"The Highest Level of Enlightenment"

[Nico Kempe]

so today I got an e-mail offer from Learning Strategies.
it was about a new 6-cd program they now offer, called "The Highest Level of Enlightenment", you can read about it here.

Basically, it's a mile-long e-mail telling me about a new spiritual breaktrough, that involved 29 years of study by a Dr. David Hawkins.
I think it is, to say it boldly, a way to increase your consciousness in such a way that you could eventually accomplish just about anything you want (mile-long list of examples included in the e-mail), just by following the program, which you can purchase for just X dollars.

Naturally I'd like to be able to do those things too; the promises they make sound just too good to be true. Which bothers me.
That, and the fact that in my digital live I've seen way to many of those kind of enticing, long, promising stories, that just trigger those warnings "this sounds too good to be true, so it probably is.." in my head.

Not to be negative, but the way it's advertised.. I don't know. But then again, it is Learning Strategies, which on the other hand, still is a company that needs to sell their products.

Aaanyway, I'm just curious if you guys know more about this offer, and how you feel about it. Who knows, I just might take it afterall.

[skydust]

the title personally puts me off straight away as it implies that there are various levels of enlightenment. from my experience, this is simply not true. there may be levels of awareness and personal development, but thats not the same as enlightenment. enlightenment is knowing who you are without a doubt, and there are no levels in this. either you know it without a doubt or you dont. i also feel that many people have started using PD as yet another commodity which just completely goes against the whole idea behind it.

just my present opinion.

[babuji]

I had gotten the same email from Learning Strategies.. and honestly from the way the email went.. it sounded like a 'Must Have' product.. but I told myself I gotta restrain myself from overwhelming myself with Learning Strategy Products.. primarily b/c I've gotten both the Paraliminal and Photoreading products and haven't fully evaluated their effectiveness on me yet.. so this had to wait.

Nevertheless, this concept sounded quite familiar to me. A few weeks ago, I read some commentary on Osho and his thoughts.. He talked about enlightenment in terms of the Chakras and the states of consciousness one goes through to reach the final stage. This email reminded me about that commentary. It can be found here:

Life of Osho :: An Early Commentary on the Chakras

The commentary essentially says that, through activation of the various chakras, one can enter higher states of consciousness, similar to Kundalini. Nevertheless, I found it to be an interesting perspective..

[esn]

To achieve "The Highest Level of Enlightenment" by listening to 6 CDs would be more remarkable than anything I can imagine.

I suggest this program be immediately distributed to all world leaders.

Eric

[Mr. Punch]

I got the same email and was a bit disappointed by the way over the top marketng tricks in it.

Anyway, the product; will it do any good? I suggest you go out and buy the book Power vs Force by Hawkins to get an idea of the methods he uses. Pavlina recommended it and I was curious at that time. It's a sometimes intriguing book but it is also mostly false in my impression. Applied kinesiology is a pseudoscience and just too bizarre. I remember a thread about Hawkins a while back, search for it.

[Lucas]

I enjoy Learning Stratagies products, but they definitely use sensationalized marketing, they also have some of the best guarantees I have ever seen. What was it on Photoreading, 6 months money back guarantee? I certainly have no problem buying from LS, thats for sure. They may market dramatically, but they definitely back their products up.

[HumbleBeginnings]

Isn't the highest level of enlightenment Pure Consciousness? A 100% connection with the global "mind"?

Well, if it worked via Compact Discs, that would be something.

[Liara Covert]

Although some levels of consciousness are said to be collective, my own reading and experience have also shown me that higher consciousness involves a personal journey to enlightenment. A product could help the journey, but I wouldn't think a CD would be key.

Since each of us makes different life choices, I do not see how a set of CDs or any other materials could ultimately make these experiences the same. You could buy a book to learn magic or psychic abilities, yet whatever books you read do not teach you how these expeirences would feel. I think of lucid dreaming and other multi-sensory experiences as exmples which are very personal and are also able to develop understanding. I'm interested in other reader views on this issue.

[Michelle]

Well, if anyone does happen to try this product, I would be very interested in hearing about it.

[helgi]

David Hawkins has some very valuable insights, and the three of the books I've read by him are some of my all-time favorites, but his teaching has a major Achilles' heel which is the attempt to define spiritual truth in an objective system.

The intentions are good, and the calibrations are very useful in a relative sense, but it's exactly the kind of thing that gets abused by marketers, cult-leaders, and religious fanatics. Any suggestion that "we are in possession of the absolute truth, and nobody else" is an indication of a false teaching.

But I suspect that in this case it is actually a truly valuable teaching dressed up for mainstream marketing appeal.

[Liara Covert]

Why must we believe there exists a "highest level of enlightenment"?
Why not expect the unexpected- infinite possibilities! Why limit oneself?

In a way, it may be presumptious anyway. We have yet to even begin to understand the potential of the human brain. Human beings may have other kinds of intelligence which would redefine "enlightenment" altogether.

[powersurge]

This email from Learning Strategies, as well as the envelope full of the same marketing stuff I received the other day, were huge turn-offs for me. I even postponed purchasing my set of the Paraliminal CDs because of that...

Regardless of their marketing strategy, I am curious about something. In his third book, "I: Reality and Subjectivity", Dr. Hawkins wrote: "the kinesiologic response is only valid and reliable if used by people who themselves calibrate over 200 and whose questions are in integrity, that is, they calibrate above 200..." Did anyone see it mentioned anywhere in the marketing materials or the program?

[ethereal]

Hehe, I've actually got this CD set so I'll give a review. I'm heavily biased towards the Doc's work but I'll try to be as objective as possible

Reg. Learning Strategies' marketing, they don't realize that spiritual truth need not be marketed or pushed at all because it's targetting a different set of customers than the mainstream. That's why Dr. Hawkins never marketed his books, they were all spread due to word-of-mouth. His explanation (paraphrased): "These books don't need to be marketed, people who are interested will naturally be drawn to it. It's got its own hum." So if you're being put off by the marketing hype, just realize that its TLS's fault and doesn't speak anything of the material itself

As for the product itself, I thought it was pretty informative, useful, and funny I have it on my ipod and I always give it a listen whenever I'm feeling negative for any reason at all. High-powered spiritual stuff always makes me feel better; you become detached from the world, and life suddenly seems quite absurd to be sad or depressed or angry It doesn't have anything drastically different from what the Doc teaches in his books, but every bit of information helps. Even if its just rewording the same concepts, you understand it from a larger, more expanded context and point of view by incorporating different perspectives and examples. From my own spiritual search I realized that spiritual truth isn't "learned" the same way other information is learned; it's more of an unlearning, if anything. You kind of just listen/read the material, let it stew for a couple weeks, and one day it hits you, it feels like a weight's been lifted off your chest, and your view of the world completely changes

Also, regarding spiritual energy/information transfer:

wed, May 10 2006
Revalidating the rates of intensity/frequency of the
radiance which is transfered by a spiritual teacher:
* Written word of the teacher (65%+ - it's sufficient for inspiration.)
** visual pictures of the teacher
*** sound of voice of the teacher (on audio)
**** sound of voice/moving pictures of the teacher (on audio film)
***** physical presence of the teacher
****** touching (by) the teacher
http://davidhawkins.info/media/ss2006_05_cd.mp3

So hearing it helps comprehension/understanding over just reading the words; makes sense, there was this one study that showed body language accounts for ~60% of information transfer, voice tonality is 33%, verbal/written is 7%?

Reg. the whole kinesiology/calibration thing: it's a tool to help reach the people at the level of the 400s (Reason). For the 200s-300s and 500s+, frankly they don't care if kinesiology works or not, "it helps improve my life (200-300s)" and "it resonates with me, it just sounds truthful" (500s+). From the perspective of the 400s though...it's all about reliable proof, scientific studies, science, logic. Tough crowd to deal with, when explaining spiritual truth

I feel like I'm plugging for the Doc's stuff, but I really do think it makes a huge impact. Just from the point of view of personal development/self-help, it accelerated everything, kept me on my path and helped me avoid diversions that would have distracted me had I not heard these spiritual truths.

[powersurge]

It's a very interesting review, ethereal. Thanks!

[ethereal]

David Hawkins, M.D.Ph.D. Beyond the Ordinary Dot Net

Audio interviews with Dr. Hawkins, in case you guys haven't seen it yet. These are free

He's hilarious