***This Vision is informed and inspired by the work of Dr. Marc Gafni.
Imagine a world ...
... in which every person leads a fulfilled life - full of meaningfulness, deep love and joy ...
... in which every person and every organization consciously contributes to the larger whole and is thus successful ...
... in which all actors in all communities - locally and globally - work together for the benefit of all, while at the same time all individuals are deeply appreciated ...
... a world in which everything is connected to everything and in which new synergies are possible ...
... in which every creative person who works on an innovative solution for one of our pressing local and global challenges, finds people and structures for cooperation and support ...
... and in which the available resources are matched with people's needs, the sources of creativity, in order to create the best for everyone ...
How would it be to live in such a world?
What would it take to create such a world?
Crises as drivers for evolution
Every day we see or hear the terrible news in the media and on the Internet:
war and terror,
climate change and natural disasters,
pandemics,
the extinction of species,
the refugee misery, hunger and slavery, as well as
the resurgence of extremism all over the world.
All of this not only threatens us personally. It's not just threatening to a specific group, nation, or culture. No, for the first time in human history, the survival of humanity itself, or at least the survival of our humanity, is at stake.
And what do we do?
Perhaps we have given up long ago to regularly listen to or watch the news because we feel overwhelmed by so much negativity.
Or we react with consternation, fear, horror, or even anger ... and deal with it just as long as the respective horror news lasts, only to return to “business-as-usual”.
The retreat into the private life ... "What can I do in the face of a global crisis of such magnitude?", we say.
Or we blame ourselves for not being more active. We look at our great role models like Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jesus, Buddha, Einstein, or whoever that is for us, and think we should be like them. And since we are not, we make ourselves bad ... and yet we do not act ... precisely because of it.
Perhaps we also wonder why we no longer feel anything when we hear about thousands of children who die every day of hunger or hunger-related diseases. As a seminar participant once said to me: "We simply cannot imagine such dimensions."
At a seminar in Berlin I read the front pages of the newspapers every morning about a bear cub in the Berlin zoo that was bottle-raised and just refused to eat. All of Berlin was in bear fever. And I couldn't overlook the fact that, at least at first, the fate of this one bear child automatically touched me more than the fate of the countless human children who were fighting for their survival at the very same time.
Why do we close our hearts ...
... in looking at the humanitarian and ecological catastrophes that not only affect us humans, but in which we play a major causal role?
We experience an increase in life-threatening illnesses such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, addictions, burnout and depression, but also relationship problems and loneliness, unemployment or fear of losing our job, etc.
Outrageous pain is omnipresent.
All of this seems to justify even more our retreat into private life. After all, we have enough to do to deal with ourselves.
We speak of the Me generation, the increase of narcissism - both as a personality disorder and as the new normal state in our society.
Is it really that normal?
Beneath all these symptoms, there is one major thing lurking: FEAR. It is the fear that my own life does not count, that it does not matter whether I have lived or not:
=> What can I do looking at the global catastrophes that are threatening the survival of humanity?
=> Not that there is nothing to be done, but ... Isn't it all just a drop in the ocean?
Thanks to the media and the internet, we are now in a position to experience our mutual connection and interdependence first hand. We see the effects of what we do and what we leave behind on people whom we have never met personally.
We can even follow in “real time” how our actions affect nature and the earth's ecosystem.
We see the suffering of humans and animals all over the world to an extent that at best “God” could in the past. But unlike God, to whom we have attributed omnipotence as well as omniscience, we tend to experience ourselves as powerless in the face of this suffering.
And that is perhaps the deeper reason why we close our hearts in the face of this suffering and the impending catastrophe, and we withdraw into private life instead of becoming active and doing everything to alleviate the existing pain, to solve the existing problems and to avert the impending apocalypse.
"The gap between our ability to feel the pain and our ability to heal the pain is too big."
This sentence by Dr. Marc Gafni touches me deeply. It opened my eyes to a deeper mechanism that is at work here. And it also opens my eyes to an unusual way out of resignation.
There is another way
As Einstein so aptly put it: We cannot solve our problems at the level at which they arose.
All of our previous solutions and technological advances have neglected essential aspects and factors of the overall system and thus created more and bigger problems than they attempted to solve.
The next generation of solutions requires that we take all of these factors into account.
Crises have always served as drivers for evolution.
Whenever the given complexity, awareness and ability to love at the existing level creates more problems than it can solve, a crisis arises.
In a world where in all my life I couldn't get out of the tribe or nation I was born in, and where the greatest human-made environmental disaster possible was to start a forest fire or leaching the fields that were tilled, it is enough to take care of my neighbors, to sacrifice to the gods, or the One God, and to protect myself from wild animals, envious neighbors, other tribes, or nations. Today the same behavior leads us into the middle of the global crisis.
Within this crisis, the pressure caused by the growing problems grows.
At the same time, a kind of pull increases from a still unknown level of emergence. It is like a memory of the future that calls us to break new ground.
One thing is certain:
In the face of the global problems that we as humankind and as human beings have to solve, our ability to deal with the existing complexity must increase dramatically.
And above all, it needs people who REALLY care about solving these global problems.
But how can we do that?
=> Shouldn't each of us have to be an “Einstein”?
=> Are there perhaps a few people who can hold this kind of complexity and come up with solutions that the others then can implement?
=> Do these few really have an overview?
=> Will that which even appears to these few today as a whole not turn out to be just as partial in a very short period of time - like all our earlier approaches?
=> What about all the rest of us who just want to live our lives and still, in our best moments, long to be able to make a real contribution?
I believe that if we knew how we could make a real difference, most of us would take immediate action.
What if it was possible?
=> What if we could wake up every morning with a feeling of enthusiasm, passion and purpose?
=> What if we could know exactly our place in the world and how we could fill it with joy?
=> What if we could experience fulfillment and joy while making a real difference by being completely authentically ourselves?
=> What if we could be and participate in a community that is aligned with the shared mission and vision to truly create a world that works for everyone?
And yes, that is exactly what is possible.
And I am no longer satisfied with less.
The next step of humanity
How evolutionary thinkers like Teilhard de Chardin, Sri Aurobindo, Jean Gebser, Buckminster Fuller, or currently Ken Wilber, Barbara Marx Hubbard, who died in 2019 (with whom I had the pleasure of working in the years before her death), and Dr . Marc Gafni (with whom I have been working closely since 2011) show us, a lot is pointing to the idea that humanity is about to make a major evolutionary leap.
Barbara Marx Hubbard made the term “Conscious Evolution” known for this: Evolution becomes conscious of itself in humans, and humans begin to consciously participate in evolution.
This can create a new coherence in the actions of individuals, so that humanity as a whole awakens. She also calls this step “Planetary Awakening”.
And in her collaboration with Marc Gafni it became:
The Planetary Awakening through the Unique Self Jazz Symphony (the improvised, harmonious interplay of the unique voices and instruments of all in a shared music)
After everything we know so far, the universe is - like Dr . Marc Gafni says - "not a fact, but a story, not an ordinary story, but a love story, not an ordinary love story, but an evolutionary love story."
In short, it goes something like this:
About 13.8 billion years ago some-thing suddenly came out of no-thing emerged. And that is perhaps the greatest miracle of all.
Why is there anything at all and not rather nothing?
Philosophers and theologians have always been concerned with this question.
But that's not all, this something has exactly the properties that enable it to produce an awareness within billions of years that it is precisely this process that can become conscious.
And while writing, I am just aware of the incredible fact that - although hardly anyone of us is ever older than 100 years and almost no one has yet left our earth orbit, let alone our solar system - we still have an image (however imperfect) of this incomprehensible great and ancient universe and its history.
Within the first fractions of a second of this big bang - which, strictly speaking, is still ongoing - the physical laws that we still know today develop. Elementary particles are created and then annihilated through collision.
In the following billions of years, in which our universe continues to expand and cool down, more and more of these elementary particles come together - attracted by one another through a mysterious force that we, at The Center for Integral Wisdom, call Eros, even if it expresses itself at this level as the various physical forces - and form atoms: first hydrogen, then helium, later larger atoms, up to all the elements known today.
"Eros = the experience of radical aliveness yearning for ever-deeper contact and ever-greater wholeness." - Dr. Marc Gafni
More and more atoms are coming together, becoming intimate with each other, so to speak, attracted by mysterious forces that can be described, but in no way can be explained by today's physics (we know how, but not why). These atoms now begin to form molecules - initially simple, then increasingly complex - with completely new properties that cannot be explained by the sum of their individual parts. For example, water has very different properties than the hydrogen and oxygen atoms from which it is composed.
Intimacy = shared identity in the context of relative otherness * mutuality of recognition * mutuality of pathos * mutuality of values => shared purpose = shared passion - Dr. Marc Gafni
At the same time, our Kosmos continues to form into galaxies, stars, solar systems, and planets.
And suddenly: life!
A biological big bang:
Complex molecules are attracted to each other and form self-replicating structures, surrounded by semi-permeable membranes: single-celled organisms.
And with it the beginning of biological evolution:
Single cells become multicellular, multicellular become complex multicellular.
The cells mysteriously begin to cooperate in a self-organizing manner.
Complex multicellular cells create the whole variety of species: plants, fungi, insects, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals... and finally humans.
And there is cooperation not only within individuals, but also collectively within the various species and even beyond.
In evolution it is seldom the strongest who survive, but rather those who are best adapted to their environment.
And the ability to cooperate and love has always been an adaptive advantage.
And then, around 100,000 years ago, the beginning of cultural evolution:
The first humans, who lived together in nomadic survival hordes for millions of years, begin to use tools and develop language.
The development of horticulture brings forth a new consciousness with a magical tribal culture.
And the cultural development goes on and on.
With the emergence of agriculture, a mythical, ethnocentric awareness arises all over the world, including all people - far beyond the previous tribal boundaries of around 150 people - who share these myths. The first religions and nations arise.
The worldcentric Enlightenment of the modern age goes hand in hand with the beginning of the industrial age.
With the information age, postmodernity begins with its understanding of context and perspectives and its ecological and multicultural focus.
And slowly it dawns on us that evolution has a direction. The inherent drive or Eros of evolution has a telos, a goal. We live in a - as Barbara Marx Hubbard has called it - telerotic universe (telerotic = Telos + Eros), which is developing in the direction of ever-increasing complexity, awareness, and ability to love - the latter at least potentially. Because what grows with complexity and awareness is freedom of choice.
Not even elementary particles are completely determined. Strictly speaking, it is not even a matter of particles, but rather probability waves that only manifest as observable particles under certain circumstances in moments of interaction (= intimacy) with one another. But even our closest relatives, the mammals (or at least most of them), are still largely instinctive. And for us humans, too, freedom of choice is apparently still very much in its infancy. Because if we are honest, we are mostly determined by our ego-based patterns and defaults.
And yet, with seven-league boots, we are approaching the point of no return.
Our next steps will either lead us collectively into the abyss, or we will make the conscious choice for our own evolution:
The choice to REALLY become lovers.
But what does love actually mean?
"We live in a world of outrageous pain. The only response to outrageous pain is Outrageous Love. "- Dr. Marc Gafni
Some speak of unconditional love. But what does that actually mean? Should I really love a Hitler? What would that mean?
All too often, "unconditional love" has degenerated into a cliché, with the accompanying pictures of angels, roses, rainbows and transfigured looks.
What Outrageous Love means is the opposite of that. It is an active love that does not rest until the last pain is healed and the last tear is dried.
It is the same force that underlies the Big Bang and that ensured that elementary particles find each other and form atoms, that atoms find each other and form molecules, that molecules become cells and cells become multicellular. It is the same force that underlies biological evolution and that continues in cultural evolution.
We can rightly call it Evolutionary Love - or Eros. And if we look closely, we can see that love ITSELF is subject to evolution in all of this: from a physical, unconscious attraction to a pleasure-controlled, mostly subconscious drive, to a force that is subject to conscious choice, which is far beyond our immediate environment.
To make this clear, we differentiate here between evolutionary love (or outrageous love) and ordinary love.
“The difference between ordinary love and evolutionary love is the difference between a very high number and infinity.” - Dr. Marc Gafni
Ordinary love is
an emotion,
an automatic reaction to some kind of trigger, as well as
a strategy of our ego.
We fall in love because of similarities with our primary caregivers, triggered by chemical messengers, etc. And just as quickly as we fell in love, we mostly fall out of love again. Often it is precisely the people we have loved most deeply, who we then most reject or even hate.
And if we make a list of the people we love and a list of the people who give us self-centered satisfaction, we will find that these lists are mostly identical.
Love is beautiful in every form, of course. Yet, the difference between ordinary love and evolutionary love is huge.
Evolutionary love is not a feeling, not a strategy and not a reaction to a trigger, but an action out of the evolutionary impulse, the Eros of evolution, which is moving in the direction of ever-greater awareness and love.
Evolutionary love is not a blind emotion, but a conscious perception of the essence of the beloved.
At the moment of falling in love, this perception often happens spontaneously. However, it can also be trained. I can consciously focus my perception on the beautiful and identify the other with it, instead of everything that I don't like.
This in itself is a shocking and potentially life-changing finding that has its own practices. With it, we can for the first time choose to love someone.
And with practice, our ability to love can grow infinitely.
Evolutionary Love needs our choice.
It is a natural expression of our own essence.
So what does an (r)evolutionary lover do?
An evolutionary lover commits acts of evolutionary love. Yes, yes, of course, you will object now. But which ones? There is so much to do. Those that belong to your Unique Self is the answer. Okay, okay, but what does that mean? What is my Unique Self? Unique Self is the answer to the question: Who am I? Who are you? Who are we? It is the cure for our worst nightmare: the nightmare that it doesn't matter if we exist or that we are just extras on the set. Unique Self tells us that we count.
(Dr. Marc Gafni)
The all-important question: Who am I?
This question distinguishes us as human beings.
Animals don't ask that question. And when we are born, we too have neither an ego nor a language with which to ask this question.
Even among people in the early days of history, no clearly delineated self had yet developed. The transitions between waking and dreaming are fluid in this pre-personal awareness. It is enough to think of someone to call on them or to bewitch them. The corresponding worldview is magical, the self is pre-personal.
But at some point in the course of time, people discover their self. We begin to say I and to distinguish and demarcate our I from the non-I. First physically - I can move this hand, not that one - then psychologically - it is not enough to wish for someone to appear - and finally mentally - we distinguish linguistically between light and dark, here and there, yesterday and today, me and You, good and bad.
The hour of birth of the ego
We perceive ourselves as separate from our environment and other people: It is the hour of birth of the ego.
And that is a necessary and important step in awareness.
But that's not the end of the story: awakening to the True Self.
The mystical traditions of the world have taught us that it is possible to wake up from the illusion of separation.
And maybe we have already experienced it ourselves in moments of rare clarity or "flow" that we suddenly merge with our surroundings and become aware of our unity with all that is.
At this level we realize our “True Self.” And that self is radically ONE. There is no second.
MY True Self is the same as YOUR True Self.
But that is not the end of the story either: The Unique Self awakens.
After experiencing at least a glimmer of this awakening, we can awaken to our Unique Self - as Marc Gafni calls it. This Unique Self is not our ego. It is radically unseparated and AT THE SAME TIME radically unique.
It is the ONE True Self looking through your eyes ,while looking through my eyes at the same time. And while it is radically ONE, it has a unique perspective through each of us.
This unique perspective produces our unique gifts.
But it is even more than that: our Unique Self has a unique taste, a quality, a unique way of relating to the world, a unique intimacy with everything that is.
Unique Self = True Self + unique perspective + unique quality of intimacy = unique configuration of intimacy and attraction - Dr. Marc Gafni
Just think of someone you know.
Now let them go and think of another person.
Then let them go too and go back to the first person.
Did you find it hard to tell the two people apart?
Did you experience their unique quality?
Go there again. "Taste" ... sense ...
... person 1
... and then person 2.
You intuitively have an awareness of it.
That quality is not these people's ego, it is not their accomplishments or their fears. All of this can come and go, but something stays the same. That is the "taste" of that person's essence.
Now try to "taste" yourself.
It's far more difficult, isn't it?
The taste of our own essence is to us like the ocean is to a fish. We are constantly surrounded by it, and it is difficult to perceive it for ourselves.
This is another reason why we need other people's mirrors for our path to the Unique Self.
But even that is not the end of the story.
This Unique Self can awaken to the realization that it is part of this evolving Kosmos, yes, that it is itself a unique, evolving expression of the ONE evolutionary impulse, evolutionary Eros, evolutionary love. Wow!
“You are a unique expression of love-intelligence and love-beauty, which is the initiating and animating Eros of all-that-is, that lives in you, as you, and through you, that never was, nor will ever be again other than through you. " - Dr. Marc Gafni
And one more quote:
“You have to commit acts of evolutionary love that cannot be performed by anyone else who has ever been, is, or will be ever again other than through you. Your Unique Self has to commit acts of evolutionary love that can heal an area of un-love in the world that can only be addressed and healed through you. " - Dr. Marc Gafni
When more and more of us start to wake up to our undivided and unique Evolutionary Unique Self, the real miracle begins.
In nature we also call this miracle:
The secret of self-organization
We can observe this in an anthill or beehive. But our cells also work this way.
Every ant and every cell in our body pays attention to the ants or cells in their direct environment. This leads to the formation of the extremely intelligent structures of our organism, anthills, beehives, flocks of fish or birds, to name but a few examples.
This gives the commandment “love your neighbor as yourself” a whole new evolutionary meaning.
As each person pays attention to his or her neighbor, loves him or her and gives his or her unique gifts in response to the needs of his or her environment, a structure is formed through self-organization that is more complex and intelligent than the sum of its individual parts.
Cells and ants do this unconsciously.
As a Unique Self, we can and must do this consciously, because unlike cells and ants, we have a conscious choice.
The Planetary Awakening through a Unique Self Symphony
When more and more people awaken to their Unique Self and network, the unique voices begin to play together like in a jazz symphony.
It's not my job to make all the music, but to play my instrument and listen to everyone.
And suddenly the initial cacophony begins to sort itself out. Melodies and harmonies develop.
A Kosmic order becomes recognizable.
Humanity or the planet as a whole is awakening on a new level.
Exactly this step is consciously possible at the level of Unique Self.
This step is pending.
And it needs all of us to do it.
Nobody is superfluous.
There are no extras in this Kosmic game.
Each and every one of us is a star, screenwriter, director, and leading actor rolled into one.
We are all co-creators of this process.
Not just a few awakened or hyper-intelligent ones, but we are all infinitely important in this Kosmic interplay.
Knowing this and really experiencing it is pure fulfillment.
We know what we can do in response to the pain of the world and in doing it, we feel deeply the connection with others and the whole. Nobody has to do it alone.
Others are drawn to it and their own Unique Self is kindled in them.
Narcissism, which is based on a lack of self-love and therefore has to constantly prove its greatness, ends.
Unique Self recognizes his or her own greatness and no longer has to prove it.
Competition with others ends. At best, I am competing with myself: with being a better, smarter, and more effective version of myself today. And we're starting to work together for the good of all.
We no longer give our contribution primarily for ourselves and our experience or our well-being. We make our contribution to the good of the whole and to the evolution of love itself. And it is precisely in this that we ourselves experience total fulfillment.
We can enjoy each other. Yes, we fall in love with each other - in a broad evolutionary sense.
Each individual has a lot more energy available than before. Together we can solve ALL problems that we currently perceive in the world.
In other words, where we saw problems before, we now see invitations to play a bigger game.
And suddenly we see:
=> We CAN wake up in the morning with a feeling of enthusiasm, passion, and determination.
=> We CAN know what our place is in the world and fill it with joy.
=> We CAN experience fulfillment and enjoyment, while making a real difference by being completely authentic ourselves.
=> We CAN be and participate in a community that is aligned with the shared mission and vision of creating a world that works for everyone.
The metamorphosis: from the caterpillar to the butterfly
The metamorphosis of the butterfly offers itself as an image for this individual and collective transformation that we are talking about here.
A caterpillar is primarily a type of eating machine.
It eats and eats and is known in many places as a pest.
She eats until she is completely overeating and her immune system begins to break down.
But then the magic begins:
There are already so-called imaginal cells in the caterpillar's body. These cells are fought by the caterpillar's immune system. As soon as this begins to break down, the imaginal cells begin to multiply and network with one another.
The caterpillar pupates. During pupation, an almost complete physical transformation (metamorphosis) takes place. Most of the previous cells of the caterpillar become a kind of soup that serves as food for the imaginal cells. The imaginal cells take over and direct the remodeling.
The organs of the caterpillar are now functionless, completely dedifferentiated and broken down. The various imaginal cells, already differentiated in the caterpillar, begin to completely create the essential organs of the butterfly, of which no trace was discernible in the caterpillar. When the imago finally hatches out of the chrysalis, these organs finally acquire their final shape and harden.
While the caterpillar was primarily a pest that consumed more than it contributed to the surrounding ecosystem, the butterfly not only contributes to the beauty of the world, but also contributes to the preservation of countless species through pollination.
The personal transformation as metamorphosis
The step from ego to unique self or from ordinary to evolutionary love cannot be achieved through ordinary learning. No information in the world can move us to take this step.
Rather, what is needed is a fundamental transformation of our identity.
This transformation is easy to understand using the model of the butterfly metamorphosis.
While the separate self or ego, like the caterpillar, primarily serves itself and often consumes more than it contributes, there is already an inkling of something else in the ego (the imaginal cells).
There is this longing that makes no sense at all within a separate self.
Why should I long for oneness when that oneness doesn't exist?
Why should I long to be a contributor when it is all about survival of the separate self?
A fish does not long for dry land.
These longings are either fought against by the ego or, in a pseudo-form, built into its own search for egocentric satisfaction. The fear of death and the longing for a real contribution lead to all kinds of immortality projects, the longing for unity leads to clinging to loved ones or possessions.
The ego grows and grows and consumes, internally and externally, far more resources than it contributes. Gradually, not only the ecosystem begins to collapse, but also one's own emotional immune system. Since all the immortality projects and attachments of the ego do not lead to real satisfaction, it takes, like an addict, more and more. And yet it is never enough.
Gradually there is resignation.
Sometimes this only expresses itself as an acceptance that one's own life is just mediocre: others may lead a great life. I just don't belong there myself. Bad luck.
For some, this attitude grows into an even clearer cynicism that dismisses any striving for more as grandiosity: Yes, yes, dream on. You will see what you get out of it.
With others, the resignation grows into a downright depression. And that is then fought with all means.
This crisis already contains its greatest opportunity. The metamorphosis has begun. Instead of continuing to fight the imaginal cells in us in order to extend the functionality on the lowest level and the survival of our ego for a while, we can let the imaginal cells (our premonitions and longings) take over and allow the total reconstruction of our identity.
This can certainly be frightening, and it is helpful in these times to look for a companion who is experienced with these processes, who protects the delicate new structures and facilitates the processes through tried and tested methods and practices.
But the picture of metamorphosis carries even more:
Cultural evolution: collective transformation as metamorphosis
As already said above, there is some evidence that not only individual people, but the whole of humanity is currently in a kind of metamorphosis.
Humanity as a whole is faced with the realization that, if we continue like before, for the first time in history, we might jeopardize the survival of all of humanity through our own actions.
And, of course, this crisis also harbors opportunities.
Individual pioneers and visionaries are already experimenting with new structures. Like the imaginal cells in the body of the caterpillar, they are also often fought by the collective immune system. So they often stay underground, below the radar of the existing systems, until the previous, unsustainable structures collapse under their own burden. Even in the underground, they are starting to network and form communities of practice.
When the time for the new emergence is ripe, they can quickly reach a critical mass and start building the new together.
As in the butterfly chrysalis, most of the old structures are rebuilt or dissolved and serve as nutrients for the new, while the already existing imaginal cells network faster and faster and form the new systems and structures through self-organization.
A new collective consciousness arises; a consciousness that does not try (top-down) to replace the individual consciousness, as has been the case in most utopias so far, such as in real socialism.
Instead, in this bottom-up process, each individual awakens to their unique expression of the evolution, to their Evolutionary Unique Self.
Using the principles of self-organization, a new unit is formed that is more than the sum of its individual parts - just as the body is more than the sum of its cells, while each individual cell is appreciated for its uniqueness.
This is exactly the Unique Self Jazz Symphony we talked about above.
My own metamorphosis
I myself have searched my whole life for “what holds the world together at its core.”
Very early on in life, I already had an intuition of this one consciousness - the imaginal cells in action.
The awakening of my false self
One day before my 5th birthday my beloved grandma, who lived with us, dies of leukemia. With all my love, I couldn't prevent it.
My first failure...
I decide:
The world is a place full of uncertainty and separation. I am not safe in this world. I am helpless and insecure. I am separated. And I'm not enough.
From now on I have enormous fear or even panic of being alone and separated.
Death seems to me like a black hole that devours loved ones and at some point also myself.
I feel the pain of separation so intensely that I have no doubt that there must be something else.
I long for love and unity. But something in me constantly creates experiences and feelings of separation, rejection, and powerlessness.
I try everything to keep people from abandoning me.
I am the good girl who tries to please everyone and, above all, has to meet the expectations of my parents for fear that they might leave me too.
I'm 8 years old and we're moving from the country to the big city. I'm the country girl and overnight an outsider. My good grades don't help me either. On the contrary. Every time I go home, I am chased by the boys in my class. The girls don't help me either. Today, you would call it bullying.
So I decide:
I have to do it on my own, even if I don't yet know how, because the fear of being alone still holds me prisoner.
At the age of 13, I know that I never want to be as superficial as adults.
For me, it should be about uniting body, mind, and soul and making a significant contribution to humanity. This is something I still hold dear to me.
But first I still have a lot to learn.
My path leads me to the Netherlands, after dropping out from my university physics course, to study to become a dance teacher. Immediately afterwards, my father dies of leukemia.
At the age of 27, I go on a scholarship to the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center in New York.
Here, after weeks of tears, I finally overcome my fear of being alone.
Only when I fall asleep and wake up does the well-known panic sometimes still come over me.
And then it happens:
My first big crisis at 28
After months of 8-hour training every day, I collapse with massive back pain.
It is clear to me: this is the end of my dance career, which has not really started yet - with a height of 1.87 m (6'1 ft.) it is not an easy undertaking anyway.
I am broke.
After an unhappy love story, I'm broken-hearted and alone.
I am in a downright depression.
I ask myself:
What in my life did I do because I wanted to? And what only because my mother wanted it? Or to keep me from being left alone?
I have no answer.
I've hit the ground.
I walk around New York like my own great grandmother.
And it will be years before I work my way out of this hole step by step.
A few months later, my lover and I experience an erotic awakening to a state of overwhelming, all-embracing love and unity.
This state lasts for about an hour, during which I know that this is exactly what I have always longed for.
At the same time, it is clear to me that I cannot keep that up, yet.
My body reacts as if I were drunk, drunk with love, as Rumi has called it.
But this experience is enough to guide me from now on. At some point, I would be able to realize this love permanently.
My path leads me from the most diverse spiritual paths and methods, through energetic healing work, psychology, Montessori pedagogy, constellation work, project management, personnel and organizational development to Integral theory - and finally, in 2011, to the work with Unique Self and Evolutionary Love by Dr. Marc Gafni, who will become my personal teacher while I work with him at the same time.
In various roles, I am part of the Executive Team of The Center for Integral Wisdom, which he founded. Here, we stand together (with a growing team) as the embodiment of Outrageous Love and the Unique Self Symphony to further develop this “Dharma” of Unique Self and Evolutionary Love and to bring it into the world. And I am right in the middle - at the source of this work.
I learn the most effective methods of shadow work and transformation of the "false self." Because only when the automatic patterns of the ego are fully recognized and integrated can the Unique Self really appear.
But the path continues.
My Second Big Crisis
Even though I have come so close to my own vision, I fall for my own patterns one more time. I do not set any boundaries and I lose myself in the infinite expanse of this vision.
I stop using everything I have learned about self-care and the practice of embodiment and try again to please everyone.
When the corona crisis finally intensified my unhealthy behavior through the elimination of many compensation strategies, I collapse with burnout in 2020.
I look for support, even spend a few weeks in the Heiligenfeld Treatment Center in Bad Kissingen, do a trauma therapy training and begin to give myself a healthy structure with a daily practice of (Kundalini) yoga, meditation, chanting, praying, etc.
And I now really see what belongs to me and what does not.
Only now, at the age of 57, have I reached the point where I can really make my own contribution.
My search has borne fruit and brought me in touch with the best methods and approaches in spirituality, psychologist, philosophy, and science.
And not only that...
I went through my own process of metamorphosis that left nothing human out.
I embody what I convey.
I am still part of the Center's Executive Leadership Team and work on a number of book projects as an editor.
But the main thing I am working on is to create a center in Gerolzhofen (and online), in which I pass on the practices and the Dharma of World Spirituality, Evolutionary Love, and Unique Self and accompany people in waking up and growing up to their Unique Self, in showing up with their unique gifts and to realize their own visions.
In all of this, my own Unique Self finds deepest fulfillment.
What is your Unique Self?
What is the next step for you?
The call
Similar to the classic hero's journey, the journey of the Unique Self begins with a call. Something in me draws me.
I feel: this cannot be all there is. More is possible: more spaciousness, more love, more fulfillment...
Children still have this feeling quite naturally. They wake up every morning with the feeling that something great is ahead of them, that they want to conquer the world, and that they are on a great adventure journey.
As adults, we first have to get beyond the resignation we have acquired over decades. And this sometimes takes a lot: It can be people in our lives who stand up for us, up to wake-up calls through illness, loss, or other kinds of suffering.
I do not mean to say that we cause all suffering ourselves, as is often so common in the esoteric new-age world.
But beyond the question of causes and reasons, suffering can sometimes speed up our awakening. Crises are often drivers of evolution, both in the whole and in our personal development.
Ultimately, this call urges us above all to recognize ourselves and to set out on our own path.
1. "Realize your Unique Self"
The new worldview and self-image of Unique Self opens up new perspectives for us. We begin to see something that was previously invisible to us. We try out the new point of view and discover new things in ourselves and in others.
But it is not enough just to find the water of life, we also have to drink it:
Through various practices we can recognize the patterns of our false self and trace it back to our authentic unique self.
Numerous wake up, grow up, and show up practices enable us to embody our unique selves more and more.
We begin to embody our essence and live our visions; and life gives us feedback.
We learn to distinguish our unique self from our ego.
Our ego will never go away.
Paths that promise development beyond the ego all-too-often lead to illusion. The ego is no longer seen and goes into shadow. From there it becomes noticeable through projection and poisons our life and often that of others as well.
It is all the more important to have clues to be able to differentiate between ego and unique self based on the effects on ourselves and others.
Unique Self and Ego
Our ego feels separate from everything. It feels small compared to a huge world. It tries to survive and to improve or repair itself and the world.
Our unique self is connected and one with the world. It recognizes how we create this world in every moment together with everyone else. This gives us access to our own creativity and strength.
From our ego perspective, we experience a constant lack of resources, love, and opportunities. This is why we are in competition with everyone else. Only by constantly being better than our competitors can we win and get an advantage for ourselves and those we love.
There is an infinite supply of love, creativity, and possibilities for our Unique Self. From our unique self, we are so aware of our uniqueness and that of others that all competition ceases.
Generosity and collaboration become possible. Our drive is no longer competition with others, but our very own contribution to the evolutionary purpose.
Our goals change.
On the path to Success 4.0...
We stop working on continuous improvement (higher, faster, further), which at best leads to more of the same and usually does not even work. Instead, we begin to align our goals with our own evolutionary impulse.
Instead of improvement, it is about real transformation.
Instead of imitating (ego), we begin to develop our originality (unique self).
Instead of reacting to circumstances and giving reasons (ego), we begin to create what is deeply important to us and to be guided by a deep integrity (Unique Self).
Love turns from a strategy of the ego and a reaction to circumstances to a chosen action and a natural expression of our essence, our unique self.
2. "Form practice partnerships and groups"
Practices of love need a counterpart.
In addition to individual practices, it is important to practice in pairs or in small groups with one another.
The first practice communities emerge.
Experiences of waking up and love are strengthened in community.
By reminding each other and holding each other responsible when we slip back into old patterns, we can actually and effectively realize our visions.
Ordinary friendships are often only of limited use, as they tend to encourage us to slip back into old patterns. After all, that's how we are known. And we're in good company.
Conscious practice communities - virtual as well as on-site - are one way out.
The supervision by a teacher or coach trained in this way can also be extremely helpful here.
3. "Develop or find and use helpful structures and tools"
We need structures that correspond to our new awareness and our plans. There is no point in pouring the new wine into old bottles. Without new liberating structures, the new consciousness is all too fleeting.
Who does not know this: We take on something in an inspired moment, but then "everyday life has us back," and we can think of a thousand reasons why we should forget it again quickly.
Or we really forget it, except for a faint, but nagging, guilty conscience in the background, which we suppress as much as possible.
In addition to contact with other people who hold us responsible, various tools and structures can support us in holding on to our projects and making them come true.
4. “Come together in evolutionary communities”
What enables the Unique Self Symphony to emerge?
Love your neighbor as yourself is quite a guiding principle, but who is my neighbor in this day and age? For example, my colleagues in America are often much closer to me personally than my neighbors in the house.
Barbara Marx Hubbard has a great “teaching” about it. She says that just as sexual arousal or attraction has previously led us to combine our genes to produce a child, so in this new era it is “vocational arousal” that makes us combine our geniuses (our talents and competencies) in order to create the new human being and thus the Unique Self Symphony.
Dr. Marc Gafni calls this "allurement" - we come together because we are allured to each other.
Meeting someone who is traveling with a vision similar to ours is arousing in the truest sense of the word. Evolution rewards the next step just like the previous ones.
In real and virtual communities that revolve around a common evolutionary purpose, we experience our full vitality and love.
We can consciously bring together what works and experiment with new ideas, content, and structures.
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." - R. Buckminster Fuller
Personal Invitation
If you are a person who wants to make a real difference in the world, I cordially invite you to collaborate on the shared vision and/or to let me support and accompany you in the realization of your own vision.
As a Unique Self, I am inspired to discover the best teachings, methods, and practices and to bring them together, to develop them, together with others, to put them into practice and to share them.
I also love accompanying and coaching people on their path of transformation and supporting them to bring their own visions into reality.
=> My seminars and courses bring together the best of the new worldview and self-image of Integral Wisdom, Unique Self, Conscious Evolution, Success 4.0, Evolutionary Love, Eros, and a World Spirituality based on Integral Principles. This opens our eyes to knowledge that was previously invisible. Our blind spots open. Practices provide new opportunities to really embody what you learned and apply it in everyday life.
=> Coaching is specifically about your unique self or your concern that wants to be put into practice.
If this interests you, we should have a chat.
Coaching & Training for the New Age
Despite all the differences in belief systems that prevail in the various groups, there is a strange consensus in large circles that we are globally and collectively at the beginning of a new age .
The New Age can refer to such different things as:
the information, internet, or networking age
the age of the exponential increase in complexity & innovation
the integral age or the significant leap in consciousness into a 2nd tier
or the New Age that began after the end of the Mayan calendar, the Age of Aquarius or the age that cyclically follows the end of Kali Yuga.
Here, we refer to it as the emergence of the new human and the new humanity - what Marc Gafni has called Homo amor.
Evolutionary Purpose:
Our evolutionary purpose is to enable more and more people to transform their consciousness and worldview, to embody their own Unique Self, and, from this new level, to help shape a new world that works for everyone.