Power vs. Force
The whole book turns on one distinction. Force is movement — it goes from here to there against opposition, and so automatically creates counter-force. Power is a standing field, like gravity: it moves everything within it, yet does not itself move. "Man thinks he lives by virtue of the forces he can control, but in fact, he is governed by power from unrevealed sources." Force is seductive and glamorous; power is quiet and unglamorous. And whenever the two meet, "force is eventually defeated."
The clinical test is beautifully simple. Hold forgiveness in mind and your arm tests strong; hold revenge and it goes weak. "For our purposes, it is really only necessary to recognize that power is that which makes you go strong, while force makes you go weak." And so, "in the long run, the weak cannot prevail against the strong. That which is weak falls of its own accord."
"Victory over others brings us satisfaction, but victory over ourselves brings us joy."
Kinesiology & Calibration
The instrument behind the whole study is the body itself. Building on Goodheart's applied kinesiology and Diamond's behavioral kinesiology, Hawkins found that an indicator muscle goes strong in the presence of what is true and life-supporting, and weak in the presence of what is false or life-consuming — independently of the subject's knowledge or opinion. The response is a simple binary, like a nerve firing: yes / not-yes.
A logarithm of consciousness, from 1 to 1,000
Correlating the muscle response with a numeric scale yields "an arbitrary logarithmic scale of whole numbers" measuring "the relative power of levels of consciousness." The numbers are the log (base 10) of the power of the field — so 300 is not twice 150; it is 10300. "An increase of even a few points represents a major advance in power." The range 1–600 covers "the vast majority of human experience"; 600–1,000 is "the realm of enlightenment, sages, and the highest spiritual states."
The mind as a terminal to a universal database
Why does a naïve body "know" what the conscious mind does not? Because "the individual human mind is like a computer terminal connected to a giant database" — human consciousness itself, "with its roots in the common consciousness of all mankind" (Jung's collective unconscious, the spiritus mundi). "Everyone, by virtue of their birth, has access to genius." The database "transcends time, space, and all limitations of individual consciousness" — which is why "unlimited information about any subject, past or present, is universally available."
"Facts are accumulated by effort, but truth reveals itself effortlessly."
The Map of Consciousness
The book's central artifact: a calibrated ladder of the levels of human consciousness, each an "attractor energy field" that organizes emotion, worldview, and behavior. Every level comes with its own view of God, view of life, dominant emotion, and inner process. The pivot of the entire Map is Courage at 200 — "the fulcrum that divides the general areas of force (or falsehood) from power (or truth)."
| Level | Cal. | View of God | View of Life | Emotion | Process |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enlightenment | 700–1000 | Self | Is | Ineffable | Pure Consciousness |
| Peace | 600 | All-Being | Perfect | Bliss | Illumination |
| Joy | 540 | One | Complete | Serenity | Transfiguration |
| Love | 500 | Loving | Benign | Reverence | Revelation |
| Reason | 400 | Wise | Meaningful | Understanding | Abstraction |
| Acceptance | 350 | Merciful | Harmonious | Forgiveness | Transcendence |
| Willingness | 310 | Inspiring | Hopeful | Optimism | Intention |
| Neutrality | 250 | Enabling | Satisfactory | Trust | Release |
| Courage | 200 | Permitting | Feasible | Affirmation | Empowerment |
| Pride | 175 | Indifferent | Demanding | Scorn | Inflation |
| Anger | 150 | Vengeful | Antagonistic | Hate | Aggression |
| Desire | 125 | Denying | Disappointing | Craving | Enslavement |
| Fear | 100 | Punitive | Frightening | Anxiety | Withdrawal |
| Grief | 75 | Disdainful | Tragic | Regret | Despondency |
| Apathy | 50 | Condemning | Hopeless | Despair | Abdication |
| Guilt | 30 | Vindictive | Evil | Blame | Destruction |
| Shame | 20 | Despising | Miserable | Humiliation | Elimination |
The Fields of Force
Below 200 lie the eight levels that "make a person go weak" — the domain of force, of survival and self-interest. These are "destructive of life in both the individual and society." Yet they are neither good nor evil: each is a rung, and rising even one step — from Grief to Anger, from Apathy to Desire — is genuine progress. "Moralistic judgments are merely a function of the viewpoint from which they emanate."
Pride
"Feels good only in contrast to the lower levels." Defensive and vulnerable because it depends on external conditions — "Pride goeth before a fall." Its downside is arrogance and denial, which "block growth." Enough energy to run the Marine Corps; the level "aspired to by the majority" — yet still below the line.
Anger
Springs from frustrated Desire. Volatile and dangerous — "resentment and revenge," the "injustice collector." Yet it can be "a fulcrum by which the oppressed are eventually catapulted to freedom": anger over injustice has built great movements.
Desire
The engine of the economy — and of addiction, "a craving more important than life itself." Insatiable: "satisfaction of one desire is merely replaced by unsatisfied desire for something else." But wanting takes energy, so Desire can be "a springboard to higher levels."
Fear
"Fear runs much of the world." The world "looks hazardous, full of traps and threats." The favored tool of oppressive regimes and manipulative marketers. Contagious, obsessive, self-feeding — and it "limits growth of the personality."
Grief
"The cemetery of life" — sadness, loss, chronic mourning. One "sees sadness everywhere." Yet it holds more energy than Apathy: "when a traumatized, apathetic patient begins to cry, we know they are getting better."
Apathy
Poverty, helplessness, hopelessness — "the level of the homeless and the derelicts of society." Without external energy from caregivers, "death through passive suicide can result." "The streets of Calcutta, where only the saintly… dare to tread."
Guilt
"So commonly used to manipulate and punish." Remorse, self-recrimination, victimhood; a preoccupation with "sin." "Guilt provokes rage, and killing frequently is its expression" — capital punishment "gratifies a Guilt-ridden populace."
Shame
"Perilously proximate to death" — the pain of "losing face," of feeling like a "nonperson." Destructive to health, it can turn to cruelty: "shamed children are cruel to animals and cruel to each other." Some compensate through rigid perfectionism and moral extremism.
The Fields of Power
At 200, "power really first appears." Above the line, everyone tests strong. Here the world turns from hopeless, frightening, and frustrating to "exciting, challenging, and stimulating." People "put back into the world as much energy as they take." From Courage the path rises through trust, willingness, and acceptance to the great watershed of Love at 500 — and beyond, into the rarefied fields of Joy, Peace, and Enlightenment.
Courage The threshold
"The critical level that distinguishes the positive and negative influences of life." The willingness to try, to learn, to face fears and grow despite them. "This is where productivity begins." Obstacles that defeat those below 200 "act as stimulants" here.
Neutrality
Release from rigid positionality. "If I don't get this job, then I'll get another." Flexible, unattached to outcomes, "safe to be around." "Because Neutral people value freedom, they are hard to control."
Willingness
"The gateway to the higher levels." Work is done well; "social and economic success seem to follow automatically." Having let go of Pride, "they are willing to look at their own defects and learn from others" — excellent, teachable students.
Acceptance
"A major transformation… one is oneself the source and creator of the experience of one's life." Taking back one's power from "out there." Not passivity — engagement "on life's own terms." Enough power "to solve the majority of man's social problems."
Reason
Science, medicine, intellect — "Nobel Prize winners, great statesmen." Einstein and Freud calibrate here (499). But it "disregards context," mistakes symbols for reality, and "paradoxically, is the major block to reaching higher levels." Only ~4% transcend it.
Love the great leap
Not the media's love, but a Love "unconditional, unchanging, and permanent" — "a state of being," emanating from the heart, not the mind. "Reason deals only with particulars, whereas Love deals with wholes." Only 4% of humanity ever reaches it.
Joy
Unconditional Love matured into "an inner Joy… a constant accompaniment to all activities." The domain of saints and healers; "the hallmark of this state is compassion." A prolonged loving gaze "induces a state of love and peace." Only 0.4% reach 540.
Peace
Transcendence, self-realization, God-consciousness — "extremely rare." "The distinction between subject and object disappears." The mind falls into "infinite silence"; "the observer dissolves into the landscape." Reached by "one in many millions."
–1000Enlight.
Enlightenment
The Great Ones of history who "set in place attractor energy fields that influence all of mankind." No separate self — "identification of Self with Consciousness and Divinity." Nonduality, complete Oneness. Calibrating to 1,000: the Avatars — "Lord Krishna, Lord Buddha, and Lord Jesus Christ."
"The key to Joy is unconditional kindness to all of life, including one's own, which we refer to as compassion."
Attractors & the Hidden Order
Beneath the visible world runs an invisible one. Drawing on chaos theory and nonlinear dynamics, Hawkins argues that behind apparently random data lie attractor patterns — hidden fields of coherence (Lorenz's Butterfly is the famous example). The levels of consciousness are such attractor fields. And causality does not run in a simple line: the observable sequence emerges from an unobservable source.
Some patterns are strong, some weak
"Some patterns are very powerful and others are much weaker. There is a critical point that differentiates the two" — exactly at 200. "Powerful attractor patterns make us go strong, and weak patterns make us go weak." A high-energy attractor "does not have to move anywhere. It is a standing energy field that is everywhere present" — akin to Sheldrake's morphogenetic fields.
Sensitive dependence on initial conditions
"A slight variation over a course of time can have the effect of producing a profound change — much as a ship whose bearing is one degree off compass will eventually find itself hundreds of miles off course." This is "an essential mechanism of all evolution" — and why "the difference in power level between 361.0 and 361.1 is very significant."
Distribution & Counterbalance
Map the whole human race onto the scale and it forms a pagoda: 85% of humanity calibrates below 200. Only 8% reach the 400s, only 4% reach 500 and over, and 600+ is "reached by only one in many millions." Yet the average holds at ~204 — because power is logarithmic, and "the power of the relatively few individuals near the top counterbalances the energy of the masses toward the bottom."
How the few uphold the many
Because the scale is logarithmic, a single advanced soul offsets vast negativity. "A single Avatar at a consciousness level of 1,000 can and does totally counterbalance the collective negativity of all of mankind." Were it not for these counterweights, "mankind would self-destruct out of the sheer mass of its unopposed negativity."
| One individual at level… | counterbalances |
|---|---|
| 700 | 70 million individuals below 200 |
| 600 | 10 million individuals below 200 |
| 500 | 750,000 individuals below 200 |
| 400 | 400,000 individuals below 200 |
| 300 | 90,000 individuals below 200 |
| 12 individuals at 700 | equal one Avatar at 1,000 |
Power at Work
The distinction is not abstract. Across politics, commerce, and sport, the same law holds: alignment with high-energy attractors produces "success, happiness, and health"; alignment with weak ones produces "failure, suffering, and eventual sickness." History is the demonstration.
Gandhi vs. the Empire
Mahatma Gandhi 760 — "a ninety-pound so-called colored" — brought the British Empire 175 "to its knees" by standing on a principle that calibrates at 700: the intrinsic dignity and freedom of man. "Whenever force meets power, force is eventually defeated." So too Churchill 510, who "unified the will of his people," against Hitler's force. The distinction between a statesman and a politician: "Statesmen sacrifice themselves to serve others; politicians sacrifice others to serve themselves."
A sampling of Hawkins' calibrated attitude pairs (Chapter 9). "Simply reading over this list, you are no longer the same person you were before."
Align with the ABC, don't imitate the A→B→C
Sam Walton built Walmart by aligning with Service — a high attractor. Competitors "imitated some of Walmart's features" and failed, "because they merely imitated the A→B→C instead of aligning with the ABC." Successful companies, per In Search of Excellence, are those with "heart." The winning move is always win-win: "support the solution instead of attacking the supposed causes." Attack itself calibrates at 150.
"Stop trying to use force"
At the edge of ability, great athletes "transcend the personal self." Ask a champion to hold in mind defeating his opponent and he tests weak; ask him to hold the honor of his sport or love of excellence and he goes powerfully strong. Pride 175 is "the notorious Achilles' heel." The scale of consciousness is also "a scale of ego," with 200 the point "at which selfishness begins to turn to selflessness."
Spirit, Genius & Success
"Spirit equates with life; the energy of life itself can be termed spirit." High-energy attractor patterns are anabolic — sustaining life; their opposites are catabolic — leading to death. "True power equals life equals spirit, whereas force equals weakness equals death." That single principle threads through recovery, art, genius, and the meaning of real success.
The power of surrender — Alcoholics Anonymous
AA is Hawkins' great case study of power. Its principles — "honesty, responsibility, humility, service" — cured what medicine could not. The lineage is instructive: Rowland H. → Carl Jung (who "humbly told him that neither his science nor his art could help him further," but that surrender to a spiritual power sometimes did) → the Oxford Groups → Ebby → Bill W., an atheist whose pride recoiled from surrender until, in "absolute, black despair," he "gave up completely" and had "the profound experience of an infinite Presence and Light." From that one inner event, millions have recovered. Members "unanimously agree that admitting the limitations of their individual egos allowed them to experience a true power."
A style of consciousness, not a possession
"Genius is by definition a style of consciousness characterized by the ability to access high-energy attractor patterns." It is not IQ; "the values that one lives by are more definitive of genius than IQ." It works by "formulating a question, and waiting… then, suddenly, the answer appears in a flash." Its hallmark is humility — "the genius has always attributed his insights to some higher influence." And "genius is universal… a potential that resides within everyone." Its formula: "Do what you like to do best, and do it to the very best of your ability."
Beauty is order made visible
"There is no art without love." Where there was "a block of meaningless marble, Michelangelo saw David" — the artist, "like the theoretical physicist, finds order in apparent chaos." A handcrafted original tests strong; a mechanical reproduction tests weak, "regardless of pictorial content," because "dedicated artists put love into their work." The great cathedrals calibrate highest of all architecture. "Grace is an aspect of unconditional love."
The small self and the big Self
"There is success, and then there is Success." Celebrity "erodes health and relationships"; the tabloid roll-call of ruined stars is the evidence. The difference is not the wealth but "how it is integrated into our personalities" — "whether we are proud or humble; whether we are egotistic or grateful." The small self aligns with weak attractors; the big Self with high power fields. The ladder of success has three rungs: what you have → what you do → what you have become. "True success originates from within, independent of external circumstances."
"It is not what they have, nor what they do, but what they have become that inspires all of mankind."
Health & the Disease Process
"Attractors create context" — and context becomes physiology. High-power patterns "release brain endorphins and have a tonic effect on all of the organs"; weak ones "release adrenaline, which suppresses immune response." It is "not life's events, but one's reaction to them" that generates stress. Hold a negative thought and a specific muscle goes weak; replace it with a positive one and the same muscle goes strong. "The connection between mind and body is immediate."
The change that heals
"In every studied case of recovery from hopeless and untreatable diseases, there has been a major shift in consciousness." The first documented case — Marty M., transformed "from an angry, self-pitying, intolerant, and egocentric posture to a kind and gentle one" — led psychiatrist Harry Tiebout to title his paper "The Power of Surrender." Recovery depends on "willingness to explore new ways of looking at one's self and life."
The medicine of a larger context
"Like love, laughter heals because it arises through viewing a small context from a larger and more inclusive one." Totalitarian systems are humorless because "laughter… is a threat to their rule." And peace cannot be forced: "Peace is the natural state of affairs when that which prevents it is removed." A "self-justified positionality is the real enemy of peace."
Consciousness & Reality
Perception does not report reality — it creates the world we experience. "Each point of view reflects a position defined by the viewer's unique level of consciousness." The classic illustration: an old, tattered man leaning against an elegant building. He does not change — but what each observer sees is decided entirely by their own level.
| Level | The same man on the corner appears as… |
|---|---|
| Shame · 20 | "dirty, disgusting, and disgraceful" |
| Guilt · 30 | blamed for his condition — "a lazy welfare cheat" |
| Apathy · 50 | desperate — "evidence that society cannot do anything about homelessness" |
| Grief · 75 | "tragic, friendless, and forlorn" |
| Fear · 100 | "threatening, a social menace" — call the police |
| Desire · 125 | "a frustrating problem — why does somebody not do something?" |
| Anger · 150 | possibly violent — or an outrage that such conditions exist |
| Pride · 175 | "an embarrassment," lacking the self-respect to better himself |
| Courage · 200 | "all he needs is a job and a place to live" — is there a shelter nearby? |
| Neutrality · 250 | "okay, maybe even interesting. Live and let live" |
| Willingness · 310 | someone to cheer up — volunteer at the local mission |
| Acceptance · 350 | "intriguing. He probably has an interesting story to tell" |
| Reason · 400 | "a symptom of the current economic and social malaise" — a study subject |
| Love · 500 + | "friendly and even lovable" — perhaps one who "had transcended social limits and gone free" |
| Peace · 600 | "revealed as our own inner self in its temporary expression" |
Synchronicity, not cause
"Causality occurs as simultaneity rather than as sequence" — Jung's synchronicity. Events are not linked by a cosmic wind but "encompassed by an attractor field of such magnitude that it includes both." The connection "occurs only in the observer's consciousness." "There is actually nothing out there, other than consciousness itself" — the entire manifest universe is "its own simultaneous expression and experience of itself."
The ocean and the fish
"Consciousness itself is not determined by content; thoughts flowing through consciousness are like fish swimming in the ocean. The ocean's existence is independent of the fish." Identify with the content and the self feels limited; "to identify with consciousness itself is to know that one's actual self is unlimited" — the state called enlightened. Even "poorness" is not financial but "a level of consciousness," calibrating around 60.
The Spiritual Ascent
To rise is to escape "the familiar gravity of lower attractor fields." The opening move, in every tradition, is willingness — "the trigger that activates a new attractor field." Progress comes largely by entrainment: aligning with a higher field (a teacher, a practice, a group) until it lifts you. "Holding in mind the image of an advanced spiritual teacher made every subject go strong, irrespective of their personal beliefs."
Reason as the ceiling at 499
"The intellectual brilliance of the 400 level, so dazzling and enviable to those in the 300s, quickly palls for those who have transcended it." Reason "is the mirror of the mind's vanity" — and "the most common, and frequently the lengthiest, of spiritual struggles" is to break past it. "It is striking how many of history's great names calibrate at 499 — Descartes, Newton, Einstein, and dozens more." The chakra system, notably, "correlates almost exactly with the Map": crown at 600, third eye 525, heart 505, throat 350, solar plexus 275, root 200.
How great teachings decline over time
Every great teaching begins near 1,000 and erodes as it passes through "the less enlightened." "The more dualistic the creed, the greater seems to be its vulnerability to misinterpretation" — the "Christian Soldier of the spirit becomes… a self-justified battlefield killer." Fundamentalist sects "always calibrate lowest, often operating at the same level of consciousness as criminality." Any movement calibrating below 200 is, functionally, a "cult."
| Tradition | As originally taught | Later practice |
|---|---|---|
| Christianity (Jesus) | 1000 | ~498 by the Crusades (Nicaea, 325 AD, a turning point) |
| Buddhism (Buddha) | 1000 | ~900 — "deteriorated less than any other religion" |
| Hinduism (Krishna) | 1000 | ~850 — "deteriorated very slowly" |
| Judaism (Abraham 985) | 985 | Moses ~770; modern ~499 |
| Islam (Koran 700) | 700 | militant fundamentalism 90–130 |
Calibrations vary by translation and era; the Lamsa New Testament calibrates at 750, the King James at 500. The most "yin" (inward) traditions stayed purest; the most "yang" (worldly) degraded most.
Living the Map
What does all this ask of us? Something disarmingly simple. "Wisdom can ultimately be reduced to the simple process of avoiding that which makes you go weak — nothing else is really required." Mere absorption of the book's material "has been shown to raise one's level of consciousness by an average of 35 points" — against a lifetime average gain of five.
The "high" is your own consciousness
Drugs and alcohol calibrate at only 100 — "same as the level of vegetables." They do not create the high; "the actual effect of drugs is merely to suppress the lower energy fields," so the user "experiences exclusively only the higher ones." "It is as though a filter screened out all the lower tones… so that all that could be heard were the high notes. The suppression of the low notes does not create the high ones; it merely reveals their presence." What the addict seeks "is in fact the experience field of their own consciousness" — but "artificially acquired without having earned it creates a debt."
Calibrate the question, not just the answer
The tool applies everywhere — a used car, a business, a witness, a would-be teacher. But "precision in wording is of paramount importance," and "it is always informative to calibrate not the answer, but the question," since "our questions are merely the reflections of our own motives." A profound exercise: hold your books, one by one, over your solar plexus and test — "your books will end up in two piles, the true and the false." Every avenue leads to the same final question: "Who am I?"
The ego is an "it," not an "I"
"The ubiquitous human ego is actually not an 'I' at all; it is merely an 'it.'" Seeing through this "reveals an endless Cosmic Joke." The ego "fights to preserve the illusion of being a separate, individual I" — "the very wellspring of all suffering." Beyond it, "what Is stands forth as self-evident and dazzling in its infinite Absoluteness."
Love outweighs fear, by orders of magnitude
"Even from a merely scientific viewpoint, salvation is indeed possible; in truth, it is guaranteed by the simple fact that the energy of a loving thought is enormously more powerful than that of a negative one." So "the traditional solutions of love and prayer have a sound scientific basis; man has within his own essence the power of his own salvation."
"We change the world not by what we say or do, but as a consequence of what we have become."
How to Calibrate
The method reduces to a "yes / not-yes" muscle response to a statement held in mind. It is "not a local response to the body at all, but a general response of consciousness itself." Two conditions are absolute: the tester, the subject, and the intention must all calibrate over 200, and the inquiry must serve truth rather than opinion. "At calibration 200, there is still a 30% chance of error" — accuracy rises with the consciousness of the test team.
Testing a statement
- Frame it as a statement, never a question. Not "Is this horse healthy?" but "This horse is healthy" — answerable yes or no.
- Ask permission first. State: "I have permission to ask about what I am holding in mind" (Yes/No). A "no" means leave it alone.
- Contextualize for the highest good. Prefix with: "In the name of the highest good, ______ calibrates as true. Over 100. Over 200…" — this "transcends self-serving personal interest and increases accuracy."
- Test. The subject holds the statement in mind, eyes closed, arm out. The tester says "Resist" and presses lightly on the wrist with two fingers. Strong = yes / over threshold; weak = not-yes.
- Home in on a number. "Over 200… over 300…" until a weak response, then refine: "225… 230…" A quiet setting, no music, no metal or jewelry on the testing arm.
Method 1
Two people
The research standard. One extends an arm and resists; the other presses on the wrist with two fingers after saying "Resist." Tester and subject can trade places for the same result.
Method 2
The O-ring
Done alone. Thumb and middle finger held tightly in an "O"; the hooked forefinger of the other hand tries to pull them apart. "A noticeable difference in strength between a yes and a no."
Method 3
Lifting
The simplest. Hold a true statement in mind and lift a heavy object (a dictionary, bricks); then hold something false and lift again. "Note the ease of lifting when truth is held" versus falsehood.
Complete Reference
The book practiced what it preached: every chapter, paragraph, and sentence was itself calibrated by the method. The whole work calibrates at 850 — "unusually high for this time in our culture." Below, the book's own map of itself, chapter by chapter, alongside a one-line index of every level.
| Ch. | Chapter · Part One: Tools | Cal. |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Critical Advances in Knowledge | 780 |
| 2 | History and Methodology | 830 |
| 3 | Test Results and Interpretation | 750 |
| 4 | Levels of Human Consciousness | 770 |
| 5 | Social Distribution of Consciousness Levels | 740 |
| 6 | New Horizons in Research | 710 |
| 7 | Everyday Critical Point Analysis | 740 |
| 8 | The Source of Power | 820 |
| Ch. | Part Two: Work | Cal. |
| 9 | Power Patterns in Human Attitudes | 800 |
| 10 | Power in Politics | 780 |
| 11 | Power in the Marketplace | 770 |
| 12 | Power and Sports | 800 |
| 13 | Social Power and the Human Spirit | 870 |
| 14 | Power in the Arts | 870 |
| 15 | Genius and the Power of Creativity | 730 |
| 16 | Surviving Success | 760 |
| 17 | Physical Health and Power | 770 |
| 18 | Wellness and the Disease Process | 770 |
| Ch. | Part Three: Meaning | Cal. |
| 19 | The Database of Consciousness | 830 |
| 20 | The Evolution of Consciousness | 890 |
| 21 | The Study of Pure Consciousness | 870 |
| 22 | Spiritual Struggle | 860 |
| 23 | The Search for Truth | 880 |
| 24 | Resolution | 860 |
| Overall Calibration of the Book | 850 |
The seventeen levels, at a glance
Below the line — Force: Shame 20 · Guilt 30 · Apathy 50 · Grief 75 · Fear 100 · Desire 125 · Anger 150 · Pride 175
The threshold: Courage 200
Above the line — Power: Neutrality 250 · Willingness 310 · Acceptance 350 · Reason 400 · Love 500 · Joy 540 · Peace 600 · Enlightenment 700–1000
"Wisdom can ultimately be reduced to the simple process of avoiding that which makes you go weak — nothing else is really required."