Praise for The Map of Consciousness Explained
“I r ecommend this book for every spiritual aspirant for climbing
the unseen ladder of r eal spiritual pr ogr ess.”
— Swami Chidatmananda , Hindu spiritual monk at Chinmaya Mission, Bharat IndiaALSO BY DA VID R. HA WKINS, M.D., PH.D.
Books
Power vs. For ce: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior
The Eye of the I: Fr om Which Nothing Is Hidden
I: Reality and Subjectivity
T ruth vs. Falsehood: How to T ell the Differ ence
T ranscending the Levels of Consciousness: The Stairway to
Enlightenment
Discovery of the Pr esence of God: Devotional Nonduality
Reality , Spirituality and Modern Man
Healing and Recovery
Along the Path to Enlightenment
Dissolving the Ego, Realizing the Self
Letting Go: The Pathway of Surr ender
Success Is for Y ou: Using Heart-Center ed Principles for Lasting
Abundance and Fulfillment
Book of Slides: The Complete Collection Pr esented at the 2002–2011
Lectur es with Clarifications
Orthomolecular Psychiatry  (with Linus Pauling)
Dialogues on Consciousness and Spirituality
Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis and Calibrations of the Levels of
Human Consciousness
Audio Pr ogramThe Map of Consciousness Explained  (lectures)
Please visit:
Hay House USA: www .hayhouse.com®
Hay House Australia: www .hayhouse.com.au
Hay House UK: www .hayhouse.co.uk
Hay House India: www .hayhouse.co.in
◆  ◆  ◆Copyright © 2020 by the David and Susan Hawkins Revocable T rust
Published in the United States by:  Hay House, Inc.: www .hayhouse.com® • Published in Australia
by:  Hay House Australia Pty . Ltd.: www .hayhouse.com.au  • Published in the United Kingdom by:
Hay House UK, Ltd.: www .hayhouse.co.uk  • Published in India by:  Hay House Publishers India: w
ww .hayhouse.co.in
Indexer:  Joan Shapiro
Cover and Interior design:  Julie Davison
“ Lorenz Butterfly ” illustration reprinted by permission of the W illiam Morris Agency , Inc., on behalf
of the author © 1987 James Gleick
The T welve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous  reprinted by permission of Alcoholics Anonymous
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or
electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval
system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private use—other than for “fair use” as
brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews—without prior written permission of the publisher . The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a
form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician,
either directly or indirectly . The intent of the author is only to of fer information of a general nature to
help you in your quest for emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of
the information in this book for yourself, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for
your actions. Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of
Congr ess
T radepaper ISBN:  978-1-4019-5964-7
E-book ISBN:  978-1-4019-5965-4____________________________
T o the memory of Dr . David R. Hawkins
(1927–2012)
Gloria in Excelsis Deo! ____________________________C O N T E N T S
Map of Consciousness®
Pr eface  by Susan J. Hawkins
Intr oduction  by Fran Grace, Ph.D., editor
Part I: FOUNDA TIONS
CHAPTER 1: Overview of the Map of Consciousness
Understanding Consciousness Calibration
Database of Consciousness
Scientific Background of Attractor Patterns
The Columns of the Map
Q&A
CHAPTER 2: The Levels of Consciousness
Ener gy Level 20: Shame
Ener gy Level 30: Guilt
Ener gy Level 50: Apathy
Ener gy Level 75: Grief
Ener gy Level 100: Fear
Ener gy Level 125: Desir e
Ener gy Level 150: Anger
Ener gy Level 175: Pride
Ener gy Level 200: Courage
Ener gy Level 250: Neutrality
Ener gy Level 310: W illingness
Ener gy Level 350: Acceptance
Ener gy Level 400: ReasonEner gy Level 500: Love
Ener gy Level 540: Joy
Ener gy Level 600: Peace
Ener gy Levels 700–1,000: Enlightenment
Everyday Examples of How the Levels Determine Human Behavior
Q&A
CHAPTER 3: The Evolution of Consciousness
Having-Doing-Being
The Evolution from Survival to Love
Considerations across 7 Sectors of Life
Intention: Evolving beyond Causality
T ruth and the Infinite Field
Q&A
Part II: PRACTICAL APPLICA TIONS
CHAPTER 4: Health and Happiness
The Body Obeys the Mind
Overcoming Negative Programs
The Process of Self-Healing
The State of Inner Freedom
CHAPTER 5: The “ABC” of Success in 10 Steps
Step 1: Intention
Step 2: Enjoyment
Step 3: Serviceability
Step 4: Aesthetics
Step 5: Attraction
Step 6: Reliability
Step 7: Nobility
Step 8: Quality
Step 9: Sharing
Step 10: Graciousness
Everyday Success Practices
Aligning Y our CompassCHAPTER 6: The W ay Out of Addiction
The T ruth about Addiction
Ener gy Fields and Addiction
Why Give Up an Addiction? Process of Consciousness in Recovery
The T welve Steps: Removing the Blocks
The Healing Power of a Loving Group
Part III: ADV ANCING CONSCIOUSNESS
CHAPTER 7: T ranscending the Barriers to Higher Consciousness
Spiritual W ill
The Role of Grace
The Experiencer: Leading Edge of the Ego
Dualities of the Ego: Attractions and A versions
From Shame to Pride
From Courage to Ecstasy
The Pathway of Surrender
CHAPTER 8: Spiritual T ruth, T eachers, and T eachings
40 Characteristics of Integrous T eachers and T eachings
Spiritual Education
Self-Realization and Enlightenment of the Mystic
Divine States
Q&A
CHAPTER 9: Guidance for Spiritual Seekers
The Spiritual Direction
Q&A
The Most V aluable Qualities and Attitudes for the Spiritual Seeker
Q&A
CONCLUSION:  The Essence of the Path
Readers’ Guide: Study-Gr oup Questions
Appendix A: Consciousness Calibration
Appendix B: Calibration Lists for Spiritual AspirantsGlossary
Resour ces for Further Study
Biographical and Autobiographical Notes
Endnotes
Index
About the AuthorM a p  o f  C o n s c i o u s n e s s®
God-view Life-view Level Log Emotion Pr ocess
Self Is Enlightenment ⇑
700-
1000Ineffable Pur e
Consciousness
All-Being Perfect Peace ⇑
600Bliss Illumination
One Complete Joy ⇑
540Ser enity T ransfiguration
Loving Benign Love ⇑
500Rever ence Revelation
W ise Meaningful Reason ⇑
400Understanding Abstraction
Mer ciful Harmonious Acceptance ⇑
350Forgiveness T ranscendence
Inspiring Hopeful W illingness ⇑
310Optimism Intention
Enabling Satisfactory Neutrality ⇑
250T rust Release
Permitting Feasible Courage ⇕
200Affirmation Empowerment
Indiffer ent Demanding Pride ⇓
175Scorn Inflation
V engeful Antagonistic Anger ⇓
150Hate Aggr ession
Denying Disappointing Desir e ⇓
125Craving Enslavement
Punitive Frightening Fear ⇓
100Anxiety W ithdrawal
Disdainful T ragic Grief ⇓
75Regr et Despondency
Condemning Hopeless Apathy ⇓
50Despair AbdicationV indictive Evil Guilt ⇓
30Blame Destruction
Despising Miserable Shame ⇓
20Humiliation Elimination
© The Institute for Spiritual Research, Inc., dba/ V eritas Publishing. This chart cannot be reproduced.P R E F A C E
The firs t time I saw my husban d’ s Map of Consciousness, it was on a
chalkboard in the hallway at home. I asked him, “What’ s that?”
He s aid, “Oh, th at’ s the Map of Consciousness.” He explained t o me that
he’d created it to help peopl e understand the world. “Each level of
consciousness h as its own view of life, view of God, view of self, emotion,
and process. On a single chart, y ou see the entire world. It shows a path out
of the pits of despair all the way to the state of Enlightenment.”
As s oon as David explained th e Map to me, I saw how it could bring
hope to humani ty . For decades he had worked as a psychiatrist with all
kinds of people who were suf fe ring, even cases of extreme mental illness. He knew the importance in psychiatry of giving someone a tool to inspire
them to come ou t of their despa ir . He created the Map as a tool for learning
and inspiration. I said, “Y ou’ve got to share this with people!”
He told me he wasn’ t sure he wanted to go out into the public, so I spoke
the word s I knew he couldn’ t r efute: “David, this Map would really help
people!” After that, he publishe d his first book about the Map, Power vs.
For ce: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior . L ittle did I kno w that
we’d spend the next 20 years traveling the world, sharing the Map of
Consciousness. When I was ons tage with him, I  witnessed how he would say things in a
powerful way and suddenly peo ple’ s faces would light up—they got it! It
was so fulfilling  to see that response and to know that someone’ s life was
changed. For Dave, it was nev er about himself—he cared only about the
message and its impact on othe rs. He had a contagious sense of humor; it
was imp ossible not to laugh whenever he was laughing. He didn’ t care
about ap pearances or getting approval from others, because he knew who
and what he was.THE BENEFITS OF THE MAP OF CONSCIOUSNESS
The Map that David created has a scale of consciousness from the bottom
of huma n exper ience to the top . He developed it so we would understand
why the re are both low and high ener gies in the world, and why some
people do horrible things while other people are purely loving . The scale
goes from 0 to 1,000, and it’ s lo garithmic. Dave hired a statistician to make
sure the  logarithms were correct. Then he put the emotions and other
elements that go along with each level of consciousness so we would
understand what  it feels like to be in Shame (20) versus Love (500). Some
people g o for the numbers, other s for the words. Dave presented  his work in
dif ferent ways to reach people with dif ferent learning styles. David w anted to reassure those who are suf fering that there’ s something
better ah ead. As you’ll read later , he himself experienced the whole Map,
from the very bottom to the top. He lived by the Map and demonstrated it in
his life, in his lectures, and through his sense of humor . I’ve never me t
anyone as driven as he was to do anything he could to help ot hers. That’ s
why he created the Map. He used it as a tool to inspire people to become
more loving and compassionate. Nearly e very da y , I hear from someone who says the Map changed their
life. Som e peop le have gotten free from the grips of heroin, a lcohol, and
other ho peless a ddictions. Othe rs have healed from various il lnesses and
emotional struggles. Whatever the life problem, the Map gave them a
pathway out of their suf fering. Courage
If this is your first book on this subject, you don’ t need  to feel
intimidated. The  Map is a simple, commonsense tool, and you don’ t have to
be a genius to u nderstand it. The pages ahead have everything you need to
know to  move forward in your life, explaining how the world works, why
things h appen a s they do, and how you can realize your fullest potential. The Map  can explain some of y our life’ s problems and also remind you of
your highest calling. Just read and see for yourself how it applies to you. Anyone can use the Map, from any religion or no religion. When I was in
high school, one of my best friends, who happened to be Jewish , asked me,“If there’ s a God, why do we have all the wars?” The Map tells us why . It
puts the  world into perspective . W ars allow millions of peopl e to die for
something lar ger than themselves. At the moment that they walk into a hail
of bullets, they cross over the critical line of Courage on the Map. Dave said that our biggest problem, spiritually , is the self-centered ego,
and it takes courage and dedication to overcome it. That’ s the courage we
see in soldiers who risk their li ves for something higher than t heir egos—
their country or God or fellows. Athletes do it in their way when they seek
to win for their team or their country , instead of wanting fame for
themselves. Or they dedicate the ir ef forts to someone suf fering from cancer
or anoth er illness. When we dedicate what we’re doing to something lar ger
than ourselves, then we are coming from a higher place. The Map shows us
that terr ible things, such as war , actually serve a purpose. The y help us to
evolve spiritually . Hope
When people are down, they need hope. The Map gives hope. It shows us
that if we are down in self-hatred or hopelessness, we can turn our lives
around by aiming for a higher level. W e see this turning point every day in
groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, with people recovering from addiction. From a place of total despair , th eir life turns around. When they reach the
level of Courage (200) on the Map, that’ s the point when their li ves change,
because they’ve  found the coura ge to tell the truth about themselves instead
of b laming someone else. From  there, the level of W illingness (310) is
important. That’ s the level of being willing to learn, willing to b e helpful to
others, willing to grow , willing to be kind, willing to work at something. There’ s always hope, even on the worst days. Some days are so hard, I
say to myself, “I don’ t ever want to redo tod ay!” Th e Map helps us  know
that one  bad day isn’ t the end o f life. As Scarlett O’Hara said in Gone with
the W ind , “ I’ll think about it tomorrow!”  The Map shows that we are all on
a jou rney . Just b ecause we don’ t like the scenery where we are now doesn’ t
mean th e whole  journey will lo ok bad; beautiful scenery lies ahead if we
have the willingness to trust the process. Over coming DifficultiesPeople say that the Map helps them have compassion for humankind. They see that a lot of the world lives on the lower levels of consciousness
such as Guilt, F ear , and Anger , and this means that such people can’ t help
but lie, kill, and steal. Each level has its own reality . If you live on the level
of Fear or Anger , that’ s how you act. Just knowing this helps us not to judge
those who act in ways that seem strange to us. Even if you’re at the level of Courage or above, you probably don’ t stay
there all  the time. Something comes up to test you. Everyone g oes through
episodes of the lower levels. For instance, after the death of a loved one,
you might have a lot of Grief to process, or Fear of the unkn own. In the
case of divorce, you might be an gry for a while—until it dawns  on you that
you’re actually better of f without that person and situation! As D ave writes in this book: li fe gives us trials. W e are going through
dif ficulties for a purpose. When  we’re right in the throes of a struggle, it’ s
hard to see the meaning of it, so we have to have faith that there is an
overall p urpose to it. David taught me that we can ask, “What’ s the purpose
of this?” W e co me to know that we’re not alone in  it; there’ s a Higher
Power looking out for us to help us grow . For example, when we really
want something but don’ t get it, then we may realize later , “I’m so glad I
didn’ t get that!”
Dave often said, “Love brings up its opposite.” This means that when we
commit to becoming more loving, life will bring us people who are dif ficult
to lo ve! Every a ction brings forth an equal and opposite reaction. I’m tested
every day by people and situations. Dave taught me that you can’ t please
everyone, and that’ s a hard lesson to learn. Sometimes it’ s necessary to say
no. S ometimes, when someone snaps at you, it’ s better to walk away rather
than stand there and ar gue with  a negative person. If you walk away , this
gives them the chance to feel the impact of their negativity . It can be a
teaching moment if they are willing. In all life’ s moments, learning occurs. Sometimes we’re the teacher , and sometimes we’re the student. EMBRACE WHA T YOU ARE
A w onderful goal is to live at the level of Love (500), but this isn’ t easy . Many people come to me and say , “I’m in the 500s.” They think they live at
the level  of Love, but it’ s more fantasy than fact. When you rea d about thatlevel of Love in this book, you’l l see that there’ s almost no one who lives at
it! Y ou’d  have to be close to a saint. If you’re in the 400s, which is the level
of Reason, high functioning, and seeking the T ruth for its own sake, then
you’re doing well. Y ou might h ave glimpses of a higher level, but it takes
constant devotio n to live there,  and no one can take  you there. Y ou can
experience it, and then you have  to do the inner work to get there and stay
there. Y ou can’ t force yourself to “achieve” a higher level; that’ s ego. It has
to come from willingness, essence, and heart. David says in th is book that basi c kindness to others plays a major role in
daily life  and spiritual progress. For instance, if you see an old lady having
trouble with her grocery cart, let  her go in front of you. Maybe she’ s tired of
standing. Be kind to the pregna nt mom with a screaming kid in her cart. Instead of giving her a dirty loo k and judging her as a “bad mother ,” let her
go in  front of you. What’ s 10 more minutes? If your goal is to evolve, then
kindness is a vital tool. Another point that Dave empha sizes is that one level is not b etter than
another , because each level has its own responsibility . Just try to be as good
a pe rson as you  can be, and to live in that space for as long as you can. When you reach the level of Acceptance (350), then you have embraced
who and what you are. W e all come in at dif ferent levels, and i t takes total
commitment to evolve to a higher level. W earing white robes and saying the
right wo rds does n’ t mean you’re on a higher level; it means your ego thinks
you are! If yo u h ave the capacity to be ho nest and not judge anything as “high” or
“low ,” th en you’ll have a good self-understanding, an inner sen se of where
you are on the Map. If you want to evolve, just look at whe re you can
improve yourself. Be honest about your weaknesses. May be you are
impatient and need to be kind er . Maybe you’re attached or addicted to
something and need to have the courage to surrender it. Maybe you’re a
doormat and need to stop letting people walk all over you. I like the saying
“First time, shame on you; se cond time, shame on me!” J ust because
someone is a family member or colleague doesn’ t mean you allow them to
mistreat you. Sometimes peop le think they will evolve by immersing themselves in the
highest ener gy fields. They tell me, “I’m only going to listen to  music and
read books that are at the very top of the Map!” They judge ev erything inthe world as “lower .” This is the spiritual ego’ s holier -than-thou attitude. If
they were at the level they think they are, they would see their error . The ego  likes to be special. The ego says, “I’m here, and you’re there.”
That’ s not what the Map is for . It’ s a tool for you to learn and grow . If
you’re h onest ab out what you s truggle with, you’ll see how to overcome it
and automatically move up the Map. Dave never once said, “I am an enlightened teacher ,” yet I saw  him live
at that level. He was very humble and down-to-earth. He didn’ t see himself
as any better than anyone else. H e just knew he had a responsibility to share
what he  was and help the world any way he could. When you  ar e  it, you
don’ t ha ve to say anything abou t yourself. At the higher levels, you have no
interest in promoting yourself. I saw Dave meet with people who needed his
help as a doctor , and all they gave him in return was a sack of cof fee. After
he passe d away , it took me two years to do something with  all of that
cof fee! This book is d edicated to his memory , because his life gives us a
wonderful example of selfless service for the betterment of humankind. I
hope and  pray you find this boo k helpful for your journey . As Dave told us:
“Straight and narrow is the path. W aste no time!”
— Susan J. Hawkins ,
President of the Institute of Spiritual Research,
founded by Dr . David R. HawkinsI N T R O D U C T I O N
A fe w months b efore he passed away , I was sitting with Dr . Hawkins at
his hom e and pointed to the lon g shelf of books he had written. “What’ s it
like to know you wrote all those  books?” He said, “I don’ t see t he books as
mine. It  wasn’ t the personal self that wrote the books. God w as looking
around for a mi nd that wasn’ t t hinking. I was just a channel, a space that
was empty . People see a body a nd a person, and they think that the person
wrote th e books. But that wasn’ t the case. It was like a violin— it can’ t play
itself; it has to be played.” Long silence. And then he said, chuckling, “I
stopped thinking years ago. I don’ t need to think. It’ s like a saw . . . too
much noise!”1
Dr . David R. Hawkins (“Doc”) was a rare combination of genius and
humility . His life was unusual. I mean, who can imagine a min d empty of
all thoug hts? “Misfit,” he liked to say , with a hearty laugh. It was a play on
words. W e were  talking about m ystics, and he said, “Y es, that’ s what people
call me—one of those ‘misfits’!”2
The details of his personal life were not important to him after certain
spiritual experiences extinguished his personal self. “The Prese nce itself is
all that’ s here in this moment” is how he began his daylong lecture at the
Institute of Noetic Sciences in 2003. Indeed, he rarely used personal
pronouns, a style that makes his writings unusua l in modern tim es but is
very similar to the expression o f historical mystics. Since today’ s readers
like to know who an author is a nd what led to the unique discoveries in a
book such as th is, the following is a brief narrative introduction to the
author and his trademark Map of Consciousness®. ABOUT DR. HA WKINSDr . Haw kins w as born in 1927  in W isconsin and grew up during the
Great D epression. Religiously , h is family was Episcopalian, and he served
as an altar boy and sang in the boys’ choir . However , his profound spiritual
experiences occurred outside of any religious context. At age three, sitting in a little wagon, he had a stunning awareness of
existence. Reflecting on that moment from childhood, he told a group of us:
“It was as if there had been total darkness, oblivion, and then suddenly giant
cleave li ghts cam e on. I saw I w as back in a body and I was not happy!” He
explained that in previous lifetimes he had been a devout Hinayana
Buddhist and followed a pathway of negation to the V oid (“Nothingness”),
believing it to be the ultimate spiritual goal. But it was not, or else he
wouldn’ t have ended up back here in a body! Instantly , with the realization
of e xistence, there was the f ear of nonexistence. It was a preverbal
confrontation with the paradox  of Nothingness versus Allness, a highly
advanced spiritu al gateway (“conundrum” was another word he used to
describe the confrontation with seeming opposites) that he did  not resolve
until decades later , and his teaching on the V oid is one of his most important
contributions to spiritual aspirants. (See Chapter 8 .) “W ith th at kind of a childhood, this was a strange life to begin with!” He
often chuckled at the oddities o f his life. “Frankly , other child ren seemed
extremely boring, and so I esc aped into Plato and Socrates. While other
boys we re playing stickball, I was reading Aristotle and listening to the
weekly opera program!”3
He w as also ver y industrious. By age 12, he had the longest newspaper
route (17 miles) in the region ; with no electricity along the highway ,
everything was pitch black. One time a winter storm hit, and gusting
subzero winds toppled over his b icycle, scattering all the newspapers. As he
describes in Chapter 8 , he pun ched his  way into a crusted snowbank on the
side of the road to get out of the freezing wind. No sooner had h e burrowed
into the snowba nk than he melt ed into the Infinite Presence of  Love. The
experience was so unfor gettable that 70 years later , when I as ked him to
describe that state of Infinite Love, he didn’ t miss a beat: “All negative
emotion—fear , impatience, frustration—disappeared. Instead  there was
only the Radiance of Infinite, timeless, everlasting, all-encompassing Love,
which was not dif ferent than the Reality of what I was, what I am.”4
Compared to this Infinite Love, the “God” of religion now seemed
irrelevant to the young David. At age 16, his belief in religion disappearedaltogether . One day , while walking in the woods, an awarenes s of human
suf fering throug hout the ages suddenly overwhelmed him, like a massive
dark cloud. In that moment, he blamed God for all the suf fering in the world
and became an atheist. Y et, des pite the  collapse of reli gious belief in God, he had a relentless
inner drive to get to the truth of existence: “There was an inner core within
consciousness that was desperate to reach some greater truth.”5 Born with
an excep tionally high IQ, he eas ily mastered the world of science, theology ,
medicine, and psychiatry , through the intellect. After service on a
minesweeper in the U.S. Navy during W orld W ar II, he completed medical
school w hile holding three jobs and soon became the head psychiatrist,
running a lar ge hospital in New Y ork and publishing a plethora of scientific
articles based on his clinical r esearch. He went through many years of
psychoanalysis with one of the leading Freudians at that time . He was a
dedicated Zen Buddhist meditator , sitting for an hour in the mor ning and an
hour in the eve ning. Y et all of these investigations only brought deeper
despair . Though  he had reached the pinnacle of worldly success, he was
confronted with a vast and way-less inner darkness. The crisis culminated in 1965 w hen he was 38 and at the point  of death
due to a progressive and fatal i llness. All his ef forts to pursue the truth of
existence via the intellect had failed, and he found himself in a state of
extreme anguish  and despair . Ju st before he was about to die, the thought
flashed through his mind, What if ther e is a God? And with that, he called
out a prayer—“If there is a God, I ask Him to help me now”—and he
surrendered totally to “whatever God there might be,” not expecting much. Immediately he went into “oblivion.” It took him 30 years to recount the
earth-shattering aftermath: “[T]he oblivion suddenly disappear ed and was
replaced by the stunning splend or of the Light of Divinity that shone forth
as the radiance and essence of Allness.”6
His consciousness had been completely and suddenly transfigured. The
mind an d its mental patterns were gone forever , replaced by the Presence,
“an infinite, all-encompassing awareness which is radiant, complete, total,
silent and still.”7 A peac eful in ner silence prevailed, as there were no
images, concept s, or thoughts. I n fact, there was no “person” left to think;
all s eparateness  between him and others dissolved, and he saw the same
beautiful, timele ss perfection in everyone around him: “A radiance shinesforth from everyone’ s face; eve ryone is equally beautiful.”8 In this state of
nonduality , each  living thing “i s aware of every other , and all things are
interconnected and in communication and harmony by means of awareness
and by sharing t he basic quality of the essence of existence itself .”9 Nothing
is be tter or wors e, higher or low er than anything else. “All sen tient beings
are equa l . . . All things are intrinsically holy in the divinity of their
creation.”10
Dr . Hawkins, in Power vs. For ce , says that the work on the Map of
Consciousness “ began in 1965,” by which he means this transf iguration of
his o wn consciousness. He may well be the first person trained as a clinical
scientist/physician to under go the transformation classically termed
“Enlightenment,” or unio mystica —and th en been  able to context ualize the
condition in lectures and books. While many of us have transient moments
of “flow ,” intense joy , or self-tra nscendence at certain peak experiences (the
birth of a child,  athletic feats, s tage performance, creative work, mountain
climbing, or lovemaking, to n ame a few) or even life-alteri ng spiritual
transformations (near -death experiences, for example, or beatific visions), it
is ex ceedingly rare for a person’ s consciousness to be transfigured suddenly
and permanently into  a nondual stat e. Historically , most such people either
leave the  body (death) or remain in “God-shock,” unable to speak about the
state of ego dissolution, when all sense of a personal self dissolves—like
sugar melting into warm water . As W illiam James tells us in his classic The
V arieties of Religious Experience , the  mystic exp erience is “inef fable”—
impossible to describe.11
In the wake of this transfiguration of consciousness, Dr . Hawkins’ s life
was nev er the same, and it took years to adjust to the changes. The nervous
system felt strained, like “high-tension wires burning with high-voltage
ener gy .” In social interactions, he felt bewildered when people referred to
his body  as “David,” because he knew himself to be everywhere and one
with everything: “Somebody would ask me a question and I would wonder
who the y were talking to!” Whe n he looked into the eyes of oth ers, he saw
only “the one Se lf. . . . There isn ’ t any separate you, there, and me, here.”12
The blissfulness  and self-completion made it dif ficult to summon interest in
normal function ing. The old m otivations of income and success were
irrelevant. The only motivation  strong enough to pull him back into thebody and the w orld of form, he said, was love: “Love becomes the sole
motivator of the continuance of physical existence.”
Each tim e it is e xtremely dif ficult to come back into the body . . . . Y ou
feel homesick . . . like one has left one’ s home for some kind of a task
one has agreed to. Whenever I g o into that state, there is no form . One
just diss olves in to infinite, golden love. It is so exquisite that it makes
one cry to have  to come back into the body again. The only reason
you can  leave it is because you know it is there forever , and that you
will return forever .13
One time, he told me, he was alone in the woods and a bliss state took
over . He was aware that vultures were circling his body , poised to descend
as soon as the last breath left his body . But he realized he might as well stay
in the body if it helped others, b ecause the bliss was forever and always. He
surrendered the body completely to be an instrument of service in the
world, allowing it to be reener gized. As soon as this happened, the vultures
flew away . He g radually acclimated to the new state of consciousness and returned
to his psychiatri c practice, which became the lar gest in the United States. His exp anded spiritual state led him to see beyond the limits of
conventional treatments to the inner humanness of his patients. He was
unstoppable in trying every avenue of treatment for his patient s, no matter
what his more conventional p eers had to say about it. Because of the
dramatic healing of hopeless patients, Dr . Hawkins appeared on major
network television shows during the 1970s and ’80s. His pioneering work
in many areas of human suf fering resulted in numerous national and
international rec ognitions, listed  in the About the Author section at the back
of the book. Despite these successes, his “o ne patient at a time” ef forts as a doctor
seemed like a drop in the bucket to him: “There was enormous frustration in
that the human suf fering could be countered in only one patient at a time. It
was like bailing out the sea.”14 He was  dedicat ed to find a means of inner
transformation that could help multitudes. Here we think of the Buddha,
who, after his awakening, laid out the Eightfold Path. Or we think of Bill
W ilson, who, having had his fatal and hopeless alcoholism relieved by a
suf fusion of Light, developed the T welve Steps for recovery .As D r . Hawkins probed the pr ocess of healing among patients in his
hospitals, he noticed that it had little to do with what he actually did or
prescribed as a doctor , and more to do with the inner consciousness that
radiated love. He noticed also that patients of certain doctor s tended to
improve, while the patients of other doctors mostly declined o r stayed the
same—even when the drug and treatment protocol was the same in all
cases. In h is address for the annual Landber g Lecture at the Univ ersity of
California at San Francisco (UCSF) Health Sciences Center on April 25,
1997, he recollected some obser vations from his time of clinica l practice in
New Y ork when physicians were prescribing various vitamins as part of the
treatment for schizophrenia: “[T ]he amount of side ef fects tha t a doctor ’ s
patients have depends on the consciousness of the doctor . It doesn’ t depend
on the medicine.”15 The  patients of one particular doctor in New Jersey , for
example, manife sted a type of skin discoloration with the use of vitamin B3 . However , the patients of other doctors had no side ef fects at all and, in fact,
responded well to the treatment. What was the secret of the successful
doctors? He saw that the h ealing ef fect related to their level of
consciousness. T he higher the physician’ s level of consciousness, the more
likely the patients were to he al. This would make sense to  spiritually
oriented people. But how to present it to a society steeped in a rational,
linear mind-set? How to demonstrate that it’ s the inner consciousness that
determines outcome and not the outer actions? Inner Discoveries
Pointing to himself, laughing, D r . Hawkins recounted, “This was always
a mi sfit and a peculiar entity on the planet here! Suddenly with out warning
the levels of con sciousness would advance and I would be stun ned out of a
capacity to function. That’ s why it was necessary to leave the psychiatric
practice in New Y ork. Just walked away from it, because in that profound
inner silence, there’ s nothing you can say to anybody . Y ou load your
favorite tools into the old truck  and drive to a small town in Arizona. Y ou
have a cot, a piece of cheese, a candle, and a cat—what else do  you need? Everyone was thinking, Y ou’ve l ost your  mind . S o, when all y our friends
think you’ve lost your mind, you’re probably in a good space!”16He left his huge clinical practice and multimillion-dollar life in New Y ork
and mov ed acro ss the country to Sedona, a small town in A rizona. For
many years, he lived the life of a hermit, detached from the world. This
period was crucial in that it gave him space to explore the nature of
consciousness from the inside out. Out of these subjective realizations
emer ged the discoveries that are  the basis for the Map of Consci ousness and
his sub sequent body of work, which came to be called Devotional
Nonduality . A s he writes in  Power vs. For ce : “ While  the truths reported in
this book were scientifically d erived and objectively or ganized, like all
truths, they were first experienced personally .”17
This has been t rue of all great teachers and pioneers of consciousness,
has it not? In rec ent history , we think of the famous Swiss psych iatrist C. G.
Jung, who, after his break with Sigmund Freud, spent many yea rs detached
from the  world, exploring his own inner depths, out of which he  created the
body of work that gifted the world with knowledge of the  “shadow ,”
“archetypes,” “ collective unconscious,” “complexes” (for example,
inferiority), and dream interpreta tion. He said that his whole lifetime’ s work
stemmed from those years of inner investigation. Dr . Haw kins, during his “hermit” years, was often in a formless state,
even for getting he had a body . He tells the humorous story of how he was
shocked when his “spirit” was going freely throughout the house, walking
through walls, and then suddenly his body slammed into a wall! And
another time he caught a glimps e of a “person” in the mirror , surprised that
someone else was in the hou se—then realized it was none other than
himself! His goal of exploring  states of consciousness was to  refine the
healing mechanisms within consciousness itself and to “perfect” himself as
an in strument. For example, he discovered that the “body tends  to obey the
mind,” and he w as able to heal his body of many serious disea ses through
the consciousness method described in Chapter 4 . He wrote a letter to his
famous friend and co-author in  science, the Nobel Prize–winning chemist
and peacemaker Linus Pauling, exuberant about discoveries in “right-brain
consciousness” and the “healing of 15 dif ferent diseases” within himself.18
Dr . Hawkins was propelled by the question: What is the missing link
between the body and mind, the seen and the unseen? Br eakthr oughThe crucial discovery came in t he 1970s, when he witnessed ps ychiatrist
John Diamond demonstrating behavioral kinesiology —that is, using the
muscle-testing r esponse to evaluate the dif ferential impact of positive and
negative stimuli upon the body . In a widely used method, the patient holds
out an arm in horizontal fashion, while the medical practitioner gently
presses down at the wrist. The patient’ s arm (deltoid muscle) do esn’ t budge
in the presence of truth and po sitive stimuli, but the arm insta ntly falls in
the pres ence of nontruth or n egativity . For example, in Dr . Diamond’ s
research, a smile made people go strong, as did classical music and truthful
statements; that is, the deltoid muscle stayed strong and their arm remained
horizontal. Negative stimuli, such as “I hate you,” or re cordings of
politicians comm itting a known deception, made people go weak; their
deltoid muscle instantly weake ned, and their arm dropped. “The body
doesn’ t lie,” Dr . Diamond concluded. Unlike o ther doctors who saw kinesiology as a localized phen omenon,
Dr . Haw kins saw it through the lens of his own expanded awareness of the
interconnectedness of consciousness itself. “The Map of Co nsciousness
came about because I was w itnessing a class in kinesiology and the
explanation that  was given for the kinesiologic response was o ne of local
causality . Through my own inner experiences, I’d gone way beyond local
causality as an explanation for phenomena, and I saw it was the  response of
consciousness itself, which is nonlocal and nonpersonal.”19
Dr . Hawkins referred to the “database of consciousness” as the source for
this knowledge beyond time and place. Jung called it the “collective
unconscious.” Who hasn’ t experienced suddenly tapping into this database
via intuition, synchronicity , dreams, or premonition? Clearly  there is a
repository of shared knowledge, part and parcel of our int erconnected
consciousness, that is dif ferent from the information we retrieve through
intellectual stud y . How is it that a dog knows when his owner is leaving
work? V ideo fo otage shows that the dog goes to the door at precisely the
time wh en the owner starts to h ead for home, from miles away . T o give an
example from recent experience : How is it that one’ s deceased grandfather
appears in a dream to say that a relative has throat cancer , and it turns out to
be tr ue, down to  the precise loc ation, stage of disease, and response of the
relative? Dr . Hawkins instantly saw that kinesiology was a mechanism by which to
access this unseen database of consciousness, “revealing the m issing linkand bridge between the mind and the body”; it was the interface between
the visible dimension of the material world and the unseen (yet very real)
dimension of mind and spirit, with the human body serving as the
instrument of truth detection. How could this work? Because protoplasm
has alwa ys dif ferentiated betwee n life-af firming and life-threate ning stimuli
as a matter of s urvival. The body goes strong toward that whi ch supports
life (tru th) and turns away from that which negates life (nontruth). The
muscle response is involuntary , not determined by one’ s beliefs or biases. For example, when our consciousness focuses on a benign subject matter
such as Mother T eresa, our pupils constrict, and other muscles inst antly and
involuntarily go strong; we have no control over it, and our personal feeling
about her doesn’ t matter . One  of Dr . Hawkins’ s colleagues, Dr . David
McClelland, did a fascinating study on his medical students at Harvard,
demonstrating that even those who ridiculed Mother T eresa showed an
immune-enhancing physiological response to Mother T er esa , a film
depicting her everyday work with the poor .20
Dr . Haw kins found that “everything in the world, including thoughts,
concepts, substances, and ima ges, calls forth a response that can be
demonstrated as  positive or neg ative. . . . All that ever is or was, without
exception, radia tes forth a frequ ency and a vibration as a permanent imprint
in the imperson al field of cons ciousness and can be retrieved by this test
through consciousness itself.”21
Having seen that the world’ s suf fering stemmed from ignorance, due to
the lack of mean s to tell truth from falsehood, he poured all his  ener gy into
researching the method of clinic al kinesiology as a tool for discerning truth. He conducted the muscle-testin g procedure on thousands of test subjects,
both ind ividually and in groups, of people of all ages and backg rounds. The
results were universally the same. One of the favorite demonstrations in
lectures of 1,000 people was  to pass out 500 unmarked  envelopes
containing artificial sweetener , along with 500 identical  envelopes
containing or ganic vitamin C. The audience was divided up into pairs to test
the two dif ferent envelopes, not knowing what was in them. It was an
electric moment  when the envelopes were opened and the audie nce realized
that eve ryone h ad gone strong in response to the or ganic vitamin C and
weak in response to the artificial sweetener . That kin d of actual experience with the method is very helpful. Because
the test is a nonlinear method that bypasses the mind, an ordinary person,looking at it from the outsid e, would be prone to doubt it. But if,
experientially , their arm goes weak while holding in mind the ener gy of a
closed envelope (for example, Hitler ’ s photo inside) and strong with a
dif ferent closed envelope (for example, Mother T eresa’ s photo inside), and
this is done in many subsequent tests with dif ferent items, that person then
experientially knows that the method “works” even if they don’ t understand
its m echanics. Indeed, there ar e many things we use in daily life, fully
trusting them just because they “work” yet with no intellectual
understanding of their mechanics; for example, who among  us totally
understands how  the Internet w orks, and yet don’ t we rely on i t constantly
as a source of guidance? Dr . Hawkins found he could use this method to calibrate the levels of
consciousness, as he describes in Chapter 1 . H e thus put into our hands a
“map” that shows the entire terrain of human experience. Throughout his
many endeavors, as a psychiatrist, physician, clinician, consciousness
researcher , anim al lover , and spiritual teacher , Dr . Hawkins’ s goal has
always b een to alleviate suf fering. When asked to define his “function in
the world,” he responded: “T o be that which I am to the world and explain it
as c learly as possible in order  to facilitate spiritual awareness and thus
contribute to the relief of the suf fering of mankind.”22 Th e Map of
Consciousness e mer ged as the primary teaching tool to facilitate spiritual
awareness and thereby alleviate suf fering. He said the purpose of the work was to comprehend th e sudden
transformation of consciousness he had under gone,  classically termed
Enlightenment, to integrate it with scientific discovery , and then to put it in
a format that was understandable to the left brain of W estern readers. He
said, “It is the realm of the mystic communicated to the left brain.”23
The Map of Consciousness, in brief, lays out the whole spectrum of
consciousness from the “lower” levels of Shame, Guilt, Apathy , Grief, Fear ,
Desire, Anger , Pride (that is, levels of for ce  dominated by egotistical
drives), to the median levels of Courage, W illingness, Accepta nce, Reason
(that is, levels of power  dominated by personal integrity), to the more
expanded levels of Love, Unconditional Love/Joy/Healing, Ecstasy , Peace,
and Enlightenm ent. These “higher” ener gy fields are a carrier wave of
immense life ener gy . They are increasingly free of personal go als and are
the domain of saints, mystics, arhats, and avatars.Note: “h igher” and “lower” are terms of convenience for the linear mind
and do not expre ss actual reality . In Reality , there is no such thing as higher
or lower , for all life serves the whole by virtue of what it is. I s a tall tree
better than a sho rt tree? A cat better than a squirrel? As Dr . Haw kins writes,
“Everything reveals the miracle of existence and, therefore, everything,
without exception, is equal to everything else by virtue of its existence.”24
Marriage with Susan: Sharing the Map with the W orld
Once Dr . Hawkins had developed the Map of Consciousness, h e was not
certain what to do with it. He  shared it locally with addictio n recovery
communities. (In New Y ork, h e had been close  friends with Bill W ilson, the
co-founder of Alcoholics Anony mous.) But beyond that, he wa s hesitant to
discuss it, because he believed that the muscle-testing method could be used
by anyone to find out the truth about anything, and what if it were put to
nefarious ends? (Upon further research over the years, he discovered that
only a person w ith integrity was allowed access to truth. See Appendix A
for details on the method.) The fort unate partnership with his wife, Susan J. Hawkins, made possible
the publication of his findings and the sharing of his inner condition
through books and lectures. “Sh e was the fulcrum,” he often said, and he
was nev er onstage without her . Her capacity for or ganization, joined with
keen intuition and heartfelt ex pression, facilitated the interfacing of his
inner knowledge with the world. When I asked Susan what it was like to
marry him and then to share him with thousands of other people from
around the world, she said: “I t’ s simple. When you love someone, you
support their destiny . I loved m y husband. That meant I had to share him
with the world.”25 It  is in  lar ge thanks to her com mitment and capacities
that we have h is body of w ork. I myself witnessed many times, in
conversations at their home, when her encouragement was the fulcrum that
empowered his ener gy to do another book, another lecture, another satsang. Over time, people traveled from faraway places to attend his lectures and
to be in his presence, saying that his aura had a catalytic, healing ef fect on
them. He always insisted that what others witnessed in him was really their
own true  Self mirrored back to t hem. He said often, “The Self of the teacher
and that of the student is one and the same.” People of all ages, all walks oflife, came from every continent. Th e essence, one’ s true Self, wa s fully
welcomed. As one person desc ribed it, “After a lifetime of searching, my
soul fina lly felt at home.” In m y experience: it was finally in his presence
that the “ugly duckling” was recognized as a “swan” (referring to the well-
known c hildren’ s story). And this mirroring of soul makes all the dif ference
in a person’ s life—to realize the truth of what we are. He said that what he teaches is not dif ferent from the core prin ciples of
the world’ s religions—unconditional love, compassion, humility , and
kindness for all beings: “Make a gift of your life and lift all mankind by
being kind, considerate, for giving, and compassionate at all times, in all
places, and under all conditions, with everyone as well as yourself. That is
the greatest gift anyone can give.”26
In 1995, the Hawkinses’ pu blishing company , V eritas Publishing
(Sedona, Arizona), printed the first copies of Power vs. For ce: The Hidden
Determinants o f Human Behavior , the groundbreaking book that first
introduced the Map of Consciousness to the world. The impact has been
profound. Even tually also published through Hay House, it has reached
over a million people in more than 25 languages. I count my self as one
among the many individuals wh ose lives were completely transformed by
that book and finding the Map. His bod y of work now includes 16 books and more than 100  recorded
lectures, as well as countless articles and interviews. All of this emer ged in
the last part of his life, when most people are enjoying retirement and
“taking it easy .” From ages 68 to 84, he traveled extensively and worked
nonstop until the very end. In the last year of his life, I worked with him to
complete his Author ’ s Of ficial Revised Editi on of Power vs. For ce  (2012,
repub. 2 013) and  Letting Go  ( 20 12). On som e days when I went over to the
house to work with him, he was tired or not feeling well, but a couple of
shots of  espress o and a funny joke to get us laughing and we were on our
way , w orking nonstop for hours. I saw up close his inexhaustible
commitment to fulfilling his destiny and helping his fellows. As a university professor , I ass ign his books to students. An interesting
fact is that students observe something about his books that they don’ t about
any others: “He expresses exac tly what I knew to be true, only I didn’ t
know how to say it.” Dr . Hawkins, in his Preface to Power vs. For ce ,
af firms that he i s merely saying what we already know deep in side: “This
book will have been successful  if by the end of it you exclaim, ‘I alwaysknew th at!’ What is contained h erein is only a reflection of that which you
already know , but do not know that you know . All that I have hoped to do
here is to connect the dots to let the hidden picture emer ge.”
He n ever claimed to have discovered a secret code or to have unearthed
some special gnostic mystery “from the nose hairs of a camel” (as he liked
to joke). As you’ll read in Chapter 8 , he simply reminded us of the
“universality” o f T ruth, that it “is true at all times and places, independent
of cu lture, personalities, or circumstances,” and he gave us a Map to find it. Beyond the light it sheds on ordinary human pursuits of health, art,
livelihood, relationships, and p olitics, the Map provides one of the first
modern demarcations of the highest levels of human consciousness (Self-
realization, the V oid, Nothingness versus Allness, Full Enlightenment) and
their dif ferential  phenomena. The autobiographical essay at the end  of this
book substantiates the advanced  consciousness of its author . Dr . Hawkins
describes the gradations of Enlightenment with a level of clarity that
indicates the experiential realiza tion of them. W e cannot, after all, draw a
map to a place we haven’ t been. Swami Chidatmananda, highly respected V edanta teacher of India, told
me t hat Dr . Hawkins’ s books co ntain essentially the same perennial truth as
the ancient Upanishads (V eda nta), only written in our modern idiom:
“There i s no dif ference between what he has experienced and discussed,
and what was said by the greatest sages and saints of India.”27
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Before Dr . Hawkins passed away in 2012, I asked him and Susan to
muscle-test a list of future proje cts, whether to be done or not. On that list
was a “primer” of his work, and the answer was yes. The book you hold in
your hands is a fulfillment of that intention. This is a unique  book within his  body of work because it gives readers a
taste of his teach ings across a spectrum of topics: an explication of the Map
of Consciousness, our connection with animals, the evolution of
consciousness, personal growth, enlightened leadership, physical healing,
successful business, addiction recovery , transcending ego ba rriers, high
spiritual states, to name a few .Unlike his other books, it exposes the reader to his various styles of
communication: formal published works, conversational, and live lecture. The con tent is drawn from all h is books, some lectures, and som e informal
conversations. Editing was done to facilitate reader comprehension and
condensation of the material into a primer volume. The book is a solid
introduction of Hawkins’ s body  of work to new readers and an edifying
recapitulation fo r long-time students. All the calibrations given in this book
were do ne by Dr . Hawkins and Susan Hawkins before his passing in 2012. Calibration  is the term tha t Dr . Hawkins u sed to designate his use of the
kinesiologic method to verify the level of consciousness (that is, ener gy
field) of something on his Map of Consciousness. The chapters in the book are meant to complement the compilation of Dr . Hawkins’ s lectures also titled The Map of Consciousness Explained  (Hay
House 2019), with charts included here so that listeners can see what he is
referring to on the audio program. Bibliographical referenc es are not
included. Instead, the sources for each chapter are in the Resources section
at the end of the book; the rea der who wishes to can follow up in those
books to find Dr . Hawkins’ s extensive bibliography references. Questions
for discu ssion in study groups and a Glossary of terms used can also be
found in the back. Each of the three sections dividing this book—“Foundations,” “Practical
Applications,” and “Advancing Consciousness”—is preceded by a brief
editorial comment, along with  a vignette from Dr . Hawkins’ s clinical
experience. The “Foundations” section lays out the implications of the Map
of Cons ciousness: How did the Map emer ge? What is the scientific
background? Wh at are levels of consciousness and ener gy fields? How does
one cali brate the  levels of consc iousness? How has consciousn ess evolved
over the millennia? These are some of the questions answered in the first
section. The “Practical Applications” section shows how the Map of
Consciousness applies to everyday life. Dr . Hawkins gives easy-to-
understand steps  to solving basic human problems, such as phy sical health,
success in life’ s endeavors, and overcoming addiction. Addiction, at its
core, is the seeking of happiness outside oneself. Though Chapter 6
explicitly addresses substance a ddiction, the principles can be applied to
any compulsion or addictive pattern. Addiction recovery is especially
relevant due to the shocking upsur ge in drug and alcohol deaths in currentsociety . Dr . Hawkins relates the  Map of Consciousness to the T welve Steps
in a  way that is useful for a ddiction and other contexts. Notably , Dr . Hawkins encour aged his spiritual students to follow the T welv e T raditions
of A A when m eeting together in study groups, as the gu idelines on
anonymity and service reduce t he tendency of spiritual groups to make a
special “teacher” out of someone. In the third se ction of the book, “Advancing Consciousn ess,” Dr . Hawkins lays out the character istics of true teachers and tea chings with
exceptional clarity . Until now , humankind has lacked a gold standard by
which to test th e trustworthiness of spiritual teachers. Count less earnest
seekers have fallen to their death or into suicidal despair at the hand of false
gurus or  messiah s. This section of the book gives specific guidance for how
to avoid spiritual traps, as well as how to expand one’ s level of
consciousness. The steps are simple, yet Dr . Hawkins says tha t not many
people follow them because the ego secretly believes that it already
“knows.” Y ou might ask yoursel f: Are you ready to let go of what you think
you know? He shares from his own experience that unimaginable bliss
awaits those who surrender at  great de pth. Paradoxically , he says, the
journey is more about surrender than attainment: “When the clouds are
removed, the sun shines forth.” In other words, when we let go of what
we’re not, we be come what we truly are. He told me one time,  “Inherently
you are Buddha-nature; you just haven’ t realized it yet.”
Understanding the Levels of Consciousness
In 2003 when I first encountered the Map, I had been a scholar of mystics
and professor of religious studies for many years. I immediately recognized
Dr . Hawkins’ s “Levels of Cons ciousness” as the classic stages of human
inner evolution found in the w orld’ s sacred literature and suggested by
philosophers, sages, and mystics throughout the centuries. For example,
from Christian tradition there is  The Ladder of Divine Ascent , by Eastern
Orthodox desert monk John Climacus (c. 579–649) of Mount Sinai, in
Egypt, and the Interior Castle (The Mansions) , by Catholic mystic St.
T eresa of Ávila (1515–1582 A.D. ), in Spain. Whether it’ s climbing a ladder of virtues to reach the top rung,  which is
Love, or going inward to the innermost mansion of Divine Union, the
seeker i s taken through many stages. In Buddhist tradition, the 10 ox-herding pictures showing the  steps on the path of awakening from
ignorance to Enlightenment have been a staple teaching tool since their
origin in  12th-century China. And, in Sufi tradition, there are numerous
descriptions of the inner journey  and its “stations,” from the famous poetic
allegory The Confer ence of the Bir ds , by Persian mystic Farīd al-Dīn ‘A
 ār
(c. 1142–1220), to the T welve Levels of Initiation , outlined by modern Sufi
mystic Llewellyn V aughan-Lee. Though they may vary in wor ding and context, the essence of these
teachings from diverse religion s is the same: seekers of T ruth go through
many sta ges. Ex perientially , the  stages are not linear , yet there is a definite
evolution of consciousness for dedicated seekers. The initial s tage occurs,
for exam ple, when a person r ealizes there’ s more to life than worldly
pursuits. By turning inward, th ey enter what St. T eresa calls the “interior
castle.” Or perhaps they are like the “herder” in the ox-herding pictures,
who stops to notice for the first time the tracks of the ox, a symbol for our
innate B uddha-nature. They be come aware of their spiritual life and are
interested in cultivating the needed qualities of discipline, patience,
humility , single- pointedness of mind, teachability , and service to others. Far
along on the jo urney , if they continue on the sometimes a rduous and
pathless path, seekers are given an experience of the all-importa nt reality of
Love. It had always been there but only as a “hidden treasure b uried within
the h eart” (as th e Sufis say). The opening of the heart is a turning point, for
now see kers have gone beyond t he limits of logic and entered into the realm
of selfless grace, synchronicity , and joy . Though I had imbibed and  taught this literature, the Map of
Consciousness w as the first tim e I had ever come across a scie ntific work
that con firmed these classic levels of spiritual life as actual, measurable
“attractor patterns” and “ener gy  fields.” It was a stunning verification of
right-brain intuition through the means of left-brain knowledge. I f ound the Map of Consciousness to be brilliant in its simpl icity; one
single-page cha rt reveals the entire journey . Moreover , it is clinically
sophisticated in its depiction of the emotional process, view of God, view of
self, and  view of life true to each level of consciousness. It is free of dogma
and religious nominalization, so  anyone can find their path in li fe illumined
by studying the Map, regardless of religious belief. Perhaps the most
intriguing aspect of the Map, which distinguishes it from the  plethora of
spiritual road maps presented  by mystics throughout history , is theverification that, with each progressive level of consciousness, the
“frequency” or “vibration” of ener gy measurably increases. In other words,
the more  conscious and loving a person becomes, the greater their impact
on the world at lar ge. The whole premise of Hawkins’ s work resonates with common sense. Negativity drains, positivity uplifts. Positive ener gy fields (Courage,
W illingness, Acceptance, Reason, Love) are more powerful than negative
ones (Shame, Apathy , Fear , Anger , Pride) because they are align ed with the
ener gy o f life itself. Love heals; Fear constricts. Courage moves  us forward;
Grief ho lds us back. Many of us know , for example, the courage it takes to
let go of grief and to love again after we’ve lost our love mate to death or
divorce. Each ener gy field represents a view of life that makes sense to those at
that leve l of consciousness. Endless ar guments go on between people at
dif ferent levels (even in the same family or workplace) becaus e the world
they are seeing is literally a dif ferent world. If one is wearing red-colored
glasses, everything will appear red, no matter how strong is the case
presented by those wearing green-colored glasses. Is the world green or
red? Th e world you see depend s on the lens you are looking through. A
person stuck in Grief, for example, sees nothing but the past; they talk about
“what used to be.” A lot of f rustration is eased when one realizes that
people a ren’ t “b ad”; they are simply seeing life the way they see it because
of the lens they have. That lens is their level of consciousness. Some people dislike a linear scale of “levels,” and the very idea of levels
might be  fodder  for the ego. Dr . Hawkins himself bemoaned w hat the ego
did with  it, such as thinking o neself to be in the level of Lo ve when in
reality one hasn’ t yet reached the self-resolution inherent to the level of
Acceptance. Here’ s the catch: The Map may look linear , but it isn’ t. Dr . Hawkins
provided a numerical, logarithmic scale in order to assist our linear , logical
mind in comprehending fields  of consciousness, but the ener gy fields
themselves are not linear; rather , they are attractor fields . I once asked him, “What was t he progression of your consciousness in
this lifet ime?” There was a long pause. When he dropped his head in his
hands, I knew m y question had no reality! “It can’ t be described,” he finally
said. “Y ou don’ t go from one level to the next in linear fashio n. It’ s more
accurate to say it’ s phasic, like the weather .”28Sincere seekers will find the M ap eye-opening. When first encountering
it, they are comforted to know there is a road map for the inner journey . Recently , a college student said to me, “It helps me a lot to see where
Acceptance is, and that’ s where For giveness occurs. That’ s what  I’m aiming
for in my relationship with a p articular person. Right now , I’m in Anger ,
holding the resentment, but the Map gives me a process to move through.”
Seekers are also validated by the Map in their quest for Love as the
source and destiny of spiritual life. Much of religi ous history has preached a
distorted doctrine of guilt, self-punishment, austerity , and fear as the way to
T ruth. It can be relieving and a m ajor course correction to see that Guilt and
Fear are at the bottom of the scale and Love and Joy are at the top. Dr . Hawkins liked to say , “Guilt gets you an ulcer , not God!” God is Love, and
thus the way to T ruth is in Love and through Love. Also informativ e is seeing that Reason, the most highly touted  virtue in
W estern culture,  is indeed refine d ener gy , but it pales in comparison to the
ener gy o f the heart. T rue knowledge is experiential; it comes from the life
lessons we have internalized into our hearts and whole being. Otherwise,
people say , “They’re just a ta lking head.” As Dr . Hawkins says, “The
pathway of the heart then bypasses the intellect and puts its faith in the
perfection of love rather than the pursuit of the intellect and reason. T o
Love, the intellect and logic are merely tools; they are not ‘who I am.’”29
Dr . Hawkins’ s studies of nonlinear dynamics, quantum physics, and
advanced mathematics allowed his Map of Consciousness to incorporate
ideas no t in other mystics’ renderings of the stages of the inner journey . For
instance, life ener gy can be lik ened to electrical circuitry . In o ther words,
we migh t say that Divinity is the Infinite Field of Power ste pped down
through the levels of consciousness, similar to a step-down transformer . The
human nervous system and prot oplasm cannot handle the immense ener gy
of th e Infinite, except as it comes to us in the degrees that our circuitry can
handle. By analogy , 50,000 vol ts is not very useful in the hou sehold, but
110 volts is workable. In a household, there is no judgment of  the various
appliances based on their electrical capacity or wattage. A refrigerator is not
“better t han” a nightlight, is it? Just so, the various levels of consciousness
do n ot in dicate b etter or worse b ut simply dif ferent degrees of e ner gy , each
with its specific function. T oo much electricity can “brea k” a circumscribed circuit, but a circuit
with wide voltage capacity can  handle more power . The Dalai Lama, forexample, has an ener gy field or level of consciousness that is ex pansive and
loving enough to handle immense amounts of life ener gy , so he radiates out
high levels of he aling ener gy , we might say . His inner state of Joy and Love
bubbles over with humor , laught er , kindness, and compassion. Most people,
however , do not have the same capacity to be a high-ener gy conduit to
others because their inner attention is routinely focused on their  own needs,
thoughts, feeling s, and agendas. Their inner “circuitry” is constricted in its
focus on  self, and not capable of unconditional love for the w orld. Some
people, in fact, are almost solely self- absorbed.
_OceanofPDF.com_The_Map_of_Consciousness_Explained_-_David_R_Hawkins.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        Praise for The Map of Consciousness Explained
“I r ecommend this book for every spiritual aspirant for climbing
the unseen ladder of r eal spiritual pr ogr ess. ”
— Swami Chidatmananda, Hindu spiritual monk at Chinmaya Mission, Bharat IndiaALSO BY DA VID R. HA WKINS, M. D. , PH.
Swami Chidatmananda, a Hindu spiritual monk at Chinmaya Mission, Bharat, India.
Who recommended the book "The Map of Consciousness Explained"?
Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior.
What is the title of Dr. David Hawkins' first book, which introduced the Map of Consciousness?
To provide a tool for learning and inspiration, and to help people evolve to a higher level of consciousness.
What is the purpose of the Map of Consciousness, according to Dr. Hawkins?
To help people overcome their struggles and find a higher level of consciousness, and to provide a means to discern truth from falsehood.
What is the focus of Dr. Hawkins' work, as described in the book?
To find a means to help people overcome their struggles and find a higher level of consciousness, rather than to focus on self-centered goals.
What is the primary goal of Dr. Hawkins' research, as mentioned in the book?
Hay House.
What is the name of the organization that published Dr. Hawkins' book, according to the copyright information?