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David R Hawkins - Non Duality: Consciousness Research and The Truth of The Buddha 2003
David R Hawkins - Non Duality: Consciousness Research and The Truth of The Buddha 2003
The Buddha is beyond Buddhism, which is a human addition and an attachment. The
Buddha was free of Buddhism. Devotion to Truth itself is the fierce stringency of the narrow
way, although multiple are the gates.
The great mystics in all ages and cultures have proclaimed the identical, ultimate discovery: the
spontaneous effulgence and Radiance that is the source of existence itself - the Godhead, the
Unmanifest, that is the infinite power by which potentiality is actualized as existence. Then it is
no longer necessary to know “about” but only to truly know by being at one with the known.
Enlightenment is a condition, a state that emerges of its own, just as the sun shines forth when
the clouds are gone. It is far beyond the Newtonian paradigm of cause and effect which is a
construction of the ego projected onto the epiphenomenon of perception.
Better it is to be devoted to the Buddha’s truth rather than to the Buddha of the ego’s
imagination.
Introduction
The ultimate truth is radically subjective and also, confirmable by consciousness research. Both
ways will be described in the sequence of their emergence with the development of a science of
consciousness, Subjective, experiential mystical states of advanced awareness and enlightenment
can now be verified objectively by a method that transcends both time and place.
Experiential
In what the world calls this author’s lifetime, prior to age three, there was oblivion. Then, out of
the void of nothingness, there was a sudden and shocking awareness of personal existence, as
though a strong light had been turned on. Spontaneously, unwelcome, and without words came
the awareness of existence itself as an experiential subjective state. Almost immediately arose
the fear of its seeming opposite - the hypothetical possibility of nonexistence. Thus, at age three,
there was a confrontation with the polarity and duality of the illusion of existence versus
nonexistence and the duality of the ultimate reality as being wholeness or nothingness.
Childhood activities were boring and refuge was sought in philosophy and an introverted
lifestyle. Academic success was easy. The mind was attracted by truth and therefore eagerly read
Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, and Socrates, whose minds had become mental companions. On the
other hand, beauty was entrancing, and appreciation for the great cathedrals and sacred classical
music led to the study of music and voice as a boy soprano in the choir of a great cathedral.
Home life was rural and Episcopal. As a paperboy in a blizzard after dark, refuge was sought
from 20-degrees-below-zero winds. In the dark, relief was found in a hollowed-out snow bank,
and then came the exquisite onset of a state of consciousness in which the mind was melted and
became silent. A Presence - timeless, gentle, yet infinitely powerful - pervaded, and its love
replaced mentalization. Time stopped and the awareness of Oneness with Eternity replaced all
thought or sense of a personal self. The “I-ness” of the Presence revealed itself as Allness. It was
knowable as being beyond all universes - unspeakable, invisible, all pervading, inexplicable, and
beyond names. Subsequently, all fear of death disappeared and life continued spontaneously of
its own accord. This state was never mentioned to anyone.
Then came World War II and hazardous duty on a minesweeper. The demands of earthly life
insisted on being given attention and involvement. The reenergizing of the intellect enabled
successful academic years, graduation from medical school, plus years spent in psychiatry and
psychoanalysis; and then the development of a huge psychiatric practice, the largest in the
United States, in the vast complexity of New York City. After 25 years of exhausting work, the
yearning to return to the Truth and the state of bliss led to a resumption of intensive meditation.
One day, while walking in the woods, there came unasked a massive revelation of the totality of
human suffering throughout all of time. This resulted in an overwhelming dismay that God could
allow such conditions to occur. The mind blamed Cod and then became atheistic. The burning
question still persisted; If there was no God, then what was the core of the truth of existence?
Buddhism was attractive because it avoided the use of the term “God.”
There was despair at having lost the revelation of Reality. The despair led to a driven inner
searching and intense meditation which then led to severe depression.
As the depths of the psyche were explored with fixity of purpose, the intense meditative state led
to realms of severe despair and eventually to the depths of hell in timeless dimensions of eternal
agony in which one is cut off from the light forever The depths are endless and one comes to the
knowingness of the meaning of “abandon hope, all ye who enter here.” Then followed the terror
of eternal isolation without any hope of its termination or even relief by extermination, for there
was not even the possibility of death as the ultimate escape. Next followed the surrender of hope
itself; which was replaced by a timeless dread, Then, from within, a silent voice cried out, “If
there is a God, I ask for help,” which was followed by oblivion. The mind then went into
unconsciousness.
Finally, there was an awakening and consciousness returned, but the appearance of the world
had changed dramatically. It was now a silent, unified Oneness, magnificent in its brilliance that
shone forth the Divinity of all existence. It magnified a single remaining disparity, the
persistence of a personal sense of a self as the core of one’s life and existence. It was clear that
this had to be surrendered to the Presence, and then the fear of real death arose as the terror. But
with the terror was the knowingness of an instruction from Buddhist study:
“Walk straight ahead, no matter what -all fear is illusion.”
The necessity to abandon and surrender the identity of self and its source of existence was a
powerful knowingness. The will then surrendered and there were a few moments of terrifying
agony and the experience of death itself. This was unlike bodily death where one finds oneself
suddenly free and looks at the body lying there, which had happened numerous times previously.
No, this was the first and only time that death can be experienced. The finality of the death was
overwhelming. At last, the agony was over and was replaced by splendor and magnificence
-infinite stillness, silence, and peace. The mind was dumbfounded and overwhelmed with awe. It
then went silent and disappeared.
Henceforth, only the Presence prevailed and all happened by itself, without a personal will or
motivation. The condition was a permanent replacement of the personal self by what can only be
described as a universal, timeless condition in which the totality of Allness replaces any prior
states of consciousness.
Curiously, without motivation, the body moved itself spontaneously and continued to perform
activities that were autonomous as there was no planner to plan, no thinker to think, nor any doer
to do. All occurred of its own essence as potentiality expressed itself as actuality. The condition
can best be described as the unmanifest becoming Manifest. Henceforth, life unfolded on its
own. The condition was unspeakable and no mention of it was made to anyone for over 30 years.
The condition required leaving what was then the largest psychiatric practice in the United States
and moving to a remote rural area for years of solitude and adjustment to the condition.
Within the condition understandings spontaneously arose that were without thought - that
this lifetime had begun as void oblivion was the result of lifetimes as a Hinayana Buddhist monk
who believed that the ultimate reality of the Buddha nature was nothingness or void. Each
lifetime ended with leaving the body in the voidness that, if it had been the ultimate reality,
would have voided further lifetimes, but no -there was an error in that voidness itself is a belief
system that, however, had recurred as an experiential reality during meditations in this lifetime.
With the constant view of the pathway of negation, the condition of voidness would return
-enormously impressive, infinite, beyond space, time, or description; omnipresent, all pervasive,
unmoving, unmovable, beyond all thought or conditions. Yet, despite its seeming totality, there
was now the awareness that there bad been the absence of a critical quality that had been
experienced as a youth in the snow bank- the exquisite softness, the at-homeness, the familiarity,
the recognition or the essence of the totality of Reality as inclusive of love. This quality of love,
however, is beyond joy or ecstasy and is identical to the state of peace. Strikingly, the void is
very similar to the ultimate state, other than the fact that it is devoid of the very essence of
Divinity. Without love, the void is like infinite, timeless, empty space. Devoid of the quality that
identifies it as Divinity, the void is a belief system that includes denial and actually a duality, i.e.,
the ultimate Reality is Divinity or nothingness. This appeared to be the final, great
polarity/duality of the seeming opposites, the resolution of which permitted the realization of the
Self as the Allness out of which Creation arises.