| As we surrender, life becomes more and more effortless. There is a constant increase in happiness and pleasure, which requires less and less from the outer world to be experienced. There is a diminution of needs and expectations of others. We stop looking “out there” for what we now experience as coming from within ourselves. We let go of the illusion that others are the source of our happiness. Instead of looking to get from others, we now look to give. Others now seek to be with us, instead of avoiding us. In Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Scrooge experienced the pleasure of giving instead of looking to get from others. The joy of that transformation is available to us all.
from Letting Go pg 272 |
Category: Thoughts & quotes from Sir David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D. & Susan Hawkins
Hello, we want to share thoughts and quotes from Dr. David R. Hawkins and his wife, Susan Hawkins. We will keep you informed of upcoming events, as well. For available books, CDs, DVDs, and the Map of Consciousness, visit the Dr. David R. Hawkins product page. Find a Dr. Hawkins Study Group in your area.
What is Love?
Q: What is love? Often it seems to be unreachable.
A: Love is misunderstood to be an emotion; actually, it is a state of awareness, a way of being in the world, a way of seeing oneself and others. Love for God or nature or even one’s pets opens the door to spiritual inspiration. The desire to make others happy overrides selfishness. The more we give love, the greater our capacity to do so. It is a good beginning practice to merely mentally wish others well in the course of the day. Love blossoms into lovingness, which becomes progressively more intense, nonselective, and joyful. There is a time when one ‘falls in love’ with everything and everyone they meet.
Love becomes the field…
As egocentricity and selfishness diminish as motivators, the capacity for concern with the happiness and welfare of others gains dominance, and thus love… and its gain or loss become dominant. As this propensity matures, lovingness becomes the expression of what one has become… and is unconditional. Love then becomes the field and the context as well as the content of intentions and actions.
… Thus, the human world represents a purgatorial-like range of opportunities and choices, from the most grim to the exalted, from criminality to nobility, from fear to courage, from despair to hope, and from greed to charity. Thus, if the purpose of the human experience is to evolve, then this world is perfect just as it is.
What does it mean to surrender?
In ordinary life, we surrender a little bit. Under greater pressure, we are willing to surrender more and realize that we do not have to put ourselves under catastrophic pressure in order to be willing to surrender at great depth. The transformation of personality, the whole shift in one’s spiritual position, traditionally comes from surrendering at great depth.
What does it mean to surrender at great depth? How can we surrender at great depth without having to put ourselves through a terrible emotional catastrophe in order to accomplish the same spiritual work? By seeing the essential nature of the process, we become educated. Our positions shift and we are different in the way we are. We are willing to be with life in all its expressions. The willingness is then experienced as an inner state of aliveness. Arising from that is the willingness to take the chance because we now know that we are accompanied by something greater than the personal self. It is not the personal self that has to handle what comes up in life. The Infinite Presence that is always with us is more powerful than the human will and ego. The self brings pain and suffering; the Self radiates healing and peace.
Seek to ‘know’, not to ‘know about’
“… Seek to ‘know’, not to ‘know about’. ‘Know’ implies subjective experience; ‘know about’ means to accumulate facts. In the end, all facts disappear, and there are none to be known.
… Each piece of information contributes to intuitive understanding and recognition. Truth is recognized. It presents itself to a field of awareness that has been prepared in order to allow the presentation to reveal itself. Truth and enlightenment are not acquired or achieved. It is a state or condition that presents itself when the conditions are appropriate.
… Humility is of greater value than all factual accumulation.”
