OceanofPDF .comALSO BY DAVID R. HAWKINS, M.D.,
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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
Truth vs. Falsehood: How to T ell the Differ ence
Transcending 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
The Map of Consciousness Explained: A Pr oven Ener gy Scale to
Actualize Y our Ultimate PotentialAudio Programs
The Map of Consciousness Explained
How to Surr ender to God
Live Life as a Prayer
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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
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OceanofPDF .comGloria in Excelsis Deo! OceanofPDF .comCONTENTS
Introduction
PART I: The Nature of the self (Ego/Mind)
PART II:  Surrendering the Self
PART III:  The Divinity of the Self
Glossary
Bibliography
About the Author
Hay House Unlimtied Audio
Continue Y our Journey with Hay House
OceanofPDF .comNote: Reference s to the Map of Consciousness and the concep t of
calibration are explained in detail in Dr. Hawkins’ s book Power vs.
Force. OceanofPDF .comINTRODUCTION
“Spiritual processing is like positioning  
oneself in the wind.”
— D AVID  R. H AWKINS , M.D., P H .D. Have you ever seen a tree in autumn with half its leaves gone and then a
powerful gust of wind blows through and all the remaining leaves drop
instantly to the ground? This book can be that powerful wind for you. Like
the tree that’s already dropped many of its leaves, you are ready to let go of
a lot of old ways of thinking and limiting patterns of anxiety , grief, guilt,
shame, and anger . Let this book be the force that clears away the rest of the “leaves” that
you’re hanging  on to without even realizing they’re there—the false
promises of the ego, those hard-to-see attachments and false beliefs that
prevent you from realizing that you are one with All. As we know by
watching the seasons, a tree has to go through the winter ’s letting go before
it can yield the springtime’ s blossoms. Are you willing to let go of seein g yourself as the ego believes you to be? Are you willing to go further , to know that the ego itself  is an illusion? Dr.
Hawkins tells us that even the idea of the separate self as a seeker of Truth
is an illusion: “It is a hindrance to consider that there is a personal self or an
‘I’ or an ego that is doing the striving or seeking, or that will become
enlightened. It is much easier to realize there is no such thing as the ego or
an ‘I’ identity that is doing any seeking; instead, it is an impers onal aspect
of consciousness that is doing the exploring and seeking.”
This process is a shift from “who” we are to “what” we are. I learned this
from Dr. Hawkins in a funny way. One day he made up a nickname for me,
“Fran-Fran,” and this instigated a series of knock-knock jokes between us:Doc: Fran-Fran. Fran: Doc-Doc. Doc: Knock-knock. Fran: Who’ s there? Doc: It’ s not a “who” but a “what.”
We then broke into laughter . Do you see how brilliant he was at using
humor to crack open old habits of perception? Even as he connected to me
as a person, a “who,” his humor cut through the illusion of personhood. He
said, “You are not a ‘who’ but a ‘what.’” The ego personality is fixated on
being a successful “who” in the world, such as “I am this . . . I’ve done that
. . . I own this . . . I believe in that . . .” Dr. Hawkins recommends that,
instead of focusing on “who” we are, we ask ourselves in continual
contemplation, “ What  am I?”
As we surrende r “who” we think we are, we come to the “what,” the
Source of existence itself. Letting go of identities and personas,  beliefs and
attachments, and even letting go of ourselves as seekers, what is left? I remember a moment when I was with him and it dawned on me: “I’m
not a professor , though I work as one. I’m not a devotee, though I serve as
one. I’m not a woman, though  I live as one. I’m not a ‘me,’ though I
function as one.” The “what” replaces “who.” Love dissolves every “who”
we try to hang on to. The river loses its name when it flows into the sea. In this book, key teachings from Dr. Hawkins’ s body of work have been
selected to guide us in this process of Self-realization. Any one of the
teachings, if applied directly , reveals the Truth. “Any leg of the elephant
leads to the elephant,” as Dr . Hawkins says. As we read the book, Dr. Hawkins recommends that we seek to “know”
rather than “know about.” “Know” implies subjective experience; “know
about” means to accumulate facts. And he also recommends this inner prayer:
Ask to be the servant of the Lord, a vehicle of Divine Love, a
channel of God’ s Will. Ask for direction and divine assistance and
surrender all personal will throu gh devotion. Dedicate one’s life to the
service of God. Choose love and peace above all other options.Commit to the goal of unconditional love and compassion for all life in
all its expressio ns and surrender all judgment to God. — The Eye of
the I: From Which Nothing Is Hidden  (2002), Chapter 13:
Explanations, p. 265. If we can give up the illusion of this little “me,” Dr. Hawkins promises
that unsurpassab le joy will be ours: “There is absolutely nothing in ordinary
human experience to compare with the joy of the Presence of the Love of
God. No sacrifice is too great nor effort too much in order to realize that
Presence.” He verifies this promise with the certitude that’s possible only
from having, himself, surrendered everything on the altar of the Ultimate. This book is small in size, but it can have a massive impact on your life. It will take you through the process of a total transformation of
consciousness—if you choose to apply its teachings deeply within yourself. With devotion and gratitude,  
Fran Grace, Ph.D.
OceanofPDF .comWhile the mind secretly believes  that its survival is due to the ego, on the
contrary , the person’ s survival is due to the spirit that energizes the ego to
accomplish important tasks. It is because of the intention of the spirit that
the lower self or ego even remembers to take its vitamins. In truth, we exist
and survive, not because of the ego, but in spite of it. The world of the ego is like a house of mirrors through which the ego
wanders, lost and confused, as it chases the images in one mirror after
another . Human life is characterized by endless trials and errors while
attempting to escape the maze. At times, for many people—and possibly for
most—the world of mirrors becomes a house of horrors that gets worse and
worse. The only way out of the circuitous wanderings is through  the pursuit
of spiritual truth. It is important to remember that the world operates within the limited
Newtonian paradigm of linear causality which has its prevailing perceptions
of what is “real .” Spirituality , on the other hand, is based on the invisible
realities and realms of nonduality and therefore may seem unreal or, at best,
an oddity to the ordinary world. Everything is happening of its own; nothing is causing anything else. . . . It is critical to grasp that the illusion of linear causality as an explanation for
the observed phenomena of life is the major and most profound limitation
of thinkingness. . . . Mentat ion, reason, logic, and language are all
structured dualis tically , based on the axiom that there is a subject and an
object, that there is a “this” doing or causing a “that.”
That the human mind, without help, is unable to tell truth from falsehood
due to its own innate structure and design is so staggering a discovery that it
is rough ly comparable to the discovery by Copernicus that caused cultural
shock in the 16th century . Beca use this single fact alone is confrontational
to the average mind, it will probably not be welcomed or warmly greeted by
those who profit from sophistry and its illusions. Profound silence  is more influential and beneficial than an avalanche of
redundant word s and actions that emanate from the spiritual ego and its
platitudinous rationalizations. Spiritual rhetoric is still just rhetoric and
represents spirit ual sophistry . Commitment to enlightenment  alters and
recontextualizes social roles. The mind acts as a processor of data simultaneously from both within
and without. . . . Some of the information is perceived and stored in
memory banks, but there is also unconscious processing of all the data that
is stored  in the unconscious. This processing screening device results in the
1/10,000th of a second’ s delay and acts as a separation between self and
Self/Reality . This processing screen represents “the experiencer” in action. The experiencer  screen is energized by desire and identification with it. This desire is like an appetite of curiosity , wantingness, and craving, and is
an addiction to the experience of experiencing itself. In additi on, there is
identification with experiencing and its content information as “self.”
Energy fields are so powerful that they dominate our perception. They
are really portals out of which we see the world. We often hear that this is
really just a world of mirrors, and that all we experience is our own energy
field reflected back upon us as perception and experiencing. The ego can be thought of as a set of entrenched habits of thoug ht, which
are the results of entrainment by invisible energy fields that dominate
human consciousness. They become reinforced by repetition and by the
consensus of society . Further reinforcement comes from langua ge itself. To
think in language is a form of self-programming. The use of the pronoun I
as the subject—and therefore the implied cause of all actions— is the most
serious error , and automatically creates a duality of subject and object. From a greater context, we can view that the ego is not “evil” but is
primarily a self-interested animal. Unless the “animal self” is understood
and accepted, its influence cannot be diminished. It is clear that the instinctual origins of the ego mechanisms are based on
satisfaction and gratification of survival needs and desires. The narcissistic core of the ego is aligned with being “right,” whether
being “right” means being in agreement with wisdom or rejecting it as
invalid. With humility , the serious searcher discovers that the mind alone,
despite its educa tion, is unable to resolve the dilemma of how to ascertainand validate truth—which would require confirmation by subjective
experience as well as objective, provable criteria. It is most important to remember that to violate principle for practical
expediency is to relinquish enormous power . The rationalization that the
execution of criminals deters crime, for instance, does not hold up under
study; and the end does not justify the means. . . . Because  we fail to
differentiate principle from expediency , the average person lacks the
discernment to understand the difference between patriotism and true
Patriotism, between americanism and Americanism, between god and God,
between freedom and Freedom, between liberty and Liberty . Thus,
“americanism” is used as a justification by white supremacy groups
(calibrated at 150) and lynch mobs, just as warmongering throughout
history has been conducted in the name of “God.” . . . Learning the
difference between principles and their imitators requires experience and
educated judgm ent. The exercise of such discretion is necessary for moral
survival in the modern world in general but is imperative in those gray areas
where ethical ambiguity has been elevated from convention to an art form:
the political arena and the marketplace of daily commerce. Radical truth means what is being experienced, not what one is actually
thinking about it or the concepts that one is projecting onto the experience;
it is not the labeling of it but what one is literally experien cing within
oneself. The brain is the sense organ of the experiencer , and one realizes that it is
destined for physical death. Therefore, the importance of the Self rather
than the self is realized by accepting the inevitability of mortality .Concepts have levels of power that can be calibrated. The higher the
level of truth, the greater its power . The energy of the concept results from
the truth  of the statement plus the level of consciousness of the speaker . Unaided by a higher energy (as from a great teacher), the ego/mind cannot
transcend itself. Opposites do not exist in Reality . They are only concepts of speech and
mentation. Let us take the seem ing opposites of light and dark. Actually ,
there is no such thing as darkne ss; there is only light. The conditions then
can be accurately described as light is either present or not, or light is
present at various degrees; therefore, all light or the lack of it can be defined
only in terms of light by its presence or degree, or not. Thus, there is only
one variable : the presence or absence of light. A verbalization helps to set a context that then progressively becomes
nonverbal and more inclusive. Accurate information saves time and speeds
fruitful inquiry by indicating which routes would be fruitlessly time-
consuming and diversionary . If time is nonexistent, then so is the notion of “place.” . . . “Space” is a
concept. The mind imagines that if something exists in a place, then that
place must be a space. Like time, “space” is an imagination. . . . In the
nonlinear Reality , there is no time track upon which to position a moment
or an instant denotable as “now .”The study of form is fascinating to the intellect in its expre ssions of
physics, chemistry , astronomy , cosmology , etc. Man then begins to ask
where the universe came from  and where is it going. Actually , this
demonstrates another animal instinct that is very important, that of
curiosity . In order to find food, a mate, or shelter , the animal is always
instinctively searching and seems to have an insatiable curiosity . Exploration is innate to manki nd, and its highest levels lead to spiritual
inquiry . This brings up the questions of who am I, what am I, where did I
come from, what is the origin and destiny of the self, and who and where is
God. All aspects of human life are transient; therefore, to cling to any aspect
eventually bring s grief and loss. Each incident, however , is an opportunity
to search within for the source of life, which is ever present, unchanging,
and not subject to loss or the ravages of time. The body itself is actually not experienced; instead, only the sensations
of the body are experienced. Therefore, awareness of the body is merely a
composite sensation by which the somatic area of the brain records input,
and, by neuronal function, replicates the body image. Ultimately , everything is know able only by virtue of the identity of
“being it.” The conundrums of epistemology can be solved only by the
elimination of thought because all languaging is a paradox. One can take
any word and trace it to its roots. How does the word origi nate? From
where? Is the word the same thing as its meaning? By asking suchquestions, one is eventually confronted with the ultimate paradox of duality . The radical Reality is that to understand the essence of anything is to know
God. One might say that all languaging is a substitute for God. There is no timetable or prescrib ed route to God. Although each person’ s
path is unique, the terrain to be covered is relatively common to all. The
work is to surm ount and transcend the common human failin gs that are
inherent in the structure of the human ego. One would like to think that
these failings are personal; however , the ego itself is not personal. It was
inherited along with becoming a human being. Details differ based on past
karma. That “it” of the ego structure is not unique or individual, and it is
relatively simila r, with karmic variations, in everyone. What really varies
from individual to individual is the degree to which one is enslaved by its
programs. The degree of domina nce is therefore determined by the extent to
which one identifies with it. Inherently , it has no power , and the power to
decline the ego’s programs increases exponentially as one progresses
spiritually . Because of its inherent limita tions, the ego itself cannot know God
experientially . God is the absolute subjectivity that underlies existence and
the capacity for awareness. God is beyond all time, place, or human
characteristics. All the descriptions of the Ultimate Reality by enlightened
beings throughout history have been identical. There is only one Supreme
Reality . . . . Inasmuch as the Godhead, or God Unmanifest, is beyond all
depiction, the Ultimate Realization is radically and purely subjective and
absent of all content. To acknowledge the absolute divinity of the InfiniteSupreme would  be unacceptable to entities that are deluded into claiming
godship. We can then say that a false deity is an entity that has declined
truth for power , pride, and control over others, and has succum bed to the
Luciferic error which proclaim s that the ego is God (i.e., megalomania). The basis for the error is the unwillingness to surrender sover eignty from
the “I” of the ego to the Allness of God. Pride in the form of the vanity of thought, mentation, conc epts, and
opinions is the basis of ignoran ce. The antidote is radical humility , which
undoes the domination of perception. . . . To enter the domain of reality is
like going throu gh a fine screen —only clear water can traverse through it,
and all the fish, bugs, and debri s are left outside. Only pure consciousness
devoid of content can pass through the barriers of perception and become
the clear water beyond the screen. . . . The finite is born of the infinite and
is never actually separated from it except by perception; the infinite
potentiality of the unmanifest becomes the actuality of the manifest by the
will of God as Creation. Traditionally , the readiness for spiritual learning has been termed
“ripeness,” indicating a fortuitous combination of sincere intention plus
maturity , progressive evolution of consciousness, and activation of the
desire for experiential learning . . . . There develops an enthusiasm and
eventually a dedication, and spiritual goals and values progressively replace
the lesser ones of the worldly ego. . . . Progress is best described as the
unfolding of realizations and spontaneous revelation that are often ascribed
to intuition and inner guidance. . . . As spiritual work advances, the self
progressively dissolves and merges into the Self, which has its own learning
capacities that dif fer from those of the ego/mind. The more advanced seeker has heard that there is no “out there” or “in
here” and thus takes responsibility for all that happens. There is the
dawning awaren ess that all which seems to occur really represents what is
being held in what was previously considered as “within.” Thus, the
proclivity to project is undone. The “innocent victim” positiona lity, with all
its spuri ous “innocence,” is unmasked. . . . Beliefs are the determinant of
what one experiences. There are no external “causes.” One discovers the
secret payof fs that are obtained from unconscious secret projec tions. One’ s
underlying programs can be discovered by simply writing down one’ s litany
of griev ances and woes and then merely turning them aroun d into their
opposites. The mind’s reality is a fiction. With that realization, it loses its reign as
the arbiter of reality . Through the eye of the ego, life is a kaleidoscope of
constantly changing attractions and repulsions, fears and transient
pleasures. It bases its security  on overvalued positionalities, but, with
maturity , it progressively looks  within for enduring qualities that can be
relied upon. Without spiritual direction or information, it does not know
which way to look and may merely settle back into basic survival
techniques that have had pragmatic value. It is well to keep in mind at all times that the ego/mind does not
experience the world but only its own perception of it. The ego is the imaginary doer behind thought and action. Its presence is
firmly believed to be necessary and essential for survival. The reason is that
the ego’s primary quality is perception, and as such, it is limited by the
paradigm of supposed causality .Whereas the goal of the ego/mind is primarily to do, act, acquire, or
perform, the intention of contemplation is to “become.” While the intellect
wants to know “about,” contemplation seeks Knowingness itself and
autonomous wisdom. Rational thinking is time related, sequential, and
linear , whereas contemplation occurs outside of sequential time. It is
nonlinear and related to comprehension of essence. Devotional
contemplation is a way or style  of being in the world whereby one’s life
becomes a prayer . The ego’s addiction and survival are based on the secret pleasure of
negativity , which cannot be abandoned until it is first recognized, identified,
and owned without shame or guilt. One has to see that this is just how the
ego—which everyone inherits —operates, and recognize that it is not really
personal at all. The ego secretly “loves” and clings to the position of victimhood and
extracts a distorted pleasure and grim justification from pain and suf fering. The ego defends its own limitat ions with prideful denial, thus becoming
its own victim. Intrinsic to the very basic construction of the human ego is an innate
innocence in that it believes in the reality or truth of its own programs andis unaware that it lacks an intrin sic capacity for self-correction. The reason
for the ego’s inherent lack of capacity for verification is that its data is
limited to only internal processing systems. The internal mechanisms of the
ego lack any external, independent source of reference for verification. As we get close r to the discove ry of the source of the ego’s tenacity , we
make the amazing critical discovery that we ar e enamor ed with our self . Realization is a progressive process. Spiritual progress is hastened by
understanding the true nature of the ego. It is not an enemy to be attacked or
defeated, nor is it an evil to be vanquished. It is dissolved by compassionate
understanding. Realistic self-esteem arises from fulfilling integrous principles so that
intention becomes an important factor , which in itself is less vulnerable than
idealized results . . . . It takes courage to jettison the props of pride and, with
humility , accept  one’s inner reality, which is of an invulnerable  source. To
accept the inner core of one’s existence as a self-existent reality requires
letting go of any definitions of self as a “who” and, instead, seeing oneself
as a “what.” . . . All credit for accomplishments is given to God as the
Presence of the Divinity within instead of to the ego, and therefore
accomplishment results in gratitude and joy rather than vulnerable
pridefulness. The universe is very coopera tive. Inasmuch as the universe is not
different from consciousness itself, it is happy to create whatever we wish
to find “out there.” The problem is with the concept of cause itself, which
begs the question by presuming a time warp, a sequence, or a string of
events that would make sense. If we step outside of time, there are no
causes at all. We could say that the manifest world originates  out of the
unmanifest, but that again would be inferring a sequential causal series in
time—that is, unmanifest beco ming manifest. Once beyond the warp of
time, with its implicit restrictions of comprehension to terms of mere
sequence, there is no backwards or forwards. Because the ego is constructed of positionalities, it has no option to be
anything else except what it is. It therefore becomes an inescapable source
of endless suffering and loss. Above all else, it fears the future and the
specter of death itself, which is intrinsic to the ego’ s structure. The ego has habitual modes of determining perception. They have to be
identified first before they can be disassembled. One has to give up guilt
about having an ego. In contrast to the innate arrogance of the ego, true intelligence is a quality
of consc iousness/awareness and is not subject to attack because  its essence
is nonlinear . It is, however , utilized by the ego in its expression as mind,
which then becomes and subser ves the ego’s drive for surviva l. Thus, the
ego really uses the mind as camouflage and becomes hidden in its clever
constructions. The ego is not an enemy to be subdued but merely a comp ilation of
unexamined habits of perception. A human being is both spirit and body; therefore, it is at all times actually
existing in both the linear and the nonlinear domains. Curiously , the ego’s hold is weakened by acceptance, familiarity , and
compassionate understanding; in contrast, it is reinforced by self-criticism,
condemnation, fear , and shame. The ego conceals, whereas awareness reveals. The answer to many
defective ego positions could be subsumed in the commonly overlooked
sanity of “common sense.”
One mechanism the ego uses to protect itself is to disown the painful data
and project it onto the world and others. The ego is neith er bad nor an enemy , but merely an illusion to release so
that something far better can replace it. There is no such thing in reality as an ego; it is merely illusory . It is made
up of a compilation of arbitrary points of view supplied by mental
processing and powered by feelings and emotions. These desires represent
the attachments that the Buddha spoke of as the bondage of suffering. With
absolute humility , the ego dissolves. It is a collection of arbitrary mental
processes that gain force only because of vanity and habit. If one lets go of
the vanity of thought, it dissolves. All thought is vanity . All opinions are
vanities. The pleasure of vanity is therefore the basis of the ego—unplug it
and it collapses. The ego is extremely tenacious and therefore often seems to require
extreme conditi ons before it lets go of a positionality . It often takes the
collective exper ience of millions of people over many centuries to learn
even what appea rs to be a simple and obvious truth—namely , that peace is
better than war or love is better than hate. The ego’s rigidity and resistance to correction are based on narcissistic
egotism, pride, and vanity . The collective egos of whole nations  bring about
their downfall and destruction. The ego/mind presumes and is convinced that its percept ions and
interpretations of life experiences are the “real” thing and there fore “true.”
It also believes by projection that other people see, think, and feel the same
way—if they do not, they are mistaken and therefore wrong. Thus,
perception reinforces its hold by reification and presumptions. The ego clings to emotionality , which is intimately connected with its
positionalities; it pretends to think that it has no other choices. To
“surrender to God” means to stop looking to the ego for solace and thrills
and to discover the endless, serene joy of peace. To look within is to find
the underlying, ever -present source of the illumination of the mind itself. The inflated ego is devoid of reality testing as well as amelioration by
reason, logic, or rationality . Although the critical level of integrity (level 200 on the Map of
Consciousness) is the very threshold of spiritual progress, one can see that
due to the structure of the ego, it can be difficult to achieve. The strength of
the ego is such that it can be overcome only by spiritual power . Temptation stem s from within; it is merely the desire to exper ience the
ego’s payoff and satisfactions of an impulse, even if it is only a curiosity or
a wanting. The satisfactions of the ego are more pleasurable and addictive than the
preservation of human life, much less dignity . The ego gets a grim pleasure and satisfaction from suffering and all the
levels lacking integrity: pride, anger , desire, guilt, shame, and grief. The
secret pleasure of suffering is addictive. Many people devote their entire
lives to it and encourage others to follow suit. To stop this mechanism, the
pleasure of the payoff has to be identified and willingly surrende red to God. Out of shame, the ego blocks out conscious awareness of its machinations,
especially the secretiveness of the game of “victim.”
The human ego likes to pretend  that evil exists “out there” and seduces
its haple ss, innocent self into inadvertently falling into the trap of seduction. The real tempter is the ego’s desire for gain—whether that be sensation,
excitement, advantage, prestige, or the pleasure of controlling others. To the ego, gains lie without; to the spirit, they are internal, for the ever-
present joy of existence is independent of content or form. To the spirit, a
sunny day or a rainy day are the same. Awareness enjoys qualities rather
than grasping at form. Thus, it can enjoy “being with,” withou t having to
own or control. Awareness is not driven by goals but instead values the
capacity for equal pleasure in all circumstances. The ego is a set of programs in which reason operates through a complex,
multilayered series of algorithms wherein thought follows certain decision
trees that are variously weighted by past experience, indoctrination, and
social forces; it is therefore not a self-created condition. The instinctual
drive is attached to the programs, thereby causing physiological processes
to come into play . At the higher levels, the ego is seen to be an illusion, without any innate
reality . The understanding of the ego is therefore useful knowledge that is to
be disca rded later. To attempt to do so, however , before one can dissolve it
through spiritual comprehension would lead to a fictitious stance because
the mind readily incorporates all learned material and subtly tries to thrive
in a new, disguised form. . . . To offset the vanity of what has been learned,
one focuses instead with humility on what is yet to be learned. The ego is not the real “you”; it was inherited as part of being born a
human. It basically originates from the animal world, and the evolution of
consciousness happened through the primitive stages of mankind’ s
evolution, so it could be said that to seek enlightenment is to recapitulate
the history of human evolution. By commitmen t to inner honesty , it will become apparent that the
underpinning of the ego’s responses is the pleasure that is derived from
them. There is an inner satisfaction that is the payof f of self-pity , anger ,
rage, hate, pride, guilt, fear, and so on. This inner pleasure, as morbid as it
may sound, energizes and propagates all these emotions. To undo their
influence, it is merely necessary to be willing to forgo and surrender these
questionable inner secret pleasures to God and look only to God for joy,
pleasure, and happiness. To undo the ego, one must be willing to abandon this payof f game, with
its grand standing of emotions and repetitive rehashing of data and stories to
justify its positions. One will note that the ego milks every wrong and that it
has no greater pleasure than to indulge in “righteous indignat ion.” It just
“loves” that juicy positionality that has such a great payof f.To the ego, aban doning the self-reward dynamic is looked upon  as a loss. The ego does not trust God and thereby thinks it has only itself to turn to for
sustenance, survival, and pleasure. The ego has faith in its own mechanisms
and not in God. It should not be faulted for this error becaus e it has no
experiential basis for compariso n. Its only way out is with faith that there is
a better way. It hears a spiritual  truth and begins to search for it when the
mind becomes disillusioned with its own fallacies and failure  to achieve
happiness. It finally realizes that the grim satisfaction it squeezes out of
pain is a poor substitute for joy . At its roots, the ego is the extreme of selfishness and is completely
lacking in all ethical principles. The persistence of the primitive ego in man is referred to as the
narcissistic core of “egotism,” which, at calibration levels below 200 (the
critical level of integrity), indicates the persistence of the primitiveness of
self-interest, disregard for the rights of others, and seeing others as enemies
and competitors rather than as allies. There is nothing deadl ier than the
religionized ego. The ego is not only unable to correctly assess situations that are fatal, but
it even willingly sacrifices life for its own ends. The ego is therefore
potentially deadly and would rather “see you dead” than admit it is wrong. The ego is a victim of itself. With rigorous introspection, it will be
discovered that the ego is really  just “running a racket” for its own fun and
games and survival. The real “you” is actually the loser . The spirit evolves over great periods of temporal time, with periodic
reincarnations into the spiritual workshop of earth for growth and repairs. When all the repairs have been made, earthly life loses its value, and
attraction and rebirth into the human domain ceases. From a developmental analysis, which utilizes consciousness -research
techniques, it appears that the human ego itself is primarily the product and
continuation of the presence of the survival core of the animal evolution. While the ego/se lf routinely takes credit for survival, its true source is the
presence of Divinity as Self. It is only because of the Self that the ego is
capable of being self-sustaining. It is just a recipient of life energy and not
its origin, as it believes. The clever ego expresses its inner grandiosity by seeking to replace
Divinity by declaring itself to be God (or Nero, Caesar , and so on), or
claiming specia l Divine authority by its declaration that it is Divinely
ordained and therefore authorized. The prim ary underpinning of the persistence of negativity is the ego’s
secret payof f from negativity (“juice”). This secret payof f is the ego’s only
source of energy, so it sees forgiveness, as well as compassion, as the
“enemy .”
Ego positions have the characteristics of disowning responsibility and
placing blame “out there.” In the end, the ego’s payof f is the energy by
which the ego persists, because it lacks the pleasure of the input of spiritual
energy. The ego’s payof f is its substitute for Divinity; thus, it maintains its
sovereignty and is convincing in its secret, silent belief that it is the source
of one’ s life itself—that is, that it is God. To the ego, a “want” is interpreted as a “need” and a “have to have.”
Thus, its seeking can become frantic, and all caution can be thrown to the
wind. Desires are thereby escalated to being desperate and demanding any
sacrifice, includ ing even the deaths of millions  of other people. It must  have
what it wants at any cost and will find many excuses to justify itself. It gets
rid of reason with clever rhetoric bolstered by blame and demonizes others,
for the ego has to win at all costs—because throughout millions of years of
evolution, it did die if it did not get its wants and needs fulfilled. The ego
has a long, long memory and millions of years of reinforcement. On its own, the ego would neve r seek salvation. . . . The mech anism for
salvation is via the will, which invites the intervention of Divinity . With compassio n, one realizes that the structure of the ego is such that it
cannot know what lies beyond. Note that in a holographic unive rse, the achievements of every individual
contribute to the advancement and well-being of the whole. The ego structure is dualistic and splits the unity of Reality into
contrasting pairs and seeming opposites that are therefore the product and
content of perception, which consists of projections. The only protection is ownin g that we are the source of our own
experience, that we are the master of it, that we can handle it, and that we
are greater than it. The ego is not the actual reality or source of life or existenc e, and is
therefore vulnerable to dissolution. It is primordial but not essentially
sovereign. It is dominant only until its illusory quality is recognized. Addiction to the ego’s proclivities is like intoxication where pleasure is
derived from the emotional payof f of negativity . Thus, negative
positionalities tend to be self-p erpetuating habits akin to addiction, based on
presumptions and the inner seductive lure of the gratification of basicanimal instincts. By repetition, they eventually gain dominance and control,
which is the innate purpose of the narcissistic ego in the first place. The ego’s position propagates itself because its secretly sought payof f is
the emotion itself. The ego is oriented toward specifics and the linear content of the field of
vision. Its effect on vision itself is exclusive and limited in order to focus
primarily on the near side of objects (so as to facilitate manipulation). Spirit
is oriented toward context and the whole, and is thus inclusive and focused
on the far side of objects. Its field is dif fuse rather than local. The ego is addicted to being “right” (for example, politics). A prevailing
goal of the ego is to be “right.” Therefore, it is the core of the payof f of
righteousness. You can be right without being righteous, and you can be
righteous without being right. The sense of “who” we are is primarily an identification with the body ,
the personality , and its mental processing, with accompanying emotional
investment. One can do an internal mental imaging process to see how
much of the body or its sensati ons could actually be lost and yet have the
self retain a sense of “I.” It becomes clear that the experientia l “I” has a
body but is not a body . The attachment to the body is to sensation and the superimposit ion of the
concept of “mine”; what is “mine” and is controlled by “me” must therefore
be “who I am.”  Identification with the body is consequent to the ego’s
positionalities. To detach from identification of the self as the body , it is
necessary only to see the body as an “it” rather than a “me.”
The self identif ies not only with the mind, but also with its content—
which becomes “my” memory , “my” senses, “my” thoughts, “my”
emotions, “my” property , “my” success, “my” failure, “my” expectations,
“my” feelings, and so on. Identification presumes ownership and
authorship; thus, the ego sees and believes itself to be a person al, separate
causal agent and the inferred source of its own existence. All the great teachers have declared that man’ s primary defect is
“ignorance.” Research reveals rather quickly that the underlying basis of
this ignorance is due to the limit ation of the innate structure of the ego itself
as a consequence of the still-ongoing evolution of consciousness. The vanity of the ego (at the level of pride) is endless and vaing lorious in
its grandiose delusion that it can disprove the existence of God. Cognition is
only linguistic supposition confined to linear symbols, the limited content
of mental processing. That it has any actual objective reality at all is a
purely subjective presumption. The absolute subjectivity of revealed Truth precludes all considerations
or uncertainties,  which stem only from the ego. When the ego collapses, all
argument ceases and is replaced by silence. Doubt is the ego. By spiritual endeavor , one discovers that it is oneself  who has been a
captive and a “victim” ensnared by the clever deceptions of the ego. Paradoxically , benefit is derived  by the self-interest of the ego when it
begins to realize that there is a great advantage to unselfishness. When it
learns of the benefit of letting go of egocentric goals, the ego itself then
becomes the springboard to spiritual inquiry and the means to its own
transcendence, realizing that humility is strength and not weakness, and that
it is wisdom and not ignorance. The willingness to “forgive and forget”
calibrates at 450 (reason/logic). The willingness to “forgive and surrender
to God” calibrates at 540 (unconditional love). Like the body , the mind is not one’s real self, and like the body, it is
basically impersonal. It has thoughts, but these thoughts are not a product of
the self. Even if a person does not want a mind, he or she has one anyway . There is no choice in the matter; the mind is imposed and thrust upon one
unasked. The fact that having a mind is an involuntary imposition helps
with the realization that it is not a personal choice or decision. Through self-examination and inward focus, one can discove r that all
states of consciousness are the result of the execution of an option. They arenot unchangeable certainties determined by uncontrollable factors at all. This can be discovered by examining how the mind works. Cease to identify with the body /emotions/mind as “me.” Be truthful and
admit that they are yours but not you. This may seem artificial, strange,
foreign, and unnatural in the beginning; yet the basic reality is that it is a
truth of higher order , which makes it a very powerful and formidable tool. The mind will try to deny this reality as well as truth (that’ s what it is
“supposed to do”) because T ruth is intuited as its nemesis. As a term, “principles” may sound abstract, but the consequences of
principle are quite concrete. If we examine princip les, we will see that they
reside in an invisible realm within consciousness itself. Although we can
point out examples of honesty in the world, honesty itself as an organizing
principle central to civilization is nowhere independently existent in the
external world. True power , then, emanates from consciousness itself; what
we see is a visible manifestat ion of the invisible. . . . Meaning is so
important that when life loses meaning, suicide commonly ensues. When
life loses meaning, we first go into depression; when life becomes less
meaningful, then we finally leave it. Force has transient goals; when those
goals are reached, there remains the emptiness of meaninglessness. Power ,
on the other hand, motivates us endlessly . If our lives are dedicated, for
instance, to enhancing the welfare of others and everyone we contact, our
lives can never lose meaning. One of the basic principles of consciousness itself is its intrinsic
innocence. Beca use the mind is innocent, we have to begin to carefully
watch and guard it. We have to become like its mother . The mind is like aninnocent child who goes out in the world and believes everything it hears. It
believes every billboard, every commercial, and every remark that people
make. It believes what it sees. It has no way to evaluate it and has no sense
of discri mination. We have to begin to take responsibility and say, “I can
see that my mind is intrinsically innocent, and because the innocence of the
mind of the child is still with me throughout life, I should start looking into
what it has been buying.”
Unless there is an underlyi ng attractor pattern, nothing can be
experienced. Thus, the entire manifest universe is its own simultaneous
expression and experience of itself. All seem ing separation is an artifact of thought. It is essential to see that
the mind is at all times experiencing a point of view . If you watch what your mind is really doing, you’ll see that it is always
trying to get “one up” on the next instant. By the next instant (about
1/10,000th of a second), what a person is experiencing (they are never
experiencing reality) is the ego’s interpretation of reality . Like an audio
system, there is a monitor . So just as you record a program, the monitor
feeds it into your ears. You hear what was just recorded a split second ago,
but you are not hearing the program source; you are hearing what was just
recorded. Most people experience the monitor tape of the ego’s interpretation of
events. They’re not experienci ng events as they are in reality; they’re
experiencing the ego’ s interpretation. The primary defect now is, as it always has been, that the design of the
human mind renders it intrinsically incapable of being able to tell truth from
falsehood. This single, most crucial of all inherited defects lies at the root of
all human distress and calamity . All negative emotions persist because of their secret payof f. When this
“ego juice” is declined, thoughts tend to diminish and then disappear . The
mind then tends  to “go blank,” which then brings up the fear of boredom. With observation, it becomes clear that the mind is busy anticipating the
future (fear); clinging to the past (regret, hatred, guilt); or savor ing the past
to extract pleasure via reruns. Thus, the mind becomes the focus of
amusement as “doing” something. In looki ng at this from the view point of Truth, we can see there is no
such thing as “just ego.” It woul d mean that there is some place where God
is not. All positions represent ego, and the ego is then superimp osed on that
which is not ego. There has to be something larger, which is consciousness
itself. To safely do spiritual work and avoid crises, it is necessary to
reaffirm, look within, and discover one’ s own innocence. It really is not safe
to do spiritual work unless one has a glimpse of that innate naïve innocence
and keeps one eye on it at all times, because that innocence is the gateway
back to the T ruth so one does not get lost in the swamp. The mind has only information and imagination about  anything; it cannot
actually “know” because to know is to be that which is known . All else is
only speculation and suppositio n. When the mind is transcended, there is
nothing left to ask about. That which is complete lacks nothing, and that
completion is self-evident in its Allness.OceanofPDF .comLove is a way of being. It is the energy that radiates when the blocks to it
have been surrendered. It is more than an emotion or a thought—it is a state
of being. Love is what we have become through the pathway of surrender . One is not really ruled by the mind at all. What the mind reveals is an
endless stream of options, all disguised as memories, fantasies, fears,
concepts, and so on. To get free of domination by the mind, it is only
necessary to realize that its parade of subjects is merely an arbitrary
cafeteria of selections wending their way across the screen of the mind. Letting go greatly facilitates the power of affirmations. An affirmation is
a positive statement. Its power is limited by the fact that, either consciously
or uncon sciously , we have multiple negative programs that are saying the
very opposite thing to the affirmation. You can discover this for yourself by
noticing that, as you write the affirmations, your mind comes up with,
“Yeah, but . . .” It is these “Yeah, buts . . .” that limit the power of the
affirmation and reduce its effectiveness. If you surrender the obstacles to
the affirmation, you will notice a rapid increase in their ef fectiveness. In actuality , the ego-self doesn’ t have to die at all: life doesn’ t come to an
end; existence doesn’ t cease; and no horrible, tragic fate is waiting to end
life at all. Like the ego itself, the whole story is imaginary . One doesn’ t
have to destroy the ego or even work on it. The only simple task to be
accomplished is to let go of the identification with the ego as one’ s real self! With this relinquishment of identification, the self actually goes right on
walking and talking, eating and laughing—the only difference is that, like
the body , it becomes “that” instead of “me” or “this.”All that is neces sary, then, is to let go of ownership, authorship, and the
delusion that one invented or created this self and see that it was merely a
mistake. That this is a very natural and inevitable mistake is obvious. Everyone makes  it, and only a few discover the error and are willing or able
to correct it. As Buddha said, “Put no head above your own,” meaning that one’s only
true guru is the Self (the Buddha nature). The Self of the teacher and one’s own Self are one and the same. The
teacher becomes a source of inspiration and information. It is the inspiration
that supports the quest. The human mind  is like a ship at sea that is unable to correct its direction
without a compass or an externa l source of reference, such as the stars. It is
important to realize that a syste m is only correctible when it has access to
an exter nal point of reference (like a global positioning system)  that serves
as the Absolute by which all other data are compared. Through observ ation, it can be seen that beneath the images and words
themselves, there is a driving energy—a desire to think, to stay mentally
active, to keep busy with any input the mind can find to fill in the gaps. One
can detect a drive to “thinkingness,” which is impersonal . With observation,
one can detect that there is no “I” thinking the thoughts at all. In fact, the
“I” rarely intervenes. The mind will get critical and try to save face by ridiculing a higher state. This is a golden  opportunity because this is the very attitude that prevents a
person from reaching that higher state of life. The very process of reading
this material is invaluable, for it will reveal precisely what the blocks are
and exactly why these goals are impossible at the present time. As
resistances, criticisms, and disparagements come up, we can begin
surrendering them and letting them go right now in the process of reading
about them. It is a great opportunity to identify the inner blocks to
fulfillment. As Pogo said, “W e have identified the enemy , and it is us.”
Integrous moral ity and ethics, like genuine reason and faith, are firmly
grounded in realistic humility by which essence supersedes appearance and
socialized perce ption. Morality as a virtue is represented by the ethics of
character traits, such as consideration for others, honesty , integrity ,
accountability , and responsibility , as well as allegiance to basic spiritual
concepts. To be benign, affectionate, supportive, polite, kind, considerate,
and helpful does not raise the flag of a cause or of being superi or. Morality
is thus a humble way of being in the world for its own sake rather than for
gain or ego inflation. The conse quences are internal but also evidenced by
degrees of happiness and realistically based self-esteem. At all times, remain aware that the real you is not the ego. Refuse to
identify with it. The first tools we need are willingness and an open mind—the
willingness to say that the mind is looking at something which it is being
asked to view so it can be healed. The healing of the body comes about with
the healing of the mind. All the physical illnesses, which I even tually let goof, finally healed of their own nature as a result of healing the thought
forms in mind. All the healings resulted from the willingness to let go of the
condemnation of self and others, to let go of criticalnes s, self-pity ,
resentment, and all the negative energies at the levels below 200, including
regret, worry , anxiety , grievance s, self-contempt, and self-hatred. It was the
letting go of those things that shifted the energy field to one that brought
about the healing. The ego is not overcome by condemnation, hatred, and guilt. Rather , one
de-ener gizes it by viewing it objectively for what it truly is—that is, a
vestigial remnant of man’ s evolutionary origins. The key to success is to study and imitate a truthful authority rather than
resist or attack it through competitive envy , jealousy , or hostility . Reality becomes self-evident when the obstruction of perception and
mentation are removed, including all belief systems. It is not necessary to know about the Self but simply to beco me it by
letting go of the non-Self. The realization comes about as a subjective
transformation. Blind faith, the truth of a teaching, and the integrity of the teacher , plus
dedication and adherence to a simple practice, are all that are required. . . . With the realiza tion that the intellect is no longer a useful tool but now the
barrier , the seeker arrives at the ripeness which is necessary for the more
focused paths to God by transc ending the mind, either via the heart or via
the pathway of consciousness. The key to transcending the inherent limitations of the ego/mind is
humility , withou t which the mind is hopelessly trapped in its illusory house
of mirrors. Like the sun, the inner Self is always shining, but because of negative
clouds, we do not experience it. It is not necessary to program oneself with
the truth; it is only necessary to remove that which is false. The removal of
the clouds from the sky to illum inate the negative allows one to experience
the energy fields of that which  is positive. It is only the removal of the
negative that is necessary—th e willingness to let go of the habits of
negative thinking. The removal of the obstacles to the experien cing of this
will result in an increasing sense of aliveness and a joy of one’s own
existence. The first illusion to surrender is the belief that there is such a thing as
“mind.” Experie ntially , one can only state that thoughts, feelings, images,
and memories come into one’s awareness in an endless progr ession. The
word “mind” is therefore only a concept, as is the word “ego.”
Letting go of the ego is based on the willingness to surrender attachment
to it as a substitute for God and just another illusion. How can meditation persist in one’s daily existence? By merely
constantly posing the question to oneself of “what” is doing the acting,
talking, feeling, thinking, or observing. This is a focus of attention, with no
languaging. . . . Continuous meditation could be likened to a mudra, or
posture and attitude, in which every act is sanctified by its surrender as an
act of service or worship. When one’s attitude towards everything becomes
a devotion, Divinity reveals itself. One sacrifices material or egoce ntric gain for spiritual progress, and in so
doing, the transi ent is subordinated to the permanent, and that which is of
true value is chosen over that which is only an illusion. A yardstick that is
helpful in making decisions is to project oneself ahead to one’s deathbed
and ask, Which decisions do I want to be accountable for at that time? The love of God by worship, devotion, commitment, declaration, or
selfless service is the catalyst and the formal invitation for the intercession
of Divin ity via the power of the nonlinear field of consciousness itself,
which is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. By surre nder of all
resistances, this powerful nonli near field becomes progressivel y dominant
and eventually an all-encompassing Presence. With the style of detached obser vation, the unfolding of life reveals itself
to be the conse quence of the spontaneous emer gence of actuality as a
manifestation of potentiality when conditions are favorable. All true religions reaffirm that salvation is a consequence of surrendering
to and acknowle dging God through faith, worship, good deeds, prayers, and
declaration. If, in the exact passing moment of each instant, there is a complete
willingness to totally surrender to it, one can suddenly transcend the ego in
a flash. And then the way opens  for Realization, wherein the Light of God
as Self reveals the Source of all Existence and Reality . Consciousness advances itself when it is provided with essential
information that then becomes activated by intention. This in turn prompts
inspiration, humility , and surrender , and these tendenci es become
progressively more operative. When dominant, they lead to dedication and
perseverance. In addition to these aspects of consciousness, progress is
greatly aided by expert guidance and the usefulness of the calibrated levels
of consciousness of the teachers and the teachings. Illusion is the secondary , automatic consequence of positionality . What
happens in a miraculous transformation is that the positionality dissolves,
allowing for a greater contextualization, outside of time and place, by which
the linear content is replaced with the nonlinear (context).When carefully examined, one finds that all opinions are worthl ess. They
are all vanities and have no importance or intrinsic merit. Everyone’ s mind
is loaded with endless opinions,  and when seen for what they are, opinions
are really only mental activity . What is of more importance, however , is that
opinions stem from and reinforce positionalities, and it is these
positionalities that bring on endless suffering. To let go of positionalities is
to silence opinions, and to silence opinions is to let go of positionalities. The evolution of consciousness is one’s karmic inheritance because it is a
quality innate to human consciousness itself. . . . The value of watchful
witnessing is that even just awareness of an ego defect tends to undo it. By
surrender and prayerful invocation, Divine Will facilitates transition from
the lesser to the greater , for the Self effortlessly supports and energizes
intention. The totality of the self is held within a larger underlying nonlinear field
of awar eness that is always present. It represents context rather than
content. By analogy , it would be like looking at the planet Earth from outer
space, where space is the context and Earth is the content. . . . With
surrender , obstructions are dissolved by the infinite compassion  of Divinity
that unconditio nally loves all that exists, for that existence is the
manifestation of God. Only illusions could make this obvious truth not
apparent. Error occurs when we cling to the belief that I am “that.” Truth is
unveiled when we see that one has “that” or does “that,” instead of is“that.”
When it learns of the benefit of letting go of egocentric goals , the ego
itself then becom es the springboard to spiritual inquiry and the means to its
own transcendence, realizing that humility is strength, not weakness, and
that it is wisdom and not ignorance. The ego—or more accurately , the belief that one is the ego— obscures the
Realization of the Reality of the Self as the Oneness of All That Is. The
dissolution of the ego results in liberation from the bondage of the illusions
that create suffering. These illusions are susceptible to fearless scrutiny that
reveals the underlying fallacies. The only tool needed is the willingness to
unreservedly surrender all beliefs, opinions, and attitudes to God. The activation of spiritual poten tiality is a consequence of nonresistance,
which is like the flower that opens and responds to the warmth of the sun by
virtue of its intrinsic qualities imbued by Creation itself. It is not really necessary to subdue the ego but merely to stop identifying
with it. The clever ego can extract the juice/payof f of secret gratification and
pleasure from anything it arbitr arily selects. Actually , it is always just the
same goal over and over again. The “what” that is desired is actually
irrelevant. The locus is imagined  to be “out there” but is actually “in here,”
for the pleasure gained is subjec tive and internal. The relinquishment of this
single, solitary goal unveils the Reality of the Self—which is the innate
prime source of all happiness—and its Realization terminates all wants and
desires. The locus of happiness is always solely from within. Pleasure is
transitory; joy and happiness are from within. To watc h the mind from a detached position is educati onal and
nonstressful, and it can be done with equanimity . From thinking that we are our minds, we begin to see that we have  minds
—and that it is the mind that has thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and opinions. Eventually we may arrive at the insight that all our thoughts are merely
borrowed from the great databa se of consciousness and were never really
our own. Prevailing thought systems are received, absorbed, and identified
with; in due time, they are replaced by new ideas that have become
fashionable with us. As we place less value on such passing notions, they
lose their capacity to dominate us. We experience progressive freedom of,
as well as from, the mind. This in turn ripens into a new source of pleasure;
fittingly , the pleasure of existence itself matures as one ascends the Map of
Consciousness. All thinking, from a spiritual viewpoint, is merely vanity , illusion, and
pomposity . The less one thinks, the more delightful life becomes. Thinkingness eventually becomes replaced by knowingness. That one “is”does not really need any thoug ht at all. It is helpful, therefore, to make a
decision to stop mental conversation and useless babbling. Once thoughts, like objects, are depersonalized, they become devalued
and lose their attraction. Thoughts and feelings arise from desire, and the
mind desires what it values. To clear the mind, merely note that nothing at all is of special or unique
“value” or “worth” except by invested, superimposed, and projected belief. Therefore, withdraw value, worth, importance, and interest. With practice, one can stay focused on the quality of conscious ness as a
process without  actually getting involved  in the “what ” that is being
processed or experienced. Those who have  tried Zen meditation know that the first thing  taught is
the handling of discomfort of the physical body by letting go of resisting the
experience, cancelling out thoughts about it, and becoming one with it,
thereby disappearing it. If the goal of life is to do the very best one can do at each unfolding
moment of existence, then through spiritual work, one has already escaped
the primary cause of suffering. In the stop-frame of the radical present,
there is no life story to react to or edit. W ith this “one-pointedness” of mind,
it soon becomes obvious that everything merely “is as it is,” without
comment or adjectives.The essential nature of spiritual work is to stay focused on what arises
from instant to instant and become aware of “what” is experiencing and
where it is being experienced. The intent of meditation is detachment, especially detachment  from the
notion that thoughts are “mine” or represent “me.” In Reali ty, they are
merely “its,” as is the mind itself. The idea of ownership arises from the
personalization of these thoughts due to familiarity because the mind (like a
camera) was present to record these past thoughts, events, and memories. However , it recorded them only because they were imbued with
importance. Note that little roadside detail is recalled from a boring cross-
country drive. The mind’ s inner camera records what is valued. A usefu l decisio n or choice is to decide to stop mentally talking about
everything and refrain from interjecting comments, opinions, preferences,
and value statements. It is therefore a discipline to just watch without
evaluating, investing worth in, editorializing, commenting, or having
preferences about what is witnessed. Every life experience, no matter how “tragic,” contains a hidden lesson. When we discov er and acknowledge the hidden gift that is there, a healing
takes place. As the payof fs of the ego are refused and surrendered, its grip on the
psyche lessens, and spiritual experience progresses as the residues of doubt
are progressively relinquished. As a consequence, belief is replaced by
experiential knowledge, and the depth and intensity of devoti on increase
and may eventually supersede and eclipse all other worldly activities and
interests. Letting go of the old is facilitated by willingness, courage, and faith. Spiritual progres s literally benefits all mankind in that it raises  the general
level of consciousness. Even one iota makes a difference.
_OceanofPDF.com_The_Ego_Is_Not_the_Real_You_-_David_r_hawkins.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        OceanofPDF. comALSO BY DAVID R. HAWKINS, M. D. ,
Ph.
The author is Dr. David R. Hawkins.
Who is the author of this book?
The book is about the process of surrendering the ego and realizing the true self.
What is the main theme of this book?
According to the author, the ego's purpose is to satisfy its own survival and self-interest, and to seek pleasure and gain.
What is the purpose of the ego, according to the author?
The author recommends a process of surrender, self-reflection, and devotion, as well as the importance of humility and compassion.
What is the author's approach to spiritual growth and self-realization?
The author views the ego as an illusion, an obstacle to spiritual growth, and a source of suffering.
What is the author's view on the concept of the ego?