Please Log in to Vote.

66 out of 72 members found this useful.

Where I Stand

Posted September 13th, 2011 by Robb Smith
 
Share


Dear friends:

I found out about Bill Harryman’s allegations against Marc Gafni about 3 weeks ago. Though I was surprised that, like those of 5 years ago, they involved the intersection of sex and manipulation, at Integral Life we have for the past year been separating our activities from those of Marc. Our separation over the past year obviously did not derive from this recent scandal; long ago it became clear to us that we moved through the world in very different ways. Integral Life and Integral Institute have discontinued support of Center for World Spirituality and almost a year ago we decided to make ISE 3 our last year as a partnership with I-Evolve.

After talking directly to Tami Simon about the recent situation, it was clear to me that Integral Life was a bystander to the recent allegations and couldn’t make a preemptive or unilateral statement involving a situation in which we weren’t involved. But, as I described to Tami, I am tired of running to the scene of a fire and finding a spiritual teacher holding matches. I will not stand by and let Integral Life’s community (and integral theory’s reputation in the world) die of smoke inhalation. I just will not let our organizations be associated with this kind of reckless controversy. We aren’t big on wielding power unnecessarily but we will keep fire starters away from our home.

In a conversation with Diane Hamilton yesterday she pointed out that perspectives are limitless but that action is singular and concrete. So although the Integral Life team has taken many perspectives on this situation, we stand by our actions. They include the following.

  • By mutual agreement with I-Evolve, Integral Life has assumed full control and responsibility for ISE 3 as of last week. We’ve already established an awesome new event leadership team and will be announcing the new design in coming weeks. (Suffice it to say that everyone on the team is ecstatic that the event will refocus on Ken Wilber’s unique architecture of creativity as a living praxis in our lives.)
  • We have removed Marc’s contributor pages on Integral Life as we prepare to migrate the site to its new design in coming months.
  • I have asked that a formal “Policy of Ethics” be put in place for all contributors to Integral Life by end of Q1 2012.


When I wrote on Facebook this morning that I appreciate Bill Harryman’s contribution to this community I really meant it. I think Bill is right to call me to account for my rationale of inviting Marc Gafni back into the community 3 years ago. I see his point and believe that I understand it. As of right now I don’t hold tightly the idea that it was the right call. But I think it was. Just as the justice system is designed to let ten guilty men go free rather than allow one innocent man go wrongly sentenced, I insist on first-hand experience that I can stand by in my judgment of someone's character. I have it, and have acted on it.

What I appreciate about these situations, as painful as they might be for some to go through, is that they allow us as a community to engage in a process of learning and making an object of whatever lessons are to be learned. Unlike some I don’t think these issues, for the most part, are shadow for the integral community. On the contrary, I’m impressed that we see them in a relatively clear way and can talk about them as freely and with as much ethical nuance as they probably deserve. That’s a big deal. And as many have pointed out, these issues are not confined to the integral community, they occur absolutely everywhere. But I think we can rise to the challenge and do an exemplary job of exploring them in a transparent way. It is in this vein that I have asked the Integral Life team to identify a panel of expert contributors who can lead a recorded public discussion to be published on Integral Life next year about sex and spirituality.

I’ll close by stating that my intention is not now, nor ever has been, to cause more suffering for Marc Gafni or the women involved. He is possessed of a brilliant mind and a powerful capacity for 2nd person transmission. I have enjoyed him as a person and have called him a friend. But I have told him directly that I do not support him in a leadership capacity and will not associate Integral Life or Integral Institute with any organization that does. Nevertheless, it remains my hope that he find what will serve him most deeply.

Loving regards,

Robb Smith

 

 
     
 

Robb Smith

Robb Smith is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Integral Life, Inc. and Chief Executive Officer of Integral Institute, Inc. Previously, Robb pioneered Nevada's technology economy by founding Nevada Ventures, the state's first venture capital fund. He was a director of Alere Medical, a three-time "Inc. 500" awardee and was Nevada's Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

  
     
 

 

 

Share

Please Log in to Vote.

8 out of 23 members found this useful.

Marc Gafni's latest respons

Posted September 13th, 2011 by chahat corten

 

Privacy, Post Modernism, Sex, Teachers and Students:

On Sex, Ethics and Injury

 

I want to share some brief insights on these important and often confusing topics. I have promised a full book on sexuality, which I hope to be able to offer in the not-too- distant future. I had written an early draft and outline of this book several years ago, but laid it aside simply because I was writing on other topics.  In the meantime, let me make a few remarks about sex, privacy, and student-teacher relationships.

 

1)    There are many potential models of sexual engagement. One of them is committed monogamy. This is a wildly beautiful deep and profound context for sexual expression.

2)    Sexuality can also take place in a holy and wondrous way in post -conventional contexts, which are not familial or monogamous.

3)    Sexuality within the monogamous and post- conventional contexts has many different textures, which I have written about in a chapter of my upcoming book, Your Unique Self, The Future of Enlightenment.  Sex can be vital, tender, raw, rough, sweet, personal, cosmic, primal and much more.

4)     We have to overcome the implicitly anti sexual bias, which often subtly defines any conversation about sex. This deeply ingrained bias is alive and well even fifty years after the sexual revolution. We remains ogling, prurient and less then our best selves when we talk about sex, particularly in regard to public figures with whom we have complex energetic relationships. All too often, people hear about a story of sexuality and project onto to it their personal shadows about sexuality, all of the stories of genuine abuse that they have ever heard, and more.

5)    Most of the time teachers should not be sexual with people in their circle. It simply causes too much confusion and hurt.

6)    However, sometimes a teacher may choose to engage a mutual sexual engagement with someone in his or her circle. {Junpo Roshi has already written a series of three excellent blog posts on the subject.}  I have written and posted about this in the public sphere and talked about in several talks over the last years. This is my public position, and I stand in it. In this regard, transparency is essential. I have written clearly that I believe such relationships are possible. My views are posted on my website as videos and written blogs. I have talked about this in public many times.

7)    A teacher must be transparent about his or her core beliefs and not hold a hidden belief while teaching or practicing the opposite. And if a teacher makes a mistake it should be owned and apologized for, just as when anyone else makes a mistake. 

8)    Any teacher makes mistakes. No teacher is an exception to this. Still, we should expect from our teachers a level of attainment, love, goodness and depth that is beyond well beyond the norm.

9)    In teacher-student relationships, power is distributed in many and varied ways. In the relationships that I recently engaged, this was true as well. In both relationships, I did not hold formal institutional power.  At the same time, the more interior forms of power were distributed along complex and paradoxical lines. That is the nature of virtually every authentic relationship. However, let me say beyond a shadow of a doubt both persons were and are powerful adult women. One of them was a senior student of mine. With neither was I involved in any form of psychological counseling at the time of the relationship. As the written skype and email records show, the relationships were the product of a mutual initiation and engagement.

10) Speaking again in general terms: Assuming that the student is a full and powerful adult and that the teacher is not teaching radical obedience but a more gentle form of transmission and mutuality– there is at times room for beautiful and sacred erotic love and contact between a teacher and those in his or her circle, if it is desired and held in mutual love and desire on both sides. To say it simply: it is possible for a teacher to date students, and this can be ethical even if t is held privately.

11) The notion of the powerful teacher and impotent student is an outdated myth. If the student publicly complains about a teacher, t the teacher may fall or at least be badly hurt. False complaints are relatively easy to file and notoriously difficult defend against. So the balance of real power in the raw secular sense of the word actually favors the student. A student may hold a position in governance bodies that support the teacher, or in institutions that support the work of the teacher, in which case the teacher is actually in some real sense the client of the student. In such a case, the teacher may be vulnerable to the student in a number of material and psychological ways.

12) Part of a mutual relationship, however, always involves the parties being willing to be vulnerable to each other. It is in holding and protecting each other’s frailty that the poignancy of authentic engagement is born. And this is true in polyamorous contexts no less then monogamous contexts.

13) As many power feminists have pointed out, even if there is a power imbalance that does not mean the relationship was wrong or abusive. We must reject the negative interrogations of power that the overly egalitarian “green meme” of consciousness has suggested.

14) People engaging sexually can do so in a transparent way so that their whole community is fully aware of and witness to the relationship. Or a sexual relationship can – by mutual agreement of both parties-be held in a private container.

15) Both transparency and privacy are genuine values, which need to live in dialectical tension with each other. Let me transparent about this. Transparency is not an absolute value. Nor is privacy. Idolatry for the old mystics meant the absolute fealty to one value. When one value -whatever it may be - is freed from the need to compete with other values, idolatry is always produced. And the end result of idolatry is always some form of injustice, evil or other forms of ethical malaise.

16) It is true that privacy is not easy, and that both parties who agree to privacy are cut off from forms of support and connection that might otherwise be available to them. Privacy should only be entered by mutual consent. However, privacy fosters a level of intimacy and safety that at times may be difficult to achieve in more public or transparent contexts.

17) The modern form of idolatry is extremism. Extremists virtually always believe in a good value. But they can never get too much of their value. Their value, be it choice, life or transparency becomes an absolute.

18) Transparency is a good value. It must compete --in dialectical tension--with privacy.

19) Privacy is an essential value for many reasons. One of them is precisely because of the great post modern- insight that “context” is everything. When one is transparent. The most that can really be shared is the technical facts. The nuance and feeling tone of context and intention is virtually impossible to share in a superficial way. This is one of the reasons why privacy is such a key value. Paradoxically, to share facts without deep context and feeling tone is to tell a lie about the interior of reality. The quiet dignity of privacy is sometimes to be preferred.

20) At the same time, it is critical not to use privacy as a way to cover up sexual abuse or the like. Privacy is sometimes – but not always- appropriate in situations where the post conventional is too nuanced to be subject to the eyes of a prurient and non discerning public.

21) What is called the Green Level of Consciousness holds an essentially contradictory position from which great brutality often arises. On the one hand, Green says that transparency is an ultimate value. Containers per se are regarded with suspicion at best, and as virtually evil at worst. The facts that you might on rare occasion not share something with a close friend or colleague because you have a higher commitment to privacy in a particular context that is considered a form of betrayal. This way of thinking results from the false idolatry--holding up transparency as the only and ultimate value. It also contradicts a second value of Green. Time and again, Green consciousness reminds us correctly of the postmodern insight that “Context is everything”. Without getting into the limits of that insight at this time - allow me to make one point. If context is everything, than transparency is often a lie--because the one thing that is virtually impossible to transmit is context. If you do manage to transmit it to one or two close people, once a story is repeated down the line of gossip, the context in its entire critical nuance and texture is completely lost. So, when you are being transparent about something - let’s say a relationship - you are often only able to transmit the facts but not the context. Hence, you wind up essentially lying about the fullness of the relationship. This is one of the many reasons for the preference of privacy.

22) All of this does not make privacy into an undisputed value. The need for privacy needs to live in relationship with the need for transparency and in each unique situation the appropriate balance must be reached by mutual agreement between the parties.

23) One of the huge problems with holding a container of privacy in a relationship is that it almost always necessitates lying. Yet in certain circumstances, lying can be the most ethical decision. You really have to look at it in a case-by-case context.

24) One thing I did not consider seriously enough in engaging this relational possibility in a private context was the fact that it meant I would not share the relationships with people who were close to me. I have reflected upon this in the last few weeks, and believe that this by itself may be sufficient reason to argue for transparency. Many have made that point. I am not yet clear on this issue.

25) To recapitulate- dating or sexual engagement between people, including the occasional engagement between the adult powerful teacher and the adult powerful student, who are consciously choosing to engage in dual relationship may be transparent or they may be held privately. Both are legitimate options, depending on the inner context of the situation and on a multitude of variables, which need to be weighed wisely and in holy authenticity from what the Integral world calls a Second Tier, or integral perspective of consciousness.

26)  Which way is better- privacy or transparency or some mixture of the two--depends on many variables which must be examined in depth in every situation.

27) My l preference in life has always been for personal privacy. Other then when I am public, I am by nature private, and painfully so. I love my privacy and love the depth of ease and gentle surrender that a container of privacy allows.

28) Sadly, I have realized that for me – personally –that is simply not an option.

29) Because of this I have made a commitment- from this moment forward- to hold my personal life transparently to the community.

30) I do not think that love is a Zero Sum game. I think that one can genuinely love more then one person in a profound, personal, and passionate manner. I have said this time and again in public talks. Our loves lists are too short. I think polyamory is a genuine option for some people at particular points in their lives. Not for everyone or even for most people. And not at every point in life. But for some people at particular stages of life, polyamory is a genuine ethical and holy option.

31)  Eros and Sex are awesomely beautiful.

32) No one model works for everyone. People must be free to develop their erotic lives. We need more connection and Eros, not less.

33)  Erotic contact and encounter must always be rooted in the ethics of radical love, radical mutuality, radical giving in which giving and receiving are one, and which always intends its pleasure for the sake of the all as well as for the sake of each other.

34) People hurt each other in relationship. All the time. When we hurt each other we should apologize and do our best to make amends. There is no relationship without hurt, yet there is no love without forgiveness

35) Hurt cannot be allowed to be deployed as a cover-up for malice.

36) Men and women often use romantic or sexual hurt as a cover to accomplish their agendas of malice and power often under the noble guise of protecting the weak.

37) People should not work out the personal issues between them in the nasty and often muck- racking world of Internet blogs.  We know by now that there are vigilante bloggers who do not bother to check facts, which regularly publish distortions from unreliable sources, which have no accountability, who often have hidden personal agendas, which are self-appointed judges without responsibility or authority, cannot be allowed to formulate or manipulate communal policy.

38) Sometimes a blogger is intelligent on one set of issues but completely disreputable on another set of issues. See Harold Solove’s book The Future of Reputation on the damage done by vigilante Internet blogging that ignores the simple standards of fairness and decency.

39) In my life, several months ago, I stepped out of the domestic romantic container that I was in with my partner - by mutual and loving agreement.

40) After that time I had two relationships with powerful adult women.

41) I shared these relationships with a close woman friend and advisor in these matters.

42) I stand for the beauty and goodness of those relationships. And I apologize always for any way in which I could have showed up better. Or caused hurt. And ask for forgiveness for the inevitable hurt that happens in the complexity of it all, even when we have the best intentions.

43) By mutual agreement - I entered into these relationships in the context of privacy.

44) That seemed like the more gentle and honoring way to hold the relationships.

45) I stand in my truth of the goodness and possibility of such relationships.

46) I have also come to the final conclusion in my life -as mentioned above - that for me personally - holding a relationship privately creates vulnerability and potential hurt, rather than safety and privacy. One of the reasons is that when something is held in container -it creates a difficult situation when someone in my close circle asks about the relationship. Loyalty to the container demands privacy. But for a close friend not to be told the truth about the relationship undermines trust, with all of the pain and fallout that ensues as a result.

47) Because of that I have committed to hold all future relationships transparently- if future relationships is the direction I choose-.  I have also made a personal commitment to my inner circle at CWS and to Ken and his circle to check in with them before engaging a relationship to ensure that all of us feel that the person is appropriate. While this is an extreme measure I initiated it to insure my colleagues a sense of safety. None of us has the emotional energy to engage this again.

48) I myself have not made a decision as to my direction. I am in deep conversation with my Zion’s mom about what the nature of our future relationships ought be. We love each other very much and have very different visions of the next part of our lives and where we should be spending out time. We our both committed to Zion and are exploring with enormous love, pain and mutual respect what right relationship should be between us. 

 

49) Finally - I am willing at any time or place to engage in public dialogue on this topic in a way that honors the issues, is not witch-hunting, but seeks genuine clarity.

50) I am fully willing to apologize for any mistakes I may have made and would hope that the same would be true of others.

51)  Attached here are a number of documents, which may be helpful.

52) The first is a link to Mariana Caplan’s chapter about the issues in Israel five years ago.  http://www.marcgafni.com/?p=2997&lan=english

53) The second is a link to a letter by Sally Kempton and Ken Wilber about these same issues five years ago. http://www.marcgafni.com/?p=3004

54) The third is a link to an article I published in the Integrales Forum Journal, a respected Integral journal about my position on the possibility of a teacher dating students-- the same issue discussed above in this blog post. http://integralesleben.org/de/il-home/il-integrales-leben/anwendungen/religion-spiritualitaet/if-paper-on-the-discussion-about-spiritual-teachers/

55) The fourth is a link to a video on the CWS website where I discuss the possibility and even desirability in certain contexts of dual relationship between teacher and student. http://www.ievolve.org/2010/09/a-new-model-of-the-student-teacher-relationship/

56) Article on the nature of Malice http://www.marcgafni.com/?p=54&lan=english

Please Log in to Vote.

6 out of 6 members found this useful.

Thank you, Robb.

Posted September 13th, 2011 by Eric Giesbrecht

 I appreciate this course of action.

Please Log in to Vote.

2 out of 7 members found this useful.

Those...Who...Think...They...Know...Him!

Posted September 14th, 2011 by vernpeace

hi, first...off...I...do...not...know...Marc
...so...vern...is...not...going...to...judge
...or...measure...his...behavior...however
...I...would...like...to...ask...a...question...to
...those...who...do...what...has...he...ever...
given...that...was...not...second...hand...what
...other...than...being...a...great...salesman
...defines...him...telling...you...what...you...want
...to...hear...the...tools...of...a...pro...found...EGO!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thS0CTTczOo

peace&love...vern

                 

Please Log in to Vote.

5 out of 6 members found this useful.

meta humility

Posted September 14th, 2011 by hannahu

My strong reaction to the issue shows me that there are important shadow issues to be dealt with - both within myself and in our communities and societies. There ist no easy black and white answer, but a call for meta man (and meta woman) who can understand the big picture on one hand, and humility on the other. Let's be careful about claiming to be leading edge!

Hanna from Germany

 

Please Log in to Vote.

4 out of 5 members found this useful.

The myth of adulthood (and the myth of adult "freedom")

Posted September 14th, 2011 by Federico Parra

Dear Robb, thank you for taking a truly integral stance on this (integral, integrity).

Adulthood becomes sometimes a missused myth in a post-post-modern context.

 

What is adulthood? Is adulthood an UR age of the body?

Being more than 20 is being an adult?

Of course from a developmental perspective adulthood is an UL phenomenom, that has to do with a certain level of psychological maturity. 

In that sense, many so-called adults (because they are 30, 40, 50..) are really kids in drags.

In that same sense, a 16 year old girl can be an adult, if her UL maturity reached that level.

 

So, when someone claim something like "I am an adult and I can decide for myself", from a developmental perspective it sometimes may be the same thing a 5 old year boy says when he claims "I am big enough! I decide what to do!". Of course they are not. And they do not.

 

And no adult would let a 5 year old do himself harm by believing he is big enough to understand what is good for him. In fact, is the responsability of -real- adults to stop children from harming themselves and other children.

 

Same here. We have to be aware that some people claiming that they are choosing something in plain adulthood, some of them are NOT adults. Developmentally they may be boys and girls.

 

At that developmental "age" you do not chose anything! You are a victim of your selfish impulses and needs.

 

So "adult" women involved in sexual harassment may claim "adult freedom of choice". But are they adults?

If they are not, if they don't have the psychological maturity of a healthy centaur, then they are NOT chosing in "adult freedom", but being abused, exactly like a 12 year old (with similar psychosexual patterns) would be.

 

We have to be Integral when we talk about adulthood. Age is NOT a synonim of adulthood.

And ONLY adults decide freely.

Kids and adolescents do not, and when someone harass them, we call that abuse.

 

With love

Fede

Please Log in to Vote.

12 out of 13 members found this useful.

turning to this difficult conversation

Posted September 13th, 2011 by Jane McGillivray

Robb,

Thank you for clarity on this.  I am interested in your comment: " long ago it became clear to us that we moved through the world in very different ways "  I am interested in what you mean by this. Who are the 'us' and the 'we' that you are referring to?  and What do you mean when you write "we moved through the world in very different ways"?   What ways are different? 

At the moment, this situation is very confusing, and it undermines the integrity of this organization.   There are quite a few people who have had misgivings about Marc.  Some of these misgivings have been expressed, and others have been intuitively felt and left unvoiced and sidelined.  There has already been a divide in this community over Marc's presence.  There are people who went missing on the first go-round and they are still out there somewhere.  There are people who have never gone to ISE because of the involvement of Marc and their own strong feelings about him.

I am not trying to beat a dead horse, however, I am wondering whether this has been a very difficult conversation for you and your team to bring forth and have here in the integral community. If it has been, I  would like you to engage and to have the difficult conversation here and see what happens.  This is how we not only heal, but also how we evolve, by turning to these difficult areas and holding the space and the witnessing capacity to see what is true and what emerges next.  

Jane 

 

 The fabric of my life is the cloth with which it is my task to polish the lens of my own perception.

Please Log in to Vote.

7 out of 7 members found this useful.

Ask us!

Posted September 13th, 2011 by Lincoln Merchant

It is in this vein that I have asked the Integral Life team to identify a panel of expert contributors who can lead a recorded public discussion to be published on Integral Life next year about sex and spirituality.

 

Who is the Integral Life team and what is their experience and qualifications for picking panels of expert contributors? How does one get to be an "expert contributor" on this site anyway? A lot of them have letters behind their names and/or religious titles in front of them. A lot of them are published/established authors/artists and/or give $1000 retreats and seminars. Some of them I've even heard of through pop culture. Elevating individuals to this prominent position based on whether they are relatively famous, externally accredited, or can bring a cross-promotional audience is not really the whole test I have for whether or not I can and should look up to them. Ken Wilber himself could not have got his start through Integral Life under the apparent selection criteria it uses.

This is a chance for the Integral community to start taking on the responsibility of electing our own leadership and elders and relieve Wilber and his inner circle of some of this ridiculous projection and burden they all have to deal with.

p.s. Just as an example: What percentage of the Integral community supports the elevation of Andrew Cohen?

Please Log in to Vote.

12 out of 28 members found this useful.

With deep sadness . . .

Posted September 13th, 2011 by Tom Goddard
0 0 1 498 2845 Integral Healthcare Solutions, LLC 23 6 3337 14.0 Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE

Dear Robb,

I am deeply saddened to tell you that I am severing my relationship with Integral Life and Integral Institute. This is particularly painful for me because I participated in the birth of I-I, and have supported it in all its iterations over the last decade.

The reason for my decision is that your public missive regarding Marc Gafni expresses a reactive, simplistic, and painfully conventional worldview about sexuality and spirituality. Living as I do in a world in which the world view you express in your letter is thought to be advanced, compared to the 70 percent of the world that lives through a pre-rational world view, I would not normally give your expression of it a second thought. However, you occupy a precious position at the top of I-L and I-I, and more is required of your communications. As Ken has long -- and accurately, in my view -- noted, CEOs must be second tier.

Robb, I have no idea if you are second tier. Your letter, however, has a distinctly first-tier aroma, your throwaway line of compassion at the end of the letter notwithstanding.  I see no sign of the "ethical nuance" that you claim is a part of the discussion of the issue appearing in your letter. Yes, I do see that nuance in some of the comments in the Facebook discussions, but not much of it there, and none of it in your letter. You claim a "first-hand experience" upon which you base the unilateral decisions you announce, but don't describe what that experience is. Frankly, I cannot imagine how you would have a first-hand experience of what must be an incredibly complex and subtle interpersonal situation. If you have such first-hand experience, it is, in my view, incumbent upon you to weave that into a letter that throws Marc under the Integral bus. Indeed, your call for a "formal 'Policy of Ethics'" as a response to these allegations sounds so much like what passes for wisdom inside the DC beltway, I had to check to see if I was reading the Washington Post or a page on the Integral Life site, so amber-orange was its tone.

There is nothing simple about sex, spirituality, teacher-student relationships, interpersonal power dynamics, organizational sustainability, or any of the other forces at play in this situation. Yet, your letter pretends that there is, with the "cut the ties and write a code of ethics" response.

I expect much, much better than this from the leader of the institution I helped Ken found a decade ago.

I do not expect you to retract. You've dug yourself quite a public hole, and there's nothing in your communiqué that would suggest that you are capable of entering into the subtle discussion required here. Therefore, I'm ending my monthly support for Integral Life. In addition, my partner, Elizabeth Helen Bullock, and I will be canceling our registration for ISE 3.

And, since I do not expect a retraction, only a resignation is likely to make any difference at all. I have no idea what forces would keep a CEO of I-I in place after such a public communication, and it may be that you are safe in your position. But you'll not have me standing with you.

With deep sadness,

Tom

Thomas G. Goddard, PhD, JD

CEO, Integral Healthcare Solutions, LLC

tgoddard@integralhs.com

www.integralhs.com

 

CEO, The Integral Company

www.integralcompany.com

 

Phone: (202) 649-0321

Fax: (703) 562-7961

Please Log in to Vote.

7 out of 10 members found this useful.

Courage Under Fire.....

Posted September 13th, 2011 by Mary Linda Landauer

Thank you Robb for taking this bold stand. Your grace under fire is a clarion call for all of us. Diane is right; actions create more movement than any ability to verbally spill out multiple perspectives. And, what this action does for me, is not bring forth a shadow, but a bright, loving light to shine forth its rays of hope, clarity and love. And, above all else lets all remember; we are a group of aspiring integralists, and we stand together with you under fire, and we all hold our hose of light to help you spray on this fire, our collective love and unity. Ken Wilber saved me years ago with his writings and his wisdom and Integal vision.....we shall continue to carry his work forward with great enthusiasm and love.

Blessings,

Mary Linda

Please Log in to Vote.

17 out of 18 members found this useful.

Tom Goddard response curiosity

Posted September 13th, 2011 by rochelle fairfield

Hi Tom,

I'm curious. . . it sounds like you're saying people of a higher level of development have more nuanced ethics, and you find evidence in Robb's post that his ethics may not be so nuanced. It sounds like your judgement is, further, that because it's not second tier, it's doesn't hold muster.

Well, whether or not you are correct in your assessment of Robb or his post, you are almost certainly making the mistake in yours that has been addressed in various Integral settings as it has matured over the time since you started with II (including the last ITC, and Zak Stein has written extensively about this),  that of mistaking growth and goodness (as i understand it). That is, a higher level of development does not imply that someone Is more ethical. They may be capable, as you allude to, to more nuanced ethical thinking, but the quality their ethics may be atrocious. Atrocious but nuanced. That possible combination is not much of a victory for humanity, eh? Rather, good ethics are good at any level. To wit, a really solid amber ethic such as killing people is wrong, would have been sufficient to justify stopping what Nazi's did in concentration camps in WW II. Or to refer to more recent times, a clear ethical stance, utterly unnucanced, that 'having sex with girls against their will is wrong', would be sufficient ethical sophistication to prompt action against the illegal sex trade. So, more bells and whistles, or subtler and subtler ones, on your ethical reasoning machine doesn't therefore produce better ethics, nor a better humanity.

If I've misrepresented what you said, please point this out. If I've misrepresented what you meant, I welcome clarification, Tom.

and you know, Tom, just from a transactional perspective, your message to Robb appears like to read as: "Robb, you didn't play the game the way I deem you should, you're junior league, so I'm taking my ball and going home." Offered as an observation from the side-lines, for what it's worth.

best,

Rochelle.

 

Please Log in to Vote.

7 out of 8 members found this useful.

Transparency

Posted September 13th, 2011 by stefano

I don't suppose that in the big adult world of organisations, politics, and professional credentials, there is much opportunity for simple fact finding.

If people reading this story could find out what actually happened, their own ethical perceptions could form to the best of their own personal skills, to whatever subtlety of comprehension they can muster. 

But the allegations involve secrecy,  so from the start it was not meant to be known by anyone else anyway. Whatever anyone directly involved says now is a problem of one person's word against another. 

This seemed to me, as just some guy reading the news, the problem last time;  it left the whole question of a particular teacher's integrity an open wound.  Now it is even more "open". 

I find it hard to imagine how anyone would want to get involved with this kind of mess unless they knew how to fix it. 

Leaders and experts with credentials don't necessarily have to give us their nuanced judgements -- we can make our own ethical choices, but without facts we can't make those ethical discernments -- and we won't have those facts because the origin of all this involves secrecy. 

Please Log in to Vote.

12 out of 14 members found this useful.

Long overdue

Posted September 13th, 2011 by Catherine Guidry

Thank you Robb the IL leadership for finally growing a spine.  I have been an I-I, IL, Boulder Integral member for some years and frankly I have on many occasions questioned why I continue to give you folks my money when the community is so rife with interpersonal mess and scandal (oh yeah, I really love Ken Wilber's work and talks posted here--that's why I keep subscribing and putting up with this BS--but everyone hits their limit eventually).  Call me conventional, whatever--it's just gross.  If IL is really serious about the integral viewpoint gaining some traction in the larger culture and about helping to solve the many very serious, fundamental problems facing humanity it would do well to stop tolerating scandal that just surfaces again and again.  The planet is frying, folks, let's move on to dealing with bigger issues than spiritual teachers who just seem compelled to fuck anything that moves and call it enlightenment.   I am much more inclined to open my heart and wallet to people who keep their sexual, financial and moral houses in order--not the flaky spiritual shysters that IL has seemed so enamored of the past several years.

Please Log in to Vote.

14 out of 16 members found this useful.

Tom Goddard

Posted September 13th, 2011 by marisha helms

 

... why didn't you mention that you are Gafni's senior student?

Quote from your website:

Dr. Goddard ....is a senior student of Rabbi Marc Gafni, of the Center for World Spirituality.

What does he teach you? Second tier ethics?

 

 


 

Please Log in to Vote.

17 out of 24 members found this useful.

Honoring a friend, colleague, and great teacher

Posted September 13th, 2011 by Marcy


With deep respect, love, and an open heart, I am writing today to the Integral world as a student, colleague, and friend of Marc Gafni's, as a board member of Center for World Spirituality, and as one of the two women mentioned in Harryman's blog. I speak only, and entirely, for myself here.

Let me start by offering thanks to Integral, for everything that Ken and the integral perspective have opened up in the source code of Consciousness. It was Marc Gafni who introduced me to Integral theory two years ago, weaving it in with his own teaching at a conference I attended.  

I resonate with the Integral frame because I have always leaned toward comprehending the wholeness of reality, and contemplating how all facets of life interrelate and evolve. I dove into Integral theory voraciously, because I knew that understanding the map would help me to move with greater efficacy as an agent of healing and transformation in my own life, and open up worlds of ultimate and personal meaning in relationships with others. Marc is my teacher, and I am deeply grateful to him as well as to Ken, Sally Kempton, Warren Farrell and others. Integral understanding has been woven into my work as a songwriter, musical artist, and teacher of voice.

In the past year, I have also studied the literature and discourse of power feminism and victim femininism, as well as read many discussions of teacher-student relationships as they play out in our times. For many, playing it safe is preferable to living on the edge. But what would the leading-edge of consciousness be if it didn't involve risks and leaps, both in thought and practice into unknown territory? Is this not where our own moments of deepest growth and highest possibilities of transformation also occur? It is here that I call on all of us to hold and receive one another beyond our limitations and failures. We are all broken hallelujahs. What we do to our teachers and each other in the spiritual world, often seems to me to be horrific. 

One of the great Integral teachings is that frameworks matter, because evolving capacities for complexity, caring, and concern matter. How we tell our stories matters. So may we hold the conversations with deep love and respect for one another, and create contexts of safety in which we uphold one another's greatness.

Here is my truth within these events: I am a fully empowered adult woman who has been working on behalf of what I want to bring into the world. In the natural course of doing so, I have stepped into many different roles and ways of relating, and done so in the most responsible way I know. One of these included for a time an intimate dynamic with Marc that expressed itself sexually. To suggest that this violated our student-teacher relationship, or that I was in any way victimized, is actually a degradation of the feminine, and of the masculine too. I had a relationship with Marc that was beautiful and profoundly mutual. Marc is direct, clear, and loving. He is also powerful and complex, as are most dynamic men and women. However, there is not a bone in his body which does not deeply honor the feminine. Marc is strategic, but always for the sake of the larger good and not for personal or crass ends. In my work with him in both teaching and organizational contexts, I have been deeply moved by witnessing his loyalty and dedication to the highest good possible for everyone around him. I have watched his eyes light up as he has shared ideas about the ways in which he might stand for a human being's deepest unfolding. He cares immensely about the people he teaches, works with, and even casually interacts with, in the same passionately intimate sense that that he cares about his lovers, about the dharma or about the evolution of consciousness. I have watched him follow through with people in ways that demand a level of sacrifice and devotion that are beyond what anyone might imagine.  

So I want to stand for my own power in my loving relationship with Marc, my teacher, colleague and friend. It is truly time for the emergence of an integral feminine  that does not let itself be hijacked by masculine power games, or lose itself in a supposedly 'feminine' refusal to own power. I have no wish to step further into the blogosphere. My deepest hope is that these conversations be resolved in a quiet and dignified way. However, if any unfair negative consequences emerge from this matrix, I will stand in the ways I feel called to do; I will speak out powerfully about anyone willing to manipulate the powerful feminine for their own power ends or to close their heart when confronted with the authentic complexity of relationship. 

If you ask whether I experienced hurt in my relationship to Marc, my answer is this: Of course I was hurt at times, and so was he hurt in relationship to me. All relationships have their emotional complexities and hurt is nearly always a part of any relationship between human beings. Authentic interpersonal challenges always arise when people get together. These deserve to be worked out between the parties themselves in a mature and respectful manner, and not in the public domain. These challenges should never be used, especially by those outside the relationship, to degrade the beauty of what existed between two people. To do that is to desecrate our deepest humanity.

I entered willingly and consciously into a dual relationship with Marc. Power between us was shared; in many ways I held more power, since I am a board member of CWS and a funder of the organization. For me, I did not want to engage in a more intimate relationship unless it was held privately. This was also his preference.

I feel violated when my private relationship is discussed and distorted by people who would suggest that I was a victim or that such a relationship was inappropriate. That is a misrepresentation, which insults my dignity, discounts my power, and feels painfully abusive of the feminine. 

Marcy 

Please Log in to Vote.

12 out of 12 members found this useful.

~

Posted September 13th, 2011 by David Marshall

In response to the one critical post on this thread, I think it should be stated that Robb did not initiate this public drama. That process was initiated by the post at Integral Options Cafe. At that point, Robb had no choice but to take a public stand on the issue. If he had been left to his own devices, it appears that he had no intention of throwing Marc "under the integral bus," that he was content to let things unfold quietly without undue harm to Marc.

The internet is an extremely powerful tool. Once someone's name has been besmirched it is extremely difficult to clear it once again even if the person was innocent or if it really should have been considered a case of shared responsibility. One of the things that I think should be examined here is when it is justified to start blogging about things like this and when it isn't.

I'm not stating an opinion on that issue now; I am just saying, as Ken has pointed out, that LL ethics tend to lag behind LR technology, and we certainly see that at play on the internet every day, even in the integral community. Along with a panel on sexual ethics at the next conference, I think a panel on internet ethics might be helpful.

Please Log in to Vote.

5 out of 9 members found this useful.

A Comment & an Opportunity

Posted September 13th, 2011 by Stanley

Robb has made a commitment to sever business ties with Marc and based on what I have learned this is a good thing. However, what I did not hear in Robb’s post was a strong and courageous commitment to stand up for good ethics just because this is the good, true, and beautiful thing to do.

In my opinion, if we don’t change our way of practice and make the conscious practice of ethics the foundation of integral life practice we will just be seeing a flood of one incident after another.

The opportunity is to change and stand hard and tall for ethics, truth, goodness, and beauty beginning with our site right here. I was glad to hear this; I have asked that a formal “Policy of Ethics” be put in place for all contributors to Integral Life by end of Q1 2012.

 

Insight Meditation Center has established well thought out guidelines. A question is, are people willing to abide by doing the right thing?

"a)                A sexual relationship is never appropriate between teachers and their students.

b)                During retreats, formal teaching occasions, or interviews, any speech or actions indicating interest in a student-teacher romantic or sexual relationship is inappropriate.  This applies to anyone in a teaching role, including senior students.

c)                 If interest in a genuine and a committed relationship develops over time between a teacher and a student, the student-teacher relationship must clearly and consciously end before a romantic relationship begins.  A minimum period of three months should elapse from the time when they mutually agree that their formal teacher-student relationship has ended.  This understanding must be coupled with a conscious commitment to enter into a relationship that brings no harm to either party.”

http://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/fliers-forms/Ethics%20and%20Reconciliation%20Policy.doc"

Not this

http://www.vannuysnewspress.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/hear-see-speak-no-evil1.jpg

 

Please Log in to Vote.

17 out of 29 members found this useful.

Stand

Posted September 13th, 2011 by Sally Kempton

 We support and will continue to support Marc for a number of reasons: because over the years we have known him to be a deeply good person, because he an inspired teacher with valuable gifts to give, and because he is a man of radical kindness and genuine integrity.

A few important facts: Both of the dating relationships referred to in Bill Harryman's  post took place at a time when Marc's partnership with Mariana was on  hiatus, by mutual agreement. Both women involved have said that their relationships were mutual.

We hope and expect that Marc's teachings will continue to thrive in the world. We will continue to work with Marc, as will many others who know him.        

Mariana Caplan

Sally Kempton

 

Please Log in to Vote.

9 out of 10 members found this useful.

The real meaning of post conventional morals...

Posted September 14th, 2011 by Federico Parra

 ...is actually very simple:

Pre conventional morals: you cheat your wife, since you do whatever the fuck you want and whatever gives you pleasure

Conventional: you do not cheat your wife...since so doing with make you lose security, a secure sexual partner and the support of her, and most importantly because you will be seen as corrupt by your traditional community according to fixed precepts.

Post-Conventional morals: You do not cheat your wife, NOT because of traditional beliefs hold tight by your tradition or because of fear of something you may lose, but because you can put yourself in her shoes and imagine how it may feel to be cheated. You can put yourself in the shoes of your casual partner and feel how it feels to be the "second one". You can feel your own heart of hearts and discover that deep inside, beside any bliss of the moment, you are causing yourself more pain than bliss in the long run.

In other words, it only gets MORE MORAL with post-conventional morals. Not LESS moral.

You do the same thing a conventional person would do, but you don't do it because someone is ordering you to do it, but because you understand the true meaning of such conventions, why they were created, what are they protecting, what is the deep meaning of them.

While some conventions are irrational and perpetuated just for bad, MANY of them were imparted by people at post-conventional level of understanding (Jesus, for instance) as a way for less evolved people to yet keep a good karmik track.

When you transcend to post-conventional morals, you can see the deep structure and the inner works of those moral precepts. You can embrace them even MORE, now not because someone say it, but because you chose it and undesrtand it deeply.

Sure, some conventions you will chose to NOT follow.

But, in general lines, and particularly in our age of trans-cultural mix and check in, we have came to a deeper knowledge of which of our conventions are just cultural garbage, and which represent deep psychological or even spiritual insights to be protected since they are the same no matter when, no matter who, no matter where.

Cheat someone in anything (money, sex, whatever) and the person will suffer. "You shall not cheat" comes from there. You are conventional? you take that as a fixed rule, you do not even think of it. You are POST conventional? You reflect deeply on it and after years you see why someone came to that conclusion in the first place. Sometimes, on the basis of (often painful) experience, others thanks to the graceful advice of developmental elders.

I think some people completely missunderstand what post-conventional morals mean, and they keep confusing people with this. According to this confused and uneducated standards, it would seem like Ken Wilber, who (to my knowledge) never cheated or never was interested in polyamory, or a person like Augustus Masters, defending ferociously the transcendent nature of mature monogamy, would be conventional moralists. And someone that is just losing depth for span choosing many partners over the deep (and difficult!) commitment to one, and even cheating on those...would be a post-conventional moralist...

All that of course is just uneducated confusion.

I hope this post offers a more informed perspective on what post-conventional morals are.

With love,

Federico

 

 

 

 

 

Please Log in to Vote.

0 out of 1 members found this useful.

Blown Out of Proportion

Posted September 15th, 2011 by Allan Hall

Nice Post Rob

Clean and simple. Over all I think its blown outta proportion. Its all just spirit arising. 
Its all getting a little to Hollywood for me.

As always there is multiple sides to every story.  I haven't seen any "clear facts anywhere"

Namaste

Al

P.S   Thomas G. Goddard, PhD, JD   Here & over at the blog spot.  Cut your nose of to spite your face why don't ya .  Sounds like it ISE 3 will be better without you. 

Sorry I had to add that, whys everyone so worked up ?  Its almost a joke from where I sit.

Kudos to all those more constructive comments. Onwards and upwards.


-----------Edit ------------------ Aha ok so your emotionally involved. That can cloud judgement. 

According to his bio at one of his websites (the second one listed in his comment, www.integralcompany.com), we are told that, "He is a senior student of Rabbi Marc Gafni, of the Center for World Spirituality."

Please Log in to Vote.

5 out of 6 members found this useful.

Life is messy.

Posted September 14th, 2011 by Paul Williams
Yes, this is a mess. But are we really going to begin forcing every integral instructor to strictly adhere and live every moment of their lives according to the letter of the integral laws they preach? If so, call the Integral Police and arrest everyone now. Part of being integral is understanding that people are not perfect and also that truth can be found in in many places. We can learn from Jesus as well as Hitler. We just don't want to devote ourselves to promoting a continual hypocrite. Clearly Marc doesn't seem to think he's done anything wrong. So maybe he's just a little delusional, not a hypocrite. His impassioned defense of sleeping with hot young students almost makes me want to apply for a job at the local community college. LOL I think we expect better from our spiritual teachers than we do from those in Integeral Business, Psychology, Medicine... Personally I would like to see a little more of people like Warren Farrell and Sam Harris and a lot less of the Marc Gafni's and Andrew Cohen's. IS seems to have grown and enveloped II to become the face of Integral. Like the evangelicals, it's only fitting that we now have our own collection of sex scandals. What's next? Ken arrested in an airport bathroom with a wide stance?

Please Log in to Vote.

1 out of 1 members found this useful.

advance or vanish

Posted September 15th, 2011 by Marc Lucas

An integral "teacher" again?!?

Let's learn and define integral theory and practice and the role of a "teacher" in it in a different and less overreaching way and work on a declaration of a negotiated agreement as I already supposed and worked a draft out several months ago. You can find it in my earlier postings to fb and Integrales Forum Germany. Whoever is interested can come up to me and I will gladly send it and discuss and share viewpoints not on Gafni but on what can be learned and how to advance.

Please Log in to Vote.

10 out of 10 members found this useful.

Is there room in Integral for humble inquiry?

Posted September 15th, 2011 by Helen Titchen Beeth

I don't quite know how to articulate what I'm feeling as I read all this controversy. So many statements, so many opinions, so many reputations courageously placed on the line as folk speak out - for or against.

I couldn't possibly make any pronouncement on this obviously complex issue. I don't know Marc, or any of the other people involved. And I hear all the arguments, the to-ings and fro-ings and I just wonder... What if we just don't know what's right? What if we just don't know, period? What if there is no right thing to do, no right way to behave? What if there is just humble inquiry, together, sitting in the not knowing, letting the complexity and ambiguity sit in our bodies, steep into our souls. Can we sit in a circle together and practice inquiry, without reaching any conclusions? Can Integral do that?

 

Please Log in to Vote.

3 out of 6 members found this useful.

Sex addict blues: "One's too many and a hundred ain't enough . ....

Posted September 15th, 2011 by Robert Kleban

I’ve believed for some time that sex addiction is the elephant in the living room with respect to gurus and spiritual teachers, particularly those who overemphasize the importance of the teacher/student relationship and/or toss around the word "tantric." For a variety of reasons, that milieu gives rise to unique temptations and opportunities for sexual acting out. There are several excellent 12-Step programs for dealing with sex addiction, commonly referred to as the "S" groups. Needless to say, it’s a topic as complicated- and perhaps as ultimately mysterious and imponderable- as sexuality itself, but the quick test, as in identifying any addiction, is whether a behavior is both compulsive and harmful. Because of that complexity, it is often strongly recommended that engagement in an "S" program be done in conjunction with high quality psychotherapy. I certainly don’t know if Marc Gafni is a sex addict (ultimately that identification rests with him), or whether that framework would be relevant and helpful to him and other concerned parties. Perhaps this approach is intellectually lazy and oversimplified- it’s certainly not a thorough Integral analysis. However, sometimes less is more, especially when our maps- brilliant, subtle and helpful as they may be- tend to obscure rather than illuminate an issue and prevent us from cutting to the chase. While the addiction/recovery model is not the only conceptual lens through which this situation can be viewed, and it may not always be the most effective one, I think it’s a perspective worth considering in this case.

Please Log in to Vote.

0 out of 2 members found this useful.

Moving the c from reacting to creating

Posted September 15th, 2011 by Luke

Healthy sexuality is an intimate and private part of life, however conventional, pre- or postconventional it may be.

A healthy person does give no reason to the public to discuss his or her personal sexual life. If that happens, this person is responsible and has made some form of mistake. 

Every word of justification from that person is too much. It adds words to the wrong, it is like feeding a wrong idea. As true and wise the justification may be in the context of a common discussion about sexuality (the it-perspective), it is absolutely wrong in itself in the given personal context (the I-perspective). As good and healthy the food may be, if you are feeding a monster, you are feeding a monster. Healthy food makes it grow, not transform. I am not saying that the public discussion is a monster. But it naturally should be a nightmare for the person who initiated it with his sexual action.  

(The only thing the public can know about – and probably should know about, because it is healthy common sense – is the sexual orientation, because that's the public part of sexuality. If discussions start about someone's sexual ORIENTATION, it is not the person's fault, and it is not a discussion about the person's actual sexual life.)

 

In its true core it is not about "ethics". Ethics comes later (and is not something one simply agrees on, and it is not primarily born out of a discussion, nor defined by a leader or group of leaders. It is a competence and can be cultivated the same way playing an instrument can be cultivated). 

It is primarily a contextual issue, the one of differentiating private/intimate and public, I and We. 

A «formal “Policy of Ethics”» will lead to the next worst case scenario when sooner or later one of those who have signed that policy will "fail", I guess that would be the right word then. 

A healthy teacher's perspective is: «It is not about "ethics", not about formality, it is simply about me! It is about protecting myself as a teacher, and about protecting my teaching. I am the protected and I am the protector.» If a teacher truly and deeply honors himself as a teacher (which is realism, if the teacher is genuine, not narcissism) and if he truly and deeply loves what he teaches, he will act with this integrity which arises from itself, from within.

 

Martin

Please Log in to Vote.

3 out of 4 members found this useful.

Missing their voices

Posted September 16th, 2011 by Charlie Dunlevy

So what's the latest? Logging in is sometimes something like connecting to Entertainment Tonight or some such show. Who is going out with who? Who is shagging who? We can read and tsk and pontificate.

I am tied of the sex scandals and of hearing about the private lives of our celebrities. Can we just leave it alone. A good discussion of sexual mores and customs seems to be in order here (and I for one would appreciate it, not being quite sure of what's a higher level approach in our sensual/sexual lives), but I don't need to know about the private lives of others, even teachers and celebrities. If warnings are in order, warn us, but it doesn't seem necessary to expose these particular people.

I am reminded of something Rilke wrote in a letter (taken from Rilke on Love and Other Difficulties, by John J L Mood)

“Here, in the love which, with an intolerable mixture of contempt, desire, and curiosity, they call 'sensual', here indeed are to found the worst results of that vilification of earthly life which Christianity has felt obliged to engage in. Here everything is distorted and disowned, although it is from this deepest of all events that we come forth, and have ourselves the centre of our ecstasies in it. It seems to me, If I may say so, more and more incomprehensible that a doctrine which puts us in the wrong in that matter, where the whole creation enjoys its most blissful right, should be able, if not anywhere to prove its validity, at least to assert itself over a wide area.”

Eros and Agape – love and intimacy – these are tough topics to tie together with tough choices. From what I have been hearing here, many of those we look to for help and guidance have made different choices. I am sure many of us have made different choices, that we have sometimes caused pain and sometimes brought joy. Isn't it “love all the way up and down”?

Relationships are a vital and important topic. Cannot sensuality be a vital part of them? What are the moral guidelines? Do we not grow in different ways and through different experiences? Is not pain and joy part of the whole process. What of our commitments over time? Can we only really love sexually one person?

I do not personally know Marc Gafni nor Genpo Roshi, but I greatly appreciated and learned from their voices here and from their writings. Their relationship issues are none of my business. It is for their personal friends and co-workers to question them and help them in these issues, not me. I also do not think these people are some sort of sexual “predator” of “lonely” or “unsuspecting” women. These characterizations of predator, or some sort of exploiter of women, or of young women looking to add a teacher to their list of conquests, or of simple bimbos, or the many other derogatory characterizations we can come up, are probably not even close to the actuality.

Why then are we silencing them here? Have they not added much to the conversation of Integral? Have they not moved, excited, or explained something of importance, to you? Don't they have more to say? Are only saints and not sinners welcome here? Are they really some sort of threat to the rest of us? Are we not grown up enough to accept their faults and their wisdom?

And PLEASE, let them have their privacy.

Please Log in to Vote.

1 out of 2 members found this useful.

Sex, teachers and conduct

Posted September 17th, 2011 by Pelle Billing

I've just blogged about this:

http://integrallife.com/member/pelle-billing/blog/sex-teachers-and-conduct

--

 Gender Liberation Beyond Feminism

Please Log in to Vote.

0 out of 0 members found this useful.

well done

Posted September 17th, 2011 by Willa Geertsema

Well done Robb. I actually found myself returning to Integral Life recently after a lapse, which I now understand to be because of discomfort because I simply could not share the space on this site with someone who I knew was not dealing with important issues. I also appreciate that you didn't want to make a big deal of it, but simply took care of business. You have nothing to defend... well done that you protected the safe environment of Integral Life.

Willa

Please Log in to Vote.

0 out of 0 members found this useful.

oO

Posted September 18th, 2011 by Mark Rondot

funny, when I stoped reading and writing regularly on this site, one of the things I remember was another "scandal".

That doesn't prove anything, still kind of illustrates something oO

--

One day, you going to need someone  to stand by you

www.youtub

 

Please Log in to Vote.

2 out of 2 members found this useful.

The Right Thing

Posted September 22nd, 2011 by Jonathan Cobb

I applaud this decision.  I've always enjoyed Gafni's contributions, but it is definitely unhealthy for the Integral community to attach itself to such controversy.   Whatever Gafni's personal failings, they don't detract from the profound insights he's shared with us over the years.  But there comes a time when ties must be cut for the good of the community.  Again, I applaud you for doing the right thing, no matter how difficult it may have been.

Please Log in to Vote.

0 out of 0 members found this useful.

I hate to say "I told you so" but . . . .

Posted October 28th, 2011 by Paul Bowman

 

Hi Robb,
 
Not sure if you remember me. Nearly 3 years ago, when Gafni was welcomed back into the itegrral community,  I wrote (under a comment titled:  Beware):
It's only a matter of time before there will be new allegations against this abuser and manipulator. Beware.
Your reply was:
Hi Paul, with all due respect, that view is silly and unfounded.