David Deida

David Deida, born in 1958, is an American author and independent teacher whose subject is the meeting point of spiritual practice and intimate relationship. He has trained since the mid-1970s in hatha yoga, tai chi chuan, meditation and sexual yoga, and studied with a number of teachers, including a period from 1986 to 1988 as a student of Adi Da Samraj. His earlier working life was in science, in psychobiology and the mathematical modelling of the immune and nervous systems, and he was a founding member of Ken Wilber's Integral Institute.

Since the late 1980s he has taught outside any institution or lineage, developing what he calls a non-sectarian approach to nondual sexuality: desire, sex and intimate relationship treated as places where practice happens rather than pauses. Much of the work turns on what he terms masculine and feminine polarity. It is a distinctive body of teaching and a contested one, and his account of polarity and gender has drawn criticism alongside a wide readership.

He has published eleven books, translated into more than thirty-five languages. The best known is The Way of the Superior Man; others include Dear Lover, Blue Truth and The Enlightened Sex Manual. He teaches through in-person events and online courses.