I: Reality and Subjectivity

David Hawkins does it again! Just when I thought he couldn't do much better than the first 2 books of this trilogy, I read this final book and I am blown away more than ever. This book actually calibrates the highest of all in the trilogy at 999.8 on a 1 to 1000 scale. This makes it the most powerful on a Truth level if we are to fully trust the Scale of Consciousness calibration he developed to gauge truth from falsehood, a discernment the human intellect is incapable of doing on his own. Hawkins claims that just being exposed to this material will raise one's consciousness, a claim I can attest to. Although I had some resistance and residual skepticism when he describes WalMart corporation calibrating in the 300's, something I was astonished and amazed to learn in light of their sheningigans, I must admit I can not deny the power of his words and message. I spent more time reading and absorbing this last book simply because it was so potent. Reading this book written by a Self Realized psychiatrist may be the most important step you take if enlightenment is your goal. Why? Because this author understands the human ego thoroughly from a uniquely Western perspective and has the uncanny ability to dissect it so we are able to examine the mechanisms and machinery that allows the human ego to survive and in many cases to thrive in the midst of our ignorance regarding its karmic workings. Fully understanding HOW the ego works is the 1st step to undoing it. Hawkins understands this! He imparts a knowledge and insight that I find both refreshing and enlightening in the classics of spiritual teachings. For instance, he makes the very important distinction between crushing and killing the ego often emphasized in Eastern teachings and replaces this jargon with simply gently withdrawing attention from the ego and surrendering its function (ie thinking and mentations) to one's Higher Power thus depriving it of sustenance until it eventually starves from inattention. This is the ultimate diet! It is the true meaning of austerities and tapas. Once we no longer longer give the ego power, it ceases to exist. Thus the endless battle between the lower and higher natures is avoided, and the duality trap consisting of power struggles is circumvented. Endless battling with an ego, which has no inherent, independent existence in Reality, actually often gives rise to a new "spiritual ego" and perpetuates the individual being bound to the wheel of karma. Although the ego can be very clever, it is also very stupid as Hawkins points out! Hawkins also outlines and delineates the spiritual path we all must tread eventually, if we are ever to reach the final goal of enlightenment. In the end, as he mentions, the final step is taken by the Holy Spirit through an Act of Grace. This is the moment when the ego implodes or evaporates into emptiness like the candle flame that is extinguished. This is the actual meaning of the word,"nirvana". Hawkins writes from the perspective of a Western gnani yoga master and understands the strengths and weaknesses of language. Truth can NOT be languaged as it is beyond mind, beyond the linear. In some mysterious, matter-of-fact way, Hawkins is able to discuss enlightenment and spirituality not so much in religious jargon, but in a psychospiritual analytic manner that imprints one's consciousness with the Truth, both using and bypassing the rational, linear human intellect and thereby penetrating to the depths of one's own Soul. He calls it a "carrier wave". Indeed, I call it the Power of the Holy Spirit or Grace.I consider these 3 volumes and particularly this final chapter in of his Trilogy, perhaps some of the most transformational spiritual writings I have come across. Although they are exceptionally suited to students of Advaita and the path of nonduality, they can be appreciated by most sincere Truth students across the spectrum because of Hawkins unique perspective of presenting Truth uncloaked in mysticism and pseudoreligious pretentionous or head trips. This is naked Truth, spoken in a language as familiar to the Soul or Self as to mind. It calls us within, back Home, to the Truth that we have always been and are in Reality and Essence. Welcome Home! And thank you, David Hawkins, for the Gift of Remembrance through the Grace of the Holy Spirit. "Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha."

The first time I read this book, maybe a percent or less of it actually sunk in. But something within me kept drawing me towards it again and again. Now, after two years of repeated passes, as well as repeated passes of everything else he has written, I wouldn't dream of putting it down. Sometimes I feel the urge to look up something specific in the book, but usually, when I have a few moments, I'll just open up to a random page and start reading, and I always carry something away every time. Something within me is telling me that this is the highest possible truth, in written form. And, accordingly, I "gauge" my own state of development, spiritual evolution, or whatever you want to call it, by how much I read in the pages actually makes sense to me, and what doesn't make sense to me yet, and there is plenty, is merely an indication of the work that remains to be done.I don't really know who to recommend this book to, as I don't know anyone who is interested in things of this nature, but I can share my own experience with it. For most of my adult life, and a considerable portion of my childhood (where does one really draw the line) I have bounced around religious scrupulosity, to agnosticism, to full blown athiesm, material reductionism, ad infinitum. I have had much difficulty accepting the truths that were presented to me in the church, especially the favored status of one religion over the other. I used to say that there are ten thousand religions out there, and every last one of them think they are the only ones going to heaven...which one is right?Of course, by that line if reason, it is easy for a physics major to conclude that there is only physical reality and they are all delusional. But I never could accept that completely.One thing that I can definitely say that I have picked up from this book is that the god that I was rejecting was indeed worthy of rejection. The god that I was rejecting, which I believed was merely a creation of the collective imagination of the church, was, indeed just that to a large extent. Rather than searching for my own answers to the Nature of God, I was creating a mental construct based on what I had been told by other people. Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with what I was being told. Therein lies the crux: It was the simple idea that I was trying to create my own subjective experience of God, based on the experience of other well intentioned people. It is the simple fact that my subjective experience of the nature of God did not come from within, which completely flies in the face of SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE. Hawkins says repeatedly in the book, that the discovery of the presence of God is profoundly SUBJECTIVE. You can't be told about it by someone else. It can't be accessed via the intellect, and its associated cause and effect paradigm.If your experience matches mine to some degree, then I highly recommend this book to you, and absolutely anything else by the same author.

Having read a couple of Dr Hawkins books, (Letting Go and Healing & Recovery) neither of the two that made up a trilogy (of which this was the final one and not something I realised) I wasn't sure I was going to be able to completely absorb it in the way intended. If this had been my first Dr Hawkins book then that may have been the case. However, on reading it I couldn't help but keep stopping to share it with my husband. There are some sections that really hit home. Dr Hawkins calibrated each of the chapters and they all calibrated extremely high points on the Map of Consciousness. Have a pencil handy because you're probably going to want to mark sections. I'm sure the official description of this book is sufficient to describe the contents, but be sure this is a book that will get more than one reading (as all his books have for me so far). Not because they're hard to understand but because I want to make sure I absorb it correctly. I'm amazed how easy it is to "surrender" one's negative thoughts and feelings to God and have them stop - just like that! I'm not someone who was comfortable evening uttering the word 'God' but Dr Hawkins makes it easy to really understand and take on board the essence of God. We really are so lucky to have his writings. Bless him wherever he finds him Self.

This calibrates at 999 / 1000 LOC

What can I say?I just love the way Dr Hawkind (RIP) put into words such deep subjective reality. Please read the trilogy. I have to re read it again and again. His books are treasures.

This book is the highest level truth out there. I recommend it to all serious spiritual seekers.

Good quality book