The Beauty that is YOU! – Marc Gafni

marc gafni
published on marcgafni.com
please share comments on info@marcgafni.com

I received a funny e-mail today from someone. It said, “Who are you?”

And that was the entire communication. What a wonderful question! So, a brief sharing is in order before we go into shabbot.

I am my story.

I am.

I am completely beyond my story.

My spiritual teaching or sharing comes from moving beyond my story,

and….

in the end, whatever spiritual teaching I have to share comes from my story.

I AM MADLY IN LOVE WITH GOD. I AM MADLY IN LOVE WITH HUMAN BEINGS. I THINK MEN AND WOMEN ARE SO TOTALLY BEAUTIFUL THAT IT OFTEN TAKES MY BREATH AWAY. I BELIEVE THAT THE UNMEDIATED EXPERIENCE OF THE DIVINE IS THE ESSENCE OF ALL RELIGION. I MEDITATE {sometimes}, PRAY {a lot}, AND ENGAGE IN SOCIAL ACTIVISM {whenever I can} AS MY WAY OF SERVING GOD.

In the last decade or so, I was privileged to found a national spiritual community in Israel called Bayit Chadash. This, together with my work at Milah Institute, helped found a movement for Jewish Renewal in Israel. I spent ten intense, exhausting, and wonderful years of my life sowing the seeds of this movement. The movement did not last. There was too much light and not enought vessel. My own lack of wholeness, other peoples’ lack of wholeness, spiritual politics, sexual politics, Iago, and divine will all deemed that it be a short-lived and wondrous experiment.

I am not planning to start another community, but rather to show up in the places where I am invited to share Torah and share the Dharma as I understand it.

I now spend most of my time writing, or teaching, or consulting, or taking walks in Utah’s mountains, or learning, and I hope, loving.

I have not achieved Nirvana by any stretch of the imagination, although I have tasted enlightenment for periods of time. I do not believe in Gurus.

I SPEND ABOUT 16 HOURS A DAY DOING WHAT PEOPLE CALL WORK.
I EXPERIENCE ALMOST NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN MY LIFE AND MY WORK.
I LOVE PEOPLE. I LOVE BEING ALIVE.

Sometimes in the last two years the pain was so unbearable that I prayed for death.

I HOPE TO WRITE A NEW SCHOOL OF SPIRITUAL THOUGHT WHICH WILL … DO WHATEVER IT DOES…

And, I think people who take themselves too seriously are dangerous. Umberto Ecco was right in his great book Name of the Rose. So, I laugh at myself a lot.

I am also deeply lonely at times. At other times, the pain of existence―of all the suffering people―is so overwhelming that I can barely breathe.

I desperately, insanely, and with deep tranquility, want to fullfill the Bodhisattva vow―even though I am not a Bodhisattva.

But what is important about this post is not

who am I
but who are you?

You are a spiritual hero.
You are gorgeous and beautiful beyond any and all imagination.

I wish that I could show you
when you are lonely
or in darkness
the unberable depth
of your own being…

-Hafiz

Oh my God,

can you see yourself

Oh my God,
can you hear yourself

Oh my God,
can you feel yourself

Oh my God,
Do you know how much good you can do in the world

Oh my God,
Do you know that god YEARNS for your service

Oh my God,
Do you know that God is sick when you are sick

that God is in pain
in your pain

kissing your every wound
into wholeness

Do you know
that God’s heart
is a raging volcano of love
for you

Do you know
that God
is hiding
in your heart

waiting
for
you

so that together
you can dance

i promise you
it is all true

-Marc Gafni

– posted by A.J.