Hawkins Scale of Consciousness
The Hawkins scale of consciousness is an excellent example of the sort of self-deceit that we employ to ensure that modern citizens remain complacent and unaware of climate breakdown and ecosystems collapse. If you are a sceptic yourself then I would urge you to consider the Climate Scorpion actuary report that predicts 2 billion extra deaths by 2050.
The author of the Hawkins scale of consciousness, David R Hawkins, capitalised on powerful meditation techniques that can genuinely help humans towards self-discovery. Hawkins built a profitable business out of conning unfulfilled people out of their money and their connection to reality. Hawkins chose to define ‘enlightenment’ in a manner that was completely disconnected from the real world.
I met a qualified practitioner of the Hawkins methods early on in my own journey of realisation. I had deduced that humanity is trapped in an ecocidal direction with growth economics and pronatalism. I was looking for explanations as to why it was so difficult for most people to accept the scientific insights from I=PAT and data from the Global Footprint Network. This Hawkins advocate was the one of the most self-satisfied individuals that I have encountered on my journey. He was aware of the existential threats; his answer was to teach the Hawkins method for dumbing down anxieties so they have little or no effect on our behaviour or our life-choices. In the Hawkins worldview, once you are ‘enlightened’, you no longer feel worry or anger. Hawkins enlightenment serves as a fix-all anaesthetic.
Abusing our Emotional Toolkit
Hawkins’ work is not the only example of how we are taught to abuse our emotional toolkit. Unfortunately, the same unhelpful outcome can arise from many spiritual teachings. When spirituality serves as an anaesthetic to suppress our emotional toolkit we are disempowered. Inspiration comes from emotions like grief, anxiety, and anger. These powerful drivers can fuel our resolve to learn how to collaborate peacefully towards wiser behaviour.
Hawkins was a product of our society. He was overlaying common socio-economic themes onto the deep traditions of meditation that underpin many spiritual traditions. He came to conclusions about how we should use our emotional toolkit that simply reflected the constrained society in which we live today. Hawkins never questioned the wisdom of the socio-economic structure; he certainly never suspected that our socio-economic model was the main cause of our emotional woes.
Hawkins probably genuinely believed that he was helping people. However, his ideas, and those of many ‘spiritual’ leaders, often serve to dig their audience deeper into an immature use of our emotional toolkit. Encouraging us to suppress what are viewed as ‘negative’ emotions, rather than trying to profoundly understand the cause of these emotional strains and take steps to relieve the stress. Hawkins was greatly admired, and made a good deal of money selling his ideas; this served to increase the illusion that he was speaking truthfully. That same illusion still applies to all the billionaires and oligarchs today. It is this powerful illusion that keep us all subservient to the wealth hierarchy.
Interplay between Emotions and Outcomes
Let us consider the image below showing Hawkins’ summary of the interplay between emotions and outcomes:
When I examine at the emotions that drive my own work, they are all at the lower end of this table from Hawkins. For me they are extremely powerful tools without which I would not write anything at all. Hawkins was very unwise to dismiss these powerful emotions and to discourage his audience from using them to good creative effect.
- Shame — about my own responsibility for upholding the wealth hierarchy, and being part of a global ecocidal society
- Guilt — for not realising and acting sooner
- Hopelessness — this comes in waves, apathy never comes nowadays
- Grief , Regret — at the damage we are doing to Earth’s ecosystems
- Fear, Anxiety — at the lack of awareness in those around me
- Desire, Craving — for profound social change, I am enslaved to my work
- Anger, Hate — this comes less and less, as my work gets recognised, and I no longer feel like an isolated voice of sanity surrounded by collective denial, delusion, and hypocrisy
- Pride, Scorn — these come into play a little bit; I am proud when my work gets recognised; this does encourage me to continue. I get the impression, from listening to one of his lectures, that Hawkins was a very arrogant man, which is possibly why these emotions feature quite high on his list.
Right now, we are in man-made climate breakdown and ecosystems collapse. All the entries in the top half of Hawkins analysis are only likely to emerge as the consequence of a collective effort to overturn our toxic society that relies on ecocidal exponential growth and pronatalism.
I see the top half as a list of desirable outcomes, and the bottom half as the drivers. However, I would delete the top row entirely, as it is not realistic to aspire to perfection. I believe that ‘fulfilment’ or ‘completeness’, coupled with joy and serenity would become realistic aspirations for everyone in a society that are united in their desires to be responsible guardians of Earth’s ecosystems.
Spiritual Strength — Zen Buddhism
My journey as a writer and an activist has required enormous emotional resilience, especially in the early years.
I found several insights from Zen Buddhism that have helped me to keep my anxieties calm whilst I worked on raising awareness in others. Nowadays, before I invite sleep, I revisit six thoughts which were inspired by Zen Buddhism. I have adapted these thoughts to reflect my personal ambitions for humanity:
- Today is over, I must let go of today’s damage to Earth’s eco-systems
- I forgive myself and others for the man-made ecological destruction that continued throughout today
- I am grateful for everything that I learned or achieved today
- Today I continued to play my part in the push for radical change
- Tomorrow is a new day, we shall all be further along in the mindset shift
- I wish everyone acute awareness of the escalating man-made existential threats. I wish everyone the moral courage to accept that reality and to find their own purpose and resolve within that challenging context.
A Global Aspiration
Early on in my work I realised that a collective ambition to return within the carrying capacity of Earth would help to steer all of humanity into a wiser direction. If you like this idea, please sign the petition and share it:
Petition · Ask the UN to ratify a ‘Global Aspiration for Eco-equity’ — United Kingdom · Change.org