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Michael Jascz open condemnation of David Deida

Last post 07-16-2008, 8:54 PM by jondavi. 13 replies.
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  •  05-22-2008, 1:30 PM 52129

    • katie is not online. Last active: 01-02-2010, 5:44 PM katie
    • Top 500 Contributor
    • Joined on 07-26-2006
    • Kitchener Ontario Canada
    • Posts 6
    • Points 135

    Michael Jascz open condemnation of David Deida

    Can anyone at Integral please comment on Michael Jascz' recently published condemnation of David Deida?

    http://www.deidaexposed.com/

    Thanks,







    Awareness brings choice; choice brings freedom.
  •  05-23-2008, 8:32 AM 52269 in reply to 52129

    Re: Michael Jascz open condemnation of David Deida

    Hi Katie -

    Without seeing more info, like about Michael, or rebuttal, I feel a little premature in nodding to this condemnation, but at a quick read-through, 1)  I am not very surprised, 2)  it sounds believable, and 3)  I feel the sleeze factor.

    I admire Michael for speaking out, which is seldom easy when facing the kind of power and emotion surrounding sex, around spirituality/religion, and the dollar-sign industry with might that surrounds them. Again, without knowing the larger story I feel tentative, but Michael presents his case for caution and disclosure with clarity, strength, and, I think so far, balance and restraint.

    I am so not surprised by the rationalizations drawing support from spiritual and other realms of authority to justify the 'will to power' and a self-solidity that seems to stabilize our shaky selves, nor by many of our seemingly endless quests for images and sensations of the sensuous and the yummy.

    Though I haven't completely trusted my motives and reactions to David Deida in the little that I have read, listened to, and heard from a friend, I didn't trust the material much. Again, my knowledge is very partial, my own defensive processes are legend in my own mind, and other apologies, but I got a sleeze factor whiff from it as well. (I've been trying to get my nose checked out, but I never seem to get fully to it.)

    I'm glad you posted this.

    Ambo Suno
  •  05-24-2008, 12:47 PM 52607 in reply to 52269

    • katie is not online. Last active: 01-02-2010, 5:44 PM katie
    • Top 500 Contributor
    • Joined on 07-26-2006
    • Kitchener Ontario Canada
    • Posts 6
    • Points 135

    Re: Michael Jascz open condemnation of David Deida

    For the most part, I consider myself positively challenged by Deida's work. I've read most of his books, listened much of his pre 2003 audio recordings, and even attended at workshop of his at Omega. So my interest is not to smear or dismiss his contribution in any way.

    BUT...  many of the things that Michael says resonate with my complaints about Deida's community or followers; plus it points to important questions we all ought to have about the strength and efficacy of his teaching.

    Here are two other prudent considerations put forword by Jim Benson, that enlarge upon some of my complaints:

    http://www.jimbenson.net/2007/03/david-deida-run-other-way.html
    http://www.jimbenson.net/2007/07/whines-about-deida-work.html

    Up until now, I always suspected that my concerns had to do with OTHERS misappropriating his work; but now I worry that Deida himself has succumb to something: perhaps an unhealthy obsession with being the spiritual maverick. If so he may be somewhat blinded to the karma being spun out of his work. And this remains HIS responsibility as a teacher. It also remains the responsibility of his supporters, who endorse his work, and who forge integral alliances with him.

    So I call upon them to help me adjust to what might be a challenging altitude. Ken has endorsed Deida's most recent book, "Instant Enlightenment", so I presume that he, and others like him, can see around this dilemma.

    ~Katie

    Awareness brings choice; choice brings freedom.
  •  06-01-2008, 4:30 PM 54003 in reply to 52129

    Re: Michael Jascz open condemnation of David Deida

    I attended his three day Men's Weekend in Highlands North Carolina (USA) in September of 2007. While it was a little beyond my edge, it was great. There was absolutely nothing about using or seducing women. I think everything he taught transcended AND included Green.

    I am reminded of David's podcast The Teacher Made Me Do It where he talks about perspectives of teachers and students (including states) influencing how a teaching is offered AND interpreted and reinterpreted when a workshop is over and the student goes back to their normal state/stage.

    I tried to attach the file, but it's too big.

    Mark E.
  •  06-29-2008, 4:23 PM 59409 in reply to 52129

    "Deida Exposed" Exposed

    From http://deidaexposedexposed.com

    An Open Letter on the Current Slandering of David Deida By One Very Disturbed Former Fan


    Dear Friend,

    These are the best of times for David Deida and his work.

    But with good fortune comes those who resent it, and will do almost anything, including slander of the worst kind, to mar it.

    As the producer of Deida Weekend Intensives in LA, SF and Seattle, and as someone working closely with David on his new online offerings, I was going to be introducing myself to the entire Deida Community in a few weeks.

    It was going to be in the mode of absolute celebration. Celebration of David's new work. And of the new ways people will have of experiencing it at home.

    In the middle of all this momentum, though, there is one very disgruntled former attendee of David Deida's workshops from New York who is writing some vile and scurrilous things about David and now about me. All, disturbingly, while using David's name to promote his own business.

    This unhappy person is sending out emails of the worst kind to everyone who he thinks will listen and he's posting it all over the web, and it needs to be addressed head on.

    WHO IS THIS PERSON AND WHAT DRIVES HIM?

    This former fan and attendee of some Deida workshops several years ago, was, for reasons of character, ethics, and broken agreements, found unfit to continue associating with David Deida or his work, although he has continued to imply his association with Deida's work through misleading websites.

    By his peers and his trainers, after giving him a chance to demonstrate his capacity in several workshops, this person was found to be unqualified to be affiliated with David's work in any way.

    Because of this, he has been on a manic campaign to seek revenge on David Deida for years now, in an oedipal frenzy, including threatening phone calls in the night to David at home and physical intimidation in public places.

    David has mostly ignored him, because people who encounter this man realize he's an obsessive, failed man on a mission, and David has more important tasks to attend to.

    However, this person has now raised the temperature of his efforts - and so I find it important to respond.

    He is sending out emails about David working with "pick-up artists" and implying that this somehow colors the integrity and power of David's work.

    David works with all kinds of people and at many different venues. He offers workshops at Buddhist centers, Christian churches, and major workshop centers worldwide. He works with rabbis, lamas, yoga practitioners, married couples, singles, and last year he also started working with young 'pick-up artists' who wanted to understand how to mature to their next level.

    David is known for bringing light to places where others fear to tread, and I have watched him bring his work to young men trying to figure out their deeper gifts as men in the world, as beginning lovers, and as trustable partners. I'm glad he's doing it.

    As David makes clear over an over again, his work is NOT meant to be healing or therapeutic work for traumatized or deeply psychologically wounded people.

    Those people, as he often repeats, should be in therapy where they can heal and grow properly over time in a safe environment. Deida's workshops are challenging explorations at the edge of love and fear, jumping right into some of the most vulnerable issues in a person's life. If you are looking for a place catering mostly to healing and safety, then David's work is not for you. His work is designed for intrepid explorers who are right now ready and willing to take risks and express their needs clearly as they go with other practitioners playing at their edge.

    Now --

    ABOUT MYSELF

    I am working with David to produce live workshops and ways online of allowing audiences greater access to David's work.

    The lonely, unhappy man out there is trying to frame me as some kind of dangerous lothario as a way to damage David's name, even though, through mutual acquaintances, he knows perfectly well, that this is a misrepresentation of me and my life.

    I am, in fact, the father of two sons in a long-term, beautiful, monogamous relationship with a live-in partner. I am no pick up artist and I have written strongly and often against the idea of pick-up as an alternative to authentic man-woman communication. The only things I pick up are my socks, out of respect to my partner.

    I am a writer with years of experience in marketing in Hollywood, Madison Avenue and online.

    I am a former Stanford Humanities Center Graduate Research Fellow among many other academic honors in several countries. As a writer and a producer in television for many years, mostly on movies exploring social issues, I have recently garnered an Emmy nomination for my film about an outstanding teacher in Harlem.

    I have also written books for men and women about dating, love and attraction. Those works have matured over the years as my own understandings have matured. Some lines I have written have been extracted from my marketing of these books by this disgruntled fan of David's in the effort to frame me as something I am not. In truth, I wish I hadn't written them, or allowed my staff to write them. But we make our mistakes and learn from them.

    And we raise the level of our work to higher levels.

    My series, www.TheFearlesslover.com explores the foundations of enduring love by interviewing spiritual leaders and thinkers and most represents my recent work.

    It deeply pains me to think that after all of David's great work over the years, this lost soul with a chip on his shoulder could use my name and some of the edgier and perhaps careless marketing lines I or my staff have used in the past to try to tarnish David Deida.

    It is a hack job, pure and simple, and a very nasty one in that.

    Feel free to contact me directly if you'd like more information. You can reach me at: deidaevents@gmail.com

    I apologize if you have received an email from this mad, disqualified attendee of David's workshops. He is someone who could not gain respect through his own work, and so will do anything to pull down those who do.

    Meanwhile, the real work continues

    Signed,
    Adam Gilad

    __________________________

    Corey W. deVos (dj rekluse)
    Brand Manager, Integral Naked
    Audio Manager, Integral Institute
    Managing Editor, KenWilber.com
    __________________________
  •  06-29-2008, 4:45 PM 59415 in reply to 59409

    Re: "Deida Exposed" Exposed

    .
  •  07-09-2008, 8:35 PM 61947 in reply to 59409

    Re: "Deida Exposed" Exposed

    Here's something interesting:

    Listen to David Deida teaching young, aspiring "pick-up artists." (6:37)

    There are some other free clips here.

    Great stuff, as usual.

    My only quibble is I wish he'd lighten up a little on the copyright.  (pssst, David: Creative Commons.  It's a good thing.)

    cheers,
    Arthur


    I am seeking meaningful work.

    bio: http://aqalicious.gaia.com/

    I spend most of my "forum time" these days on The Integral Pod: http://pods.gaia.com/ii/

    "You've never seen everything." - Bruce Cockburn
  •  07-10-2008, 12:07 PM 62028 in reply to 61947

    Re: "Deida Exposed" Exposed

    Did you guys enjoy the "Exploring Sexual Stages with Buddhists" clip we ran this week?  It was given to us by David, and can also be found on Deida.info.

    __________________________

    Corey W. deVos (dj rekluse)
    Brand Manager, Integral Naked
    Audio Manager, Integral Institute
    Managing Editor, KenWilber.com
    __________________________
  •  07-10-2008, 1:18 PM 62034 in reply to 62028

    Re: "Deida Exposed" Exposed

    inmanagingeditor:
    Did you guys enjoy the "Exploring Sexual Stages with Buddhists" clip we ran this week?  It was given to us by David, and can also be found on Deida.info.


    I loved that piece.  In a thread called Hot Buddhist Sex with David Deida over at The Integral Pod, some recent comments were:

    Ewan: Awesome clip!  Deida kicks ass.

    Teenie~Dakini: :=)
    I was just listening to this clip this morning…. !Shazam!
    It's GoooooD.

    james: Love it! :-)

    [It was James that pointed me towards the page of free clips I linked to above.]

    spiral out,
    Arthur



    I am seeking meaningful work.

    bio: http://aqalicious.gaia.com/

    I spend most of my "forum time" these days on The Integral Pod: http://pods.gaia.com/ii/

    "You've never seen everything." - Bruce Cockburn
  •  07-10-2008, 5:23 PM 62050 in reply to 62028

    Re: "Deida Exposed" Exposed

    Actually, Corey, I didn't - but apparently I have hang-ups.

    More specifically, though the thoughts and understanding of Buddhist tradition probably have plenty of merit for teaching, I don't care for the cool, hip, ha ha, cleverness teaching mode of it all. Aren't we liberated.

    Though not your question, I preferred a bit the clip posted by Arthur on teaching of a pick-up artist. It helped me to see that aspect of the teaching that in these times of criticism and suggestions of sleeze by association is probably a timely piece to put forward so prominently.



    Ambo Suno
  •  07-15-2008, 12:23 PM 63048 in reply to 52129

    Re: Michael Jascz open condemnation of David Deida

    This may or may not be a direct comment on the topic of this thread, but it is one that seems to point to a certain kind of sophistry that Deida might be playing with.

    Listening to one of Deida's clips on the I-N site and then listening to another of his clips on his own site seemed to bring into question two distinctly different and disparate ideas. 

    In the first clip, he is describing the tantric notion of emptiness and true identity, and in the other clip (which is not on the I-N site), he concludes by saying something that reminded me of Tolstoy's "Death of Ivan Illych." 

    In so many words, Deida asks the question of what do we want to be reflecting upon once we have lived an active life and find ourselves now on our death beds?  When you compare the two clips and come to some integration, the common denominator appears to be realizing who we truly are before we die. If we do this according to the tantric approach to life, we will attain the realization that we are emptiness -- not merely as an idea but as an actualized stage of being.  So far, so good.  However, when comparing that to the notion of lying on your death bed recounting your legacy in life and how it is you would like to be remembered, what difference does that make if you have truly realized that all phenomena and thus all form have no inherent meaning in and of themselves? 

    Does the Tolstoy trick really belong in the context of attaining full realization of the emptiness of all phenomena?

    Maybe what he was doing was playing in the two worlds of relative and absolute reality.   In the tantric world the idea is to utilize relative form as a pathway to realizing formlessness. However, what difference will it make when lying on one's death bed just what bridges one may have crossed to get to the other side if indeed one has gotten there before one dies?  What difference does it make whatever one's legacy in the world of form might be if one has already objectified all levels of form and attained everpresent emptiness?


    The yoga of light and sound is really only one event. It's the frequency of their vibrations that is different.

  •  07-16-2008, 1:48 AM 63132 in reply to 63048

    Re: Michael Jascz open condemnation of David Deida

    .
  •  07-16-2008, 2:01 AM 63134 in reply to 63132

    Re: Michael Jascz open condemnation of David Deida

    .
  •  07-16-2008, 8:54 PM 63242 in reply to 63134

    Re: Michael Jascz open condemnation of David Deida

    "... the competition to be great leads to great works. I am wondering if the time has not come for us to sacrifice "the great works" in order to attain the "great perfection."

    Your remark above, Shalk, stirred in me the thought that perhaps works of greatness are judged by their relative gradation of attainment. 

    And who might those be making such judgments?   

    To the degree that one has attained the 'great perfection' is reflected in the quality and character of whatever one does, whether it is an intentional work of art or simply the art of chopping wood and carrying water.  Even the simplest act of living can be the greatest work of art.   And perhaps only those who can truly appreciate each moment in its own perfection are  sufficiently equipped to make such judgments. 

    Can the critical mind co-exist in the same space as that aspect of being which is the very perfection of emptiness itself?  Is this what it means to be equal but partial?   When in the moment one spontaneously acts, somewhere in that decisive moment is the emptiness. 

    The Paradox of Decisive Emptiness.


    The yoga of light and sound is really only one event. It's the frequency of their vibrations that is different.

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