Conscious Society: Integral Politics

In the Media: Success 3.0 Summit and Center for Integral Wisdom

Last week, our initiatives were featured in different ways in two forums: Patheos.com and the Integral Church Blog.

Interview about Success 3.0 Summit on Patheos

Patheos.com is running an interview with Dr. Gafni about the Summit–on their front page. Read all about the interior vision for the Success 3.0 Summit coming up Halloween weekend in Boulder here. Patheos is the leading religion site on the World Wide Web today with seven million unique hits a month.

At the end of October, a select group of the world’s leading thinkers, entrepreneurs, and change-agents are gathering in Boulder, Colorado to articulate a new, transformative vision of conscious living, innovation, and social impact. The goal? To create a new definition of Success that can lead humanity into the future.

Leo Brunnick, co-founder and CEO of Patheos.com, invited Marc Gafniâ€”author, World Spirituality leader, and co-founder of the Center for Integral Wisdomâ€”to share the vision of the Success 3.0 Summit.

Marc, tell me about the Success 3.0 Summit. What’s it all about?

Success 3.0 Summit is an exciting gathering of the best hearts and minds around the one central issue that affects everyone: what does it mean to be successful? We all have hidden success myths that define our lives. We have a profound need to be successful, but in general we have separated being successful from being good. We have limited the criteria of success to things like money, status, or power, but have found that these things are not fulfilling or holistic or profound or joyous or energizing. In order to evolve the real source code of culture, we needed to rework this core issue.

Read more…

Center for Integral Wisdom featured as key new emergent in Integral Lineage

Center for Integral Wisdom was also featured as a key new emergent in the Integral Lineage beginning with Rudolph Steiner and running all the way through Ken Wilber’s seminal Integral work and then with Marc and Ken founding the Center for Integral Wisdom; this was reflected in an independent scholar’s Timeline of Integral Spirituality by blogger, interfaith minister, and co-founder of the Integral Church in St. Petersburg in Florida (founded in 2012) Joran Slane Oppelt.

Starting with a lecture in Paris by Rudolf Steiner in 1906 where he commented on the â€œintegral evolution of man,â€ through Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Pitirim Sorokin, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Aldous Huxley, Jean Gebser, Allan Watts, Arthur Koestler, Jane Loevinger, Clare Graves, Michael Murphy, Ken Wilber, et al. to the foundation of the California Institute of Integral Studies, the Integral Institute, and CIW, this timeline tracks the emergence of many strands of Integral Thought and Spirituality.

Click here to read more…

For those of you interested in the history of the Unique Self Teaching, which is one of several–in Ken’s phrase–“evolutionary emergent teachings” for which Marc has been the lead theorist in the articulation of an Integral Spirituality, see here.

Unique Self was featured in a special edition ofÂ The Journal of Integral Theory & Practice (6:1), the two-volume academic treatise on Radical Kabbalah, the classic Unique Self bookÂ Your Unique Self: The Radical Path to Personal Enlightenment and a new work onÂ Self in Integral Evolutionary Mysticism: Two Models and Why They Matter.

If you ask, surely you must be in need

The story of the holy snuff box

A beautiful story retold by Marc Gafni

Everybody knows that Holy Beggars hold the world together. Thus would one modern master introduce the following sacred story. Never, never pass by a holy beggar, and they are all holy. Walk across the street. Go out of your way! Who knows who he really is? Who knows what great soul lays hidden in that tattered beggar? You never knowâ€¦ You never know. All you can know that is if someone asks, they must certainly need.

One day a beggar came to see the Holy Israel, Master of the Name. He was angry and depressed. â€œWhat kind of a God do you have. I used to be rich â€“ I helped many people. But now look at me â€“ I have lost everything. Itâ€™s not fair. How did such a fate fall upon me?!â€ And with that the beggar broke down into tears.

â€œSweet Yossele,â€ said Israel, Master of the Name. â€œAll the mysteries are in your own life. Think back to Yom Kippur six years ago.â€

And now the master Israel had Yosseleâ€™s complete attention. For how did he know that his name was Yossele â€“ and how could he know what he had done six years ago? Master Israel continued. â€œIt was a fast day, the holiest day of the year. A day when we pray all day long. People on that day are at their weakest, but also at their highest. You remember, Yossele, that you brought the snuff box to the prayer service?â€ For although on this fast day eating is proscribed, fragrance is permitted. Often, as in the prayer fellowship I grew up in, snuff boxes would be passed around, to offer fragrance to revive the spirits for prayer.

â€Do you remember, asked Master Israel, how you went around to all the congregants giving snuff to everybody?â€ Yossele, now spellbound, could only nod silently. â€œWell there was a beggar in the back of the room, lying lifelessly on a bench. You said to yourself â€“ just for a second, â€˜Why should I walk back there for him? He can come up to me to get his snuff.â€ Yossele was overwhelmed as he recalled for the first time that fleeting thought. â€œWell,â€ continued Master Israel â€œthat beggar hadnâ€™t eater for three full days. If only you knew how much he needed that pinch of snuff! He was so inside of his prayer that the heavenly gates were wide openâ€¦ listening to his every word, his every sigh.

â€œWhen the holy angels saw that you did not walk back and give this holy soul some snuff, that was it â€“ they were enraged! They decreed you should lose all your money and that the beggar should become wealthy instead of you. Well, that beggar is now the wealthiest man in your town.â€

At this point, Yosseleâ€™s contrition turned to anger. â€œYou mean that beggar has all of my money? What chutzpah! How do I get it back?â€

â€œActually, you can get it back,â€ answered Master Israel with a twinkle in his eye. â€œIf you can find a time when you ask him for a pinch of snuff, and he refuses, at that moment all of that lost wealth will be returned to you.â€

Read the whole story here…

New Thought Leader Dialogue: Ken Wilber & Marc Gafni Discuss the Topic of Evil

Dr. Marc Gafni and Ken WilberÂ meet by phone regularly to discuss new thought on a wide range of topics, including the future unfolding of the Center and its initiatives. At the core of their work is key book that is slated for release in the Summer of 2015 onÂ World Spirituality Based On Integral Wisdom Principles. This will be the source code book which their other books will emerge from and reference.

On this note, we’d like to share a dialogue that will appear in a different form in the book: a beautiful conversation about how the evolved and awake human being engages evil and suffering.

An excerpt:

Marc Hello everyone. Mega-Pandit Ken Wilber, it is a delight to be with you, sir.

Ken Yes, sir.

Marc Yes, sir, and we are here for our Thought Leader Dialogue Series, and Iâ€™m here with Ken Wilber who is an initiating thought leader of world spirituality based on Integral principles, and the thought leader in the Integral Movement, and a deep partner and visionary and really active in charting the course of the Center for Integral Wisdom. And weâ€™re here to talk about the word that is live spelled backwards, evil, evil, which is a topic that, friends, doesnâ€™t come up often. And, Ken, I think it would be fair to say that even in Integral Theory it hasnâ€™t gotten a lot of attention, although itâ€™s implicit in many, many conversations, but itâ€™s not that often that itâ€™s explicit, and, of course, itâ€™s one of the great questions. So, Ken and I are going to just go back and forth and really have what may be the first major Integral dialogue on this topic.

Any number of people have told me, Ken, that you and I spoke about this, and I went back to see it before we talked today, that you and I spoke about this in 2005 with Patrick Sweeney at the Integral Spiritual Center, the first meeting. If you remember, the last day was an open day for the public?

Ken Right.

Marc And a number of people asked us questions about evil, and you and I had, what people said to me, was really one of the very rare Integral exchanges on this topic. So that was way back in the day.

Ken Yeah, well, evil dropped out basically with modernity.

Listen to this vibrant dialogue and read the whole transcript>>>

Unique Self and the Future of Medicine

Our Board of Directors members Venodhar Rao Julapalli, M.D. and Vinay Rao Julapalli, M.D., F.A.C.C. have written an exciting white paper about Unique Self and the Future of Medicine and we have just published it on our website.

Credit: http://www.glsciencesinc.com – /images/Word_Collages/

There is a dire need for the integration of the art, science, and morality of medicine. This paper explores the deep implications of the Unique Self in integrating medicine. Co-authors and physicians Venu and Vinay Julapalli call on their extensive understanding of the promises and pitfalls of modern health care to reconceive the practice of medicine. The paper provides the framework to evolve medicine through the emergent Unique Self insight. At stake is no less than the future of how we care for ourselves and each other.

Read the introduction and download the whole article here.

Political Spirituality is Not a Politicized Spirituality by Joe Perez

By Joe Perez

CC-BY-SA-3.0 by Matt H. Wade at Wikipedia.

At least since the early writings of Karl Marx, many public intellectuals have acknowledged some variant on the phrase â€œthe personal is politicalâ€. Not only that, but by implication it is held that â€œthe spiritual is politicalâ€. This notion actually is a reversal of the truth and invites a closer look at the connection between politics and spirituality.

Traditional religion is often intertwined with government. And various conservative, liberal and liberation theologies in the twentieth century across a spectrum of religions spelled out new ways in which religious teachings seek to influence the public sphere in secularized societies. [Read more…]

Rethinking Materialism by Joe Perez

By Joe Perez

(c) 2013. Photo courtesy of patpitchaya.

Every holiday season the cultural discourse includes an especially heavy dose of anti-materialistic messaging. The excesses of consumerist culture are especially visible in distorted forms, such as the spectacle of shoppers at Black Friday and Boxing Day creating mobs which are so fierce they have resulted in violence and the trampling of shoppers. It appears to be a truism that materialism is bad.

Psychological research into materialistic values is sparse but surprisingly uniform in that the studies by and large find materialism harmful and detrimental to measures of mental health and well-being. It appears quite likely that as people have less materialistic values the happier they get. But it is not clear that researchers have gone far enough in elucidating the connection between wealth and wellness.

Informed by an Integral perspective which considers the level of consciousness at which value combinations occur, it is striking that materialistic values are concentrated at an Achievement-oriented level (orange) which is highly individualistic and acquisitive, and post-materialistic values are concentrated at a Pluralist-level (green). It is likely that existing studies of materialism have not paid attention to the importance of considering distinctions between different levels of consciousness, and therefore have come to inaccurate or at least partially true conclusions. [Read more…]

Vegetarian v. Carnivore: Beyond False Choices to the Rise of the Conscious Omnivore

By Joe Perez

Although I have felt guilty since childhood for eating animals, I have not succeeded in the past at becoming vegetarian and probably will never totally give up meat or dairy products. The moral case against eating meat is strong, but that doesnâ€™t mean I have found the arguments in favor of strict vegetarianism convincing.

I was raised with a stereotypical American diet in which meat is served in nearly every meal. But I have evolved to find for myself a stance which is less absolute than Vegetarian v. Carnivore, and done so by examining my actions from a worldcentric perspective.

The bottom line is that I have gradually found myself eating significantly less meat as a personal matter and choosing meats which are farmed humanely. I have rejected approaches to diet based on mere personal preference or ideology. Instead, Iâ€™ve chosen an ethos of meat on a middle path, one which would please neither vegetarians nor carnivores.

As I see it, a dietary philosophy which bans meat and brands opponents as murderers or one which reduces animals to objects for domination are unnecessarily extreme. Instead, an Integral vision asks us to consider animals as worthy of respect as our co-inhabitants of the Earth with intrinsic value, but it stops short of viewing their consumption as an intrinsic evil. We are asked to maximize our compassion for animal life as an integral part of the spiral of evolution and to weigh the costs and benefits of our relationship to animals. [Read more…]

Ten Commitments of World Spirituality Based on Integral Principles by Marc Gafni

The Commitment to the Enlightenment of Fullness:

The journey begins with a recognition of the fullness and depth of reality and to the specific experience and innate dignity of every human life. Every human being has an innate right to participate with joy in the fullness and depth of reality. [Read more…]

Wisdom for Your Week: Thought Leader Dialogue between Richard Barrett and Marc Gafni: The Unique Self and Societal Development: The Path of Societal Transformation

Corporate Social Responsibility In Word Collage by David Castillo Dominici

Â©David Castillo Dominici, www.freedigitalphotos.net

Listen to Richard Barrett, founder and chairman of the Barrett Values Centre and author of many booksâ€”e.g. What My Soul Told Me, The New Leadership Paradigm, and Building a Values Driven Organizationâ€”and Marc Gafni as they talk about an exciting new role that nations and our democratic systems can play in the evolution of consciousness, when they awaken to their Unique Selves, and what that might mean.

You can also listen to the first two parts of the dialogue and read a summary or partial transcript here:

[Read more…]

Wisdom for your week: Thought Leader Dialogue between Richard Barrett and Marc Gafni: The Unique Self and the Organizational Success: The Path of Organizational Transformation

Â©arztsamui, www.freedigitalphotos.netÂ

In the second dialogue of this 3-part series, our two leaders, Richard Barrett and Marc Gafni, speak about how the teachings on soul and Unique Self can be applied to organizations and lead to more success of the organizations as well as the individuals.

Listen to this wonderful and insightful dialogue and read the summary of their discussion below.

To read more about the extensive work of Richard Barrett and listen to the first dialogue on â€œThe Unique Self and Soul Activation: The Path of Personal Transformationâ€ you can click here.

The third part of the series â€œUnique Self, Organizational Leadership, and the Destiny of Nationsâ€ on â€œThe Unique Self and Societal Development: The Path of Societal Transformationâ€ will be held on June 15th, and you can still register for it here. [Read more…]

Wisdom for your Week: Unique Self, Organizational Leadership, and the Destiny of Nations – Dialogue with Richard Barrett and Marc Gafni

Join these two exciting authors as they discuss the Uniquely purpose-driven life in a post-fundamentalist environment for the creation of a better world.Â In this dialogue, Richard Barrett, author of What My Soul Told Me, The New Leadership Paradigm, and Building a Values Driven Organization, discusses the ways the soul gives us our direction in life. He gives an overview of the seven levels of the Barrett index and his personal values assessment and describes the soulâ€™s role in connecting us to one another.Â Dr. Marc Gafni, author of the recently published Your Unique Self: The Radical Path to Personal Enlightenment and Radical Kabbalah (two-volume set), adds to their combined map the five selves from Unique Self development along with the three levels of evolution.Â Marc also brings to the conversation the role of the Eye of Spirit or the Eye of Heart, which moves beyond the Eye of Sense and Eye of the Mind. When these frameworks are brought together, they create the context for a sturdy values assessment and a means for liberating individuals, organizations, and nations from entropy.Â Richard and Marc conclude this dialogue with audience participation and two exercises that you wonâ€™t want to missâ€”one to discern Unique Self from separate self and one to find out what the Unique Self is inviting each one of us to do. Be sure to tune in for all three dialogues in this groundbreaking series:

Dialogue One, April 27 @ 10am PT (1pm ET):
â€œThe Unique Self and Soul Activation: The Path of Personal Transformationâ€

Dialogue Two, May 18 @ 10am PT (1pm ET)
â€œThe Unique Self and the Organizational Success: The Path of Organizational Transformationâ€

Dialogue Three, June 15 @ 10am PT (1pm ET)
â€œThe Unique Self and Societal Development: The Path of Societal Transformationâ€

Richard Barrett (FRSA) is an author, speaker and social commentator on the evolution of human values in business and society. He is the Founder and Chairman of the Barrett Values Centre and an internationally recognized thought leader on values, culture and leadership. He is the creator of the internationally recognized Cultural Transformation Tools (CTT) currently being used in 60 countries to support more than 4,000 organizations and leaders in their transformational journeys. He is a Fellow of the World Business Academy, and Former Values Coordinator at the World Bank. [Read more…]

The Next Step in Transformation: Unique Self, Organizational Leadership and the Destiny of Nations

A 3-Part Web Tele-Series with Richard Barrett and Marc Gafni

Thought Leaders Marc Ga fni and Richard Barrett will engage in a free, 3-part monthly tele-series in April, May and June. See below for dates, times, full descriptions of each session, and how to register.

Do not miss this provocative and complementary series of dialogues between two globally recognized transformational thought leaders, Richard Barrett and Dr. Marc Gafni. Richard and Marc will share their latest thinking and technologies for transforming yourself, your workplace and the larger community or society in which you live.

Combining theory and experiential learning, they will show how personal transformation, organizational transformation and societal transformation are driven by the same core principles, and how the application of these principles leads to transformative change. Understanding these principles gives you the keys you need to implement sustained change in your own life and in the lives of the organisations and communities/societies you lead.

[Read more…]

Spirit in the Public Square: Outrageous Love in Response to Outrageous Pain â€” Awakening Our Evolutionary Unique Selves

Join us in our response of Outrageous Love to Outrageous Pain

Join us as the Integral World Spirituality Community gathers to talk and act in Response to Outrageous Pain Anywhere and Everywhere in the World.

We live in a world of outrageous pain. Boston, Rwanda, Afghanistan, Congo, Kenya, Jerusalem, Manhattan, Bangladesh. Outrageous pain is everywhere.

The only response to outrageous pain is outrageous love.

There is an outrageous act of love that the worlds needs from you. No one else but you is capable of addressing that unique corner of Un-Love and healing it into Love.

This is why, in light of the recent tragedies in the U.S., we are holding a special, live, Public Square Phone Event next Tuesday, April 23, with Dr. Marc Gafni and Riane Eisler.

Full information here—>

Marc Gafni and Riane Eisler Dialogue on “Unique Self and The Real Wealth of Nations”

Creating a Sustainable and Equitable Economics

Discover the potent synergies of the â€¨Partnership Model with the â€¨Unique Self Teachings in this free, live phone event:

“Unique Self and The Real Wealth of Nations”
Tuesday, April 23 at 6pm Pacific / 9pm Eastern
Sign up here>>>

We are honored for the opportunity to invite you to join this rich, stimulating, and inspiring conversation with two accomplished scholars about the groundbreaking ideas in their latest books.

Riane Eisler, Ph.D. has published six books and co-authored four others. She notably wrote The Chalice and the Blade in 1988. Most recently, Riane authored The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating A Caring Economics. This powerful book shows that the great problems of our time – such as poverty, inequality, war, terrorism, and environmental degradation – are due largely to flawed economic systems that set the wrong priorities and misallocate resources. Conventional economic models fail to value and support the most essential human work: caring and caregiving. So basic human needs are increasingly neglected, despair and ecological destruction escalate, and the resulting social tensions fuel many of the conflicts we face today.

Marc and Riane will discuss the issues of an inequitable economic system in the context of Unique Self Realization and the Rise of World Spirituality. Are we able to shift collective consciousness towards a more Conscious Capitalism, and create a more sustainable and equitable global economy?

Dr. Russ Volckmann and Dr. Marc Gafni Dialogue on Leadership and Unique Self

Dr. Russ Volkmann and Dr. Marc Gafni will discuss â€œUnique Self and Leadershipâ€ on Monday, April 1, at 6:00PM PDT (9:00PM EDT). Free.

The term “integral leadership” was first used (in the 1980s) by Ken Wilber, who has written 30 books on integral theory. A comprehensive way to consider Integral Leadership is to view it as a perspective (or understanding) of the entire arena of leadership studies and the myriad practices of leadership (in all their forms). This perspective or understanding is accomplished through an integral frame of reference that draws on the two interrelated fields of integral studies and practice.

Thousands of persons interested in integral theory and/or leadership theory have been exposed to the notion of integral leadership, and hundreds have attended conferences, trainings, and certification programs to learn about it. Russ Volckmann is the Editor of the flagship peer-reviewed journal, Integral Leadership Review, bringing his depth of knowledge and Wisdom to the evolution of Integral Leadership literature.

Russ writes:

â€œIn my work and teaching, I have worked with clients and students to examine the clarity of their thinking, and how to work toward being more impactful, proficient and aligned with what matters most in their work. As an organization development consultant and executive coach for over 30 years, I hope to discuss with Marc how his approach in Your Unique Self can contribute to our ongoing conversation about leadership, individually and collectively.â€

Russ has scheduled a Special Publication of Integral Leadership Review to consider Leadership in the context of Unique Self. Marc is thrilled to be invited to this participation with Russ in both the Dialogue and the Special ILR Publication.

Ethics is an erotic expression of our deeper divinity

If we come to understand that ethics is an erotic expression of our deeper divinity, we are truly moved to the ethical. For at that point we realize that it is an expression of our deepest selves, aÂ response to the call of our own voice. Ethics, to be compelling and powerful, must be an expression of your erotic divine nature and not a contradiction to it. So when the prophet insists that God and the God within you is beyond nature, and can therefore act ethically against nature, they are referring only to your first nature, not to your deeper second nature. Your deeper nature is God.

The marriage of the erotic and the ethical, when it takes place not merely intellectually but in all of your being, makes you the greatest of lovers.

Dr. Marc Gafni
The Erotic and the Holy

Discovering Spirit in Nature

imgres-1 Posted today on Marc Gafni’s Tumblr blog, “The Third-Person Path to Spirit” – a loose transcript of a video with Marc Gafni:

Whatâ€™s the path of third person? The path of third person is the path of wonder, utter and absolute wonder in which I engage not in a human face-to-face relationship, not in a dialogue. Not in a place in which thereâ€™s a conversation that takes place. Itâ€™s about the path of awe and wonder where I step back and I allow myself to be overwhelmed by the full and infinite wonder, texture, beauty, complexity, infinity of All-That-Is.

Thereâ€™s a great little short movie called 10 where you have a couple laying in a park, and you take a Â look at them and they seem ordinary couple having a nice afternoon. But then we extract 10 powers â€“ ten squared, ten squared again, farther and farther again, into the galaxy, and we reach a larger perspectiveâ€¦ we go 10 square up, again and again, and we reach the infinite vastness and complexity of all the infinite galaxies to the end of the reach of human grasping and we set them in this large context. And then the camera shifts and goes inside, 10 times down, back to the couple, and into the skin, the manâ€™s skin particularly on his hand, 10 powers squared as it were, in and in and in and in, into the organ, into the cell. And you realize that actually going inside and expanding thereâ€™s this huge expanse.

You finish this film and Wow your entire mind has been shifted and expanded when you realize that this small self is this external signifier, a sign post weâ€™re living in it, but there is infinite depth within us and infinite depth in the context in which we live. There are these two frames of infinity that hold us. Wow. Thatâ€™s third person.

Read the entire transcript or watch the video.

Outrageous Tragedy and Outrageous Love

A boy walks into a school and kills twenty-seven people.
For no reason. Most of the children between age five and ten.
We live in a world of outrageous pain.
The only response to a world of
outrageous pain is outrageous love.
We need to become outrageous lovers.

In the same sense that the twenty-seven murders in Connecticut on December 14th are outrageously horrific beyond expression, our response must be outrageously loving beyond imagination. For every bullet of outrageous pain that destroyed life we must respond with missiles of outrageous love that affirm life. What might that mean?

Listen to “Outrageous Tragedy and Outrageous Love,” a 5-minute audio with Marc Gafni (in conversation with Bryan Franklin and Jennifer Russell).

[audio:https://www.ievolve.org/wp-content/uploads/media/Outrageous-Tragedy-Outrageous-Love.mp3]

I invite you, dear beloved friend and reader, to answer that question yourself and share it here.

Tell us what personal or communal acts of outrageous love might you or we as a collective do to respond to the outrageous pain?

The early movements of expanding love

Photo: www.DanielLeePhotography.co.uk

By Marc Gafni

We live in a world of outrageous pain. The only response to a world of outrageous pain is outrageous love. We need to become outrageous lovers. What does that mean? It means to see with Godâ€™s eyes, and to let God see through your eyes. To be enlightened means to move from your perspective to Godâ€™s perspective.

Bill Clinton said recently that only a shift in consciousness will allow us to take the necessary steps to heal our future. The mystical and political are coming together because that is the invitation and demand of this evolutionary moment.

The shift in consciousness that we are invited to is no less then the awakening of the outrageous lover that lives in us. The outrageous lover shatters her mistaken identity as a skin-encapsulated ego, loving only what serves her superficial survival and prosperity. The outrageous lover expands beyond the contractions of ego, into larger and larger fields of felt caring and concern. The purpose and trajectory of her life is the evolution of love. [Read more…]

Daily Wisdom: Happiness does not depend on progress

Photo Credit: shagzi23

Ken Wilber, a leading voice on the Wisdom Council of the Center for World Spirituality writes in No Boundary:

But, we ask, what will happen to our drive for progress if we see all opposites are one? Well, with any luck, it will stop–and with it that peculiar discontent that thrives on the illusion that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. But we should be clear about this. I do not mean that we will cease making advancements of a sort in medicine, agriculture, and technology. We will only cease to harbor the illusion that happiness depends on it. For when we see through the illusions of our boundaries, we will see, here and now, the universe as Adam saw it before the Fall: an organic unity, a harmony of opposites, a melody of positive and negative, delight with the play of our vibratory existence. When the opposites are realized to be one, discord melts into concord, battles become dances, and old enemies become lovers. We are then in a position to make friends with all of our universe, and not just one half of it.

Would Jesus, Krishna, and Buddha have been best friends?

Note: The following dialogue transcript is taken from the conversation between Marc Gafni and Dada conducted in December 2012. The entire dialogue is currently available for a very limited time at the Imaginal World website.

We need to actually grow up to higher and higher levels of consciousness. The way we do it is we have to tell the story. We need to teach about levels of consciousness. People donâ€™t even know they exist. There are clear and distinct stages of consciousness. That needs to become part of our vocabulary.

We need to being looking at where are we on the map. Whereâ€™s my people? Am I egocentric? Ethnocentric? Worldcentric? Cosmocentric? Thatâ€™s just one simple way of talking about levels of consciousness. Itâ€™s really easy. Every one of our holy listeners, who are awesome and thank you and deep bow, can get that.

Egocentric: my felt sense of concern is me and my people, my family, people who help me survive.

Ethnocentric, which is a leap of consciousness: I have expanded my circle of care and concern to those in my circle, my country, my tribe, my religion.

Worldcentric: I actually have a felt sense of caring and concern for actually every human being in the world.

Cosmocentric: Iâ€™m even wider and more expanded. I have a felt sense of care and concern for every sentient being, for the cosmos, for past, present, and future, and Iâ€™m awakened to the divine in me and Iâ€™m acting as a divine agent catalyzing and taking the responsibility for this whole story that weâ€™re in, because you started the story. You were there at the Big Bang. Where else could you have been? Because itâ€™s your story, step up, take responsibility for it, play in it, in all the ways you can in your life.

Those four levels of consciousness, ego-, ethno-, world-, and cosmo-centric: thatâ€™w what I mean by levels of consciousness. itâ€™s just a simple way to talk about it. Weâ€™ve got to grow up, and we need to wake up.

[Read more…]