Dissolving the Ego, Realizing the Self 데이비드 호킨스

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letting go

Preface by Dr. David R. Hawkins.......................... ix

Introduction.........................................................xi

Part I: The “self” (Ego/Mind)..........................1

1: N ature of the “Ego”.................................. 3

2: N ature of “Mind”................................... 35

Part II: Transcending the self........................ 53

3: Pathway of Mind.................................... 55

4: S ubjectivity............................................. 81

5: W itnessing and Observing..................... 91

6: M editation.............................................. 99

7: Devotion to God and Truth................. 107

Part III: Realizing the Self............................ 123

8: N ature of Divinity/Self/Truth.............. 125

9: T he Presence of God............................ 157

10: N onduality........................................... 169

11: E nlightenment..................................... 183

Glossary........................................................... 211

About the Author and Editor............................. 219

Preface

All life reflects the evolution of consciousness, from that of the simple bacteria to the advanced levels of Enlightenment of the world’s Great Sages. Scott Jeffrey has taken on the formidable task of delineating core comprehensions that occur along the Great Pathway. These selections are inspirational, innately transformative steps that accelerate the journey to Enlightenment. To completely understand any one of them illuminates all the others. It is the great journey that uplifts the reader from the seemingly mundane to the Realization of the Glory of God.

— David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D.

Introduction

The contemporary spiritual student is bombarded by information and activities that consume time and attention. This collection of writings on the nature of ego, mind, and consciousness itself is designed to be a pocket companion for serious seekers and students of Dr. David R. Hawkins’s teachings, easily portable and taking up little room on your nightstand.

Whether you’re working at your desk, waiting in line at the bank, sipping coffee in a cafe, hiking in the woods, or just lying in bed, Dissolving the Ego, Realizing the Self provides convenient contemplations of Truth.

Quotes and passages to inspire contemplation and reflection for the student on the go have been hand-selected from all of Dr. Hawkins’s core writings— including Power vs. Force; The Eye of the I; I: Reality and Subjectivity; Truth vs. Falsehood; Transcending the Levels of Consciousness; Discovery of the Presence of God; and Reality, Spirituality, and Modern Man—as well as numerous other published and unpublished works.

The chosen selections have been taken directly from the above sources, with only minor alterations where appropriate, categorized topically for the reader’s convenience, with a great deal of overlap between sections. The beauty of this format is that you may begin reading wherever you feel most inspired, or simply flip to a page at random. (If you find that any of the terms used are unfamiliar, please consult the Glossary at the back of the book.)

The approach to spiritual progress as explained by Dr. Hawkins isn’t one of “getting somewhere,” as there is no “where” to get. Instead, you’re guided to transcend your ego and shed all illusions so that Truth stands revealed. As he explains in many of his talks, “The sun is always shining; you need only remove the clouds.”

Dr. Hawkins’s teachings expose the ego/mind as nothing more than a complex house of mirrors. As a skilled teacher and mystic, he guides us out of perceptual distortions and fallacies into the Light of Consciousness itself. His teachings represent a beacon of truth that any willing spiritual aspirant can follow to higher levels of consciousness.

You’ll find that Dr. Hawkins illuminates the

illusion of duality (the sense of separation of a

“this” observing a “that”) and the true nature of

Subjectivity, Reality, and Truth with a precision

unsurpassed in spiritual literature. He offers the

devoted student the gift of clarity and spiritual

direction, distilling difficult and confusing topics

for the Western mind.

Dr. Hawkins’s teachings are not oriented toward

the spiritually timid; that is, those more

interested in energizing belief systems, confirm‎ing

opinions, and blindly adhering to ecclesiastic

doctrine. For the individual who is honestly

moving toward greater meaning and understanding,

and ultimately Self-realization, the passages

herein were selected.

In transcending the illusion of the (small)

self, one realizes the (higher) Self—the Ultimate

Reality out of which consciousness arises, beyond

words or concepts. The first section of this book

explores the true nature of the small self—the

ego and mind. Subsequent sections are devoted

to transcending that self and experiencing the

nondualistic Presence of Divinity and the realization

of Enlightenment. 

Many of the themes and concepts presented

in this book are repetitive, as they are in Dr.

Hawkins’s core writings. This is done intentionally,

as Dr. Hawkins explains that nonlinear principles

are learned through repetition rather than

linear, sequential understanding. It is in reading,

rereading, and contemplating the meaning behind

the words that one’s understanding ripens.

Eventually, the teaching becomes a part of the

student (a subjective, experiential reality). Words,

then, become unnecessary.

May your spiritual journey lead you to Higher

Truth. . . .

— Blessings,

Scott Jeffrey 

x Pa r t I x

The “self” (Ego/Mind)

The process of transcending to the highest levels of enlightenment is one of letting go of the identification of a personal self.

The belief in an “I” or “me”—a central processing unit that has its own body, mind, and emotions—is a hindrance to realizing

one’s true nature. Dr. Hawkins explains that the self (with a small “s”)—the composite of ego and mind—presumes there is a

centralized “inner primary causal agent, for example, the ‘doer’ of deeds, the ‘thinker’ of thoughts, and the ‘decider’ of decisions.” We start by exploring the nature of the ego and the mind—the sense of a personal self— so we are better prepared to transcend this misidentification. 

1 x

Nature of the “Ego”

Hawkins describes the ego as “the imaginary doer behind thought and action.” This “set of entrenched habits of thought,” enforced by societal consensus and unconscious repetition, creates the illusionary sense of a personal self. The primary goal of spiritual work is to transcend the central processing unit believed to be essential for survival. Understanding the ego’s nature reveals its underlying mechanisms so that we may withdraw

the value we innocently projected onto it, thereby

enabling spiritual progress. 

The progress of consciousness is facilitated

by an awareness of the evolutionary nature of the

ego and its structure.

x

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.

x

In spiritual parlance, ego implies a negative

quality, an obstacle to realization because of its

linear dualistic construction. In psychology,

however, the term denotes coping and survival

skills needed to deal effectively with the world.

x

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.

x

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.

x

The ego is not an enemy to be subdued, but

merely a compilation of unexamined habits of

perception.

x

The ego can be thought of as a set of entrenched

habits of thought, 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 language

itself. To think in language is a form of selfprogramming.

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.

x

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.

x

The ego is neither bad nor an enemy, but

merely an illusion to release so that something

far better can replace it.

x 

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.

x

The ego fears dissolution and therefore resists

giving up the illusion of a separate existence in

an imaginary “here” and an imaginary “now.”

It fears it will dissolve into being nothing, and

consequently the conscious awareness will also

cease. With examination, it will become clear

that one’s reality is not a “who” at all, but instead

is an intensely loving Allness, which is realized

and known to be much closer and more comforting

and fulfilling than the prior sense of “I.”

x

The ego could be called the central processing

and planning center—the integrative, executive,

strategic, and tactical focus that orchestrates,

copes, sorts, stores, and retrieves.

x 

As we get closer to the discovery of the source

of the ego’s tenacity, we make the amazing critical

discovery that we are enamored with our self.

x

The ego secretly “loves” and clings to the

position of victimhood and extracts a distorted

pleasure and grim justification from pain and

suffering.

x

One mechanism the ego uses to protect itself

is to disown the painful data and project it onto

the world and others.

x

The ego is extremely tenacious and therefore

often seems to require extreme conditions before

it lets go of a positionality. It often takes the

collective experience of millions of people over

many centuries to learn even what appears to be

a simple and obvious truth—namely, that peace

is better than war or love is better than hate.

x 

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.

x

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.

x

More important is not the nature of the ego,

but the problem of identification with it as the

“me,” the “I,” or “myself.” The ego was inherited

as an “it,” and is actually an impersonal “it.” The

problem arises because one personalizes and identifies

with it. That “it” of the ego structure is not

unique or individual, and it is relatively similar

(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 dominance 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. That is the real meaning of

the Map of Consciousness. What the majority of

people think to be truth is, in reality, opinions.

x

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.

x

Curiously, the ego’s hold is weakened by

acceptance, familiarity, and compassionate understanding;

in contrast, it is reinforced by selfcriticism,

condemnation, fear, and shame.

x

Temptation stems from within; it is merely

the desire to experience the ego’s payoff and satisfactions

of an impulse, even if it is only a curiosity

or a wanting.

x 

The human ego likes to pretend that evil

exists “out there” and seduces its hapless, 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.

x

The psychological source of seeming evil is

primarily the naive childishness of the primitive

animal instincts of the infantile ego, which tends

to go into a rage if its impulses are blocked by

external authority. The same oppositional rage or

narcissistic rebellion characterizes the criminal,

the adolescent delinquent, the warmonger, and

the puritanical moralist; they are all the same.

x

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.

x 

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.

x

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.

x

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 surrendered to God. Out of shame, the

ego blocks out conscious awareness of its machinations,

especially the secretiveness of the game

of “victim.”

x

Q: The programs of the ego do not continue unless

they are secretly pleasurable?

A: That is the secret about secrets. The payoff

is a gain of a pleasurably satisfying reward. The

ego has learned to be very clever in order to survive.

It is capable of resorting to any lengths or

ruse of self-deception and camouflage. The world

we witness is merely the drama of the collective

egos acting out on the perceptual stage of form

and time.

x

The satisfactions of the ego are more pleasurable

and addictive than the preservation of

human life, much less dignity.

x 

By commitment 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 payoff 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.

x

To undo the ego, one must be willing to

abandon this payoff game, with its grandstanding

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 indignation.”

It just “loves” that juicy positionality

that has such a great payoff.

x

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.

x

To the ego, abandoning 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 because

it has no experiential basis for comparison.

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.

x

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,” without

having to own or control. Awareness is not

driven by goals but instead values the capacity for

equal pleasure in all circumstances.

x

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.

x

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.

x

The ego conceals, whereas awareness reveals.

The answer to many defective ego positions could

be subsumed in the commonly overlooked sanity

of “common sense.”

x 

At the higher levels, the ego is seen to be an

illusion, without any innate reality.

x

At its roots, the ego is the extreme of selfishness

and is completely lacking in all ethical

principles.

x

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.

x

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.

x 

The ego defends its own limitations with

prideful denial, thus becoming its own victim.

x

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.

x

In contrast to the innate arrogance of the ego,

true intelligence is a quality of consciousness/

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 subserves the ego’s drive for survival.

Thus, the ego really uses the mind as camouflage

and becomes hidden in its clever constructions.

This recognition clarifies why the ego’s masquerade

as religion and the undermining of spiritual

truths have been central to its domination of

large cultures for extended periods of time and

the deaths of millions.

x 

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

deadlier than the religionized ego.

x

While the ego/self 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.

x

The ego is the main hero/heroine in the

inner movie of one’s life.

x

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 special Divine authority by its declaration

that it is Divinely ordained and therefore

authorized.

x

Ego positions have the characteristics of disowning

responsibility and placing blame “out

there.” In the end, the ego’s payoff is the energy

by which the ego persists, because it lacks

the pleasure of the input of spiritual energy. The

ego’s payoff 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.

x

On its own, the ego would never seek salvation

. . . the mechanism for salvation is via the

will, which invites the intervention of Divinity.

x

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, including 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.

x

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.

x

The ego’s position propagates itself because

its secretly sought payoff is the emotion itself.

x

The inflated ego is devoid of reality testing as

well as amelioration by reason, logic, or rationality.

x 

Addiction to the ego’s proclivities is like intoxication

where pleasure is derived from the

emotional payoff of negativity. Thus, negative

positionalities tend to be self-perpetuating habits

akin to addiction, based on presumptions and the

inner seductive lure of the gratification of basic

animal instincts. By repetition, they eventually

gain dominance and control, which is the innate

purpose of the narcissistic ego in the first place.

x

The levels below calibration level 200

(the critical level of integrity) tend to be selfpropagating

because of the seductive emotional

pleasure of the ego’s animal-instinct payoff.

x

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

diffuse rather than local. 

x

In ordinary life, the ego/mind goes from

“unfinished” to “finished,” and then from “incomplete”

to “complete.” In contrast, the spiritual

pathway is a direction and style that goes

from complete to complete as evolutionary states

of emergence. Ego positions are interactive and

usually represent a composite. For example, to

disassemble anger may require the willingness

to surrender the pride that underlies that anger,

which in turn depends on surrendering a desire.

This means surrendering the fear that energized

the desire, which again is related to the undoing

of imaginary loss, and so forth.

Motivations are thus intertwined and mutually

interactive, and operationally surrendering

them leads to the next levels, which are comprised

of dualities. Thus, the deeper layers tend

to surface one’s belief about God, programmed

spiritual expectations, and belief systems. Spiritual

work is therefore a matter of exploration

that transcends mental concepts, such as those of

cause and effect.

x 

About the Author

and Editor

Sir David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D., is an internationally

renowned psychiatrist, consciousness

researcher, spiritual lecturer, and mystic.

He is the author of more than eight volumes,

including the bestseller Power vs. Force, and his

work has been translated into more than 17

languages. In the 1970s, he co-authored Orthomolecular

Psychiatry with Nobel laureate Linus

Pauling, revolutionizing the field of psychiatry.

Dr. Hawkins made appearances on The MacNeil/

Lehrer NewsHour, The Barbara Walters Show, and

the Today show. He has lectured at Westminster

Abbey, the Oxford Forum, the University of Argentina,

Notre Dame, Stanford, and Harvard;

and has served as advisor to Catholic, Protestant,

and Buddhist monasteries.

Winner of the Huxley Award, knighted by

the Sovereign Order of the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, nominated for the Templeton Prize,

and honored in the East with the title Tae Ryoung

Sun Kak Tosa (“Foremost Teacher of the Way to

Enlightenment”), Dr. Hawkins’s work continues

to have a profound impact on humankind.

Website: veritaspub.com

x

Scott Jeffrey is the author of numerous

books, including Creativity Revealed: Discovering

the Source of Inspiration. He is currently working

on a biography of Dr. David R. Hawkins.

Website: scottjeffrey.com

x x x

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