Applying the Concepts of Power vs. Force to Training in Power
Reward and Punishment
If one uses logic and deduction it is reasonable to conclude that if one is using, motivated by, focusing on or continuing to encourage emotions less than 200, one is identified with those emotions and is less likely to be able to clear them, or rise above them. It becomes evident that it is impossible to raise ‘vibration’ if one is kept immersed in & subjected to emotions less than 200.
What we do and focus on manifests more of the same. If the use of guilt is often used in an organization to get people to volunteer, it will only work if people are not encouraged to identify and rise above guilt. So those people who can be manipulated by guilt have guilt tolerate this methodology. When anger, shame, humiliation, and approval/disapproval are used and accepted as a method to train people, those who are convinced this behavior is coming from an ‘authority’, a trusted teacher, will usually respond with compliance. If leadership is authoritarian, students adopt the ego of the authoritarian, will become like them. The use of these low vibrational methods with the high emotional exaltations used in the course material of Training in Power ensures that only controllable people will participate and comply.
When those who submit to these methods are rewarded and those who don’t are shamed, ignored, pressured and or “watched” (as per my instructions as a minister to ‘monitor’ people who did other work), eventually only compliant people will stay. Those who reach a level of awareness Hawkins calls “neutrality” are difficult to ‘control’ and when their efforts to address this energy are deflected some may go back into denial and submit or just withdraw, but some will have enough self trust to leave altogether.
Vulnerability to Emotional Control
Again, the student’s mind has no cognitive way to discern, outside of it’s programming, the true from the false when it comes to awareness of that which is beyond it. So most of us are vulnerable when it comes to mystical teachings, a system, a cause, a belief, a promise, a hope pinned on an authority to lead us where we think we want to go, many times out of our misery. When we are emotionally vulnerable we can be misled, perhaps wasting time but most often falling into very painful learning experience. It is repeatedly recommended in all of David Hawkins’ books to test the teachings and the teacher, for this prevents wasted efforts on the path to true self empowerment. Testing can uncover and bring to our awareness the doubts about the training. It can bring to our awareness that the uncomfortable feelings we’ve had can be trusted to be telling us something important. If we can be honest with ourselves, no matter how much we don’t want it to be so, we’ll begin to see how our legitimate quest for knowledge and our yearning for spirit has been emotionally manipulated.
Facing the Dilemma for Some is Impossible
A teacher’s level of skill and responsibility can be seen by their response to any problem brought to them. If problems brought to a teacher are consistently denied, deflected, justified or rationalized, if there is no willingness to discuss conflict or the student is manipulated to be wrong or blamed, as I have witnessed for so many years in Training in Power, then truth seekers are placed in an intolerable position. They must deny their teacher is abusing them in order to stay connected to their salvation. If their vibration is high, they won’t want to participate in this lower vibration dilemma and will have to leave. In higher levels of the training, it became very clear that only input that fit into the founder’s story was acceptable, thus independent thought is controlled.
To seek to address problems has been called “attack” in the training. This is a severe block to healthy communication. But seeking solutions for the good of all requires levels of courage, neutrality, willingness, and reason to participate in the co-creative process; it requires overcoming pride, anger and fear in order to support the other’s growth process as well as your own. Such growth, attempted by any good teacher, will increasingly lead students and the teacher OUT of the training’s either/or, right/ wrong (judgment) and into an increasing awareness of cooperation. It a spiritual group, it should lead one to an increasing feeling of God/love and unity, not divisive ‘my way or the highway’ tactics. Students immersed in emotional states produced by the training cannot honestly see where they have been led.
True Power is Subjective
The goal of the teacher must be to encourage the growth of “inclusive vibration” as a subjective awareness in the student, revealed from within the student for the student, and therefore the truth of the student. One cannot get to subjective self realization by being expected to adopt the teacher’s personality as a way of being or for ‘power’. Power can be modeled and inspired and students can be led toward it, but ultimately it is their own journey to their own knowing a teacher is inspiring.
This is the feeling I have worked to support in the training for many years. Subjective power is sabotaged when students must learn the rules of the “construct” (the teacher’s own energetic term for her system) of this training without question, and have as their guide the guardrails of anger, guilt, shame, approval/disapproval, right/wrong, and pride.
These methods keep students on the correct power ‘story’ road but disconnected from developing their own sense of power. This demand to adhere to one person’s story reveals a grave spiritual error; for truth cannot be discovered for oneself under the right/wrong dictates of a hierarchical structure. To always have to reach the next level to be well, to say this is the ‘right way’ to power, to say one must stick to this training or lose vibration, their soul, or get sick (or I’ve heard fat), creates fear and is an obvious emotional manipulation that underlies both ‘the ends justify the means’ and ‘for your own good ‘ philosophy of the training, which calibrates at 20 on the scale of consciousness (pretty primal).
The fact that this training boasts the best/only path to power drops its calibration immediately into pride at 175, a basic drive that creates divisiveness and war, in a nation or in a body. Military training can be expected to build strength and character by its hierarchy and strict structure. But it does not demand you stay forever or risk losing your soul.
A question was asked of Hawkins in “Eye of the I”:
“What is the core essence of the spiritual search?”. The response: “Consciousness advances itself when it is provided with essential information which then becomes activated by intention. This prompts inspiration, humility, and surrender, and these tendencies become progressively more operative. In addition, progress is greatly aided by expert guidance, calibrated by testing the level of consciousness of the teacher and the teachings.
Spiritual endeavor in the past was quite unreliable and seekers were prone to falling into misleading error with no way of realizing what had happened or why. Sometimes high levels of truth are mixed in with serious spiritual error, and what could have led to real progress led instead to spiritual disaster. Often the error is outside the context of the reality of the seeker and thus escapes detection. The impact of the devotee who has been misled is severe when the spiritual rape is uncovered.
The disillusionment is more severe than that which follows deception or financial disaster in personal life. Some never recover and go on to severe depression and total collapse. Some become like walking shells. Spiritual error and disillusionment can be grave and damaging.
Monetary loss is trivial compared to the major spiritual loss because the teacher is often held in such high esteem and almost god-like adoration. This tendency on the part of the seeker is taken advantage of by the spiritual teacher, who is seductive, glib and adept at the tricks of the trade which occur in areas least expected and unexamined. Often the spiritual error is so disguised and rationalized that it is all but undetectable. Even the teacher may be unaware.
In looking at the price of a mistake, there is also the loss of time to be considered. Often years, or even lifetimes, are spent in spiritual error. Once tested, the underlying faults of the teachings become obvious. Before that however, the error cannot be detected because it is hidden by desire, love, one’s cultural heritage, family, country, etc. It is through misplaced loyalty and blind faith that error propagates and survives.”
The Necessary “Vibration”, or State of Mind Needed for Health, Growth and Healing to Occur
The training teaches that we are an onion of pathology, and we must keep digging at what is wrong to fix ourselves. This attitude counters current information on vibrational healing. The body needs the vibrations of the 500’s or higher to heal, and cannot attain that vibration while focused on wrongness and battle.
The training “construct” focuses and models sickness and fixing what is broken rather than expanding wellness from within by re-visioning and honoring the wholeness and inner truth of each person. In Level 1 it is said students must learn to trust themselves. They are then led into a very structured system and their knowing is dismissed if their knowledge is deemed beyond their level. So if they talk about a concept (an energy) that is subjectively considered by an upper level to be upper level material, they are made to feel they’ve importantly tapped into ‘future’ training they can”t know about now.
It is said that only the founder can hold certain positions (which she has created) and access certain information (some of which is common knowledge and some she created). She repeatedly tells students she is the only one, and must grant others the right to go there, thus the level construct.
The teachings do not embrace actions that inspire the spiritual aspirant from within to deepen trust and truth of their OWN story. Their focus is so directed they have little time or inclination to question. For instance, the battle stance in the training is intricate and takes years to learn. In brief, it is considered naive to not do battle, you must protect yourself with your shielding at all times, “strike” evil with light, be confrontive and focused on exposing all evils in yourself and others, and be aligned with your colleagues to “hold the line” and “close ranks”. To be compassionate has been linked to Pollyanna and is assumed to be naive.
There is a huge difference here in the kind of battle that is us/them victimhood which reinforces low vibration, and the more correct placement of battle called Courage; courage to stand up for oneself, courage to address oneself, the courage to address another when necessary. To address hurtfulness creates a learning situation, and is not blame, not battle and certainly not victimhood. The fact that battle is necessary in the training feeds the addiction to all emotions below 200!
Students are progressed through the privileged hierarchal story, given greater battles to fight and rewarded for attack year after year. It is said the more important you are, the more powerful you are, the more attack you will experience. It is a badge of honor to have bad things happen to you. In reality to “battle” produces excitement and continued addiction to the drama that keeps all people of the world prisoners of the mind and lower emotions, as well as physically compromised. To battle is not “bad” in itself; it is a condition of survival and a necessary step in the early evolution of awareness. However, at slightly higher levels of consciousness the battle is no longer necessary because the Self is secure, no longer a victim of outer circumstances.
Two of the Most Major Contradictions
When closely examined, I found this training’s methods in all levels incongruent with its promise of empowerment. From Level 1 the ”Trust yourself” is usurped by upper level student’s “sight” that focuses the student on what is wrong with them according to whatever the upper level ‘sees’. The course material says in Level 1 that “fear and guilt produce aggression” and are to be avoided, which amazingly causes students to ignore the fact that fear and guilt are used against them and incredibly embedded in the story throughout the levels. Students arrive in upper levels after many years still not empowered from within. These two major contradictions negate and ignore the spiritual truth principles of all highly calibrated teachings. It is my hope that other ex-students will take it upon themselves to document more of these contradictions.
Emotional Manipulation
Low vibrational methods combine with ecstatic emotions when students finally ‘arrive’ into privileged upper level secrets and see how much their authority figures have battled for them to get them there. It is emotionally revealed to them that their teachers have “held”, suffered and “endured” for them. This emotional time reinforces bonding and loyalty. By this time students become emotionally beholding and become willing to adopt the same attitudes and tactics as their teachers. They will defend the glory of the path at all costs. The reward for getting this far is that you will now have a leadership position, which is in turn is dependent upon upholding the ’rules of power’, the rulebook that others have so difficultly fought for.
Students are told that those who leave are “fallen” which further bonds the group emotionally into us/them divisiveness; it is said that those who leave can’t hold the vibration, cannot take the pressure of this new consciousness. To label dissenters “evil, fallen, or attacking” upholds the drama story and those who remain must dismiss and forget ones they have ‘loved’ because they are now fallen.
This dismissal creates incredible trauma bonding in grief and pride for those remain and who have “held the line”. This also creates an emotional double bind; dismissing those they loved as fallen. Most students cannot bring these double binds into focus, into full consciousness. The concept of “falling” is one of many incongruent traps of awareness built into the founder’s story.
David Hawkins writes: “With discernment and spiritual maturity, the characteristics of cults become obvious. Primarily, they are exploitive. The leader is typically controlling; money is important; allegiance to the group is emphasized; and the cult insists on proselytizing and is (divisive) to spouses, family or friends. There are secrets, a hierarchy, and the use of psychological pressure and persuasion that border on brainwashing. Leaving the group brings negative pressures to bear, along with psychological consequences. The leader is charismatic, persuasive, and surrounded by a personality cult. The leader is exempt from the rules. “
“The leader, rather than the teachings, becomes the focus of energy; gifts, money, favors, and adulation rather than simple respect. The leader often claims a special relationship with some invisible entity on the ‘other side’ that has a special name. This impresses vulnerable and nave potential followers who get caught up by (group) members and enthusiasts. To ascend in a group’s heierarchy costs sizable sums of money for each step. With each step goes a title, ie adepts, teacher, master and so on. Some of these organizations are structured like multilevel marketing with profits going to the topmost leaders. The teachings and the activities of the group violate basic spiritual precepts by claiming exclusivity and justifying actions based on obscure teachings, or reliance on negative scriptures such as the Book of Revelations. It is not a person who is the teacher but the Self of the teacher. It is not the lighthouse that guides the ships but the light from the lighthouse.”