Review
In Power vs Force, David Hawkins applies his experience in kinesiology and awareness of the ?Ultimate Presence? - the source from which you can reach your highest potential - to assist the evolution of human consciousness. For, in being able to determine truth and falsehood, and in finding what makes us strong, healthy, effective, and spiritually sound, the sources of pain, suffering and failure can be undone. He describes human consciousness as a spectrum, from the ?force? depths of shame, guilt and apathy through to the ?power? height of love, joy, peace and enlightenment. Power is associated with that which supports life, and force with exploitation. Above a critical point, all attitudes, thoughts, feelings and associations bring strength, connection, and increasing importance in collective wellbeing and spiritual awareness; below, separation, personal survival and ego predominate. So, as Hawkins invites: ?Follow this fascinating journey and you?ll see how easy it can be to raise your consciousness to the levels of power, rather than force, so that you can become one of those who is awake and aware in this world.?
340pp, 136mm x 212mm, softback, 2006

Extract
The Presence is silent and conveys a state of peace. It's infinitely gentle and yet like a rock. With it, all fear disappears, and spiritual joy occurs on a quiet level of inexplicable ecstasy. Because the experience of time stops, there's no apprehension, regret, pain, or anticipation; the source of joy is unending and ever-present. With no beginning or ending, there can be no loss, grief, or desire - and nothing needs to be done, for everything is already perfect and complete.

When time stops, all problems disappear, for they are merely artifacts of a point of perception. As the Presence prevails, there is no further identification with the body or mind. When the mind grows silent, the thought I am also disappears, and Pure Awareness shines forth to illuminate what one is, was, and always will be, beyond all worlds and all universes - infinite and beyond time.

People wonder, How does one reach this state of awareness? I can only share my own experience with you, and note that few follow the steps because they're so simple. First, the desire to reach that state was intense. Then came the discipline to act with constant and universal forgiveness and gentleness, without exception. One has to be compassionate toward everything, including one's own self and thoughts. Next came a willingness to hold desires in abeyance and surrender personal will at every moment. As each thought, feeling, longing, or deed was surrendered to God, the mind became increasingly silent. At first, I turned over entire stories and paragraphs in my mind, then ideas and concepts. As one lets go of the desire to own these thoughts, they no longer reach such elaboration, and begin to fragment while only half-formed. Finally, it was possible to turn over the energy behind thought itself, before it even became thought.

The task of constant and unrelenting fixity of focus - allowing not even a moment of distraction from meditation - continued while doing ordinary activities. At first, this seemed very difficult, but as time went on, it became habitual, automatic, and effortless. The process is like a rocket leaving Earth: At first, it requires enormous power, then less and less as it leaves the earth's gravitational field; and finally, it moves through space under its own momentum.

Suddenly, without warning, a shift in awareness occurred, and the Presence was there, unmistakable, all-encompassing. There were a few moments of apprehension as the self died, and then the absoluteness of the Presence inspired a flash of awe. This breakthrough was spectacular, more intense than anything previously known - it has no counterpart in ordinary experience. The profound shock entailed is cushioned by the Love of the Presence. Without the support and protection of that Love, one would be annihilated.

A moment of terror followed as the ego clung to its existence, fearing it would become nothingness. Instead, as it died, it was replaced by the Self as Everything-ness, the All in which everything is known and obvious in its perfect expression of its own essence. With nonlocality came the awareness that one is all that ever was or can be. One is total and complete, beyond all identities, gender, or even humanness itself. One need never again fear suffering and death.

What happens to the body, from this point, is immaterial. At certain levels of spiritual awareness, ailments of the body heal, or spontaneously disappear. But in the absolute state, such considerations are irrelevant. The body will run its predicted course and then return from whence it came. It's a matter of no importance; one is unaffected. The body appears to be an 'it,' rather than a 'me,' another object like the furniture in the room. It may seem comical that people still address the body as though it was the individual person, but there's no way to explain this state of awareness to the unaware. It's best to just go about one's business, and allow Providence to handle the social adjustment. However, as one reaches bliss, it becomes very difficult to conceal that state of intense ecstasy. There's a common desire at this point to share this state with others and to use it for the benefit of all. The world may be dazzled as well, and people come from far and wide to be in the accompanying aura. Metaphysical seekers and the spiritually curious may be drawn (as the very ill may be), seeking miracles; one may become a magnet and a source of joy to them.

The ecstasy that accompanies this condition isn't absolutely stable; keep in mind that there are also moments of great agony. The most intense moments occur when the state fluctuates and suddenly ceases for no apparent reason. These times bring on periods of intense despair, a fear that one has been forsaken by the Presence. These falls make the path arduous, and to surmount these reversals requires great will. It finally becomes obvious that one must transcend this level or constantly suffer excruciating 'descents from grace.' The glory of ecstasy, then, has to be relinquished, as one enters upon the demanding task of transcending duality, until one is beyond all oppositions and their conflicting pulls. But while it's one thing to happily give up the iron restraints of ego, it's quite another to abandon the golden chains of ecstatic joy. It feels as though one is giving up God, and a new level of fear arises, never before anticipated; this is the final terror of absolute aloneness.

In my own case, the fear of nonexistence was formidable, and I drew back from it repeatedly. The purpose of the agonies, of the dark nights of the soul, then became apparent - they're so intolerable that their exquisite pain spurs one on to the extreme effort required to surmount them. When vacillation between heaven and hell becomes unendurable, the desire for existence itself has to be surrendered. Only once this is done may one finally move beyond allness or nothingness, beyond existence or nonexistence. This culmination of the inner work is the most difficult phase, the ultimate watershed, where one is starkly aware that the illusion of existence one transcends here is irrecoverable. There's no returning from this step, and this specter of irreversibility makes this last barrier appear the most formidable choice of all.

But, in fact, in this final apocalypse of the self, the dissolution of the sole remaining duality - that of existence and non-existence, identity itself - dissolves in universal divinity, and no individual consciousness is left to choose. The last step, then, is taken by God alone.

Follow this fascinating journey and you'll see how easy it can be to raise your consciousness to the levels of power, rather than force, so that you can become one of those who is awake and aware in this world. Your life will certainly never be the same.

From Power vs Force, ?2008 by David R Hawkins, published by Hay House.