Drunk With Fire This balance between ecstatic and normative, between in and out of love reflects a deeper ebb and flow within us. There are two forces which vie for domination in our lives. Each one must be honored. They are our wild ecstatic, sensuous right brain selves on the one hand, and our rational [...]

Through the Thou a person becomes I. –Martin Buber, I and Thou The philosopher who guides us on this path most clearly is Martin Buber. He talks in terms of what he calls “dialogic thinking.” Put simply, that means that there must be an I and a Thou – a me and a you – [...]

‘Let go of my Ego’ Ecstasy undermines our sense of ego and personhood. On one level, that is terrific. It is the gate to the shared identity of intimacy. Moreover, it is the healing of the original sin of misperception, the thinking that I am separate from God. It is the ultimate embrace of love. [...]

The Grateful Dead and Getting Grounded The Grateful Dead’s music was possibly the modern muse that most invited us to spin out of our narrow lives and sense the world of ecstasy. I remember that after Jerry Garcia died, there was a stinging critique of the Dead by conservative columnist George Will. He was decidedly [...]

posted by Marc Gafni assistant WHEN THE POWER OF LOVE OVERCOMES THE LOVE OF POWER THE WORLD WILL KNOW PEACE. POWER COMES IN THE MOST CLEVER DISGUISES WE CLAIM THAT IT IS FOR THE SAKE OF THIS OR THAT HIGHER CAUSE BUT REALLY IT IS JUST OUR BROKENNESS THAT WE PROJECT INTO THE SOMETIMES REAL [...]

WHEN THE POWER OF LOVE OVERCOMES THE LOVE OF POWER THE WORLD WILL KNOW PEACE. POWER COMES IN THE MOST CLEVER DISGUISES WE CLAIM THAT IT IS FOR THE SAKE OF THIS OR THAT HIGHER CAUSE BUT REALLY IT IS JUST OUR BROKENNESS THAT WE PROJECT INTO THE SOMETIMES REAL SHADOWS, WHICH HOWEVER ARE WILDLY [...]

Jealousy comes from not living in God. Jealousy is the profound dis-ease of sexual relationship. It is a reflection of our childish vulnerability to rejection or the withdrawal of love. It is for this reason that the response to jealousy can only be genuine spiritual practice. For the goal of practice, is the realization that [...]

In earlier blogs I have talked about intimacy as shared identity. It is precisely this expansion of self which is ecstatic. The move from I to We is the greatest joy of a human life. The circle expands however beyond the We of intimate relationship, beyond even the we of community. Ecstasy is the erotic [...]

In Ecstasy The perceptions of falling in love is but one expression however of a broader kind of perception. This higher way of seeing is the path of Ecstasy. Ecstasy, from the Greek word ex-stasis, means “to move beyond stasis,” that is “beyond the apparently solid, into motion, movement, and life itself.” Its Latin root [...]