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

I thought that this exchange between Dave and I was a good example of the difference between forgiveness and actually surrendering your perception of the event or person.

Susan: When you say to pray to the Holy Spirit for a miracle to see the truth about a situation or a person, are we to forgive that person if there was a conflict or just accept them for what it is?

Dr. Hawkins: No, because you’re still seeing them the same way or you wouldn’t be forgiving them. Through “The Course in Miracles” for instance,  the miraculous occurs, but not as the consequence of how you’re seeing it, because you may still see it the same way and yet it happens. So when I ask for a miracle, I’m surrendering my perception of how I see it and then it’s transformed. And when it’s transformed, I see that it still is loveable, yeah. I see that somebody I’m angry at cannot help but be that way. So now instead of hating them or being angry, I feel sorry for them and I say it’s too bad that they can’t see it the way I’m seeing it. Because I know their life is painful the way they are seeing the world and when they see it my way, the world stops being painful. Yes, uh, huh.

Susan: OK

“Love” Lecture on dvd or cd

We fear that the inner voyage of discovery will lead us to some dreadful, awful truth. In its programming of our minds, this is one of the barriers that the world has set up to prevent us from finding out the real truth. There is one thing the world does not want us to find out and that is the truth about ourselves. Why? Because then we will become free. We can no longer be controlled, manipulated, exploited, drained, enslaved, imprisoned, vilified, or disempowered. Therefore, the inner voyage of discovery is cloaked over with an aura of mystery and foreboding.

What is the real truth about this voyage? The real truth is that, as we go within and discards one illusion after another, one falsehood after another, one negative program after another, it gets lighter and lighter. The awareness of the presence of love becomes stronger and stronger. We will feel lighter and lighter. Life becomes progressively more effortless.

from Letting Go, ch. 6, pg. 106

I thought this conversation between Dave and I was fitting on this Halloween.

Susan: How would you say is the best way to teach children about spirituality?

Dr. Hawkins: Well, I think teaching the value of love. I think the reverence in which we hold spiritual figures, Jesus Christ and the Saints and how all of society holds God. So I believe in teaching children from very early on about God and Jesus Christ and saints and good persons and the value of going to church and how we love the clergy, we love the priests and we love the nuns. We love them all those who help the church. The reverence in which society holds the spiritual domain. The reverence in which the integrous members of society hold it.

Other people, it’s their enemy. Holiness and spirituality and that which is Divinity is the enemy of people that are anti-God. There’s a lot of people that hate God and hate Divinity and hate spirituality and they exist in every religion. They hate Muslims, they hate Christians. So a good deal of hatred gets mixed into their religious sectarianism. So it’s very paradoxical, you know. Hate people who picture God in a different style than you than what you do so, you hate them. It’s tragicomic, tragic comical.

Susan: What is the spiritual significance of a couple choosing not to have children?

Dr. Hawkins: It’s not necessary. They might do it for spiritual reasons if they thought that having the children was going to interfere the spiritual design of their life. But that would be a selection that everybody makes, whether to get married or not in the first place and then whether to have children or not and the part that spirituality plays in that.

Nuns and priests don’t have children, you know. Well, priests do, in the Episcopal church, you know. Well, Catholic priests don’t. So in some churches you can’t have a family and other churches like Episcopal, you can have a family. So, it’s how it’s pictured. It can be pictured as a positive contributor to one’s spiritual dimension or could be pictured as retarding it. I think it’s how you hold it in your mind. I don’t think it is intrinsically is one way or the other.

Listen

The Importance of Family

It is necessary to develop respect for spiritual endeavor. Straight and narrow is the path; waste no time or effort. Precision is discipline that is innate to serious commitment. Some students may yet be in a period of exploration, but once one gets the “fire in the belly,” the urge to reach God becomes a relentless drive – or even, in the eyes of the world, a “madness.” From that point on, there is no patience for amusement or diversion. It depends on decision, will, the level of consciousness, and karmic propensities. As it gets more intense, the love for and of God allows no delay.     Dissolving the Ego, Realizing the Self  ch. 7, pg. 120.

This is a great little story that Dave shared at this lecture:

“I was happy being poor. I have been poor, I have been rich and frankly there is no difference between the two. You get up that day and you are happy or you are not happy. When I first came to the West, I slept on a cot I got at the Dime Store. We had an apple to celebrate any special occasions. I tested the teachings of A Course in Miracles. I left the house with no money, no food, and everything was provided for me. By 11:00 AM someone would say, ‘What are you doing for lunch? Come along with me.’ Everything I needed just appeared. I drove the old truck to Sedona; just as I needed a pair of pliers to fix the truck, on the side of the road was a brand new, never used pair. I fixed what I needed and went on. Everything went that way. It is true you do not need anything at all except faith.”

from “Serenity” August 2005 lecture and “Book of Slides” pg.125