc-gafni
http://in.integralinstitute.org/contributor.aspx?id=34
http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Marc-Gafni
http://www.24-7pressrelease.com/press-release/marc-gafni-blog-spiritually-incorrect-67622.php
http://www.marcgafni.com/?lan=english&cat=6
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http://www.marcgafni.com
Marc Gafni, Sally Kempton, and Ken Wilber discuss the notion of the Unique Self, which represents the deepest possible expression of consciousness—a subject that can never be made object, the union of ever-present consciousness and individual perspective at a radically fundamental level.
The Unique Self is the substrate of our 1st-person experience, the subtlest patterns of perspective, flavors of love, and textures of spirit that make you exclusively you in this ecology of souls. With our deepest recognition of our Original and Unique Face, we begin to feel the evolutionary imperative surging though our veins—an insatiable drive to simply be ourselves, as freely and fully as we possibly can.
This is the first part of an ongoing dialogue series for the Integral Spiritual Experience community and event. Come alive to your unique service by finding stillness, breaking through resistance and fear, listening to your calling, and ultimately taking full responsibility for the deep dimensions of your being and becoming. For more information and to register for this amazing event, visit www.integralspiritualexperience.com.
Dr. Marc Gafni is a cutting edge evolutionary visionary, a gentle and provocative spiritual artist and teacher, academic, public intellectual, author, and social activist and lover of people. He holds a doctorate, written on Nondual Humanism in Kabbalah taken at Oxford University under the co-supervision of Prof. Moshe Idel. He serves as the founding co-director of Integral Life Spiritual Center, the founding co-director and teacher in residence of iEvolve Global Practice Community. He is also the founding co-publisher of Incorrect Inc, scholar in residence at Pacific Coast Church, and lead teacher at Shalom Mountain Retreat Center Wisdom School.
Sally Kempton, formerly known as Swami Durgananda, is recognized as a powerful meditation guide and as a spiritual teacher who integrates yogic philosophy with daily life. She is the author of The Heart of Meditation, and writes the popular Wisdom column for Yoga Journal. A teacher in the tantric tradition of Kashmir Shaivism Sally conducts conducts workshops and retreats on applied philosophy and meditation. She is co-director of Integral Life Spiritual Center and a core founder and faculty of iEvolve: Global Practice Community.
Ken Wilber is the most widely translated academic writer in America, with 25 books translated into some 30 foreign languages, and is the first philosopher-psychologist to have his Collected Works published while still alive. Wilber is an internationally acknowledged leader and the preeminent scholar of the Integral stage of human development, which continues to gather momentum around the world. His many books, all of which are still in print, can be found at Amazon.com. Some of his more popular books include Integral Spirituality; No Boundary; Grace and Grit; Sex, Ecology, Spirituality; and the “everything” books: A Brief History of Everything (one of his largest selling books) and A Theory of Everything (probably the shortest introduction to his work). Ken Wilber is the founder of Integral Institute, Inc., the co-founder of Integral Life, Inc., and the Senior Fellow of Integral Life Spiritual Center.
Integral Spiritual Experience
Do you want to realize the unique purpose of your life? Do you want to share your unique gifts with the world? If you do, then please join us this December, over the New Year holiday, as we gather on the shore of the great Pacific Ocean to begin a historical five-year journey. This journey will help you realize that no one else alive can make the contribution to humanity that you can. The first year of Integral Spiritual Experience begins with you: The Personal Spiritual Journey, Your Unique Self.
Together, with an incredible list of teachers including Diane Musho Hamilton, Sally Kempton, Marc Gafni, Ken Wilber, and Jean Houston, we will take a personal, hands-on guided exploration and practice of your unique life and purpose as it manifests through your passion, talents and personal history. Come alive to your unique service by finding stillness, breaking through resistance and fear, listening to your calling, and ultimately taking full responsibility for the deep dimensions of your being and becoming. For more information and to register for this First Annual International Flagship Integral Event, visit www.integralspiritualexperience.com.
The Unique Self
Written by Corey W. deVos
What is the Unique Self?
What do you think of when you hear the words “Unique Self”? Childhood memories of gold stars and “I am special, look at me” nursery rhymes? Stacks of self-help books intended to help bolster and reinforce the ego? The latest New Age The Secret-type fads that place the self at the center of the universe, instead of the universe at the center of the self? A particular constellation of Jungian personality types, Enneagram typologies, astrological signs, and countless “Which Battlestar Galactica character are you” quizzes on Facebook?
As Marc mentions, the Unique Self is much more than a Myers-Brigges test with a spiritual overlay. It does not refer to any of these ornaments of the self—though it is immanent to the trials and tribulations of the ego, it utterly transcends the ego, remaining forever untouched by the appetites of identity. The Unique Self represents the deepest possible expression of consciousness, a subject that can never be made object, the union of ever-present consciousness and individual perspective at a radically fundamental level.
Imagine four people sitting in a room, each looking at each other. All four of these people are “fully” enlightened; that is, as enlightened as a person can be at this point in history. Gazing upon one another, they see the very same Oneness staring back at them, recognizing the effortless awareness behind each set of eyes. There is an immediate recognition of primordial consciousness, of the radical singularity of being—the singular to which there is no plural. In each other’s eyes, they see their own Original Face, echoes of ubiquity emanating from an unmentionable Source. They can all see the radical and universal sameness of reality, each understanding that there is only one single Witness behind every set of experiences. In each other’s eyes they see only themselves, recognizing the very same effortless awareness that looks out from behind their own.
Now let’s imagine that these four enlightened masters are sitting in a circle, each looking at a globe that sits on a table between them. Although they all share the same direct apprehension of Oneness, they each retain a particular perspective of the globe, and therefore each see the world in a completely different way. There is something markedly unique about each of their experiences, from their physical orientation in time/space to their individual experience of the universal. Within each of them lies a fundamental thread of perspective, stretching all the way to the darkest depths of the Mystery—a bottomless drop of the Heart that is unique to each and every one of us.
There is only one universal “I AMness” in existence, and as many unique experiences of “I AMness” as there are perspectives in the universe. If we allow ourselves to think of consciousness as “a sphere whose center is everywhere, and whose perimeter is nowhere,” we see that, although we all share the same existential center, my center is not your center—my “bottomless drop” is not your “bottomless drop,” even if they are laced together in the Heart of the world. There is a seamless union of the universal and the unique that is completely and inextricably your own. It is the very last inch of you—an inch that can never be duplicated, can never be imitated, and can never be taken away.
The End is the Beginning is the End
In a certain sense, the Unique Self represents an end to the spiritual journey, the final realization of enlightenment. Which raises the question: if Integral Spiritual Experience is to be a five-year journey, why start here? But here we begin chasing our own hermeneutic tails, words bouncing off the face of the Mystery like photons off a mirror. This nondual unification of self and no-self—”final” in it’s own right—is as unattainable as it is inescapable. It has no beginning and no end, as it never enters the stream of space/time to begin with; and yet it permeates all space and all time, never separate from the kaleidoscopic carnival of the manifest world.
The Unique Self is the substrate of our 1st-person experience, the subtlest patterns of perspective, flavors of love, and textures of spirit that make you exclusively you in this ecology of souls. With our deepest recognition of our Original and Unique Face, we begin to feel the evolutionary imperative surging though our veins—an insatiable drive to simply be ourselves, as freely and fully as we possibly can.
This is both the Alpha and the Omega of the Integral Spiritual Experience, the first and final step toward our own awakening, while guiding our hearts and minds at every point along the way.
“The Divine cries out to every individual human being: ‘I need you, I need your unique service.’ There’s something that you have that is so ultimately gorgeous and unique and is desperately needed by the universe for its own evolution, for the Divine’s own process of coming to know Him/Her/Itself.” – Marc Gafni
Returning to the Marketplace
Robb, Ken, Marc, and Sally discuss the plans for the final year of the Integral Spiritual Experience, which is designed to emphasize service and activism in the world, stemming from direct and immediate recognition of the Unique Self. In Zen Buddhism, this stage of realization is often represented by one of the “Ten Ox Herding Pictures,” a series of short poems and images intended to illustrate the various stages of enlightenment. The very last image of the series is often called the “Return to the Marketplace,” symbolizing the final stage of enlightened living, when the individual returns to society with open hands and an open heart. But how we return to the world and what form our expressions of love and service take depends entirely upon the particular textures and talents of our own Unique Self. Only finding our own voice, our own rhythm, and our own melody can we find our deepest contributions to the symphony of life,
“The Unique Self expresses itself uniquely at different life stages. So how my Unique Self and unique service expresses itself at age 20 is a very different set of questions than how it expresses itself at age 45 or age 60. And in a sense, the traditions that privilege emptiness and ask us to plunge deeply into the self as consciousness, free of its limiting prisms is not a young person’s natural path, because what a young person is doing in the world is to a large extent constructing a whole series of personae that are necessary to play in the world. It seems to me that what Integral is here to do is to bring this understanding of how you live in an egoless way without denying your worldly goals.” – Sally Kempton
Practicing Your Uniqueness
How do you practice that which you can never attain? Sally, Ken, and Marc each point a finger to the moon, recommending in turn a simple practice of ethics and self-inquiry, a brief taste of ever-present I AMness, and a quick 2nd-person exercise to help open our hearts to all the other Unique Selves we are surrounded by every day.
“Starting from the position of I AMness, and from the recognition that it is ever-present and the core of what you are, then you can start to understand and look for ways that this unique I AMness expresses itself in you. Because even though everybody is going to have the same I AMness experience, they are going to have a different perspective on the world through that I AMness. And that is the Unique Self. So resting in I AMness, start to ask yourself the fundamental questions—’What should I do? What are my gifts? What are my talents?—and start to see how I AMness is expressing itself uniquely through your body-mind.” -Ken Wilber
A Five Part Series of Saturday Morning Lectures: The Path and Politics of Love: A Guide to Transfoming Your, Life, Your Relationships and Healing the Planet
February 19, 2009
A Five Part Series of Saturday Morning Lectures The Path and Politics of Love: A Guide to Transfoming Your, Life, Your Relationships and Healing the Planet
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Dr. Marc Gafni
presents this series of five lectures on Saturday mornings Feb thru June.
$50 per lecture
Dr. Marc Gafni is an Internationally recognized Spiritual Teacher of great depth and huge heart. His presence and teaching opens hearts, penetrates minds and challenges personal and collective shadow.
This is an opportunity you do not want to miss!
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Please note the April date has been changed – Previously April 11, now April 4!
2/7: The Dance of Men and Women: Love Sex and God.3/7: The Path of the Enlightened Lover: Men: Love, Sex, Shadow and Spirit.4/4: The Path of the Enlightened Lover: Women: Sex Shadow and Spirit. 5/16: Radical Love, Radical Truth, Radical Sex, and Radical God. 6/6 : Enlightenment: The Future of Love, Sex and Spirit. |
 Sally Kempton is an Internationally acclaimed Spiritual Teacher, Yoga Journal Columnist and Author of the much beloved work “The Heart of Meditation”.
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A Set of 3 CD’s covering the February Lecture
“The Dance of Men and Women: Love Sex and God.”
The Unique Self of Marc Gafni By Sally Kempton
January 16, 2009
The Unique Self of Marc Gafni
By Sally Kempton
When I first met Marc Gafni, I was struck, like most people, by his brilliance and his openhearted friendliness. It was clear that he was a ‘big’ person and a gifted, charismatic teacher. It wasn’t until I got to know him better–after the tragedy in his life that I became aware of his deeper qualities—his basic goodness, his insight into the human heart, and his profound commitment to living a life of love and service.
Gafni has a strong and charismatic presence and a sharp and elegant mind. Yet what makes him remarkable as a spiritual teacher, scholar and friend, is his fine balance of mind and heart. I have rarely met anyone who has such a capacity for seeing and bringing out the best in other people. I have watched him spend hours listening to someone in pain and confusion, teasing a friend out of a bad moment, offering love and support to people he barely knows, and to old friends he hasn’t seen in years. He does these things as a matter of course, as part of his natural sense of service. He consistently offers his ideas, his insights, and his time for other people’s use—willingly helping a friend prepare a presentation, or helping two people resolve a knotty interpersonal problem.
Marc, more than almost anyone I know, lives from a profound sense of being responsible to love. In practice, that means that when he loves someone—and he has the gift for genuinely loving many people– he is willing to offer whatever he has. This willingness to love and give himself—sometime against his own best interests—is one of Marc’s remarkable qualities. One aspect of this gift for loving is that people who spend time with him will often experience a natural opening of the heart, which gets played out in their own relationships and work life.
Marc’s highly unusual and strikingly open heart has often been misunderstood, just as his spontaneous, playful and even experimental nature has been misunderstood.
Yet, in the years I have known him, I’ve seen that his open-heartedness is much deeper than superficial friendliness and an ability to connect to people. Marc’s refusal to close his heart, his ability to stay open with whatever life presents, springs from his deep realization, from a connection to God, and to a lineage of holy beings. It is based on a profound commitment to love and service, to helping others in whatever way he can– personally, spiritually, and materially. He lives from a sense of obligation to give love, to give love to a wide circle, and to make love actual in all his encounters.
The tragedy and injustice which Marc suffered some years back, paradoxically gave him great gifts. Life invited him to examine himself, to purify lingering traces of self, and to strengthen his realization and practice. All this only deepened his commitment to love. His compassion seems to widen every day. Marc is simply one of best human beings I have ever met in my long life of knowing great human beings. It is an honor and a privilege to call him my spiritual friend and colleague.
Sally Kempton
Spiritual Teacher, author, and Columnist for Yoga Journal
http://integrallife.com/contributors/marc-gafni
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http://www.ievolveglobalpracticecommunity.com/
iEvolve: Global Practice Community Updates
January 10, 2009
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.ievolveglobalpracticecommunity.com/
Trial by Internet? An Archetypal Spiritual Drama
August 26, 2008
Catalyst Magazine – July 2008
Marc Gafni could well turn out to be the hero of a spiritual epic—or, at least, a psychosexual whodunit blockbuster.
A rabbi and a Biblical scholar with several published books and a recently approved doctoral dissertation 
from Oxford, Gafni presently lives in Salt Lake City. (He anonymously authored “Spiritually Incorrect,” an occasional column that appeared last year in CATALYST.) He came to the new Zion two years ago from Tel Aviv, Israel, where he led a large, vibrant movement of Jews who lived on the alternative edge, beyond the fringes of organized religion. Perhaps too close to that edge, where dangerous things can happen—and for Gafni, they did.
Talking with people about Gafni, a certain pattern emerges: Here’s a guy you’ve hung out with, watching TV and knocking back almond crunch, someone who calls up in the middle of the day and talks your head off, someone who has the usual knotty relational history. He’s a friend of yours, a normal, somewhat eccentric guy. Then, little by little you realize that there’s something kind of, well, saintly about him.
Stories about Gafni’s actions lean toward the saintly as well: People say they have seen him go out of his way to bring estranged friends together. They’ve seen him take an entire room full of people through a journey of laughter and tears. They’ve felt an atmosphere around him so affectionate and wild that it sparks off energy most haven’t felt since childhood. They’ve heard him speaking about God and human responsibility and what it means to take care of others with a wisdom and nuance that makes them search their souls.
And even wilder—they know he is the subject of Internet stories that paint him as a guy who “harasses” women, a “sexual predator.”
Everything you observe and intuit about him says “Really good person.” The Internet gossip sites say “Really bad person.” Then you get to see hundreds of documents proving the Internet stories run the gamut from distortion to out-and-out lies, reflecting all the most shadowy sides of the blogosphere. It begins to occur to you that something deep is going on here.
On the surface, it’s a common story: A coalition of women accuse a charismatic spiritual leader of sexual misconduct. The stories sound convincing. It must be true. The leader falls.
Examine the evidence in this case, and you see something quite different: Years of recovered email and instant messages from the women involved, some as recent as three weeks before complaints were filed, flatly contradict their own stories. The messages show that every one of the women was quite enthusiastically involved with Gafni on her own initiative. What happened that caused them to band together and file complaints of harassment? And what caused their complaints to do so much damage? Spiritual politics, “victim feminism,” Gafni’s human complexities, and the Internet.
The more you get to know Gafni, the more you suspect he is being put through an epic spiritual test, what we might call the Test of Slander. It’s actually part of the biography of countless other teachers whose lives didn’t fit the “normal” social pattern and who ended up redefining a spiritual tradition. Gafni’s story is still in process. Perhaps 25 years from now it will be told as a saga of purification, trial by fire and, hopefully, ultimate liberation.
In the meantime, Gafni—this larger-than-life presence tucked into the compact body of a playful 47-year—old is living more or less anonymously in Salt Lake City.
The story we’re about to tell has certain all too familiar elements: one more example of how, in the Internet age, false accusations can become as established as fact, and how a gifted teacher with an anti-establishment bent and a bohemian lifestyle can find his private life subjected to what legal scholar Allen Dershowitz called “sexual McCarthyism.”
Rabbi Gafni—author of seven books, including the best-selling “Soul Prints,” and a popular lecturer and workshop leader—was founder of Bayit Hadash, an alternative spiritual movement in Israel. The organization held retreats, classes and massive services, often gathering hundreds of enthusiasts for Gafni’s celebratory Sabbath services, which included music, chanting and dancing. His lectures and classes on Jewish texts, and on the interface between spirituality, ethics, sexuality and what Western moral philosophers have called “the good life,” were not only widely attended, but had brought thousands of disaffected young Jews back into conversation with their tradition.
“Rabbi Gafni was doing something that had not been done in modern Israel,” says Dr. Gabriel Cousens, who attended his teachings in Israel. “He was presenting the traditional Jewish teachings in a way that revealed not only the mystical experience embedded in the tradition, but also offered a powerful experience of ecstasy and community. Most importantly, however, he was the first modern Jewish teacher I met who taught that Judaism was at its core a path to liberation.”
Born in Massachusetts in 1960, educated in a yeshiva (a Jewish religious high school), Gafni began teaching in the Orthodox community around New York City. From his early days as an apprentice rabbi and youth group leader, Gafni had a gift for bringing together the spiritual with the secular, working with people who wouldn’t normally talk to each other, and creating communities. He was known as a passionately committed teacher. He spent time as a rabbi in Florida, tripling the size of a young congregation. Then he moved with his second wife and two children to Israel, where he was rabbi in a settlement on the border of the West Bank. In the ’90s, he emerged as a popular public teacher in Jerusalem and then in Tel Aviv, writing books, lecturing to packed houses, and appearing at conferences and spiritual venues in the United States and Europe.
Gafni hosted a weekly hour-long national TV show in Israel for several years. In the U.S., he led crowded workshops on the alternative Jewish and spiritual scene. He taught around the world, including appearances at important synagogues and the Harvard Negotiation Project. When terrorists blew up school buses in Israel, he presented a series of spots on national television urging people to hold on to their humanity in the face of horror. He has recorded dialogues with the Dalai Lama, Byron Katie, Ken Wilber and other spiritual and philosophical leaders. “Soul Prints” was a best-seller in this country, won the prestigious NAPRA Nautilus award as the best spirituality book of 2001 and was made into a PBS special.
And in a conservative society, he supported gay rights and the ordination of women. His teaching pointed out the presence of a hidden goddess element in the Jewish religion, and called for the re-emergence of the feminine in spirituality.
A career like this tends to arouse envy—even, or perhaps especially, in spiritual communities. “People would complain that Gafni took up too much space,” says Gershon Winkler, himself an important Jewish teacher and author of many books, including “The Magic of the Ordinary.” “After he fell, one guy told me that he was actually relieved, because some of Gafni’s people now came to him.” There appears to have been a cadre of colleagues, older teachers and even a few students who wanted him out of the way.
Gafni’s main vulnerability was his counter-cultural and often bohemian lifestyle. Throughout his career, Gafni had several love affairs outside of marriage. “I tried to push the boundaries of what was possible. I experimented,” Gafni admits. “I sometimes chose a moment of love over other loyalties. Sometimes I was right, sometimes dead wrong. Where I was wrong, I’ve tried to ask forgiveness.”
During the period following his divorce from his third wife, his lovers included a few women who had worked with him in his community, taught with him, or served on the board of his organization. “I was working literally 24/7, teaching and traveling around the clock,” he says. “It seemed natural to be involved with people who were part of my circle. At the time, in my hubris, disguised even from myself, it felt to me that there wasn’t a moment free for anything like normal dating or personal life.”
He says he kept these relationships private, not because they seemed inappropriate or “wrong,” but because, like many people in his position, he preferred not to have his personal life the subject of gossip or attack.
One lover wrote after their relationship was over: “It’s easy to love you and it has been beautiful to discover you, to feel you, to explore you.” And added, “I’m grateful that we touched each other on this path.” She then thanked him for being in “full intention and clarity” in their relationship and honoring her “sacred autonomy.”
This woman would later file a complaint on the advice of a lawyer, saying that Gafni had promised to marry her to gain sexual relations—–a felony in Israel, where they lived. This claim, and the claim that Gafni somehow manipulated her, is refuted by both the tone and content of literally hundreds of her emails to him.
In 2005, Ha’Aretz, the leading Israeli newspaper, ran a glowing article on Gafni’s work, stressing his belief that the feminine godhead and the softer, more erotic aspects of spirituality need to be restored to contemporary Judaism. The article was widely quoted, causing an incendiary reaction among rabbis in the Orthodox community. Traditionalists who felt threatened by his influence and provocative personal style objected to his stress on the goddess in Judaism, and some of Gafni’s former teachers and colleagues denounced him for promoting “pagan Judaism.” The Wikipedia entry on Gafni credits him—or accuses, it depends on how you read it—with leading the movement to bring eros back into Judaism.
At about that time, and some say as a direct result of the Ha’Aretz spread, a rabbi who had clashed with Gafni in his youth gave a story about him to the proprietor of a website devoted to outing Jewish clerics alleged to be sexual predators. The site collects rumors, innuendos and complaints about rabbis, some of whom are undoubtedly people who indeed abused their position. But the site is also known for its maliciousness, venomous language, and for mixing fact with outright fiction.
The site’s proprietor is Vicki Polin, who in 1989, under the name Rachel, presented herself on national daytime television as the survivor of a Jewish satanic cult which sacrificed babies. She claims to have sacrificed—that is, murdered—at least one baby herself. She considers it her mission in life to report those whom she calls “Jewish abusers.” Ironically, the site so evokes the energy of anti-Semitic hate sites that several such hate sites link to hers.
In Gafni’s case, the stories described two relationships, one when Gafni was 19, the other a one-time encounter when he was 24. Gafni insists neither involved more then petting, and that both were mutually engaged. Couched in the hate-speech style that has become so familiar in the blogosphere, the stories called Gafni a “known predator” who had “molested young women” and included purportedly first-person interviews with both of these women by Luke Ford, a former pornographer and a gossip columnist for the porn industry. Gafni’s version of these events is supported by two polygraph tests administered by Dr. Gordon Barland, one of the world’s leading experts in the field.
The stories on the website make no attempt to distinguish fact from rumor, distorted memory, or skewed interpretation of events. Polin and Ford painted a teenage romance between 19-year-old Gafni and his 14-year-old girlfriend as “child molestation,” and among other things, accused him of changing his name to avoid his past. (In fact, Gafni had followed the common custom of hebraicizing his name when he moved to Israel, and always referred to his family name in his books and other publications.) All of this forms the complex background for what happened next.
On an evening in May 2006, Gafni landed in Tel Aviv after a 10-hour flight returning from a teaching trip to the United States. He expected to be met at the plane by his girlfriend.
As his plane touched down, he dialed the number of his program director to discuss logistics of a workshop scheduled for the next day. Instead he heard an unidentified feminine voice screeching, “You are finished! Go to [a certain lawyer's office in Tel Aviv] at midnight, or go to jail.” Gafni thought he had the wrong number. He called again. The same message. He began to tremble as he realized that something terrible was going on. Over the next several hours, he began to piece things together. A former personal assistant, who had been threatening the organization with legal action over back pay, and who over the previous year had sent him dozens of abusive emails, had gotten together with another woman to discuss Gafni. They discovered that Gafni had been intimately involved with both of them. We can’t know what exactly motivated them from there. We do know what they did: They went to the Tel Aviv police and filed a complaint.
Sexual harassment laws have given women much-needed legal protection and gone a long way to support civil treatment of women everywhere. But when a woman tells the story of a sexual encounter and claims harassment, the man—guilty or innocent—will likely be in deep trouble if he does not have physical proof to the contrary. The woman doesn’t even have to seek legal redress—the complaint alone can sometimes be enough to get a professor or executive reprimanded or even fired. To complicate matters for the man, in Israel, unlike anywhere else, sexual harassment is a criminal offense.
The women told the police that Gafni had, in one case, used his authority as an employer, and in the other, promised marriage to persuade her to have sex with him. They convinced other women, whom they discovered had been involved with Gafni over the years, to sign their affadavit. In fact, none of the women had been either employees or students of Gafni at the time the relationships began.
By the time Gafni arrived in Israel that night, the women had convinced his co-teacher, as well as key members of his staff, that they needed protection, and cited others as possible victims. Members of the community were prevented from speaking to Gafni by the women, who claimed that he was a danger to the community.
Gafni says no one asked for his side of the story or checked any facts with him. “It was like a weird dream. I had never sexually harassed anyone. I had proof. I went to my computer for the emails I’d exchanged with these women—there were tons of them.”
To his shock, a key batch of relevant emails and other correspondence between himself and one of the complainants—his former assistant—were gone. They had been erased from his computer.
Worse than a weird dream, it was now a nightmare. He had no way of refuting the complaints. By this time, the story had been leaked to the Jewish press. Though many people in his community felt that Gafni was being railroaded, hysteria prevailed. Without consulting Rabbi Gafni, without cross-questioning the complainants or checking into their motives, a chain reaction was set in motion which resulted in the dissolution of Gafni’s movement. Several newspapers published sensational articles chronicling Gafni’s “downfall.” One reported (falsely) that he had been accused of rape. Another (again, falsely) claimed that he had made promises to marry five women. Within a few days, Gafni’s teaching work and the organization to which he had dedicated his life had been discredited and destroyed.
A group of Salt Lake attorneys helped Gafni recover the deleted data from his computer and then carefully review his correspondence with the women. “There is not a credible basis for legal action against [Gafni],” writes attorney Fredrick Thaler of Ray, Quinney Nebeker, a Salt Lake law firm, in a letter posted on Gafni’s website. “The complaints have no merit,” writes Charlotte Miller, who also served as Gafni’s legal council.
However, like the many commentators who assumed that the accusations against the Duke lacrosse team were true, people moved to distance themselves from him immediately.
According to feminist writers such as Dafna Pattai, Cathy Young, Laura Kipnis and Bell Hooks, the key reason for this distancing is fear. In a culture where truth is less important than perception, people are afraid to be associated with someone accused of sexual misconduct, even when they know the accusations are untrue. Associates fear liability, or being perceived as not protecting the ostensible victims—two consequences of defending the accused in a culture that assumes that women or groups of women always tell the truth about sexual harassment.
This belief persists despite data to the contrary, including the recent collapse of the case against the Duke lacrosse players, not to mention the historic experience of black men lynched because a white woman interpreted a casual glance as sexual harassment.
Feminist writers such as Laura Kipnis and Cristina Hoff Summers have written extensively to expose this kind of “victim feminism”: a stance which assumes that in situations of this sort, the woman is always a helpless victim of male desire.
“His best friends basically left him for dead,” says Gershon Winkler.
Gafni felt he had no choice but to return to the United States to think through what he should do. In the pain and sorrow of those first few days, he decided that as the creator of the organization which had turned on him, he should take on himself responsibility for the dysfunctions that had led to the situation. He wrote a public letter claiming all spiritual responsibility for what had happened. Accepting the advice of a friend and mentor, he took personal responsibility for the “sickness” behind what had happened and volunteered to seek treatment. This seemed, at the time of trauma and confusion, to be the only way to defuse the growing frenzy. Without the missing emails, he had no proof of his innocence, and at that time he had no idea the disappeared computer files would be restored.
Gafni refused any interviews and for the next two years maintained public silence, allowing the stories that were circulating to stand as “truth.” In the meantime, he began an intensive formal process of self-examination and inner work.
It was about this time that Gafni came to Salt Lake City at the invitation of a friend and teaching colleague, mediator and Zen teacher Diane Hamilton and her husband, former Utah chief justice Michael Zimmerman. Gafni was living quietly in a small home in Sugar House. Soon after we met, he told us about a pivotal event that had shown him both the depths of his fall, and the painful but spiritually profound path to turning the pain into compassion.
He had gone several times to Sabbath dinners at the house of a local family, mainly for the sake of experiencing community. One night, the host took him aside. “One of our guests read the Internet and says she can’t sit at the table with you. I know it’s not true, but she thinks you are a child molester,” he told Gafni. “I have to ask you to leave and not come back. I’m sorry. There is nothing I can do.”
Gafni realized that he—who just six months before would have been an honored guest at such a gathering—was in essence a pariah. “I was stunned at first to realize that people were looking at me through the lens of a hate site, and couldn’t see who I am,” he said. “That night, I was up all night, meditating about it, awash in agonized tears. Suddenly, in the midst of my grief, this profound feeling of joy came over me. In Hebrew wisdom, we speak of how the divine feminine, the Shekhinah, has been exiled by God, and lives as hidden sparks inside human souls. I realized that I was participating in the pain of the exiled Shekhinah, the sorrow of the divine feminine thrown out of the kingdom. I, like her, was wrongly exiled and sat in dust and ashes. We were together. As I realized this, my heart became so ecstatic that I began to dance.
“Then I remembered the hidden teaching about the old Hassidic masters. These famous rabbis would sometimes discard their robes and wander as beggars through the villages of Western Europe, knocking on the doors of wealthy devotees. Invariably, they would be thrown out by people who, if they had seen them in full regalia, would have honored them.
“It all fit together for me then.
“I had spent my life seeking after the goddess, trying to return the feminine to her place…and that in some extreme sense the Shekhinah was testing my love, and she had hurt me because in some sense I hadn’t seen something about her. These relationships had hurt women I loved. Even while she was hurting me, she was embracing me. And I was here on the back roads of Utah to discover something about the divine feminine so that I might speak of her in new ways. I danced in real ecstasy for hours on end.”
Gafni later shared the incident with his friend, Brother David Stendl-Rast, who was reminded of an anecdote about Saint Francis: A disciple once asked, “What would be for you the most perfect joy?” Francis replied that for him, perfect joy would be to seek shelter in a house, be rejected and thrown out, and left to lie in the mud with the dogs.
Gafni says this teaching, which might have seemed wildly extreme and weird to him previously, actually described the profound spiritual opportunity that he had begun to see in this moment of his life. So along with examining his part in what he called the “contribution system” that had created this situation, and the qualities in himself that needed to change, Gafni also began a powerful inner journey into the subtleties of the masculine-feminine relationship.
“Sexuality creates wounds—sometimes mortal ones,” he writes in an unpublished essay called “The Wounds of Love.” “But if we learn to live wide open even as we are hurt by love, then the divine wakes up to its own true nature. To be firm in your knowing of love, even when you are desperate, and to be strong in your heart of forgiveness even when you are betrayed, this is what it means to be holy.”
Along with his inner work, Gafni began collecting documentary evidence to prove the falsity of the claims against him. He took polygraph tests with internationally recognized polygraph expert Gordon Barland which fully supported his assertion that the relationships with these women had been mutual, and had not resulted from any deception or inappropriate deployment of power on Gafni’s part.
He underwent an extensive psychological evaluation with three independent evaluators. Their conclusions and his own were summarized by by Paul J. Goodberg, M.A.: “I am convinced that Rabbi Gafni never abusively hurt or exploited anyone. He is completely reputable.”
Ray, Quinney Nebeker turned his computer over to PeakSpan, LLC, a Salt Lake data recovery firm, which recovered valuable information and proved data had been intentionally removed.
“Of course, I regret with all my heart that anyone experienced hurt through their relationship with me. And, remember what Bono sings? `We hurt each other and we do it again.’ The key is what we do with our hurt,” Gafni says. “But what I most deeply regret is that I allowed myself to jeopardize the work we were doing by engaging in these relationships. I believed that what we were doing was sharing love, and that therefore there was nothing ethically, and certainly not legally, wrong. I still believe that. But I also recognize that a spiritual teacher has to hold strong boundaries around his personal life. Even mutual relationships with powerful and autonomous women are a problem for a public teacher. Moreover, in retrospect, our relationship did not serve the highest growth of these women; it endangered our movement and let down my supporters, friends and partners. In that sense—although I was unconscious of it at the time—they were unethical relationships and I regret that deeply.”
But even by Israel’s strict standard, in no way did he break the law.
Gafni has contracts for several new books and is beginning to teach again. He has been invited to create and host a documentary movie that uses the frame of his story to look into contemporary sexual and spiritual politics, and how rumor, innuendo and hysteria can destroy a life. And to show how a life can be rebuilt in love without bitterness. Most of all, he seems committed to helping foster a social justice movement that works to end genocide, human trafficking and sexual slavery in the world. Gafni seems determined not to attack his accusers, unless they leave him with no choice, but rather to facilitate healing.
“It is the challenge of the spiritual practitioner,” says Diane Musho Hamilton, “and especially that of a teacher, to become intimate with the processes of life and death, of destruction and of transformation. In this way, everything that arises, whether it appears as good or bad, right or wrong, fair or unjust, is regarded as the path. To walk it requires great fearlessness, an abundance of compassion, a willingness to accept blame, and the offering of forgiveness.”
Sally Kempton, a former journalist, leading spiritual teacher and second wave feminist was asked what good might come from this story. She responded, “Marc has gone through a deep evolution. He will be an even deeper, better teacher in the second half of his life than he was in the first. The question is, can the people involved move from victimhood to power and responsibility? If they can, then Marc, the women, and all the shadowy players behind the scenes, will offer us great hope for healing in our world.”
The third act of this drama has yet to be written. Can this spiritual teacher come back from the dead? The answer is most likely “yes,” due to Gafni’s unflagging persistence. Did the obloquy and ignominy of the last two years break his spirit? No, though it has left some scars. Yet, throughout the whole of this nightmare, in circumstances that could easily, and forgivably, break the spirit of nearly any other person, Gafni has managed to hold onto his chronic optimism and genuine love for humanity.
Jeff Bell is a writer, part-time indie filmmaker, musician, wonk and political consultant. He is the former Democratic National Committee communications director for Utah and former president of the Children’s Justice Corps. Greta deJong is editor and publisher of CATALYST. For more about Marc Gafni, visit www.marcgafni.com
