Summary

One Sentence Summary

There are levels to human consciousness, and the greater consciousness we have, the greater choices we can make, which leads to a net positive effect on the people around us and the world at large; this power in our actions arises from meaning that is life sustaining and appeals to what uplifts, dignifies, and ennobles.

One paragraph Summary

This book is divided into three parts:

Main takeaway for part 1: This is the introduction that reveals to use the different levels of consciousness, the meaning behind each level, and the impact different levels of consciousness have on ourselves, other people, and the world around us.

Main takeaway from part 2: In this section, we recognize patterns in life that help shape the answer to the fundamental question: why do we do what we do? What is the meaning behind it all? Why is power more effective than force? How does power appear in everyday life? How does power appear in moments of superhuman feats of accomplishments? What is the impact of power on our own health and fulfillment of our lives? What makes principles, values, and meaning so powerful?

Main takeaway about part 3: Heavy emphasis on spirituality. Everything boils down to our choices. The quality of our choices, and therefore the fate of our lives, is dependent upon the perception from which we view the world. Striving for higher consciousness expands our perception, and this striving towards higher consciousness is the byproduct of a lifelong, unwavering, committed, voluntary willingness to find and live out our principles. Any individual increase in one’s level of consciousness also raises the consciousness of everyone on the planet to some degree

What is the foundational knowledge required for me to learn this?

• An understanding of what inner works means in the context of man’s active shaping of his own fate, as explained in Rollo May’s book, “Man’s search for himself”
• The importance of Principles, as explained in Ray Dalio’s book, “Principles”
• A recognition of consciousness itself, as explained by Michael Singer’s book, “The Untethered Soul” and Timothy Gallwey’s “The Inner Game of Tennis”

Reading Comprehension questions from ChatGPT

1. In “Power vs. Force,” what is the central concept that the author explores and distinguishes between?
2. How does the author define “power” and “force” in the context of human behavior and consciousness?
3. What are some examples provided in the book to illustrate the difference between power and force?
4. What role does consciousness play in the author’s exploration of power and force?
5. According to the book, what are some of the consequences of living in a state of “force” rather than “power”?
6. How does the author suggest one can move from a state of force to a state of power in their personal and professional life?
7. What are the key principles or practices recommended by the author to raise one’s level of consciousness and align with power?
8. Can you explain the significance of the Hawkins Scale of Consciousness as discussed in the book?
9. How does the book address the idea of spiritual growth and its relation to the concept of power?
10. What is the main message or takeaway that the author wants readers to gain from “Power vs. Force”?

Answers

1. Human consciousness has levels; levels that are below 200 are those that use force, and make people who weak in their actions, while those that calibrate above 200 use power, which is life sustaining, uplifting, and leads to enlightenment.
2. In Part 1, the author details the difference between the two. Force is energy hungry, consumes, and creates an equal but opposite force. In the context of human behavior, people who use force always have to justify their actions, often create enemies, and are constantly wasting energy watching their backs for rivals, competitors, or enemies. Power, on the other hand, is that which supports and sustains life–it is self-evident, requires no justification, and does not create any negative backlash response. Power is also highly efficient, and creates more energy than it ever consumes. In human behavior, power is associated with uplifting people, creating new things for society, and achievement great feats of human accomplishment such as athletic achievement, genius insights, or the creating of new art, services, or industries that help people.
3. Similar to what is mention in question 2. To further expand using history, Hitler used force, while Churchill used power; Stalin used force while Gorbachev used power. Gandhi used power, while the British empire used force. Martin Luther King Jr. used power while those supporting segregation used force. In all these settings, those who use power end up gaining more support from people and end up surviving and outlasting the person who uses force.
4. There are levels to consciousness; to each higher levels of consciousness, one must let go of weak energy attractors (those that use force) in favor of strong energy attractors (those that use power). The critical point in consciousness that makes someone go from strong to weak is courage, which is the start of using power.
5. When one lives in force instead of power, such persons operated through the world through a limited perspective, which hinders their ability to choose the best course of action that will improve their life, the life of others, and the world around them. Their life will be full of misery, and they will not be able to sustain themselves in the long run.
6. Courage is the start of a person moving from using force to power. Courage is the belief that the person has the ability to shape his future; it is marked by an earnest willingness to seek answers and higher perspective. It is where the person voluntarily confronts that which he fears, takes the burden of responsibility, and humbles himself to learn new skills and lessons.
7. The practices and principles are similar to those found in Alcohol Anonymous; namely, seeking a higher power, practicing prayer and mediation, seeking fellowship with others by help others with their struggles, and coming to the realization that you are not perfect all help position the person to reach higher levels of consciousness. Beyond this there is the mention of practicing non-judgmental awareness, forgiveness, compassion, and fostering principles.
8. The scale is logarithmic, meaning that the levels are not evenly spaced; the higher you go on the scale, the greater the difference in consciousness and achieving higher levels, such at those 500s and above, is remarkably harder and requires a lifetime of inner work.
9. low energy attractors preclude spiritual development; to advance spiritually, one must consciously, deliberately, and persistently choose strong energy attractors over weak ones.
10. Any individual increase in one’s level of consciousness also raises the consciousness of everyone on the planet to some degree.

What ACTIONS/HABITS will I partake after reading this book?

• Behaviorally speaking, I started going back to church and making an effort to learn more about people
• I’ve also make a willing effort to attend career meetups related to my profession, and strike up conversations with interesting strangers (one such interactions led to a mutually beneficial discussion)

What Questions do I have after reading this book?

• see “side note” comments throughout chapter summaries.

What Phrase(s) can I add/validate to my mantras?

• It isn’t life’s events, but how one reacts to them and the attitude that one has about them, that determines whether such events have a positive or negative effect on one’s life.
• Without the exercise of choice, no progression will occur
• A “high” is any state of consciousness above one’s customary level of awareness
• The higher the attainment of each of these states, the greater its power to reprogram the subjects’ entire life.
• Appropriate use of the system will always lead to self-discovery and growth. Eventually, it can lead us to have compassion for everyone, when we see how we all must struggle with the downside of human nature.
• Pain exists to promote evolution; its cumulative effect finally forces us in a new direction, although the mechanism may be very slow.
• In this interconnected universe, every improvement we make in our private world improves the world at large for everyone.
• In the process of examining our everyday lives, we can find that all of our fears have been based on falsehood.
• Power arises from meaning
• Power is always associated with that which supports the significance of life itself; it appeals to the part of human nature which we call nobel.
• That’s why service is others is the pinnacle of the most fulfilling life: if our lives are dedicated to enhancing the welfare of everyone we contact, our lives can never lose meaning.
• The disillusion of emptiness comes from failing to align one’s life with the principles from which power originates. Power originates from meaning that is life sustaining, appealing to what uplifts, dignifies, and ennobles.
• Force can bring satisfaction, but only power brings joy. Victory over others brings satisfaction, but victory over ourselves brings us joy.
• All great teachers, from Jesus to Buddha, have said the same thing over and over again: give up weak attractors for strong ones.
• There are no secretes. Nothing is hidden. Our spirits stand naked in time for all to see. Everyone’s life, is accountable to the universe.
• Because somebody always loses, Force creates enemies. Constantly faced with enemies, force requires defense, and this defensive is energetically costly over the long run.
• One characteristic of truth is that it needs no defense because it’s self-evident; it requires no argument.
• Power servers others, whereas force is self-serving.
• Power servers others, whereas force is self-serving. Force is limited, while power is unlimited.
• A reoccurring pattern we see is that all of these great statements echo this universal truth: freedom, liberty, and the equality of all men by virtue of endowment by a divine higher power.
• It’s important to remember that to violate principle for the practical expediency is to relinquish enormous power. Principle and expediency must be differentiated.
• Falsehood makes us go weak; acting from false positions typically results in the use of force.
• Denying the basic biological needs and instinctual drives is futile. Blocking normal sexual outlets merely results in the creation of abnormal sexual outlets. The solutions that have power are the ones realistically based at the level of acceptance (350) rather than shame (20).
• Successful solutions are based on the powerful principle that resolution occurs by fostering the positive, not by attacking the negative.
• Why humility? Because the athlete recognizes that the maximal personal effort brought them to the breakthrough point from which they were transported by a power greater than that of the individual self. They realize at that moment that their performance was not merely the result of individual effort, but of a much higher power.
• If top performers are imbued with the belief that their excellence isn’t a personal accomplishment, but a gift belonging to all of mankind as a demonstration of man’s potential, they’ll go strong and remain so through any event.
• If top performers are imbued with the belief that their excellence isn’t a personal accomplishment, but a gift belonging to all of mankind as a demonstration of man’s potential, they’ll go strong and remain so through any event.
• Where higher motivations toward excellence give access to the realm of grace and power, self-centered motivations of personal gain draw one almost magnetically into the realm of force.
• It’s an honoring of human achievement that transcends personal pride. We honor the endeavor, no the personal accomplishment, which is only the occasion and expression of something greater, universal, and innate in the human heart.
• Grace is the expression of the power of aesthetic sensitivity, and power is always manifested with grace, whether in beauty of line, style, or expression. We associate grace with elegance, refinement, and economy of effort. Gracious power patterns acknowledge and support life, and respect and uphold the dignity of others.
• A universal characteristic of genius humility.
• The process of animating genius most commonly involves first formulating a question.
• Consciousness, like physicality, is a universal quality; because genius is a characteristic of consciousness, genius is also universal. It follows that which is universal is available to each and every person.
• Genius and creativity then are subjectively experienced as a nonjudgmental witnessing
• A formula followed by all geniuses: do what you like to do best, and do it to the very best of your ability
• Why are the truly successful so humble. Because they realize that, deep down, they’re channels/vessels acted through to create success in the outer world. The source of success is “in here”, not “out there”.
• By believing that the source of power lies outside oneself, one becomes powerless and vulnerable and, therefore, defensive and possessive.
• True success originates from within, independent of external circumstances.
• There are very few at the top; the world of the mediocre, however, is one of intense competition, and the bottom of the pyramid is crowded.
• People who are loving, kind, and considerate of others have more friends than they can count; accomplishment in every area of life is reflected back to those who are aligned with successful patterns.
• Physiologically speaking, in the CHOICE of attitude, one chooses between anabolic endorphins or catabolic adrenaline
• All stress is internally generated by one’s ATTITUDE. It is worth emphasizing again: It is not life’s events, but one’s reaction to them that activates the symptoms of stress. 3 out of every 4 hospital beds are occupied by people who have EII — emotionally induced illness.
• Our capacity to understand, forgive, and accept is directly linked to our personal health.
• Compassion is one of the highest of all the energy attractor power patterns.
• So here’s the million-dollar question: how does one overcome negative attitudes so as to avoid this deterioration of power? The answer is simple: The individual must make a decision–a choice–: A sincere and earnest desire for change allows one to seek higher attractor energy patterns.
• “just bring the body to the meeting”; even if you’re not in the right attitude, taking the right action (by doing good work, being in the company of high energy people, etc) will get you there. Actively patient.
• The connection between the mind and body is immediate, so the body’s responses shift and change from instant to instant in response to one’s train of thought and associated emotions.
• If this schema of disease formation is correct, then all illnesses should be reversible by changing thought patterns and habitual responses.
• Innumerable options are open to everyone all the time, but they’re relatively infrequently chosen. Why? Because people want the context that would make such options attractive. Suffice it to say, one’s range of choice is ordinarily limited only by one’s vision
• The most important element in facilitating an upward movement in consciousness is an attitude of willingness, which opens up the mind through new means of appraisal to the possible validity of new hypotheses. These motives for change often arise when the mind is challenged in the face of a puzzle or paradox; some disciplines (i.e. Zen) deliberately create challenges to finesse a new leap of awareness.
• There are no ‘justified resentments’. Even if someone did you ‘wrong’, you’re still free to choose your response and let resentment go
• Once one makes a commitment to love, nonjudgmental forgiveness, and unconditional compassion, he begins to experience a different, more benign world as his perception evolves
• Attitudes can alter the world one experiences, and like a hologram, what you see depends completely on the position that you view it from.
• External events may be defined by conditions, but they don’t determine the consciousness level from which we perceive them–that perception is dependent on the inside.
• How we react depends upon the world we’re reacting to. Who we become, as well as what we see, is determined by our perception
• Power and perception go hand-in-hand
• Thoughts really belong to the consciousness of the world; the individual merely processes them in new combinations and permutations.
• It’s consciousness itself that that resonates as both awareness and experiencing, and both are purely subjective
• Spiritual work, like other intensive pursuits such as sports, can be arduous and frequently require the development of specific tools for the task, namely (1) extremely focused intent (2) unfailing concentration
• What makes inner work so difficult is the great effort required to escape from the familiar gravity of lower attractor fields and move to the influence of a higher field.
• Unfortunately, the more conservative, shy, and dogmatic types will enforce this as judgmental “sin”. A more liberal viewpoint accepts man’s dalliance in lower energy fields as a pardonable “failing”.
• To seek enlightenment, the key is WILL; a constantly repeated act of CHOICE
• A persistent (faithful) willingness is the trigger that activates a new attractor field and allows one to begin to leave the old.
• Holding the image of an advanced spiritual teacher in mind made every subject go strong, independent of personal beliefs. Human relationships matter.
• The common trap is to go out and do it alone
• great saints have typically asserted that they were mere channels of a higher power–they’ve taken no credit for personal initiative in achieving their state, which they attribute to Grace.
• The power of creation proceeds from the top-down, rather than bottom-up
• An individual’s level of consciousness is determined by the principles to which one is committed. To maintain progress in consciousness, there can be no wavering from principle or the individual will fall back to a lower level. A principle cannot allow any exceptions, independent of how emotionally appealing a construct may be used to justify the exception. Actions only.
• Any individual increase in one’s level of consciousness also raises the consciousness of everyone on the planet to some degree.
• Even when a person intellectually knows his behavior is self-destructive, this knowledge has no necessary deterrent effect whatsoever; intellectual recognition of our addictions has never given us power to control them.
• Hell isn’t a condition imposed by a judgemental God, but rather the inevitable consequence of one’s own CHOICES.

Foreword

In the late 1970s, Dr. John Diamond founded behavioral kinesiology, which revealed that indicator muscles would strengthen or weaken in the presence of positive or negative emotional and intellectual stimuli, the same way with physical stimuli. His findings are documented in his book “Your Body doesn’t lie”.

A smile, for example, will make you test strong, while the statement “I hate you” will test you weak.

Preface

all pain and suffering arises solely from the ego and not from God.

“[the students with advance spiritual disciplines] realized that they weren’t at the mercy of the world, but rather were affected only by what their minds believed”

Perhaps the very process of progress toward enlightenment could be shown to increase man’s ability to resist the mutability of existence.

“I was more and more powerfully struck by the capacity to change things in the world by merely envisioning them”

It seemed that the great tragedy of human life has always been that the psyche is so easily deceived; discord and strife have been the inevitable consequence of mankind’s inability to distinguish the false from the true.

“I sought to be ordinary because just being ordinary in and of itself is an expression of divinity; the truth of one’s real self can be discovered through the pathway of everyday life. The common place and God aren’t distinct”

To live with care and kindness is all that is necessary; the test reveals itself in due time.

Hawkin’s mission is quite simple:

“To bring the Presence that has moved my life perhaps at least a little closer to the grasp of my fellow beings as I can reach”

Hawkins describes this Presence as “silent and conveys a state of peace”. With it, all hear disappears, and spiritual joy occurs on a quiet level of inexplicable ecstasy.

Why is this the case? Because with the Presence comes the experience of time stopping; there’s no apprehension, regret, pain, nor anticipation; the source of joy is unending and ever-present. With no beginning or ending, there can be no grief, loss, 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

When the mind grows silent, the thought I am also disappears.

According to Hawkins, here’s how we can reach this state of Presence:

1. Intense Desire
2. Discipline to act with constant and universal forgiveness and gentleness, without exception
   • One must be compassionate toward everything, including one’s own self and thoughts
3. A willingness to hold desires in abeyance and surrender personal will at every moment
   • As each thought, feeling, longing, or deed is surrendered to God, the mind becomes more silent
   • Eventually it becomes possible to turn over the energy behind thought itself, before it even became thought

“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.”

The last sentence from the above quote was my exact visualization when living alone.

The constant push and pull towards this awareness is filled with periods of feeling betrayed by a “fall from grace”, and the person goes in and out of higher levels of awareness.

Introduction

Man’s dilemma has been that he misidentifies his own intellectual artifacts (products of arbitrary point of perception) as reality.

The inadequacy of the answers we receive is a direct consequence of the limitations implicit in the viewpoints of the questioner. Information is useless unless we know what it means and the context behind it.

But not only do we need the right questions, but we also need the right tools. The faults of all thought systems have been:

1. Failure to differentiate between subjective and objective
2. Disregard of the limitation of context inherent in basic design and terminology
3. Ignorance of the nature of consciousness itself
4. Misunderstanding of the nature of causality
   • Society constantly expends its efforts to correct effects instead of causes
   • There are no causes within the observable world; the observable world is a world of effects
   • So, instead of identifying causes in the world, Hawkins suggests that the reader identify the the conditions that underlie ostensible causes; these conditions exist only within a man’s consciousness itself

The basic law of the universe is economy; the universe doesn’t waste a single quark; everything serves a purpose and fits into a balance–there are no extraneous events.

The main obstacle to man’s development is his lack of knowledge about the nature of consciousness itself.

The book’s outline is designed to make the simple obvious; in a world where data is abundant, this is much hard to persuade people. This brings up two classes of people: believers and nonbelievers.

To nonbelievers, everything is falsehood until proven true; to believers, everything said in good faith is probably true unless it’s proven otherwise.

The pessimistic position of cynical skepticism stems from fear, while the more optimistic manner of accepting information arises from self-confidence.

This book is written in a style that makes sense to both believers and nonbelievers.

Most people read books progressively, from the first chapter to the last. But this linear style of absorbing knowledge is limiting, fixed, and outdated.

This book undergoes the challenge of presenting this material in the paradox of comprehending nonlinear concepts in a linear, sentence-by-sentence, structure. The book accomplishes this by using man’s innate pattern recognition mechanism by applying repetitions to the fundamental lessons until they become familiar.

Part 1: Tools

Summary

Main takeaways for part 1: This is the introduction that reveals to use the different levels of consciousness, the meaning behind each level, and the impact different levels of consciousness have on ourselves, other people, and the world around us.

These are split into 8 chapters:

• Chapters 1 and 2: introduction to nonlinear systems and non-newtonian thinking, as well as a technical introduction to the use of the kinesiologic test.
• Chapters 3 and 4: We review the consciousness diagram, the meaning behind each level, and the behavioral/mindset characteristics for each
• Chapters 5 and 6: The focus is on how these different levels of consciousness manifest themselves in society, and how addictions in external dependencies are really just artificial means of masking lower states and exposing higher ones to experience their own consciousness (Self). We also learn about the importance of will and how intentional choices and an earnest desire are required to advance one’s consciousness.
• Chapters 7 and 8: How appropriate use of the system will always lead to self-discovery and growth, not just personally, but also in current events, research, education, politics, etc. We also go deep in the difference between Power and Force, and how Power arises from meaning that is life sustaining and appeals to what uplifts, dignifies, and ennobles. It is meaning, and the maps of meaning, that connect the invisible universe with the physical, observable one.

Chapter 1: Critical Advances in Knowledge

Summary

One Sentence Summary

Advances in STEM fields have led to new insights into human consciousness.

One Paragraph Summary

Nonlinear dynamics works the opposite way: from the unknown (the nondeterministic data of the question) to the known (the answer). It operates within a different paradigm of causality. The problem is then seen as one of definition and access, rather than a logical sequence.

Notes

What makes kinesiology special is that it exposes the intimate connection between the mind and the body.

All paths of inquiry (philosophy, theology, etc) converge to a common point: the quest for an organized understanding of the nature of pure consciousness.

Subjective and objective are the same; the insights from the fields of study such as nonlinear dynamics, quantum physics, or AI transcend the limited viewpoint that creates the illusion of duality.

If the subjective and objective are indeed the same, then we can find the answers to all questions by merely looking within man himself.

By simply recording observations, we can see a grand picture emerge, one that sees no limitations with respect to further investigation.

The human mind is the most advance computer known to man, and it’s freely available to man at any time and any place. The body can discern the difference between that which is supportive of life and that which is not, for all living things react positively to what is life-supporting and negatively to what is not–this is the fundamental mechanism of survival.

Inherent in all forms of life is the capacity to detect change and react correctively.

• trees become smaller at high altitudes where oxygen is scarce
• long distance runners are light while sprinters are muscular

Attractor research is the field of study that concerns itself with the mapping of fields of human consciousness; it’s concerned with the identification of power ranges of energy fields utilizing critical point analysis (for example, it’s possible to paralyze a large windmill just by knowing where the stop switch is).

It’s worth mentioning in this talk of nonlinear dynamics the difference in problems solving compared to conventional methods. In Newtonian problem solving (which is what the world is familiar with), we start with the facts and linearly work though time via definite steps and logical progression to arrive at the unknown (answer).

Nonlinear dynamics works the opposite way: from the unknown (the nondeterministic data of the question) to the known (the answer). It operates within a different paradigm of causality. The problem is then seen as one of definition and access, rather than a logical sequence.

Attractors

Attractor is the name given to an identifiable pattern that emerges from a seemingly unmeaningful mass of data.

Fields of Dominance

A field of dominance is exhibited by high energy patterns in their influence over weaker ones.

Critical Point of Analysis

The critical point is simply the one point that, even when slightly touched, can stop the entire system. In other words: the critical point is the point where the least force exerts the greatest effect.

Advance theoretical physics (contributions form Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Bell, etc.) demonstrated that everything in the universe is subtly dependent upon everything else.

Causality

Causality as we know it follows a deterministic linear sequence A -> B -> C (A causes B, which leads to B causing C).

But in the nonlinear dynamics paradigm, the thing that causes this entire sequence (A -> B -> C) is actually unobservable, while the chain of reactions (A -> B -> C) is observable.

Practically speaking, this means that the typical problems that the world attempts to deal with exist on the observable level of A -> B -> C, but Hawkins is interested in finding the inherent attractor pattern out of which the (A -> B -> C) events arise.

One of the core concepts of chaos theory is the the law of sensitive dependence on initial conditions, where extremely minute variations over a course of time can have the effect of producing profound changes (e.g. a plane that’s one degree off from it’s destination). This phenomenon is an essential mechanism of all evolution and also underlies the potential of the creative process.

Hawkins claims that the source of man’s intellectual frustration is his attempt to “make sense” (via linear, logical, and rational methods) frequently unpredictable human behavior that’s inherently nonlinear.

Chapter 2: History and Methodology

Summary

One Sentence Summary

This chapter focuses on the technical use of the kinesiologic test.

One Paragraph Summary

This chapter focuses on the technical use of the kinesiologic test.

Notes

Hawkins designs an experiment that runs 20 years across different countries and people. Basically emphasizing that the experiment was scientifically sound.

Historical background

The most striking findings of kinesiology is the demonstration that muscles instantly became weak when the body is exposed to harmful stimuli, while substances that were therapeutic to the body made the muscles instantly strong.

Overall, good nutrition matters for mental wellbeing.

The testing Technique

The muscle test for truth can only be used with existing condition, declarative statements, rather than future inquiries.

Use of the Testing Procedure in This study

The technique should be used responsibly.

Discrepancies

People change over time, people have different sensory modalities, and values extracted will be arbitrary (unless a range is specified beforehand).

Limitations

10% of the population cannot use the kinesiologic test. The test is accurate only if the participant themselves calibrate over 200. Also, sometimes married couples are unable to test each other, so ideally the tester should be an independent third party.

Disqualifications

Skepticism and cynicism both calibrate to below 200 because they reflect negative prejudice. In contrast, true inquiry requires an open mind and honesty devoid of intellectual vanity.

true inquiry requires an open mind and honesty devoid of intellectual vanity

Below consciousness level 200, comprehension is limited by the dominance of Lower Mind, which is capable of reorganizing facts but not yet able to grasp what is meant by the term “truth”.

Chapter 3: Test Results and Interpretation

Summary

People who operate at high levels of consciousness grow stronger, while the opposite trend happens to those who operate at lower levels. The tipping point from high and low is COURAGE!

Notes

Calibrated levels correlate with specific processes of consciousness–your emotions, perceptions, attitude, worldviews, and spiritual beliefs.

The author stresses the importance in remembering that the calibration chart is on a logarithmic scale. This means that the level 300 is not merely twice has much as 150, but 10^(300) times as much!!

This means that an increase of even a few points represents a major advance in power; the rate of increase in power as we move up the scale in enormous.

The critical point in the scale of consciousness calibrates at level 200, which is the level associated with integrity and COURAGE.

What does this point practically mean? It means that all attitudes, thoughts, feelings, associations, entities, or historical figures below that level of calibration make a person go weak, whereas those that calibrate higher make subjects go strong.

All levels below 200 are destructive of life in both the individual and society at large; all levels above 200 are constructive expressions of power.

The decisive level of 200 is the fulcrum that divides the general areas of force and power.

In other words, level 200 represents the balance point between weak and strong attractors–positive and negative influences.

The bottom two scales represent the zone of hopelessness and depression; the higher levels such as fear or anger are characterized by egocentric impulses arising from the primary impetus drive for personal survival.

At the level of pride, the survival motive may expand to comprehend the survival of others as well.

As one crosses the demarcation between negative and positive influence into COURAGE, the well-being of others becomes increasingly important.

By the 500 level, the happiness of others emerges as the essential motivating force; the 500s are characterized by interest in spiritual awareness for both oneself and others.

By the 600 level, the good of mankind and the search for enlightenment are the primary goals.

The last levels, between 700 to 1,000, are characterized by a life dedicated to the salvation of all humanity.

If the hopeless (score<50) can come to desire (score = 125) something better and then use the energy of anger (score = 150) to develop pride (score = 175), they may then be able to take the step of COURAGE (score = 200) and proceed to improve their their individual or collective conditions.

By taking responsibility for the consequences of his own perceptions, the observer can transcend the role of victim to an understanding that “nothing out there has power over you”.

It isn’t life’s events, but how one reacts to them and the attitude that one has about them, that determines whether such events have a positive or negative effect on one’s life.

Nothing has the power to “create” stress. The same loud music that raises the blood pressure of one person can be a source of delight to another. A divorce may be traumatic if it’s unwanted, or a release into freedom if it’s desired.

Whenever force meets power, force is eventually defeated.

The key to joy is unconditional kindness to all life, including one’s own, which we refer to as compassion.

Chapter 3: Test Results and Interpretation

Summary

Notes

Chapter 4: Levels of Human Consciousness

A person’s level of consciousness are always mixed; they may operate at one level in a given area of life and on quite another level in another area, but their overall level of consciousness is the sum total effect of these various levels.

Energy Level 20: Shame

Shame is perilously proximate to death, prone to physical illness, and often found with isolation. Shame-based personality is that of shy, withdrawn, and introverted.

The behavior of people whose consciousness is only in the 20s is dangerous; they’re prone to hallucinations and paranoia with a high risk for neurosis.

Shame-based individuals compensate with perfectionism and rigidity, becoming driven and intolerant.

Energy Level 30: Guilt

Masochism and victim hood are the common personality traits.

Guilt-domination results in a preoccupation with “sin”; either acting out their own guilt of sin or projecting it onto others.

Capital punishment is an example of how killing gratifies a guilt-ridden populace.

Energy Level 50: Apathy

This is the level of homelessness and the derelicts of society, characterized by poverty, despair, and hopelessness from a state of helplessness. It’s victims are needy and lack not only resources, but the energy to avail themselves of what they may be available.

The world and future appear bleak.

Without the will to live, the hopeless stare blankly, unresponsive to stimuli; death through passive suicide.

Society lacks sufficient motivation to be of any real help to individuals at this level because they’re seen as drains of resources.

Apathy is the level of the abandonment of hope.

Energy Level 75: Grief

In grief, one sees sadness everywhere.

This is the level of sadness, loss, and despondency characterized by a life of constant regret and depression; it’s the level of habitual losers and chronic gamblers who accept failure as part of their lifestyle, often resulting in loss of jobs, friends, family, and opportunity.

Energy Level 100: Fear

Fear of danger is healthy, and a lot more energy is available.

Fear runs much of the world, spurring on endless activity.

Because it takes energy to rise above fear, those who are “stuck” at this level are unable to reach a higher level unaided. Thus, the fearful seek strong leaders who appear to have conquered their own fears to lead them out of its slavery.

Energy Level 125: Desire

Even more energy is available at this level. Desire motivates vast areas of human activity, especially the economy. Desire moves us to expend great effort to achieve goals or obtain rewards.

The desire for money, prestige, or power runs the lives of many of those who have risen above fear as their predominant life motif.

Desire is also the level of addiction, wherein it becomes a craving more important than life itself.

Desire has to do with accumulation and greed.

Energy Level 150: Anger

Anger can lead to either constructive or destructive action.

Anger can be a fulcrum by which the oppressed are eventually catapulted to freedom.

Anger can also manifest itself as resentment and revenge, thereby becoming volatile and dangerous.

Since anger stems from frustrated wants, it’s based on the energy level field below it. Frustration results from exaggerating the importance of desires.

Energy Level 175: Pride

At a calibration of 175, pride has enough energy to run the United States Marine Corps.

In contrast to the lower energy fields, people feel positive as they reach this level.

But, it’s under the threshold of 200 because “pride goeth before a fall”; pride is defensive and vulnerable because it’s dependent upon external conditions, without which it can suddenly revert to a lower level.

The inflated ego is, for example, a vulnerable spot. Pride remains weak because it can be knocked off its pedestal back to shame, which in turn is the threat that fires the fear of loss and pride.

Energy Level 200: COURAGE!

Power finally appears.

All participants at energy levels below 200 go weak, but everyone goes strong in response to the life-supporting fields above 200.

COURAGE is the critical line that distinguishes between positive and negative influences in life.

COURAGE is the zone of exploration, accomplishment, fortitude, and determination.

At the levels below COURAGE, the world is seen as hopeless, sad, frightening, or frustrating. But upon attaining COURAGE life is seen to be exciting, challenging, stimulating, and rewarding.

COURAGE implies the willingness to try new things and deal with the changes and challenges of life.

With COURAGE the person has the energy to learn new job skills. Growth and education become attainable goals. COURAGE is the capacity to face fears or character defects and to grow despite them.

People at this level put back into the world as much energy as they take; at lower levels, populations as well as individuals drain energy from society without reciprocating.

Energy Level 250: Neutrality

Neutrality seeks to remove the barriers of overprotection and polarizing divisions by seeking to remain open; the neutral condition allows for flexibility and nonjudgmental, realistic appraisals of problems.

To be neutral means to be relatively detached to outcomes; not getting one’s way is no longer experienced as defeating, frightening, or frustrating.

A person who is neutral will say, “Well, if I don’t get this job, then I’ll just get another”.

This is the beginning of inner strength; sensing one’s power, one isn’t easily intimidated or driven to prove anything.

It’s the world view that, in spite of the ups and downs of life, things will basically be okay, if one can surf the waves of chaos.

People at this level are easy to get along with and safe to be around and associate with because they’re not interested in conflict, competition, or guilt; they’re comfortable and basically undisturbed emotionally.

These people recognize and value freedom, and thus are difficult to control.

Energy Level 310: Willingness

At the neutral level, jobs are done adequately, but at the level of willingness, work is done well and success in all endeavors is common.

Willingness implies that one has overcome inner resistance to life and is committed to participation. People who are willing are genuinely friendly, and social and economic success is abundant for them.

Energy Level 350: Acceptance

The level of awareness where one understands that he is both the source and creator of the experience of one’s life.

Taking such responsibility is distinctive of this degree of evolution, characterized by the capacity to live harmoniously with the forces of life.

All people below level 200 tend to be powerless and see themselves as victims who are at the mercy of life, stemming from the belief or mental narrative that the source of one’s happiness or the cause of one’s problems is “out there”.

But at level 350, an enormous jump takes place: the person takes back his power, with the realization that the source of happiness is within himself.

He realizes that, in this more evolved state, nothing “out there” has the capacity to make one happy, and love isn’t something that’s given or taken away by another, but created from within.

Side note: holy actual shit, I’ve arrived at this same damn thinking!

Acceptance is different from passivity. Acceptance allows engagement in life on life’s own terms, without trying to make conform to an agenda.

There’s an emotional calm with with acceptance, and perception is widened as denial is transcended.

One now sees things without distortion or misinterpretation; one is able to see the whole picture.

The individual at the level of acceptance isn’t interested in determining right or wrong, but instead is dedicated to resolving issues and finding out what to do about problems.

Tough jobs don’t cause discomfort or dismay. Long-term goals take precedence over short-term ones. Self-discipline and mastery are prominent.

Energy level 400: Reason

Reason is capable of handling large, complex, amounts of data and making rapid, correct, decisions, and of understanding the intricacies of relationships, gradations, and fine distinctions.

Expert manipulation of symbols as abstract concepts becomes increasingly important, for this is the level of science, medicine, and of generally increased capacity for conceptualization and comprehension.

Knowledge and education are sought as capital, and understanding and information are the main tools of accomplishment.

This is the level of Nobel Prize winners, great statesmen, and supreme court justices.

Einstein, Freud, and many other greats are celebrated here.

However, the shortcomings of this level involve the failure to distinguish the difference objective reality and subjective symbols that limits the understanding of causality. It becomes easy to be trapped by the theories and miss the essential point–the forest for the trees.

Reason itself does not provide a guide to truth. It does produce massive amounts of information and documentation, but lacks the capacity to resolve discrepancies in data and conclusions.

Reason itself, paradoxically, is the major block to reaching higher levels of consciousness.

Energy Level 500: Love

What the world generally regards as love is an intense emotional condition, combining physical attraction, addition, control, eroticism, and novelty.

But level 500 love is characterized by the development of a love that is unconditional, unchanging, and permanent. It doesn’t fluctuate. It’s source isn’t dependent on external factors. Love is a state of being. It’s a forgiving nature.

This love is not intellectual, nor does it proceed form the mind; this love emanates from the heart.

It has the capacity to lift others up and accomplish great feats because of its purity of motive.

Energy Level 540: Joy

As love becomes more and more unconditional, it begins to be experienced as inner joy. It’s a constant accompaniment to all activities. This joy arises from within each moment of existence, rather than from any other source.

This level is marked by the capacity for enormous patience and the persistence of a positive attitude in the face of prolonged adversity–with compassion as the hallmark capacity.

Energy Level 600: Peace

The realization that everything is connected

Energy Level 700-1,000: Enlightenment

People like Buddha, Jesus, etc.

Chapter 5: Social Distribution of Consciousness Levels

Summary

Advancing one’s consciousness is rare, but possible, through individual freedom of his own choice. Above all else, it will be a matter of will.

Notes

A distribution of the energy levels of the world’s population would resemble a pagoda roof (japanese roof with a curve; basically the author is saying that the distribution looks like a valley with two extreme peaks at the opposite ends), wherein 85% of the human race calibrates below the critical level of 200. Today, the average consciousness level stands at about 207.

The power of the relatively few individuals near the top counterbalances the weakness of the masses toward the bottom to achieve this overall state.

Only 4% of the world’s population calibrates at a level of at least 500; 0.4% calibrates to at least 540; and only 1 in a million calibrates to 600 or higher.

We must realize that much of the remainder of the world’s population (particularly developing countries) primarily live in fear due to political instability, famines, diseases, natural disasters, and other chaotic events.

The majority of humans spend their lives in a quest for one form of security or another.

But here in the developed world, where resources are plentiful and there are a lack of natural predators, people transcend the imperative of survival and become desire-driven, and success in attaining these desires leads at best to pride.

Any meaningful human satisfaction cannot even commence until the level of 250, where some degree of self-confidence begins to emerge as a basis for positive life experiences in the evolution of consciousness.

Cultural Correlations

Energy levels below 200 are most common in extremely primitive conditions, where life is only a little more than animal existence.

The high 200s are represented by skilled labor, blue-collar workers, tradesmen, and industries.

300s are marked by upper management, artisans, and educators.

400s are the level of the awakening of the intellect. The home exhibits full bookcases to encourage mass literacy. There’s an interest in more educational TV, and more sophisticated political awareness. Recreational activities take the form of chess, travel, theater, and concerts. Education is the underpinning of this level. Consequently, individuals tend to gather in metropolitan areas where they have access to sources of information and instruction, such as universities. Einstein, Newton, Freud, and Descartes are calibrated at 499.

Just as 200 is the critical change of consciousness, so does the level 500 mark the critical change at which awareness makes another giant leap. 500s in the mark of excellence in every field of human endeavor. Altruism becomes a motivating factor, along with dedication to principles. Leadership is accepted rather than sought.

And of course, those who reach even higher levels stonish their friends and families with sudden breakthroughs into new, subjective, contexts of reality. Consciousness at this level can be described as vision and may focus on uplifting society as a whole.

Progression of Consciousness

As outlined in the previous chapter, there are many levels to consciousness, however it is uncommon for people to move from one level to another during their lifetimes; the energy field that is calibrated at birth only increases, on average, by about 5 points. Consciousness itself evolves very slowly through innumerable generations.

The majority of people utilize their life experiences to elaborate and express the variations of their native energy field; it’s the rare individual who manages to move beyond it.

What defines one’s level is motivation; motivation proceeds from meaning, and meaning, in turn, is an expression in context. Thus, achievement is bounded by context which, when aligned with motivation, determines the individual’s relative power.

Unfortunately, some people’s cumulative life choices many times result in a net lowering of their level of consciousness. It is the influence of a very few individuals of advance consciousness that counterbalances entire populations at the lower levels. And other times, the extreme negativity of a few individuals can sway entire cultures and produce a global drag on the general level of consciousness (history rhymes). Only 2.6% of the human population accounts for 72% of society’s problems.

Nevertheless, in spite of what the average person may achieve, it’s still possible to make sudden positive jumps, leaping up even hundreds of points, if:

1. one can truly escape the egocentric draw of sub-200 attractor fields
   • in my personal case, this means moving away from my negative consumption habits
2. Consciously choosing friendly, earnest, kind, and forgiving approach to life
3. Making charity toward others their primary focus

Higher levels can certainly be attained. In practice, great WILL is required (“what he has above all else is WILL”).

Thus, although it is not ordinary to move out of one energy field into another during one’s lifetime, the opportunity still exists. It remains for motivation to activate potential.

Without the exercise of choice, no progression will occur.

It’s important to keep in mind that the progression of the calibrated power is logarithmic; thus, individual choice can have a mighty effect. For instance, the difference between 361.0 and 361.1 is very meaningful and capable of transforming both one’s life and one’s effect on the world at large.

Chapter 6: New Horizons in Research

Summary

The common belief is that it’s the substance itself to which the victim has become addicted, due to the substance’s power to create a “high” state of euphoria. But this so-called “high” is merely the suppression of the lower energy fields, thereby allowing the user temporary access to higher energy levels. The suppression of lower energies doesn’t create higher ones; it merely reveals them, briefly. It is to this experience of seeking that exposed higher level that people become addicted.

Notes

Social Problems

Drug, porn, and alcohol addition is a crucial social concern that feeds the parallel problems of crime, poverty, and welfare.

The common belief is that it’s the substance itself to which the victim has become addicted, due to the substance’s power to create a “high” state of euphoria. But this so-called “high” is merely the suppression of the lower energy fields, thereby allowing the user temporary access to higher energy levels. The suppression of lower energies doesn’t create higher ones; it merely reveals them, briefly. It is to this experience of seeking that exposed higher level that people become addicted.

Side note: Wow! This is so insightful!

Within the levels of consciousness, the higher frequencies are extremely powerful, and few people routinely experience them as pure states because they’re masked by lower energy fields of anxiety, fear, anger, resentment, and so on. But, these states are so powerful that once they have been experienced, they are never forgotten, and therefore, are sought after again.

The high state that people seek is in fact the experience field of their own consciousness (Self).

If such people are spiritually naive, they believe that experience is created from something “out there” (external things such as love, drugs, music, guru, etc.). But all that has actually happened something “in here”, within themselves.

A “high” is any state of consciousness above one’s customary level of awareness

For example, a person who lives in fear will find a “high” by acting through anger as a protester, because to some degree he feels in control of his situation as well. Likewise, love makes any lower state feel comparatively unattractive, while joy surpasses all lesser human emotions.

The higher the attainment of each of these states, the greater its power to reprogram the subjects’ entire life.

Just one instant in a very high state can completely change a person’s orientation to life, as well as his goals and values.

Through hard-won progress on a dedicated spiritual path, this is the very mechanism of spiritual evolution.

The permanent high-state experience that may be legitimately attained only through a lifetime of dedicated inner work, can be reached via artificial means (i.e. external substances), but only temporarily.

But, the balance of nature dictates that to artificially acquire such a state, without earning it creates a debt, and the negative imbalance results in negative consequences. The cost of such stolen pleasure is the desperation of addiction, and finally, both the addict and society pay the price.

Especially in modern times, with “cheap dopamine”, our society idealizes pleasure, while hard work, stoicism, self-sacrifice, and restraint all take a back seat.

Historically speaking, all ruling classes have achieved status and wealth by controlling society through some form of puritanical ethic.

Industrial and Scientific Research

The kinesiology test could have been used to help Edison progress much faster to finding the right materials by simply grouping materials into groups and asking binary questions, and then further subdividing groups until the answer has been reached.

Chapter 7: Everyday Critical Point Analysis

In regard to the kinesiology test, the calibrated power of an identified attractor is directly related to its level of truth; this means we can clearly distinguish true from false from any inquiry. This works because consciousness reacts decisively to the difference between truth and falsehood. This permits us to identify the level of truth of any statement, belief system, or body of knowledge.

Like a computer, consciousness simply answers in binary true or false.

We discover the truth about ourselves because our questions are themselves merely the reflections of our own motives, goals, and level of awareness.

As you might imagine, precision in wording is of paramount importance when doing the test. Questions must be clearly and objectively defined. Before even asking the question, your first inquiry should be “I may ask this question?” (yes or no response).

The author points out a variety of creative ways of using the kinesiology test in domains like:

• Current events
• Health research
• Criminal investigators
• Statistics
• Politics
• Commerce
• Science and research
• Clinical work
• Education
• Spirituality

All limiting definitions create fear because they create vulnerability; our perceptions are essentially distorted by our own self-definition, which in turn is qualified by identifying with out limitations.

Error occurs when we cling to the belief that “I am that”.

Truth is unveiled when we see that one has “that” or does “that”, instead of is “that”.

Once fear of death is transcended, life becomes a transformed experience because that particular fear underlies all others.

Few people know what it is to live without fear, but beyond fear lies joy, as the meaning and purpose of existence become transparent.

Once this realization occurs, life becomes effortless and the sources of suffering dissolved; suffering is only the price we pay for our attachments.

Certainly, in the realm of spirituality, there are many fake gurus, so here’s how you can tell if you’re dealing with a real teacher:

A universal hallmark of a true teacher is that they never control anyone’s life in any way; instead, they merely explain how to advance one’s own consciousness. It’s also important to note that true teachers neither seek nor desire material gain because beyond the level 500 consciousness, possessions and worldly needs irrelevant.

Appropriate use of the system will always lead to self-discovery and growth. Eventually, it can lead us to have compassion for everyone, when we see how we all must struggle with the downside of human nature.

Everyone is crippled in some area, and each of us is somewhere on the path of evolution–some people are ahead and some people are behind.

Everyone has chosen his own level of consciousness, yet nobody could have done otherwise at any given point in time; we can only get “there” from “here”.

Pain exists to promote evolution; its cumulative effect finally forces us in a new direction, although the mechanism may be very slow.

That which is injurious loses its capacity to harm when it’s brought into the light

In this interconnected universe, every improvement we make in our private world improves the world at large for everyone.

Simple kindness to one’s self and all that lives is the most powerful transformation force of all, for it produces no backlash, has no downside, and never leads to loss nor despair. It increases one’s own true power without exacting any toll.

We attract what we are.

All avenues of questioning lead to the same ultimate answer: the discovery that nothing is hidden and truth stands everywhere revealed is the key to enlightenment about the simplest practical affairs and the destiny of mankind.

In the process of examining our everyday lives, we can find that all of our fears have been based on falsehood.

Chapter 8: The Source of Power

The source of power for the American constitution is the claim that all men are created equal by virtue of the divinity of their creation, and human rights are intrinsic to human creation and therefore inalienable.

Summary

Power arises from meaning that is life sustaining and appeals to what uplifts, dignifies, and ennobles. It is meaning, and the maps of meaning, that connect the invisible universe with the physical, observable one.

The comparison between force and power is the same with that of Scott Adams’ goals versus systems; force consumes energy to reach a goal but then remain empty after achieving the goal, whereas power is continuously reaching ever-higher levels of dense inner fulfillment.

Power versus Force

Power arises from meaning

It has to do with motive and it has to do with principle.

Power is always associated with that which supports the significance of life itself; it appeals to the part of human nature which we call nobel.

Force, in contrast, appeals to what we call crass. It is concrete, literal, and arguable. It requires proof and support.

Power appeals to what uplifts, dignifies, and ennobles.

Force must always be justified, whereas power requires no justification

For example, power is meaning to do with the significance of life; health is self-evidently more important than disease, as well as how honor is preferable over dishonor and faith and trust are preferred to doubt and fear. This self-evidence is not arguable and not subject to justification.

Force always creates an equal but opposite counterforce, so its effect is limited by the laws of physics; this counterforce is polarizing, rather than unifying. This polarization always implies conflict and a win/lose dichotomy. Because somebody always loses, it creates enemies. Constantly faced with enemies, force requires defense, and this defensively is costly over the long run.

Power, on the other hand, is still, much like how gravity exists to pull things.

Force is always moving against something, whereas power doesn’t move against anything at all.

Force is incomplete and therefore has to be fed energy constantly. Power is total and complete in itself and requires nothing from outside. Power has no demands and no needs.

Force consumes, whereas power energizes and gives.

Power is associated with compassion and makes us feel good, whereas force is associated with judgement and makes us feel poorly about ourselves.

Every civilization is characterized by native principles. If these principles are nobel, it succeeds; if they’re selfish, it falls.

Similar to what Scott Adams compares between goals and systems-oriented people, Force has transient goals that, when reached, inner hollowness and meaninglessness remains. Power, on the other hand, motivates us endlessly.

That’s why service is others is the pinnacle of the most fulfilling life: if our lives are dedicated to enhancing the welfare of everyone we contact, our lives can never lose meaning.

If the purpose of life is financial success, what happens after it has been attained? This is one of the primary causes of depression in middle-aged men and women.

The disillusion of emptiness comes from failing to align one’s life with the principles from which power originates. Power originates from meaning that is life sustaining, appealing to what uplifts, dignifies, and ennobles.

Alignment with that which is beautiful, nobel, and uplifting is associated with longevity and vigor, because beauty is a function of creativity.

New Paradigms

Whereas much of science is based on the philosophy of real being quantifiable, the sources of power are invisible and intangible.

Force can bring satisfaction, but only power brings joy. Victory over others brings satisfaction, but victory over ourselves brings us joy.

Chaos Theory

The study of nonlinear dynamics has verified that there really is no chaos in the universe; the appearance of disorder is merely a function of the limits of perception.

We make our choices from values, and values are associated with intrinsic patterns.

It’s one thing to conceive of the Empire State Building; it’s something else to make it happen. To make a thing happen requires motivation, and motivation is derived from meaning. Therefore, the visible and invisible worlds are linked together.

We might say that the right brain “gets the pattern” and the left brain “makes it visible”.

An ABC may either be high-energy attractor or a lower-energy one; certain meanings and values have greater power than others.

Simply stated, powerful attractor patterns make us go strong, and weak pattern attractors make us go weak.

All great teachers, from Jesus to Buddha, have said the same thing over and over again: give up weak attractors for strong ones.

Part 2: Work

Summary

Main takeaway from part 2: In this section, we understand patterns that help shape the answer to the fundamental question: why do we do what we do? What is the meaning behind it all? Why is power more effective than force? How does power appear in everyday life? How does power appear in moments of superhuman feats of accomplishments? What is the impact of power on our own health and fulfillment of our lives? What makes principles, values, and meaning so powerful?

• Chapter 9: A list of powerful patterns versus their equivalently weak force versions.
• Chapter 10 and 14: Principles, meaning, values–all of these matter! It’s how Churchill and Gandhi overcame the force of their oppressors. life, liberty, freedom, and the equality of all men by virtue of endowment by a divine higher power. Beauty itself can be found in all of our activities once we recognize the deeper meaning.
• Chapter 11 and 13: There is power in surrendering to a higher power. The story of AA. In overcoming low energy attractors, supporting the solution over attacking the symptom is the key. Chapter 12, 15, and 16: Humans are capable of superhuman feats of power, from athletic accomplishments to genius insights and discoveries. Those who achieve great feats of power are equally humble because they realize that, deep down, they’re channels/vessels acted through by a higher power to create success in the outer world–their performance was not merely the result of individual effort, but of a much higher power. Therefore, power is accessible to anyone, anytime, anywhere.
• Chapter 17 and 18: Your health is a reflection of your mindset. All stress is internally generated by one’s ATTITUDE. All illnesses should be reversible by changing thought patterns and habitual responses. Humor is important in life.

Chapter 9: Power Patterns in Human Attitudes

A list of powerful patterns versus their equivalently weak force versions.

From my analysis, it seems like the side of power is, whereas the side of force is trying/straining/forcing to be.

The universe holds its breath as we choose, instant by instant (or hour-by-hour form Rollo May) which pathway to follow; for the universe the very essence of life itself is highly conscious. It’s in this very sense that we each create our own heaven or hell.

Everything in the universe is connected with everything else.

Every act or decision we make that supports life supports all life, especially our own.

Everything in the universe constantly gives off an energy pattern of a specific frequency that remains for all time and can be read by those who know how.

Every thought is known and recorded forever.

There are no secretes. Nothing is hidden. Our spirits stand naked in time for all to see. Everyone’s life, is accountable to the universe.

Chapter 10: Power in Politics

Summary

Principles, meaning, values–all of these matter! Just like what Ray Dalio writes about. These principles are self-evident; they don’t need justification because they are aligned with values that support and sustain life.

Notes

Power originates from the mind, whereas force is rooted in the material world.

Gandhi demonstrates massive power with rippling effects for centuries to come, not only did he bring the British Empire to its knees and declaring the independence of India, but he also ended generations of colonialism that would lay the groundwork for other countries to declare their independence too.

How did he do this? By simply standing for a principle

Gandhi stood by the principle of the intrinsic dignity of man and his right to freedom, sovereignty, and self-determination.

Gandhi believed that such rights come to man by virtue of the dignity of his creation. Gandhi believed that human rights aren’t granted by any earthly power, but are ingrained in the nature of man himself because they’re inherent in his creation.

Gandhi’s universal principle and his use of non-violence are what enabled him to rise as a lead and unite the will of the people.

And when the will of people is so united by and aligned with a universal principle, it’s virtually unconquerable.

Adolf Hitler assembled the greatest military machine in the modern era, yet Hitler’s use of force was no match for even a tiny English island that was powered by Churchill’s power that unified the will of his people through principles of freedom and selfless sacrifice.

Churchill stood for power, Hitler stood for force, in the end, England overpowered Nazi Germany.

Power is immune to force when united by the will of the people.

Force is loud, seductive, and glamourous, hence the weak are easily attracted by force. Power, on the other hand, is unassuming and quite often unglamorous. Force is arrogant, while power is humble.

Although the intellect is easily fooled, the heart recognizes the truth. Where the intellect is intrigued by the temporary, the heart is only concerned with the permanent.

One characteristic of truth is that it needs no defense because it’s self-evident; it requires no argument.

Power attracts, force repels, and because power unifies, it has no true enemies.

Power servers others, whereas force is self-serving. Force is limited, while power is unlimited.

Churchill never needed to use force with the British people to get them on board; Gorbachev never shot a single shot when taking down the USSR; Gandhi defeated the British empire without raising a hand in anger.

Democracy and the United States of America

The power of the United States arises from the principles upon which it is founded. The Declaration of Independence, reads as follows:

“we hold these truths to to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” (calibrated at 700).

A reoccurring pattern we see is that all of these great statements echo this universal truth: freedom, liberty, and the equality of all men by virtue of endowment by a divine higher power.

There is a clear distinction between that which is spiritual and that which is religious.

Religion is historically associated with force, whether it be past inquisitions, fire-and-brim-stone preaching, or salem witch trials.

Spirituality is often associated with concepts such as loyalty, freedom, and peace, which don’t create strife, conflict, or much less war.

It’s important to remember that to violate principle for the practical expediency is to relinquish enormous power. Principle and expediency must be differentiated.

Chapter 11: Power in the Marketplace

The ultimate choice man can make is whether to align with a higher-energy attractor field or a low energy field.

The same weak attractor patterns that have brought down governments, social movements, and entire civilizations routinely destroy organizations and careers as well.

This is how the Roman Empire fell. People from within choosing low energy attractors.

Efficiency can be Expensive

Summary

Much of this section focuses on how differently power and force use problem solving. Force attempts a moralistic, aggressive, and extensive approach that focuses on actively attacking the manifested symptoms; power accepts human nature, that we all fall short of perfection, and seeks to maximize support for a solution to the root issue, rather than attacking symptoms.

Notes

To be a success, it’s necessary to embrace and operate from the principles that produce success; to really do what the best do, it’s necessary to be like they are.

Companies that try to copy great companies in hopes of regaining their market share fail in doing so because they merely initiated the A->B->C sequence instead of aligning with the ABC from which those features emanated.

The book, “In Search of Excellence”, by Thomas Peter and Robert Waterman, analyzed successful businesses and found that successful companies were those that had “heart”, as opposed to strictly left-brain, mechanically managed companies.

One basic principle has the power to resolve problems of the social market place: support the solution instead of attacking the supposed causes.

Attack is in itself inherently a very weak attractor pattern (calibrated at 150), leading through fear to intimidation.

Objective examination reveals that most intractable “social problems” appear unsolvable due to the persistence of both either (1) sentimentality (2) juvenile moralizing. But neither of these positions are based in truth, which means that all approaches proceeding from them are weak.

Falsehood makes us go weak; acting from false positions typically results in the use of force.

Force is the universal substitute for truth.

Guns and other weapons are evidence of weakness. The need to control others stems from lack of power, just as vanity stems from lack of self-esteem.

Punishment is a form of violence, an ineffectual substitute for power. Punishment is based on revenge, which is calibrated at 150.

Supporting the solution to human needs, on the other hand, creates a no-cost resolution that brings serenity and equanimity, but attacking the artificially created “problem” is always expensive.

Only the childish proceed from the assumption that the human behavior can be explained in black-and-white terms.

Denying the basic biological needs and instinctual drives is futile. Blocking normal sexual outlets merely results in the creation of abnormal sexual outlets. The solutions that have power are the ones realistically based at the level of acceptance (350) rather than shame (20).

Side note: Look, I’m all for falling into temptation and sexual gratification in the name of “biological needs” and “instinctual drives”, but how do these ideas align with the classical Judeo-Christian ideas including:

(1) “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). If we cannot give God glory for something, we should not do it.

(2) “Everything that does not come from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23). If we are not fully convinced that an activity is honoring to God, it is a sin.

(3) “I will not be mastered by anything” (1 Corinthians 6:12). Christians have a responsibility to avoid anything that might enslave them.

(4) “I discipline my body and keep it under control” (1 Corinthians 9:27). Self-denial is difficult, but self-discipline is worth it.

(5) “The fruit of the Spirit is . . . self-control” (Galatians 5:22–23). Masturbation is almost always a sign of a lack of self-control.

(6) Do “not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want” (Galatians 5:16–17). We are called to self-denial, not to self-gratification.

The American drug issue is another example. The mistake is in looking at the problem moralistically and acting out of force and condemnation (150) in a punishing role.

Successful solutions are based on the powerful principle that resolution occurs by fostering the positive, not by attacking the negative.

Recovery from alcoholism or porn can’t be accomplished by fighting intoxication or lust; but rather by choosing sobriety and connection.

Chapter 12: Power and Sports

Sports figures symbolize the possibilities of excellence for all of us; and at the level of the champion, they represent mastery.

Certainly there’s a level of pride and and competition that excites the crowd in the beginning, but the greater emotions are those of respect and awe elicited by a display of athletic excellence.

Specifically, what animates the crowd is an intuitive recognition of the heroic striving required to overcome human limitation and achieve new levels of prowess.

The French Film, “The Big Blue” calibrates at energy level 700 (universal truth), and thus has the capacity to put viewers into a high state of consciousness.

The main character is able to maintain his state of intense concentration through a constant meditative condition, similar to how long-distance runners experience the “runner’s high”. He becomes enabled to achieve great feats of performance through an altered physiology.

May try to beat Mayol’s record, but all fail and one dies all because they hadn’t reached the level of consciousness required to transcend the normal limits of the body.

Alignment with these high-power attractor patterns isn’t limited to the exercise of the discipline itself but becomes an entire lifestyle.

Thus, when the power of the principle is transferred to the practitioner, the results begin to be manifested everywhere in his life.

And as we see with power, the hallmark of true greatness in athletic achievement is always humility.

Why humility? Because the athlete recognizes that the maximal personal effort brought them to the breakthrough point from which they were transported by a power greater than that of the individual self. They realize at that moment that their performance was not merely the result of individual effort, but of a much higher power.

“For it wasn’t my desire to get good grades that gave me the passion to become salutatorian. Rather, it was my FAITH. My faith in what? My faith in GOD that encouraged me to do something great with this rank”.

WOW! Talk about goosebumps! This is something else!

Pride, which calibrates lower than courage and therefore makes men weak, can be the downfall of many great athletes. If we ask a powerful athlete to hold in mind the hope of defeating his opponent, or becoming a star, or making a lot of money, we’ll see that he goes weak and we can put down his trained, muscular arms with minimal effort.

But the same athlete holding in mind the honor of his country or his sport, the dedication of his performance to someone he loves, or even the sheer joy of maximum effort for the sake excellence, goes powerfully strong, and we cannot push down his arms even with great force.

Side note: does this mean I need to update my vision? If my vision includes lots of fancy cars, big houses, and hot girls, then maybe I have the wrong vision? How can I know? How can I apply the kinesiology test to find out?

This means that the athlete who is motivated by pride, greed, or defeating his opponent, will go weak at the moment of of the starting gun and be unable to achieve maximum continued effort necessary for great achievements.

Side note: Think about when I broke the 3200m record; it was on a way where I was not concerned about the competition, in fact I did not care too much, and I was focused on school right before then. Meanwhile, on big events where the stakes are higher, like districts or states, I often found myself focusing on the wrong things, and not performing as well. This could be why some people read scripture, or pray before a big event, because they are absorbing content that is calibrated at higher energy levels. This literally gives them strength. But statements like “If God is for us, then who is against us?” is prideful, and makes us go weak. THINK ABOUT IT. You made the most progress when you were focused on delivering a God-given message for others, on behalf of God. But in the last semester, when you were stressed about your competitors, and you were focused on beating your enemies, you fell short. THINK ABOUT IT!

If top performers are imbued with the belief that their excellence isn’t a personal accomplishment, but a gift belonging to all of mankind as a demonstration of man’s potential, they’ll go strong and remain so through any event.

WOW. Speechless.

The energy level 200 is when selfishness turns into selflessness.

Where higher motivations toward excellence give access to the realm of grace and power, self-centered motivations of personal gain draw one almost magnetically into the realm of force.

It’s an honoring of human achievement that transcends personal pride. We honor the endeavor, no the personal accomplishment, which is only the occasion and expression of something greater, universal, and innate in the human heart.

Humility and gratitude seem to be the only effective shields against the onslaught of media exploitation.

Top athletes employ specific exercises to overcome any tendency toward egoism.

True athletic power is characterized by grace, sensitivity, inner quiet, and paradoxically, gentleness in the noncompetitive life of even fierce competitors.

Chapter 13: Social Power and the Human Spirit

Summary

There is power in surrendering to a higher power.

The Power of 12-Step Programs

Alcoholics anonymous is the original example of the power of principles to cure hopeless disease and change the destructive personality patterns of members.

AA does this by:

• respecting individual freedom and choice
• Demonstrating honesty, respect, humility, service, tolerance, goodwill, and brotherhood
• Avoids moral judgement
• Merely says, “If you practice these principles in all of your affairs, you’ll recover from this grave and progressive fatal illness, and regain your health and self-respect, and the capacity to live a fruitful life and fulfilling life for yourself and others”.

This represents the ideals of spirituality. Religion, on the other hand, has had the notorious history of intolerance and force in the name of “God”; excessive moralizing.

The History of Alcoholics Anonymous

The key to the early founders in overcoming their addictions included:

• service to others
• moral housecleaning
• anonymity
• humility
• surrendering to a power greater than oneself
• overcome any denial of the issue (acceptance)

These ideas were taken from the Oxford Group.

Chapter 14: Chapter 14: Power in the Arts

Summary

Beauty and presentation matters. Similar to how Jordan Peterson emphasizes the collection of art, we too should practice cultivating the elegance and refinement of beauty in all of our activities.

Notes

In beholding realized beauty, a sensitivity to the beautiful is implanted in us, enabling us to discover, and create, our own asthenic rewards in the apparently disordered jumble of existence.

Older cultures seem to have always understood the practicality of beauty.

An architecturally ugly neighborhood becomes part of a feedback loop of blight and violence; the sleazy, dehumanized housing projects of urban ghettos manifest their weak patterns in squalor and crime.

Grace is the expression of the power of aesthetic sensitivity, and power is always manifested with grace, whether in beauty of line, style, or expression. We associate grace with elegance, refinement, and economy of effort. Gracious power patterns acknowledge and support life, and respect and uphold the dignity of others.

It’s interesting to see that people of advance consciousness are able to see beauty in all forms. To them, not only is all of life sacred, but all form is beauty.

Chapter 15: Genius and the Power of Creativity

Summary

Much of this can be summarized by Einstein’s quote: “Genius is 1 percent talent and 99 percent hard work.”

Each of us has the capacity to become geniuses. To become a genius, do what you like to do best, and do it to the very best of your ability.

Notes

Creativity and genius are at the center of high-energy attractors.

Much of human history is the record of man’s struggle to comprehend truths that have been appeared obvious to those of genius.

A universal characteristic of genius humility.

After all, those in whom we recognize genius commonly disclaim it, as they’ve always attributed their insights to some higher influence.

The process of animating genius most commonly involves first formulating a question.

Then waiting an indefinite interval for consciousness to work with the problem. Until suddenly, the answer appears in a flash, in a form that’s characteristically nonverbal.

Everything is connected to everything else; no one is excluded from the universe–we’re all members.

Consciousness, like physicality, is a universal quality; because genius is a characteristic of consciousness, genius is also universal. It follows that which is universal is available to each and every person.

Genius is often expressed through a change of perception. The mind struggles with an unsolvable problem, poses a question, and is open to receive an answer. Those who are humble and grateful for illumination received tend to continue to have the capacity to access genius. Conversely, those who credit the inspiration to their own ego soon lose this capacity, or are destroyed by their success.

High power, like high voltage, must be handled with respect.

Genius and creativity then are subjectively experienced as a nonjudgmental witnessing

• Out of struggle comes victory
• Out of failure comes success
• Out of humbling comes true self-esteem

Genius is characterized by an appreciation for resources and the economy of ingenuity, because the genius values life and sees the intrinsic worth of all of its expressions. Often, geniuses are seldom interested in money or fame, and they prefer a modest/simple lifestyle.

Since time and resources are considered previous, doing more than is necessary is viewed as waste; therefore, people of genius often lead very quiet lives and usually only come forth, very reluctantly, when there’s a cause that must be supported.

Because they are in touch with an endless source of supply, geniuses experience only a minimum of want, for there’s no need to “get” what you already “have”.

The basis of all of these tendencies is rooted in a radical understanding of the nature of the universe itself: that which supports life is supported by life.

Survival for geniuses is thus effortless, and giving and receiving are one and the same.

A primary reason that so many people fail to recognize, and therefore empower, their own geniuses is because in the popular mind, genius is confused with a high IQ, which is a gross misunderstanding.

Geniuses can be more accurately identified by perseverance, courage, concentration, enormous drive, and absolute integrity–talent alone is certainly not enough.

Dedication of an unusual degree is required to achieve mastery, and in the simplest definition, one could say that genius is the capacity for an extraordinary degree of mastery in one’s calling.

A formula followed by all geniuses: do what you like to do best, and do it to the very best of your ability

Chapter 16: Surviving Success

True success enlivens and supports the spirit; it has nothing to do with isolated achievements, but instead relates to being accomplished as a total person, and attaining a lifestyle that benefits not only the individual, but everyone around them. Truly successful people’s lives are empowered by the context of their accomplishments.

However, with great power comes great responsibility. There are certainly geniuses who have fallen due to success, which weakens their relationships and hurts their health.

It isn’t that such people have acquired too much wealth, fame, or attention; it’s that these influences distorted their egos and reinforced what might be called the small self instead of the big self.

For context, the small-self is the human-nature part of us that’s vulnerable to flattery; the big-self is an aspect of our more evolved nature, which is more humble and grateful for success.

When we come to know the power figures of the world, it’s striking to see how many are open, warm, and sincere, and view success as a responsibility. These are real successful people, and they actively work to treat all people as equal.

Why are the truly successful so humble. Because they realize that, deep down, they’re channels/vessels acted through to create success in the outer world.

As much as they identify with success, they have no anxiety about losing it, for solid confidence comes from the knowledge that the source of success is “in here”.

By believing that the source of power lies outside oneself, one becomes powerless and vulnerable and, therefore, defensive and possessive.

True success originates from within, independent of external circumstances.

Success comes as the automatic consequence of aligning one’s life with high-power energy patterns.

There are very few at the top; the world of the mediocre, however, is one of intense competition, and the bottom of the pyramid is crowded.

Charismatic winners are sought out; losers have to strive to be accepted.

People who are loving, kind, and considerate of others have more friends than they can count; accomplishment in every area of life is reflected back to those who are aligned with successful patterns.

Side note: Reminds me of Catherine W. As much resentment I had when I was younger, I admit that she simply had the right mindset.

Chapter 17: Physical Health and Power

Summary

We become what we think about.

Your health is a reflection of your mindset.

Notes

We become healthy and wealthy by being wise, and wisdom is the result of aligning with high-power attractor patterns (or as Naval Ravikant would put it, knowing the long-term consequences on your actions).

It’s equally important to realize that attractors create context. This means the one’s motive, derived from his principles that he chooses to commit to, determines one’s capacity to understand and, therefore give significance (or meaning) to one’s actions. (This is super related to what Jordan Peterson talks about on the significance on having the right attitude towards life.)

The effect of alignment with principle is never more striking than in its physiological consequences. Vibrant health, for example, follows alignment with high-energy attractor patterns. This is because the human central nervous system clearly has an exquisitely sensitive capacity to differentiate between life-supportive and life-destructive patterns.

High-power attractor patterns, which make the body go strong, release brain endorphins and have a tonic effect on all of the organs, whereas adverse stimuli release adrenaline, which suppresses immune response and instantaneously causes both weakness and even breakdown of specific organ, depending on the nature of the stimulus.

Unless the basic attitude that’s causing the energy imbalance is corrected, the illness tends to persist.

It’s no wonder how many cured problems come as a result of adopting attitudes correlated with high-energy attractor patterns (that is, spiritual practices).

Generally speaking, physical and mental soundness are attendant upon positive attitudes, whereas poor physical and mental health are associated with with such negative attitudes as resentment, jealousy, hostility, self-pity, fear, anxiety, and the like.

In the field of psychoanalysis, positive attitudes are called welfare emotions, while negative ones are called emergency emotions. The chronic immersion in energy emotions results in ill health and gross weakening of one’s personal power.

So here’s the million-dollar question: how does one overcome negative attitudes so as to avoid this deterioration of power?

The answer is simple: The individual must make a decision–a choice–: A sincere and earnest desire for change allows one to seek higher attractor energy patterns.

All that’s really necessary is to expose oneself to a higher energy field and one’s inner attitudes will spontaneously begin to change. You are the average of the 5 closest people to you.

It’s no coincidence, then, that this grouping of people is the basis for a lot of self-help groups; it’s reflected in the saying, “just bring the body to the meeting”. Think osmosis.

Traditional medicines generally hold that stress is the cause of many human disorders and illnesses. Indeed, this is a mention in several books. In Rollo May’s “Man’s search for himself”, May writes, “Most patients in hospitals suffer as a result of anxious tendencies–this is nature’s way of saying we’re not living towards our unique potentialities.”. Moreover, in the book, “The Magic of Thinking Big”, David J. Schwartz mentions the book “How To Live 365 Days A Year” by John A. Schindler MD, in which Schindler also notes that many patients in hospital beds are there simply due to unnecessary mental worry, anxiety, and stress. “3 out of every 4 hospital beds are occupied by people who have EII — emotionally induced illness.” — Dr. Schindler in “How to live 365 days a year.”.

In other words, refuse to worry about your health (build habits that improve your health, but refuse to worry about your health). And do you know what the cherry on top is? Scott Adams claims in his book, “How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big” that “The nearest we can get to truth is consistency”. This is an obvious patterns that we’re describing, as obvious as stating that 2 + 2 = 4.

All stress is internally generated by one’s ATTITUDE

It is worth emphasizing again: It is not life’s events, but one’s reaction to them that activates the symptoms of stress.

Where do our attitudes come from? Our attitudes come from our positions, and our positionality (the placing of oneself), has to do with motive and context.

According to the overall way that we interpret the meaning of events, the same situation may be tragic or comical.

Physiologically speaking, in the CHOICE of attitude, one chooses between anabolic endorphins or catabolic adrenaline

The Power of Nutrition

The only real healthy way to deal with the negatives of human nature is acceptance. Once we really understand the human condition, we’ll feel compassion where we once felt condemnation.

Compassion is one of the highest of all the energy attractor power patterns.

Our capacity to understand, forgive, and accept is directly linked to our personal health.

Chapter 18: Wellness and the Disease Process

Summary

Our fate is determined by these small, iterative, hour-to-hour changes that WE CHOOSE. This means if you choose inherently good, constructive, tiny choices, then overtime, you will exponentially live a life that is good, constructive, and fulfilling. The opposite holds true.

All illnesses should be reversible by changing thought patterns and habitual responses.

Notes

Emotions influence your health. Period.

Emotions affect hormonal change (example, when I was once stressed, my hair became greasy).

Stress results in suppression of the thymus gland, and the body’s defenses are compromised.

The origin of stress is always related to the organism’s tendency to respond to stimuli in specific and characteristic patterns.

An idea (or constellation of thoughts) presents itself in consciousness as an attitude that tends to persist over time; this attitude is subsequently associated with an attractor energy field of corresponding power or weakness. The result is a particular perception of the world, and appropriate events can trigger the specific emotion.

Side note: this is exactly what CBT talks about.

The meridian serves as the energy channel to specific muscles in the body organs

The connection between the mind and body is immediate, so the body’s responses shift and change from instant to instant in response to one’s train of thought and associated emotions.

In physics, turbulence is the process by which the effect of minute (small) variations become amplified until eventually it affects the entire system and a new energy pattern evolves, which, by this very same process itself, may result in further variation.

In other words, our fate is determined by these small, iterative, hour-to-hour changes that WE CHOOSE. This means if you choose inherently good, constructive, tiny choices, then overtime, you will exponentially live a life that is good, constructive, and fulfilling. The opposite holds true.

So in the context of the mind and body, this turbulance of emotion may result in a negative worldview; if held for a long time, the direct result is a repetition of minute changes in energy flow to the various body organs.

The invisible universe of thought and attitude becomes visible as a consequence of the body’s habitual response

It’s the persistence and repetition of the stimulus that, through the law of sensitive dependencies on initial conditions, results in the observable disease process.

Bear in mind, the stimulus that sets off the process may be so minute that it escapes detection itself.

If this schema of disease formation is correct, then all illnesses should be reversible by changing thought patterns and habitual responses.

No recovery can take place until the subject experiences an essential change of personality–a profound transformation in his total belief system followed by a sudden leap in consciousness.

A prime difficulty with thoughts and behaviors associated with the energy fields below 200 is that they cause counterreactions (as is the case with any means of force).

All attacks, whether mental or physical, result in a counterattack.

Humor is important in life. Trust.

Relatively few people are committed to peace because in their heart and actions, they prefer to be “right” at whatever cost.

A self-justified personality is the real enemy of peace.

Part 3: Meaning

Summary

Main takeaway about part 3: Everything boils down to our choices. The quality of our choices, and therefore the fate of our lives, is dependent upon the perception from which we view the world. Striving for higher consciousness expands our perception, and this striving towards higher consciousness is the byproduct of a lifelong, unwavering, committed, voluntary willingness to find and live out our principles. Any individual increase in one’s level of consciousness also raises the consciousness of everyone on the planet to some degree

• Chapter 19: here is, ultimately, neither duality nor nonduality; there’s only awareness.
• Chapter 20: Innumerable options are open to everyone all the time, but they’re infrequently chosen. Why? Because people want the context that would make such options attractive. Suffice it to say, one’s range of choice is ordinarily limited only by one’s vision. How we react depends upon the world we’re reacting to. Who we become, as well as what we see, is determined by our perception
• Chapter 21: great human wisdom from extraordinary people didn’t proceed from conceptual rationalization nor any other deeply introspective focus of the self–but rather from a leap to a higher consciousness
• Chapter 22: The start of inner work. Attitudes, emotions, and behaviors characteristic of energy below 200 preclude spiritual experience. To seek enlightenment, the key is WILL; a persistent (faithful) willingness manifested by a constantly repeated act of intentional CHOICE.
• Chapter 23: Review of the major religions. An individual’s level of consciousness is determined by the principles to which one is committed. To maintain progress in consciousness, there can be no wavering from principle or the individual will fall back to a lower level. A principle cannot allow any exceptions, independent of how emotionally appealing a construct may be used to justify the exception. Actions only.
• Chapter 24: Any individual increase in one’s level of consciousness also raises the consciousness of everyone on the planet to some degree. Hell isn’t a condition imposed by a judgemental God, but rather the inevitable consequence of one’s own CHOICES.

Chapter 19: The Database of Consciousness

Summary

There is no expanded universe, there is only the progression of consciousness.

Notes

Most people are preoccupied with converting the invisible ABC into the sensorially perceptible A->B->C.

Extraordinary individuals primarily live in the ABC world. These people are uninterested in the process of making things visible and manifest; they are the creative people who spawn new enterprises and then turn over their execution and management to others.

Mystics live in the world beyond the ABC (the completely abstract and formless domain of pure consciousness itself). Mystics believe that only their ABC level of awareness is “real” and the observable world is merely an illusion. Keep in mind, this is still a limited perspective. There is neither real nor nonreal, only that which is.

There is no expanded universe, there is only the progression of consciousness.

Existence is a statement that awareness is aware of its awareness and of its expression of consciousness.

Anyone who’s aware that he exists already has access to its highest formulations beyond.

There is only one absolute truth.

All the rest are semi-facts spawned from the artifacts of limited perception and positionality.

“To be or not to be” isn’t a choice; one may decide to be this or that, but to be is the only fact there is.

There is, ultimately, neither duality nor nonduality; there’s only awareness.

Chapter 20: The Evolution of Consciousness

It seems that society institutionalizes certain self-propagating levels of consciousness that consequently become an ingrained characteristic of various social strata.

Nevertheless, there remains free choice and therefore considerable potential for individual mobility and variety of experience.

So here’s the billion-dollar question: how exactly do transformational choices occur? What leads to them? Who makes them and why?

Growth and development are irregular and nonlinear.

As is commonly observed, growth can take place either slowly or suddenly; it isn’t limited by restraints but by tendencies (habits).

Innumerable options are open to everyone all the time, but they’re relatively infrequently chosen. Why? Because people want the context that would make such options attractive. Suffice it to say, one’s range of choice is ordinarily limited only by one’s vision

side note: WOW! This leads me to think that when I pray, I should not be asking for things, but rather an enhanced vision and the opportunity to recognize opportunities as they come to me; so that in their recognition, I can take action through the enhanced vision.

Context, value, and meaning are merely different terms for a subtle web of energy patterns within an overall organizing attractor energy field.

The most important element in facilitating an upward movement in consciousness is an attitude of willingness, which opens up the mind through new means of appraisal to the possible validity of new hypotheses.

These motives for change often arise when the mind is challenged in the face of a puzzle or paradox; some disciplines (i.e. Zen) deliberately create challenges to finesse a new leap of awareness.

Here are two main critical points in the levels of consciousness that permit substantial advancement:

1. Level 200: The initial level of empowerment; the voluntary choice and willingness to stop blaming and accept responsibility for one’s own actions, feelings, and beliefs
2. Level 500: After accepting love and nonjudgmental forgiveness as a lifestyle, exercising unconditional kindness to all persons, things, and events, without exception
   • This includes extending help to a man in need, the same way I would help if it were a woman asking for help
   • Once one makes this commitment, he begins to experience a different, more benign world as his perception evolves

There are no ‘justified resentments’. Even if someone did you ‘wrong’, you’re still free to choose your response and let resentment go

Holograms and Perceptions

Attitudes can alter the world one experiences

Like a hologram, what you see depends completely on the position that you view it from.

This begs the question: what position represents ‘reality’?

Certainly, CBT and other philosophies emphasize how the world is a set of mirrors that reflect back your attitude; I wish to further extend this by saying that it’s more precisely a set of holograms in limitless dimensions that seem to be fixed in time and place and offer only a single reflection.

Viewing the world as a set of unlimited holograms, we realize that the process of change seems to move through time, but if time itself is transcended, then there’s no such thing as a sequence.

If all is now, there’s nothing to follow from here to there. Each hologram is in itself an evolutionary projection from an endless nonlinear matrix of events that aren’t causally related, but instead synchronous.

External events may be defined by conditions, but they don’t determine the consciousness level from which we perceive them–that perception is dependent on the inside.

Moreover,

How we react depends upon the world we’re reacting to. Who we become, as well as what we see, is determined by our perception.

And because we’re all connected, the sum of everyone’s perception creates the world we live in. That’s why you matter.

The further down the scale of consciousness someone is, the harder it is for them to maintain eye contact. Per contra, as we go up in levels, the ability to hold prolonged eye contact is almost endless; gazes at the great depth becomes characteristic.

Power and perception go hand-in-hand

The Mechanisms of Perception

Summary

Thoughts really belong to the consciousness of the world; the individual merely processes them in new combinations and permutations. Even the few geniuses of the world who contribute original thoughts humbly claim that such thoughts were never self-created, but rather gifted, found, given, or discovered.

Notes

Causality stems from the attractor patterns of levels of energy, the ABCs of the configurations of our mind that are illuminated by consciousness.

Our thoughts are all choices, beliefs, and goals of our own choosing–it’s 100% voluntary what we choose to implant in our minds.

By consciousness, we synchronize with a field pattern that implies specific styles of processing and influences all of our decisions according to it’s corresponding set of values and meaning.

In the final analysis: the more detailed one’s analysis of the structure of “out there” is, the more one discovers that what one is examining is, in fact, the nature of the intricate processes of consciousness in here.

There’s nothing “out there” other than consciousness itself. The habitual tendency to believe otherwise is our fundamental illusion–a vanity of the human mind, which tends to view its own transitory subject as “mine”.

Thoughts really belong to the consciousness of the world; the individual merely processes them in new combinations and permutations.

Even the few geniuses of the world who contribute original thoughts humbly claim that such thoughts were never self-created, but rather gifted, found, given, or discovered.

But even then, we’re still human. Like how two snowflakes are never identical, yet they are still both snowflakes at the end of the day.

To transcend the limitations of the mind, it’s necessary to dethrone it from its vanity; the mind’s very nature is to convince us that its unique view of experience is the genuine article. It’s no wonder that each individual secretly feels that his particular experience of the world is accurate. Pride is below the 200 level calibration, and the cost of pride is denial.

Every mind engages in denial in order to protect its need to be right (its ego). This is similar to what David J. Lieberman writes in his book, “Never get angry again”, and it also relates to the CBT perspective on how our dominating core beliefs drive our actions.

Great leaps in level of consciousness are always proceeded by surrender of the illusion “I know”

Light can’t enter a closed box.

If life is viewed as a teacher, then it becomes just that. But unless we become humble and transform them into gateways to growth and development, the painful life lessons that we deal ourselves are wasted.

The major limitation of consciousness is innocence, for because it accepts that fact that it might be wrong, it becomes vulnerable to gullibility–it believes everything it hears.

Over ages, its been noted that merely observing the mind tends to increase one’s level of consciousness. A ming that’s being watched becomes more humble and begins to relinquish its claims to omniscience–this is the point at which a growth in awareness can take place.

As we place less value on passing negativity, they begin to lose their capacity to dominate us, and we experience progressive freedom from the mind itself.

Chapter 21: The Study of Pure Consciousness

Summary

It should be heavily emphasized that the great human wisdom from extraordinary people didn’t proceed from conceptual rationalization nor any other deeply introspective focus of the self–rather from a leap to a higher consciousness. That is both the common point of convergence and point of origin for all great human insight.

Characteristics of Pure Consciousness

Poorness can be seen as a quality characteristic of a limited self-image, which then leads to a scarcity of resources that follow. But it isn’t a financial condition so much as it is a level of consciousness. Poor self-image calibrates to 60.

It’s consciousness itself that that resonates as both awareness and experiencing, and both are purely subjective

Yet it is this identification with the contents of our consciousness that accounts for the experience of self as limited.

In contrast, to identify with consciousness itself is to know that one’s actual self is unlimited.

When such circumscribed self-identifications have been surmounted so that the sense of self is identified as consciousness itself, we become enlightened.

Contemporary Recognition of Higher Consciousness

As we have seen with the connection between mind, body, and health, the capacity to heal desperate conditions lay distinctly within the realm of higher consciousness.

It should be heavily emphasized that the great human wisdom from extraordinary people didn’t proceed from conceptual rationalization nor any other deeply introspective focus of the self–rather from a leap to a higher consciousness. That is both the common point of convergence and point of origin for all great human insight.

Chapter 22: Spiritual Struggle

Summary

Spiritual work, like other intensive pursuits such as sports, can be arduous and frequently require the development of specific tools for the task, namely (1) extremely focused intent (2) unfailing concentration.

It’s no wonder how all religions issue restrictions against exposing oneself to the lower energy fields in an attempt to relieve this struggle.

Whatever viewpoint you adopt, the result is still the same: attitudes, emotions, and behaviors characteristic of energy below 200 preclude spiritual experience.

To seek enlightenment, the key is WILL; a persistent (faithful) willingness manifested by a constantly repeated act of intentional CHOICE.

Notes

It’s a common experience for as-yet-unenlightened devotees to enter the “sublime” state of a “saint” (the social nickname of those calibrated over 500s and 600s) when in the presence of such an enlightened person. This happens when the presence of one powerful attractor pattern dominates the atmosphere of the interaction. Hence, it makes sense that this “rub-off” state of heightened enlightenment vanishes as soon as the saint leaves; until the devotee arrives at the higher state of awareness himself, the state will not persist in the saint’s absence.

Advanced spiritual seekers often fluctuate in and out of this “presence of the Beloved” as they approach enlightenment, often losing the higher state and descending down to a lower one.

In fact, this phenomenon is so well recorded in Western and Eastern literature that they even have a name for it: “anguish of the soul”.

Spiritual work, like other intensive pursuits such as sports, can be arduous and frequently require the development of specific tools for the task, namely (1) extremely focused intent (2) unfailing concentration

What makes inner work so difficult is the great effort required to escape from the familiar gravity of lower attractor fields and move to the influence of a higher field.

It’s no wonder how all religions issue restrictions against exposing oneself to the lower energy fields in an attempt to relieve this struggle.

Unfortunately, the more conservative, shy, and dogmatic types will enforce this as judgmental “sin”. A more liberal viewpoint accepts man’s dalliance in lower energy fields as a pardonable “failing”.

Whatever viewpoint you adopt, the result is still the same: attitudes, emotions, and behaviors characteristic of energy below 200 preclude spiritual experience.

The classical chakra system recognized by many almost exactly correlates with the Levels of calibrated consciousness from this book.

From the chakra system, 600 corresponds to the crown chakra, 500 to the hear, and 200 and up to the solar plexus. All lower attitudes are associated with the spleen.

Interestingly enough, we see another common characteristic among all major spiritual teachings: to avoid “worldliness” things, such as attachments to sex or money. Both the base chakra and the lower energy levels are associated with these primal and survival reactions that prohibit spiritual progress. If you wish to ascend, you must let go.

These lower regions are the center of addictions; one can be fixated at any of the lower levels.

Almost all of these lower energy fields, as well as their symptomatic behaviors that result, now have given rise to specific self-help groups.

But without the spiritual context, recovery is quite unlikely.

The same principle operates in the opposite direction.

To seek enlightenment, the key is WILL; a constantly repeated act of CHOICE

In all spiritual disciplines, the opening wedge predicated for advancing one’s awareness is described as “WILLINGNESS”.

A persistent (faithful) willingness is the trigger that activates a new attractor field and allows one to begin to leave the old.

It’s the combinations of (1) free will (2) the decisive power of choice (3) evolution; that creates a crossover for change to take place.

The common trap is to go out and do it alone.

A devotee can abet his own progress by merely focusing on an advanced teacher and thereby aligning with that teacher’s energy field.

Holding the image of an advanced spiritual teacher in mind made every subject go strong, independent of personal beliefs. Human relationships matter.

Side note: This also might be why married men with children earn more, and generally seem more fulfilling. Ultimately, if you’re on a hill, about to die, the last thing that comes to your mind are your wife and kids, and holding that image alone provides enough power to overcome death–the idea that you simply can’t die because of your higher calling.

The agency of change in spiritual struggles of personal metamorphosis is always beyond the power of the seeker, for great saints have typically asserted that they were mere channels of a higher power–they’ve taken no credit for personal initiative in achieving their state, which they attribute to Grace.

In more traditional techniques, prayer and meditation also provide points of departure to rise from the influence of a lower energy field into a higher one.

In addition, the book “A Course in Miracles” by Helen Schucman is a great read on how to prepare for sudden jumps in consciousness through encouraging a total change of perception.

There are a lot of explanations for why reason, although very crafty and can advance mankind very far, can be the very thing that denys our escape to the planes above intellect. Here’s one quote that sums it all up:

The power of creation proceeds from the top-down, rather than bottom-up

Chapter 23: The Search for Truth

Summary

A principle cannot allow any exceptions, independent of how emotionally appealing a construct may be used to justify the exception. Actions only.

Notes

Truth is whatever is subjectively convincing at one’s current level of perception.

When analyzing major religions (Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, etc), we find that the most “yin” (feminine, passive, dark) have remained relatively pure throughout the ages, whereas those that are more “yang” (masculine, high energy, bright) are often involved in worldly affairs and have degraded remarkably.

The more dualistic the creed, the higher probability to misinterpret its teachings because dualism promotes a split between belief, action, and the discernment levels of truth.

For example, people who hear about “Christian soldiers” may interpret that as literally going out and physically engaging in warfare for your faith.

Side note: I mean, don’t we all have to engage in some warfare to establish peace and stability? Da Vinci used his proceeds from developing war weapons to eventually end up painting the Mona lisa. The US constitution came after the declaration of independence, from which we battled to establish our own nation. It seems like in order to gain access to these higher levels of consciousness, we have to get our hands a little dirty.

Until one has become enlightened himself, all spiritual teachings remain hearsay and thus prone to distortion and misunderstanding. Scripture can be quoted to justify any position.

Within any religion, fundamentalist sects always calibrated lowest, often operating at the same level of consciousness as criminality, for their hallmark is egocentric extremism and irrationality.

There also exists highly destructive groups that believe in evil; such groups don’t operate in moral vacuums, but paradoxically in puritan societies that encourages constant seduction but denies satisfaction, so a perpetual frustration of normal outlets eventually finds a release in perverse ones.

The attempt to impose standards of would-be absolute Good and Evil is one of the greatest moral pitfalls.

Through kinesiology testing, we can prove that a false premise such as “the ends justify the means” is operationally evil (assuming anything below 200 is evil because it does not promote life), yet this is still a routinely accepted justification for much human behavior.

Religions that preach love but don’t actually practice it may calibrate below 500 but above 200, for what they say is true, but their actions are out of alignment.

An individual’s level of consciousness is determined by the principles to which one is committed.

To maintain progress in consciousness, there can be no wavering from principle or the individual will fall back to a lower level.

A principle cannot allow any exceptions, independent of how emotionally appealing a construct may be used to justify the exception. Actions only.

Side note: what if, like in bayesian statistics or the teachings of Emerson, we acquire new data that convinces us to change our principles?

Little children should be taught that dangerous behaviors are “wrong”, but as they grow older, discernment should replace moralism.

Moralism is a byproduct of duality, and becomes insignificant as the consciousness level rises through the 500s, and irrelevant at level 600.

Look at nature and evolution; it’s not wrong that a lion kills a zebra; it simply is.

The four levels of truth are:

• subjective
• operational
• hypothetical
• intellectual

The legitimacy of any of these truths is dependent upon the context of a given perception level

Truth isn’t functional unless it’s meaningful, and meaning, like value, relies on a unique perceptual field.

Facts and data may be convincing at one level, and irrelevant at another.

Chapter 24: Resolution

Summary

Any individual increase in one’s level of consciousness also raises the consciousness of everyone on the planet to some degree.

Even when a person intellectually knows his behavior is self-destructive, this knowledge has no necessary deterrent effect whatsoever; intellectual recognition of our addictions has never given us power to control them.

Notes

“A through absorption of the material presented in this book has been shown to be able to raise one’s level of consciousness by an average of 35 points”–yes, very true! I personally has drastic change in my habits and started making new friends! :)

Any individual increase in one’s level of consciousness also raises the consciousness of everyone on the planet to some degree.

It’s best to heed the traditional wisdom that tells us not to fear evil nor fight it, but to merely avoid it.

Obscurity is dispelled by augmenting the light of discernment, rather than attacking the darkness.

Mankind lacks the capacity to recognize the difference between truth and falsehood.

Wisdom can ultimately be reduced to the simple process of avoiding what makes you go weak.

The most common and insidious addiction is denial, which unlightens up from our intellectual vanity.

Here’s ultimately why reason alone cannot save us:

Even when a person intellectually knows his behavior is self-destructive, this knowledge has no necessary deterrent effect whatsoever; intellectual recognition of our addictions has never given us power to control them.

Wow.

This is just like what David J. Lieberman mentions in his book.

“The reason why intellect plays little roll in self-awareness is because making high quality decisions is rarely about reason and logic (that’s already done beforehand) but in the emotion and desire TO EXECUTE ON THAT LOGIC. Everyone knows what to do, few do it.”

Then there’s also this segment: “Just like what Rollo May talks about, intelligence has little relation to self-awareness or emotional heath. A smart person could very well have a poor diet and a poor outlook on life. Wisdom, however, opens our eyes to see what we wish would not exist, and to accept it with grace and respond with clarity and confidence. Anger is a signal indicting that your self-regulation is about to fail, unless you change now. You will never leave an argument thinking: “I wish I was angrier, I would have been able to handle myself better””

Hell isn’t a condition imposed by a judgemental God, but rather the inevitable consequence of one’s own CHOICES.

It’s the final outcome of constantly choosing the negative and thus isolating oneself from love.

The energy of a loving thought is enormously more powerful than that of a negative one. Therefore, the traditional solutions of love and prayer have a sound scientific basis; man within his own essence the power of his own salvation.

We’ve earned the capacity to finally discover an inborn compass that can lead us out of the darkness of ignorance.