From Lieh-Tzu, A Taoist Guide to Practical Living, (Eva Wong, Shambhala Publications Inc, 1995)
A man from the eastern provinces was traveling along a seldom-used road when he fainted. A robber happened to be passing by and noticed the man fallen by the wayside. Seeing that the traveler was still alive, the robber started to revive the man by offering him food and water. After three mouthfuls, the man opened his eyes. Seeing a gruff and fierce-looking man bent over him, he said, ‘who are you?’
The robber said, ‘I am Ch’iu of the region of Hu-fu.’
Startled, the traveler said, ‘You’re not that infamous robber who’s wanted everywhere are you?’
‘I am he.’
‘Then why did you give me food? Did you help me because you associate me with your kind? I am a man of virtue and will not eat anything that comes from a criminal.’
The traveler then tried to throw up the food the robber had given him. Eventually he choked on his vomit and died.
Even if Ch’iu was a criminal, his intent and action in this situation was not criminal. Although he might have committed unforgivable crimes, there was nothing criminal about the food and water. Self-righteous people often follow a principle blindly without understanding it and in doing so confuse what is name and what is reality.
Moving On Up a Little Higher 
“Self-righteous people often follow a principle blindly without understanding it and in doing so confuse what is name and what is reality.”
As Ron said it, Taoism is indeed a very sophisticated and subtle piece of knowledge…
btw, Marty, I read your book in one shot. Could not stop reading it. Loved it. Thanks 🙂
You’re welcome Li Po.
Marty, I *LOVE* this story. There are people from many factions in the great Scientology war who have not learned that the same person may do both good and evil without evil at heart.
Michael A. Hobson
Independent Scientologist
I have experienced the self righteousness of other communities but never with the savagery of the “Church of scientology” with its total certainty . Yet I still know that good people will prevail. And by good , I do not mean sinless , just good .
Bravo!! for posting this wonderful story Marty. One of the most, if not the most important concept I have gotten from Scientology is that Differentiation is the road to Sanity, Peace – all the good things.
Indeed they do.
A great example of refusing to see beyond preconcieved ideas and simply observe identities, similarities and differences. Works for both sides of the fence with what we call the C of $ and indies alike.
Beautiful. I believe it is easier to see what’s wrong with a person than it is to see the good. But, looking for the good is so much more rewarding.
Thanks for a good article Marty. LRH never intended our church members to become so one sided and black and white on things. That came afterwards, in the Miscavage years. LRH wrote that man is basically good. And he is, even when he does bad things, the being is basically good and does both good and bad. And to quote the Bible, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”
The reader reading this thinks that he now learned the lession and most importantly thinks of himself that he is not like the person described in the lession as „choked on his vomit and died“. Maybe he can recall a time he had been that person and now he is not like this. Thus the reader is a step closer to being a holy person.
If we look at this rule through a mirror we can now see that we did exactly this. We see ourselfs as the wise person and the other as the not so wise, maybe even stupid. But we think we are the better person cause we understood this holy lession from heaven.
The heavenly library is full of those lessions to learn. Every time we are sent back we are told that we did not understand this or that and we have to re-train. We agree and think we do it better next time. But then we find ourselfs in a body that needs to eat, we find ourselfs in a body that is starving for sex and we have ambitions. All the bad stuff we have to overcome.
Then we do the bad unholy stuff again and maybe find the right way some day and read holy books. We changed our life to the better. To what result? We did not make the grade and are sent back and have to do some re-train.
I am sorry to disagree with you Jane Doe. It look like there were two LRHs; the early one who created a wonderful technology, said man was good, said to handle everything and everybody with auditing. Then there was the later one who created labels, disconnection, lower conditions, justice, etc. The late LRH would have failed the Lie Tzu test miserably. The early one would have passed it.
Jane, I’d have to disagree slightly with your assertion that LRH “never intended our church members to become so one sided and black and white on things.”
Read KSW 1 again please and re-evaluate that statement.
Marty, I love how your posts open one to new viewpoints and reaffirm the reality that there is a lot more wisdom in the world to be found.
From Highlights for Children (May 2000) credited to Lieh Tzu:
One day a man went to get his hammer, but he couldn’t find it. He began to think his neighbor’s son had stolen it. So when he saw that boy, he thought that his way of walking was just like the walking of a hammer stealer. And when he looked at the boy’s face, that man saw the face of a hammer stealer. When the boy was talking with him, the man heard the voice of a hammer stealer. The boy’s voice, face, actions-everything made that man think of a hammer stealer.
After a few days the man went to his fields on the side of the mountain, and as he was hoeing his crops he found his hammer. On his way home, he met his neighbor’s son. He watched the boy’s face and actions while the boy was greeting him, but nothing, not even the boy’s voice, was like a hammer stealer’s.
“Self-righteous people often follow a principle blindly without understanding it and in doing so confuse what is name and what is reality.”
That was the sticky situation LRH had the courage to undertake to deal with – from the start to the end, IMHO.
“Literalness with which statements or remarks are received” is a column on the Chart of Human Evaluation and thus is a matter of tone level. And since the whole idea of Scientology was to bring people up the tone scale, that meant LRH had to somehow communicate to the literal-minded. What an undertaking!
I’m a great believer in applying common sense Here’s a good, honest man who is starving and thirsty. What makes more sense for him – to refuse help from a thief and die, or to eat the stolen food and live? Kind of a no-brainer IMO. A baby or a small child would allow himself to be helped by anyone without thinking twice.
IMO, another way of saying, “common sense” is “the greatest good for the greatest number of dynamics”, however, I am well aware that this LRH datum has been perverted to mean, “Whatever the Church of Sciendollary needs and wants right now irrespective of overts great or small on any of the other dynamics”. That said, I never bought into this misinterpretation and instead have maintained my own strong mental link between “common sense” and “greatest good”. when it comes to making decisions and solving problems.
Also, common sense, in my universe, applies as well to who I am as a spiritual being as well as a body. Ethics is personal to an individual. Perhaps the man in this tale felt so strongly about not stealing that it would have been too much of a crime for him for him and he’d be damaged spiritually for the remainder of his life. Perhaps he had no-one depending upon him, so he effectively killed his own body rather than compromise himself. There are a bunch of factors to weight and measure. I know what I would have done, but, hey!!.
I coined a phrase for this. OPP.
Other People’s Past.
Not only can a thetan get stuck in their OWN past.
They can get stuck in Other People’s Past!
Yes, there are a few people out there stuck in MY past, My past Internet posts! How fragile is that?
Also, “common sense”, if it had been applied by this man, would have shown him that the thief had nothing to gain by helping him to recover, which would have helped him confront the good and unselfish impulse emanating from this otherwise very dishonest, criminal man.
Amen Marty. Nice story. There is definitely a difference between morals and ethics.
Actually, one way escape your OWN past, it to just move yourself over to be stuck in someone else’s past. Other people’s past can look more interesting and attractive than the one you found yourself stuck in. It is just a dwelling situation. As they say, “Location location location”!
Yes. That is very true.
It’s a special dramatization when someone else gets stuck in your past, and then throws it up in your face or other people’s face. These people have totally gone into the valence of the reactive mind. And the purpose is to RESTIMULATE. Yes, there are people that are so overwhelmed by the reactive mind, they actually take on the valence and purpose of the reactive mind, by mocking up your past and throwing it at you. They are, reactive minds. You think is all in your head, you get it out of your head, you go out for a walk and it is standing in your driveway. You log on to the Internet and it is coming up on your screen. Actual living people that are being reactive minds. It is a situation. When the politics get flying and it nears election time, you find people running for the highest office in this country as a reactive mind. When they dredge up dirt to throw it against their opponent. People will become a copy of your reactive mind, and jump in your face. It can be Halloween 24/7 for a thetan on this planet.
🙂
Very nice story. I really like it.
George M. White
Marty, is this a metaphor for a person who committed crimes for a church but now is trying to do the right thing?
Hi marty, I finished your new book a few days ago. I enjoyed it. I bought it with the intention that I’d set it aside and read it later after I’d finished other chores. But I picked it up after a while and once I started it I couldn’t put it down.
I’ve been an exec in Scientology orgs – but not Sea Org. So I understand the accomplishments you were able to achieve in your time in the church. You started in Scientology with a good purpose and maintained a good purpose for all those years and it’s clear to me that you were always working to do your job. You pulled off some truly amazing accomplishments.
There was so much interesting to me in your book that I could write pages here. Maybe I’ll write more later. Thanks for writing the book.
Jane, surprising that you would say that. The Church of Scientology is ALWAYS the one to cast the first stone. So take your pick:
1. Members of the church have no out-ethics or O/W’s ever.
-or-
2. Members of the church normally take advantage of people uneducated in the tech of engrams and implants .
Or at least people used to believe this about them. 🙂
Thanks Marty. Here’s a song that struck a chord in my thoughts.
sometimes I lay
under the moon
and thank God I’m breathing
then I pray
don’t take me soon
cause I am here for a reason
sometimes in my tears I drown
but I never let it get me down
so when negativity surrounds
I know some day it’ll all turn around
because
all my life I’ve been waiting for
I’ve been praying for
for the people to say
that we don’t wanna fight no more
there’ll be no more wars
and our children will play
one day x6
it’s not about
win or lose cause
we all lose
when they feed on the souls of the innocent
blood drenched pavement
keep on moving though the waters stay raging
in this maze you can lose your way (your way)
it might drive you crazy but don’t let it faze you no way (no way)
sometimes in my tears I drown
but I never let it get me down
so when negativity surrounds
I know some day it’ll all turn around
because
all my life I’ve been waiting for
I’ve been praying for
for the people to say
that we don’t wanna fight no more
there’ll be no more wars
and our children will play
one day x6
one day this all will change
treat people the same
stop with the violence
down with the hate
one day we’ll all be free
and proud to be
under the same sun
singing songs of freedom like
one day x4
all my life I’ve been waiting for
I’ve been praying for
fothat we don’t wanna fight no more
there’ll be no more wars
and our children will play
one day x6
Simple Thetan and Just This Guys… You both made me take another look and thanks. I want to amend my earlier comment now as a result. There was the early LRH who said man is basically good. Then there was the later LRH who had been cut off from the world and cut off from all personal comm lines by Miscavage’s taking advantage of his wish to hide from process servers etc during the trials. Miscavage cut his comm lines and twisted the comm he did relay to LRH. And the spin Miscavage put on the comm going to him made LRH become paranoid and harsh in his judgements. Also let’s face it, LRH did have some betrayals, per Marty’s book, such as the guy who came to stay with him in order to interview him and then did a hatchet piece on him. Things like that also shaped the later LRH. So yes there was the early LRH and the later LRH.
Jane Doe, I’ve always been in agreement with your posts but on this I respectfully disagree. LRH had overts and withholds, some huge ones. These made him vulnerable to being lied to and conned by the Dwarf, otherwise I doubt that the Dwarf could have gotten very far with him. LRH allowed his comm lines to be cut and knowlngly violated much of his own, brilliant, thoroughly workable policy, and, I suspect he knowingly halted his own Bridge progress as well, Don’t get me wrong, I love LRH! There is no-one I admire and respect more than LRH for what he put together to help mankind. And I understand he was solving a problem, but that’s why most of us transgress against the dynamics, against our own ethics – to solve a problem. Look, the man did what he had to do but his life became extremely complex and his confront went WAY down. In KSW he says, “We will not speculate at this time about how I came to rise above the bank”. He’s telling us right there that he had a reactive mind and was able to rise above it. But even he could not resist being keyed back into it despite his own tremendous awareness of who he really was as a being. Also, please understand that I say these things not in a smug, judgemental way, but asw proof to myself that the real tech of ethics applies to all of us, and he was no exception. So this is not judgement but observation from my viewpoint, and a validation of L. Ron Hubbard, actually.
Great story.
I haven’t heard this particular parable before, but it does remind of many life experiences. I befriended a man who smoked pot, daily, said it was his valuum. We got along great on so many levels yet there was this nagging “Scientological” induced remorse, ie., assigned guilt to be associated with such a person. I could have written up my OW’s and did conditions and I almost did once, but a CLVIII told me, “what if it doesn’t come up?” rofl … So I never did, and it indeed never once came up in session [confessionals]. And looking back, why would it come up? It was he, not I. And today he is still my beloved friend, a Vietnam Veteran with more war stories than I can assure you want to hear.
Isn’t that the reactive mind in full-play? Is that what we became because of the 2nd LRH?
I don’t think so… I don’t think I became that seeing around me all evil. No. Maybe that happened Uplines and in OSA. It DIDN’T lower.
LRH could bring a person out of his body… not even being there, just through having that person be audited by someone or by drills or even by reading one of his books. And not just that. He wanted to teach others to do it to others. That was a tremendous responsibility because he wanted everybody on planet Earth to be able to have that in this life time. Go figure… He had to build a strong channel for all the particles to be able to pass through and get those gains. The orgs, the Sea Org and the Ethics tech. He got the whole thing up to a condition of power, indeed and left… the power change didn’t work for some reason that we (all of us, I include myself big time) know better than others.
+1
Aquamarine, I am not at all sure “LRH” was LRH in the end of his life. What strikes me as a big outpoint is that he changed a lof of his policy by issuing memos only to Miscavige and his execs from an unknown place…. LRH had meticulously (but really meticulously) put an Admin System there. And then here he comes and even changes the structure of the church, not through HCO PLs but memos and “advices”. There is not one single HCO PL mentioning RTC, there is no green on white mentioning RTC much less Miscavige. Not to speak about the CST. We learned about CST, its existence, in the 2000s when the internet was full of rumours and writings about who the CST really are and who founded them. What is this? This is the greatest outpoint ever, ever, ever in the Admin history of Scientology and you want me to believe that LRH did that? I am sorry, I cannot believe that. So after 1980 something was happening to/with LRH.
When I was in TU many execs insisted that there are advices from LRH saying otherwise than what the HCOBs were saying!!!! We never got to see those advices… And even if they existed let me tell you that such advices could not oppose HCOPLs. Having studied law, I know that there is a seniority of orders and LRH was not just well aware of this but he put it there in Scientology too for our own protection. He didn’t want a cult with cultish leaders, he wanted policy for sanity. Then he comes, from a place nobody knows and cancels all this. The guy who would put italics in all revisions on policy to show the changes (something that the church stopped doing, so that they could edit whatever they wanted), the guy that put italics meticulously in his revisions to show what the changes are, the guy that would write about the church structure only in HCOPLs comes now and with invisible memos changes all this. Wow! What an outpoint! Have you ever seen such a memo? Remember, if it’s not written it’s not true?
In the best of cases to me, he went nuts, so nothing counts… Not even LRH had the right to issue policy if it was not through the Board of Directors and issued as an HCO PL.
What happened to all that thinking? What happened to all that reasoning with Admin. Executives could not only not protect us with some reasonable actions through Admin but they couldn’t even think with the Admin data and policy. Thus went the whole thing…. Memos… my ass! That’s not valid. Period.
I went to the Sea Org and quit law because of a saner Administrative system which I could call upon to protect me even from the Founder. I didn’t go to the Sea Org to obey rules of others or LRH’s whims. True… upper on the lines this must be happening. But I don’t think LRH would ever, ever, ever cancel his policies through his whims. I think he would stick to those policies and offer one the right to be protected if such policy existed. I don’t think LRH was operating or was basing the future of Scientology on his whims. He based it on policy to forward the tech. And he succeeded.
I stick to that System which was a valid, open and sane system. All the insanity after 1980, I don’t know. I look at it with a very suspicious eye. Yes, I am stuck but I prefer to be like that than to accept all the outpoints just like that without inspection even now… There are many writings in the interent about a Meade Emory, a deputy commissioner of the IRS, who supposedly was the master mind of the structuralisation of the new church. If we can speak on those things (and this is why I am calling Marty to have a full talk on his book) we are not going to shed light into that era unless we want to believe and not look in which case I am not the one who became fanatical because I still wanna look.
Tom, thanks! That is à great song.
Tom, thanks much for posting this song and including the lyrics. I really appreciate it!
naomi, I have come to believe that the whole concept (lock, stock and barrel) of ‘sin’ and ‘sinners’ is bogus through and through. And, that, of course, would include all of it’s component trappings such as; guilt, fear, punishment, condemnation, pain, suffering, misery, separation, denial, etcetra. That said, I do recognize the incredible efficaciousness of ‘sin’ as a “glue” that sticks a spiritual being’s attention in an illusion. And, with each affirmation that ‘sin’ has occurred the illusion’s integrity is not only upheld, it’s perpetuated.
Interesting story, Marty. Thanks.
An analogy can be taken from this parable where the high-minded traveller represents snooty non-Scientologists or even ex-Scientologists who refuse something worthwhile because it’s offered by a dubious individual, LRH.
The soul is unconditioned by externalities, personalities, good and bad.
Someone once said, “it is a sin to consider oneself a sinner.”
That is were unconditional love comes in. It is the recognition of the soul in each of us. It is not reckless permissiveness and denial of good and bad conditions and states of being. It is the recognition of the soul in it’s pure unadulterated state.
Because love IS the nature of the soul. The soul does not have love, the soul is love itself.
We are all just learning to get back to that unconditioned state. Even the criminal, albeit he is evolving in a more unconscious way. He is still on the path and worthy of being seen.
BTW, somewhere in the written words of Scientology there is mention of the idea of ‘evolving consciousness’ as somehow being a negative thing. Being part of some implant. Every time I mention the word ‘evolving’ or ‘learning through evolving’ my mind goes to that memory. Then I wonder how many of you are reading my words and equating them with some form of past life implant?
I have already had one fellow express on this blog in reaction to my statement that ‘evolving experience’ was part of a trap.
My retort would be,” the cheese is very tasty and there are doors everywhere in this trap. In fact it is no trap at all when looked at.”
I truly wish we could have the entire body of knowledge of Scientology more easily at hand, like an online reference so we could discuss it wider and deeper, because I really see a lot of stuff in the Subject of Scientology itself that supports the very pro-survival points of view being expressed here. What a dire pity that Scientology, the subject, is so inaccessible in the digital age, because having this pro-social-dynamic ability would resolve the ‘name versus reality’ stuff that actually is going on right here in the comments threads. Oh no, I seem to have caught a case of it myself, alas .. but surely, the Phoenix lectures, the PDC’s .. the full OEC’s. It’d be useful to be able to quote, rather than just ‘name’ or .. ‘refer to blindly..’
Apparently, the entire body of knowledge of Scientology is available. Here’s a link that describes what’s available, plus how to search the materials: http://workabletechnology.com/?p=457
Thank you, marildi 🙂
Richard Kaminski UK
Agree. Well said.
Memos… my ass! That’s not valid. Period.
“Seniority of orders” is something I can read in Policy. Memos? My ass… ain’t valid to me at all.
I don’t even bother how it came about that the upper Management was “run” by such advices.
The admin scale says 1) Goals 2) Purposes 3) Policy
Many of those “advices” where implemented in a destructive way.
We will never really know what communications really have been exchanged via the Miscavige-Broker connection and it all amounts to some kind of “hidden data line”.
As we can see that the whole “official” Organization and its networks went off the rails after Ron went into seclusion, we can assume that there was nothing of big value to the original purposes of Scientology in them.
Many Scientology Practitioners will follow basic LRH policy as they see fit. Some will create networks and build groups some will prefer to work absolutely independent from others – but I think most of us are still motivated by the dream of a better world and more harmony along the dynamics.
Brian, I appreciate and resonate with what you express in this post. Thank you for sharing your perspective. You might find this video of interest (I just came across it) wherein a young woman reads excerpts from Austrian physicist Erwin Schrodinger’s work. Personally, I have no familiarity with Schrodinger’s work but I did find what was being communicated in the excerpts read to be most interesting.