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

Discernment of reality and truth has always been problematic to the human mind, whether it was aware of it or not (i.e., the subject of epistemology). The process is now made even more difficult by the overall impact of the media, the effect of which is both subtle and unconscious as well as visible and apparent. The most obvious influence of the media is by virtue of the selection itself, as well as the time devoted to its reporting, all of which are enhanced on television by visual as well as musical pictorial additions. Emotional and political distortions and dramatizations add to the editing impact reinforced by the sequence and style of presentation. … The overall impact of the media is the production of a ‘virtual reality’ that includes distorted values.

While the modern, sophisticated viewer is subliminally aware of the foregoing, persons of lower levels of consciousness are not so aware and, like children, they tend to believe fiction is truth and live in an “alternate reality”… Thus, falsehood dominates the thinking and reality testing of the majority of people in today’s world. As the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels observed, if a lie is told frequently enough, it is eventually believed to be factual (a virtual reality) because the population lacks the capacity to discern truth from falsehood.

from Reality, Spirituality and Modern Man p. 137-138

The letting go of all pretensions to knowledge or of knowing about anything is a great relief and is experience as a tremendous benefit instead of as a loss as one had feared. One had been, without knowing it, in bondage to the content, and therefore the release from mind is accompanied by a profound sense of peace and absolute security. When this occurs, one is finally profoundly at home at last, with no doubts remaining. There is nothing more to be gained, nothing that needs to be accomplished or thought. Its finality is absolute, profound, motionless, and still. The endless nuisance of desires and wants and pressure of time have come to a final end and their hollowness stands revealed.

from Eye of The I, Chapter 7: The Mind pg. 149

Simple kindness to one’s self and all that lives is the most powerful transformational force of all. It produces no backlash, has no downside, and never leads to loss or despair. It increases one’s own true power without exacting any toll. But to reach maximum power, such kindness can permit no exceptions, nor can it be practiced with the expectation of some selfish gain or reward. And its effect is as far-reaching as it is subtle.

In a universe where “like goes to like” and “birds of a feather flock together,” we attract to us that which we emanate. Consequences may come in an unsuspected way. For instance, we are kind to the elevator man, and a year later, a helpful stranger gives us a hand on a deserted highway. An observable “this” does not cause an observable “that”. Instead, in reality, a shift in motive or behavior acts on a field that then produces an increased likelihood of positive responses. Our inner work is like building up a bank account, but one from which we cannot draw at our own personal will. The disposition of the funds is determined by a subtle energy field, which awaits a trigger to release this power back into our own lives.

from Power vs Force, ch.7 pg. 150-151

A useful decision 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, or editorializing, commenting, and having preferences about what is witnessed. One then sees the rising and falling away of phenomena and the transitory nature of appearance, which, with ordinary mentation, is conceptualized as a sequence of cause and effect. It is an informative practice to ‘pretend’ to be stupid, and by the invocation of radical humility, Essence shines forth. 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 thought at all. It is helpful, therefore, to make a decision to stop mental conversation and useless babbling.”

from Discovery of the Presence of God p. 88-90