Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior

Hawkins reiterates that the average advance in the level of consciousness throughout the world is five points in a lifetime. To attain wisdom is a slow, painful process. Few will give up familiar views even if they are inaccurate. Some cultures do, however, learn from their experiences. Hawkins contrasts the Japanese people, who learned from the lessons of World War II, to the Americans, who still haven’t learned from the Vietnam War.

Entertainment and a preference for violence drags people down, as does gun ownership. Still, free choice exists, making space for mobility and a variety of experience. Growth can take place either slowly or suddenly. The key factor in an upward movement in consciousness is an attitude of willingness and open-mindedness.

Hawkins considers the two critical turning points on his Map of Consciousness. The first is at level 200, where people accept responsibility for their actions. The second is at level 500, where people accept unconditional love and forgiveness as a lifestyle.

The universe is holographic: As when one views a hologram, what is seen depends on one’s position. With the universe, each point of view reflects “a position defined by the viewer’s unique level of consciousness” (214). Hawkins posits that the world is a set of holograms in “limitless” dimensions that exist outside of time, so events that seem causally related are, according to Hawkins, synchronous.

As an example, a person perceiving an unhoused person on a street corner might see him as dirty, deserving of blame, a cause for grief, and so on as the person moves up the various levels of consciousness. At 200, Courage, the perceiver might wonder if there is a shelter nearby, and at higher levels the person might find the unhoused person lovable. At level 600 he would be perceived as an expression of the person’s own self.

Inmates in a jail are another example of the effect of perception. Some would find their condition hopeless or frightening. Others might seek help and join support groups. Even science is not immune to the effects of perception. Data may seem neutral, but it is context that gives significance to the data.

To free oneself from the trappings of perception, one must understand that the mind’s nature is to “convince us that its unique view of experience” is genuine (220). The mind tries to protect its “correctness” by denying other possibilities. This is why the average consciousness advances so little during a lifetime. Great leaps are only possible with the surrender of the illusory “I know.”

The major limitation of consciousness is its own innocence. Observing the mind and being humble help free the individual from the tyranny of the mind.

The medical field presumes that consciousness is nothing more than a function of the brain. Hawkins claims that its nature has not been studied, despite interest in the question of what happens to human consciousness at death. Context colors the answers to this question.

Hawkins considers Descartes’s phrase, “I think, therefore I am,” saying Descartes implies that consciousness is only aware of itself when it assumes form. Both modern physicists and what Hawkins regards as the enlightened throughout history have disagreed, stating that consciousness is not only beyond form but is the “omnipotent matrix out of which form arises” (223). Without consciousness, one cannot experience form.

Thoughts cannot experience themselves. Rather, consciousness experiences the sequence of thoughts. Since it illuminates the objects it witnesses, it is depicted as light in world literature. Enlightened people can experience pure consciousness, which involves a perception of timelessness and oneness. The enlightened person feels the presence of infinite power, compassion, and love and also recognizes that their self becomes the Infinite Self.

Since context limits one’s perception, humans can’t observe or recognize an event without a “prior context and language” for naming the event (228). This inability is called paradigm “blindness.”

With a few exceptions, such as William James’s book The Varieties of Religious Experience, the literature of mainstream psychology hasn’t dealt with consciousness as a spiritual experience. In particular, the field of psychiatry concerned itself with pathology, not higher consciousness. In contrast, holistic healers approach healthcare as the need to influence an energy field that surrounds and influences the human body. The concept of a leap to higher consciousness is behind the success of AA, whose second of 12 steps is a belief in a Power greater than oneself. Hawkins equates this higher power with pure consciousness.

Pure consciousness represents the infinite energy source, which can also be called Deity, God, or Divinity. It manifests in the person of great teachers such as Jesus Christ and Buddha, whose energy fields calibrate at 1,000 in Hawkins’s research. Other enlightened teachers lead their students to the realization of the Self; such teachings calibrate at 700.

At the energy field of 600, people experience existence as knowingness and nonduality. Teachers who calibrate in the high 500s and the 600s are often recognized as saints. Students can briefly enter the state when in the presence of the teacher because of the dominance of their attractor fields, a process called entrainment.

Spiritual work is difficult. It involves separation from the lower energy fields, which an authoritarian viewpoint would label “sin.” The attitudes, emotions, and behaviors characteristic of energy fields below 200 include attachments to sex or money, negative emotions such as envy and jealousy, and substance dependency. Entrainment can also be caused by these low energy fields; one such low-energy attractor is negative or violent music.

A student or seeker of change can rarely advance without the help of a teacher. This is why the AA experience involves a sponsor. Even great saints such as Francis of Assisi have asserted that they are channeling a higher power. Reason itself can limit spiritual evolution. Many great thinkers, including Descartes and Einstein, calibrate at 499, as if it is a final “sticking point.”

Noting that truth is whatever is convincing at a person’s particular level of perception, Hawkins calibrates various religions, beginning with Christianity. While the truth initially expounded by Christ calibrates at 1,000, it dropped through the centuries and by the 11th century’s Crusades reached 498, where it remains. Various translations may also calibrate higher or lower, although denominations are generally in the high 500s.

The teachings of the Buddha (Buddhism) and Krishna (Hinduism) also began at the 1,000 level. They have deteriorated less through the centuries. The current practice of Zen Buddhism is in the 600s range. Current Hindu practice calibrates at 850 and above.

Within Judaism, the teachings of Abraham calibrated at 985; modern Judaism calibrates at 499. In Islam, the Koran calibrates at 700. Militant Islamic fundamentalism calibrates at 90-130.

Hawkins concludes that the religions that are more involved in worldly affairs are the ones that experienced a decline in the level of truth. Dualism “promotes a split between belief and action” (243). He argues that one reason Buddhism has deteriorated less than Christianity is that the Buddha viewed ignorance as the cause of all pain and suffering. Cults, on the other hand, calibrate below the level of 200. Media can also create weaker energy fields. This includes computer games that glorify violence and even typical TV shows.

Commitment to principles must be absolute in order for consciousness to progress. A society that condones capital punishment will always have a problem with murder. As Hawkins stated previously, a full 85% of the world’s population calibrates below 200. He attributes this to spiritual ignorance.

Reason alone does not lead society out of self-absorption and moral chaos. However, since the scale of power advances logarithmically, the remaining 15% of the population has the collective power to counterbalance the negativity of the 85%. One individual at level 700 can counterbalance 70 million individuals below level 200. The sheer power of loving thoughts far outweighs the influence of negative thoughts.

There are many kinds of truth: Subjective, operational, hypothetical, intellectual, and factual. The legitimacy of each type depends on the context that arrives from a particular perceptual level. Impersonal truth, on the other hand, doesn’t vary.

Hawkins summarizes the progression of taking responsibility for the truth of one’s life as follows. First, one gains the courage to face truth at level 200. This leads to acceptance at level 350, the point at which one can solve most of humankind’s social problems. This, in turn, leads to the greater power available at level 500, Love.

Hawkins claims that reading Power vs. Force can raise one’s consciousness level by an average of 35 points. Becoming more conscious benefits the world and the self. A larger social issue is how to maintain compassion in light of the dark side of humankind’s behavior, where everyone acts from their own level of truth. Rhetoric and the manipulation of symbols create negative energy fields.

The answer is to cultivate the power of moral discernment. Humans must humbly accept that they are unable to recognize the difference between good and evil. Kinesiologic testing can help in avoiding whatever makes one weak. Humans lack the power to stop the effect of negative fields, but love and prayer provide the power of salvation.

It is a kind of cosmic joke that the ego fights to preserve the illusion of being a separate “I,” but this is not only impossible but “the very wellspring of all suffering” (259). Hawkins finds hope for humankind in the fact that the consciousness level of humanity is above 200, making great transformations possible.