David R.
Hawkins

• Man's purpose is to transcend from his animal nature to a realization of divinity.
• Man is between the animals and the angels, in a difficult transitional place, having aspects of both.
• There is only one thing to give up and that is the juice the ego gets out of situations!
• The narcissistic core of the ego concludes that anything it cannot comprehend must be wrong, rather than grasping, via humility, that the subject is beyond it.

• Ego is the persistence of animal instinct from an earlier part of the brain. The frontal cortex emerged later and allows thinking. However, the thinking is then used for animal goals.
• We now have rivalry and the quest for domination via the intellect, rather than teeth, claws, etc.
• Man is addicted to the payoffs of being right, blaming others, twisting the knife.
• He must be willing to surrender these payoffs if he wants to get beyond the ego.
• Most would rather enjoy hating someone than to give it all up.
• Rarely do people escape the 400s.
• See the ego as your pet. Befriend and understand it. Seminar in Houston, Texas, The Realization of the Presence of God, Samstag, 11. Oktober 2003
• There's really only one thing you have to let go of. You don't have to give up any particular negativity or positionality. You just have to give up the payoff, the juice.
  Could you? Of course — but would you? It's then a matter of will, but not human will, which is only as strong as your level of consciousness. It's only by surrender; now it's spiritual, Divine will, which calibrates at 850. Sedona Seminar Spiritual Traps, 15. Oktober 2005
• Question: Why is so much attention placed on the Ego?
  Answer: 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 and defeated, nor is it an evil to be vanquished. It is dissolved by compassionate understanding. The Eye of the I, S. 114
• Question: We hear that the ego is the block to realization. Can you explain that?
  Answer: 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 mentation and powered by feelings and emotions. These desires represent the attachments which the Buddha spoke of as the bondage of suffering. With absolute humility, the ego 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. In the higher state of consciousness, it becomes silent in the Presence. To even have a single thought in the presence of the Presence would not be within the realm of the doable nor would there be the likelihood of bringing up such an outlandish pomposity. The Eye of the I, S. 179-180
• Question: There must be some tools to assist in lessening the hold of the ego.
  Answer: Ideation persists because it is valued. Notice that everyone has an opinion on everything. Notice that all thoughts are merely pontifications. Everyone is enamored of their own thoughts and ideas, even though they are worthless. The Eye of the I, S. 180
• The first illusion to surrender is the belief that there is such a thing as "mind". Experientially, one can only state that thoughts, feelings, images, and memories come into one's awareness in an endless progression. The word "mind" is therefore only a concept, as is the word "ego".
  "Ego" as used hereafter generally refers to a collection of thoughts that are presumed to be representative of one's personal reality and identity, with a shading of implication that the groupings of thoughts and beliefs is purposeful. The purpose is to maintain the illusion of the personal self as the inner 'cause' of one's existence and activities, including thoughts and feelings. Again, the implication of 'ego' is that it is the self protective collection and structure of the thought processes and is thus blamed as the culprit and source of spiritual error.
  An important element of the meaning of the term "ego" is the implication the its true basis is pride and narcissism, which bring in guilt about the implied selfishness of the ego. Ego is also a psychological term that generally has an implied survival value. In therapy, a patient may have the problem of a 'weak' ego and low self-esteem. In contrast, "egotism or egotistic" means overinflation or even grandiosity. I. Reality and Subjectivity, S. 38
• Never underestimate the ego's wily strategies. The more realistic position is to respect its capacities and compassionately heal it. Once the ego is docile it is much more amenable to evaporating into the sunshine. I- Reality and Subjectivity, Kapitel "The Way of the Heart"
• Question: Why is the ego so difficult to overcome?
  Answer: One becomes addicted to the ego and preoccupied with its contents. It attracts all of one's attention so that one becomes obsessed with the mind and its feelings. If the person believes that the mind and its contents are the real 'me', then the focus is certainly understandable. Basically, this error is due to naivete. The mind is an amusement park, full of thrills and spills and curiosities. It is also the theatre of the absurd for the drama of feelings and social identifications. It is an 'act' in that it is a personal characterization, dramatization, and display I. Subjectivity and Reality, S. 309
• The real you is not the ego. Refuse to identify with it. I. Reality and Subjectivity, S. 380-381
• 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 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. I. Reality and Subjectivity, S. 393
• The ego is envious of that which it intuits as being superior to its limitations and thus readily hates and denounces that what it cannot understand. Transcending the Levels of Consciousness, S. 59
• When people talk about the personal "I", it is a presumed agency they think is responsible for their thinkingness and decisions. What they fail to see is all that is happening spontaneously, autonomously, independent of any personal self. Because of the Field, you call me. Because of the Field, I reply. Because of the Field the persona, the voice, articulates in languaging it knows you will understand. But I have nothing to do with it. Power vs. Force, Kathryn M. Brinkley interviewt D. Hawkins, US-Zeitschrift Light in Times, November 2004
• The ego is attracted to the limitation of form, whereas the essence of Divinity is beyond all form, yet innate within it. Truth vs. Falsehood, S. 356(?)
• The ego, by projection of presumptive value, sees beauty only selectively and bases it on the linearity subserved by expectations of aesthetics. Discovery of the Presence of God. Devotional Nonduality, S. 130
• The ego/mind is a dualistic construction that originated as animal consciousness which, eons later, evolved through primitive homonoids and finally to Homo sapiens, in which a prefrontal cortex was added to the old animal brain, providing the capacity for linear conceptual thought. Thus, initially, the mind primarily became a new tool for the expression of animal instincts through what is now called the ego. Discovery of the Presence of God. Devotional Nonduality, S. ?
• The term 'ego' has a different meaning in spiritual work than it has in psychology, psycho-analysis, and the theories of Carl Jung or Sigmund Freud. Transcending the Levels of Consciousness, S. 23
• The ego's basic illusion is that it is God and that without it, death would occur. Transcending the Levels of Consciousness, S. 36
• In classical Freudian terminology, the 'ego' is understood and contextualized quite differently than it is in spiritual terminology. The Freudian ego is that aspect of the mind that has to deal with external reality, as well as balance and resolve the inner conflicts between the 'Id' (primitive drives) and . Thus, psychological health is equated with having a healthy, realistic, and balanced personality. Transcending the Levels of Consciousness, S. 52
• The core of the ego is its basic presumption by which it identifies itself as the primary source of existence, action, and decision, and thus usurps the sovereignty of Divinity. Transcending the Levels of Consciousness, S. 281
• Survival is me, ego, the animal is driven by hungryness, never enough, the core of the ego is wantingness. It wants more of everything, is greedy, desiring, insatiable, you cannot satisfy it. The average person is driven by this instinct, this primitivism. This is the basic nature of the ego, survival. Once you know that, you can have compassion for it and treat it like a pet. Chicago Tageseminar, 10. April 2004
• The crux of the ego is its addiction to the juice of positionalities. You only have to focus on that one point. If you want to understand the ego, you have to understand the amoeba. The amoeba needs to get. The non-linear has a probe in linearity, and that's your ego. It's checking: Is this molecule good, is this one good? It's information processing. Before it gets invested in something, it checks it out. When we find out what about the ego is it that we need to surrender? It’s the experiencer. It's only the experiencing that matters – it isn't even just the juice, it’s the experience of the juice. Sedona Seminar Alignment, bereit gestellt von Consciousnessproject.org, 16. April 2005

• The core of the ego is a rebellious anarchist, atheist, and exhibitionist that expects life to be an endless Roman orgy, including intoxicating abandon and polymorphous, perverse sexuality that permits abuse of the naive and vulnerable. Truth vs. Falsehood, Kapitel "Truth: the pathway to freedom", S. 253

From Hawkins' psychiatric practice

• This was the block in another catatonic who had not spoken in years. The Self said to him through mind, "You're blaming God for what your ego has done to you". He jumped off the floor and began to speak. Discovery of the Presence of God, S. 288