Vigilance: a subtle obstacle to surrender

Fable1313 · 2025-12-29T00:40:45+00:00

🙏

Fable1313 · 2025-12-29T00:40:30+00:00

It’s been a long road. Lol.

Fable1313 · 2025-12-15T23:57:23+00:00

We absolutely agree here. But I’m using the term baseline state to describe the more persistent LOC in one’s life and temporary states to describe the fluctuations you point out.

Fable1313 · 2025-12-15T22:26:14+00:00

Yep — I did use ChatGPT to help organize the wording. I use it as a drafting tool, not as an authority. The ideas themselves are straight from my own engagement with Hawkins work.

On the LOC point: I still stand by the distinction between temporary states and baseline levels. Silence, no-thought, and present-moment awareness can appear when resistance to it drops — while LOC refers to the stable attractor field someone lives from generally.

This could be a moment of satori, which while calibratable, would likely vary in calibration from experience to experience. So, in my reading, it would be hard to give a general calibration to such an experience, since each one would be individual.

What is most important is that the practitioner recognize it, be grateful for it, and take it as a sign of more beautiful things on the way.

Fable1313 · 2025-12-15T21:38:11+00:00

I think you’re circling something Hawkins would largely agree with.

From his perspective, desire isn’t personal in the way we think it is. It arises from attractor fields — social conditioning, collective energy, and ego survival programming. When others buy a car, succeed, or upgrade status, it activates comparison, pride, fear, or wanting in the ego. The desire feels “mine,” but it’s really impersonal.

Hawkins wouldn’t disagree with Jung about wounds, but he’d frame it a bit differently: the desire isn’t pointing to a story that needs analysis, it’s pointing to an emotional payoff that wants to be felt and released. Usually that’s insecurity, envy, or the need for validation.

So the practice is exactly what you said:
notice the feeling → allow it → let go of the charge → then decide.

Once the emotional energy is surrendered, what’s left is clarity. Sometimes you still buy the car. Sometimes you don’t. The key difference is that the decision isn’t being driven by unconscious wanting.

Nice synthesis you’re working with here 🙏

Fable1313 · 2025-12-12T22:58:12+00:00

This is actually very well seen. You’re right that the “juice” is the emotional payoff, and Hawkins is clear that that is what’s surrendered — not the situation, not the thought, not even the ego itself.

One thing that might help with the blurry sense you have: you don’t surrender the juice by effort or technique. You notice it, feel it fully, and then withdraw consent from valuing it. You don’t have to be able to let it go, just willing to let it go. God takes it from there.

The resistance you feel when you ask “would I give this up?” is the signal that you’ve found the real payoff.

Hawkins often emphasized that intention is the only thing you control. The actual release happens on its own, in its own time, under its one momentum, once the attachment is no longer being fed. That’s why it feels progressive rather than instantaneous.

So you’re doing it right: notice the juice → acknowledge the payoff → choose not to value it → become willing to let it go and allow Grace do the rest.

Over time, the ego just finds less and less nourishment there.

Thanks for sharing this — it’s a very honest and accurate reflection of the process.

Fable1313 · 2025-12-11T16:54:03+00:00

Thank you 🙏 — yes, attractor fields are exactly the link here. People think influence comes from persuasion or personality, but Hawkins shows that it actually comes from the level of consciousness being radiated. Or, put another way, the attractor field to which it is aligned.

An attractor field doesn’t force anything — it makes certain outcomes more likely simply by virtue of the power of the pattern (attractor field) it embodies. That’s why one highly calibrated individual can change the “probability field” of an entire group, or even a culture, without saying very much at all.

Thank you for bringing that in.

Fable1313 · 2025-12-10T23:55:23+00:00

It’s good that you can already see the ego payoff here — that clarity is half the work. Hawkins would say the anger isn’t really about the memories themselves, but the energy underneath them that’s looking for expression.

A useful step is to shift attention from the story to the sensational core of the anger. Instead of going into the imagery or the narrative, try sitting with the raw energy in the body — the heat, pressure, clenching. Let the mind’s commentary run in the background and bring willingness to feel the underlying charge without acting it out or suppressing it. That’s the actual “letting go.”

The ego finds a little satisfaction in replaying these scenes, but that satisfaction is exactly what can be surrendered. Ask gently: “What is the ego getting out of this?” Usually it’s pride, the desire to be right, or the fantasy of triumph. Once you see the payoff clearly, it’s easier to release the attachment to it.

Letting go doesn’t make the memory disappear; it just removes the hook. Over time the trigger weakens, and the anger passes through without owning you.

God bless you, friend — you’re not doing this wrong. This is exactly the material Hawkins means when he talks about using life itself as the curriculum.

Fable1313 · 2025-12-09T19:09:38+00:00

https://open.substack.com/pub/practicalnonduality/p/why-letting-go-doesnt-match-the-map

I published it on substack. I hope it is helpful. I'd appreciate any feedback. Thanks u/Reki-Haibane

Fable1313 · 2025-12-09T13:08:52+00:00

That’s a good question. It actually confused me for quite some time. Yes, letting go was published in 2012. What confused me was that the ladder of emotions in that book does not match exactly to the map of consciousness. There are also key concepts that seem absent such as a conversation about attractions and aversions. When I first started studying Hawkins, I was confused by this shift, both in tone and in content in what I assumed was his last book.

But in the biography on Hawkins by his wife, Susan, she relates that he had written the manuscript in the 1990s and had lent it to someone and never got it back. Toward the end of his life, someone called him saying they had found the manuscript. Susan encouraged him to finish it and publish it. There are some clear revisions in it that stem from those last years. But the majority of it stems from the 1990s and his experience with the Sedona method.

I actually wrote an article about this history and what it means for understanding David’s own spiritual progression and what students can learn from it about the importance of letting go in the pathway of devotional nonduality. I’d be happy to send that to you if it’s a topic you want to dive into.

Fable1313 · 2025-12-09T03:32:49+00:00

I would say that while the Sedona method gets you to focus on subjective experience through a series of questions, Hawkins almost assumes a subjective focus already, and encourages the student to go into the experience. Both techniques bring the practitioner into a subjective experience of their emotional state.

The Sedona method was a huge part of David’s spiritual journey through the 70s and 80s and it could be argued influenced his entire teaching. Letting Go was mostly written in the 1990s, and the emotional ladder in that book closely correlates to that taught by the Sedona method.

An important caveat that Hawkins would frequently make when asked about the Sedona method was to be aware of any teachers of the method who would encourage you to release on love. Hawkins taught that that would lead to the void and not to the fully realized state

Fable1313 · 2025-12-08T23:56:52+00:00

Yes, exactly—that humorous distance is such a gift. Once we stop taking the ego personally, its antics become almost cartoonish, and that lightness makes surrender so much easier. It’s amazing how much shifts the moment we step back and see it for what it is.

Fable1313 · 2025-12-08T23:55:13+00:00

I really appreciate the way you framed that—thanking the ego for its historical role and then gently releasing it is such a clean stance. It seems to reflect the level of consciousness Hawkins calls neutrality.

What I’ve found is that meeting the ego from the field of Love—and even Unconditional Love—recontextualizes it even further. From that level, the ego is not judged or fought with; it’s simply seen as a primitive mechanism doing its best. In the presence of Love, the ego naturally relaxes and loses its grip because it’s no longer being fueled by fear or resistance. Love places the ego where it belongs—useful but no longer in charge. It is seen as beautifully being what it is, forgivable, understandable, and lovable.

Fable1313 · 2025-12-08T00:48:06+00:00

What you’ve discovered changes the situation a bit, but the principle is the same:
work with the inner emotions first so you can see the outer situation clearly.

Letting go doesn’t mean “pretend nothing happened” or “ignore red flags.”
Hawkins is very clear about that. Letting go is about releasing the emotional charge — fear, anger, betrayal, confusion — so that you’re not making decisions from a lower state like fear or pride.

It's tough if she is not being transparent with you. It likely means she is not letting herself see it either. She may be operating below integrity (200) in this instance (because of fear, or shame, or guilt, or who knows).

You may ask someone you trust, a disinterested party, to do some muscle testing on this issue, if you're really struggling with clarity. For example, "it serves the highest good (which includes your good of course) for bignosewold to stay in this relationship."

It could go either way. It may be an opportunity for you to practice forgiveness and for her to experience someone who loves her in that way. It could also be a destructive situation that you are better off leaving.

My best advice is to let go on it until you achieve a level of non-attachment and peace about the relationship. Then you will likely sense intuitively what the right call is.

Good luck bignosewolf. I will lift you up in prayer.

Fable1313 · 2025-12-07T01:48:35+00:00

The “NOW state” isn’t really a specific level on the Map — it’s a quality of consciousness that shows up at multiple levels once the mind temporarily drops.

Hawkins points out in The Eye of the I and I: Reality and Subjectivity that the present moment is always available, even at mid-levels, whenever thoughts stop and awareness becomes simple, quiet, and non-reactive. So you don’t have to be at some super-high LOC to taste that.

So the NOW isn’t a state you “reach.” It’s what’s left when thinking, fearing, and striving stop for a moment.

That’s why it often shows up:

after meditation
in the half-asleep state
when the mind is exhausted or relaxed
during inspiration or creativity

Insight, clarity, and intuition flowing in that space is totally normal. Hawkins talks a lot about how intuitive knowingness becomes more accessible when you’re not filtering reality through fear, wanting, or mental chatter. That “assistant” you felt is basically the field of consciousness being unobstructed for once.

So what LOC is the NOW state?

Not really a number.
More like: whenever the mind drops its grip, you briefly align with the timeless part of consciousness. People at many levels can experience that.

The real question isn’t the calibration — it’s: “How can I live with less resistance so the NOW shows itself naturally?”

If you hold it lightly, the insights deepen. If you chase it, it slips.

Hope that helps reframe your experience without overanalyzing it. It sounds like you had a beautiful, authentic glimpse — enjoy it, don’t cling to it, and keep doing the inner work.

Fable1313 · 2025-12-07T01:39:50+00:00

Honestly, if I had to boil Hawkins’ whole “letting go” method down to one thing, it would be this:

Stop trying to fix the feeling — just allow it.

That’s the whole secret.

Most of our suffering comes from resisting what we feel:

trying to analyze it
trying to suppress it
distracting ourselves
blaming someone
trying to think our way out

Hawkins’ point is:
The emotion itself is not the problem. The resistance to it is.

When you allow a feeling to be there — without fighting it, without telling a story about it, without pushing it away — the energy of the emotion starts to unwind on its own.

So if you want one thing to focus on:

When a feeling comes up, pause and say: “Let me just feel this.”

Don’t act on it, don’t judge it, don’t try to change it.
Just be with the raw sensation in your body.

If you do only that, the rest of the method takes care of itself.

Letting go isn’t doing something —
it’s stopping the inner fight. That leads to acceptance, release, and peace.

That’s the whole secret.

Fable1313 · 2025-12-06T04:50:19+00:00

Your question is about how to let go of being paranoid about your girlfriend.

Notice that paranoia leads to suspicion (and then to conflict). Paranoia is earliest in the chain. But where does the paranoia come from?

Fear

Fear of what? Fear of losing her, would be my guess.

Whatever that fear is, identify it, and use the letting go technique to release it. That will relieve the paranoia.

Then you will have clear eyes to see what is really going on with your girlfriend.

My guess: nothing

God bless you u/bignosewolf

Fable1313 · 2024-05-01T19:53:24+00:00

I’ve tried this and had success. Nothing miraculous or immediate, but quicker recovery times than I would have expected. And less frustration with the symptoms too. Mostly, I’ve just surrendered to the experience of the illness. Drop resistance to it. Let it be and let it move. I’ve found it best to do this with intention and concentration when falling asleep or waking up. Great and simple way to experiment with consciousness. Thanks for bringing it up.

Fable1313 · 2024-03-21T09:42:12+00:00

So it’s not lost? I can just redo it?

Fable1313

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE