E117 - Marc Gafni: Decoding The Kabbalah Tree Of Life: Realize Your Unique Self & Unleash Eros
Know Thyself
André Duqum
4.8 • 658 Ratings
🗓️ 8 October 2024
⏱️ 179 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week we explore the depths of Kabbalah, unique self, and Eros with renowned philosopher Marc Gafni. He begins by defining the foundational concepts of Kabbalah, setting the stage for an exploration of the interplay between masculine and feminine energies that shape our reality. He introduces the profound symbol of the Tree of Life and its relevance to personal mastery. As he describes each piece of the 11 stories in the Tree of Life, the discussion unfolds to encompass the realms of imagination, understanding, and the balance between love and boundaries, highlighting the beauty of contradictions and the coexistence of joy amidst life's challenges.
He then describes the concept of unique self, an understanding of self that transcends the misconceptions of both Western and Eastern traditions.
As the episode progresses, we delve into how Eros can serve as a portal to deepening intimacy, and ultimately heal our disconnected world.
André's Book Recommendations: https://www.knowthyself.one/books
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0:00 Intro
1:40 Defining Kabbalah: A Mathematics of Cosmic Intimacy
9:57 Masculine and Feminine Energy in the Universe
20:50 Introducing The Tree of Life
22:19 Keter: The Profound Power of Silence
30:43 Chochmah & Binah: Ideas, Imagination & Understanding
32:49 Chesed & Gevurah: Outrageous Love & Boundaries
35:31 Tiferet: Laughter & Beauty that Holds All Contradictions
38:51 True Meaning of Beauty & Laughter
49:16 Netzach & Hod: Forever & Surrender
51:50 Yesod & Malchut: That Which Receives & Becomes
52:11 Practical Applications of This Wisdom
1:01:56 Finding Light in the Broken Heart
1:07:28 Every Place You’ve Been, You’ve Needed to Be
1:09:21 Who Are You? Defining Separate Self vs True Self
1:19:02 The East & West Both Got This Wrong: The Emergence of Unique Self
1:29:46 Infinity Desires Finitude: What True Love Is
1:37:28 Qualities of Unique Self: Looking Beyond Nondual Thinking
1:44:54 Your Risk to Bring Your Gift into the World
1:53:40 Framework for Defining & Unlocking Your Purpose
1:55:54 Shadow-work: Your Pathway to Purpose
2:08:23 Your Unique Obligation
2:15:51 Eros: Desire as a Portal to Deepening
2:30:08 Earth’s Problematic Intimacy Disorder
2:40:27 Human Love: From Soulmate to Whole-mate
2:56:38 Conclusion
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Dr. Marc Gafni has been described as a world philosopher — a kind of galaxy heart brain — integrating wisdom from across multiple disciplines into what he has called a New Story of Value in response to the meta-crisis.
Gafni’s doctorate is from Oxford University with a masters degree from Bar Ilan University. He holds an orthodox rabbinic certification from the Chief Rabbinate in Israel and non-denominational rabbinic ordination.
He is the author of forty books, of which only the first twelve have been published, including the award-winning Your Unique Self: The Radical Path to Personal Enlightenment.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marcgafni/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/MarcGafni
First Principles and First Values (book):
https://www.amazon.com/First-Principles-Values-Propositions-Cosmoerotic/dp/B0CS85WYVX
A Return to Eros: the Radical Experience of Being Fully Alive (book):
https://www.amazon.com/Return-Eros-Radical-Experience-Being/dp/1944648186
Your Unique Self: the Radical Path to Personal Enlightenment (book):
https://www.amazon.com/Your-Unique-Self-Personal-Enlightenment/dp/1467522775/
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Know Thyself
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/
Website: https://www.knowthyself.one
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André Duqum
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Well, first off, just to know that there's a pattern to reality. That's a big deal. We live in a world of outrageous pain, where we're facing this global intimacy disorder. That's the radical source of existential risk at its very core. And it's the only response to outrageous pain is outrageous love. And outrageous love is not mere human sentiment. It's the heart of existence itself. Well, let's go crazy deep for a second. Kabbalah is a |
| 0:21.9 | mixture of interior sciences. It's the mathematics of intimacy. And one of the primary chapters in that |
| 0:28.8 | story is the tree of life. And it's this math, the 10 stories of quality of divinity. You need to |
| 0:35.3 | know all of these in order to know your unique gift. Let's do it |
| 0:39.4 | okay, like this. When I say, who are you? The classical answer to who am I is I'm a separate self. |
| 0:45.0 | The only problem with that answer is that it's not enough. So both the west and the east got |
| 0:50.2 | confused about the same thing. It's the distinction between separateness and uniqueness. |
| 0:57.1 | And the clarity is there's a seamless code of the universe. |
| 0:58.9 | It's seamless, but it's not featureless. |
| 1:00.6 | And its feature is you. |
| 1:07.5 | Hey, everyone. |
| 1:09.1 | Welcome back to Know Thyself. |
| 1:30.3 | Our guest today is a philosopher, researcher, author, visionary thinker who is really weaving together a tapestry of our understanding of modern psychology, eros cabala, cutting edge evolutionary theory, ancient wisdom traditions, really cohesively putting together a framework and understanding of who we are, where we are, |
| 1:34.4 | why we are, where we're going as a species and as humanity, and so much more. |
| 1:35.9 | Mark Gaffney, thank you for being here. |
| 1:37.0 | Yeah, it's good to see you, Andre. |
| 1:37.6 | Yeah. |
| 1:38.0 | Yay. |
| 1:40.3 | What is Kabbalah? |
| 1:42.5 | God, what a start. |
| 1:44.3 | Oh, my God, what is Kabbalah. You know, the word Kabbalah. God, what a start. Oh, my God. What is Kabbalah? |
| 1:46.3 | You know, the word Kabbalah is a very beautiful word. |
... |
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