David Deida

David Deida
Born March 18, 1958 (1958-03-18)
Cleveland, Ohio
Other names David Greenberg
Occupation Author, independent researcher, teacher
Known for Spiritual practice, non-dual sexuality, sociocultural evolution

David Deida (born March 18, 1958) is an American author who writes about the sexual and spiritual relationship between men and women.[1] His ten books have been published in 25 languages. He conducts spiritual growth and intimacy workshops and is one of the many founding associates at the Integral Institute. He has conducted research and taught classes at the University of California at Santa Cruz, Lexington Institute in Boston, San Jose State University and Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. He is the author of numerous essays, articles, and books on human spirituality including The Way of the Superior Man, Finding God Through Sex, and Blue Truth and the autobiographical novel Wild Nights.[1]

Early life and education

Deida was born David Greenberg in Cleveland, Ohio and later changed his surname to Deida. After receiving the 1974 National Writing Award, Deida was admitted to the Florida Scholars Program at the University of Florida. While there, Deida founded the Plexus Interdisciplinary Center, researching medicine and consciousness in affiliation with the teaching hospital Shands at the University of Florida.

In 1982, he graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Florida with a bachelor’s degree in Theoretical Psychobiology. That same year, Deida was granted a fellowship at the Laboratory for Theoretical Neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego Medical School. As a graduate student at the University of California at Santa Cruz, he conducted research in the ontogeny of self/non-self boundaries and the evolution of the nervous system and its relationship to space-time dimensionality and was awarded a Masters degree in biology from the University of California in 1989.

Career

Deida taught psychobiology, neurophysiology, evolutionary psychology and conducted research on human sleep and dream states and was awarded the Regents Fellowship at the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1983. Deida was an instructor in Artificial Intelligence at California State University, San Jose and was elected as a Fellow of the Lexington Institute. From 1976 to 1989, Deida engaged in research with the neuroscientist Francisco Varela and he conducted research with Varela at the Pasteur Institute and Ecole Polytechnique. From 1983 to 2000, he collaborated with yoga teacher Sofia Diaz to develop yoga techniques for intimate relationships.[2] In the mid-1990s, Deida began publishing non-academic books on spiritual practice, sociocultural evolution, and non-dual sexuality.

From 1986 to 1988, Deida studied with the American spiritual teacher Adi Da Samraj[3] and 1988 Deida was awarded the Chateaubriand Fellowship by the French government, for his Ph.D. thesis. Deida began writing non-academic books for publication and departed the university before completing his doctoral thesis. Deida published several papers from 1985 to 1991 including, “The Form of Duality: Objectification as Implicate Time (1985)”, “Some Fundamental Aspects of the Indicational Calculus and the Eigenbehavior of Extended Forms (1985)”, “The Indicational Calculus and Trialectics (1985)”, “An Approach to a Mathematics of Phenomena: Canonical Aspects of Reentrant Form Eigenbehavior in the Extended Calculus of Indications (1988)”, and “Multiplicity and Indeterminacy in the Dynamics of Formal Indicational Automata (1991).”

Deida published the book Intimate Communion in 1995 and It’s a Guy Thing in 1997 outlining his ideas on psycho-sexual development and universal masculine and feminine identities. In 1997 he published The Way of the Superior Man and in 2001 a series of personal essays called Waiting to Love: Rude Essays on Life After Spirituality. His book Finding God Through Sex was released in 2002 and outlined practices for dissolving fear and self-boundaries during intercourse. Deida’s semi-autobiographical novel Wild Nights: Conversations with Mykonos about Passionate Love, Extraordinary Sex, and How to Open to God was published in 2005 and tells the story of developing friends, sexual intimacy, and God awareness through the guidance of a spiritual teacher. Deida published his book The Enlightened Sex Manual: Sexual Skills for the Superior Lover in 2004 and he discusses the topics of love and expanded awareness in his 2007 book Instant Enlightenment.

Reception

Deida’s ecumenical approach has caused some to question his discrimination for audiences[4] but Deida characterizes his recent work as “spiritual theater” rather than “religious teaching”.[5] This orientation has led one critic to suspect Deida’s spiritual depth and integrity, specifically questioning whether his approach has conflated post-modern nihilism with mystical nondualism.[4] Other criticism questions Deida’s political stance, alleging an element of misogyny in one of his books.[6]

Media

Books

Audio CDs and MP3s

DVDs

Published manuscripts

See also

External links

References

  1. 1 2 David Deida official web site bio Retrieved July 2011
  2. ↑ Deida, David and Diaz, Sofia; The Tantra of Relationship (Audio program)1990.
  3. ↑ Deida, D. “Before There Is Perception, What is There? Biological Cosmology and the Limits of Knowledge” Laughing Man Journal, 1986, 12:34-49
  4. 1 2 EnlightenNext, March–May 2009, pp. 52-62.
  5. ↑ David Deida: The Complete Recordings, Volumes 1-4 (Audio CD).
  6. ↑ Gelfer, Joseph; Numen, Old Men: Contemporary Masculine Spiritualities and the Problem of Patriarchy, 2009, p. 121.
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