2 8 S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 8 - 2 Fa l l 2 0 2 2 proaches this topic through the description of the experience of truth (Enlightenment) and the role that human mind can play in this event. For Hawkins (2013b, 64), the Infinite field of the Source of All Existence is a radiant effulgence that shines forth, and its consequences as Creation are forever unified. Creator and Creation are one. It also becomes clear that all such terms as ‘existence’ or ‘nonexistence’ are, in and of themselves, merely intellectual constructs and attempts to convey the ultimate Truth, which is only knowable by the oneness of the identity of the merging of self into the Self. The best the mind can do is ‘know about’, and upon its dissolution, ‘knowing’ is replaced by the identity of being at one with the Source of Existence itself, the radiance of which is revealed in the exclamation ‘Gloria in Excelsis Deo!’ The whatness of truth is thus beyond space and time. In that sense, since language is temporally determined, it is not able to describe accurately the reality of truth (that is why it is usually said that it is ineffable). What mind through language can describe are the conditions under which a human being can experience said ineffable truth. That is as far as human mind can take us. It is fundamental to consider that for Hawkins what has been said so far is not abstract material that is of merely theoretical interest but is a key piece of information for understanding the nature of spiritual endeavor: through it, the spiritual aspirant seeks to experientially distinguish between what is real and what is not (and to get as close as possible to the truth). This is a fundamental difference between the philosophical and mystical approaches to human understanding. In the case of philosophical hermeneutics, it is usually argued that we are trapped in the projective and hermeneutical disposition of our finite and precarious human understanding [11]. For Hawkins, however, the recognition of this precarious manner through which we understand reality leads (or at least it should) to taking responsibility for the set of concepts (the level of consciousness) from which we apprehend reality. We become aware that the world is not responsible for our miseries, but that we are miserable because of the concepts that we contribute to the false image of the world of which we are co-creators. In Hawkins’s own words (2018, 211), this information leads to being conscious of the fact that [i]t is we ourselves who create stressful reactions as a consequence of what we are holding within us. The suppressed feelings determine our belief systems and our perception of ourselves and others. These, in turn, literally create events and incidents in the world, events that we, then, turn around and blame for our reactions. This is a self-reinforcing system of illusions. This is what the enlightened sages mean when they say, ‘We are all living in an illusion’. All that we experience are our own thoughts, feelings, and beliefs projected onto the world, actually causing what we see to happen. Now, and as we will see in the next section, the manner through which we become responsible for the erroneous ideas, emotions, and concepts we project onto the world is by letting go of them. The way to truth does not require work adding more conceptual layers to human understanding, but merely dismantling the filters that distort our perception of the world. “When the clouds are removed, the sun shines forth” (Hawkins 2018, 187). In synthesis, though there are surprising similarities between existential hermeneutics and mysticism as portrayed by David R. Hawkins, there is a fundamental difference in their thematization of human understanding as projective and hermeneutical: the latter provides a way out of this innate human ignorance. That is, the mystic does not believe that human beings are condemned to understand the world from a limited paradigm but asserts that we are merely used to it. In that sense, the projective nature of human understanding is not something natural that goes hand in hand with being human, but it is a habit that, for that same reason, can be modified. The question is how to achieve this. In the next section, we will see how mysticism provides an answer to this inquiry. 4 Giving Way to Silence: The Path to Truth and Happiness In this section we will provide a general scheme of the particular way through which the natural tendency of the human mind towards projection and interpretation can be disarticulated. Again, we will use what can be learned from mysticism, specifically from Hawkins, to illustrate this matter. As we have already explained, both the hermeneutical tradition and some individuals who have been classically designated as mystics argue that there is a veil between the knowing subject and the world which is known. This produces that the image of the world that is perceived by the human mind is not a reliable portrait of reality. The main difference is that, while in philosophical hermeneutics the emphasis is put on the projections that the individual throws at what is being perceived (that is, the subject occupies the throne in the epistemological context), in the case of the
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MzgxMzI=