I am so thoroughly enjoying David Hawkins’ body of work. ‘Power Vs. Force’ was incredible, as was ‘Eye of the I’ (which I read years ago and am now re-reading), and ‘Truth Vs. Falsehood’ puts Hawkins’ work into an illuminating context.

Here’s an excerpt from the preface:
“The bewilderment of current human society is evidenced by the lack of clarity or comprehension of the fundamental issues, which require identification and elucidation as well as validation of their credibility and authenticity. The primary defect now is, as it always has been, that the design of the human mind renders it intrinsically incapable of being able to tell truth from falsehood. This single, most crucial of all inherited defects lies at the root of all human distress and calamity.

Operationally, the mind is dualistic and thus sets up separatist mentations based on arbitrary, hypothetical positionalities that have no intrinsic reality. Thus, by design, the mind has the basic defect, as pointed out by Descartes, that it cannot differentiate res cogitans (also cognitans) from res externa (i.e., mentalizations about the seeming appearance of the world versus the world as it actually is). The mind thus confuses its own projections and mistakenly assumes that they have an external, independent existence, whereas, in reality, no such condition exists.

The design of the human mind is also comparable to that of a computer in which the brain is the hardware that is capable of playing any software programs fed into it. The hardware is, by design, incapable of protecting itself from false information, and, therefore, the mind will believe any software program with which society has programmed it, for it is innocently without any safeguard or protection. The same declaration has been made by all the greatest spiritual leaders of history who unanimously state that the basic defect of humanity is its relatively invincible ignorance, the recovery from which is operationally impossible without the help of a spiritual teacher.

The human mind, therefore, by virtue of its innate structure, is naive, blind to its limitations, and innocently gullible. Everyone is the victim of the ignorance and limitation of the human ego. Not only is the majority of the content of the average mind fallacious, but it is also programmed to attack itself with self-hatred, depression, guilt, low self-esteem, envy, greed, conflict, and endless misery. These defects are then projected onto the world as hate, war, violence, and genocide. The ego defends its own limitations with prideful denial, thus becoming its own victim.

That the human mind, without help, is unable to tell truth from falsehood due to its own innate structure and design is so staggering a discovery that it is roughly comparable to the discovery by Copernicus that caused cultural shock in the sixteenth century. Because this single face alone is confrontational to the average mind, it will probably not be welcomed or warmly greeted by those who profit from sophistry and its illusions.

In today’s world, it is not just the seeker of spiritual truth who is focused as never before on discovering how to tell truth from falsehood. The general public is in a semi-paralysis state due to the quandary of doubt and futility of hoping for any kind of dependable authenticity in the current public discourse. Public interest is riveted on testimony before investigative panels. Mobs in Madrid chant, “We want the truth.” Juries strain to sift through evidence, and protest groups vociferously challenge every aspect of society.

At this time, there is no common agreement on even the most basic, simple, and obvious questions: What to Do? What to do when an avowed enemy slaughters thousands of innocent civilians? Should we “lock up” criminals or just see them as victims of society and let them run the streets as compulsive predators? Is it simple, common-sense police work to scrutinize obvious terrorist-group suspects, or is that to be forbidden by civil rights? It is not even clear who is the perpetrator and who is the victim. Who or what is to blame?