You can let go of wanting to change it,
because all you’re changing is your own projections that you’ve projected
out there. Y ou’re not changing anything in the world at all. Unless a man has a choice between good and evil, how’ s he going to
transcend? If you don’t have any enemies, who do you have left to forgive? You know what I mean? I’m a failur e. I haven’ t got anybody I’d love to
forgive. Now , what ar e we going to do in the Course in Miracles? Spiritual work is primarily yin. It’s yang by its intention, but it’s yin by
its operation. For example, I ask God what is the answer to a thing, and then
I step back and allow the space for revelation. So, progress is achieved
often without even thinking—you just have a feeling of knowing or anintuition. And then if you know muscle testing, you can just check it out for
affirmation. It has been very , very useful. The enlightened  and divined states, the supreme God and all these things,
calibrate at 1,000 or above. As we know , the majority of the world’ s
population calibrates below 200. Why doesn’ t the world go to pieces and
just destroy itself? It gets close  to that periodically . Mankind has been at
war 93 percent of recorded time. The other 7 percent, we were too sick or
too poor, probably . The plague was on. Couldn’ t get our act together to get
out there and kill each other . Why doesn’ t the world just self-destruct? It’s because it’s a logarithmic
scale. So logarithmically , the advance of a few points is enormously
powerful. In fact, in the United States, even just a couple of people calibrate
so high and logarithmically , the power is so great that it totally
counterbalances the negativity of mankind, which would self-destruct. So,
those who are 200 and up—readers like you—are keeping the world from
going down the tubes. The relative power , because it’s logarithmic, is so
enormous that it counterbalances the negativity . LOWER LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Now , I just want to show the source of the evil of the ego. Because you
see, consciousne ss began at a very primitive level, the consciou sness level. Over many billions of years, the consciousness level slowly rose. The
consciousness level of life itself, the total consciousness of life on the
planet, has evolved over billions of years, very , very slowly . Sometimes the consciousness level of the animals has kept it up. Even
though man has been lower than 200 many times, there are many animals
on the planet that are over 200. Somebody says, “Well, the consciousness
level of man is at about 204. How come you’ve got life at 212?” It’s
because we got kitties and doggies. A dog’ s wagging a tail is at 500. I didn’ t want to say anything that might hurt people’ s feelings. But cats
and dogs do better than people. Chimpanzees and gorillas, too. You’re safer
with Koko the gorilla than you are with most of the people on the subway . Koko won’ t steal your purse and run. Monkeys, dogs, cats. Of course, the
more cats you have, the higher your level of consciousness . I’m a cat
supporter . Our level of consciousness at home, without the cats, would
probably collapse.Let’s not forget horses, elepha nts, and cows. These are all primarily
herbivores. When you see how life starts out, at the lowest level, and that
we come up through fish, octopus, the Komodo dragon, and other predatory
mammals, you see that life is voracious. Below consciousness level 200, it
only can survive  by eating other s. And then, as the consciousnes s level goes
higher , you get to the herbivores. At consciousness level 200, we have wolves and foxes. Then, all of a
sudden, at the level 200, we shift to zebras, giraffes, deer, bison, domestic
pigs, elk, cows, and sheep. Do you see the shift? You eat grass  and you’re
not harm ing anybody; whereas the dinosaur has to kill. He has to kill in
order to eat. His nature is to kill. The dinosaur is not being bad or evil,
that’s just his nature. He’s reflecting the level of consciousness. So the
people on the planet who seem to be focused on killing do so because their
level of conscio usness is attuned to be less than 200. Therefore, the left
brain, the instinctual left brain  physiology , takes over, in which killing
becomes exciting, fun, and rewarding. We talked about the 400s being, you might say, when humans reach their
greatest intellectual excellence, probably around 350 BC. In ancient Greece,
philosophically , there really hasn’ t been any improvement since that time. And here we calibrate the great books of the W estern world, and we find it’ s
very interesting. Overall, collectively it calibrates around 460. So
intellectual excellence, intellectual truth, and reason are in the 400s. In the
old days, a liberal education meant to study all of these writers. And there is
still a foundation for the study of the Great Books. They advise you to take
10 years. So you spend 10 years studying, and you will then share a
common understanding with all the greatest minds that’ve ever lived—at
least within the intellectual and philosophic realms. So, the difficulty of something of a very low calibration is that this then
starts off a trend that becomes self-propagating, in the form of memes. An
infection like this can then spread throughout the world. People ask me,
“How can I become spiritual?”  Well, I say, “First, just become a decent
human being. Try that. Be considerate, decent. Be responsible. If you say
you’re going to close the door when you leave, please do so.” People have
to be able to count on you. You have to be honest and value wisdom. Wisdom is at 385. Wise people tend to be benign. They’re safe to be with—
as safe as Koko. Humane, happy , and sensible. They’re sometimes called
“the salt of the earth.”There are various energy fields or chakra systems, as I’m sure you’re
aware. One collection of energy is at the lower mind. The lowe r mind is at
155. There’s another collection of energy that we call the higher mind. They
have two different sets of values . What one setting  considers to be valid and
true and ethical, the other considers to be invalid and in fact immoral. The
lower mind, then, is very intere sted in sensationalism, and is very gullible. It’s interested in being smart and exploiting life. So, you might
automatically think of the news. It likes to play off the sensational. It’ll take
some trivial little incident that is of no significance and give it major
airtime. And something that really is of profound importance, and really
threatens all of humanity , they give it only a glance—if that. At 275 and up is the higher mind, and it is moving into thoug htfulness,
balance, and sensitivity to what is appropriate and what is not appropriate. The higher mind tends to look for solutions, and tends to play off
difficulties. So, there’ s a big payof f here. For 85 percent of the people in the
world, their intellect is at this level. In America, only about 50 percent. About 50 percent of people would rather watch something gory and horrible
and sensational than something that is inclusive of beauty . The power of
consciousness is now recognized. Einstein, who was a master of a linear dimension, calibrated at 499, and
he refused to recognize the role of consciousness. He rejected its reality . He
said, “I prefer to think there’ s a distinct, objective, linear reality  out there.”
We’ve calibrated all these things to give you a scientific basis to understand
how the phenomenal world occurs. I always tell people, “Notice that everything is happening
spontaneously .” The limitation of the ego is it thinks there is a personal I as
a cause,  and based on the New tonian principle, a this causing  a that. In
reality , there is no this causing any that. In fact, that phenomenon is not a
possibility , because evolution and creation are one and the same thing. So,
what you see is the emer gence of potentiality as a consequence of
evolution. TRANSCENDING THE MIND AND THE LINEAR DOMAIN
The reason for religious conflict  is a lack of comprehension of the nature
of divinity itself. It sees a God who starts here, and then one day creates all
there is, and disappears. And after you die, you face him and greet him onjudgment day. I don’t know where he goes in the meantime, but he goes
someplace. It’ s because the mind doesn’ t comprehend infinity . To transcend the mind, which  is based on cause and effect, and the
Newtonian paradigm in science, you have to shift to a higher awareness. Stop projecting the idea of causality into the world. There is no causality in
the world—none  whatsoever . All that you perceive, and prove, and think is
so out there is from your head, projected onto the world. Within the world,
there is no causa lity. There is sequence. Sequence is not in the world either . Sequence means you perceived it sequentially . Therefore, you project that it
must be in the world. It’ s your perception  that’ s sequential. How do things come about? The quickest way to enlightenm ent is to
focus and notice that everyt hing is, first of all, absolute ly perfect. Everything is exquisite, perfec t, and beautiful as it is, and things come
about as a result of potentiality actualizing. Potentiality actualizes as a
perceivable reality. So what you’re witnessing, always, is the emergence of
potentiality . The emer gence of potentiality is for this arm to rise. It does it
by itself . You think there’ s a you causing it, but you don’t have anything to
do with it. It rose itself, spontaneously . All that’s occurring spontaneous ly is due to the emer gence of potentiality
as actuality , when conditions are favorable. That’ s nonlinear dynamics,
when conditions are favorable. So, the conditions also have to be favorable. You don’t make the flower grow . I never saw anybody that made a flower
grow . Did you ever meet anybody that made a flower grow? Thank you,
God. When you plant something, you’re taking advantage of what I just got
through explaining. All you’re doing is adding conditions that are
favorable, such as sunlight, water, and fertilizer . But the potentiality is
within  the seed. It actualizes within the phenomenal world, not as causality . You can’ t force the flower to bloom. We need to get rid of the idea of imperfection, because here, it has the
potential to become a rose. The rose is half unfolded. You’re going to tell
me that’s a bad rose? A defecti ve rose? That something’ s wrong with the
rose? No. You see, what happens is the potentiality actualizes, and it opens,
and beco mes actualized to your perception. Nothing is causing it to do that. You can’t force a rose to do anything. It does it of its own accord, because it
has, innate within its essence, the potentiality to manifest that way within
the linear domain. All you’re seeing is phenomena within the linear domain.The energy of life is nonlinear , non-definable. And so, what I’m working
on now is to resolve a dilemma of the Scopes Trial, which has to do with
the argument of whether reality  is limited to the linear—or does reality go
on to include the nonlinear? The reasons the Scopes Trial couldn’ t be
resolved is because they were talking about two different paradigms. The
levels of consci ousness go from, let’s say, one to 1,000. Science is within
the 400s, and spiritual reality starts from 500 and up. They are two different
paradigms. So you can’t resolve oil and water , because they’re two different
paradigms. Science can neither prove nor disprove spiritual reality , nor vice
versa. It’ s a dif ferent paradigm. What I’m trying  to do is create a paradigm that includes both, which
shows that you’r e just moving from one paradigm to another . This would be
inclusive of both science and religion. You see, they’re both true, and both
100 percent true within  their own paradigms. So, it’s really ignora nce on the
two sides to expect each other to agree, since they are each living from
different paradigms of reality . HIGHER LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
We went on to study various religions, and calibrate the levels of movies,
books, television shows—everything represents a greater or a lesser degree
of spiritual energy. The greater  the spiritual orientation and the alignment
with truth, the higher the calibration. And so, we have this calibrat ed scale of consciousness, the greatest
usefulness of which is really to say yes or not yes . So, you would say, “This
spiritual teacher  is integrous and useful for my life.” And you get a yes or a
not yes. Or you might say, “It’s too soon. Maybe I should wait with this
one.” And it’ll say yes or not yes. One can use it for guidance, and spiritual
students who are really committ ed to transcending the ego and reaching the
higher spiritual states have found it quite useful. That state we call enlightenment occurs at a level calibrated at 600. When
a person goes into 600, they go into the levels of love. First conditional
love, then unconditional love. Then many become interested in spiritual
pathways and meditation and spiritual techniques, and they begin to pursue
them with greater and greate r dedication. As they do, they begin to
experience life in a transformative, completely dif ferent context.In the high 500s , which are quite amazing, one is overcome by the sheer
beauty of everything. The only reality that exists is love. There’ s only love,
and all you see is love. All you experience is love and beauty . Love, beauty ,
and harmony , and the miraculous begin to happen spontaneously , and
eventually they become continuous. A lot of peop le who’ve done A Course in Miracles  go into that
transformative state. You drive into the city, and you think of a parking
space, and as you get there, there’s a parking space waiting right in front of
you. In fact, it’s the one and only parking space, and just as you pull up, a
car pulls out and you pull in. When this first begins to happen,  you sort of
remark about it. After a while, you begin to experience that that’s the way
life is. It’s the continuous miraculous. The miraculous is ongoing and
continuous. In this state, everybody becomes stunningly beautiful and handsome. You
are in love. This isn’t about falling in love. You are in love with everything
and everyone, all the time. And you can only see the beauty and perfection
of everything. And then, the state may reach, in the very high 500s, ecstasy . One can
start going into states of indescribable ecstasy , like the opening of a
brilliance within  one’s consciousness. The ecstasy is continuous. At that
point, you can’t function in the world anymore—the ecstasy , as
Ramakrishna described it. I remember going through it myself. For get about
functioning in the world. You can dance. You can dance in an expression of
exquisite ecstasy at the joy of one’ s existence. But you cannot function. And then, one has to surrender that to God. So each step along the way of
the levels of consciousness is surrendering whatever is present ing itself to
God. Finally , even in the state of ecstasy , one has to surrender the state of
ecstasy to God. And then one hits level 600, which is a state of infinite
silence, bliss, and a profound peace beyond all understanding. The peace of
God is beyond psychological peace or emotional peace. It’s a different
dimension. And in that state, you don’t have to eat, breathe, or function. One blisses out, outside of time. Satchitananda  it’s called, classically . And if things are favorable, the body will eventually get fed, move up
and walk aroun d, and survive. If the conditions are not favorable to that
circumstance, which frankly is irrelevant, then the body just topples over
eventually . So about 50 percent of the people who go into a latent state
frankly , leave. The one awareness that is quite obvious in that state is thatyou have permission to leave. Y ou can leave right now , in fact. Y ou can stop
reading. Y ou have permission. So, what’s going to keep the body going? Well, you see, there are no
needs and no wants. Everything is complete and total. The bliss of the state
is that everything is complete. So, from that moment on, if the body
survives, you don’t ever really need anything anymore. People  ask, “What
do you want?” I don’t want anything. “What do you need?” Well, I don’t
need  anything. Certain things would be nice, but I don’ t need  them. And so, one is then independen t of the world. What the world says or
does is really quite irrelevant. At that point, it’s impossible to function in
that state. What happens, if you survive, is most people leave. They pack up
everything, say good-bye, and leave. This is what I did. I left the biggest
practice in the country and a very elite lifestyle, and I drove to a small town. In the refrigerator , there’d be a banana, two Pepsis, and a piece of cheese,
and that was fine. What more do you need? OceanofPDF .comChapter 3
SPIRITUAL 
CONSCIOUSNESS
Now that you have a clear er understanding of how to calibrate spiritual
truth and the Map of Consciousness, you are ready to begin elevating your
level of spiritual consciousness to its highest potential. In this chapter , Dr. Hawkins will give you several ideas for doing just
that. They include relinquishing  the quest for perfection; following evolved
spiritual values rather than dogmatic religious doctrines; and being
grateful, intr ospective, and compassionate. You are not limited by this world, or even definable, meas urable, and
visible. By looking at the levels  of consciousness on the chart, you can tell
what your spiritual worth is. You want to transcend the world—that is, to be in it, but not of it, not
limited by it. To be limited by it is to buy all of its programs. To buy all of
its programs, you’re going to have to run around and buy every thing that’s
for sale, because if you’re successful, you’ll have new carpets and you’ll
have a new hous e. You can’t possibly meet all the definitions of “making it”
in this world: you should have more friends, you should be handsome, or
you should be six feet tall. There’ s always something you can find fault with when it comes to
yourself; you’ll never be satisfied. The thing is to be happy with what you
are at the mom ent, and also see that you’re an evolving human being.Therefore, you don’t have to be perfect because you’re not required to be
perfect. You’re only expected to make the best possible use you can of the
advantages here, to learn and to grow and to support others, and to be
loving and for giving. And you’re doing all you can do as a human being. BECOMING A SPIRITUAL SEEKER
There are fewer religionists and more spiritually evolved people—more
people who call themselves spiritual rather than religious. It’s because of
the downside of religion, histo rically . Every religion has had historical
events that would disqualify it hypothetically . How can they have made
such a mistake? How can I believe a church that believed in that, or made
that mistake? But what goes on is people will call themselves spiritual;
that’s the most common pattern in today’ s world. They begin to follow
spiritual values and they learn from spiritual teachers, alive or historical. Most spiritual teachers have considerable followings of people who are
interested in evolving and growing, maturing spiritually in their levels of
consciousness. And they may stay there with one teacher , or they may go to
a numbe r of teachers. There was a period of time of being a spiritual seeker ,
where you went to lots of lectures by all dif ferent kinds of spiritual teachers. Each one has something valuable that you can pick up from them:
techniques or ways of looking at things, or a blind spot that you weren’ t
aware you had until you hear a lecture on it. So, you seek—you become a spiritual seeker . In a way, spirit ual really
means seeking. See, with religion, you found the answer . That’ s this church
and this denomi nation, and that’s the answer . Now you just have to perfect
how you apply it to yourself. The spiritual person who says, “I’m spiritual,
but not religiou s,” usually becomes a seeker . They go to various lectures,
and they attend meetings and retreats. And they listen to all the different
teachers and learn something from each one. Each spiritual teacher has
something. And what they have may be nonverbal—the subtle enthusiasm
they have for certain concepts, et cetera. And the seeker picks up that enthusiasm. So each teacher has something
to share  and something that can be learned. Most of my own audiences
listen to a number of different speakers. Each of these teachers may be
suitable at various periods of your life. There are certain times when going
on spiritual retreats is extremely valuable, and then there are other timeswhen that’ s just a way of avoiding the responsibilities of life. Y ou really had
a lot you should have done at home this weekend and instead, you went on
a retreat to Cam p Baba. When you get home, the lawn still hasn’ t been
mowed. The kids are still crying. You didn’ t help the kids with their
homework. When you’re running away , you’re really doing it for an
advantage. Most  of these spiritu al things serve a purpose at certain periods
of your life. I’ve noticed most people change their pattern as they go
through life, if they’re going to evolve. Other people just develop a perfect
pattern and stay with that; they stay with that for a lifetime. • • •
To just be gratef ul that you’re interested in the spiritual dimension at all
—that’ s already something to be grateful for . I mean, how many people lead
a blind life? They calibrate at 192 when they come onto the planet, and
when they leave, they calibrate  at 192. No change. So they really blew a
whole lifetime, just doing the same self-centered, greedy things all the time. The Buddha said, “Rare it is to be born a human, rarer still it is to have
heard of enlightenment, and rarest of all it is to have heard of enlightenment
and dedicate oneself to its pursuit.” That’ s the rarest of all. So to be
dedicated to the searching for the truth, is the rarest of all possible gifts. As a human, you can undo nega tive karma and gain positive karma. And
if you use these  lifetimes on earth wisely , you can reach enligh tenment. So
be grateful that one is a human and that one has heard of the truth. • • •
Be intro spective; you can’t walk around naively oblivious of who you are
and how you come across to people. So you need a certain degree of self-
awareness and the capacity for self-criticalness—to be able to see your
upside, your downside, and your limitations; accept the reality of your
personality where it is; and be introspective and reflective. Somebody else
will suggest something, and you say, “Well, I have to reflect on that.” It
means you’re going to hold it in mind and various facets begin to reveal
themselves. You forget all about it and then you have a peanut butter
sandwich, and in the middle of the sandwich you realize other significances
of it—how it affects your relationships with others, how it reflects thefulfillment of things you’ve held in mind, the implicit limitati ons of what
you feel you would not be able to do, et cetera. So significance and fulfillment, all these things become consequences of
reflection. What ’s the saying? “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
We need to be conscious and aware. And many people are extremely
oblivious to how they come across to others—unaware of major blind spots
and repetitious behavior . They make the same mistake for decades. And you
wonder , Why haven’t they gotten any feedback from the world, or reflected
on that? I think this has to do with the capacity to constantly learn to have
an open mind, to be able to ask, and to do so with perspicacity . The capacity
to disce rn and observe. And of course, one of the things about being a
physician is you need perspicacity . And over the years, I could always tell who was outside my office. I
would hear the next patient coming across the floor to the office door, and I
could already tell whether they were better or worse than last time. Somehow , the rate, the gait, the rhythm, their stance as they walked into the
room already said a great deal about the person. So with perspicacity , you
have to be able to witness the slightest alteration of things. Ther e are people
who are completely oblivious. They walk around in a dream state or
something. The interest in the evolution of one’s own consciousness—how it’s
evolved over time, how it expressed itself in ancient times—is still present
in today’ s world. There are peop le who are still mystics in this world, who
speak from the Self. Curiosity leads to learning. That’ s how the little
amoeba stays alive. It has to constantly search around and find something to
eat or it’s not going to be here. People do get addicted to the accumulation
of knowledge for its own sake. And that’s probably just a phase  that people
go through, and sooner or later, one begins to realize that it has to be put
into actual practice and then just be intellectually conversant. That’ s just
part of the evolution of one’ s spiritual awareness. First you accumulate the inform ation, then, you pursue the infor mation to
experience for yourself the truth of it. People often start out with intellectual
curiosity , and they’ll buy just about any and every book they can on
spirituality . I went through that phase myself. I had a whole wall of books
on everything you can think about: pseudo spirituality , true spiritualty ,
psychic reading s, people on the other side, channelings, and God knows
what else. And then discernmen t arose over the years. So, there’ s a curiosity—sort of a wide-eyed amazement that there are realms that you weren’ t
even aware of. You can go through formal schooling and never be aware
that there’ s anything other than the logical, linear under the concrete. And
suddenly you become aware that there are whole dimensions. SURRENDERING THE SMALL SELF
The personal will is trying to accomplish something as a very specific
goal. It usually has to do with gain or dominance or control in some way. The spiritual world is more in the field of surrender . Now the personal will
is only as strong  as one’s level of consciousness. So sometimes  people will
want to accomp lish something  by personal will, and that would require
much more power than the personal will. Let’s say you live at
consciousness level 190, and now through personal will, you’re going to try
to overcome a certain thing, but you don’t have enough  power at
consciousness level 190. When you get up to consciousness level 500 or so,
now you would have the power to overcome it, but you haven’ t got enough
horsepower in the engine to do it at that level. Therefore, align ing yourself
with a more powerful field is what people do. For exam ple, let’s look at addict ion. While the addiction may take you all
the way down to consciousness 90, to surrender to God’ s will is something
that you don’t have the strength to do yourself. A person takes you to an
AA meeting, which calibrates at 540. At the consciousness level of 540, the
person says, “Well, you could let go of the addiction if you wanted to.” And
suddenly it dawns on you, that’s true. It isn’t could you, it’s would you. When people have trouble making spiritual decisions, here’ s another
example I give them. Somebo dy says, “I can’t possibly forgive my ex-
brother -in-law for what he did to me.” And I’ll say, “Now , if I have a .45
loaded next to your temple, and if you don’t forgive him, I’m going to blow
your brains out. Could you for give him?”
“Oh yes, I could.” So, I say, “Well, that clearly differentiates the could
from would .” And mostly what people think is could , is just that they
wouldn’ t. They’re unwilling to do it. If you’re willing to forgive anybody ,
you can forgive anybody for anything. It’s the will. So surrendering the will
to God is important; you see, divine will calibrates extremely high, at about
850. Your personal will, near 190, is something different. When you
surrender your will to God, now you can accomplish the miraculous . It isn’tyou that accomplishes it—you’ve surrendered the small self to the large
Self. The large Self counts on the will of God to accomplish its goals, and
therefore is capable of performi ng the miraculous. And when you get to a
certain level of consciousness, the miraculous becomes continuous. What
people think is miraculous is really just our innocence. When you get to a certain level—around 570 or 580—the miraculous
becomes ordina ry. You hold the thing in mind and it manifests, and you
don’t go: “Oh, isn’t that amazing?” That’ s the way it all happens. It all
unfolds based on how it’s being held in mind. And it’s because the Self,
with the capital S, can accomplish what the small self cannot do, even
though its life depends on it. People try and they actually die in the attempt. They do not have the power . Because force results in counter force, and
surrender pulls you in a powerfu l context. When you say, “God,  I of myself,
am unable to do a certain thing, and I ask you if it is your will, that it be
accomplished,” and then you surrender it, at that point, you really surrender
it. You don’ t keep insisting that God do it or not do it. At that point, you relinquish  the personal will. And that which you
thought was going to be impossible, now comes about in the most
miraculous and unbelievable way. And if you put a string of miraculous
experiences together, a skeptic would have a hard time trying to figure out
how best to explain such a number of phenomena. And when the phase of
the siddhis appears, the miracu lous is numberless and almost continuous. One would wonder how to explain this from the viewpoint of pedestrian
logic, and the simplicity of scientific thinking. How is it that in the entire
parking paradox  of New York City, the only parking space suddenly opens
up just as you drive up? Well, that’s the way it was for years. What’ s the probability of that? Practically nothi ng. That was followed by something else. We followed one
phenomenon after another in which its statistical probability is nil. And
when we put them together—the nil plus nil plus nil, plus nil—we wonder
how to explain this phenomena. You might not know where you’re going and start driving to a strange
town, and pull up right exactly to the place you wanted to go— because all
you did is hold it in mind. I used to do that all the time: just held in mind
Florida, all around lakes that I didn’ t know , one lake from another . I
automatically drove exactly where I wanted to go, with no map and no
knowledge of the territory .So that’s just one example, but those things are continuous. There’ s a
phase where it goes on for years , the unfolding of everything is continuous. You need a pair of pliers, so you look out the window of the truck and not
only is there a pair of pliers laying there by the road, but they’re a brand-
new pair of pliers. Laying there within an arm’s reach—they’re brand new. And you don’t even say “wow” anymore, because this is the way life has
become. You’re hungry , and around the next turn there’ s a hambur ger joint. There you are. Life becomes one hambur ger joint after another . BECOMING THE WITNESS
It’s very easy to see that everything is happening spontaneo usly, that
even your thinkingness is happening all on its own. You think that you’re
deciding what you’re going to think, but you’re not, so you get detached
from your own thinkingness, the same as the world. You see that the world
around you is moving without your help. All these people are managing to
survive without you helping them to be here, and move, and talk. And so
what you do is you get detached and you begin to become the witness. To
become the witness is not a difficult step; it’s only a matter of letting go of
the narcissistic self-indulgence of thinking that there’ s an I causing things. Nothing is causing anything. There are no causes in the world. There are only consequences. And so what you do is you let go of
identifying with the linear , and you realize that your reality is nonlinear . You see that which is witnessing, and then behind that which is witnessing,
that which is aware that you’re witnessing—and already you’ve removed
yourself from out there and from the individual, personal I, and from the
guilt and anxiety  of being the cause of all that happens. You’ve moved into
the condition of humility . With profound humility , you’ll see that you’re not
the cause of anything, which is welcome news because that means you’re
also not guilty of anything. Something happens, and you say, “I don’t know ,
the mind did it. The mind did it. I can’ t help it, the mind did it!”
So, to become the witness then, you become aware of the spon taneity of
evolution, and you begin to witness. All phenomena are the evolution of
creation. Creatio n has a source, but no cause; it has no beginning, and it has
no end. You witness the unfoldment of creation. There is no problem with
creation because  it’s what you’re  witnessing. The fact that it’s all happeningspontaneously is not difficult to see. This observation escapes about 99
percent of mankind. At least 99 perce nt of humanity is completely unaware of this. And we’re
not coun ting on widespread acceptance that you are the context rather than
the content. You are that from which awareness radiates and out of which
consciousness arises. The source is consciousness itself. The light of God is
consciousness. The light of God is your own consciousness. And as you let
go of misidentif ying with that which you are not, it becomes stunningly
apparent. THE SOUND OF GOD IS SILENCE
Silence calibrates at 1,000. The sound of God is silence. To have sound,
you have to have linearity; you have to have that which is sound and that
which is not sound, and then you have to give a configuration to the sound. Therefore, mant ras and other things like saying “om” will take you to a
certain level. And beyond that, you become aware of the silence behind  the
sound. And so, the purpose of the sound is to take you to the silence. That’ s
why repeating a mantra can sometimes really just lead to an altered state of
consciousness and the high feeling that you get disappears when you stop
the mantra. Mantras have limited usages. They can assist at certain points, but you
can’t live your whole life as a mantra. You can, however , live your whole
life as a praye r, because a prayer is a verbalization of a nonlinear
intentionality , a prayer to make your life a prayer to become that—and that
which you are speaks louder than what you say. Essence speaks louder than
perception. The levels of consciousness don’t say that you’re better than
others. It’s not a matter of better , but because of our status-oriented society ,
we say it’s better . It’s not better—it’ s different. And very often , to be in a
different state of consciousness that is not appropriate to where you are can
be a hindrance. To be blissed-out when you’re driving is not so great. You have to pull
over. So, you have to sort of be in what’ s appropriate to the situation. That
begins to adjust  itself automatically . It is true that if you sudde nly advance
to a higher state, you may be quite incapacitated, so it’s good to have
spiritual friends,  and hang out with spiritual people and let them know that
you’re seriously on a spiritual path.LIFTING THE CONSCIOUSNESS LEVEL OF MANKIND
People think it’s what you do or what you say or how you behave that
matters. No, it’s the consequence  of that which you are. So that which you
are, if you sit alone in a cave,  is influencing the consciousness level of
mankind. Even if you sit alone in a cave, it radiates out as an energy. So
each one’s contribution raises the level of the sea. People will ask me,
“What can I do to help the world?” The best thing you can do is become the
fulfillment of your own potentia l, because each inch that the sea rises lifts
all the ships afloat. Now , nobody has enough strength in and of himself to
lift a ship, but everybody is contributing. So when  everyone aligns themselves with spiritual integrity , to be as
unconditionally loving as possible, then we all lift the level of the sea. And
by lifting the level of the sea, we lift everyone on it. So we do what we can
to lift the level of consciousnes s of mankind. And that influen ce then will
have its influence. The more aligned you are with spiritual reality , integrity , truth, and the
universal love, the more profo undly you’re effecting the world without
having to do anything. Of course, doing good things works. There’s nothing
wrong with that. I’m not saying that. But in and of itself, that which you are
and have become is what is truly influencing the world. • • •
The willingness  to surrender how you see things, then, begins to
transform how you see and experience life. Instead of being angry and
condemning others, you see that people cannot help being the way they are. Let’s say there are these teenagers throwing rocks at each other and
provoking the police into attack ing them. You begin to see they can’t help
themselves. As you really go into great depth, you begin to discern the basic
innocence of human conscious ness. The consciousness itself is like the
hardware of a computer , and the ego is like the software. The consciousness
itself is unable to tell truth from  falsehood. It cannot tell wheth er it’s being
programmed, like the Nazis did with the Nazi youth, into falsehood, or
whether it’ s truth. So then you understand why Christ and Buddha said, “Forgive them for
they know not what they do.” The hardware of the computer is unaltered bythe software. The consciousness of the youth is innocent. So those kids who
threw rocks then are looked at with compassion. You can see that they have
been abused somehow . You see their spiritual abuse. And because of the
innocence of human consciou sness, its inability to discern truth from
falsehood, mankind is led down the path of falsehood. We can think of the young people in Nazi Germany , being patriotic. It’s
like going to Boy Scout camp— they’re around the campfires, singing songs
and hiking and doing all this for their country , for their fatherland, for the
Führer . How could they have believed anything other than that? If we’d
been there, we would’ve been doing the same thing. You see the innocence. So we begin to see the basic innocence of human consciousness, and now it
allows us to forgive everyone. You see that everybody’ s being  run by the
programs with which they’ve been programmed. I mean, what else could
they think? People believe the media because television comes across so
fast; they’ve already believed it before they’ve had a chan ce to even
examine their questioning. The mind gets programmed. And so you see on the one hand, the ego
survives by juicing negativity; on the other hand, it can’t help but do that. It
can’t help but be that which it is. And without the power of spiritual truth,
frankly , it’s unable to transcend itself. The value of spiritual truth is that
without it, nobody would transcend the ego. It’s because of the great
avatars, it’s because of the great power of spiritual truth, and those who
have realized the reality , then there lies the source of their own existence. That creates the power of the field, and the power of the field is where
people derive inspiration to then transcend their limitations. We understand then that basically human consciousness is innocent—it
doesn’ t know truth from falsehood. The reason I had to write the book
Power vs. Force is because it staggered me, and I realized man has never
had a chance to know truth from falsehood. The best man has been able to
do is to follow the intellect and end up at a consciousness level of 460,
which leaves you stuck right in the middle of the mind and its dualities, and
therefore war and hatred and all are destined to go on and on and on—
because withou t spiritual energy and truth to transcend it, the mind is
hopelessly caught in its own web. And it gets paid off for getting so, as it
goes round and round and round and ruminates—it gets a payof f. Therefore,
it’s self-propagating.The ego unaided, without external spiritual truth, will forever go round
and round chasi ng its own tail. Each person, as they do what they think is
personal spiritu al work, is actually influencing the entire field. The
prevailing level of consciousness of mankind then progresses as a
consequence of the collective spiritual effort of all of us. Every choice,
every spiritual decision we make reverberates around the universe. Like it
says in scriptur e, “Not one hair of your head goes uncounted .” And we
discovered with muscle testing that that is a fact. Anything anybody’ s ever
done, thought, felt—every decision that’s ever been made—is recorded
forever in the field of consciousness. People who say they don’t belie ve in karma can do so as a belief system. But they would still have to explain how it is that all phenomena that have
ever occurred throughout all of history are recorded forever . How do you
explain that every entity that gets born on this planet already has a
calibrated level of consciousness? Therefore, we did not arise out of
nothingness, but out of somethingness. And what is that someth ingness out
of which we all arise into which we all return? That takes us out of the
limitation of the timeframe of the present. And we begin  to see an
experienced life in a greater dimension and the spiritual realiti es that arise
out of contemplating such things encourage our investigation into spiritual
truth, which is the purpose of this kind of work. I wanted to first present the whole panorama of consciousness—its
evolution, its quality , its nature, and how it’s been approached through
science, reason, logic, philosoph y, ethics, theology , and religion. How it has
evolved in mankind, how it manifests itself and the part that it plays in
everyday life. Force then requires energy, and it exhausts people. People
can only exert force to a certain point, and then they begin to collapse. Power , on the other hand, does not exhaust itself. In fact, the more it’s used,
the more powerful it seems to be. For instance, if we experiment with
forgiving people and being willing to love and love unconditionally , we find
that that capacity grows. In the beginnin g, it may seem difficult to love that which seems
unlovable, but if we dedicate ourselves to that way of being in the world, if
we dedicate ourselves to being that way in the world, then we find that it’s
easier and easier . We find that with force, the more you give away , the less
you have. But with power , the more you give, the more you have. So the
more loving a person is, the more loving their world becomes. We begin toexperience the world of our own creation. Some people say, “You go to
New York City, and they’re all so cold and horrible there. I hate New York
City; they’re all mean.” And another person goes to New York City and
says, “My goodness, they were the most wonderful people—all the
waitresses and cabdrivers were so neat . . . it’s just an incredible place!”
Well, it’s becaus e in the presenc e of love, we precipitate the emer gence of
love in other people. And when we’re not loving, we tend to bring forth the
negative side of their natures. So all we’re experiencing then is the kind of a world that we’re
precipitating. A virtual display of what we and ourselves have become. • • •
The contrast between power and force is given dramatically by historical
example of the British empire, vis-à-vis Mahatma Gandhi. Well, Mahatma
Gandhi, as you know , was a Hindu ascetic. And if you calibrate Gandhi,
he’s over 700. At the time that he confronted the British empire, it was the
greatest force the world had ever seen. It ruled one quarter of the world, a
third of the planet and the seas. And when I was growing up, it was still the great British empire  upon by
which the sun never set. Against that stood a little 90-pound Hindu, skin
and bones—he confronted the great lion who ruled one-third of the planet. The interesting thing is that Mahatma Gandhi, by doing nothing—in fact,
just saying  he’s going to stop eating, and if they didn’ t like it, he’d just
starve to death— threw the world into a panic. And at 700 Gandhi stood
there. Well, 700 is of course enormous power , extremely rare on the planet. He faced off against the British empire, which in its pridefulness and self-
interest calibrated at 190. And without firing one single shot Gandhi defeated the entire British
empire and took it apart, and brought the end of colonialism. It was not only
the British empire, but colonialism per se, that he defeated, and self-rule
became the dominant political system in the world. What Gandhi really
represents then is the influence of power . Power doesn’ t cause  things; force
can be said to cause things within the Newtonian paradigm. Power
influences  things. Now , you know that a quark is going to rise depending on the density of
the medium that it finds itself in. So by prayer , by spiritual evolution, whathappens then is that mankind creates a very powerful field, this field, this
spiritual reality , which then begins to lift and ef fect all of mankind. It ef fects
the whole paradigm of reality and values. So as I mentio ned before,
integrity is now becoming a predominant value in our society ; it’s being
talked about constantly in the media. We have a whole new value system. Now , that was not brought about by the mechanism of force. Nobody forced
the media to begin valuing integrity , but integrity emer ged as a social value. Not as a spiritual value, but as a social value. We all live by our own principles. Spiritual growth then means, What
principles do we live by? And as we grow and mature, we choo se different
principles. Some  people live by the principle of “Always be right—never
give the sucker a break.” People come out and state what their principles
are. Sometimes they seem quite outlandish, but you could say they’re
integrous to the degree that they live by them. To the degree that they live
by them, they are living by what they’re committed to. So I respect what
people say they’re committed to, and I think to the degree they live by that,
then they’re being virtuous by their own definition. So the calibrated level
of consciousnes s, to some degre e, then reflects the degree to which we live
by our own stated spiritual choice. You might say karma or spiritual destiny , the calibrated level of
consciousness, then, is the consequence of spiritual freedom of choice. So
we have  freedom  of choice at every moment, but this freedom  of choice
seems to be obscure. We seem to be run by programs. And one reason that
we try to transcend the ego is because we don’t want to be at the effect of
the ego. We would like the mind to stop long enough for us to deliberate
and make a choice. And so often we do a thing quickly and we regret it
later, and sort of get a feeling of resentment, thinking, Gee, I didn’ t really
have a moment to r eally think about that. Our spiritual choices, then, tend to determine which direction we choose
when the moment arises. If it wasn’ t for the silence of consciousness, you
would not be able to know what you’re thinking. It’s because of the silence
of the forest that you can hear sound. It’s because the mind is silent that you
can hear or see or picture what you’re thinking. Therefore, the content of
the mind  must be going on in the space of no mind, which is a classical
term, meaning thoughtless, form less consciousness, upon which thoughts
reflect themselves. So, we withdraw our investment and preoccupation andidentification with the content of thinking and begin to see that we’re the
space in which thinking can occur . The value of meditation, then, is that it focuses us so that we withdraw
our investment in identification with the content of thought to the space in
which the thoug ht is occurring. We begin to see that there is a witness  to the
thinking. There is an awareness  to the witness, and there’ s a substrate that
underlies all of it that is beyond time, beyond dimension, and that it is
independent of personal identification. And the identification then with
consciousness itself lifts us out of the identification of our reality as either
the body  or the mind or the thoughts or the feelings, and takes us to a
greater dimension. As we move into that greater dimension, then we confirm the spiritual
reality , which underlies our existence. People become involved in spiritual
work on a practical level. They want to know , “How can I forgive my
enemies when I hate them so much after all they’ve done to me? How can I
feel hope when I’m really depressed? How can I get rid of fear when I’m
scared all the time?” It starts out on a very practical level. Other people will
start out from a different level. They start out through inspiration. They will
hear an inspirational speaker and get uplifted. One can start from curiosity; one can start from sort of a spontaneous
evolution within one’s own consciousness. I think spiritually evolved
people inspire others outside of their awareness. Because they influence the
field, people who would have ordinarily not been interested in spirituality
suddenly become curious—not through any inner prompting, but as a
consequence of the field. So if you’re around people who are more
spiritually evolved, you may find your own interest in it spontaneously
becoming more intense. It’s not through any deliberate decision-making,
but just because it’s more interes ting—like how when you’re around people
who are into sports, you tend to listen more and be more interested in that. When people have some kind of disaster in their life—and we hear it all
the time about an illness or drugs or alcohol or criminality or grief or loss—
they want to know what they can do about it. The willingness to surrender
life to God, of course, is one of the most profound spiritual tools. People
ask, “What spiritual tools are the most powerful?” I would say, humility , the
willingness to surrender life—to let go of wanting to control it, to let go of
wanting to change it—the willingness to surrender how you see things toGod (or to some  higher spiritual principle, because God is not a reality . It’s
just a word to most people). For most people, God is a hoped-for reality , but not an experiential
reality until they become more spiritually advanced and begin to experience
the presence of the field itself and intuit its enormous power . Then they
revere God, because they respect the infinite power that they begin to intuit. What we can do on a practical level, then, is become the best person we can
become. I’d say to become kind toward all of life in all of its expressions,
no matter what. And that includes oneself: to be willing to forgive oneself,
to see the limitation of human consciousness. I always feel that the more educated you are about the quality of
consciousness, the nature of consciousness, the easier it is to follow
spiritual principles. If you understand that human consciousness is
intrinsically innocent and canno t control that which it is programmed by,
because it can’t tell truth from  falsehood, you begin to feel compassion
automatically . OceanofPDF .comChapter 4
OBSTACLES TO 
SPIRITUAL GROWTH
Oftentimes, the harder one tries to pursue a spiritual path, the more they
can feel like they are getting nowher e, continually pulled down by the cares
of this world or the feeling of desolation and abandonment by the divine. In
this important chapter , Dr. Haw kins discusses these obstacles to spiritual
growth so that you can identify them, overcome or avoid them, and get back
on the spiritual path. Dr. Hawki ns begins by discussing how following false
spiritual teacher s who promise to unveil unknown spiritual secrets can be
one of the gr eatest obstacles to true spiritual wisdom. There’ s a great deal of spiritual fiction out there. In fact, the best-selling
spiritual books are all fiction. The DaVinci Code , for example. There are all
kinds of psychics who tell all kinds of stories about the end of the world or
the code of God hidden in your genes. That which is spiritual truth is not
invisible nor is it encoded. It’s starkly wide open. There would be no point
to hide the secrets. What kind of secrets are you talking about? There are no
secrets to hide. Spiritual truth is transparent. For that which is veiled, mysterious,
cloaked, you have to pay money . “Mystical secret of the ancients! Give me
$500! I will whisper the secret of life into your ears!” And then you say this
mantra at the same time, “Oom  boom boomy boom. Oom boom boomy
boom.” You can see the profit motive. Spiritual truth has nothing to gain byits promulgation. It doesn’ t even care if you agree with it or not. Anybody
can repudiate anything I say, and it’s certainly their option. I have no
quarrel with it. There are no qualifications; you don’t have to be or prove
anything. You don’t have to pay anything. You don’t have to sign anything. You don’t have to justify . You don’t have to prove that you have any right
or claim. A true spiritual teacher frees you and so-called charlatans try to bind you. They try to own you, control you, tell you what to do. Spiritual truth is
freely given. It’s not provisional to conditions or who believe s it or who
doesn’ t believe it—or whether it’s provable or not provable, because what
the world considers provable is not provable. It’s not aligne d with any
particular thing. It doesn’ t have to exist here or there or be on a
mountaintop—as if we can only have a holy order on top of a mountain at
6,000 feet. RELIGIONISM AND THE DANGERS OF A NARCISSISTIC
EGO
A lot of people think they’re religious and really what they’re practicing
is religionism . The main problem with religion now is we deify the religion
rather than God. The printed word or the teaching of a teacher now
transcends divin ity itself. You find you’re not worshiping God; you find
that people worship the religion rather than the truth of the religion . In the
name of the religion, you have the inquisition. Religionism then eventually
becomes its own opposite. We know if you add -ism to the end of any area of knowledge, that it
automatically drops to 190. Now it becomes positionalized with narcissistic
gain. So, you have to impose  environmentalism. You have  to impose
liberalism. You have to impose conservativism. The minute it’s an ism—
militarism or antimilitarism—it becomes a crusade, and everybody wants to
get on the bandwagon and get on TV and hold up a placard. The vanity of
the narcissistic ego is unlimited. • • •Through educati on, you get what the limitations of the ego are, and that
gives you a certain degree of humility to begin with. You realize  that you’re
lucky to have any idea what reality is in the first place, because the ego is so
intent on displacing reality with its own perceptions and projecting them
onto the world that it’s almost impossible to see the reality of the world,
because so much is projection. The media, first of all, by what  they select
have already prejudiced you. They say, “Oh, this is important; that’s why
it’s on the evening news.” Things that are profoundly more important are
never  on the evening news. Only the trivial is on the evening news. The
profoundly important would not be of interest to people. How did the great shakers and makers of this world arrive at their
conclusions and execute them? That would be worth looking at instead of
the latest titillations and silly amusements we see. How do the great people
think, and why do they arrive at the conclusions they arrive at, and how can
that be contextualized so that we can understand it? How to understand the
world that we see would be far more interesting, but many people are not
that interested in looking past appearance. I’m always interested in what the
essence of a thing is. I know what the appearance is. I can flick on the news
and see it for myself. But what is the essence of that? Is it naivete? Very
often, it is. Spiritual humility is an attitude I have myself. My mind, in and of itself,
is not really capable of discerning the ultimate truth. That’ s why the great
avatars came to reveal to us that which is unknowable. And to be grateful
all the time is an attitude of humility. To be grateful that you’re interested in
spirituality , you say, “I’m grateful I’m even interested in the subject. I’m
grateful that I’ve come across good teachers along the way. I’m grateful for
the life experiences that have come about, that have revealed truths to me.”
So you must understand that humility is a positionality . It’s where you
stand back and you’re sort of saying, “I have myself been unable to fully
comprehend it.” And you’re constantly asking for revelation. So your
position with God is like a mudra. Your position with God is like yin. It’s
when you stand back and you say, “To thee, oh Lord, I surrende r, and I ask
for your will in the matter .” And then you surrender to what appears to be
most aligned with divinity . • • •All nega tive feelings are linked with each other . You want something
because you feel unfulfilled. So if something gets in the way, now you get
angry . Now you get frustrated, and you realize that if you get it, now you’re
going to be prideful. But if you’re prideful in your ownership, now you
have to fear that somebody will take it away from you or that you won’ t get
it. And then you get puffed up if you do have it. So one thing leads to
another . Your anger is that somebody is interfering. Negative feelings are all
based on the same delusion. And the delusion is that the source of
happiness is something outside of yourself. When I get that title, when I get that car, when I get that job, when I get
that income, when I get that—there’ s always a get—when I get that
relationship, when I get that recognition, when I get on the TV program,
when I get on the nightly news, I’ll be somebody . It’s always a gettingness. If anyth ing stands in your way to getting this, now you hate it and you’re
angry at it, and you want to destroy it. When you see that one thing leads to
another , then if you don’t achie ve it, you feel guilt and self-blame and you
feel worthless. Now you feel depressed. All the negative feelings are based on the assumption that what you need
is outsid e of yourself. You see yourself as incomplete. And once I’m
famous, once I’m educated, once I’m older , once I’m richer , once I’m . . . then I’ll be happ y. No matter what you say, it always puts fulfillment off in
the future. So you’re always coming from incomplete to incomplete,
because you’r e incomp lete. But then when you get what you want, there’ s
always one better . I knew many super rich people back East. And they
always had the saying: No matter how big your yacht is, a bigger one will
dock next to you. It’s an endless race, and it was very comical to see it. And of course,
people who are really quite wealthy and have been for some time, live very
simple lives save for public events and parties. I knew lots of multimillionaires, and very often they would inherit a big
estate—40 acres with a huge castle of a house and all these buildings—and
when I went to visit them, they actually lived in one of the servant’ s houses. There’ s a little house out there, and that’s where they lived. The richest
people in America! I used to live next door to one, and he had a third story
on his house. And I said, “Wha t’s up there?” He said, “I don’t know , I’ve
never been up there.” They would usually stay put in two or three rooms in
this giant house, the family estate, and there’d be a kitchen, a sitting room,and a bedroom. And that’s where they lived 99 percent of the time, except
when their great-niece was there and having a birthday party . And then they
would have a party on the lawn, but they lived all the time in just a little
corner of the house. What are you going to do on the third floor with 5,000 feet of
magnificent furniture and you? You and 5,000 feet of antiqu e, beautiful
furniture with a wonderful view . . . once you have looked out the window
and seen the beautiful view , now what are you going to do? You go back
downstairs to the kitchen and watch the TV, put your feet up, and put some
wood in the stove, the same as the servants do. It’ s comical. PARANORMAL REALMS AND DIMENSIONS
Straight and narrow is the path. You can spend quite a few lifetimes
wandering through the fantasy world of psychics and channelers and people
like this, the world of tarot cards and tea leaf readings. They are usually a
dead end. Some entity on the other side tells you about a whole other
dimension. Next thing you know , you’re all involved in that dimension. A
lot of them have gods with a weird name and various hierarchies. And a lot
of times , for additional money , they will move you up to a different, higher
level of anarchy . For another $5,000, they’ll introduce you to master so-
and-so on a dif ferent level, who will now give you some magical powers. The whole thing is seductive. What’ s being seduced is the innocent
curiosity of the child. For $5,000, they’ll raise your level of consciousness a
hundred points an hour. For $50,000, they guarantee you’ll be enlightened
in six weeks. I suppose people like to send them money because they’re still
there. When you first realize that there’ s something other than just logic in
the phenomenal world, the child in you goes, “Oh, wow .”
I’m not saying the paranormal doesn’ t exist, but scripture says not to go
there. Why? Because you’re dealing in other realms, and you have no
education or sophistication or awareness of the rules and the laws of those
realms. The angels fear to tread there. Why wouldn’ t you? It’s morbid curiosity . You want to check out hell? You’re not going to check out hell without
getting burned. I advise people, don’t go there. Don’ t be tempted by the
drama of it. If you got to climb the highest mountain, make note of the fact
that 176 people have died there already doing it. You can do the same thing.You can go out of body and visit other dimensions. You are not equipped to
go there . You don’t know anything about who’ s who there, and you’re an
innocent victim the minute you arrive. Tarot cards, Ouija boards, psychic
readings, throwing runes are all forms of magic. The child in us is entranced
by the magic. I tell people not to try to calibrate low energies. You’ll get attracted to
that which is evil and demonic, and start trying to calibrate it, because your
pendulum is going to get hit by that energy. And one of your energy fields
and chakras can get reversed, by the way. Don’ t play around with it. The
pendulum is not a game, and as with any kind of divination, it shouldn’ t be
done for the sport. Many people play with divination and we never hear
from them again. I don’t recom mend it to people because it means they
have to have some curiosity that is so hypothetical, it has nothing to do with
their own spiritu al destination. In other words, you’re just askin g out of idle
curiosity . And often you’re playing with very negative energies when
you’re doing that. You’re trying to flirt with the negative and think you
won’ t get burned. That’ s not going to happen. I know a lot of people who
dealt with pendulums, started checking out other dimension s, and they
really blew up and even became psychotic. Many of these psychics over time turn out to be false. There’ s one locally
that does all the things that are so typical of a cult. He tells people how to
live, gets them bonded to him, tells them about their sex life. He makes
them turn all of their money over to him. And one thing about these cult
leaders you’ll notice is that sex is forbidden to all the follower s, but not to
the cult leader . Well, of course, he’s entitled to go to bed with anybody he
wishes to, and then cite some entity on the other side. The fallacy of the
whole thing is so transparent to a sophisticated person, but the person who
gets entrapped into it, their inner child gets brainwashed by all this mumbo
jumbo. And of course, we look at Jonestown as an example and wonder ,
how could a thousand sane adult s commit suicide all at the same time? How
could that be? Cults, you see, are dangerou s because they have the capacity to
brainwash peopl e. A teacher should free you, not bind you. You should not
be boun d by the teacher . On the contrary , you should be freed by the
teacher . You owe nothing to a teacher whatsoever , except to be polite and
listen if you wish. You’re not in bondage, you don’t owe, you’re not
obligated. A true teacher doesn’ t try to control you or get you to turn overyour financial assets to them. The other thing false teachers do is theatrics,
by which I mean  putting on great displays with fancy robes and entourages
and great wonders, buildings and all, to impress you with their importance. The other thing  they try to impress you with is the number of followers. They have 10 million followers in India or something like that. I calibrate the guy with 10 million followers, and he comes out at 140. So, we’re a bit like lemmings being led over the cliff. Adolf Hitler had 40
million adoring followers too, and he calibrated at 90 and almost destroyed
Germany and most of Europe!
_OceanofPDF.com_The_Wisdom_of_Dr_David_Hawkins_-_David_R_Hawkins.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        You can let go of wanting to change it,
because all you’re changing is your own projections that you’ve projected
out there. Y ou’re not changing anything in the world at all. Unless a man has a choice between good and evil, how’ s he going to
transcend. If you don’t have any enemies, who do you have left to forgive. You know what I mean. I’m a failur e. I haven’ t got anybody I’d love to
forgive. Now, what ar e we going to do in the Course in Miracles. Spiritual work is primarily yin. It’s yang by its intention, but it’s yin by
its operation. For example, I ask God what is the answer to a thing, and then
I step back and allow the space for revelation. So, progress is achieved
often without even thinking—you just have a feeling of knowing or anintuition. And then if you know muscle testing, you can just check it out for
affirmation. It has been very, very useful. The enlightened  and divined states, the supreme God and all these things,
calibrate at 1,000 or above. As we know, the majority of the world’ s
population calibrates below 200. Why doesn’ t the world go to pieces and
just destroy itself. It gets close  to that periodically. Mankind has been at
war 93 percent of recorded time. The other 7 percent, we were too sick or
too poor, probably. The plague was on. Couldn’ t get our act together to get
out there and kill each other. Why doesn’ t the world just self-destruct. It’s because it’s a logarithmic
scale. So logarithmically, the advance of a few points is enormously
powerful. In fact, in the United States, even just a couple of people calibrate
so high and logarithmically, the power is so great that it totally
counterbalances the negativity of mankind, which would self-destruct. So,
those who are 200 and up—readers like you—are keeping the world from
going down the tubes. The relative power, because it’s logarithmic, is so
enormous that it counterbalances the negativity. LOWER LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Now, I just want to show the source of the evil of the ego. Because you
see, consciousne ss began at a very primitive level, the consciou sness level. Over many billions of years, the consciousness level slowly rose. The
consciousness level of life itself, the total consciousness of life on the
planet, has evolved over billions of years, very, very slowly. Sometimes the consciousness level of the animals has kept it up. Even
though man has been lower than 200 many times, there are many animals
on the planet that are over 200. Somebody says, “Well, the consciousness
level of man is at about 204. How come you’ve got life at 212. ” It’s
because we got kitties and doggies. A dog’ s wagging a tail is at 500. I didn’ t want to say anything that might hurt people’ s feelings. But cats
and dogs do better than people. Chimpanzees and gorillas, too. You’re safer
with Koko the gorilla than you are with most of the people on the subway. Koko won’ t steal your purse and run. Monkeys, dogs, cats. Of course, the
more cats you have, the higher your level of consciousness. I’m a cat
supporter. Our level of consciousness at home, without the cats, would
probably collapse. Let’s not forget horses, elepha nts, and cows. These are all primarily
herbivores. When you see how life starts out, at the lowest level, and that
we come up through fish, octopus, the Komodo dragon, and other predatory
mammals, you see that life is voracious. Below consciousness level 200, it
only can survive  by eating other s. And then, as the consciousnes s level goes
higher, you get to the herbivores. At consciousness level 200, we have wolves and foxes. Then, all of a
sudden, at the level 200, we shift to zebras, giraffes, deer, bison, domestic
pigs, elk, cows, and sheep. Do you see the shift. You eat grass  and you’re
not harm ing anybody; whereas the dinosaur has to kill. He has to kill in
order to eat. His nature is to kill. The dinosaur is not being bad or evil,
that’s just his nature. He’s reflecting the level of consciousness. So the
people on the planet who seem to be focused on killing do so because their
level of conscio usness is attuned to be less than 200. Therefore, the left
brain, the instinctual left brain  physiology, takes over, in which killing
becomes exciting, fun, and rewarding. We talked about the 400s being, you might say, when humans reach their
greatest intellectual excellence, probably around 350 BC. In ancient Greece,
philosophically, there really hasn’ t been any improvement since that time. And here we calibrate the great books of the W estern world, and we find it’ s
very interesting. Overall, collectively it calibrates around 460. So
intellectual excellence, intellectual truth, and reason are in the 400s. In the
old days, a liberal education meant to study all of these writers. And there is
still a foundation for the study of the Great Books. They advise you to take
10 years. So you spend 10 years studying, and you will then share a
common understanding with all the greatest minds that’ve ever lived—at
least within the intellectual and philosophic realms. So, the difficulty of something of a very low calibration is that this then
starts off a trend that becomes self-propagating, in the form of memes. An
infection like this can then spread throughout the world. People ask me,
“How can I become spiritual. ”  Well, I say, “First, just become a decent
human being. Try that. Be considerate, decent. Be responsible. If you say
you’re going to close the door when you leave, please do so. ” People have
to be able to count on you. You have to be honest and value wisdom. Wisdom is at 385. Wise people tend to be benign. They’re safe to be with—
as safe as Koko. Humane, happy, and sensible. They’re sometimes called
“the salt of the earth. ”There are various energy fields or chakra systems, as I’m sure you’re
aware. One collection of energy is at the lower mind. The lowe r mind is at
155. There’s another collection of energy that we call the higher mind. They
have two different sets of values. What one setting  considers to be valid and
true and ethical, the other considers to be invalid and in fact immoral. The
lower mind, then, is very intere sted in sensationalism, and is very gullible. It’s interested in being smart and exploiting life. So, you might
automatically think of the news. It likes to play off the sensational. It’ll take
some trivial little incident that is of no significance and give it major
airtime. And something that really is of profound importance, and really
threatens all of humanity, they give it only a glance—if that. At 275 and up is the higher mind, and it is moving into thoug htfulness,
balance, and sensitivity to what is appropriate and what is not appropriate. The higher mind tends to look for solutions, and tends to play off
difficulties. So, there’ s a big payof f here. For 85 percent of the people in the
world, their intellect is at this level. In America, only about 50 percent. About 50 percent of people would rather watch something gory and horrible
and sensational than something that is inclusive of beauty. The power of
consciousness is now recognized. Einstein, who was a master of a linear dimension, calibrated at 499, and
he refused to recognize the role of consciousness. He rejected its reality. He
said, “I prefer to think there’ s a distinct, objective, linear reality  out there. ”
We’ve calibrated all these things to give you a scientific basis to understand
how the phenomenal world occurs. I always tell people, “Notice that everything is happening
spontaneously. ” The limitation of the ego is it thinks there is a personal I as
a cause,  and based on the New tonian principle, a this causing  a that. In
reality, there is no this causing any that. In fact, that phenomenon is not a
possibility, because evolution and creation are one and the same thing. So,
what you see is the emer gence of potentiality as a consequence of
evolution. TRANSCENDING THE MIND AND THE LINEAR DOMAIN
The reason for religious conflict  is a lack of comprehension of the nature
of divinity itself. It sees a God who starts here, and then one day creates all
there is, and disappears. And after you die, you face him and greet him onjudgment day. I don’t know where he goes in the meantime, but he goes
someplace. It’ s because the mind doesn’ t comprehend infinity. To transcend the mind, which  is based on cause and effect, and the
Newtonian paradigm in science, you have to shift to a higher awareness. Stop projecting the idea of causality into the world. There is no causality in
the world—none  whatsoever. All that you perceive, and prove, and think is
so out there is from your head, projected onto the world. Within the world,
there is no causa lity. There is sequence. Sequence is not in the world either. Sequence means you perceived it sequentially. Therefore, you project that it
must be in the world. It’ s your perception  that’ s sequential. How do things come about. The quickest way to enlightenm ent is to
focus and notice that everyt hing is, first of all, absolute ly perfect. Everything is exquisite, perfec t, and beautiful as it is, and things come
about as a result of potentiality actualizing. Potentiality actualizes as a
perceivable reality. So what you’re witnessing, always, is the emergence of
potentiality. The emer gence of potentiality is for this arm to rise. It does it
by itself. You think there’ s a you causing it, but you don’t have anything to
do with it. It rose itself, spontaneously. All that’s occurring spontaneous ly is due to the emer gence of potentiality
as actuality, when conditions are favorable. That’ s nonlinear dynamics,
when conditions are favorable. So, the conditions also have to be favorable. You don’t make the flower grow. I never saw anybody that made a flower
grow. Did you ever meet anybody that made a flower grow. Thank you,
God. When you plant something, you’re taking advantage of what I just got
through explaining. All you’re doing is adding conditions that are
favorable, such as sunlight, water, and fertilizer. But the potentiality is
within  the seed. It actualizes within the phenomenal world, not as causality. You can’ t force the flower to bloom. We need to get rid of the idea of imperfection, because here, it has the
potential to become a rose. The rose is half unfolded. You’re going to tell
me that’s a bad rose. A defecti ve rose. That something’ s wrong with the
rose. No. You see, what happens is the potentiality actualizes, and it opens,
and beco mes actualized to your perception. Nothing is causing it to do that. You can’t force a rose to do anything. It does it of its own accord, because it
has, innate within its essence, the potentiality to manifest that way within
the linear domain. All you’re seeing is phenomena within the linear domain. The energy of life is nonlinear, non-definable. And so, what I’m working
on now is to resolve a dilemma of the Scopes Trial, which has to do with
the argument of whether reality  is limited to the linear—or does reality go
on to include the nonlinear. The reasons the Scopes Trial couldn’ t be
resolved is because they were talking about two different paradigms. The
levels of consci ousness go from, let’s say, one to 1,000. Science is within
the 400s, and spiritual reality starts from 500 and up. They are two different
paradigms. So you can’t resolve oil and water, because they’re two different
paradigms. Science can neither prove nor disprove spiritual reality, nor vice
versa. It’ s a dif ferent paradigm. What I’m trying  to do is create a paradigm that includes both, which
shows that you’r e just moving from one paradigm to another. This would be
inclusive of both science and religion. You see, they’re both true, and both
100 percent true within  their own paradigms. So, it’s really ignora nce on the
two sides to expect each other to agree, since they are each living from
different paradigms of reality. HIGHER LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
We went on to study various religions, and calibrate the levels of movies,
books, television shows—everything represents a greater or a lesser degree
of spiritual energy. The greater  the spiritual orientation and the alignment
with truth, the higher the calibration. And so, we have this calibrat ed scale of consciousness, the greatest
usefulness of which is really to say yes or not yes. So, you would say, “This
spiritual teacher  is integrous and useful for my life. ” And you get a yes or a
not yes. Or you might say, “It’s too soon. Maybe I should wait with this
one. ” And it’ll say yes or not yes. One can use it for guidance, and spiritual
students who are really committ ed to transcending the ego and reaching the
higher spiritual states have found it quite useful. That state we call enlightenment occurs at a level calibrated at 600. When
a person goes into 600, they go into the levels of love. First conditional
love, then unconditional love. Then many become interested in spiritual
pathways and meditation and spiritual techniques, and they begin to pursue
them with greater and greate r dedication. As they do, they begin to
experience life in a transformative, completely dif ferent context. In the high 500s, which are quite amazing, one is overcome by the sheer
beauty of everything. The only reality that exists is love. There’ s only love,
and all you see is love. All you experience is love and beauty. Love, beauty,
and harmony, and the miraculous begin to happen spontaneously, and
eventually they become continuous. A lot of peop le who’ve done A Course in Miracles  go into that
transformative state. You drive into the city, and you think of a parking
space, and as you get there, there’s a parking space waiting right in front of
you. In fact, it’s the one and only parking space, and just as you pull up, a
car pulls out and you pull in. When this first begins to happen,  you sort of
remark about it. After a while, you begin to experience that that’s the way
life is. It’s the continuous miraculous. The miraculous is ongoing and
continuous. In this state, everybody becomes stunningly beautiful and handsome. You
are in love. This isn’t about falling in love. You are in love with everything
and everyone, all the time. And you can only see the beauty and perfection
of everything. And then, the state may reach, in the very high 500s, ecstasy. One can
start going into states of indescribable ecstasy, like the opening of a
brilliance within  one’s consciousness. The ecstasy is continuous. At that
point, you can’t function in the world anymore—the ecstasy, as
Ramakrishna described it. I remember going through it myself. For get about
functioning in the world. You can dance. You can dance in an expression of
exquisite ecstasy at the joy of one’ s existence. But you cannot function. And then, one has to surrender that to God. So each step along the way of
the levels of consciousness is surrendering whatever is present ing itself to
God. Finally, even in the state of ecstasy, one has to surrender the state of
ecstasy to God. And then one hits level 600, which is a state of infinite
silence, bliss, and a profound peace beyond all understanding. The peace of
God is beyond psychological peace or emotional peace. It’s a different
dimension. And in that state, you don’t have to eat, breathe, or function. One blisses out, outside of time. Satchitananda  it’s called, classically. And if things are favorable, the body will eventually get fed, move up
and walk aroun d, and survive. If the conditions are not favorable to that
circumstance, which frankly is irrelevant, then the body just topples over
eventually. So about 50 percent of the people who go into a latent state
frankly, leave. The one awareness that is quite obvious in that state is thatyou have permission to leave. Y ou can leave right now, in fact. Y ou can stop
reading. Y ou have permission. So, what’s going to keep the body going. Well, you see, there are no
needs and no wants. Everything is complete and total. The bliss of the state
is that everything is complete. So, from that moment on, if the body
survives, you don’t ever really need anything anymore. People  ask, “What
do you want. ” I don’t want anything. “What do you need. ” Well, I don’t
need  anything. Certain things would be nice, but I don’ t need  them. And so, one is then independen t of the world. What the world says or
does is really quite irrelevant. At that point, it’s impossible to function in
that state. What happens, if you survive, is most people leave. They pack up
everything, say good-bye, and leave. This is what I did. I left the biggest
practice in the country and a very elite lifestyle, and I drove to a small town. In the refrigerator, there’d be a banana, two Pepsis, and a piece of cheese,
and that was fine. What more do you need. OceanofPDF. comChapter 3
SPIRITUAL 
CONSCIOUSNESS
Now that you have a clear er understanding of how to calibrate spiritual
truth and the Map of Consciousness, you are ready to begin elevating your
level of spiritual consciousness to its highest potential. In this chapter, Dr. Hawkins will give you several ideas for doing just
that. They include relinquishing  the quest for perfection; following evolved
spiritual values rather than dogmatic religious doctrines; and being
grateful, intr ospective, and compassionate. You are not limited by this world, or even definable, meas urable, and
visible. By looking at the levels  of consciousness on the chart, you can tell
what your spiritual worth is. You want to transcend the world—that is, to be in it, but not of it, not
limited by it. To be limited by it is to buy all of its programs. To buy all of
its programs, you’re going to have to run around and buy every thing that’s
for sale, because if you’re successful, you’ll have new carpets and you’ll
have a new hous e. You can’t possibly meet all the definitions of “making it”
in this world: you should have more friends, you should be handsome, or
you should be six feet tall. There’ s always something you can find fault with when it comes to
yourself; you’ll never be satisfied. The thing is to be happy with what you
are at the mom ent, and also see that you’re an evolving human being. Therefore, you don’t have to be perfect because you’re not required to be
perfect. You’re only expected to make the best possible use you can of the
advantages here, to learn and to grow and to support others, and to be
loving and for giving. And you’re doing all you can do as a human being. BECOMING A SPIRITUAL SEEKER
There are fewer religionists and more spiritually evolved people—more
people who call themselves spiritual rather than religious. It’s because of
the downside of religion, histo rically. Every religion has had historical
events that would disqualify it hypothetically. How can they have made
such a mistake. How can I believe a church that believed in that, or made
that mistake. But what goes on is people will call themselves spiritual;
that’s the most common pattern in today’ s world. They begin to follow
spiritual values and they learn from spiritual teachers, alive or historical. Most spiritual teachers have considerable followings of people who are
interested in evolving and growing, maturing spiritually in their levels of
consciousness. And they may stay there with one teacher, or they may go to
a numbe r of teachers. There was a period of time of being a spiritual seeker,
where you went to lots of lectures by all dif ferent kinds of spiritual teachers. Each one has something valuable that you can pick up from them:
techniques or ways of looking at things, or a blind spot that you weren’ t
aware you had until you hear a lecture on it. So, you seek—you become a spiritual seeker. In a way, spirit ual really
means seeking. See, with religion, you found the answer. That’ s this church
and this denomi nation, and that’s the answer. Now you just have to perfect
how you apply it to yourself. The spiritual person who says, “I’m spiritual,
but not religiou s,” usually becomes a seeker. They go to various lectures,
and they attend meetings and retreats. And they listen to all the different
teachers and learn something from each one. Each spiritual teacher has
something. And what they have may be nonverbal—the subtle enthusiasm
they have for certain concepts, et cetera. And the seeker picks up that enthusiasm. So each teacher has something
to share  and something that can be learned. Most of my own audiences
listen to a number of different speakers. Each of these teachers may be
suitable at various periods of your life. There are certain times when going
on spiritual retreats is extremely valuable, and then there are other timeswhen that’ s just a way of avoiding the responsibilities of life. Y ou really had
a lot you should have done at home this weekend and instead, you went on
a retreat to Cam p Baba. When you get home, the lawn still hasn’ t been
mowed. The kids are still crying. You didn’ t help the kids with their
homework. When you’re running away, you’re really doing it for an
advantage. Most  of these spiritu al things serve a purpose at certain periods
of your life. I’ve noticed most people change their pattern as they go
through life, if they’re going to evolve. Other people just develop a perfect
pattern and stay with that; they stay with that for a lifetime. • • •
To just be gratef ul that you’re interested in the spiritual dimension at all
—that’ s already something to be grateful for. I mean, how many people lead
a blind life. They calibrate at 192 when they come onto the planet, and
when they leave, they calibrate  at 192. No change. So they really blew a
whole lifetime, just doing the same self-centered, greedy things all the time. The Buddha said, “Rare it is to be born a human, rarer still it is to have
heard of enlightenment, and rarest of all it is to have heard of enlightenment
and dedicate oneself to its pursuit. ” That’ s the rarest of all. So to be
dedicated to the searching for the truth, is the rarest of all possible gifts. As a human, you can undo nega tive karma and gain positive karma. And
if you use these  lifetimes on earth wisely, you can reach enligh tenment. So
be grateful that one is a human and that one has heard of the truth. • • •
Be intro spective; you can’t walk around naively oblivious of who you are
and how you come across to people. So you need a certain degree of self-
awareness and the capacity for self-criticalness—to be able to see your
upside, your downside, and your limitations; accept the reality of your
personality where it is; and be introspective and reflective. Somebody else
will suggest something, and you say, “Well, I have to reflect on that. ” It
means you’re going to hold it in mind and various facets begin to reveal
themselves. You forget all about it and then you have a peanut butter
sandwich, and in the middle of the sandwich you realize other significances
of it—how it affects your relationships with others, how it reflects thefulfillment of things you’ve held in mind, the implicit limitati ons of what
you feel you would not be able to do, et cetera. So significance and fulfillment, all these things become consequences of
reflection. What ’s the saying. “The unexamined life is not worth living. ”
We need to be conscious and aware. And many people are extremely
oblivious to how they come across to others—unaware of major blind spots
and repetitious behavior. They make the same mistake for decades. And you
wonder, Why haven’t they gotten any feedback from the world, or reflected
on that. I think this has to do with the capacity to constantly learn to have
an open mind, to be able to ask, and to do so with perspicacity. The capacity
to disce rn and observe. And of course, one of the things about being a
physician is you need perspicacity. And over the years, I could always tell who was outside my office. I
would hear the next patient coming across the floor to the office door, and I
could already tell whether they were better or worse than last time. Somehow, the rate, the gait, the rhythm, their stance as they walked into the
room already said a great deal about the person. So with perspicacity, you
have to be able to witness the slightest alteration of things. Ther e are people
who are completely oblivious. They walk around in a dream state or
something. The interest in the evolution of one’s own consciousness—how it’s
evolved over time, how it expressed itself in ancient times—is still present
in today’ s world. There are peop le who are still mystics in this world, who
speak from the Self. Curiosity leads to learning. That’ s how the little
amoeba stays alive. It has to constantly search around and find something to
eat or it’s not going to be here. People do get addicted to the accumulation
of knowledge for its own sake. And that’s probably just a phase  that people
go through, and sooner or later, one begins to realize that it has to be put
into actual practice and then just be intellectually conversant. That’ s just
part of the evolution of one’ s spiritual awareness. First you accumulate the inform ation, then, you pursue the infor mation to
experience for yourself the truth of it. People often start out with intellectual
curiosity, and they’ll buy just about any and every book they can on
spirituality. I went through that phase myself. I had a whole wall of books
on everything you can think about: pseudo spirituality, true spiritualty,
psychic reading s, people on the other side, channelings, and God knows
what else. And then discernmen t arose over the years. So, there’ s a curiosity—sort of a wide-eyed amazement that there are realms that you weren’ t
even aware of. You can go through formal schooling and never be aware
that there’ s anything other than the logical, linear under the concrete. And
suddenly you become aware that there are whole dimensions. SURRENDERING THE SMALL SELF
The personal will is trying to accomplish something as a very specific
goal. It usually has to do with gain or dominance or control in some way. The spiritual world is more in the field of surrender. Now the personal will
is only as strong  as one’s level of consciousness. So sometimes  people will
want to accomp lish something  by personal will, and that would require
much more power than the personal will. Let’s say you live at
consciousness level 190, and now through personal will, you’re going to try
to overcome a certain thing, but you don’t have enough  power at
consciousness level 190. When you get up to consciousness level 500 or so,
now you would have the power to overcome it, but you haven’ t got enough
horsepower in the engine to do it at that level. Therefore, align ing yourself
with a more powerful field is what people do. For exam ple, let’s look at addict ion. While the addiction may take you all
the way down to consciousness 90, to surrender to God’ s will is something
that you don’t have the strength to do yourself. A person takes you to an
AA meeting, which calibrates at 540. At the consciousness level of 540, the
person says, “Well, you could let go of the addiction if you wanted to. ” And
suddenly it dawns on you, that’s true. It isn’t could you, it’s would you. When people have trouble making spiritual decisions, here’ s another
example I give them. Somebo dy says, “I can’t possibly forgive my ex-
brother -in-law for what he did to me. ” And I’ll say, “Now, if I have a. 45
loaded next to your temple, and if you don’t forgive him, I’m going to blow
your brains out. Could you for give him. ”
“Oh yes, I could. ” So, I say, “Well, that clearly differentiates the could
from would. ” And mostly what people think is could, is just that they
wouldn’ t. They’re unwilling to do it. If you’re willing to forgive anybody,
you can forgive anybody for anything. It’s the will. So surrendering the will
to God is important; you see, divine will calibrates extremely high, at about
850. Your personal will, near 190, is something different. When you
surrender your will to God, now you can accomplish the miraculous. It isn’tyou that accomplishes it—you’ve surrendered the small self to the large
Self. The large Self counts on the will of God to accomplish its goals, and
therefore is capable of performi ng the miraculous. And when you get to a
certain level of consciousness, the miraculous becomes continuous. What
people think is miraculous is really just our innocence. When you get to a certain level—around 570 or 580—the miraculous
becomes ordina ry. You hold the thing in mind and it manifests, and you
don’t go: “Oh, isn’t that amazing. ” That’ s the way it all happens. It all
unfolds based on how it’s being held in mind. And it’s because the Self,
with the capital S, can accomplish what the small self cannot do, even
though its life depends on it. People try and they actually die in the attempt. They do not have the power. Because force results in counter force, and
surrender pulls you in a powerfu l context. When you say, “God,  I of myself,
am unable to do a certain thing, and I ask you if it is your will, that it be
accomplished,” and then you surrender it, at that point, you really surrender
it. You don’ t keep insisting that God do it or not do it. At that point, you relinquish  the personal will. And that which you
thought was going to be impossible, now comes about in the most
miraculous and unbelievable way. And if you put a string of miraculous
experiences together, a skeptic would have a hard time trying to figure out
how best to explain such a number of phenomena. And when the phase of
the siddhis appears, the miracu lous is numberless and almost continuous. One would wonder how to explain this from the viewpoint of pedestrian
logic, and the simplicity of scientific thinking. How is it that in the entire
parking paradox  of New York City, the only parking space suddenly opens
up just as you drive up. Well, that’s the way it was for years. What’ s the probability of that. Practically nothi ng. That was followed by something else. We followed one
phenomenon after another in which its statistical probability is nil. And
when we put them together—the nil plus nil plus nil, plus nil—we wonder
how to explain this phenomena. You might not know where you’re going and start driving to a strange
town, and pull up right exactly to the place you wanted to go— because all
you did is hold it in mind. I used to do that all the time: just held in mind
Florida, all around lakes that I didn’ t know, one lake from another. I
automatically drove exactly where I wanted to go, with no map and no
knowledge of the territory. So that’s just one example, but those things are continuous. There’ s a
phase where it goes on for years, the unfolding of everything is continuous. You need a pair of pliers, so you look out the window of the truck and not
only is there a pair of pliers laying there by the road, but they’re a brand-
new pair of pliers. Laying there within an arm’s reach—they’re brand new. And you don’t even say “wow” anymore, because this is the way life has
become. You’re hungry, and around the next turn there’ s a hambur ger joint. There you are. Life becomes one hambur ger joint after another. BECOMING THE WITNESS
It’s very easy to see that everything is happening spontaneo usly, that
even your thinkingness is happening all on its own. You think that you’re
deciding what you’re going to think, but you’re not, so you get detached
from your own thinkingness, the same as the world. You see that the world
around you is moving without your help. All these people are managing to
survive without you helping them to be here, and move, and talk. And so
what you do is you get detached and you begin to become the witness. To
become the witness is not a difficult step; it’s only a matter of letting go of
the narcissistic self-indulgence of thinking that there’ s an I causing things. Nothing is causing anything. There are no causes in the world. There are only consequences. And so what you do is you let go of
identifying with the linear, and you realize that your reality is nonlinear. You see that which is witnessing, and then behind that which is witnessing,
that which is aware that you’re witnessing—and already you’ve removed
yourself from out there and from the individual, personal I, and from the
guilt and anxiety  of being the cause of all that happens. You’ve moved into
the condition of humility. With profound humility, you’ll see that you’re not
the cause of anything, which is welcome news because that means you’re
also not guilty of anything. Something happens, and you say, “I don’t know,
the mind did it. The mind did it. I can’ t help it, the mind did it. ”
So, to become the witness then, you become aware of the spon taneity of
evolution, and you begin to witness. All phenomena are the evolution of
creation. Creatio n has a source, but no cause; it has no beginning, and it has
no end. You witness the unfoldment of creation. There is no problem with
creation because  it’s what you’re  witnessing. The fact that it’s all happeningspontaneously is not difficult to see. This observation escapes about 99
percent of mankind. At least 99 perce nt of humanity is completely unaware of this. And we’re
not coun ting on widespread acceptance that you are the context rather than
the content. You are that from which awareness radiates and out of which
consciousness arises. The source is consciousness itself. The light of God is
consciousness. The light of God is your own consciousness. And as you let
go of misidentif ying with that which you are not, it becomes stunningly
apparent. THE SOUND OF GOD IS SILENCE
Silence calibrates at 1,000. The sound of God is silence. To have sound,
you have to have linearity; you have to have that which is sound and that
which is not sound, and then you have to give a configuration to the sound. Therefore, mant ras and other things like saying “om” will take you to a
certain level. And beyond that, you become aware of the silence behind  the
sound. And so, the purpose of the sound is to take you to the silence. That’ s
why repeating a mantra can sometimes really just lead to an altered state of
consciousness and the high feeling that you get disappears when you stop
the mantra. Mantras have limited usages. They can assist at certain points, but you
can’t live your whole life as a mantra. You can, however, live your whole
life as a praye r, because a prayer is a verbalization of a nonlinear
intentionality, a prayer to make your life a prayer to become that—and that
which you are speaks louder than what you say. Essence speaks louder than
perception. The levels of consciousness don’t say that you’re better than
others. It’s not a matter of better, but because of our status-oriented society,
we say it’s better. It’s not better—it’ s different. And very often, to be in a
different state of consciousness that is not appropriate to where you are can
be a hindrance. To be blissed-out when you’re driving is not so great. You have to pull
over. So, you have to sort of be in what’ s appropriate to the situation. That
begins to adjust  itself automatically. It is true that if you sudde nly advance
to a higher state, you may be quite incapacitated, so it’s good to have
spiritual friends,  and hang out with spiritual people and let them know that
you’re seriously on a spiritual path. LIFTING THE CONSCIOUSNESS LEVEL OF MANKIND
People think it’s what you do or what you say or how you behave that
matters. No, it’s the consequence  of that which you are. So that which you
are, if you sit alone in a cave,  is influencing the consciousness level of
mankind. Even if you sit alone in a cave, it radiates out as an energy. So
each one’s contribution raises the level of the sea. People will ask me,
“What can I do to help the world. ” The best thing you can do is become the
fulfillment of your own potentia l, because each inch that the sea rises lifts
all the ships afloat. Now, nobody has enough strength in and of himself to
lift a ship, but everybody is contributing. So when  everyone aligns themselves with spiritual integrity, to be as
unconditionally loving as possible, then we all lift the level of the sea. And
by lifting the level of the sea, we lift everyone on it. So we do what we can
to lift the level of consciousnes s of mankind. And that influen ce then will
have its influence. The more aligned you are with spiritual reality, integrity, truth, and the
universal love, the more profo undly you’re effecting the world without
having to do anything. Of course, doing good things works. There’s nothing
wrong with that. I’m not saying that. But in and of itself, that which you are
and have become is what is truly influencing the world. • • •
The willingness  to surrender how you see things, then, begins to
transform how you see and experience life. Instead of being angry and
condemning others, you see that people cannot help being the way they are. Let’s say there are these teenagers throwing rocks at each other and
provoking the police into attack ing them. You begin to see they can’t help
themselves. As you really go into great depth, you begin to discern the basic
innocence of human conscious ness. The consciousness itself is like the
hardware of a computer, and the ego is like the software. The consciousness
itself is unable to tell truth from  falsehood. It cannot tell wheth er it’s being
programmed, like the Nazis did with the Nazi youth, into falsehood, or
whether it’ s truth. So then you understand why Christ and Buddha said, “Forgive them for
they know not what they do. ” The hardware of the computer is unaltered bythe software. The consciousness of the youth is innocent. So those kids who
threw rocks then are looked at with compassion. You can see that they have
been abused somehow. You see their spiritual abuse. And because of the
innocence of human consciou sness, its inability to discern truth from
falsehood, mankind is led down the path of falsehood. We can think of the young people in Nazi Germany, being patriotic. It’s
like going to Boy Scout camp— they’re around the campfires, singing songs
and hiking and doing all this for their country, for their fatherland, for the
Führer. How could they have believed anything other than that. If we’d
been there, we would’ve been doing the same thing. You see the innocence. So we begin to see the basic innocence of human consciousness, and now it
allows us to forgive everyone. You see that everybody’ s being  run by the
programs with which they’ve been programmed. I mean, what else could
they think. People believe the media because television comes across so
fast; they’ve already believed it before they’ve had a chan ce to even
examine their questioning. The mind gets programmed. And so you see on the one hand, the ego
survives by juicing negativity; on the other hand, it can’t help but do that. It
can’t help but be that which it is. And without the power of spiritual truth,
frankly, it’s unable to transcend itself. The value of spiritual truth is that
without it, nobody would transcend the ego. It’s because of the great
avatars, it’s because of the great power of spiritual truth, and those who
have realized the reality, then there lies the source of their own existence. That creates the power of the field, and the power of the field is where
people derive inspiration to then transcend their limitations. We understand then that basically human consciousness is innocent—it
doesn’ t know truth from falsehood. The reason I had to write the book
Power vs. Force is because it staggered me, and I realized man has never
had a chance to know truth from falsehood. The best man has been able to
do is to follow the intellect and end up at a consciousness level of 460,
which leaves you stuck right in the middle of the mind and its dualities, and
therefore war and hatred and all are destined to go on and on and on—
because withou t spiritual energy and truth to transcend it, the mind is
hopelessly caught in its own web. And it gets paid off for getting so, as it
goes round and round and round and ruminates—it gets a payof f. Therefore,
it’s self-propagating. The ego unaided, without external spiritual truth, will forever go round
and round chasi ng its own tail. Each person, as they do what they think is
personal spiritu al work, is actually influencing the entire field. The
prevailing level of consciousness of mankind then progresses as a
consequence of the collective spiritual effort of all of us. Every choice,
every spiritual decision we make reverberates around the universe. Like it
says in scriptur e, “Not one hair of your head goes uncounted. ” And we
discovered with muscle testing that that is a fact. Anything anybody’ s ever
done, thought, felt—every decision that’s ever been made—is recorded
forever in the field of consciousness. People who say they don’t belie ve in karma can do so as a belief system. But they would still have to explain how it is that all phenomena that have
ever occurred throughout all of history are recorded forever. How do you
explain that every entity that gets born on this planet already has a
calibrated level of consciousness. Therefore, we did not arise out of
nothingness, but out of somethingness. And what is that someth ingness out
of which we all arise into which we all return. That takes us out of the
limitation of the timeframe of the present. And we begin  to see an
experienced life in a greater dimension and the spiritual realiti es that arise
out of contemplating such things encourage our investigation into spiritual
truth, which is the purpose of this kind of work. I wanted to first present the whole panorama of consciousness—its
evolution, its quality, its nature, and how it’s been approached through
science, reason, logic, philosoph y, ethics, theology, and religion. How it has
evolved in mankind, how it manifests itself and the part that it plays in
everyday life. Force then requires energy, and it exhausts people. People
can only exert force to a certain point, and then they begin to collapse. Power, on the other hand, does not exhaust itself. In fact, the more it’s used,
the more powerful it seems to be. For instance, if we experiment with
forgiving people and being willing to love and love unconditionally, we find
that that capacity grows. In the beginnin g, it may seem difficult to love that which seems
unlovable, but if we dedicate ourselves to that way of being in the world, if
we dedicate ourselves to being that way in the world, then we find that it’s
easier and easier. We find that with force, the more you give away, the less
you have. But with power, the more you give, the more you have. So the
more loving a person is, the more loving their world becomes. We begin toexperience the world of our own creation. Some people say, “You go to
New York City, and they’re all so cold and horrible there. I hate New York
City; they’re all mean. ” And another person goes to New York City and
says, “My goodness, they were the most wonderful people—all the
waitresses and cabdrivers were so neat. it’s just an incredible place. ”
Well, it’s becaus e in the presenc e of love, we precipitate the emer gence of
love in other people. And when we’re not loving, we tend to bring forth the
negative side of their natures. So all we’re experiencing then is the kind of a world that we’re
precipitating. A virtual display of what we and ourselves have become. • • •
The contrast between power and force is given dramatically by historical
example of the British empire, vis-à-vis Mahatma Gandhi. Well, Mahatma
Gandhi, as you know, was a Hindu ascetic. And if you calibrate Gandhi,
he’s over 700. At the time that he confronted the British empire, it was the
greatest force the world had ever seen. It ruled one quarter of the world, a
third of the planet and the seas. And when I was growing up, it was still the great British empire  upon by
which the sun never set. Against that stood a little 90-pound Hindu, skin
and bones—he confronted the great lion who ruled one-third of the planet. The interesting thing is that Mahatma Gandhi, by doing nothing—in fact,
just saying  he’s going to stop eating, and if they didn’ t like it, he’d just
starve to death— threw the world into a panic. And at 700 Gandhi stood
there. Well, 700 is of course enormous power, extremely rare on the planet. He faced off against the British empire, which in its pridefulness and self-
interest calibrated at 190. And without firing one single shot Gandhi defeated the entire British
empire and took it apart, and brought the end of colonialism. It was not only
the British empire, but colonialism per se, that he defeated, and self-rule
became the dominant political system in the world. What Gandhi really
represents then is the influence of power. Power doesn’ t cause  things; force
can be said to cause things within the Newtonian paradigm. Power
influences  things. Now, you know that a quark is going to rise depending on the density of
the medium that it finds itself in. So by prayer, by spiritual evolution, whathappens then is that mankind creates a very powerful field, this field, this
spiritual reality, which then begins to lift and ef fect all of mankind. It ef fects
the whole paradigm of reality and values. So as I mentio ned before,
integrity is now becoming a predominant value in our society ; it’s being
talked about constantly in the media. We have a whole new value system. Now, that was not brought about by the mechanism of force. Nobody forced
the media to begin valuing integrity, but integrity emer ged as a social value. Not as a spiritual value, but as a social value. We all live by our own principles. Spiritual growth then means, What
principles do we live by. And as we grow and mature, we choo se different
principles. Some  people live by the principle of “Always be right—never
give the sucker a break. ” People come out and state what their principles
are. Sometimes they seem quite outlandish, but you could say they’re
integrous to the degree that they live by them. To the degree that they live
by them, they are living by what they’re committed to. So I respect what
people say they’re committed to, and I think to the degree they live by that,
then they’re being virtuous by their own definition. So the calibrated level
of consciousnes s, to some degre e, then reflects the degree to which we live
by our own stated spiritual choice. You might say karma or spiritual destiny, the calibrated level of
consciousness, then, is the consequence of spiritual freedom of choice. So
we have  freedom  of choice at every moment, but this freedom  of choice
seems to be obscure. We seem to be run by programs. And one reason that
we try to transcend the ego is because we don’t want to be at the effect of
the ego. We would like the mind to stop long enough for us to deliberate
and make a choice. And so often we do a thing quickly and we regret it
later, and sort of get a feeling of resentment, thinking, Gee, I didn’ t really
have a moment to r eally think about that. Our spiritual choices, then, tend to determine which direction we choose
when the moment arises. If it wasn’ t for the silence of consciousness, you
would not be able to know what you’re thinking. It’s because of the silence
of the forest that you can hear sound. It’s because the mind is silent that you
can hear or see or picture what you’re thinking. Therefore, the content of
the mind  must be going on in the space of no mind, which is a classical
term, meaning thoughtless, form less consciousness, upon which thoughts
reflect themselves. So, we withdraw our investment and preoccupation andidentification with the content of thinking and begin to see that we’re the
space in which thinking can occur. The value of meditation, then, is that it focuses us so that we withdraw
our investment in identification with the content of thought to the space in
which the thoug ht is occurring. We begin to see that there is a witness  to the
thinking. There is an awareness  to the witness, and there’ s a substrate that
underlies all of it that is beyond time, beyond dimension, and that it is
independent of personal identification. And the identification then with
consciousness itself lifts us out of the identification of our reality as either
the body  or the mind or the thoughts or the feelings, and takes us to a
greater dimension. As we move into that greater dimension, then we confirm the spiritual
reality, which underlies our existence. People become involved in spiritual
work on a practical level. They want to know, “How can I forgive my
enemies when I hate them so much after all they’ve done to me. How can I
feel hope when I’m really depressed. How can I get rid of fear when I’m
scared all the time. ” It starts out on a very practical level. Other people will
start out from a different level. They start out through inspiration. They will
hear an inspirational speaker and get uplifted. One can start from curiosity; one can start from sort of a spontaneous
evolution within one’s own consciousness. I think spiritually evolved
people inspire others outside of their awareness. Because they influence the
field, people who would have ordinarily not been interested in spirituality
suddenly become curious—not through any inner prompting, but as a
consequence of the field. So if you’re around people who are more
spiritually evolved, you may find your own interest in it spontaneously
becoming more intense. It’s not through any deliberate decision-making,
but just because it’s more interes ting—like how when you’re around people
who are into sports, you tend to listen more and be more interested in that. When people have some kind of disaster in their life—and we hear it all
the time about an illness or drugs or alcohol or criminality or grief or loss—
they want to know what they can do about it. The willingness to surrender
life to God, of course, is one of the most profound spiritual tools. People
ask, “What spiritual tools are the most powerful. ” I would say, humility, the
willingness to surrender life—to let go of wanting to control it, to let go of
wanting to change it—the willingness to surrender how you see things toGod (or to some  higher spiritual principle, because God is not a reality. It’s
just a word to most people). For most people, God is a hoped-for reality, but not an experiential
reality until they become more spiritually advanced and begin to experience
the presence of the field itself and intuit its enormous power. Then they
revere God, because they respect the infinite power that they begin to intuit. What we can do on a practical level, then, is become the best person we can
become. I’d say to become kind toward all of life in all of its expressions,
no matter what. And that includes oneself: to be willing to forgive oneself,
to see the limitation of human consciousness. I always feel that the more educated you are about the quality of
consciousness, the nature of consciousness, the easier it is to follow
spiritual principles. If you understand that human consciousness is
intrinsically innocent and canno t control that which it is programmed by,
because it can’t tell truth from  falsehood, you begin to feel compassion
automatically.
To transcend and reach higher states of consciousness, and to lift the level of consciousness of mankind.
According to the author, what is the purpose of spiritual growth?
It's yin, and it's not about forcing things to happen, but rather allowing for revelation and surrender.
What is the primary focus of spiritual work, according to the author?
Forgiveness is not about changing the world, but about changing one's own projections and recognizing the innocence of human consciousness.
What is the author's perspective on the concept of forgiveness?
The ego is trying to control and dominate the world, whereas the world is actually reflecting the level of consciousness of the individual.
According to the author, what is the relationship between the ego and the world?
It's crucial to be self-aware, recognize one's limitations, and surrender to a higher power, as this allows for spiritual growth and evolution.
What is the author's view on the importance of self-reflection and introspection?