Hi friend,
There was a moment, after the accident — sitting in a hospital bed in San Diego, six weeks in, my body wrecked, but something in me strangely lit up — when I knew I’d changed and had no language for it yet. The language came later. Some of it came through the work of a psychiatrist named David Hawkins, MD, and some of it came through the man I’m sitting down with today.
Kevin Scobie has facilitated more David Hawkins study groups than just about anyone I know — in fact, I found my way to him through one of them. Today we dig into Hawkins’ most famous book, Power vs. Force, and the idea at the heart of it: that there’s a line between the force we use to push the world around, and the power that doesn’t need to push at all. Once you feel that distinction, you start seeing it everywhere — in your work, your relationships, your own tired body.
I’ll tell you how I hold this material, so you can hold it the same way if you like:
I take the Map of Consciousness as a language for what we can feel, not a scientific instrument. You don’t have to believe every number to find the map useful. Take what serves you and leave the rest.
This conversation lives on both YouTube and here on Substack. Settle in.
I’ll see you on the high road.
XO, Sherold
Transcript
00:35 Sherold
Hawkins has written a number of books. Today, Kevin and I are gonna have a conversation about power versus force. And if you like this video, please subscribe to my YouTube channel. I also write, this interview will be over on Substack.
Kevin, why don’t you talk about how you got interested in this, and then I’ll share mine, and then we’ll launch into this discussion.
01:17 Kevin
Yes, thank you. I guess it was, you know, one thing kind of led to the other.
I don’t really know why I got interested in spirituality or consciousness, but one thing after another, like one author after another,
sparked my interest until I got to Dr.
Hawkins.
Dr. Hawkins work kind of recontextualized all the other works that I had read.
So back in the early 2000s, I was getting interested in Neil Donald Walsh and the Conversations with God books.
01:51 Kevin
And then after that, I was reading a lot of Eckhart Tolle. That was a preparation to start to understand what’s going on in consciousness, maybe a little bit in psychology, and then having that prep for Dr.Hawkins’work.
And then when I got into Dr. Hawkins’work, Maybe around 2008.
02:23 Kevin
I got super interested and could not put it down.
So yeah, just one after the other.
I read through maybe eight or nine of his books because he has written so many.
02:43 Sherold
After I came back from the hospital, I’d been in for six weeks for a car wreck and multiple surgeries. After my third surgery, I had a near-death experience.
What I experienced felt more real and vivid - almost like I was in a field of consciousness because I was anesthetized. My body and consciousness were supposed to be knocked out. However, I was more aware and conscious about what happened with a voice that talked to me, prepared me for how to come back from what I’d been through.
The voice said, you get to choose how you go through this experience.
What will you choose?
And I thought, I don’t want to be a victim.
I’ll choose the high road.
And I’ll use love and gratitude to heal.
That’s what I did.
This is free will 101. We always have a choice about our attitude and the meaning we make about what’s happened to us.
I got back from the hospital and I got out Hawkins book, Healing and Recovery, and read it all. I started to feel excited. That felt like the high road to me.
I read many other near-death authors - Raymond Moody, and you name it, to figure out what the heck happened during my surgery.
So I’ve been on a path for nine years too.
I found Kevin online and got into his David Hawkins’ study group.
So we want to share with you some of the concepts that we’re interested in.
Today we’re going to talk about Power versus Force.
And that was one of Hawkins’ most famous books.
Kevin, what would you say about his most important book, Power Versus Force?
And we can launch into that.
04:28 Kevin
Yeah, well, it’s groundbreaking because he discovered a new use for applied kinesiology. He didn’t discover applied kinesiology, but he discovered a new use for it and used it to help him develop a map of consciousness.
And the map of consciousness and pretty much the rest of his work really helps us to understand, clarify and re-contextualize basically all of spirituality, all of consciousness. All of religion, basically, can be contextualized into this very broad framework. I think a lot of people find it helpful. It’s very helpful. It’s very clarifying.
The Map of Consciousness helps us transcend duality, which you might not think from a work that has numbers on it and words and numbers. It helps us transcend duality by inviting your mind to move away from opposite orientation and dualistic orientation and move to more of a orientation based on relative levels of power.
So if your orientation around spirituality and consciousness has to do with relative levels of power (see Map of Consciousness below), then you can help your mind get unstuck and from being stuck in duality, being stuck in pairs of opposites.
It gives us a path forward. It’s one set of David’s tools. The way he did muscle testing was logarithmic.
06:27 Sherold
David resonates with us. It’s teaching us a lot more about consciousness.
So you want to say anything about that?
06:44 Kevin
Dr. Hawkins developed a scale, his version of a scale of consciousness through a lot of trial and error. They discovered they had to switch to a logarithm because
whatever numbers are used to describe levels of consciousness or levels of power for the human, it was far more wildly variable than they thought.
So in other words, the most powerful humans in terms of what level of power they are presenting on Earth within their body.
The level of power varies very widely from the weakest to the most powerful humans on earth so they had to come up with a logarithm because otherwise the numbers would be hard to describe in a chart. The ultimate power that’s available to human consciousness may not be as important for learning purposes as the relative power.
So looking at the relationship between different levels of consciousness, Dr.
Hawkins helps us look at the relationships between different levels of consciousness and see what is likely to be higher and what is likely to be lower.
That helps us orient towards what is the higher, what is the lower, what is the greater,
and what is the lesser without making explicit opposites, without making explicit dualities in the process.
08:38 Sherold
So one thousand would be Buddha consciousness.
Does it start at twenty with shame or zero at death?
08:52 Kevin
Yes, descriptively, twenty is shame. To my mind, the levels of consciousness start at either zero or one. I like to think of it as starting at one, but that depends on what context we’re talking. The human levels of consciousness go from one to one thousand.
09:17 Sherold
One thing I want to say about that is from my experience of having this near-death experience during my third abdominal surgery out of five I had in two weeks after being air evacuated out of Baja, Mexico to San Diego. I was there six weeks. I remember after the NDE sitting in a hospital bed thinking, I gotta write about this.
I felt so much energy - a different type of energy.
I mean, truly I was suffering, I was exhausted, all of that, but I was, something different had happened to me. I thought, what the heck is this? I wondered if anybody would notice there was a difference, something was different about me. And lo and behold, they did at the end of six weeks. I talk about this in my book I’m writing.
But the thing is that I felt so energized and up at a completely difficult time.
I didn’t know about levels. I didn’t really understand the map, but Hawkins has written about people who have near-death experiences can bounce up to this high level of bliss, and that’s where I was.
And then I went back down, of course, as I wouldn’t be staying at that level,
But I can’t help but want that back. My ego was offline at the same time.
So there was no negative chatter. Only peace. I wanted to figure this out.
That’s why I still care about it, because I think this whole concept of consciousness is broad and has a lot more implications for us than we understand.
Kevin, let’s talk about power versus force. What is power? What is force?
in terms of David Hawkins and Map of Consciousness. Why is that book so important?
11:52 Kevin
I think, again, it gets back to this idea of a lack of explicit opposites in the real world.
So the real world, the real universe doesn’t really have opposites explicitly that have
that are two sides of an equal coin. It’s more like when we talk about opposites, we’re talking about, like if you look at love and hate or love and fear,
if you look at them as equal opposites, that’s not gonna be helpful.
But if you look at them as one has a lower level of power and the other has a higher level of power that’s more helpful.
That’s a more helpful and useful understanding of the universe and consciousness and how it works.
12:42 Sherold
Love is up at 540. That’s where I was at the near-death experience.
12:48 Kevin
In the usual way, you might think that there are two polar opposites that are equal in power that are opposing each other. But this chart shows us that 100 is not the opposite of 540 or 500. Those two are not opposites in that way.
They might be descriptively opposites, but in terms of power, they are not opposites.
So one has more power, love, and fear has less power.
So when power vibrates in, I guess you could say, a distorted or a disharmonious way, when it’s not harmonic, when the energy of life makes discordant or not harmonic energies, we call it that it’s going below 200 on this scale. So it’s going below 200 and fear is below 200.
Sherold: And that energy is very dense, correct?
It plays out that way for the human.
Kevin:
And so Dr. Hawkins denoted that those energies that we call below 200 are described as force. So the energy, instead of having power, they have force, results in counterforce. So energies that are below 200, where force results in counterforce, are going to be by definition, by observation, they’re going to be out of accord.
It’s energy that’s out of accord with itself. It’s not harmonic with itself.
That’s why it doesn’t lead to life-serving phenomena in the world.
It does not lead to life-serving or life-abundant things in the world because of that discord.
Dr. Hawkins referred to it as force, energies below 200 as force.
Sherold
It’s a different type of pattern that energy takes on - it’s weaker. That’s what he found through the testing with the arm, the kinesiology test that he did. And people can still test it today and see by having someone say, something they love, like ice cream, and something they don’t like, let’s say brussels sprouts. And the arm will show where the power is. And basically the arm test shows truth.
15:49 Kevin
Yes, there are some qualifying factors about that. Both a tester and a test subject or just yourself, if you’re testing yourself, have to calibrate above 200.
So your overall level of consciousness needs to be above 200.
And the reason for asking the question needs to be above 200. The whole process, everything about the muscle testing process has to be integrous. Sometimes there’s even some, some things that could interfere like glasses or belts or bracelets or things like this that are around your body.
So there’s a lot of considerations when doing applied kinesiology and if all those considerations are met then yes the body tends to go strong with truth with statements even if they are not local or not local to your particular body you could be referring to something in the universe
No matter what they’re referring to in the universe, present or past, you can find out what the body’s response is. Is it weak or strong? The weak will be associated with the lower levels with force, and the responses that make your body go strong will be associated with the higher levels of power.
18:00 Sherold
I actually had six within that time. Then I had seven outpatient procedures.
And it was just like almost every other day something was going on, but I was just bouncing back. I do think it was because my energy was at a higher place.
If you’ve ever heard love heals, I totally believe that.
I lived my whole life pursuing the American Dream and I was pushing, I was driving and forcing my body even though I was tired. Underneath everything, I wanted to feel safe and secure. The more money I make, the more safe and secure I’ll feel.
That’s an illusion. After the accident, I changed and realized that nothing outside myself could give me security. It was an inside job.
That’s why I’m an advocate for a strong inner life.
I can make all the money in the world and not feel safe and secure.
If everything crashes, I’m not going to put my whole life on external things.
I think that I lived a path of forcing, you know, when you’re on a diet, you’re forcing.
When you’re all of these different things. I think that feels like force and power feels like a release.
20:24 Kevin
I think these creative flow moments denote a lack of resistance. So what pops up to my mind is there’s a lack of resistance going on. You’re doing something you enjoy, something you love. You’re allowing the creativity to flow. So you’re in a flow state.
And it’s noted by a lack of resistance. Now, we can’t really say one thing causes the other, like we can’t say that creativity caused there to be no resistance.
But those things sort of go together. The process of letting go or releasing allows you to expand and let go of the blocks and resistance. The ego’s normal process is resistance and to hold on or repel as hard as it can. It lives in opposites also.
The ego tries to make things either one thing or the other. So letting go and releasing is a way to soften that, soften the ego, the egoic tendencies and allow more energy and creativity and flow states to come through.
21:33 Sherold
That’s true. Dr. Hawkins also says these lower states are not life supporting below 200.
And above 200 is life giving. Which is where you find courage that’s the dividing line of power versus force is that 200. We’re living in a time where we can see force being exerted on us from the outside in our power structures,
22:07 Kevin
Basically, it’s a Gandhi versus British Empire was one Hawkins talked about.
Gandhi had almost no force and enormous power and power won.
No matter what Gandhi did, I guess you could say Gandhi’s action steps were a little bit secondary to the power that was going on. So there was a power and this is something that Dr. Hawkins tested. So what we learned from Dr. Hawkins’ work is Gandhi’s overall level of energy was quite high. The main critical factor in that struggle of Gandhi versus the British Empire was the power that was with him. And then the actions that Gandhi took while effective weren’t the primary thing.
The primary thing was the power and a little bit secondary to that.
22:59 Sherold
And you could say that was Jesus had that.
You know, we can think of other examples that are in that upper category.
I would say love and above.
23:08 Kevin
Yes. And when you’re talking about Jesus or the Buddha, you’re talking about very high levels of power. You’re talking about the power that can move all of humanity.
According to Dr. Hawkins’research, both Jesus and the Buddha moved the needle on the overall level of consciousness. Nonviolently moved it.
Dr. Hawkins’book is called Letting Go, The Pathway to Surrender.
I think that’s what goes exactly to what you were talking about is letting go of resistance. Because when you surrender, you’re not giving up.
That’s not waving the white flag.
It’s allowing and not resisting what is happening to you.
24:07 Sherold
My husband and I went back to Sharp Memorial a year later and saw my trauma doctor, Dr. Kill is his name (his real name). He said, everybody when they get into a hospital they want out as fast as possible. But you were in acceptance. In fact, you had to reel your husband back in several times.
I gave it up to God and I was in acceptance..
My husband, a retired ER doctor was in PTSD, freaking out because he knew the worst case scenarios and they kept happening.
I was over here pretty relaxed.
So that’s what keeps me working to understand consciousness.
And it gives me a path to live my life. I call it the high road.
25:28 Kevin
Yeah, it sounds to me like the human’s tragedy was God’s opportunity with you.
And then it ended up being your opportunity also because it’s really your own soul, your own consciousness.
25:45 Sherold
Energy’s freed up. We were whale watching just before we were in a wreck.
When I started writing, I did research on Jonah and the whale. There’s a concept called Metanoia. When God saves you, you’re responsible to give back.
And so what I’m doing here with you is my way of serving because I was saved.
My ego is not invested in who likes this and who doesn’t.
It’s my gift because I’m alive. I figured if it worked for me, it might work for you.
I know that it does work for you.
So can you talk about how an average person could look at this map from a real basic standpoint. Maybe a first step is looking at it.
Trying to figure out where they are and how to move up, get out of negative force into power.
26:53 Kevin
Yes, for a beginner, I would suggest reading any of the beginning of books that Dr.
Hawkins wrote - Letting Go or Power versus Force. Or you could just go right to the chart. Look at it and gently study it. Be gentle with yourself while you study it.
So notice that the ego, your own ego may come up and it may have something to say about it. I may even get scared by this. Just relax with your ego. Say it’s okay for now.
You’re just exploring consciousness. You’re exploring information about consciousness.
Look at that scale. Study it a little bit. See if anything pops out at you.
If anything sends a red flag or a white flag or, you know, just if anything pops out.
And then start looking at relationships, look at relationships among these different levels and these different numbers and how they compare.
And like we mentioned earlier, see how fear at 100 is not. The opposite of courage at 200 or love at 500 or joy at 540. So you see how these things are not opposites and they are different descriptions of different patterns of power. Notice and relax.
The ego is doing what it’s programmed to do, what it’s supposed to do, which is it’s trying to survive. It can’t survive with a great deal of truth going on. It tries to protect your past belief systems. It tries to protect your past and your past belief systems.
So notice that may go on and see if you can bring some heart into it. See if you can bring some stillness and peace into this and just look at it and just allow yourself to relax.
29:41 Sherold
And let’s go one step further.
You said the ego doesn’t like truth because I would say the higher self,
which is that part of us that’s connected to the conscious, well, to the divine in this field of consciousness that’s what I experienced in my near death.
So I did not experience the ego. It seemed like that was turned off.
So the ego doesn’t like truth.
30:10 Kevin
Ultimately, what Dr. Hawkins or some other spiritual work may call the ego, it’s a little bit different definition than the psychological ego. But what is called the ego and spiritual work refers to something that has at its core an illusion. So the ego naturally recoils from truth. It could inadvertently start to learn about truth and so forth before it catches on that it’s going to bring about its own undoing, you know, so the ego doesn’t always have an excellent guard against truth, but generally speaking,
it recoils when it tends to recoil from truth. And the more you believe it, the stronger it gets. The egoic mind engages in meaning-making.
And it often doesn’t look at what purpose the meaning-making is serving.
And if you kind of dive deeper, you’re willing to look at the ego in a deep way,
you see that the ego is sort of serving its own purposes, sort of serving, trying to be a separate, defensible... Being that is not united with the universe or united or sharing life with anyone else. So it’s quite a separate, isolated, trying to make a separate, separated, isolated life. And it uses meaning, trying to make meaning out of things.
It serves that purpose, separated, isolated.
You have to find out, is that your truth?
And that’s how you question it.
Is it really your truth?
32:55 Sherold
Kevin is there anything else you want to share about Hawkins consciousness or power versus force before we sign off on this conversation today?
33:05 Kevin
Yes, if you’re interested in this work, there’s a lot you can learn.
There’s many books that Dr. Hawkins wrote. So if any of you are beginners,
I would point you to either this book Letting Go: The Pathway to Surrender and you can just kind of sense I would also follow your interests.
Healing and Recovery was accessible.
