Category: Thoughts & quotes from Sir David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D. & Susan Hawkins

Surrender…facilitates the basic teachings of all the world’s great religions.

The essential goal of these teachings is to surrender the “small self,” commonly called “ego.” The letting go technique facilitates the goal of dissolving the small self by using a simple inner process of surrender. When the small self is transcended, the true inner Self shines forth. Let us take, for instance, the most common short means of expression of this surrendering phenomenon as given by most religions. Typically, they follow this pattern:
Let go and let God.
Be still and know that I am God.
Turn your life and will over to the care of God as you understand Him.
Surrender to what is, for God is in all things.

It is obvious that letting go of negativity facilitates the very direction that all religions and spiritual pathways urge us to take. The process of letting go is concerned primarily with feelings, and we have seen that feelings have a profound effect on our thoughts and belief systems. The experience of most people who use the mechanism of surrender is that it facilitates their spiritual and religious goals. Those who do not consciously have any religious or spiritual goals have remarked that it facilitates their capacity for lovingness, which substantially increases their happiness and well-being.

Letting G0: The Pathway of Surrender, Ch. 21, pg. 313

…The willingness to let go the payoffs of the ego, the gratifications, the feelings of justification, the willingness to feel victorious at another person’s expense. What you have to remind yourself is, although what you’re getting out of this ego position has a certain pleasure, it is not happiness. You get pleasure out of turning the knife in somebody’s back, but you don’t get happiness out of it. So, if you let go of the pleasure of
revenge, let’s say, what you get is the happiness of being a freer,
more loving, and therefore self-loving spirit. So, there is an enormous payoff. You get back far more than you let go of.

The Evolution of Consciousness: Ch. 5, pg. 152

Note: This book contains the transcriptions from the 2002 lectures, March and April.

When faced with a  life crisis, …it does not seem like ‘Spiritual’ work.  Spiritual work is pictured as studying a textbook, looking at a picture of a guru, and singing songs.  Then an acute catastrophe occurs, and the spiritual work is bypassed.  It then resumes after all the various emergencies and tasks in one’s life have been handled.

It is as though we do not really see the essence of spiritual work.  We do not see that the spiritual work brings up these acute crises, brings us into them and that they are an opportunity.  This is where the spiritual work is happening.  The other was preparation, gathering of information and experience, deciding on direction, and accumulating spiritual knowledge. Then suddenly comes the moment of Truth, the time to do it.

Healing and Recovery, Ch. 8, pg. 249-250

Out of an unrestricted love for God arises the willingness to surrender all motives except to serve God completely.  To be the servant of God becomes one’s goal rather than enlightenment.  To be a perfect channel for God’s love is to surrender completely and to eliminate the goal seeking of the spiritual ego.  Joy itself becomes the initiator of further spiritual work.

Daily Reflections from Dr. David R. Hawkins, pg. 25.

The most obvious and visible effect of letting go of negative feelings is a resumption of emotional and psychological growth and the solving of problems, which often have been long-standing. There is pleasure and satisfaction as we begin to experience the powerful effects of eliminating the blocks to achievement and satisfaction in life. We soon discover that the limiting thoughts and negative beliefs, which we had naively held to be true, were all merely the result of accumulated negative feelings. When the feeling is let go, then, the thought pattern changes from “I can’t” to “I can” and to “I’m happy to do it.” Entire areas of life can open up. What used to be awkward or unexpressed can become effortless and joyously alive.

Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender, Ch. 16, Pg. 223