David Hawkins' Map of Consciousness

[htc]

A question about how to use David Hawkins' Map of Consciousness. Actually I feel I have some of each level and really can't identify myself as just one level(for example, Pride (175)). Then how to determine which level I am in? 

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[amit]

Dec 13, 2020 0:00:00 GMT -5 htc said:

A question about how to use David Hawkins' Map of Consciousness. Actually I feel I have some of each level and really can't identify myself as just one level(for example, Pride (175)). Then how to determine which level I am in? 

There is no particular state which exemplifies Oneness more than any other, as Oneness is already fully and completely all states. And not One state is more or less Oneness than any other. So no enlightenment, or increase or decrease in Oneness can be achieved by moving from One state to another.

[Reefs]

Dec 13, 2020 0:00:00 GMT -5 htc said:

A question about how to use David Hawkins' Map of Consciousness. Actually I feel I have some of each level and really can't identify myself as just one level(for example, Pride (175)). Then how to determine which level I am in? 

It actually does look a bit like the A-H emotional guidance scale. Which means there's a certain individual set point where you are usually hanging out and what you and others would consider your normal mood or level of consciousness, and then there are the extremes on both ends that you experience now and then.

[laughter]

Dec 13, 2020 2:03:45 GMT -5 Reefs said:

Dec 13, 2020 0:00:00 GMT -5 htc said:

A question about how to use David Hawkins' Map of Consciousness. Actually I feel I have some of each level and really can't identify myself as just one level(for example, Pride (175)). Then how to determine which level I am in? 

It actually does look a bit like the A-H emotional guidance scale. Which means there's a certain individual set point where you are usually hanging out and what you and others would consider your normal mood or level of consciousness, and then there are the extremes on both ends that you experience now and then.

Sekida called it "mood". They're prototypical movements of inner-body/mind. Basis vectors in a 16 dimensional space.

[zendancer]

htc: How would it be useful to imagine that you are at a certain level of any kind? Would imagining that you are a separate entity at a particular level help in any way? What you ARE is beyond any distinction and cannot be imagined. Anything imagined is NOT what you are because what you ARE cannot be imagined. It is the reflective habit of mind that compares, evaluates, makes distinctions, imagines, and judges. Shift attention away from all such thoughts if you want to find what is beyond categorization or conception.

[Reefs]

"The ultimate, final spiritual experience… is, of course, not an experience at all but instead an eternal state. The condition is its own authority. It speaks for itself; it presents itself as an actuality. There is no speaker. Truth is self-revealing. It stands on its own and is complete, total, profoundly obvious, and overwhelming by virtue of its innate magnificence."

— David Hawkins

[zendancer]

Jul 27, 2024 23:03:18 GMT -5 Reefs said:

"The ultimate, final spiritual experience… is, of course, not an experience at all but instead an eternal state. The condition is its own authority. It speaks for itself; it presents itself as an actuality. There is no speaker. Truth is self-revealing. It stands on its own and is complete, total, profoundly obvious, and overwhelming by virtue of its innate magnificence."

— David Hawkins

Nice quote!

[Reefs]

To transcend any ego positionality, the place to start is with the “experiencer,” which is the leading edge of the ego. It is like an information probe, always seeking an experience... In one ten-thousandth of a second, it processes enormous banks of information. No combination of computers could possibly do it…The experiencer is one ten-thousandth of a second removed from reality.

Therefore, the ego never experiences what is; it experiences its experience of what is. By analogy, it is not experiencing that which is being recorded; it is experiencing the playback from the recorder. The ego is experiencing what was just recorded one ten-thousandth of a second ago.

This may not seem like much, except that the quality changes completely. This side of the one ten-thousandth of a second, the trees look like trees, and the flowers look like flowers. On the other side of that one ten-thousandth of a second, they radiate out Divinity! Enlightenment is to bypass the experiencer. The experiencer just suddenly goes out. It does not get weaker and weaker; it is simply and suddenly extinguished, and then the mind goes silent in awe.

David Hawkins, The Map of Consciousness Explained

That's the thingness/suchness distinction, or the mountains and rivers analogy.

[Reefs]

Jul 28, 2024 10:20:54 GMT -5 zendancer said:

Jul 27, 2024 23:03:18 GMT -5 Reefs said:

"The ultimate, final spiritual experience… is, of course, not an experience at all but instead an eternal state. The condition is its own authority. It speaks for itself; it presents itself as an actuality. There is no speaker. Truth is self-revealing. It stands on its own and is complete, total, profoundly obvious, and overwhelming by virtue of its innate magnificence."

— David Hawkins

Nice quote!

There's some really good and profound stuff in his books. Generally speaking, he is very good at explaining LOA and also SR. 

However, as I see it, he is making two major mistakes: 1) He sees the path to SR as a progressive journey from lower states of consciousness to higher states of consciousness, i.e. he is trying to build a bridge between self-help and self-realization, the relative and the absolute context. That's what the map implies. But then again, he also points out the role of grace and how there is nothing we can do to get beyond level 600 (?) by our own effort. So what he teaches is a bit self-contradictory. Which makes one wonder how good he really understood the territory that he was mapping. 2) He tries very hard to give his map a solid scientific basis, by making the unquantifiable quantifiable with the help of kinesiology.

And while I think the basic idea of his map is genius in many ways (especially its logarithmic character) and does have a solid metaphysical basis (basically matches what Seth and Abe teach), his many calibrations discredit it at the same time, because some of his calibrations are clear miscalibrations, which clearly show that this is not objective and scientific (as he claims) but rather subjective and sometimes downright imaginary. I'll give you one example, the case of Mother Teresa. He says:

... the energy of Mother Teresa (cal. 710) was very different from that of Adolf Hitler (cal. 40)...

David Hawkins, The Map of Consciousness Explained

So he calibrated MT at 710, that's saint level, way above Laozi (610) and also above Meister Eckhart (705) but still below Niz (720) and Ramana (720) and way below Bodhidharma (795). However, from Teresa's private letters we know that she actually felt godforsaken for most of her life. Which would put her at calibration level 50. Which is only slightly above Hitler, who calibrated at level 40! Ironically, he puts "the streets of Kolkata" also at level 50, as he says:

This level is characterized by poverty, despair, and hopelessness... This is the level of the streets of Kolkata, where only the saintly such as Mother Teresa and her followers dare to tread.

David Hawkins, The Map of Consciousness Explained

Now, from a LOA perspective, this is interesting, because it begs the question: Was MT drawn to these level 50 places because she was level 710 and that's just what level 700+ saints do, or was she drawn to these level 50 places because she also was level 50?

I think it should be obvious that what he calibrated there wasn't the real MT, but his own, highly idealized personal image of MT. Unfortunately, examples like this one make his method for calibration (kinesiology) seem rather unreliable or even arbitrary. Which also throws the entire 'scientific' basis of his work into question.

In summary: 

Fascinating work by DH, but I would recommend his books only for the discerning reader. Metaphysically minded people will probably like it, because he uses scientific language to explain metaphysics. Which opens up whole new perspectives. But scientifically minded people will probably not like it and give it the label of pseudoscience, because of his over-reliance on kinesiology. And as for non-dualists, they may find some real gems here and there, but mostly they will probably see it as too theoretical and too wordy. For psychologists though, there's a lot of practical applications.

[park]

Yesterday evening I went down the David R Hawkins rabithole.

htc Yesterday I did find some instructions from DRH. Now I can't find them again. So I propose you do some googling in the knowledge that they do exist.

What I like about DRH is that he makes clear that people's state of mind (he would say consciousness) can be placed on a continuum and that people can improve. To my mind, this is helpful and encouraging and gives a relatively clear pathway as to the next steps.

For instance, I like the idea, which I think most people would agree upon, that a raging politician is clearly below 200, that it is a great improvement when one is a moral hardworking scientist looking for the relative truth (300-400), and then again a great improvement when one flourishes in Love (500s), and then again an improvement when one flourishes as a sage (600+).

Take someone like Matthieu Ricard. I think people know his story so I'll skip repeating it. This is just my take, but it makes sense to me. As a young man he was already 200+ so was put off by the successful but not-so-great people he observed. He proceeded to excel as a scientist (300-400). When he was exposed to Tibetan Lamas (500+), it was clear to him that they had a higher perspective than his academic advisors so he went to Tibet. Once there, he proceeded to flourish in Love (500s), with occasional excursions to sagehood (600s). He has now retired from the flashy talks circuit and is looking for deeper insight in retreat (stabilization in 600s and beyond).

What I also like is the way in which DRH gives a way forward, irrespective of one's level.

I don't see how we can say 'it's all the same' when it's clearly not, either from the perspective of the person, or their effect on others.

What I don't like about DRH:
- the psyche is very complex and DRH seems to simplify too much. Take someone like Osho. His texts might rank very high, but his behavior would rank much lower.
- the 'kinesiology' method seems too funky

Anyway, just my take FWIW.

[Reefs]

He has a really good analogy in his books:

Let’s attempt to better understand the determining effect of consciousness levels through an example. Imagine a so-called bum on a street corner:

In a fashionable neighborhood in a big city stands an old man in tattered clothes, alone, leaning against the corner of an elegant brownstone. Look at him from the perspective of various levels of consciousness, and note the differences in how he appears.

From the bottom of the scale, at a level of 20 (Shame), the bum is dirty, disgusting, and disgraceful. From level 30 (Guilt), he would be blamed for his condition. He deserves what he gets; he is probably a lazy welfare cheat. At 50 (Apathy), his plight might appear desperate, evidence that society cannot do anything about homelessness. At 75 (Grief), the old man looks tragic, friendless, and forlorn.

At a consciousness level of 100 (Fear), we might see the bum as threatening, a social menace. Perhaps we should call the police before he commits some crime. At 125 (Desire), he might represent a frustrating problem—why does somebody not do something? At 150 (Anger), the old man might look like he could be violent; or, on the other hand, one could be furious that such a condition exists. At 175 (Pride), he could be seen as an embarrassment or as lacking the self-respect to better himself. At 200 (Courage), we might be motivated to wonder if there is a local homeless shelter; all he needs is a job and a place to live.

At 250 (Neutrality), the bum looks okay, maybe even interesting. “Live and let live,” we might say; after all, he is not hurting anyone. At 310 (Willingness), we might decide to go down there and see what we can do to cheer him up, or volunteer some time at the local mission. At 350 (Acceptance), the man on the corner appears intriguing. He probably has an interesting story to tell; he is where he is for reasons we may never understand. At 400 (Reason), he is a symptom of the current economic and social malaise, or perhaps a good subject for an in-depth psychological study, worthy of a government grant.

At the higher levels, the old man begins to look not only interesting but friendly and even lovable. Perhaps we would then be able to see that he was, in fact, one who had transcended social limits and gone free, a joyful old guy with the wisdom of age in his face and the serenity that comes from indifference to material things. At level 600 (Peace), he is revealed as our own inner self in its temporary expression.

When approached, the old man would also vary in his response to these different levels of consciousness. With some people, he would feel secure; with others, frightened or dejected. Some would make him angry, and others would delight him. Some people he would therefore avoid, and others greet with pleasure. (Thus it is said that what we meet is actually a mirror.)

So much for the manner in which our level of consciousness decides what we see. It is equally true that having placed that construct upon the reality before us, we will react to it in a fashion predicted by the level from which we observe. External events may define conditions, but they do not determine the consciousness level of human response.

Here is the take-home point from the foregoing examples: how we react depends on the world we seem to be reacting to. Who we become as well as what we see are both determined by perception, which can be said, simply, to create the perceptual, experiential world.

David Hawkins, The Map of Consciousness Explained

Now replace "bum" with "nondualist".

[park]

Thank you for posting this most interesting passage Reefs.
I've gotten a lot of mileage from the DRH map. I am yet to read any of the books but have watched a bunch of videos. Maybe the most fascinating and (to me) useful stuff I've found in quite some time.
What's most interesting is seeing my thoughts and behaviours go up and down the "ladder" depending on (exactly how DRH says) my emotional/consciousness/overall state at the time.

I know that ZD is not one for maps and concepts (as shared above) but the map maps even that ie. it maps that he would say so observing from his high level
In one video DRH says that it is possible to go from the bottom of the map to the top in a split second ie. he supports the notion of sudden enlightenment. On the other hand, answering ZD, I think the main benefit of the map is to - while sudden enlightenment is not occurring - know generally where "up" is, where the next step/level is, so where to aim.
Be well, all.