Thought Leader Dialogues Archives - Page 6 of 16

Jerry Judd & Marc Gafni dialogue 2011

Listen to this dialogue between Shalom Mountain Founder Jerry Judd and Shalom Mountain Wisdom School Teacher in Residence Marc Gafni.

Stream the audio here:

John Kesler & Marc Gafni Unplugged 2

The following dialogue is between Marc Gafni and Integral Philosopher and esoteric Mormon mystic and theologian John Kesler.
This is the second in a series of dialogues which will explore the relationship between Inner Mormonism and Inner Judaism.

Stream the audio here:

John Kesler & Marc Gafni Unplugged 1

The following dialogue is between Marc Gafni and Integral Philosopher and esoteric Mormon mystic and theologian John Kesler.
This is the first in a series of dialogues which will explore the relationship between Inner Mormonism and Inner Judaism.

Stream the audio here:

Vidyuddeva & Marc Gafni Unplugged: Spiritual Practice of Sacred Conversation

Marc Gafni and Vidyuddeva represent respectively the Kabbalistic, Hebraic, and Buddhist traditions. They seek in these dialogues to forge a common language of spirit, one which might invite, inspire, and guide the seeker on the path of his or her own exploration.

In this dialogue, they talk about the Spiritual Practice of Sacred Conversation.

The intention of the dialogues is also to model what genuine spiritual conversation might feel like, sound like, and look like. This is dialogue – not debate. Conversations are rooted in a deep matrix of love and respect, which is nonetheless rigorous, real, demanding, and deep.

Stream the audio here:

Vidyuddeva & Marc Gafni Unplugged: Rules for Rule Breaking

Marc Gafni and Vidyuddeva represent respectively the Kabbalistic, Hebraic, and Buddhist traditions. They seek in these dialogues to forge a common language of spirit, one which might invite, inspire, and guide the seeker on the path of his or her own exploration.

In this dialogue, they explore together the Rules for Rule Breaking.

The intention of the dialogues is also to model what genuine spiritual conversation might feel like, sound like, and look like. This is dialogue – not debate. Conversations are rooted in a deep matrix of love and respect, which is nonetheless rigorous, real, demanding, and deep.

Stream the audio here:

Gershon Winkler & Marc Gafni Unplugged

In this unplugged dialogue, Rabbi Gershon Winkler and Marc Gafni engage in what they have called “Tango Talmud”–which is their way of modeling a study partnership in sacred text study.

Gershon Winkler is a widely recognized scholar in the fields of Jewish law, lore, theology, and mysticism. A descendant of a scion of rabbis originating in Judea, Rabbi Winkler has devoted much of the past two decades to writing and teaching about the lesser-promulgated wisdoms of Judaism and to Hebraic scriptural interpretation. He has published fourteen books since 1980, four of which have seen several printings and two of which were banned. His most recent works include: Decalogue: Facts and Fallacies of the Ten Commandments, The Judeo-Christian Fiction, Daily Kabbalah: Wisdom from the Tree of Life, and Magic of the Ordinary: Recovering the Shamanic in Judaism.

Gershon was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, and educated in Orthodox Jewish communities both in the United States and Israel. Ordained in Jerusalem by the late Rabbi Eliezer Benseon, Founder and Dean of Yeshivat Bet Yosef-Novoredok, Rabbi Winkler considers himself non-denominational and is a charismatic teacher whose lifestyle is as unconventional as is his mindset. His non-mainstream exploits have won him media recognition, including a Front Page feature in the Wall Street Journal, a segment on the PBS TV series Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, and detailed coverage in Israel’s Ha’aretz, Chayyim Acherim Magazine, as well as The Jerusalem Post. A widely-sought teacher, he has lectured and served as Scholar-in-Residence at colleges and universities, and for ecumenical and Jewish retreats across North and Central America, Europe, and Israel.

For eight years he served as the rabbi for Congregation Har Shalom in Missoula, Montana, and for just as long as itinerant rabbi for four Jewish communities across West Virginia, including the Hillel Foundation at West Virginia University and two federal prison camps, including the now-famous “Camp Cupcake” in Alderson, West Virginia. A father of four and grandfather of eight, Gershon has for more than 25 years balanced his public life as a renowned teacher with an anonymous home life nestled deep in remote wilderness regions across the U.S..

Stream the audio here:

Ervin Laszlo & Marc Gafni: Evolutionary Love

Listen to this audio dialogue between Ervin Laslo & Marc Gafni. The topic is Evolutionary Love.

Ervin Laszlo is a Hungarian philosopher of science, systems theorist, integral theorist, originally a classical pianist. He is the Founder and President of The Club of Budapest, Director and Co-Founder of the Ervin Laszlo Institute for Advanced Study (ELIAS) and of the Laszlo New-Paradigm Leadership Center (Italy)… He is the author or co-author of fifty-four books translated into as many as twenty-three languages, and the editor of another thirty volumes including a four-volume encyclopedia.

Marc Gafni is the Co-Founder and President of the Center for Integral Wisdom, the author of many books including the award winning Your Unique Self, a visionary scholar and integral wisdom teacher.

Ervin Laszlo:

“…everything that happens from the original Big Bang in this universe or in prior universes, when things fall together and move together and create wholes, larger and larger, more and more complex wholes which more and more interact, more and more communicate with each other, and they are really entangled as a physicist would say.

That’s because there is built into each element of this universe, each particle, each atom, each cell in a living organism, its belonging to the others, its coherence with this larger whole, which comes through in spirituality. It comes through in a deeper philosophy. It comes through in a deeper, honest theology. And this is basically what the motor is. If this universe was not built in such a way, was not created with its laws of nature and development in such a way that things pull together to create wholes, then we wouldn’t be here to ask these questions and the universe would still be a random concourse of perhaps carbon – but carbon is already highly integrated – so photons or initial particles, neutrons and electrons, and that wouldn’t be much more than that. Even creating an atom calls for pulling together the elements of the nucleus and the electrons that go around it. So, evolution is what happens, is the essence of things, and evolution is based on the attraction, on the relation of the parts to each other.”

Marc Gafni:

“Allurement… you’re describing a core allurement that exists between all things. You just stated it, of course, so beautifully and so musically and poetically. So let’s try and enter into it for our listeners – and there’ll be tens of thousands of listeners on this set of calls – so I really want to try and break it down for people. So when we talk about – the phrase you use is, not evolutionary love, the formal phrase you use is an all-embracing love, which is a beautiful phrase, which is the force of – and I’m borrowing Thomas Berry’s word – allurement that coheres everything together. Let’s try, if we can, if I could invite just to show people three or four just simple examples. Although you mentioned a couple implicitly even in your first opening, but just as we come deeper into the symphony to get a sense of where do we see that? Where can an average, intelligent layperson see that as it’s unfolding in the evolutionary ascension?”

Stream the audio and read the transcript here:

Download the Transcript here: Evolutionary Love: Ervin Laszlo and Marc Gafni in Dialogue Aug. 5, 2013