Transcending The Levels Of Consciousness: The Stairway to Enlightenment

by David R. Hawkins

Addiction to the ego’s proclivities is like intoxication where pleasure is derived from the emotional payoff of negativity. Thus, negative positionalities tend to be self-perpetuating habits akin to addiction, based on presumptions and the inner seductive lure of the gratification of basic animal instincts. By repetition, they eventually gain dominance and control, which is the innate purpose of the narcissistic ego in the first place. In spiritual work, these are termed ‘temptations’, and it is then presumed that sacrifice is necessary to give them up because one is relinquishing the pleasure of the emotional ‘juice’ of ‘being right’, ‘getting even’, feeling sorry for oneself, etc. A Pavlovian type of conditioning takes place as a self-reinforcing reward system that then becomes autonomous. Subsequent to that, interference with these surreptitious gratifications results in an unpleasant feeling of frustration and deprivation. Thus, it can be commonly observed that the ego’s emotional mind clings to negativity and slavish bondage, and it mightily resists letting go and moving on to higher levels of functioning and coping mechanisms. As an example, the pit of resentment/blame/self-pity/victim is commonly a circuitous trap that quickly seeks validation by social encouragement and the pseudoimportance of self-inflating positionalities.