Identifying with that which arises in consciousness – as opposed to simply viewing its coming and going to, through and out of one’s own spacious awareness – is the process by which breadth of consciousness, space, process, and ability declines. When one identifies his mind becomes the object, concept, idea, or picture rather than the spacious field through which such pass. By identifying as a member of a particular class of people one begins to crave for and cling to that which that assumed identity craves for and clings to. One also begins to automatically resist entire classes of objects arising in consciousness; all of those that are repelled by that with which he identifies. All of this grasping and resistance results in persistence of dissonant energies within one’s field of awareness.
The first and most common means by which messiahs and gurus (wannabe or proclaimed; religious or secular) and their cults have entrapped, controlled, and enslaved well-meaning people by manipulation of the simple mechanics of awareness or consciousness (see Basics) is requiring the assumption of a specific identity. Application requires one assume the identity of ‘member.’
The moment a seeker of truth assumes the identity of a designated category of person he has lost his mastery of that which arises in consciousness. The degree he does so is the degree to which he has departed with the ability to perceive or be truth. Once he identifies he becomes an object continually present within his own consciousness, with all its attendant baggage. He begins to view what arises in awareness not as it is and for what it is but instead through the continuous via of the viewpoint of whatever ‘ist’ he has chosen to become. All of the pre-determined prejudices, likes, dislikes, and judgments of his adopted ism shade and alter everything that he would otherwise view as it really is.
Self-identification breeds more identification. It adversely influences the very process of looking. Required membership is not only unnecessary to assisting a person increase rationality and awareness, it is injurious to it. Becoming some-particular-body is counterproductive of the very process of self-actualization. After some time when a cult member begins to feel entrapped he often continues so for long duration because he cannot see the source of his imprisonment. He is certain somebody or some physical barrier is to blame. He has not yet come to realize that his jailer is himself, and his cell is self-constructed by the identity he has adopted.
Practice in viewing objects arising in and departing from consciousness (thoughts, ideas, pictures, emotions, etc) as the isolated, ephemeral, relatively miniscule and ineffectual things they are within the context of one’s potentially unlimited spacious awareness tends to help one separate out from unwanted previously assumed identities. It allows them to pass on and out of consciousness along with all the other infinity of objects that so arise and so pass. It also tends to expand one’s sphere of consciousness or awareness beyond limits one once considered fixed.
Moving On Up a Little Higher 
Awesome! After 30+ years of wandering down the path of freedom without limit I feel as though I am making progress again. What you write totally indicates Marty! Thank you.
I’ve run into these basic concepts by a couple teachers and found them very transformative, but something in your presentation of them here is particularly helpful in relation to unsticking the identity I cemented myself in as “a Scientologist”, and have had such a sticky time letting go of.
Thanks.
This was really helpful.
I sure got a massive dose of assumed identity in Scientology, particularly with policies like KSW!
This perspective of viewing appearances and disappearances in life without using an assumed identity to measure or evaluate said appearance with questions like: “is it for, or against my assumed identity?” is very helpful. Very easy to put into practice, once you know about it.
Thanks for the help. This has straightened up a lot for me.
Very insightful, Marty.
Wasn’t New OT-8 supposed to handle this problem? Moving out of fixed locations and identities. How did that work out for them. Perhaps this post should be at the front of the Freewinds checksheets. Any OT-8s out there who can comment on how this info affects their understanding?
I am going back through my personal folder tonight to see if there are some assumed identities that I am holding on to that I passed over earlier. Looks like fun.
Thanks, Marty
Mark
This brought into clear focus the identies of a Scientologist, a Sea Org Member, and Thetan, It also reminded me of the identies such as Class IX , OT VIII, and Operating Thetan.
Wow! what status symbols these identities were made into!
Interesting. I see this in my suggesting solutions that could be very helpful, that I’ve experienced myself with LRH tech in some other form than rotely A, B, C, D. The second I veer from A to C, I’m shut off just for doing so. “All of the pre-determined prejudices, likes, dislikes, and judgments of his adopted ism shade and alter everything that he would otherwise view as it really is.” And the person stays exactly where they are, stuck in a rut imagining that someday they’ll do A, B, C, D, only in that order, only in a certain way. But 20 years of experience “should” tell them that isn’t going to work, that going on hoping doesn’t result in the desired achievements.
I too, need practice in viewing objects as they are, separate from some “motherly, miserly” assumed identities I’ve apparently taken on through time…
Great post, Marty. Timely for me, at least. 😀
I get this concept. Wow….. It’s a big stretch to grasp, but I see how important this is on the road to truth and freedom. The more I can grasp and adopt this free way of thinking the better auditor I can become. I don’t know how you can articulate this stuff, Marty, but I appreciate that you do it. Wow…
Great viewpoint Marty.
Very freeing in fact!
Love
Per
Yes, Great post, Marty!
I would say that the converse is also true depending whether one’s goal is dualistic or non-dualistic. If it is a dualistic goal, one could assume that the goal is games, and is thus rooted in an attempt to control.
From PAB 15: “There is one thing you should know about ARC. The most ARC there can be is a complete identification: the person is the person with whom he has the ARC. One sees this in valence shifting. This goes down a dwindling spiral until the most complete ARC there is exists in the form of eight anchor points enclosing no space: in other words, a particle. Thus, trying to understand, purely as such, from data offered is in itself a perilous undertaking, for the end of the road is zero space, and that in itself is the opposite end of the tone scale. That is the end where MEST is. “Trying to understand” run as a concept—even that is quite startling. Knowingness has to do with certainty, and understanding which advances along the lines of certainty creates more space, not less space. Thus there is the low funnel end of ARC as well as an upper end of ARC. Trying to understand by reason of data before one looks brings about the vanishing point of existence. The psychotic often confuses his terrific stress on circuit-prompted thought as telepathy and thinking itself. Thus in running this process we are not trying to understand anything, but simply going through with the process to satiate hungers. One can very easily go off and plot the entire evolution of everything by running this process, but one should move along rapidly, gaining only his insights as they seem to apply to him. Only the preclear knows when these insights have taken place.” –LRH
Marty,
Thank you. This post is where ‘hammer meets nail’.
The “I AM a (fill in the blank)” is the bane of humans IMHO. This obsessive compulsion to assume identification and membership is primary to hindering our individual and collective advancements especially those spiritual in nature.
Sooner or later a rigidly self-imposed identity is a prison.
Those screaming “I AM A SCIENTOLOGIST” should perhaps consider that the declaration itself is antithetical to one of the original purposes of the pursuit. In other words, where’s that bridge to to Total Freedom? Didn’t it really devolve into a constrained and muddy path to slavery and conformity?
Is this not an attempt to make an identity? I have followed you from my beginnings. You or ‘they’ can prove that. If it is one thing you have taught me, it is not to lose my faith. I found it and could see it so clearly, although those near me could not. You have carried me through my withholds and with time I have found how to voice myself. Thank you, my body is still here and given the opportunity to be with good intentions.
Lovely. Thank you, Marty. It’s nice to read something so encouraging. Looking forward to your next book.
It is interesting to examine the emergence of knowledge as forms and the identification with it. Here are some thoughts regarding it.
Self-awareness is made up of perception and giving meaning to that perception. The meaning we give to the perception becomes our knowledge. We then use this knoweldge to define subsequent perceptions.
Thus, there is this interchange between perception and knowledge. This interchange defines increasing self-awareness. The most fundamental level of this self-awareness is infinite light.
Forms emerge out of infinite light as the frquency of perception-knowledge interchange increases. The emerging forms have self-awareness. Their awareness vectors add up to the over-all self-awareness of the infinte light.
Invidualtion (or identification) seems to occur as this self-awareness gets too focused on one form or the other.
“Only the preclear knows when these insights have taken place.”
I declare shenanigans !
The last sentence blows up his entire reasoning and yours.
This reminded me of working out your Auditor Beingness. We-the FSO auditors- worked at it intensely and even were given “a pass” by RTC when they decided it was OK.
True, it prevents you from looking at the real scene in from of you, of judgment and puts you in the hands of another source to decided if was or not OK. From there on you have no viewpoint from which to look at things for what they are, rather, had to follow a set up pattern which, to made it worst, was set up by someone else. Dreadful proposition indeed.
Thank you Marty.
Somebody’s been meditating.
Best Post Yet!
A simple description of how one ends up feeling enslaved (identification).
A simple answer to escape the confinement (just view it and let it pass on out).
Well said! And not so far from the Buddha’s four noble truths.
Thanks for this. Very thought provoking, for much more than only things related to Scientology.
I think that ARC is flawed. To me reality is is-ness and not agreement.
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You’re right CD, my reasoning is faulty.
A spacious field through which everything perceptible, everything existing, passes. This is the result I got from doing OT-TR0 together with the other TRs. It took me many, many hours of cycling through the TRs. I considered this to be the “major stable win” that’s talked about. At any rate, it was mine.
Well, I’m a red-neck, horse riding, tough as nails, gun toting cowboy and you city slickers ain’t worth squat.
I’m a pot-smoking, commune dwelling, long haired, flower power hippie and you cowboys are so vulgar and out of touch with reality.
Well I’m a perfect, flag trained auditor and I’m a scientologist with a capital S and we’re the only one’s who can help don’t-ya-know.
Truth be told, I’ve never been able to quite get a handle on folks who were completely sold on their current mock-up. For a long time I envied them their certainty and dedication. Not so much anymore.
Great post, Mark
🙂
Hey Val, you weren’t posting on the previous thread, but I was singing the same praises for OT TR-0.
I will add that in my view, what you got out of TR’s was a big chunk of the available gains in Scientology. You probably know that. 🙂
Ouch reverse Psychology on my ass
If status is MEST than pre-clear status is MEST and by saying that when reached pre-clear status is reached onley than you have those insights you make it about stautus and of something special onley Scientologist can have.
Your reasoning is not faulty but L ron Hubbards reasoning pust a sting right there in the end. The last sentence is the deal closer. The Grant Cardone of the thing f you will. Ig you want all this than you MUST achive this Status of Pre-Clear otherwise you can’t have this or that)
The last sentence is the directly oposite of the previous text of wwhat LRH says
That’s all Scott
Scott,
Something I don’t understand there (in that PAB). Identification can in my opinion NOT be highest level of ARC or any level of ARC as Communication takes two terminal and some distance, reality at least two viewpoints in agreement and affinity a viewpoint of distance, and all these are not present when there is identification IMO. How do you see this?
“Identifying with that which arises in consciousness….is the process by which breadth of consciousness, space, process, and ability declines.
OK. This is not just a theory of the mind, this is cosmology. This is consciousness as the source of everything…
Entrapped, controlled and enslaved by requiring the assumption of an identity? That’s so true on so many different levels, both psychological and existential. This is making me think of the Buddha…
“… the best of virtues passionlessness; the best of men he who has eyes to see. … ‘All created things perish,’ he who knows and sees this becomes passive in pain;”
“Deeds exist, but no doer can be found.”
“There is no self.”
Yet we can be sure there is consciousness, if nothing else.. because, whatever it is we think or perceive, how else would we be conscious of it without consciousness?
Tara. The Church of Scientology has a STANDARD MINDSET AT ALL TIMES for anyone that disagrees with them:
“If you were a member of the church before, we already know your crimes. If you were not a member of the church before then you have crimes we must discover.”
It is obvious this church is willing to spend millions each year to do this, so isn’t sharing LRH’s tech and making it available when applicable to people the better choice from the start? 🙂 That a person can identify with! 🙂
What is source of consciousness I wonder!
Is it infinite regress of consciosness?
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Scott, this PAB reference raises the following question for me.
What is the difference in the mechanics of total identification and perfect duplication?
I wonder how LRH explains it because I cannot recall his explanation.
Lawrence, I suppose the Cof$ “believers” do have that mindset, but I’m talking about people who’ve been disconnected from the Cof$ for a long time, who cling to those old identities and basically remain stuck in the must-have/can’t-have that the church people ran on them. There is that irrational “fear” of doing something wrong that goes with it…that classic PTSness.
Wonderful! My most free moments are those I that I can let thoughts, objects, feelings, simply float into consciousness, inspect (without judgement) and float away.
And, so it was just like that when I was audited by you!
I haven’t been here recently, as I’ve had such great wins releasing old dramas, again, which I also attribute to your help.
PS and how are you and Moz & son? and, do you need anything?
Much love & appreciation, Midge
That would not be me ever hopefully. 🙂
🙂
I’ve known a couple Cl XII’s that I wondered
how they ever got to that level.
I’ve known some Cl VIII’s and Cl VI’s
that were/are complete assholes.
I also know/or have known auditors with these
lofty status identities that could care less about
that status. All they care/cared about was helping
a person in front of them rediscover their self-
determinism…..nothing more….just a willingness
to help.
Should these people be attacked or made
little of because they choose/chose to use Scientology
processes to help others? I think not.
In fact the desire to attack and belittle to me is just
an identity and sort of status in itself.
I’m not talking about the current crap going
on in the COS. I’m talking about people that truly
understand and want to help by applying basic
fundamental tech. No pie in the sky OT this and that.
A good Life Repair and a well done set of Grades can
put one in a position to choose their path from that point
on.
I’m sure those who help would be more than happy to fly
the ruds of those who are more inclined to attack and belittle.
So even they can objectively see and apply what is being said in this blog
and not equate it to an attack on Scientology or those who have a true
willingness to help ie: auditors.
We are in a blog created by a guy who knows all too
well how important it is to help others….at least that
is what I see in his blog posts.
Enjoy this blog….use it to talk about and explore each
others thoughts and ideas. Help each other, don’t attack.
There is one thing that I hope we can all agree on….We are all
basically good…..lets enhance that and steer away from attacking
those individuals who have the true willingness to help.
If I don’t mock up all these identities which are mine in the first place then hide the fact I did so where is all the fun in that? Its only when I can’t get those pants off after they no longer fit does it pose yet another self inflicted dilemma (I’ve worn them for so long they have grown on me). I appreciate the reminders that I’m the one mucking up the game and the help to just look at what I’m causing to come in and out of my arena. For that I thank you Marty and all the auditors who shared standard tech with me. If you don’t like ARC then with much love and respect, Bill Dupree
I believe the answer would be knowingly or unknowingly. Don’t know if LRH said that…
Consciousness is causeless. It is it’s own cause. Consciousness is self existent.
But the “source of consciousness” cannot be found with tools not intended to discover it.
A measuring tape cannot detect temperature. The mind cannot register the source of consciousness.
Daily meditation is the tool to detect consciousness. Then it’s nature is known.
Looking for beginnings and endings is linear logic. The Spirit is beginningless and endless and only detectable through the calm intuitional effects of meditation.
Totally agree, Potpie…
Let us not forget that you will have an identity (viewpoint) if you are going to be in a game. And of course minimally if you have a body you will be in a game – willingly or unwillingly. So the question is are you identified with the identity?
Many of us are seeking to expand (ultimately to infinity) beyond the confines of identifying with identities. And the process is as Marty describes. It ascends through layers ever more subtle (“deeper?”) – realizing at each new level the identifications there and releasing them. There are many ways to achieve this.
Just my opinion but in the “end” you will create a fun identity.
So, let’s say consciousness is the background. There is no further background to it.
(1) Is consciousness self-aware?
(2) If so, how does consciousness perceives itself?
.
Similarly, the existence of love cannot be proven. It cannot be seen in a microscope, made into a mathematical theory, measured, separated into diverse parts for inspection.
Yet we all know that love exists. No one, not even a scientist would say love does not exist because we cannot measure it or detect it with physical apparatuses or put it in a box for inspection.
But we all know that love exists. How? Through the instrument of intuition. Through intuition we know.
There is a Hindhu story of the musk deer. The musk deer oozes musk from its belly. The musk deer can’t find the source of the scent because he cannot reach his nose to it. The deer goes crazy with much agitation, goes looking here and there for its source. One day while jumping in frustration seeking that which comes from his own self, he lost footing on the mountain and fell to his death.
What we are looking for, we already posses. What we are missing is the method to become self realized. And looking for it in externalities can bring great suffering. Because nothing in the external world remains the same. So at some point disappointment is inevitable.
There is only one changeless verity in life: the soul. That which spins the web of the cosmos out of its own Self. That is the source of our musk.
That does sound like the answer LRH would give. But doesn’t one know by duplication? So, how would identification be a non-duplicating identification?
That is an excellent point. The core of any identity, such as, “thetan” is an identity too. So, one can never be without an identity. Just by being an observer, one has the identity of an observer.
Much ARC to you, Bill. 😉
Regards, Vinaire
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Excellent post except for the part “we are all good”. 😉
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I like Solitaire!
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You got it!
Nice post. So very basic and such a good tool. Has valuable application which can predate memberships and identities. Everything we ever clung to or resited. It takes work. But its work worth doing.
Brian wrote:
Consciousness is causeless. It is it’s own cause. Consciousness is self existent.
This is interesting, Brian.
It is my understanding that consciousness is one of the 5 skandhas, and as such it is a dependant arising, as are the other 4.
Can you show me the text where you read this, or is this your own understanding?
Here’s a place where the five clinging aggregates, or the 5 skandhas, is described. Everywhere I’ve ever seen these described, consciousness is always the 5th one.
http://crossrivermeditation.com/i-clinging-aggregates/
With my Scientology background, this has always been a little confusing to me because I am looking for the thing that causes itself to exist. In Scientology we are taught that this is consciousness, but everything I’ve seen in Buddhism says that even consciousness is impermanent and a dependent arising.
Alanzo
A Wise Fool, good post. You might appreciate the following excerpt from *The Creation of Human Ability*
“Peace is only to be found at the high levels of the Tone Scale. Any effort to have peace after one has become the victim of force and is afraid of force, simply involves further struggle. There is no peace below the level where one cannot fight. We are not here concerned with moral values. We are only concerned with the workability of processes. And whereas it might be said of Scientology that it is attempting to sell fighting and war, this would only be said by those who were themselves badly defeated and afraid of force.
“Here we have as well, ‘automaticity’ and ‘randomity.’ In order to have more attention to control other things, one sets up the things he is already controlling as automatic. Having done so he has given to them a determinism of their own. And having so given them their own determinism they can, if he ceases thus to control them, attack him. Thus we have the machines of a thetan. These machines work only so long as they are in control of the individual and then begin to work against the individual. Thus it is with the remainder of the universe. One only fights those things which he has selected out as not under his control. Anything which is not under an individual’s control but which has taken the individual’s attention is likely to be an IDENTITY [my caps] used to fight.” (*The Creation of Human Ability*)
“When one identifies his mind becomes the object, concept, idea, or picture rather than the spacious field through which such pass. ”
One of my favorite Buddhist stories from the Jataka is the simile of the clear pool of water. High in the Himalaya mountains there is a deep, cold, clear, settled, pool of water. When you look into the water, you can see shoals of fish and the very rocks at the bottom.
Nice post, Marty.
George M. White
Here is a meditation:
KHTK Postulate M-11: Knowledge is always relative and never absolute.
Right from the beginning self-awareness is relative. Awareness is assumed to emerge as a disturbance in a ground state of some kind. This awareness then becomes aware of itself as a disturbance. Since the fundamental disturbance in this universe has been identified as a harmonic of light, we have associated awareness with light. Interestingly enough, such association has existed on an intuitive basis since ancient times.
This reference point of knowledge that fundamental self-awareness is a harmonic of light is relative only. From this reference point we can go forward or backward alike in terms of disturbance (see KHTK Postulate M-5).
The Theory of Relativity assumes the speed of light to be a universal constant, but this speed is measured from a matter-centric frame of reference. This assumption has been tested in matter-centric frames of references only that are very nearly alike but not absolute. From an ether-centric frame of reference we may find the speed of light to be dependent upon its disturbance level.
What is observed seems to be separate from the observer, and we may move toward some agreement that may be considered absolute. But when it comes to self-awareness, the observer and observed are one and any self-awareness can be relative only.
So, it is not possible to have an absolute reference point of knowledge. Any assumption of an absolute reference point of knowledge shall be arbitrary.
.
This is an old argument between the Buddhist understanding and Vedic understanding. I am not sure we can settle it here. No, I am certain we won’t.
Is there a soul, is there not a soul? Is there a God, is there not a God?
Somewhere back in Marty’s blog I gave my view. My view is what every sage has said. There is a soul, there is God.
Nirvana is not the extinguishing of self, it is the extinguishing of the ego self, the false self identified with name and form.
My opinion is:
Just like there is a misunderstanding in Christianity that Jesus is the “only way”, Buddha never wrote anything down. It was compiled after his death. The misunderstanding the Buddhists have is the word nirvana.
Nirvana is the extinguishing of ignorance, not the extinguishing of conscious existence. Why seek enlightenment if nobody is there to experience it?
But here is a thought:
If there is no soul and no God, then every other enlightened master was wrong and Buddha is the only sage to get it right. That would make Buddha the “only way.” And I am fiercely opposed to “only ways.”
Nirvana is a word that describes liberation in the negative. Shankara incarnated in India around the 700s to define it in the positive:
Satchitananda-
Sat- ever new existence
Chit- ever new awareness of that existence
Ananda- awareness of that existence as ever new joy. Ananda means bliss.
It is a theological argument that doesn’t alter the truth one bit.
in samadhi, the knower the knowing and the known become one.
Pure consciousness is awareness itself. pure consciousness IS knowing in an absolute sense, not in relative terms. Consciousness does not need a universe to exist and be aware of that existence. Just like we can have a dreamless sleep with no perception of forms. But upon awakening we say,”my I had a good sleep!”
Who had a good sleep? Someone was there to remember that for mess good sleep.
When we have transcendent experiences in mediation, that is the only time the mind can be imprinted by the transcendent. Then the mind can say,”by golly, I am an incorporeal being.”
But first the experience has to be had for the mind to record it. It is like trying to describe the taste of an orange to someone who has never tasted it. Try as you may, you cannot describe it. But once it has been tasted then the nature of the taste is known. Even when it is known, words can never describe it perfectly to anyone who has not tasted it.
Meditation is the pealing of the skin, samadhi is the chewing and tasting.
Hi Vinaire,
Okay let me put it this way….if one wants to enlighten
or help another, one should consider there is some basic
goodness there to help.
Or better yet as we Midwestern country boys used to say…..
I took my horse down to the creek to get some water and he
wouldn’t drink. Heck just cuz he wouldn’t drink don’t mean he’s a
bad horse….he just wasn’t thirsty.
Perfect duplication is seeing something exactly as it is. Identification is becoming that thing. Big difference – the two are disrelated.
Mark
I agree except to say that there is nothing wrong with playing the game or a game. Also, that taking on an identity is a great way to have empathy and compassion for someone. The key is to be able to ebb and flow with the identities and games, as they ebb and flow into you. You have a choice to be or not be, and a choice for how long to be in that state. It is when you abdicate that choice you get into trouble,
Mark
Can you answer my questions above?
Questions:
(1) How does one see something exactly as it is? Mindfulness is seeing things as they are. What happens when perfect duplication occurs?
(2) How does one become something else? Can one become a material object? or is this something subjective only?
I see good and bad as opinions that depend on the viewpoint.
The phrase “we are basically good” seems to implt that the idea of good can be absolute. But then absolutes are unattainable…
I see an inconsistency here.
So, as I understand what you are saying – “How consciousness perceives itself” cannot be described. That means consciousness cannot be described. Yet people are conscious.
There seems to be some inconsistency here.
By the way, is a thought conscious of itself as a thought?
I can be quite congenial and loving or a ruthless killer. I can be very ethereal or pragmatic. I can be a leader or follower. I can work this body like a dog all day or sit and contemplate the nature of nature. I have conscious choice. I am no longer bound by my past thoughts and decisions. I can choose who I am according to current or desired conditions. For the most part anyway. Getting there. Releasing past identities is, like, a big thing.
Life is enjoyable again.
Mark
I’m not really trying to argue anything.
It is just my understanding that consciousness is one of the skandhas as laid out by the Buddha.
If there is something that survives impermanence because it is the thing that causes itself to exist, I always thought that would be consciousness.
My question is do you have any sutra or tantra that gives you this understanding?
Alanzo
I have personally experienced the truth expressed in your article.
In fact, I have experienced the truth of it several times (each time anew after having yet again fallen into the old identity trap).
After one has extricated oneself, the truth is plain to see.
I would love to see your quite useful article rewritten in less stilted language. Your article might be even more helpful if it were written in plainer speech so the reader does not have to sift through all the
“that(s) and which(s) the excessive use of these words being the bane of the English language, IMHO.
What we seem to be missing here are some precise definitions. The ideas represented by same words may be different in Hinduism and Buddhism.
Let’s start with Brian’s and Alanzo’s definitions for the following 3 words. Please avoid any loosey-goosey barrage of words. Without terms being defined discussions get nowhere.
Soul Self Consciousnes
Scientologists or anybody else may jump in too. Let’s see if we all can agree on some defintions. I’ll take Voltaire’s viewpoint and criticize the definitions. Haha!
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Actually, the way this article is written it gets one to savour each sentence and meditate over it. That is very good!
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(Wikipedia) “In Buddhist phenomenology and soteriology, the skandhas (Sanskrit) or khandhas (Pāḷi), aggregates in English, are the five functions or aspects that constitute the sentient being. The Buddha teaches that nothing among them is really “I” or “mine”.
“In the Theravada tradition, suffering arises when one identifies with or clings to an aggregate. Suffering is extinguished by relinquishing attachments to aggregates.
“The Mahayana tradition further puts forth that ultimate freedom is realized by deeply penetrating the nature of all aggregates as intrinsically empty of independent existence.”
I see consciousness as arising when some ground state is disturbed. Thus, consciousness can die down also. This is how I would like to define “consciousness.”
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Okay Vinaire….thank you for your comment.
As I understand it, the phenomenon of electricity is not fully understood at this time. Does scientific lack of understanding have any relevance on the existence of electricity?
One sage said,” consciousness is like infinite space, all objects move through it and have their being in it, yet is invisible. Does space not exist? Do we fully understand space?
Human comprehension is not the final arbiter for the existence or non existence of something.
If you truly want to put the argument to rest: become a yogi and meditate every day for the rest of your life. Find actual peace and rest. Find your questions quelled in the fires of your own inner wisdom. And be able to say with a warrior’s conviction,”Oh death, where is thy sting?”
When we consciously transcend the material plane through meditation, we will find the source of the mind, thoughts.
“By the way, is a thought conscious of itself as a thought?” I am not sure of the answer to that 🙂 I don’t think so because thought is a byproduct not a self existent cause.
Ah, so many Alanso! I will look for some for you.
Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, commentary by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood. The title is How To Know God.
Anything by Vivekananda, especially his writings on Karma, Jnana, Raja yoga.
Anything by Ramana Maharshi
Anything by Swami Sivananda.
Also, I have referred people to Autobiography of a Yogi many times. The book is a portal more than a book.. Yogananda is amazing. He goes into detail on these topics in a very readable and entertaining autobiographical format.
The short answer is; I have become my own sutra by following the disciplines of those unbroken lineages that wrote these sutras. Unbroken lineages from time immemorial.
I have made the experiment for myself and proven these things to myself. Not as beliefs, not as blind followed dogma, but as realizations that have given me health, happiness and a personal realization of my immortal nature.
Tears of joy sometimes, tears of gratitude, that I have been blessed through my own disciplines, to have glimpses into the source and purpose of life. And I can say with finality: it is beautiful! Full of wisdom and joy!
“Having which gained, no other gain is greater.”
And let me tell you it is fuckin work! ha ha ha 😉
Here is a dude I have recently seen on YouTube. He is a start. He is in the Ramana Maharshi lineage.
That’s a valid distinction to my reasoning. In ontology, ARC would be a constructivist view — reality is constructed from mutual agreement. Is-ness is more of a positivist view — there is a reality that exists independently of us.
The two can appear as a false dichotomy / either-or proposition. I think both are true. In some ways, reality is clearly a construct — an agreement (culture, language, the limited perceptions of human beings getting just a slice of the electromagnetic spectrum, and so on). But in other ways, there clearly is a universe that exists — an “is-ness” of some sort (there is evidence of the evolution of the universe, its makeup, its laws/rules, and so on — maybe someday when someone can turn lead to gold at will I’ll lean more to reality as agreement!).
In the meantime, thank you Marty for another uplifting and insightful post. I read it twice, and will probably digest and read it again.
So maybe it is not either-or, but rather both-and — both agreement and is-ness from different ways of looking at it.
Well, I think it was just a small, beginning chunk in that I believe one can progress from that and increase the scope and magnitude of that state of awareness, or that experiential mode. I do believe it is the essence of what scientology practice can deliver, but it can be expanded to perhaps unlimited degrees. In other words, consciousness can be expanded to encompass an ever increasingly large space. OT-TR0 is to me the beginning of the reversal of the dwindling spiral.
Thanks, Brian.
Alanzo
Potpie, there is no intention on my part to be critical or didactic. I apologize if what I write comes across that way. Mostly I write for myself. I am actually in a continuous discussion with myself.
It is my view that underlying any inconsisteny lies an arbitrary assumption.
In this instance the assumption seems that there is some part of a self that is permanent. My personal understanding is that there is no part of self that could be regarded as absolute, unconditioned and permanent.
This point is open for discussion.
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This is all very interesting to me as I’ve been practicing a form of meditation for the last couple of years called Mahamudra, where the object of meditation is the mind itself.
I’ve had many crazy hijinks following consciousness around, lots of new views about what minds are, etc., but all I can communicate in any language about them is, “Where ever you go, there you are.”
Thanks.
Alanzo
I just received the following book from a friend and I am working my way throught it. “The Ultimate Understanding” by Ramesh Balsekar.
Ramesh refers continually to Wei Wu Wei, and to the book “The Open Secret” written by W.W.W.
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I got where you are coming from. Thanks! 🙂
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Thanks for clarifying that. 🙂
I believe that self gradually develops from primodial realities, so naturally there is reality beyond self. That reality is filtered through self-awareness and becomes a version of reality for self. So there is a modification of reality but no agreement.
Now the self-awareness filter does assume layers derived from the culture and language. That cultural influence may be looked upon as agreement, but I would not say “reality is agreement”. That is too much of a stretch.
Agreement is at best a filter that colors the reality.
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That is so true my Buddhist brother!
The universe started with a very raw type of self-awareness and NOT with Cause.
Here are my FACTORS (Haha!)
http://vinaire.me/2014/03/06/khtk-postulates-for-metaphysics-part-1/
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Here is a go at precisely defining the soul. Defining the soul, or consciousness has been a slippery slope. Some definitions of consciousness, especially with regard to concepts of reality, are deep and tortuous. Many scholars call it the ‘hard problem’ and a few philosophers have even claimed the definition of consciousness to be impossible to specify. But in probing the nature of the universe and all existence, we are ultimately examining consciousness. No matter how fascinating the sciences, the complex patterns of quantum particles and the grandiose infinity of the stars, consciousness holds the final answer.
It is easiest to define consciousness by carving out what consciousness is not, and proceed from there. Note that we are endeavoring to define pure consciousness, not the familiar mixture of consciousness which is ‘identified with material forms’ and comprises humans and other life organisms. The pure definition is to be a statement that describes the ultimate essence of consciousness. Though not entirely experienced by humans, we can try to imagine its nature.
Pure consciousness is not material. Consciousness is not physical matter or energy. Consciousness is not the brain, which is made of matter and energy. Consciousness is not something you can measure the precise location of, so you could say that consciousness is not space, nor is consciousness located in space. Consciousness does not have a birth or death. You cannot confine consciousness to a particular time period, so you could say that consciousness is not time. Consciousness is also not limited in action by the laws of physics, such as gravity, or by any law that governs matter, energy, space and time. The common definition of consciousness is awareness, thinking, and wakefulness. While these words describe some attributes of consciousness, they fail to capture the most fundamental difference between the material and the spiritual.
Consciousness has one exclusive identifying characteristic that is different than, and senior to, all the matter, energy, space and time of the universe.
Consciousness causes things. Consciousness is creation. Consciousness is a free will source of things. This is what pure consciousness is – pure creation.
The very interesting question is then, how does consciousness create?
Imagine for a moment what the experience of pure consciousness would be like. As pure consciousness you would not be the effect of anything. You would be infinitely creating – that is your essence. You would not perceive what you create in the same sense that we perceive as humans, since that type of perception requires being an effect. Your creation would simply be a part of you. Your creation would not be something ‘over there’ to be perceived. You would be a boundless explosion of creation. And since you are outside of space, you would be of infinite and zero dimensions simultaneously. And since you are outside of time,it would be a simultaneous forever and never existence. You would have no game of creating things that survive, as there would be no time. You would have no feelings that are in any way similar to human existence.
There could possibly be some other type of experience as pure consciousness that one cannot conceive of or explain even if one could conceive of it. But let’s just imagine that as pure consciousness there is a desire to have some feelings similar to human experience, to create some specific things that persist and can be had and experienced in the way we are accustomed to in this universe of space and time. Let’s assume that the experience of pure consciousness is not all it’s made out to be, and that creating, creating, creating gets old and one wants to enjoy the fruits of his labor now and then. How would pure consciousness go about creating a specific something that persists and in a way that consciousness can experience it?
In order to be effect, to experience and to have, the infinity of creation must be narrowed down to a limited part of the infinite, and that is done by differentiation. Differentiation is separating something from everything else. Differentiation is a type of creation, but it is not creating something from nothing, it is differentiating something from everything. Consciousness differentiates something from the infinity of creation that is pure consciousness. The differentiated creation has a location because it is different than consciousness. It is ‘over there’. It is ‘over there’ to the degree that consciousness says it is ‘over there’ and that determines at what distance and direction the creation is ‘over there’. You could say that this is the origin of space.
Differentiation is the highest non-pure level of consciousness, and could be linked to enlightened spiritual oneness where all creation is a part of oneself. It is thought to be a peaceful stillness, even though comprised of infinite creation. It is of great compassion but lacks the thinking and judgment of association.
Association is the middle level where the mechanics of time work their wonders. At the heart of association is the sorting of creations into a sequence such that the content of the creations are similar and logical and create the flow of time. This is the level of mind, thought, reason, judgment, opinion, mathematics, language and science. The experience of ‘having’ begins in earnest at this level through persistence in time. With ‘having’ comes the games of life, primarily games with the goal of the survival of things.
Identification is the lowest level of consciousness. The experience of having can be greatly intensified by ‘becoming’ what one has created. At this level, the games of life obtain serious overtones through the dangers to one’s survival as a life form.
The concepts of Differentiation, Association and Identification are taken from 8-8008 and PDC, and are expanded upon here in this attempt at a definition of the soul.
I too can enjoy, to exchange ideas with people regardless of the groups they’re part of or other ideas they may think they have. And regardless of what those ideas might be, I believe greater understanding can occur. In the final analysis, we could at least to agree to disagree. Even that is a sort of an agreement…let things be, let people be. It only feels sickening to me when one tries to intercept to communications or other ideas of the other, or change them to sound worse –or intercept or change the person. Then I dont want to talk. I could go out for coffee with my local Churche’s OSA, if it was for the coffee –just like I could go out with Christians, atheists, and nazis. But if it was so that they would get info from me, no. Other than the adding your own thoughts above what the other says, there is also the matter of your honest -or not- intentions. I don’t think a dishonest person would be willing to see another’s point of view. He would be more willing to undermine it or force or sneak-in his own point of view. That’s what pisses me off about our ‘open’ talk some times –it’s not open at all, and not at all revolutionary either. I’m way more non-authoritarian than many of those who oppose SCN’s authority, because I don’t want to bash them for being ridiculous or otherwise wrong. So, some dude wrote sci fi and thetans and stuff, so what? If you don’t want it, don’t have it. If someone tries to convince you to have it, bash him instead. It’s not that ‘right’ people don’t have any ideas they could get bashed for. I bet they do. I just don’t usually care to find out what could that be. If I do I can win, but it’s a rather bitter victory. I’m not happy with this game.
Anyway, generally I dont think I have any ideas. I think I can make some or be communicated some or not and then I no longer have them, anymore. Even if I ridged, that wouldn’t be stored anywhere. I think spirit is free, and what is unfree is not spirit.
Thanks 🙂
Treason: Find out that you are.
Enemy: Find out who you really are.
Oops, you almost got out of the trap; that makes you traitorous enemy.
Unless you come back willingly…
definition of soul, self, consciousness:
you
Very well expressed!
Here is something few people duplicate. It seems. Tara said something really interesting higher up on this blog discussion. Here it is:
“…I’m talking about people who’ve been disconnected from the Cof$ for a long time, who cling to those old identities and basically remain stuck in the must-have/can’t-have that the church people ran on them. There is that irrational “fear” of doing something wrong that goes with it…that classic PTSness.”
Very smart. I notice this a lot, ESPECIALLY from comments about LRH such as “Oh Ron would probably…” or “If Ron was here everybody knows he would…” or “Ron in his typical usual cheerful style…” etc. etc. etc. when it is obivious that the person delivering the sickening flattery doesn’t even feel that way at all to begin with! 🙂 Mary Sue spent her OT adult life in prison for her church but not alongside her husband. 🙂 Oops, there I go speaking the truth again so OSA can know that comments like this originated on the 6:00 p.m. news 600 times before today. But my point is just like Tara said, there are people who have left the church long ago that still cling to those beliefs. I even know one personally so I already have the mass on it instead of the MU. 🙂
Alanzo & Brian.
I think that is just a problem of language, that is, the use of words to express something that is non-physical.
Also the Skandhas and the whole system of Eight Consciousness are just the Buddhist’s construct for the mind and the person, like the Scientology version or the Freudian psychology construct. It is just a working model, not the actuality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_Consciousnesses
The construct attempts to represents how non dual awareness becomes something that maintains some kind of permanency and illusion of beingness with or without a body. Very cool.
Hubbard also had his own version of this in the PDC and the Factor lectures, which are pretty cool too.
Also the never ending issue about if consciousness exist or not exist ad museum, it is also a problem of language, as it is not supposed to be analyzed to death but to be experienced by the person through insights. That is the whole point of any mystical system.
So far for me, the Lankavatara Sutra is one of my favorite works of The Buddha, which by the way dispels any fixed ideas about who we are, or what we are not, or if we even are. (Joke)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La%E1%B9%85k%C4%81vat%C4%81ra_S%C5%ABtra
Marty you are providing one hell of a syncretized piece of consciousness. Thanks
Conversion to a faith is just this identification.
Eastern religions, in general, do not require any conversion. Looks like conversion started with Christianity.
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When one becomes self-aware, is one identifying with something? I would make the following distinction:
When one is told that he is a thetan with such and such qualities and characteristics, and he starts believing in it, then that would be self-identification.
But when one simply looks at what one is, totally honestly, and doesn’t pretend to be anything else, then that would be self-awareness.
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Marty said: “Practice in viewing objects arising in and departing from consciousness (thoughts, ideas, pictures, emotions, etc) as the isolated, ephemeral, relatively miniscule and ineffectual things they are within the context of one’s potentially unlimited spacious awareness tends to help one separate out from unwanted previously assumed identities. “
The following steps seems to go along with the advice above:
1. Find a place where you can sit comfortably and be there for a while without being disturbed or distracted. Make sure you have had enough to eat and rest. You do not want your body to be a distraction.
2. Sit in a comfortable position with your back straight and upright. If you are sitting in a chair, keep feet flat on the floor, and hands in the lap.
3. Become aware of breathing and stay aware of it without interfering with it throughout this exercise. Awareness of breathing helps you stay grounded in reality.
4. Become aware of the mind and stay aware of it without interfering with it throughout this exercise. Awareness of mind as a sense organ that is viewing mental objects helps you stay objective.
5. Do not move or do anything. Simply observe the physical objects, such as, chair, table, wall, etc., and the mental objects, such as, ideas, thoughts, feelings, emotions, etc. Let your eyes be open, half-closed, or closed naturally and not be controlled.
6. Do not add anything to this exercise. If you just see blackness, then observe that blackness. If you see a play of light and darkness, then observe that play of light and darkness. And so on.
7. Let your attention roam freely. Observe what your senses present to you. Let various perceptions of sound, smells, taste, touch, temperature, gravity, etc. come to you. Do not strain to perceive them. Do not look for anything in particular.
8. Do not resist anything. Let reactions, such as, twitches in muscles, minor pains and aches, sleepiness, etc., come and go. Experience the body as a whole without interfering with it. If some discomfort lasts, readjust the body to a more comfortable position, while experiencing the effort.
9. The mind may present “pictures” of the current and past events, some flattering and some not so flattering. Simply experience them without resisting. The scene may shift around continually.
10. The mind may present emotions, such as, embarrassment, guilt, anxiety, anger, fear, grief, and even apathy. Simply experience them thoroughly without trying to judge or justify them.
11. If you find yourself getting involved in thoughts, or mentally doing something else, then simply recognize this fact, and continue. Do not suppress anything. Do not add anything.
12. Let these feelings, emotions and sensations play themselves out. Do not speculate on reasons and possibilities. As you persevere, the uncomfortable feelings and sensations will clear out.
13. Try ending this exercise at a point when some persistent thought, emotion or effort has just left, though this may not always be possible.
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Wonderful post Marty!
Perhaps the most efficacious way to teach is by being an example and you are certainly being an example of integration, evolution and transcendence. We are indeed moving on up a little higher. Thank you.
Marty, as I read your post I was reminded of something stated in the Teachers Manual in the Course in Miracles.
“There is a course for every teacher of God. The form of the course varies greatly. So do the particular teaching aids involved. But the content of the course never changes. Its central theme is always, “God’s Son is guiltless, and in his innocence is his salvation.” It can be taught by actions or thoughts; in words or soundlessly; in any language or in no language; in any place or time or manner. It does not matter who the teacher was before he heard the Call. He has become a savior by his answering. He has seen someone else as himself. He has therefore found his own salvation and the salvation of the world. In his rebirth is the world reborn.”
[…]
“Certain pupils have been assigned to each of God’s teachers, and they will begin to look for him as soon as he has answered the Call. They were chosen for him because the form of the universal curriculum that he will teach is best for them in view of their level of understanding. His pupils have been waiting for him, for his coming is certain. Again, it is only a matter of time. Once he has chosen to fulfill his role, they are ready to fulfill theirs. Time waits on his choice, but not on whom he will serve. When he is ready to learn, the opportunities to teach will be provided for him.
“When pupil and teacher come together, a teaching-learning situation begins. For the teacher is not really the one who does the teaching. God’s Teacher speaks to any two who join together for learning purposes. The relationship is holy because of that purpose, and God has promised to send His Spirit into any holy relationship. In the teaching-learning situation, each one learns that giving and receiving are the same. The demarcations they have drawn between their roles, their minds, their bodies, their needs, their interests, and all the differences they thought separated them from one another, fade and grow dim and disappear. Those who would learn the same course share one interest and one goal. And thus he who was the learner becomes a teacher of God himself, for he has made the one decision that gave his teacher to him. He has seen in another person the same interests as his own.”
That is very general and subjective. It can be interpreted in all different ways. It includes one’s biases, prejudices, fixed ideas, etc. It is not precise at all.
Sorry!
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You nailed it, Lawrence. 🙂
There is stuff in scientology that doesn’t make sense when look at closely.
Marty: “Practice in viewing objects arising in and departing from consciousness (thoughts, ideas, pictures, emotions, etc) as the isolated, ephemeral, relatively miniscule and ineffectual things they are within the context of one’s potentially unlimited spacious awareness tends to help one separate out from unwanted previously assumed identities. It allows them to pass on and out of consciousness along with all the other infinity of objects that so arise and so pass. It also tends to expand one’s sphere of consciousness or awareness beyond limits one once considered fixed.”
Silence and Stillness…
Thanks Vinaire. What Marty wrote indicated to me and I was about to ask him what he would suggest as to how to practice this. Will give what you said a go. And Marty, if you have any other suggests here, I think many of us would be interested in them.
Of course we experience love and that experience is proof that it exists.
Dear Paul,
I appreciate the effort you have put into writing this post. I studied it carefully to a point when I ran into something that doesn’t make sense. Here are my considerations:
(1) Consciousness, by definition, must be self-aware. This must precede the causation (creation) and perception of anything else.
(2) Thus, Consciousness shall precede Reality (knowledge), which is the outcome of perception.
(3) The idea that “pure consciousness can be experienced” appears to be inconsistent as it assumes an “I” that exists separate from pure consciousness.
This is where I stop. There seems to be an implicit assumption in your reasoning that there is some “I” over and above pure consciousness. Does “I” precede pure consciousness, or is it created later from pure consciousness? Please explain this point. Thank you.
Regards, Vinaire
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We all are working with models. The best model would be a very simple model that is consistent and coherent with reality. A model may begin with consciousness (awareness). Another model may begin with cause. I find the consciousness (awareness) model to be more basic than the cause model. If one is conscious then consciousness exists. But it only exists when one is conscious. Therefore, one would never be aware of a lack of consciousness.
Cause arises, therefore, cause can also cease.
Awareness arises, therefore, awareness can also cease.
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Wow. Thank you, Conan.
“Ad museum”.. LOL!
Alanzo
Brian,
Great video. And I do get your point. In addition to being a language problem, It is also a matter of personal taste, which some people get all stuck with the system and the words, etc.
Reality by any other name is still reality.
The fact of awareness itself is a disturbance! 🙂
You are welcome Joe. I am sure that the basic principles expressed by Marty can be practiced in steps different from the above but it all boils down to observing without interefering with the mind and the body.
Mind and body seem to be wound up like a spring in an old-fashioned toy. When that spring starts to unwind it animates the toy.
It is watching the animation without interfering with the spring or the toy. When the spring unwinds completely the toy becomes still.
Scotty,
You premise sounded fine to me. I think is just a question of really understanding that reality is relative and is being continuously projected as a continuum of possibilities. And to realize that Hubbard had the habit of making pronouncements about everything being finite, absolute and attaining total certainty about anything, particularly if RON said so.
Potpie wrote:
I’m not talking about the current crap going
on in the COS. I’m talking about people that truly
understand and want to help by applying basic
fundamental tech. No pie in the sky OT this and that.
A good Life Repair and a well done set of Grades can
put one in a position to choose their path from that point
on.
I very much agree with this. These services, especially a well constructed and customized Life Repair for that individual pc, can certainly do that. It did it for me.
I’m sure those who help would be more than happy to fly
the ruds of those who are more inclined to attack and belittle.
So even they can objectively see and apply what is being said in this blog
and not equate it to an attack on Scientology or those who have a true
willingness to help ie: auditors.
You use the term “attack and belittle” repeatedly throughout your post. I understand why, because I was a Scientologist, too, and I know how any questioning of Hubbard or the tech feels when you are a Scientologist. It feels like someone you love, like a son or family member, is being attacked and belittled, even if something they said is only being questioned, and especially if it is being criticized.
I have found repeatedly that this feeling came about in me because I so strongly identified with L Ron Hubbard and Scientology that I felt that when they were criticized, I was being criticized too.
Criticism is most often not an attack. Most often, criticism is actually an attempt to improve the target of the criticism. Unfortunately LRH taught Scientologists the exact opposite of this repeatedly throughout the materials of Scientology.
How many Scientologists can accept that some criticisms of LRH and Scientology are attempts to help become more effective at doing what good-hearted people like you are trying to do with it?
How many loyal Scientologists can separate themselves from LRH’s teachings on criticism, and see the truth about criticism of Scientology?
It is my experience that loyal Scientologists, after leaving LRH’s cult, gradually mature to accept some criticisms not as attempts to destroy, but as attempts to help.
It’s a process that takes longer for some, and shorter for others.
It’s not a “case condition” requiring the flying of ruds or any other auditing. It’s a separation of one’s self-identity from the identity of “Scientologist”.
Alanzo
I do seem to find such absolutist statements to be inconsistent,
“Man is basically good.”
“God’s Son is guiltless.”
To be able to understand good one must have already dreamed up bad. To be able to commuinicate guiltless, there must also exist the concept of guilt.These kind of dualities are associated with the concept of self.
The assumption here is that “self” is the ultimate reality. Is that assumption correct?
The Ultimate Reality is basically a starting postulate that one uses to make sense out of all existence. Abrahamic religions use a “self,” or God, as the starting postulate, or ultimate reality. Scientology uses a “Static” or “an abstract ability to postulate and to perceive” as its ultimate reality. This ability is postulated to have no mass, no motion, no wavelength, and no location in space or in time. But this postulate is just another version of “self” that postulates and perceives.
But that not the only ultimate reality that can be postulated. Vedic religions use “neti, neti” (not this, not that) or the shedding away of all that is relative, conditioned and impermanent to define their concept of ultimate reality as “Brahma” or “Nirvana.”
The postulate of Ultimate Reality is true only to the degree that it brings consistency and coherency to the understanding of all existence.
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Hello Paul.
I wrote an article, based on experience, which aligns with and adds some detail to your post. I think you may find it interesting and informative. Drop me a note and I will be glad to send it to you. I found many things in your writing to be very informative and enlightening.
marknr@hushmail.com
Thank you for your work.
Mark
Well expressed, Alanzo.
Those who are still rooting for Scientology, and get upset when Sceintology is criticized, should take a look if they are identifying themselves with Scientology.
One is as big as one can take self-criticism. But the criticism of Scientology is not self-criticism. One should be able to rationally discuss points that are critical of Scientology. I look at crticism of Scientology as some point about “knowledge” that needs to be sorted out. This viewpoint does not create any upset or “charge.”
If a person gets upset seeing LRH and Scientology being criticized, it means the following
(1) Self is simply a belief system capable of dynamic projection. The belief system of this person has become saturated with Hubbard’s thinking of being prosecuted for one’s ideas.
(2) He or she is not mature enough to be able to take self-criticism.
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Conan –
If there is one thing that meditation has taught me, it’s that I do not run on language. I run on feelings and sensations and weird, ineffable little scraps of things.
I have found that words and language are circular and self-referential, and build a barrier between me and how I actually operate.
And an ideology like Scientology is so circular and so self-referential as to be like a caged hamster wheel where nothing refers to anything outside itself at all. Every term, every label, only returns back onto the world of the Scientology ideology and never to anything as it actually exists within me.
Since no language can touch what is within me, certainly no circular ideology like Scientology can.
It’s good to be reminded that the language used to convey buddhist terms and ideas is just as circular and self-referential.
Thank you for that reminder.
Alanzo
Perhaps a simple model won’t work because reality is not simple.
According to LRH and Buddha as well as many others, “you” are not your biases, prejudices, fixed ideas, etc. You are simply “you”.
you [yo̵̅o̅]
You is a pronoun used to describe someone that is being spoken to, or to describe a hypothetical person or group of people.
You are you when I am speaking to you. When you are speaking, you are “I” to yourself, and I am “you” to you. he he 🙂
What do you think is reality? What makes it complex?
I won’t insist for an answer. Do the best you can to explain your viewpoint. 🙂
So, ‘you’ is a terminal in communication. But that doesn’t tell me anything about the nature of ‘you’.
I think there is more to ‘you’ then jits function as a terminal.
Vin, an answer doesn’t have to be a “correct” answer or THE answer. It just has to be a direct response to the question.
“Do the best you can” is answering the question IF it speaks to the question – even if the person’s answer is “I don’t know.” It’s only when the words that are returned speak to something else that it isn’t a direct response to the question and thus isn’t an answer.
Well, in the mind, perfect duplication results in as-isness – which means it vanishes. I have experienced this. How does one do this? By looking at it completely as it is. In the physical universe, I have not seen it done. However, I have seen things become much “brighter” and more “there” when they are looked at, and studied, and seen exactly as they are, with no filters. This is one of the benefits of Op Pro by Dup (book and bottle).
2, I don’t think you can become something else but you can take on the characteristics of it and act like it. So, one can “become that thing” by considering to be it, but regardless, they are still who they are.
Thanks Conan,
Essentially what I take away from it is to be mindful that even particles are beings. It gives an interesting perspective on ownership and what MEST actually is. This aligns with similar statements I have read in the Upanishads, Theravada Buddhism and Quantum Physics Texts.
vinaire,
I think that mutually perceived “reality” is the sum of our agreements – which is always contingent upon the intersubjective verifiability of our perceptions, of course. Those with difficulties differentiating between differences, similarities and identities however may have some problems with this concept.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersubjective_verifiability
Ahhh Grasshopper, You have identified the difference!
Yes, yes. subtler and deeper are the mysteries. When one pierces the veil of darkness and one lets his imagination control his mind, the moonlit path reveals itself. In this state one can perceive things as they are. Time loses it’s meaning, matter energy and space lose their significance. When this state is reached, achievement occurs.
I see it in the definition of intersubjective verifiability I posted above and will repost for you here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersubjective_verifiability
Brian, I like the way the Upanishads look at it. Basically it is saying, From the One come the Many, and the Many Return to the One.
“One of the great insights of the Upanishads is that atman and Brahman are made of the same substance. When a person achieves moksha or liberation, atman returns to Brahman, to the source, like a drop of water returning to the ocean. The Upanishads claim that it is an illusion that we are all separate: with this realization we can be freed from ego, from reincarnation and from the suffering we experience during our existence. Moksha, in a sense, means to be reabsorbed into Brahman, into the great World Soul.” — Cristian Violatti, from the Ancient History Encyclopedia
Exactly Joe
Vinay, Yogananda has a very simple definition of reality: “that which can be experienced”
Depends on who “you” think “you” are
As I understand, there are physical objects, such as, tables, chairs. cups, etc. There are also mental objects, such as, thoughts, emotions and efforts. I do understand seeing things as they are, which would be looking at things without filters of assumptions, biases, prejudices, etc. This will improve duplication of what is there. But there are always unknown filters too, and it is difficult to know when the duplication is perfect.
One indication of perfect duplication would be the complete disappearance of what one was looking at. That is real to me because I have experienced it in auditing. But that is a “perfect duplication” of ‘alter-is’ of a mental object. One returns to the correct perspective of the mental object. The correct memory does not disappear unless it is a case of Alzheimer. I think that this happens in the physical universe too as far as ‘alter-is’ goes, that why objects appear to be brighter.
The above is my understanding of perfect duplication, which is different from yours in that it is the ‘alter-is’ that disappears.
Scientology idea of knowing a physical object by pervading is very deceptive. It has not been explained scientifically, and it remains quite subjective to the order of different ‘feeling’ for different people. It is just one of those sci-fi meanderings of Hubbard.
I don’t think the idea of “total identification” is still clear to me. It seems that one reactively takes on some characteristics without knowing it, such as a scientologist taking on the characteristics of Hubbard. But whether it is partial or total would depend on the opinion of a third person.
To me a person’s self is basically a belief system that interprets reality to him in a way that is useful to him.in fulfilling his/her desires. When scientology ideas become part of his belief system then the person becomes a scientologist.
Yup! This is a subjective explanation and can be influenced by filters or the reactive mind. This is neither precise nor scientific.
If every particle is a being, then how do you define a being?
To me the definition of reality is much simpler.
Reality is essentially what is there.
Reality may be distorted by the personal filters (biases, prejudices, fixed ideas, etc.) being used by the observer. But then such filters shall also be part of the reality.
So, the reality is made up of what is observed by the observer, whether it is straight or distorted. But then the observer also should be included in that reality!
🙂
The habit of the mind is to objectify and disassemble holistic simplicities into observable parts. The problem with holistic simplicities being divided up into diverse parts is that the original verity is then made into something else. The original simplicity is then lost.
I can give a million definitions and quote from countless sages. The spiritual path is not an intellectual excersize to cough up new theories.
The is a Tamil word for God. It translates to: go deep
The best definition of the soul, consciousness, self or God is to become self realized, God realized: liberated from ignorance.
Then your very existence will become the definition of self, consciousness and the soul.
Then you will transmit that definition without words by your very presence.
A living example.
Thanks. I posted my understanding of reality on another message here.
https://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2014/06/29/identification-and-membership/#comment-307841
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Looks like that link is not working. So here is my response again.
To me the definition of reality is much simpler. Reality is essentially what is there. Reality may be distorted by the personal filters (biases, prejudices, fixed ideas, etc.) being used by the observer. But then such filters shall also be part of the reality. So, the reality is made up of what is observed by the observer, whether it is straight or distorted. But then the observer also should be included in that reality! 🙂 🙂
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But it doesn’t define precisely what love is.
Here is my understanding of Soul versus Atman:
The word “atman” from Hinduism is translated as “soul” in English. But this is an incorrect translation. “Atman” is different from “soul” the way “doughnut hole” is different from the “doughnut.”
A soul is something. It is like the doughnut made up of thought material (ideas, visualizations, assumptions, etc.). But an atman is nothing. It has no substance. It is like the doughnut hole surrounded by the thought material of the doughnut.
A soul is that “I,” “will” or “intention” that one feels subjectively. It seems that there is a permanent self there. From this self-centric viewpoint, the ultimate reality is the “perfect self” of God. When undesirable thought material is purged and the soul is purified, it goes to heaven to be with God. The soul and God do not merge because different selves maintain their integrity.
However, an atman is surrounded by thought material that presents itself as a relative, conditioned and impermanent self. From this reality-centric viewpoint, one arrives at the ultimate reality by “neti, neti” (shedding all that is relative, conditioned and impermanent). As the conditioned reality of self is purged, atman merges with the ultimate reality.
So, soul becomes the best it can be, while atman sheds all its conditioning to return to what it basically was all along.
http://vinaire.me/2014/06/18/soul-versus-atman/
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Yes Scott, man do I agree. The Upanishads was the second book I ever read about spirituality. I was only 16 and it completely blew my mind. But I was too young to understand why. It was only many decades later that I finally accepted that these ancient disciplines and writings were something I had experienced before.
Yogananda has a concept regarding what we were before, in previous incarnations. He says, paraphrase, “what you have affinity for in this life suggests that you were involved with that in previous incarnations. Affinity suggests familiarity. Otherwise why is the attraction there if there is no prior experience.” So affinity, attraction to something, suggests familiarity with it.
It is my opinion that the Upanishads are the source of religion on this planet. The time dating on Vedic culture is argued from 1500 to 15,000 BC. There is simply no science to it yet.
But that culture was/is amazing. Just google what Carl Sagan has to say about the ancient Hindhus and their accuracy on dating the age of the universe.
Hi Mark
According to LRH’s definitions, he has taken perfect duplication beyond “seeing something exactly as it is.” and actually attempting to, or actually, creating the object out of its own matter and energy, in its own space and its own time. Seems to go well beyond any concept of seeing.
Eric
This video defines “I” as an observer. I think that observer is an identity also. That identity of observer is defined in terms of an inflow of information. An observer is one who is inflowing certain information. So this is a “relationship definition.” It doesn’t define the innate characteristic of consciousness.
Here is come contemplation on reality:
(1) Reality starts as self-awareness when awareness arises.
(2) Perception of self is interpreted as fundamental knowledge.
(3) That knowledge of self is then used to interpret incoming perception.
(4) This interpretation becomes reality.
(5) Feedback from reality modifies the knowledge of self.
(6) As the frequency of perception and feedback increases, knowledge of self builds up into a belief system.
(7) This belief system has certain desires and purposes.
(8) This belief system is the workaday “I” of the person.
(9) The perception is filtered through the “I” as that person’s reality to serve his desires and purposes.
(10) As this belief system becomes complex so does the perceived reality.
So there is a reality as perceived by the person. There is also the reality of the belief system of the person. Then there is the reality of the arising of awareness in the first place.
I don’t have a viewpoint on it. Do you? Do you think reality is simple, that it only needs a simple model to be understood? Why bother with all that? Maybe the solution to the problem is the problem.
Doesn’t “neti neti” essentially state that there really isn’t any more to “you” than that?
If you are not there and neither give nor receive communication, then for all practical purposes, do you exist?
Is that really any different than saying that “theta” and “thetan” are made of the same substance?
Doesn’t it at least tell you that “you” have an ability? What more could you possibly want to know about your own nature?
Dear Vinaire,
Thank you for taking the effort to read my lengthy dissertation.
In answer to your question about pure consciousness being experienced, I agree that this is a bit imponderable. I actually don’t have any concept of what it would be like at 100% pure consciousness. The concept that I wanted to communicate is that pure consciousness as infinite creation is extremely foreign to human level experience, but we can try to imagine what the action would be to start from there down the road to human level experience. The concept of 100% pure consciousness (infinite creation) is like one of those singularities which throws everything into a spin. But I like to think that this is where it all starts. Makes more sense to me to start with infinity and progressively narrow it down than to start from zero and build up a universe.
I hope that clarifies the concept.
Regards, Paul
Hello there Vinay.
Haven’t talked to you in a day or two. Maybe a little longer.
As-Ising.
The trouble I have found with as-ising physical objects is that the rest of the guys on this world may not agree that it is gone or give their permission to get rid of it. It’s fine to disappear it for yourself, but everyone else says “It’s still there”.
The rules of physics are very heavily agreed to and enforced. They are part of the entrance requirements for this universe. Fail physics 101 and you don’t get in. Break the rules and get noticed and you get kicked out.
Also, anything that you as-is for yourself, such as so called ‘mental mass’ can easily be re-created. One of the mysteries of ‘Losing one’s gains’.
Mark
Hello young Grasshopper.
Lots of ‘Marks’ on this site.
Duplication and identification are indeed different but they are related. Looking across the room at that cabinet on the wall, you are to a greater or lesser extent duplicating it and to some extent ‘being’ it. Do you think that when you look at some object that you are seeing it with just your eyes? Duplicating and identifying are gradients.The act of ‘looking’ includes expanding yourself and your viewpoint and encompassing what you are looking at.
Just a thought.
Mark
This is my understanding of awareness and consciousness:
KHTK Postulate M-1: Awareness is basically a disturbance.
Awareness is known to arise, change and disappear. It may be likened to a disturbance that arises changes and disappears. We may assume some ground state, which when disturbed gives rise to awareness.
However, the ground state shall forever be unknowable and shall remain only theoretical because there is no awareness to go with it. Awareness arises only when this ground state is disturbed. Therefore, awareness is something relative and not absolute.
Awareness is aware by its very nature. This self-awareness is called consciousness.
It seems that what Brian and Valkov are referring as “you” can be stated more precisely as “consciousness” defined in KHTK Postulate M-1 above.
Note: “M-1” stands for Metaphysics -1.
I just want to state that my purpose here is not to be didactic. My purpose is to put my best understanding on the table and get feedback from others.
Actually, this is how I refine my understanding.
This is my understanding of consciousness as light.
KHTK Postulate M-2: Consciousness is primordial light.
Awareness is aware by its very nature. This self-awareness is called consciousness.
Since awareness seems to be disturbance, and science recognizes light (electromagnetic wave) as the most basic form of disturbance in nature, there is some justification in associating consciousness with light. It appears that this association of consciousness with light has been made on an intuitive basis since ancient times.
Consciousness may be regarded as something spiritual as opposed to physical. But spiritual and physical states are neither absolute nor independent. This is similar to the case with space and time which are found by the scientific investigation to be neither absolute nor independent.
For a long time space and time were regarded as absolute concepts in themselves. Newtonian mechanics built on that consideration is still very successful but in a limited scope on earth. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, when considering a cosmic scale, finds space and time to be relative. Similarly, Abrahamic religions have long regarded spiritual and physical states to be absolute in themselves. This has been adequate for a limited understanding of human consciousness. But to understand consciousness on cosmic scales we need to consider spiritual and physical states to be relative. A spiritual state will have physical form, no matter how subtle. And a physical state will have some spiritual characteristics, no matter how subdued.
Thus, we may say with some confidence that basic awareness is conscious of itself as light. It represents a primordial disturbance of wave-length that is nearly infinite, and its frequency is nearly zero. The period and velocity of this primordial disturbance are infinite for all practical purposes.
The primordial disturbance may now be described as “light of awareness.” Primordial light may be defined as the physical form of the spiritual characteristic of basic awareness. This is a very raw level of consciousness. Soul, self, energy, matter, etc., come later.
http://vinaire.me/2014/03/06/khtk-postulates-for-metaphysics-part-1/
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vinaire…”To be able to understand good one must have already dreamed up bad. To be able to commuinicate guiltless, there must also exist the concept of guilt.These kind of dualities are associated with the concept of self.”
vinaire, in your statement, I believe this point is key…’one must have already dreamed up…’
Sigmund Freud believed that dreams were the guardians of sleep. I believe that duality is the ‘dream’ that is attempting to hold and keep a tiny bit of awareness in a illusory state of sleep. Concepts, intelligence, inventiveness, ingenuity, understanding, seeking and so on are all enormously viable guardian components that ensure identification with the dream i.e., ensures that that little bit of awareness remains asleep.
I believe that what many of us refer to as the ‘reality of existence’ is actually nothing but a dream. While in the dream and still asleep it is impossible to conceive of an Ultimate Reality or, as I prefer to symbolize it, an Actuality. The best we can do with our words and other symbols is use them to point to an experience which is beyond symbols. And, if we do like Marty suggests i.e., “Practice in viewing objects arising in and departing from consciousness (thoughts, ideas, pictures, emotions, etc) as the isolated, ephemeral, relatively miniscule and ineffectual things they are within the context of one’s potentially unlimited spacious awareness…” and don’t allow ourselves to get lured into endless intellectual invigorating debates around the rightness and wrongness of our seemingly infinite interpretations of perception, we will wake up in the dream then, inevitably, wake up from the dream.
Hello Mark,
Good to hear from you. I believe that the difference between your and my understanding is that I am not operating from the premise of Theta-MEST theory, which looks at Theta and MEST as absolutes in themselves. Please see what I wrote under another comment here:
https://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2014/06/29/identification-and-membership/#comment-307886
Thanks,
Vinaire
Dear Paul,
I understand you now. I have been following the same reasoning. I have now come up with the followin understanding expressed in another post here.
https://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2014/06/29/identification-and-membership/#comment-307886
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Hi Valkov,
I think I have, for the moment, settled on the understaning expressed in the following post.
https://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2014/06/29/identification-and-membership/#comment-307879
The exchange on this topic has been quite interesting.
Thanks, Vinaire
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Dear Valkov,
You are right. It is just my scientific brain that wants a clearer definition. I think I am satisfied now by postulating an unknowable ground state from which awareness and consciousness spring. I have expressed that here.
https://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2014/06/29/identification-and-membership/#comment-307879
Regards, Vinaire
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Thank you Alanzo for your apparent sincerity and
heart felt comments. You and Vinaire totally missed
my point (yet Vinaire validated it as excellent) in my
initial comment in this thread.
Once again from your comments it is quite obvious you
have very little understanding of the tech and how it is applied.
As I said to you before, you will never sway my point of view
on the tech and its application.
I would suggest you read my initial
thread and think about what I was saying about belittling and attacking
those who truly do want to help using LRH tech. A willingness to help
is a very powerful thing no matter what method is being used….why make
someone wrong for the method they decide to use? Especially when it works when applied correctly. You will not find any comment I have made to you belittling you or trying to sway you away from your choice of a spiritual path and you won’t.
I would say 90% of the things you write in this blog and Mike’s are
overtly or covertly intended to make one think that LRH and Scientology
are the most evil terrible things to ever hit this universe.
Why don’t you give it a rest because no matter how hard you try you aren’t
going to make the tech disappear.
I have said all I’m going to say on this….if you do write any comments in answer to this one, my reply would be as written above.
Vinaire you must be a very good fisherman because
you certainly know how to bait the hook. I don’t think
I’m going to take the bait though.
Read my comment to Alanzo. It can apply to you as well.
You said…..”Mostly I write for myself. I am actually in a continuous discussion with myself”.
If that is truly the case, why should I even consider reading what you
write let alone trying to understand it?
Lighten up and peace out Vinaire.
Scott,
Got it. But I would take that speculation with a grain of salt.
Alanzo,
You made a good point on the circular and self-referential nature of both Scientology and Buddhism, I observed the same thing.
But I think is the nature of the beast, as the subject is essentially one of “self-actualization”, so the whole thing eventually come backs to you.
I think that’s very well said, Vinaire. Hits the nail on the head for me, too!
The best definition I’ve seen for SELF comes from a Thai Forest Monk who named himself Thanissaro Bikkhu, real name Jeffrey DeGraff, or as I like to call him “Lee Iacocca in a Robe”.
The guy’s a very clear and concise writer and teacher.
He defines self, from a Buddhist perspective, as “a strategy for success”.
He reminds his students that while, ultimately, any self is a dependent arising and does not cause itself to exist, and thus does not inherently exist, relatively, right here in the real world, selves DO exist.
He says that the Buddhist teaching on anatta, or “not-self” has to be understood within the Buddhist “Qs” of the 4 Noble Truths. He then lays out these Buddhist Qs as a guide for practice:
1. Stress should be comprehended,
2. its cause abandoned,
3. Its cessation realized,
4. And the path to its cessation developed.
So anatta should always be understood within this context of the relief of suffering. Therefore, for the purpose of the relief of suffering, one should not negate the self, but use the self to relieve and eliminate suffering.
He wrote a very good article on this at his excellent website:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/selvesnotself.html
Alanzo
Dear Brian.
I am sorry, but my scientist’s brain is looking for a more precise understanding. I now feel much better with the understanding of consciousness expressed in this other post.
https://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2014/06/29/identification-and-membership/#comment-307886
Regards, Vinaire
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Potpie wrote:
“Once again from your comments it is quite obvious you have very little understanding of the tech and how it is applied.”
A generality with no specifics addressed, and no specific evidence showing the basis for your accusation that I have very little understanding of the tech and how it is applied.
“I would say 90% of the things you write in this blog and Mike’s are overtly or covertly intended to make one think that LRH and Scientology are the most evil terrible things to ever hit this universe.”
These are fallacious straw men statements.
Never once have I ever said that, nor do I think that. I have repeatedly said, for instance, that a Nazi BlitzKrieg or an American Shock and Awe bombing campaign are far more evil than anything LRH ever did to Scientologists – just as one example.
Surely you can refrain from generalizations and mischaracterizations of what I write, and address my points specifically, Potpie. You should be able to do that even as a Grade Zero PC, let alone a highly trained auditor in Scientology.
A trained OT should be able to use logic and reason to communicate about Scientology.
If you can not use reason to explain your points and show how I am incorrect about LRH and Scientology, what good is all your training in Scn?
I know that you will develop the logic skills necessary to reasonably demonstrate the good in your Scientology beliefs. And I will applaud you when you do.
Alanzo
Words and language are indeed circular and self-referential, but thet can be very useful if the radius of the circle is very large.
That is the nature of this universe too. 🙂
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Monte, I don’t like debating because that simply amounts to making oneself right.
I like discussing because that provides an opportunity to learn more.
And I don’t like ignoring inconsistencies.
I pointed out an inconsistency, which you basically ignored. Thanks anyway.
Potpie, I like your point that a real auditor could care less about any status; all he cares about is restoring self-determinism of the person in front of him. Nobody should be attacking people with good conscience.
Actually, there should be no attacks. There should only be effort to bring about better understanding. If anybody is using force then force may be used in return, but only to prevent immediate harm and no more.
There is plenty of ignorance among Scientologist and also those who criticize them. The target of correction should be that ignorance. Part of the ignorance comes from identities unwittingly assumed. Knowledge is more important than any identity.
I do see value in Scientology auditing, but I have the following to say. And please keep in my mind that my intention is not to attack. If a scientologist cannot take some constructive criticism then, in my view, he is simply immature.
1. Scientology consists of much ground breaking work by Hubbard.
2. Scientology introduces a whole new plateau to addressing the problems of the mind.
3. The work on this breakthrough is, however, far from complete.
4. The success from the application of Scientology is far from consistent.
5. Any lack of success gets blamed on the practitioner of Scientology.
6. Unmanageable difficulties seem to exist in the application of Scientology.
7. Correction lists have become a part of “Standard Scientology.”
8. A closer look at Scientology shows a lack of application of the principle of poke-yoke.
9. Mindfulness is the key to successes in Scientology auditing but it is not emphasized enough.
11. Scientology takes up certain aspects of mindfulness on TR0 exercises and Obnosis, but it fails to treat it systematically, and fails to highlight its importance in auditing.
12. The principles of Mindfulness were first elucidated by Buddha 2600 years ago.
13. Mindfulness, when applied, seems to provide poke-yoke to Scientology processes.
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Potpie. I am well-centered in myself and can take criticism.
I am afraid to say that for many scientologists, criticism = attack. Unfortunately, this computation is built into the vary fabric of Scientology.
There are many good things in Scientology, as I have pointed out below (see link), But scientologists need to lighten up on the subject of criticism.
Peace, bro. 🙂
http://vinaire.me/2012/10/03/a-look-at-scientology/
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Potpie, I validated the same points that Alanzo also validated. I am also against attacks, but not against constructive criticism. If a scientologist is taking constructive crticism as an attack then I would fault his misperception.
Those who totally identify themselves with Scientology believe that Scientology is 100% workable when it is not by actual observations. Please don’t ask me to prove that, just look. If Scientology were 100% workable, the Church of Scientology would not be in the condition it is in right now.
Yes, Scientology is workable to quite some degree, and that workability can be improved greatly by incorporating the ancient knowledge of mindfulness fully. Alanzo is sincere, and so am I. We are not out to get Scientology, Our criticism is constructive only.
The viewpoint that Scientology Tech is 100% workable comes across as ‘know best’. This sounds very much a fundamentalist viewpoint of “This is the only way” that disregards and looks down upon all other knowledge. This is not cool at all. We understand tech so please don’t tell us that we don’t. Are you applying Scn tech to this communication? Is that tech working?
If the tech is not working under all conditions then it is not worth its salt. SP/PTS is actually a declaration of the failure of Scientology Tech, which was made in 1965.
Nether Alanzo nor I were belittling anybody who is helping. We are only critical of certain aspects of Scientology, such as, the computaion “criticim = attack.” That is a really interesting computation.
I have never conveyed the idea that “LRH and Scientology are the most evil terrible things to ever hit this universe.” I know you directed that observation at Alanzo, but you are also grouping me with Alanzo, and wanted me to take some rest. So I wanted to point out the fallacy.
Peace, bro!
Regards, Vinaire
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A generality with no specifics addressed, and no specific evidence showing the basis for your accusation that I have very little understanding of the tech and how it is applied.
Okay I will answer this one….
A while back you posed an auditing scenario to Maraldi about two auditing
sessions.
You said that one session was fn vgi’s at exams and the other did not fn at exams and produced an unhappy PC. You then posed a question about the different outcomes of each session stating that they were the “exact same sessions”.
I asked you on several occasions to explain to me how
they were the same and you never answered. There is no way in hell a session that fn’s at exams and a session that does not fn at exams are the same exact sessions. Your posed scenario was not a real situation but yet you appeared to be very knowledgeable on the subject. Someone that didn’t
know could have been quite taken in by your comments and walked away with the idea that the tech was confusing and didn’t work.
That showed me that you have very little understanding of the tech and how it is applied.
On another occasion you went on a rant demanding I answer questions about
LRH comments in DMSMH….silly questions like have I ever cured Leukemia as an auditor and other such stuff stated in DMSMH. Making your point that the tech did not work as LRH stated in DMSMH.
That indicated to me you are missing data and I suggested that you read the
original tech vols from start to finish as there were many tech developments
from DMSMH to the early ’80’s that you appear not to be aware of.
I mean really Alanzo, curing Leukemia with auditing? You really bought into that? It appears you missed the fact that LRH came up with the Assist technology for things like that. (Many years after DMSMH)
Really you can talk Scientology quite well. Some things you say are correct and some aren’t (see above) but overall it appears to me you are missing data yet act as if you aren’t.
Now I’m done with this and will not answer any more of your comments.
Say what you will it is fine with me. But please try to get your facts straight so as not to confuse those that are less knowing on the subject. Unless of course you intend to confuse these people.
Selfgratification on a Intulectual level.
Holding on to straws
Still Try to Understand This:
And than you remember that you have to put out the garbage the next morning.
Vinaire you have called any Scientologist immature
who cannot receive criticism. You have used this term
on a couple of occasions.
Using that word indicates to me you’re ability to receive
criticism is not quite where you make it seem to be.
By the way, using a correction list is quite useful if
you know what you’re doing.
Yup! I found Geffrey DeGraff on Google images. He does look like “Lee Iacocca in a Robe” :). Self = “a strategy for success”. I am glad he uses the word “success” instead of “survival”. I do see “self” existing in a relative condition. There is no absolute self. Yes, self is there as long as dukkha is there. To me self is a form of dukkha. It is like “using positron to nullify electron”, or using a thorn to take out the embedded thorn and then throwing both the thorns away. I have downloaded the article you referenced. Is there some point in that article that really hit you as amazing?
Vinaire
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Well, sure, we can talk about the stuff in 8-80 and creative processing, shoving mock-ups into mental images and all that. The axioms are where this is defined – As-isness. I think from a mental image POV, looking at something completely – seeing exactly what is there – and in effect re-creating the conditions of its creation is in effect re-creating that object, which erases it – cancels it out. It is a mental process – Ron seemed to extend the mental universe (Your universe) with the physical universe, and assume the same rules apply. It is my opinion that the rules are different. The physical universe (this one) existed since the Big Bang (maybe before). Therefore, the conditions of creation of all matter goes to the Big Bang. However, it is my belief and experience that mental mass is created by the being it belongs to, and that the mass is created from scratch – not from pre-existing “stuff”. Therefore, the being can also destroy it completely – via the process of as-isnes.
I know a physicist would argue this – but so what? People have mental masses and images, and these images – facsimiles – do contain visuals, sound memory, feelings, etc. The physical explanation is that these memories are molecules embedded in the brain somewhere. That, to me, is a fantastic explanation. A single molecule (or more than one, say) is able to re-create a full experience of a moment in the past? I mean, recall when your son or daughter was born. Or when you first heard about 9/11.
But, in any event, molecule or not, anyone who has experienced as-isness will tell you that the experience is like no other, and that the facsimile – the mental “stuff” – is gone. Obliterated. This is as-isness.
Well, yes. The “A” in “ARC” is Affinity, which means, among other things, closeness. But again, identification means being that thing, not permeating it. “I am a rock. I am an island.” Even “I am one with the rock” is not the same as “I am a rock.”
Potpie, let’s look at it more universally.
How would you regard a Hindu, a Christian, or a Buddhist, who gets upset at the slightest hint of criticism of their beliefs and refuses to discuss and starts attacking back.
Or, how would you consider an average Joe, who can’t take any self-criticism at all but starts to abuse you.
I am open to your suggestion for a word other than ‘immature.’ Maybe I am not using the right word for this phenomenon, so you can help me here.
Here is the trial balloon for the next postulate. Please tear it apart into shreds,
KHTK Postulate M-3: The disturbance is a back and forth conversion of perception with knowledge.
As the primordial disturbance occurs, there is perception. Perception then acquires meaning. Thus there is knowledge. Knowledge then leads to further perception, which then acquires further meaning, and so on. Thus, there is a back and forth conversion between perception and knowledge with accompanying increase. This describes the disturbance, and thus, awareness and consciousness.
As the frequency of back and forth conversion increases, there is growth in awareness and consciousness. More complex awareness comes about, and with all that meaning consciousness starts to acquire characteristics.
The most fundamental level of consciousness is the infinite light. As frequency increases, the light acquires new characteristics and capabilities for new interactions. These characteristics express the inherent knowledge, and the interactions express the inherent perceptions.
.NOTE: The earlier postulates may have been slightly modified by now as each new postulate brings about a new iteration. Therefore, for the sake of consistency, please check them at this link.
http://vinaire.me/2014/03/06/khtk-postulates-for-metaphysics-part-1/
Potpie –
I respect your reply, and understand much better where you are coming from.
You gave two specific examples where you disagreed with something I wrote, and explained, eloquently and specifically, why.
On your first example, I never said the pc did not f/n at exam. Surely you are aware that MANY pcs who have sessions which they hated get through their exams on the meter without red-tagging, and they never come back.
As for your 2nd specific example regarding LRH’s claims in DMSMH that Dianetic auditing cures leukemia:
“I mean really Alanzo, curing Leukemia with auditing? You really bought into that? It appears you missed the fact that LRH came up with the Assist technology for things like that. (Many years after DMSMH)”
So are you saying, along with LRH’s ever-shifting claims for the results of auditing, that Scientology Assists cure leukemia?
The context for my post that you are referring to was EVIDENCE for the results of LRH’s claims, if I recall correctly.
Even though it was LRH who said in DMSMH that Dianetics cured leukemia, and then never retracted that claim – still keeping it in every reprinting of the book for 36 years while he was alive – what is your evidence for his later shift in claims that Scientology Assists cure leukemia?
This is especially troubling to me personally because I had a friend, a fellow mission staff member in Santa Monica, who died of leukemia while on staff.
I do not know what her treatment was because it was “too entheta” for her condition to be reported to the rest of us on staff. But if her treatment included Scientology Assists then I can tell you that they did not work. She died. And her fiancee lost his future wife.
Of course you can say to keep up your faith in LRH’s ever-shifting claims that “The tech was obviously not properly applied.” because she died.
But that would be a logical mistake on your part. You would not be confronting the actual evidence for the results of Scientology – which must include both the “hits” and the “misses” -which L Ron Hubbard never wanted you to confront.
No process in Dianetics and Scientology can cure leukemia, Potpie. And it is highly irresponsible and even dangerous to claim to anyone that it can. These dangerous and fraudulent claims by LRH were the reason for the FDA raids on Scientology in the 1960’s.
But again, thank you for your earnest and forthright reply, Potpie.
It was a very respectable thing you did. Keep it up. The good in Scientology needs people like yourself to think critically and to provide well-reasoned defenses for what you believe to be helpful to people in Scientology.
Alanzo
LOL! I am guilty of that too.
Ha!
As-isness is like waking up from a dream, and the dream simply disappears. You can no longer recall it. I have had that experience.
Before enlightenment, you will hew wood and carry water… After enlightenment – you will hew wood and carry water. –Zen saying
“Peace is only to be found at the high levels of the Tone Scale. Any effort to have peace after one has become the victim of force and is afraid of force, simply involves further struggle.”
This is a very different from Buddhas four noble truths which taught people to remain peaceful even when there is suffering.
If one does not resist one seems to makes one’s way peacefully through.
LOL! I love this contrast.
Right on, Brian. You and I are on the same page on this.
Thanks for the validation of the definition of identification, George.
Life seems to be like a nightmare to her. She is looking for answers she can’t find. She needs an auditor.
Potpie wrote:
“I asked you on several occasions to explain to me how
they were the same and you never answered. There is no way in hell a session that fn’s at exams and a session that does not fn at exams are the same exact sessions.”
Since I never answered, I will answer you specifically here.
Even though I never said in my example that the pc who left and never came back (and ended up going to the press about Scientology) did not f/n at exam, there is most definitely a way in hell that even a red-tagged pc, and another VVGI’s pc, could have the same exact session.
This is even true within the technology of Scientology.
For instance, one pc may consider one thing an overt, and another pc may not consider that one thing an overt. That would cause the exact same session to produce a good result on one pc, and bad result on another pc.
My point was that each individual is different. And there is no cookie cutter, one-size-fits-all model session, or route to spiritual freedom, for everyone.
The reason that LRH came out with a “Bridge to Total Freedom”, and “standard tech” in the early 1960’s, after more than a decade with no such thing in Dn and Scn, is because it was more cost effective for his business to produce “Franchises” as he called them – just like McDonald’s – who put everyone on a Henry Ford type conveyor belt to spiritual freedom.
You have to picture Scientology before the Bridge to Total Freedom to get this. Until 1962, there was no Bridge in Scientology.
Think of Scientology with no Bridge in it.
Now put a Bridge there.
See the difference?
This was the major schism which caused tons of Dianeticists to leave Scientology in the early 1960’s. “Only Ones” was the term LRH created to dead-agent these auditors who disagreed with the huge change that he put into Scientology at the time.
These Dianeticists and early Scientologists knew that they needed to pick the exact right process for each individual pc based on that pc’s own unique circumstances, and that “the bank” was not constructed the exact same way for every person. They knew that money and business franchise efficiency had nothing to do with spiritual freedom.
That was my point.
We are seeing the results of more than 50 years of LRH’s “standard tech” and Henry Ford Conveyor belt “Bridge to Total Freedom” with the Church of Scientology now with David Miscavige at the helm.
Take a look at it.
That brand of “standard” franchise Scientology has completely failed. And its failure began with LRH deciding – in order to make more money – that there could be a McDonald’s version of Scientology.
Alanzo
Grasshopper I think you make an excellent point about the difference between the shared MEST universe and “one’s own” universe: One’s own or mental universe does not have counter-intentions in it, except to the extent they are installed there in the course of living through the “hard knocks” of life. That’s all covered in Dianetics.
But the shared universe(s) are largely built out of almost countless counterintentions. This may be what gives the MEST universe(s) their solidity, but also covers the political process and social institutions, which usually change rather slowly at best. Witness racism, ethnic and gender prejudices etc. The theory of Scientology, including the concept of ARC, covers these pretty well, to my mind.
The above is a comment on Scott’s comment re: “One of the great insights of the Upanishads is that atman and Brahman are made of the same substance.”
Thank you Vin! And you are very welcome, if I have contributed anything useful to the coversation. I can see what you are saying on the subject and it seems very similar to my own thoughts about it, about that “basic ground of being” or whatever we call it. Best wishes, Valkov.
Hey Al, sorry, I think you’ve ovverreached a bit again….
“These Dianeticists and early Scientologists knew that they needed to pick the exact right process for each individual pc based on that pc’s own unique circumstances, and that “the bank” was not constructed the exact same way for every person.”
The creation of a “Bridge” does not preclude individualized processing of each individual, because there are many processes available for the Auditor/CS to choose from and apply, at each level of “the Bridge”, as one advances through the Grades. However I do agree that LRH tried to simplify and standardize things to make the tech more accessible to more people. You are arguing for a custom-built auto for each customer on the basis that most cars produced in volume won’t serve the purpose of transportation. This is clearly fallacious.
In fact even the auto makers try to make available many different package variations for each type of car, to satisfy as many different tastes as possible because they want to increase their volume of sales.
LRH did oversell, pretty much in the hyperbolic style of the 1940s and 1950s, but a “bridge” was implicit even in the very first books about Dianetics, with all the postulates about achieving “Clear” etc. It’s all right there in DMSMH.
“If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.”
― Dalai Lama XIV
I see the “Bridge” at least partly as an attempt to codify, in the form of a kind of “flow chart”, the C/Sing decisions that will likely need to be made as one progresses up through the Grades. There are a tremendous number of alternatives built into “the Bridge”, for anyone C/Sing a pc, to choose from. I don’t think anyone can authoritatively draw such conclusions as you do, without actually having done the Grades.
Hi Marty,
When I read and then re-read your previous posting of “Basics”, I started immediately practicing to view things coming into my consciousness as objects and voila! The key I had been struggling for, to quiet my mind, to gain command over the mental matter in my universe, landed in my hands!
I had been having a horrible time trying to carry on in life as the yammering in my head just wouldn’t quiet. Now what comes and goes does just that, it comes and goes. The more I practice this the easier my life is becoming. I’m not so easily trapped into the yesterdays and the tomorrows don’t worry me so much. The yammering monkeys in my head have quieted. Life and relationships are less complicated. Anxiety isn’t eating me up anymore.
Such a simple action and yet so incredibly powerful. It has afforded me enormous relief. Thanks!
Mcgins
Affinity. Yes.
But like I said, different, but related. Both involve oneself expanding as a being. Wait, wait. You said ‘identification. Becoming an identity. Now, that’s very different. Sorry for my inattention.
Duplication and being another individual or object through affinity are an increase in self, in viewpoint, in ‘size’ of a being, metaphorically speaking. Assuming and being stuck in or as an identity is a contraction , a reduction of viewpoint, of ability.
My bad.
Mark
Al, you are making some irresponsible statements:
1. “Surely you are aware that MANY [your caps] pcs who have sessions which they hated get through their exams on the meter without red-tagging, and they never come back.”
Dox?
2. “Even though it was LRH who said in DMSMH that Dianetics cured leukemia, and then never retracted that claim – still keeping it in every reprinting of the book for 36 years while he was alive…”
LRH doesn’t even mention leukemia in DMSMH. And with regard to cancer in general, this is all he says:
“At the present time Dianetic research is scheduled to include cancer and diabetes. There are a number of reasons to suppose that these may be engramic in cause, particularly malignant cancer. This is remarked so that attention may be given to the possibility; no tests of any kind have been made on cancer or diabetic patients, and the thought is purely theory and is not to be taken as any kind of an avowal about a cancer cure.”
I would say yes Val 🙂
Like the wave on the ocean, and the ocean, are made of the same substance. When occilations of the sea are stilled and there’s no waves, can we honestly say that the waves are dead? No, the wave is the ocean, the ocean is the wave.
The soul is Brahma, Brahma is the soul.
Jesus said, “I and my Farther are one”
Thank you
“Identifying with that which arises in consciousness – as opposed to simply viewing its coming and going to, through and out of one’s own spacious awareness – is the process by which breadth of consciousness, space, process, and ability declines.”
Pretty good. Maybe it is man’s mental evolution to release this identification? Maybe man is not on the decline. And maybe incline and decline is a mis-identification in itself.
It appears to me that self is a belief system, and identification amounts to incorporating into one’s belief system the belief system of another self.
A person who is behaving like his father has absorbed his father’s belief system into his own.
A person who is identifying with a dog has absorbed dog’s circuits into his own.
I person who is identifying with his body has certain beliefs about his body as part of his self.
So, the word ‘identification’ can have different meanings under different contexts.
Scott, that is true too! 🙂
________________________________
Alanzo said: “Surely you are aware that MANY pcs who have sessions which they hated get through their exams on the meter without red-tagging, and they never come back.”
The above is true in my experience. And I know that the “f/n” at the exam can be faked.
I have myself gotten into lot of unnecessary grinding in early dianetic sessions because of having difficulty with f/ns. It was like hundreds of hours wasted. That is one of the reason I consider Hubbard’s system a “shot gun method.” There is a lot of trial and error, and then occasionally there is a result.
________________________________
Alanzo said: “No process in Dianetics and Scientology can cure leukemia, Potpie. And it is highly irresponsible and even dangerous to claim to anyone that it can. These dangerous and fraudulent claims by LRH were the reason for the FDA raids on Scientology in the 1960′s.”
It is a fact that Hubbard made outrageous claims for Dianetics that were never realized. He simply jumped the gun with his expectations without testing Dianetics thoroughly.
________________________________
I like your post. I can relate to it on so many levels. 🙂
“If anybody is using force then force may be used in return, but only to prevent immediate harm and no more.” ~Vinaire to Potpie
https://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2014/06/29/identification-and-membership/#comment-307910
vinaire, I did not choose to ignore your point re inconsistency, It’s just that I was not prompted to respond to it. Instead, I responded to what I was prompted to and the response was what arose in consciousness. I do realize that my operating in this manner can appear as being non sequitur, or as if I’m missing, or worse, dismissing what is considered to be the primary point being made by the person I’m appearing to be responding to. However, there is never a missing or dismissing of the point being made. I generally get the point I need to get and the way I recognize this is by the prompt that rises up. That said, I am certain that there are many prompts that rise up that, because I’m so engaged with my insane mental machinery and what it’s generating, go completely unrecognized.
vinaire, I too like discussing but I do recognize that the ‘others’ in a discussion are illusory. I learn from what appears to be discussions with others, but really, the so called discussion is never with anyone but myself. Thus, the only one I can ever learn from or teach is myself. But even in my recognition of this, I obviously still require that my teachers appear to me as being others separate from myself. Thank you for being my teacher vinaire. Although, it might not be the lesson you intended for me, YOU have gifted me with the very lesson I needed in the moment I needed it
From my Course in Miracles lesson for today:
“What are these names by which the world becomes a series of discrete events, of things ununified, of bodies kept apart and holding bits of mind as separate awarenesses? You gave these names to them, establishing perception as you wished to have perception be. The nameless things were given names, and thus reality was given them as well. For what is named is given meaning and will then be seen as meaningful; a cause of true effect, with consequence inherent in itself.
“This is the way reality is made by partial vision, purposefully set against the given truth. Its enemy is wholeness. It conceives of little things and looks upon them. And a lack of space, a sense of unity or vision that sees differently, become the threats which it must overcome, conflict with and deny.
“Yet does this other vision still remain a natural direction for the mind to channel its perception. It is hard to teach the mind a thousand alien names, and thousands more. Yet you believe this is what learning means; its one essential goal by which communication is achieved, and concepts can be meaningfully shared.”
http://www.acimdailylesson.com/lesson-184-the-name-of-god-is-my-inheritance
As it arises…from where we believe we are, it is impossible to conceive of a true absolute or consistency. That experience is beyond description.
Mcgins, this is wonderful. 🙂
>
It seems that identification is installing another’s characteristics within one’s belief system without assimilation or absorption. This is the case when a person first comes across Scientology, gets some wins, and installs everything in Scientology into his belief system without examining it closely for consistency and coherency.
Later, the assimilation starts to occur. The inconsistencies within one’s belief system due to earlier installation, starts to sort out. The earlier identity as a scientologist starts to evolve into a mature individual. This is the period when a person really starts to benefit from his exposure to Scientology.
It is not that he is rejecting Scientology. He is basically recognizing inconsistencies and sorting them out. The inconsistencies could be due to his earlier ideas, or because of his misinterpretation of Scientology ideas, or because of inconsistencies within Scientology itself.
There is nothing wrong or right. It is simply a matter of recognizing inconsistencies and sorting them out. For this to occur, one should not be attached to particular ideas, and be willing to examine them in a new unit of time.
>
This is a nice, measured look by Valkov. It makes me see that Alanzo might be overreaching a bit.
It seems that nobody needs to be condemned and nobody needs to be saved either. All we need to do is create an environment in which an examination of inconsistencies in a new unit of time can occur. As a result each one will grow in their own way.
Patience and tolerance are much needed virtues because without them proper communication and examination cannot occur.
>
in our culture the dominant paradigm is to collect observations about ‘the world.’ Then we hope to estrapolate a grand(iose) unified theory from out thgouths relating to the external sensory data. But the funny thing is taht we actually believe that the stories we make up about reality based on a statistically infinitesimal sample have relevande to us, or even the entirety of our world. And then we try to use those myths to navigate through life with as our personal religion. We are still trying to fill in the unmindful ‘gaps’ of what is missing from our understandin, whic we could say is about 99.999999999999999….% (I edited for fluidity)
The Geometry Code:… by Bruce Rawles
This refinement of postulate M-3 seems to be bringing forth some dividends: The disturbance (awareness) is a conversion of perception into knowledge and vice versa.
When I am looking at a tiled floor, I am perceiving a tiled floor because I know it is a tiled floor. It is a back and forth conversion of perception and knowledge of a tiled floor. It is otherwise known as tautology.
This is awareness. How that awareness of a tiled floor came to be seems to be a build up from many earlier awarenesses.
How does a new awareness comes forth from an earlier awareness? In other words, how does a new tautology comes forth from an earlier tautology? The answer seems to lie in the increase in the frequency of perception/knowledge interchange. Somehow this increase seems to bring about intuition.
How does the frequency of this interchane increase? This goes back to the question, “How does the disturbance come about in the first place?” The answer to this question will have to wait. All we know is that there is intuition, and it is somehow connected to the frequency of perception/knowledge interchange.
This seems to be the secret underlying meditation and contemplation known as mindfulness.
As you keep on perceiving things as they are without interfering with them, intuitions come about.
🙂
Brian, I don’t see an overall difference. I see a “thetan” as being similar to a wave on an ocean of “theta”. The main difference I see is that the Hindu personalized “Brahma”, much in the same way that some Central Asians and Europeans personalized their vision of the Source of the world as “God”, whereas LRH did not personalize the universe of Theta, except as individual thetans are personalized to some degree.
These are all similes, figures of speech.
Was Al ever known for his patience, much less his temperance?
Val, yes meaning I agree with you.
Monte, understood! 🙂
You responded to what you felt promped by. I see that completely. Please pardon me for my impatience in trying to get feedback to what I presented. I now see that you were not dismissive.
‘Others’ in a discussion are as illusory as the table one bumps into, or the ‘I’ that is observing. But the fact of illusion is there, and the need to understand that illusion is also there, at least for me. So, discussions are important to me because that helps me learn more about this illusion. 🙂
It seems that a person is likely to feel that somebody is trying to teach him when deep ideas are presented. This is specially the case when the ideas presented are new, strange, and out-gradient. The truth is that, in a discussion, nobody is trying to teach anybody. It is just a pooling of ideas to see which way they might roll. One is basically looking for a feedback to one’s input to a discussion.
You are presenting what you are learning from the Course in Miracle. I read it carefully. I respond when something catches my eye that either explains to me something, or which I find difficult to understand. Otherwise, I don’t comment when nothing catches my eye. So, this pooling of ideas is good. It should not be taken as if somebody is trying teach something. One learns by one’s own study.
The discussion prompted by the OP is very basic. It touches awareness, consciousness, perception, knowledge, identification, etc. The points I had made were as follows:
(1) The ultimate reality is basically a starting postulate that one uses to make sense out of all existence.
(2) Most people that I have run across on this forum look at “self” as the starting postulate.
(3) This is because of the background of Abrahamic religions they come from. Abrahamic religions use “self” as the starting postulate.
(4) Scientology also uses “self” as a starting postulate, though it tries to provide an objective slant to it.
(5) The basic inconsistency that “self” is entirely subjective. Each person probably have a different subjective idea of “self.” So the concept of Thetan is very subjective. It is more subjective than the concept of God.
(6) It is, therefore, very difficult to form a consistent and coherent view of existence starting from such a slippery postulate as “self,” either as God or as thetan.
Therefore, the whole purpose of my post was to bring this inconsistency to the table for discussion. You responded to it and that is why we are having this conversation. But if you are not interested in the discussion of this inconsistency, or if you don’t even see this as an inconsistency, then that is fine with me. I won’t insist for a feedback on this point from you. 🙂
.
As far as the Course in Miracles goes, it uses “self” as starting postulate in the form of God. I think that is what had prompted me to present the inconsistency that I see associated with this postulate.
To really benefit from the material you are present from Course in Miracles, I do need to sort out this inconsistency.
In other words, the know to mystery scale
don’t drop down the scale into thinking and symbolizing, stay up at know and look
problem is communication, until we learn to talk to each other without using symbols we’re stuck in the muck
Love is you
If this is not clear, get out the dictionary and clay demo 😉
Indeed Conan. That is why I love India so much. It is a buffet table of spiritual options. Whatever the temperament and mental tendencies, there is a practice, teacher and writing. Unity in Diversity.
Exactly Val!
Shit Valkov, this has got to stop. We are agreeing most of the time now! 😉
smiles
The way you stated this was very helpful, Marty. Have achieved this state when doing OT TR0 and TR0.
Hi Mark
Yes, I think the point of separation is from internal universe to external universe. As you say, since the person has somehow created his personal universe, he would seemingly be able to “un-create” it too.
I know that I can do all kinds of interesting things with my own universe, but translating that into the “physical universe”, it is not so easy. I know, some are going to say that mental pictures, and such, are actually “physical”, and therefore part of the “physical universe”, but there do seem to be some observable differences too. For instance, when one is creating mental pictures, and such, (knowingly or unknowingly) there appears to be “something” there, but when he is not creating them, are they still there? Personally I think not. Some “ability” to recreate them appears to be there, but I do not consider this “ability” to necessarily be in the MEST realm at all.
Perhaps the observable difficulties arise out the possibility that “we” did not create this external universe at all, and so do not have the protocols, or even the abilities necessary, to un-create it.
We can ignore it. We can cease to internalize it. But “as-is” it…. I’m not so sure.
Just some thoughts.
Eric
How is “viewing as is” and “separating out” not dissociation? Or rather, how will it not result in dissociative states?
Grasshopper
I think that one of the difficulties of this thread is the distinction between, “identity as being the thing”, and “identity” as an expression of one’s stuff, habits, persona, etc… or “identification as being (or becoming) the thing” as apposed to “identification as assuming something’s characteristics, or aligning with it.”
It seems that if one is truly “being the object” then that is the entirety of what would be happening, and (as you do, I suspect) I see no reason at all that the thing would “as-is”, it would simply continue to exist as it is, and “you” would cease to exist as yourself and continue your existence as the object. There would seemingly be no further “duality” of observer and observed.
That is like a reverse spell… In attempting to “as-is” something, by becoming it, YOU would actually end up ceasing to exist, and the object would continue merrily on its way.
I am not even sure that totally abandoning oneself and fully becoming the object, without any withheld abilities, memories, etc., is even possible. ….Perhaps that is just as well….
“All hail DUALITY”… Hmmm….
Ahhh… The twisted webs we weave…
Eric
I had been having some hard time the past days, and I also had a nasty habit to want to deal with the source of my trouble, than with the symptoms. Also it’s not the first time that the sky falls onto my head after I had spoken to people about spirituality. So, I think I should tell you this (my lesson): I don’t think any spirituality is needed and I don’t think that anybody needs to be saved. And don’t assume that this is an invalidation/make wrong of spiritualities either. Generally, don’t assume anything. And sorry for the times I asserted to know the right/wrong thing/way.
The only guidance I would be willing to give, would be to not need any, from any ‘exterior’ sources.
Do you need validation for your new self determined attitude. It is the right way to go at the right time. Been there.
Mark
Hare Krshna, Hare Rama…. Donta Pusha, Youra Lucka…. 🙂
Sorry, couldn’t resist. I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t retain a bit of antag, anyway. That doesn’t mean we can’t agree on a lot of things. It’s the same territory, isn’t it, even if we sometimes use different words to describe it?
Buudha recommended mindfulness:
1. Observe without expecting anything, or attempting to get an answer.
2. Observe things as they are, without assuming anything.
3. If something is missing do not imagine something else in its place.
4. If something does not make sense then do not explain it away.
5. Use physical senses as well as mental sense to observe.
6. Let the mind un-stack itself.
7. Experience fully what is there.
8. Do not suppress anything.
9. Associate data freely.
10. Do not get hung up on name and form.
11. Contemplate thoughtfully.
12. Let it all be effortless.
http://vinaire.me/2013/09/05/the-12-aspects-of-mindfulness-revised/
Well said.
Mindfulness applied to the level of “LOOKING to know” on the Know to Mystery scale.
________________________________
Dictionary could be wrong. And I don’t think clay demo will output a precise definition.
Valkov, that is a violation of discussion policy.
http://vinaire.me/2012/07/16/discussions-and-what-needs-to-be-avoided/
I don’t think Hindu scripture personalize Brahma. Yes. there are mythological stories where Brahma is represented as a charcter to get a point across, but it is understood that it is for that story only just like Aesop’s fables are. Brahma, in Hinduism is understood through the principle of “neti, neti.”
While growing up in Hinduism, it was conveyed to me from the beginning that the true understanding is very deep and abstract and that these stories were there to help with that understanding. The characters in story did mean that ultimate reality is self-centric.
________________________________
Claire, I concur. I was basically saying the same thing on the previous thread.
vinaire, Yes. Clearly, you do understand. 🙂
I am prompted to respond to…” discussions are important to me because that helps me learn more about this illusion. ”
The notion that the world and all its trimmings that I seemed to inhabit is an illusion has been an idea I have intellectualized about for a long time. However, the idea never had any application other than serving as a subject (actually object) for ego validating intellectual discourse. It wasn’t until I began to really want to know and understand my relationship with the ‘illusion’ that pointers began to appear in my experience that directed me to one piece of the illusory jigsaw puzzle after another. It was so incredibly complicated in the beginning and there was no predictable linear sequence to be had in my attempts to fit the puzzle pieces together. Although, as I have persisted in this exploration of my relationship with the illusion, the process of fitting puzzle pieces together has become increasingly more simple. Also (and this has been a tough one), I have gradually been able to disabuse myself of having to understand everything. Understanding is a component of the illusion and I am learning that there is more to gain in observing it than engaging in it. For me, whether it’s an invigorating discussion or a seemingly mundane conversation that I seem to be engaged in, it is an opportunity to observe what is rising up in consciousness just as I’m doing as these words I’m typing appear on the page. Where are these words coming from? Is it the thinking mind’s composite of thoughts, sensations and emotions that is recognized as the person Monte that I’ve been so identified with, or…are these words arising from the empty space of a consciousness that is unified?
Then…”The truth is that, in a discussion, nobody is trying to teach anybody. It is just a pooling of ideas to see which way they might roll. One is basically looking for a feedback to one’s input to a discussion.”
Perhaps, in discussion, there is nobody who is trying to teach anybody…at least knowingly. However, the role of teacher/student (experienced simultaneously) is one, that while it may go unrecognized, is never not present. One thing I’ve learned about this illusion vinaire…it can serve as an incredible prison or it can serve as an incredible classroom. What it is and when is our choice. When it is chosen to be a classroom there is no component of it that is not a teacher presenting a lesson. And the lesson will continue to be presented until it is recognized. The illusion when run by the ego thought system (a false mind) is a prison. The illusion, serving as a classroom, is run by unified consciousness.
vinaire: “You are presenting what you are learning from the Course in Miracle.”
A Course in Miracles (ACIM), for me, is a profound metaphor. It was my second encounter with the idea of non-duality. Because its form uses Christian terms, I at first had much resistance to engaging its message. However, I worked through my resistance and came to view the course as a remarkable teaching of non-duality in dualistic terms. That said, I do realize that its form is most definitely not for everyone. But what form is? 🙂
And now this…” if you are not interested in the discussion of this inconsistency, or if you don’t even see this as an inconsistency, then that is fine with me. I won’t insist for a feedback on this point from you.”
🙂 A response has risen and once again it comes in the form of an excerpt from the course.
“…minds can only join in truth. In dreams, no two can share the same intent. To each, the hero of the dream is different; the outcome wanted not the same for both. Loser and gainer merely shift about in changing patterns, as the ratio of gain to loss and loss to gain takes on a different aspect or another form.
“Yet compromise alone a dream can bring. Sometimes it takes the form of union, but only the form. The meaning must escape the dream, for compromising is the goal of dreaming. Minds cannot unite in dreams. They merely bargain. And what bargain can give them the peace of God? Illusions come to take His place. And what He means is lost to sleeping minds intent on compromise, each to his gain and to another’s loss.”
[…]
“The mind which means that all it wants is peace must join with other minds, for that is how peace is obtained. And when the wish for peace is genuine, the means for finding it is given, in a form each mind that seeks for it in honesty can understand. Whatever form the lesson takes is planned for him in such a way that he can not mistake it, if his asking is sincere. But if he asks without sincerity, there is no form in which the lesson will meet with acceptance and be truly learned.”
http://www.acimdailylesson.com/lesson-185-i-want-the-peace-of-god
vinaire, in the dream any seeming consistency seems so because all we can see of the dream is what we can see through a keyhole.
Please explain. I didnt understand.
I like 🙂
I’m not sure that Nirvana is an option. It may be.
My personal experience is that Nirvana is now and forever. From that “state” I always chose beingness again. I suppose it is possible to choose Nirvana.
Just for fun you might try meditating on consciousness itself.
I really loved “ad museum”. Inadvertent typo but it really tickled me – some truth there!
Hi Vinaire
OK, lets look at some inconsistencies…
First, the phrase “we are all basically good” is, at best, an opinion.
Second, the phrase “we are all basically good” only suggests an absolute in the consideration of “WE ARE ALL”, but the goodness is modified by the word “basically”.
Next, the consideration that “absolutes are unattainable”, is an opinion at best, and does not seem to apply to much of the observable universe. The term “absolute” seems to belong solely to “that which can consider or have opinions”. As you say, the concepts, or opinions, of “good and bad” also belong solely in the realm of “that which can consider or have opinions”.
Being that “that which can consider or have opinions”, potentially has sway over its opinions and considerations, it would potentially be able to assign the term, or concept of “absolute” to anything it chooses.
Would that alter what actually IS? Seemingly only in the viewpoint of “that which can consider or have opinions”.
All this from “one who can consider and have opinions.”
Eric
Vin, your post is presented like a quote of the Buddha. Is it? Or is it your own interpretation?
A Wise Fool: “My personal experience is that Nirvana is now and forever. From that “state” I always chose beingness again. I suppose it is possible to choose Nirvana.”
Wow. This is an intriguing comment
One that works for me, especially things I’m already very familiar with such as my wife for example is to try and notice 5 new things about her every day, it’s amazing because it works, even when you think you already knew everything possible, that method works for me with any object
That is because the observer for you Vinay, is a thing. It is my experience that you see the observer as an objectified thing. The observer is not an object. The observe is not a thing.
You see consciousness as an element in a theory.
The innate characteristics of consciousness:
Sovereign thinking
Self existing
one without a second
wisdom
love
intuition
immortality
joy
happiness
bliss
omnipresent
omniscient
omnipotent
the witness
the knower
the self
the fulcrum upon which duality swings
God
Buddha nature
Buddhahood
These are only a few characteristics of consciousness.
That is my interpretation of,course. When it is somebody else’s interpretation I put their name.
Do you think anybody knows what Buddha had in his mind?
Nice one!
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Conscousness is self-awareness, which then leads to the contemplation of awareness, which then leads to the contemplation of devition from some ground state.
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The Dark Crystal Deleted Scene “Funeral”
Monte: “Understanding is a component of the illusion and I am learning that there is more to gain in observing it than engaging in it.”
I practice mindfulness, which is to simply observe. Other things may then follow, but mindfulness is pure observation. The attention seems to go automatically to things that one does not understand (inconsistencies). Understanding simply forms a background. True understanding does not absorb any attention actually. If the attention is going on something in spite of the feeling that one understands it, then that thing is not really understood. When something is understood then the new understanding simply vanishes in the background understanding. It is completely gone.
If I define illusion as something that my attention is going to, then I would say that not-understanding (inconsistency) is a component of that illusion.
I do love Marty Rathbun and his wife Monique
You can question the rationality of that.
But I say:fuck you all “Even Jesus hates you”
Sanity is something not scientology
Monte: “Where are these words coming from?”
I see these words as an output from “self”, which is a node in a communication matrix. Imagine a lot of nodes in a matrix connected to each other by communication lines. There will be as many lines going to a node as there are other nodes.
Here is model #1: A “self-node” in this matrix gets an input on a communication line. This input is then processed by the “self-node”. An output then comes out of that self-node.
Here is model#2: What happens inside the self-node? I see the self-node to be made up of a compressed matrix of “beliefs” that are cross-indexed in a logical network.
Monte: “The illusion when run by the ego thought system (a false mind) is a prison.”
I have a simple formula for handling the above consideration:
(1) I simply practice mindfulness and not worry any more about the ego. It will be taken care of automatically by the mindfulness on a gradient.
(2) I simply follow up on inconsistencies as they present themselves, and by their apparent importance, until they are resolved one by one. The illusion will then be taken care of automatically on a gradient.
Monte: “The illusion when run by the ego thought system (a false mind) is a prison.”
I have a simple formula for handling the above consideration:
(1) I simply practice mindfulness and not worry any more about the ego. It will be taken care of automatically by the mindfulness on a gradient.
(2) I simply follow up on inconsistencies as they present themselves, and by their apparent importance, until they are resolved one by one. The illusion will then be taken care of automatically on a gradient.
Plain Old Thetan died
In 1901, Allen Upward coined Scientology “as a disparaging term, to indicate a blind, unthinking acceptance of scientific doctrine” according to the Internet Sacred Text Archive as quoted in the preface to Forgotten Books’ recent edition of Upward’s book, The New Word: On the meaning of the word Idealist.[45] Continuing to quote, the publisher writes “I’m not aware of any evidence that Hubbard knew of this fairly obscure book.”[46] In 1934, philosopher Anastasius Nordenholz published a book that used the term to mean “science of science”.[47] It is also uncertain whether Hubbard was aware of this prior usage of the word.[48]
How so? There is no point of discussion, debate, or argument involved. It is simply a comment on his personality. He is well known and even admired and acknowledged for his “passion”.
Monte: “A response has risen and once again it comes in the form of an excerpt from the course.”
To me Truth is the degree of consistency and coherency in the reality perceived. So yes “minds can only join in truth.”
To me as inconsistencies are eliminated things become much simpler truth grows in the background as “peace of God.” All that is required is the integrity of mindfulness.
1. Observe without expecting anything, or attempting to get an answer.
2. Observe things as they are, without assuming anything.
3. If something is missing do not imagine something else in its place.
4. If something does not make sense then do not explain it away.
5. Use physical senses as well as mental sense to observe.
6. Let the mind un-stack itself.
7. Experience fully what is there.
8. Do not suppress anything.
9. Associate data freely.
10. Do not get hung up on name and form.
11. Contemplate thoughtfully.
12. Let it all be effortless.
.
I think that “Nirvana” is the ground state, which, when disturbed, rises up as awareness. 🙂
http://vinaire.me/2014/03/06/khtk-postulates-for-metaphysics-part-1/
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DEFINITION: Absolute means, “Viewed independently; not comparative or relative; ultimate; intrinsic.”
There is nothing absolute in the world. Everything is relative, conditioned and impermanent. There is no unchanging, everlasting, absolute substance like Self, Soul, or Atman within or without.
There is no absolute “that” as you posit it.
That is my consideration at the moment that brings about a lot of consistency and coherency to my observation of this universe.
It may not be yours.
To me the idea of ‘observer’ is relative. If there is nothing to observe then there is no ‘observer.’
I have not gotten into this discussion yet since it goes round and round and is not really getting anywhere.
Absolutes.
The term ‘Working Truth’ seems to apply here. We are all human operating in the physical realm and absolutes are unnecessary and misleading. The question of whether we are a single entity or a conglomeration of past thoughts or a group of energies congealed together is interesting and mildly fun but at this point, do not produce a working improvement in state.
There is a working agreement on what ‘improvement’ is. Not all, but some use these ethereal and esoteric wanderings to avoid an honest effort toward actually rising up.
Doing is superior to thinking.
Some have been doing. Vin has made significant strides in study. Marty is working hard for all of us. Some audit, others are developing techniques to help others.
For those who care to, I would like to know what strides you are making. I study all techniques and use many. I am interested.
Mark
Guess who
Hi Paul
May I suggest that there is perhaps a more basic (and here is where there are no words that do not convey some concept of “thingness”).
I would pose that “potential” may satisfy that consideration.
Potential that is not quantitative. Potential that is entirely qualitative.
I am pretty certain that we are both trying to “define” the same “state”, “existence”, or whatever, but language itself fails at this level.
Actually the term “define” itself means “to assign parameters to” and I believe we are trying to express “parameterlessness” itself.
How about this for a new “word” for this use?
“…”
… In a sentence… More basic that any concept of anything lies “…” .
That was fun.
Eric
Correction… Of course that should read…
{More basic than any concept of anything lies “…”.}
Eric
I think maybe I got it now. Were you reffering to ethics (the right way to go on the right time)?
OK, the ‘problem’ with the right way to go is when it is not in respect with the self determinism of others, as well. If it is alright for me and a a few others to do something, but that thing messes others up, you know…
It’s not exactly a matter of validation, as that would imply validation from persons or some other entity (‘the universe’ and such).
I think it is some basic charge to consider a departure from point A and then try to reach point A again. In this case, the point is the spirit or God. I consider it a potential invalidation to teach it about itself, and it can be perplexing, if you think it can be done with words, through the mind. I dont think a mind could grasp it’s creator adequately. The point was -in processing- to kick the mind stuff out so the knowledge wont be inhibited or perplexed. But the prob with that is you have to consider such an inhibition or perplexion to exist, in the first place, to start with.
Most important, in this game of unknowness of self, and although I cannot speak on behalf of everyone, I know now how I could know that ‘high’ stuff I used to ponder about, but I chose to hold on to data instead, and messed it up. I created complications instead of solutions.
Finally, to engage to do spirituality is one thing, to teach that it is needed, is another.
that is because all you know is the mind. The soul, spirit is not made of things. The subject does not need, nor is it defined by an object. It is quality not quantity. The observer is not an”idea” of itself. You are still measuring the volume of water with an amp probe. The only experiment to proof the true nature of consciousness is to do the discipline, and make the experiment.
Outcomes need the correct procedures. Meditate 😉
You see I didn’t even assert that spirituality shouldn’t be used. I wanted to take the ‘need’ out, as I have implied otherwise in the past. Also I have tried to put into data things that can’t be put, and contribute to that game I described before.
Vinaire
OK, I got all that.
I was actually, in no way, suggesting or stating, that this “that” was some “absolute”. I was merely stating that it appears to be the creator of the consideration of “absoluteness” and therefor presumably has the capacity to alter that consideration.
My statement, “The term “absolute” seems to belong solely to “that which can consider or have opinions”, was not a statement that the “that” is the only thing that is absolute, but rather that the consideration of “absolute” is solely something that “that” considers (as far as I know). I guess it can consider itself absolute if it cares to, but it is still just a consideration.
Regarding the definition that you are using, I can see how you can make the statement that “There is nothing absolute in the world. Everything is relative, conditioned and impermanent.”
Eric
Cat,
And in 2014 Conan renamed the term as Stupidology, the art and practice of refusing to accept the obvious while asserting one knows it all.
I find no value in such comments. I guess I am a just a knowledge freak without any other sense of humor.
Hi Mark N
I am guessing that this post was not specifically directed toward me.
But, Yes, besides running around in circles chasing my tail, I have also “codified” some of the results of my :meanderings. I am not a big fan of circular discussions either, but I do like to hear other people’s viewpoints if they are capable of expressing them in a duplicatable form.
One of the things that I DO is attempt to share my understandings with others, in as duplicatable a form as I can.
One ofthe things that I have done is a significant deconstruction of Scientology “ethics”, which I feel has the possibility of communicating its workability in very real terms.
I saw your e-mail address posted earlier, and would be happy to share anything I have come up with, if you are interested.
My e-mail addy is: windwalker8008@gmail.com
Eric
You did put the Buddha’s name. You wrote “Buddha recommended mindfulness:” – and you used a colon at the end/
“colon: a punctuation mark (:) indicating.
– that a writer is introducing a quotation or a list of items.
– that a writer is separating two clauses of which the second expands or illustrates the first.”
POT accomplished a lot this lifetime, both as a person who delivered a lot of good results with the tech, and with regard to his very informative and helpful blog. He will be missed.
May you fare well, POT. 🙂
Well, you might desire to have more knowledge of Alonzo or Alanzo or whatever his name is. Knowledge is knowledge, after all, and knowledge of persons is among the most desirable of knowingnesses, is it not? I propose we formally put up for discussion the topic of “Alanzo’s Personality”. He would find it very flattering to receive that much attention. He would love it!
The attention might, scratch that – WOULD – do him a world of good, too.
If he tells us his birth date and time, we can have his natal chart cast and go from there. Also, he could post a xerox of his palm print and we could have the lines read by a professional palm reader.
When we’re done with him, we can continue on with discussing you, me, and the other characters who post here a lot.
I guess I might be feeling the need to add a some mass to all these significances…. ya think?
Eric, There is no reason why “that”, which makes a consideration, is not the result of some other consideration. This is just another form of the old cosmological argument discussed here in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncaused_cause The idea of cause leads to an infinite regress when we start looking for cause of cause. An Uncaused cause has been postulated in the past. Hubbard does that too in Factor #1, but that is simply an arbitrary postulate that leads to inconsistencies. The mindful way to express this observation is to say that cause is relative. There is no arbitrary assumption made when one practices mindfulness. Regards, Vinaire
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Brian,
My meditation done with mindfulness tells me that there is no absolute spiritual condition as you are assuming. Spirituality and physicality are relative.
For a long time space and time were regarded as absolute concepts in themselves. Newtonian mechanics built on that consideration is still very successful but in a limited scope on earth. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, when considering a cosmic scale, finds space and time to be relative. Similarly, Abrahamic religions have long regarded spiritual and physical states to be absolute concepts in themselves. This has been adequate for a limited understanding of human consciousness. But to understand consciousness on cosmic scale we need to consider spiritual and physical states to be relative. A spiritual state will have physical form, no matter how subtle. And a physical state will have some spiritual characteristics, no matter how subdued.
Regards, Vinaire
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In my view, self-determinism is relative and not absolute, just as self is relative and not absolute. Any determinism is a product of certain beliefs and logics, which are in themselves relative. Any right or wrong is also relative. Validation and invalidation to encourage or discourage certain thinking or behavior may not necessarily bring self-determinism, because self-determinism, in my view, operates on understanding. If there is conflict between the self-determinisms of two people then there are unknown assumptions in play that are causing an inconsistency in knowledge and understanding.
Regards, Vinaire
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Buddha never wrote anything, so there are no quotes from Buddha. One can only express one’s understanding of what has come down as knowledge from Buddha.
Buddha observed the same universe and the same humanity that we are observing. To me truth comes from consistency and coherency of all observations and its expression through words.
Valkov,
You are engaging in ad hominem attack of Alanzo.
And you are doing your usual best to gaslight for Hubbard and his cult.
“LRH did oversell, pretty much in the hyperbolic style of the 1940s and 1950s, but a “bridge” was implicit even in the very first books about Dianetics, with all the postulates about achieving “Clear” etc. It’s all right there in DMSMH.”
Nope, he was peddling a “science of the mind” which wasn’t there, and results he could not deliver. Hubbard was a pulp fiction writer, not a psychologists or a medical doctor.
There were no Research Facilities, nor a research team of medical doctors to tests his “patients” with narcosynthesis, hypnosis or Black Dianetics. If Hubbard actually had engaged in the research activities he described in his books, he would have being tried for practicing medicine without a license and plain old medical fraud. Not that he didn’t tried.
What he actually was dabbling in was The Magic, and was having fun with the OTO.
The “Bridge” came about because he could not delivered what he promised in Dianetics, and he kept the same con going until the day he died.
A lot of very smart and well-meaning people spent most of their adult life helping Hubbard spin his piece of blue sky, and suffered the consequences by ending up as slaves in Hubbard’s cult.
Valkov, since you seem to know all about Hubbard and Scientology, why don’t you get a hold of David Mayo, and read him chapter and verse of DMSMH, because he obviously didn’t understand the man and his science of certainty.
LOL! I think a much better approach will be to have coffee together in Starbucks somewhere.
But when I hear of discussing Alanzo, or Valkov or Vinaire, it becomes a discussion of “self” for me. A self is basically a network of beliefs through which logic flows. So, when we discuss Alanzo, it comes down to discussing beliefs and logics that are peculiar to a self-node called Alanzo within a large communication matrix.
It would be an exercise in relativity.
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Hi vinaire,
This morning I have had the opportunity to read through all the contributions that have been made to this particular post of Marty’s. As I have done so the ‘unconscious mind’, the ‘automatic mind’, the ‘thinking mind’, the ‘linear mind’, the ‘ego mind’, the ‘reactive mind’ or whatever other label one might prefer to use to point to this abstractness, has been relentless in its attempts to fix my attention onto form. Whenever I give this mind my attention it instantly informs me that all form I observe requires adjustment, which basically distills down to this function: make more of it or make less of it…do whatever best serves the interests of the self-concept that I’m identifying with.
I am gradually separating my SELF from this incredibly deep identification with the unconscious mind. Enough so that I am not so easily lured into its seductive and cleverly disguised traps. However, such deeply rooted patterns of identification are proving to be considerably difficult to cut my SELF away from.
I do recognize that the self-concept that I am identifying with; the ‘person’ I am identifying as being ‘me’…is a pretense. It is a composite of thoughts (considerations, concepts, belief systems, thinking patterns, preferences, purposes, goals, timetrack, history, etc.), sensations and emotions that dictate all doing(thinking, seeking, making, waiting, etc.) . The ‘person’ is the invention of the mind that is operating in the absence of conscious awareness. It is never in the present moment. It is always either in the next moment that will never arrive or a past moment that never really happened. The ‘person’ desires to be considered by others as being special in some way. This invention; this mental machinery; this ‘person’ that I so much identify with and describe as being ‘me’, knows and understands absolutely nothing. Yet, it believes and acts as if it knows and understands a great deal while it is in a perpetual and compulsive state of adjusting others to serve what it thinks are its best interests.
Participating in Marty’s blog along with all the others that choose to participate, as well as all the other things I look at and explore, has brought me to the recognition that no ‘person’ aka ‘individual’, ‘human being’ or group of ‘persons’ knows or understands anything. Furthermore, there is no ‘person’ that is any more or less special than any other ‘person.’ That said, I also recognize that there is something’ something abstract and ineffable (for the sake of convenience I’ll use the word Consciousness to refer to this abstract), that is assisting that which is identifying itself as being the ‘person’ or the ‘group’ to separate from the pretense.
Marty’s posts as well as all the contributions from all the commenters are interpretations of what has been perceived. And that’s what we discuss; we discuss interpretations. We don’t discuss truth. Interpretations are misperceptions. We get attached to our interpretations, sometimes overly so, to the point even where we begin to identify our interpretations as being an extension of who we are. And in the case where we identify with our interpretations, we take offense when our interpretations are not recognized and acknowledged by others as having the same or greater meaning and value that we have assigned them.
What is beautiful to observe is how Consciousness is using the form of Marty’s blog and the form of seemingly separate individuals, each with their own perspective (interpretation of perception); a diversity of forms, sometimes appearing in opposition to one another, to separate the formless from the form.
vinaire, you wrote: “To me as inconsistencies are eliminated things become much simpler truth grows in the background as “peace of God.” All that is required is the integrity of mindfulness.”
You have expounded much on inconsistencies but it wasn’t until I read what I excerpted above that the term ‘inconsistency’ became workable for me. Inconsistency, misperception, interpretation….for me, they’re synonymous. And as you state, as they are eliminated things become much simpler. This is the veil being lifted or dropped (whichever) to reveal what was always there where there is no ‘there.’
Each one of us is building our very own bridge to an experience that is beyond perception, limits and symbols. And we have all the time we need to do so. Indeed, that’s what time is for.
What happens at the time of death? Eckhart Tolle
Vinny, I’m done with analysis how things are, but to clear something, if I use a scn term -because most here are or have been involved with scn- it doesn’t mean I use it like somebody you might knew used it. Often you make comments with which I dont argue, but I think you think you would argue, because you compare me to somebody else. 🙂
“Each one of us is building our very own bridge to an experience that is beyond perception, limits and symbols.”
To elaborate…
The ‘bridge’ that is being built is not being built with Truth, Knowledge or Understanding. These three symbols serve only as ‘pointers’ to what the ‘bridge’ is being built to reach to. There is no Truth, Knowledge or Understanding in perception. Since the ‘bridge’ I am building is being built in a world of perception it can only be constructed with illusions of perception. In other words, this ‘bridge’ is being constructed with viable (at least viable for me) perspectives (my interpretations of perception) that are ever evolving. For a very long time it has been being built with misperceptions of illusion. Now, though, my experiences are informing me that the construction is beginning to gradually evolve from misperception of illusion to true perception of illusion. This is an indication that I’m waking up in the dream of perception. But waking up in the dream is a far cry from waking up from the dream. There will come a precise moment in time when I will fully recognize that perception is meaningless and completely without value, that there is nothing for me to learn, then at this precise moment, my ‘bridge’ and the illusory world of perception (the ‘dream’) will simultaneously disappear.
This phase of ‘bridge’ building where I’m ever so gradually evolving from misperception of illusion to true perception of illusion is proving to be an awkward and arduous phase. How to continue operating ‘in the world’ while realizing that I’m not ‘of the world?’
Awareness by its very nature is relative and not absolute.
Awareness is known to arise, change and disappear. It may be likened to a disturbance that arises, changes and disappears. We may assume some ground state, which when disturbed gives rise to awareness.
Some philosophies consider this ground state to be self, which to them is the ability to postulate and perceive. But the ability to postulate and perceive is visible only as part of awareness. In other words, such abilities are produced only when the ground state is disturbed.
The ground state maybe considered absolute. But it shall forever be unknowable and shall remain only theoretical because there is no awareness to go with it. It may be considered “potential” but that is simply another word for unknowable.
The ‘actual’ may be looked upon as manifestation of the ‘potential’, but no one-to-one correspondence between them can ever be established. Any correspondence stated shall just be an assumption. The actual shall always be relative to where it arose from, and one cannot know where it arose from.
Thus, awareness shall always be relative and never absolute.
It wasn’t that I thought it was a direct quote. The second use of the colon was the one I thought applied:
“indicating that a writer is separating two clauses of which the second expands or illustrates the first.”
Your post was misleading in that it appeared you were expanding on Buddha’s recommendations, rather than your own.
Conan: “Nope, he was peddling a ‘science of the mind’…”
It was a science. Here’s the definition that would apply:
“any body of knowledge organized in a systematic manner”
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/science
I am just musing over the meaning of “identification.” One aspect of identification is to recognize something for what it is. This would be the sense of mindfulness. Here I would rather use the word mindfulness.
Another aspect of identification is to have something fixed by which one can be identified, such as, one’s ID, fingerprints, one’s physical characteristics, one’s personality, etc. It would be very confusing if one is changing all the time.
Another aspect of identification would be to assume the quality and characteristics of something else as one’s own.
Marty’s article is referring to the last aspect of identification above. But it is creating a confusion because, it is not clear who or what assumes the quality and characteristics of something else.
Identification assumes something to be fixed. That is ok as long as it is understood to be fixed in a relative sense. When it comes to the identification of “self” it is assumed that it is fixed in some original and absolute manner. This original and absolute self then, after identification, comes to be fixed in some altered manner. When we start to separate the alterations from the original self, we don’t know where to stop.
The basic identity of thetan is simply “that which postulates and perceives.” It is a very abstract definition. It points to a potential only. This potential becomes actuality the moment there is a postulate, which is then perceived. Soon a belief system grows out of the postulate created, and a logic starts to flow through that belief system, and now have the actuality of “self”. But this “self” is not a ploblem so long as none of the postulates in its belief system are fixed and considered to be absolute.
Problem comes only with some of the postulates in one’s belief system comes to be regarded as fixed in some absolute sense.
Monte, please see my response here:
https://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2014/06/29/identification-and-membership/#comment-308209
Vinaire
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There is a lovely process that can be created out of the above analysis.
THE ABSOLUTE PROCESS
“iS THERE A POSTULATE THAT YOU ARE HOLDING AS ABSOLUTE?”
The processing shall consist of identifying the postulate and looking at it more closely to see where it is coming from and what makes it absolute.
Conan, I guess you spin it your wy, I’ll spin it mine. YOU however, are ad homming me and I don’t like it. Boo! 😦 Watch me get all ridgy! At this point we do not seem to have any common ground for discussion, so let’s not pretend that’s what it is.
I have “known” All online for 4-5 years and he is perfectly capable of speaking for himself. You do him a disservice to position him as the “victim” of some kind of ad-hom by me. As I pointed out to Vin, there was no point of discussion or debate involved, it was just an observation about Al’s personality. If you’re trying to shut me up by characterizing things I say that way, well that would be kinda suppressive of you, wouldn’t it? Or at the vry least, inhibitory. We just got done clebrating the 4th of July here in the US, and here you are like “Shut up with your ad-hom, Valkov!” How American is that?? I thought free speech was the basis of this country….
And what does David Mayo have to do with all this??
If you have a viewpoint different from mine, just go ahead and post it. Then we might be able to have dicussion. Just don’t bother woith ad-homming me about how I’m “defending the cult” etc.
For the record, I do disagree with your simplistic view of LRH. I think there was a lot more to the man than that, both good and bad.
It has occurred to me that the Uncertainty Principle of Quantum Mechanics makes as-ising the physical universe impossible. Essentially you cannot precisely know even a single particle in this universe. Because it can’t be known exactly as-it-is it can’t be as-ised. If that is the answer it is quite a trick!
Hubbard had a different answer – that it had been altered beyond any being’s ability to track the alterations back to the moment of creation. But his answer depended on the existence of time…
If true you can possibly leave this universe but you can’t as-is it.
There is no such principle operating in the mental universe.
And Conan, you’re the one who posts as though you “know all about Hubbard”.
Amen.
Hubbard was essentially saying at one point that the stuff of the physical universe and the stuff of the mental universe is the same stuff. I don’t think most of us agree with that.
So like was I understood or was the point just to point out I’m not self determined? I don’t like these incomplete comms. I on my part tried to clear up the difference between spirituality not being needed, and that it should not be done. I never said it’s wrong to not do it. I let it free. That’s self determinism for me. And I never said that I was seeking validation anywhere else outside myself either.
Anyway, I’m tired of explaining myself. This game is not my own determinism and I’m not playing it anymore.
Vin, now I think YOU have overreached to deny the concept of “quotes of Buddha”. Buddhist materials(“scriptures”) are full of ‘quotes of Buddha” passed down through an oral tradition, by those who believed they remembered what he said and passed the words on to the next generations. Even today in India, I understand, there are individuals who are capable of reciting the Bhagavad Gita, for example, from memory. Oral traditions can be very powerfully exact.
I think you were nicked by “marildi’s razor”.
My opinion is that all of these things are vibrations. They are all vibrations until you reach the “state” of “no mass, no motion, no wavelength, no location in space or time”. Ultimately it is possible to no longer to be identified with (be) vibrations. Love is a high wavelength very harmonious vibration.
Yes of course Starbucks! But we do not have that option available to us, so we talk here. As for all the rest of it, to say that “all is relative” is meaningless, quite literally! Think about it. Meaning is “subjective” by it’s nature. If you eliminate that, you are left with meaninglessness, quite literally. Ken Wilbur goes into this quite a bit. I recommend “A Brief History of Everything” by him. The point is if you ignore the subjective, you are leaving fully one half of life out of your purview. The same applies if you leave the “objective” out of consideration. The whole point is, to evolve an integrated view or theory, it is necessary to to resolve the apparent dichotomy.
Otherwise we are left with some quite literally “half-witted” discussions. Let’s try to use all our wits…..
Here is a little jungle to get lost in, which results from the failure to integrate the 2 sides –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativism
I have been the “ground state” in which all things exist – aware of the ground and aware of all things.
Just another way of saying it: an aggregation of survival strategies. Identities almost by definition have to be concerned with survival because they are dualistic. It’s the definition of a game.
The difficulty comes in when the identity has adopted opposing survival strategies. Thus auditing.
For me scientology is full of brilliant discoveries. In fact my wife and I still co-audit with amazing results. Scientology can get results like nothing I else I have ever seen.
My final conclusion on the whole thing is this: what happens and the results depend completely on the goal. For both the auditor and the PC.
I see three major goals that got many people into scientology:
1. Relief from suffering. The guy gets some auditing and gets relief. He’s happy. He goes off but the next time he is suffering he goes looking for a session. That’s really as far as it goes for him. Auditing is like a drug.
2. Power. The guy wants to be powerful and he feels weak. He goal is to be a “powerful OT”. He wants to control things. He wants to beef up his “self”. Frankly from what I have seen that always ends up in some kind of disaster – primarily because he is in a contest against the universe and others (cue DM or any SP). I have never seen a truly happy result in the end.
3. Seeking the Infinite. I won’t define that any further because most guys on the site know what that means. I know scientology can take you there – but only if that is the goal.
My opinion: Hubbard stuck on #2. He sabotaged his own route and the route of everyone else because of it. Actually the route goes THROUGH #1 to #2 to #3.
We all need(ed) relief from suffering. We all need(ed) to feel secure in our self. In the end we all feel the call of the Infinite – even if it’s only a vague desire for something indefinable. Some deep knowing that there was something more.
BUT Hubbard did not define the goal as #3 – essentially the transcending of the self. By sticking on #2 you have just put a giant boulder in the dead center of the road. An identity’s primary concern is survival. Hubbard was absolutely right about that. But the survival of an identity, in the end, is impossible in this universe – therefore it always ends in disaster/loss/failure, etc.
The only possible final goal then is transcendence to the Infinite. If Hubbard had made that the goal this blog might not even exist.
Vin, I’ll try to focus a little better on this business of “relativity”. You reiterate that “it’s all relative”. I view this as a statement that lacks meaning, for reasons I have stated.
I’ll try to get to the nitty-gritty of it by asking this one question:
What in life is NOT “relative”?
Name something, anything, anywhere, that is NOT RELATIVE.
For all practical purposes, saying “everything is relative”, is no different than saying “nothing is relative”. It does not contribute to Knowledge, because we can have “knowledge”, objective or subjective, only of relative things, or from relative viewpoints. Green or Blue are still Green or Blue, even though they are those colors only relative to Red, or Violet, or
whatever.
It’s simply the nature of human intellectualization.
I agree, that is wonderful!
Now I’m going to have to go back and read the posting on “Basics” which I have not read yet, Thanks for your enthusiastic win, Mcgins.
Conan, to be fair to you, I will say this: most of everything you say in portrayal of LRH could be true; my only objection is that it is not the WHOLE truth about him. It amazes me that “critics” are able to completely ignore, overlook, and deny positive outcomes emanating from LRH and scientology while lamenting the supposed lack of “science” in scientology and LRH’s methods. The position of those kind of critics is both unscientific and completely lacking in logic, as well. Anyone even faintly acquainted with “science” kniows that it takes only one exeption to “falsify” a theory, yet those critics continuously post absolutist statements about LRH and scientology that do not even faintly stand up to logical or scientific scrutiny, without qualifying them. They are the best examples of people who act as though they feel they have the “absolute truth” about LRH and scientology. They are just common demagogues looking fo their 15 minutes of fame.
These critics act just like the Church of Scientology, in labelling peole who don’t agree with their “party line” and setting up an “us vs. them” scenario. As though there are only 2 sides. If I don’t bend a knee to that line and say “O yes verily Hubbard was nothing but a blackguard!” I get labelled as a cult shill, a denyer, or worse.
These kind of “critics” are nothing but bigoted demagogues in my mind.
I do not consider Al to be of that kind, by the way. But maybe he’s got me fooled?
Oh, and I meant to conclude that I knew some and still know one or two, people who knew Mayo and Gerbode, for example. Almost everyone I knew when I had any contct with scientology, long since left scientology and the CoS. You invoke Mayo, but Mayo used “tech” to the best of his knowledge and understanding of it, and he helped a lot of people.
LRH, by making only two parts of a self oppose each other, and present this false dichotomy as the big “case problem” to be solved for a pc, presented a false dilemma to Scientologists, and then told them that only Scientology can solve it.
No one needs to solve a false dilemma. There are always many more solutions to a self than just two.
I believe that your problem is that you have not done very much looking at the mind itself. You’ve just confronted and seen only what LRH waned you to see. And that only fits the ideology of Scientology
That’s not actually what’s there.
Alanzo
Monte, as I practice mindfulness I find no use for the concept of the mind. I simply look at things in my environment for what they are. Personally, I don’t find any use for self either. I am only interested in coming up with a proper models for self and mind.
Following mindfulness, I look at the past as the memory and the future as the conjectures that are floating in the present. I have no expectations.when I observe.
You are right that inconsistency, misperception, interpretation, etc. are synonymous. I use the word “inconsistency” as a catch all concept for anything incoherent, which does not make sense, and which does not jive together. These things add up to a filter that distorts the perception of what is there.
I am glad to see that we are on the same wave-length. 🙂
OK, then. Nothing is absolute.
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https://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2014/06/29/identification-and-membership/#comment-308226
Valkov, I am responding to your above post here, because the text was getting too squished up there. I can see now that I was using the word “relative” in a very different meaning than what you understood. Anyway, since you touched upon the topic of objectivity and subjectivity here is something I wrote on this elsewhere.
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“The existence in us of psychic life, i.e., of sensations, perceptions, conceptions, reasoning, feeling, desires etc., and the existence of the world outside of us—from these two fundamental data immediately proceed our common and clearly understood division of everything that we know into subjective and objective.” ~ TERTIUM ORGANUM, ~ P.D. Ouspensky.
Is reality truly that which is objective? Is reality falsely colored by what is subjective?
Objectivity is generally defined as “the state or quality of being true even outside of a subject‘s individual feelings, imaginings, or interpretations.”
Subjectivity is generally defined as “the condition of being a subject and the subject’s perspective, experiences, feelings, beliefs, and desires.”
A subject is an observer whereas an object is a thing observed. Objectivity means perceiving an object for what it is. Subjectivity means adding distortion or color to what is there.
The ultimate definition of objectivity is given by Kant as “thing-in-itself,” This theoretical absolute in objectivity is beyond sense perception because even the very act of perceiving seems to shape our experience of things.
We shall never know the object, which is there, in an absolute sense. Our perception will always be subjective to some degree.
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Wise Fool, you have been posting some great comments.
In the above, you wrote: “BUT Hubbard did not define the goal as #3 – essentially the transcending of the self.”
To me, he defined the goal in different ways in contexts or different frames of reference. Here’s an excerpt from, from *Scientology 8-8008*, in which I get that he is talking about transcending the “self”:
“On the Chart of Attitudes which accompanies the *Handbook for Preclears*, it will be found at 22.0, “I Am Myself.” The only true identity is “myself.” It is not a name, it is not a designation. Orders, titles, ranks, praise and enduring fame alike do not bring about the condition I Am or an actual IDENTITY. They bring about, instead. an INDENTIFICATION, with all the liabilities of identification. The finality of identification is 0.0 or lower on the Tone Scale.
“The concept of “infinite mind” is not new, but it has always been assigned to another beingness than self. The preclear who has sworn allegiance to some infinite beingness, and has then agreed that all space belonged to that beingness (and did not belong to self) and that the rights of creation and energy belonged to that beingness (and did not belong to self), will be found to be intensely aberrated. This is a handy and, to the very badly aberrated, acceptable method of denying any responsibility for anything. It is also the shortest route toward I Am Not.
I”nfinite mind is individualistic. All Mankind does not depend upon or share a portion of the infinite mind. On the contrary, the highest individualism attainable is the individualism of the infinite mind. It was beyond the power and grasp of the intellect, applying itself to the field of philosophy, to conceive a multiplicity of infinite minds. These commentators had agreed sufficiently with the MEST universe to conceive that the only space was the MEST universe space. And they could not understand that this was an illusion and that the existence of space does not depend upon existing space. Just as there can be an ‘infinity’ of ideas, so can there be an ‘infinity’ of ‘infinities’ of space. Two beings theoretically, each with an infinite mind, and each capable of the production of an infinity of space, could yet co-produce sufficient space to communicate with each other. This may be difficult to conceive until one has attained a level of the tone-scale sufficient for an expansive viewing of his potentialities, at which moment it becomes simplicity itself.”
The concept that life is like a ‘contest in a game’ has never appealed to me. This view is so self-centric.
The reality of life is much bigger than these itty-bitty contests between selves.
Marildi wrote:
“Al, you are making some irresponsible statements:
1. “Surely you are aware that MANY [your caps] pcs who have sessions which they hated get through their exams on the meter without red-tagging, and they never come back.”
Dox?”
My dox are all my investigations performed at 3 missions and 2 orgs in the late 80s and early 90’s – listing out all first service starts and comparing them to Div 6 to Major and Paid Starts, and then Paid Comps. And then calling each person who was no longer on lines and listening to what they had to say to me about why.
You learn to listen to people and what they say, not just think with “5 Main Reasons” or some other ideological trap that will never explain why Scientology fails. Because Scn ideology teaches that Scientology never fails, right?
Marildi wrote:
LRH doesn’t even mention leukemia in DMSMH. And with regard to cancer in general, this is all he says:… snip
This was my original quote on Mike’s blog to Potpie.
I misremembered after Potpie suggested to me that it was a reference in DMSMH.
So, Marildi –
Do you have a lack of training, or a lack of responsibility, in citing the correct LRH reference where Dianetics is reported to cure leukemia?
Alanzo
Monte, you know so many wonderful videos. This one was great and apropos. Thanks for posting it.
Awareness is known to arise, change and disappear. It may be likened to a disturbance that arises, changes and disappears. We may assume some ground state, which when disturbed gives rise to awareness.
The ground state is the undisturbed state. Therefore there is no awareness in this state. The ground state shall forever remain unknown because one can never be aware of non-awareness. When one is being aware, there is always awareness.
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I see the very characteristic of awareness to be ‘vibration’. As long as there is any awareness there is vibration.
LOL 🙂
Btw, Val, you’re another one who has been on a roll with some great comments these couple last days.
This is altered importance on your part Valkov.
All that matters here is that I put forth a description of mindfulness as I have understood from Buddha, and that I did this in all honesty.
Any implication of dishonesty or deception is simply coming from Marildi, who hasn’t quoted Buddha on mindfulness to show that I have deviated from Buddha’s conception.
Yes, no analysis is needed. 🙂
There you are! So, what are these “only 2 parts” of the self that LRH “made oppose each other”? Name them, please.
Ah, Alanzo, let me be more precise.
There are not just two opposing identities but at least thousands, maybe even millions (I really couldn’t say exactly how many). How else could you get the obvious complexity of beings? By whatever process, be it scientology or meditation any other, these need to be viewed and released. You’re peeling a very large onion. The meditation process whereby the thoughts, feelings, etc. are viewed and allowed to flow through can accomplish that.
But scientology has some serious errors. See my post of today date – 7/5/14 6:12PM.
Totally agree. Just to repeat an earlier post:
Let us not forget that you will have an identity (viewpoint) if you are going to be in a game. And of course minimally if you have a body you will be in a game – willingly or unwillingly. So the question is are you identified with the identity?
Many of us are seeking to expand (ultimately to infinity) beyond the confines of identifying with identities. And the process is as Marty describes. It ascends through layers ever more subtle (“deeper?”) – realizing at each new level the identifications there and releasing them. There are many ways to achieve this.
Just my opinion but in the “end” you will create a fun identity.
Beautiful blog entry Marty. So truthful. So thankful for the paths you have walked to bring you to the views you share. I’ve viewed life from mathematical positions. Positive and negative. Assets and liability. Sanity VS Insanity. Good in the power of evil. Etc etc. Lately, I have come to the end of the road of “wondering”, when I realized it is just about truth and lies.
There is no “middle road” in that. Your honesty, with others, and truthfulness is that door that opened that path for me (and others) to walk. People in this world are punished for being for being honest, and rewarded for being dishonest, too often. I have noticed it is not possible to survive in a fanatical group, or a hate group, without being able to heavily lie. To yourself and to others. Either by alter is or heavy omissions. Lies are the glue that hold any group or “membership” together. That your highest priority is not to be a member or own members, and that you assist people that choose not to be, instead of attacking them, is a testament to your courage and certainty. The fact that you have survived so well being yourself and being honest, has opened many doors. I am so happy for you and the life you are in, the family and friends you have, the knowledge you have obtained, and the hope you set forward for others that they can live a life of truth and it will all work out.
Here is the current status of beginning KHTK postulates, which covers both Hinduism and Scientology. These postulates are still evolving.
KHTK Postulate M-1: Awareness is a disturbance of some ground state.
Awareness is known to arise, change and disappear. It may be likened to a disturbance that arises, changes and disappears. We may assume some ground state, which when disturbed gives rise to awareness.
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KHTK Postulate M-2: The ground state itself cannot be known.
The ground state is the undisturbed state. Therefore there is no awareness in this state. The ground state shall forever remain unknown because one can never be aware of non-awareness. When one is being aware, there is always awareness.
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KHTK Postulate M-3: Awareness is not absolute, but is relative to the ground state.
The ground state acts as the reference point for awareness. However, the ground state being “absence of awareness,” shall never appear in awareness.
Any awareness, therefore, is relative to the ground state. No awareness is absolute.
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KHTK Postulate M-4: “Self,” when referred to as ground state, is unknowable.
Some philosophies refer to this ground state as “Self.” Since this ground state is not manifested in awareness, this “Self” shall be unknowable.
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KHTK Postulate M-5: Static as the ability to postulate and to perceive is not absolute.
Scientology postulates an absolute “Static” that has the ability to postulate and to perceive. The static is essentially a precisely defined potential. However, anything that is defined, even as a potential, shall be relative to the ground state of “no awareness, or no definition.”
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After OT 8, the obvious step is mindfulness.
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Wise fool, your observation is excellent.
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The mental stuff can be viewed as mental objects.
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I think that abstraction will help understand the universe better. We need better factors and axioms.
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Mark N. Roberts wrote: “Doing is superior to thinking.”
Mark, does this statement represent a ‘working truth?’
It seems to me that all doing is borne out of thinking, which itself seems to be a doing, albeit, not a tangible doing.
valkov, you have mentioned the word ‘knowledge’ several times in your comments and each time I encountered that word I felt prompted to respond but on each occasion I dismissed the prompt. That is, until this time.
It seems to me that what passes for ‘knowledge’ in the world is actually a skill, talent, ability in accurately memorizing what labels go with what objects and then being able to accurately describe the function of each object. The more objects a person can accurately match up with their generally accepted labels along with an accurate articulation of their function, the more knowledgeable they are perceived to be.
I suspect that while consciousness is identifying itself with form, it cannot conceive of Knowledge, which I would guess is an abstract.
“I don’t think any spirituality is needed and I don’t think that anybody needs to be saved.”
spyrosillusionist, this is one of those very liberating recognitions.
Wise Fool –
I look, but I just don’t see the GPM thing. Maybe some day, I will and all these GPMs will surface for me. And engrams and secondaries and locks, too.
But so far, I only saw those when I was a Scientologist.
Alanzo
Ok. I think the horse is dead.
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Simple practice of mindfulness has helped me greatly.
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I’m very glad to read 🙂
Yes, one can do it or not. There is no pushing nor resisting it. I don’t want to even suggest it. Ways…abberations…limitations…games can be created. But infinity is never limited. And one can make a choice to know it or not. The choice is free too. One could even think “well infinity is free but I…”. Yes, because you are not infinity, your life is not part of it 😛 So many possibilities to create unfreedom, limitations. I dont want to hamper that for playful beings. That woukd be a limitation within itself. But I just want other games now.
That’s cool Vinnie. Just let me say you replied by stating a point I did not mention at all, and did not comment or acknowedge what I said, except to state that my post “altered importance”. Talk about shifting the parameters of the discussion!
How could marildi have posted a “quote of Buddha” when you were clear that “quotes of Buddha” did not exist, because Buddha did not write anything down?
Possibly both “nothing” and “everything” could be considered to be “absolutes”. Ah, words!
OK Vin, I appreciate the effort to clarify. To me the “subject” is much more than an “observer”, s/he is the “experiencer” of his/her existence. This is a totally interactive kind of thing. “Observer” to me connotes a watcher who is not involved, not interacting. A “subject” is the one who gives meaning and “color” to life, and that’s exactly the point. That is fully at least half of life right there. Without that there is only colorless and meningless “brownian motion”. One philospher who had quite a lot to say about this is the Russian, Nikolai Berdyaev.
Here’s a brief quote: “Spirit is never an object; nor a spiritual reality an objective one. In the so-called objective world there’s no such nature, thing, or objective reality as spirit. Hence it is easy to deny the reality of spirit. God is spirit because he is not object, because he is subject.”
Berdyaev was a Christian, so he believed in God, but he viewed humanity as having the same quality, of each person being an experiencing “spirit” as well as a material object.
This is actually consistent with Christianity, because it does say in the Bible that “in his own image and likeness created he him”(or them, referring to humanity.) In other words, Man has the same qualities as God has, and God, being pure spirit, is never an “object” but is always an actively experiencing “subject”.
I appreciate Ouspensky, he was a real “thinker”. Berdyaev complements Ouspensky very well; Ousponsky was a mathematician who investigated the “objective” world but also integrated the subjective side of life. Berdyaev went whole hog into developing an understanding of the subjective, spiritual side of life.
Nowadays people like Ken Wibur, Gregg Braden etc are doing much to even-handedly view and “grant beingness” to both aspects of human existence.
Whew! That may all seem like a tangent, but it hopefully clarifies a bit my own frames of reference and what I mean by certain crucial words.
“They killed the horse, those b*stards!”
Monte, as I was writing that, it occurred to me to question whether I wanted to use the word “data” or the word “knowledge”. At the time, I chose “knowledge”.
You know, a game I also play is to undo previous things I have said (to undo figure-figure and problem making about it) by writing new things. Eh…hard to say whether it’s workable 😛 Maybe it’s an art or science I don’t quite posses. But I seem to trigger further figure-figure the more I type. Maybe I should just talk about the weather and stuff. I just don’t know whether that will be acceptable here 😛
Too logical!
“Infinite mind is individualistic… the highest individualism attainable is the individualism of the infinite mind” ~ LRH as quoted by Marildi.
The above statement by LRH is self-contrdictory. Infinite has no boundaries. Individual has boundaries because it is separated from other individuals. Hubbard is trying to justify it by saying, “Just as there can be an ‘infinity’ of ideas, so can there be an ‘infinity’ of ‘infinities’ of space” but it still does not make sense. An idea is not “an infinity of space.”
In Scientology, transcending the self would mean transcending the thetan and arriving at the state of Static. Per the reference above, Static would be an individuality with infinite mind. This is the absolute visualized in Scientology.
Basically, Scientology postulates an “absolute Static” that has the ability to postulate and to perceive. This static is essentially a precisely defined potential. However, anything that is defined, even as a potential, shall be relative to the ground state that has no awareness and no definition.
Just like zero is the reference point of all positive and negative numbers, the ground state of “absence of awareness” is the reference point point of all awarenes, whether potential or actual.
Therefore, the absolute visualized in Scientology is actually a relative condition.
I never took to the idea of GPM. In Hubbard’s world it was always a contest that was binary in nature.
Today I focus on inconsistencies and incoherencies. I look at them more and more closely to resolve them. The Data Series and Study Technology helped me arrive at this approach. But Scientolgy obsessively tries to control the method of resolution. I find that watching a wound-up mind without interfering with it is more workable. It is basically letting the mind unwind itself. It is letting go.
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Valkov, one may consider anything one wants, but that does not necessarily mean that it would be consistent and coherent with rest of the existence.
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I think you make a very important point about Scientology, Wise Fool.
But I would come at that point in a different way.
Any ideology like Scientology is going to put labels on every thing in the universe for you. It will even define the universe for you, its nature, its characteristics, its limits, etc.
Any ideology is going to tell you what is “right” and what is “wrong”, what is good and what is bad, etc. And it is going to do it from a stance of somewhere back in time, when the writer decided that all future experiences along some line were always going to be a particular way, with a particular meaning, nature and characteristic – no matter the specific circumstances – the unique place and time of the unique individual experiencing it.
Because of this characteristic which is inherent to any ideology, Scientology will never reach the infinite. It is stuck in its own place and time. And Scientology is especially hindered by Hubbard’s own moral faults and mental illnesses.
There is so much data available now for everyone to see the results of Scientology, that it is totally clear that not only will Scientology never help a person become more powerful, it will not help them become more sane, either, let alone reach the infinite.
Scientology was good to try, but it is best abandoned in favor of the lessons one learned while trying it.
I have found that it is most productive to take what one gained, consolidate those gains, and move on completely from Scientology.
Alanzo
Valkov, I have no problem with the use of ‘subject’ instead of observer. Both are part of reality. I simply consider that the ‘subject, is able to look at himself or herself.
I believe in self-awareness. To me the earliest self is ‘awareness’, and the earliest self-awareness is ‘consciousness’. The earliest consciousness is that of light.
I believe that everything has evolved out of raw awareness that has the form of light, and like ‘awareness’ everything that has eveolved from it has self-awareness or consciousness.
This consciousness may vary from one thing to another because things are different one thing to another. The human consciousness is the coherency of the consciousness of all its parts. When that coherency is broken, death occurs.
I do not regard spiritual and physical states to be absolute in themselves. I believe that spiritual and physical states are relative to each other. A spiritual state will have physical form, no matter how subtle. And a physical state will have some spiritual characteristics (consciousness), no matter how subdued.
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I believe that any ideology is defined by its starting postulate. The following is how I see the starting postulates and where Scientology stands. Scientology does not start from an absolute postulate, so it suffers from some fundamental arbitraries.
KHTK Postulate M-1: Awareness is a disturbance of some ground state.
Awareness is known to arise, change and disappear. It may be likened to a disturbance that arises, changes and disappears. We may assume some ground state, which when disturbed gives rise to awareness. .
KHTK Postulate M-2: The ground state itself cannot be known.
The ground state is the undisturbed state. Therefore there is no awareness in this state. When one is being aware, there is always awareness. The ground state shall forever remain unknown because one can never be aware of non-awareness. .
KHTK Postulate M-3: Awareness is relative to this ground state.
Just like zero is the reference point of all positive and negative numbers, the ground state of “absence of awareness” shall be the reference point of all awareness, whether potential or actual.
Any awareness, therefore, is relative to the ground state. No awareness is absolute. .
KHTK Postulate M-4: In Eastern philosophies, the ultimate Self is the same concept as the ground state of awareness.
The idea of self is a variable throughout the spectrum of life. There is plant kingdom, the animal kingdom, and the humans. The self is a relative condition. The absolute Self in the Vedas is arrived at by the process of “neti, neti” (not this, not that).
Thus, ultimate Self is the same “reality” as the ground state of awareness. .
KHTK Postulate M-5: Any defined potential is relative to the ground state.
The ground state is “absence of awareness.” Therefore, the ground state has no definition.
The God of Abrahamic religions is defined as the active cause of the world. Thus, God is defined as a certain potential from which this world arose. Here God is defined in terms of this world. Such definition is relative to the ground state.
Scientology postulates an “absolute Static” that has the ability to postulate and to perceive. The static is essentially a precisely defined potential. However, anything that is defined, even as a potential, shall be relative to the ground state. .
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My post was about the meaning of some words, not about whether anyone’s considerations with “reality” which you have been saying is unknowable, anyway. The only consistency that might matter here, is the consistency of word meanings, no?
Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen:
Al, there you go, making unscientific statements that have long since been falsified. why do you continue to do it? I mean, you do realize that statements like “…. that it is totally clear that not only will Scientology never help a person become more powerful, it will not help them become more sane, either, let alone reach the infinite.” have been repeatedly falsified, right?
Valkov –
I don’t think “falsified” means what you think it means. Yep, pretty sure you don’t get it.
Alanzo
Can a tongue taste itself? Can an ear hear itself? Can an eye see itself? A “subject” is by defintion not an object. It is the perceiver of objects..
No word is an island. Consistency with context is what determines the truth.
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I believe that properties of objects are part of their self-awareness. An atom is aware of itself through how it interacts with other atoms. To me, the periodic table is an atomic chart of awareness.
The self awareness of atoms is a very raw awareness and not like human awareness that is way more complex, and have feedback loops.
I think that the tounge is aware that it tastes, the ear is aware that it hears, the eye is aware that it sees. A thought is aware of itself as a thought.
Don’t ask me for proof, because I don’t have one. It is just the direction that the KHTK postulates are taking.
In the beginning there is awareness, By its very nature that awareness is aware. There is nothing else to be aware of but awareness. So, there is self-awareness or consciousness.
All things materialize from primordial awareness, so they have the property of what they materialize from. So, they have the property of self-awareness.
Yeah sure Al. From the dictionary –
Falsify:
2. prove (a statement or theory) to be false.
“the hypothesis is falsified by the evidence”
synonyms: disprove, refute, debunk, negate, negative, invalidate, contradict, controvert, confound, demolish, discredit
Al, there was quite a bit of discussion on Geir’s blog a year or two ago, about “falsification” as it applies to science and scientific thinking. Basically it means that if there is even ONE contrary fact or datum, it invalidates (“falsifies”) a statement, theory, hypothesis, etc. So a statement such as “Scientology never helped anyone” is easily “falsifiable” and in fact has been falsified many times. There are two aspects to statements made about reality – 1. Falsifiability, and 2. Provability. A statement may not have been falsified, but it may be unproven or unprovable within the limits of human perception and knowledge.
Valkov wrote:
I mean, you do realize that statements like “…. that it is totally clear that not only will Scientology never help a person become more powerful, it will not help them become more sane, either, let alone reach the infinite.” have been repeatedly falsified, right?
Show the evidence which has repeatedly “falsified” the statement above, please.
In science, which you brought up, the task is always to present positive evidence, beyond random chance, which proves the claims that:
1. Scientology makes people more powerful,
2. Scientology makes people more sane,
3. Scientology helps people and “reach the infinite”.
I think it is that last one where the correct definition of falsifiable – a definition that I know you have been exposed to for at least 3 or 4 years now without ever learning – is going to come in handy for you. But you’ll have to learn the correct definition first before you can use it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiable
Good luck, Valkov, clinging to the rocks and shoals in defiance of the current washing you away from your Scientology beliefs.
Alanzo
Valkov wrote:
Basically it means that if there is even ONE contrary fact or datum, it invalidates (“falsifies”) a statement, theory, hypothesis, etc. So a statement such as “Scientology never helped anyone” is easily “falsifiable” and in fact has been falsified many times.
This is an amazing misunderstanding you have here, Valkov. You might even call it a crashing misunderstood on your part.
Wow.
Alanzo
Falsifiable = not absolute.
Something shown as falsifiable simply means that it is shown as not being absolute. .
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Scientology, or any mental science, shall simply serve to straighten the kinks out of awareness. This is, of course, relative to the context of overall awareness. Now it may be spun as saying, “It makes people powerful and sane.”
I think that the word “infinte” is generally misunderstood. It means “undefined” and “with no limits” and not necessarily a “large number.” Things can be infinitely small.
So, the statement “Scientology helps people and reach the infinite” seems to be non-falsifiable, or absolutist.
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The correct statement would be that Scientology helps different people to various degrees. There are people it is not able to help at all. And there are people who have been helped quite a bit.
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The correct statement will be that Scientology helps but not in some absolute way.
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What Alanzo is saying is that the use of hyperbole is built into Scientology.
That seems to be a correct statement.
http://backincomm.wordpress.com/2014/07/08/please-no-more-hyperbole/
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Sorry – this 3rd one was a typo.
3. Scientology helps people and “reach the infinite”.
That claim should be:
3. Scientology helps people “reach the infinite”.
Alanzo
Al, as I have already posted in an additional comment I believe, there are two aspects to considering any statement about reality. 1. Falsification of it, which requires only ONE contrary fact or datum, and 2. Proof of the statement, which requires validating facts or data AND the ABSENCE of falsifying data or facts.
It’s as simple as that. The fact, for example, that even today people are auditing and being audited in the field and getting results they are happy with falsifies the statement, for example, that “Scientology has failed”.
Scientology’s primary goal as stated by LRH was to improve a person’s ability to play a game; as long as this is being done, any unqualified statements to the contrary are thereby falsified. And that doesn’t even include past results. I’m talking just about present time. Cripes Al, people are posting their positive results on Facebook and on various blogs, as we speak.
SO I would stop and think a little before you ad hom me anymore about whether or not I understand the concept of falsification in scientific thinking, because you are shooting major footbullets.
Clearly one of us does not understand the definition of “fasification” and “falsify” as used in sciences, including logic. I suggest you review the threads on Geir’s blog where this was discussed. Actually, here, the opening discussion in this Wiki article explains it quite clearly with examples:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
I think you will see what I mean when I say you often make falsifiable statements about Scientology. These only hurt your own goal to be an effective critic.
Yes Vin, exactly. That is the meaning of “falsifiable”. Any absolute statement can easily be falsified” by finding even one single exception, a “contrary fact” or contrary datum.
What I am saying is that hyperbole is built into Al’s style of argumentation, and that actually makes him appear biased rather than objective.
Al, you are wrong in saying that “in science the task is always to present positive evidence….” No. It is just as important to present negative or “contrary” evidence which disproves (falsifies) a hypothesis or assumption.
The presentation of positive, supporting evidence and the presentation of negative, contrary facts are equally important in science. Accurate thinking is virtually impossible without the use of both, except perhaps by making a lucky guess or being inspired by God or gods.
And in his eagerness to create an effect, Al has a tendency to make absolute statements about Scientology, which of course are easily falsified, just by looking around and finding people who feel they have been helped by Scientology.
Infinite can also mean “all inclusive”. It’s an adjective so it canbe applied in many different ways.
in·fi·nite
adjective
1.
limitless or endless in space, extent, or size; impossible to measure or calculate.
“the infinite mercy of God”
synonyms: boundless, unbounded, unlimited, limitless, never-ending, interminable; More
A statement such as “helps people reach the infinite” doesn’t actually make any sense, because “infinite” is an adjective and in the above phrase, what does “infinite” modify? Nothing, so it’s an incomplete sentence. I’s like saying It “helps people reach the purple”.
That which be’s :-)))
Total identification is composed of: an amnesia of self that occurs by assigning tye existence of self to the objects of sense perception. It is accompanied by a collapse of personal space.
Inherent in the Total Identified state is an inability to see the true nature of things.
Total Duplication is the creation of space, direct perception of the true nature of the objects of perception, the experience of understanding, the experience of enlightened knowledge and accumulation of wisdom and happiness.
Total Duplication of any perception will make that which is being perceived disappear.
Total Duplication leads to a feeling of lightness
Total Identification leads to a feeling of solid vibrations in order to assume the role of a game. I am a body etc.
You’ll learn more from studying and discussing Scientology than from studying and discussing Al.
I’ll leave Al alone and only discuss knowledge that is worthwhile.
Valkov wrote:
Scientology’s primary goal as stated by LRH was to improve a person’s ability to play a game; as long as this is being done, any unqualified statements to the contrary are thereby falsified. And that doesn’t even include past results. I’m talking just about present time. Cripes Al, people are posting their positive results on Facebook and on various blogs, as we speak.
LRH made many more claims for Scientology than just “improve a person’s ability to play a game”.
Each rundown had a specific EP, each training course, each Grade and OT Level. Why didn’t you mention even one of those?
Why are you leaving all his other claims out of your analysis of whether Scientology “works”?
This is just too stupid, Valkov. You are trapped in a swirling whirlpool of justifying your beliefs. The only way you will make it out of this whirlpool is if you stop justifying them.
See if you can use Scientology to play a better game than constantly justifying your beliefs in Scientology.
That should be quite the trick. If you can pull that one off, I’ll be impressed.
Have a good life, Valkov.
Alanzo
Here I find dictionary definitions themselves to be flawed.
KHTK Postulate: Space and time describe the extension and duration of forms.
The extension and duration of forms are described by the dimensions of space and time. Space and time appear only as forms emerge in consciousness. Neither space nor time exists prior to this point. Therefore, neither space nor time is absolute or infinite.
Please note that the primordial consciousness has neither extension nor duration, nor any other dimension. It is indescribable. This is infinity by definition.
Lest you think I am absolutely condemning you Al, you made some really good posts on Tony’s blog, in the John Joseph thread. I upticked the “Like” button on those. Somehow you left off the “absolutism” you are occassionally prone to posting.
Al, those three points are easily confirmed. All you have to do is find a few people who feel they got some improvement in one of them, and the thesis that scientologuy can’t help anyone achieve any of those things is falsified.
As I understand Al, he is objecting to absolutist claims made by Hubbard, or claims which come across as absolutist, in order to promote the subjects of Dianetics and Scientology. As I understand Al, Scientology promotion has been littered with absolutists claims from the get go and even today.
My understanding is that an absolute statement shall be one which does does not admit that it could be false even a teeny bit. It presents itself as being absolutely true.
I do see that Al has made absolute statements in his criticism of Scientology.
“The infinite” is like saying “the Static”. Hubbard played with the grammar of words that way.
Instead of “positive evidence” I would use the phrase “conclusive evidence.” A conclusive evidence can both support a hypothesis, or can show the hypothesis to be flawed.
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Al, what makes you think I “believe” in scientology? That’s just too stupid. It’s a straw man ad hom of me, by you, is it not? Evidently you think you are a mind reader.
As far as LRH making many absolute claims for Scientology/scientology, that is very true. This is perhaps where you picked up the habit. However, fighting fire with fire doesn’t really work. It is better to fight fire with reason and logic.
That a hypothesis can be fasified does not necessarily mean that the hypothesis is false. It simply means that the hypotheis is relative or conditional. It is not absolute.
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It is true that LRH worded EPs to make them sound absolute.
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As far as EPs go, there are people who have said they achieved any given EP, and people who have said they did not achieve any given EP. These contrary facts falsify any absolute statement about whether scientology works or does not work. It has evidently worked for some, and not worked for others.
All you can credibly say is, from your own experience, which actions worked for you, and which ones did not work for you. And you can also credibly report the statements of others, without necessarily taking sides. There are many videos on Youtube about scientology. There are write-ups on ESMB, etc etc. There are statements by those who knew LRH, and statements by those who did not know him. As Geir recently blogged, So What?
Anyway, why go into a tailspin about it? This has basically been about not being on the same page about the meaning and usage of the words “falsify, falsification, falsifiable”. I trust you now understand how I as using it, which was apparntly different from how you were using it. Somehow that led to some namecalling. Do you feel better now?
Yes and No. I’ll learn more about Al, from studying Al. I’ll learn more about Scientology, by studying Scientology. Etc.
In my opinion, total identification in Scientology sense means replacing one’s own belief system by another’s belief system. So the person totally changes. He has become somebody else.
Total duplication of something would entail recognizing and nullifying those beliefs in one’s belief system that are altering one’s perception of that thing. The thing being perceived does not change or disappear. What changes or disappears is one’s filter that is altering the perception.
.
Vin, there is a very good article about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability
Actually if a statement is falsified, it is false. If it is a statement is presented in absolute terms, such as “All swans are white”, the observation of one single BLACK swan falsifies(makes false) the statement that “All swans are white”.
The article makes it very clear what I am talking about. Any absolute statement can be falsified by finding even one exception. If it’s a conditional statement, then it is not an absolute statement. You can’t have it both ways.
Particle = Being = Thetan
.
You can use whatever you want to use, but “conclusive evidence” and “positive evidence” are not the same thing. The incidence of one single Black swan conclusively falsifies the statement thet “All swans are white.”
Discussion goes much better and smooth when one keeps the ego out of the discussion by following the discussion policy.
http://vinaire.me/2012/07/16/discussions-and-what-needs-to-be-avoided/
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Vin: “I do see that Al has made absolute statements in his criticism of Scientology.”
Yes. I sometimes notice it too. And I sometimes comment on it.
It is also possible I will learn something about Scientology by studying Al. (But probably not in the way he might think I will) It is also possible I will learn something about Al, by studying Scientology. ETC.
You said what I said but in different words. 🙂
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Scientology is not absolute. Scientology can be improved upon.
But then, can it still be called Scientology?
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You hope! LOL!
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Totally agree Conan.
And thank God all our models differ. What fun would this blog be if we are always telling each other how right we are?
Thank you Vinaire, for engaging in these discussions. They are thrilling to me. To talk of life, what is consciousness etc. is awesome and wonderful.
Warm Regards,
Brian
The “I” IS pure consciousness. Being conscious of something is the dual nature you are describing. In that regard there are no absolutes.
But there is a big difference in stating that the “I” is aware of itself which is dual, and saying that the “I” IS consciousness. Not that the “I” has or possesses consciousness. But that it IS consciousness.
But again, there are experiments to settle these things.
There is a whole spectrum of “I”. The human “I” is very evolved. The basic “I” at the beginning of creation is not eveolved at all.
It is raw, raw, raw. It doesn’t resemble the idea of God at all..
Sorry, Valkov.
I’m breaking up the Vaudeville Act and moving on.
I’m taking the trained Seal, his beach ball, and the trampoline. You can have the clown suit and the tuba.
It was fun while it lasted but your audience is shrinking as Scientologists advance past you on their way out of Scientology. You’re just not pulling the crowds like you used to.
You’d better catch up, or be left behind.
Alanzo
Hello Vin.
You said ” The basic “I” at the beginning of creation is not eveolved at all.
It is raw, raw, raw. It doesn’t resemble the idea of God at all.”
Puts a whole nother angle on “All Knowing” when there is not yet anything to know.
Mark
Hello Brian.
I don’t have anything profound to say right now, just wanted to see how you been doin’. If you ever pass through the South, drop by. I’ll smoke a pork butt (14 hrs,). Nothing like real Southern Pit BBQ. A little apple cider vinegar, brown sugar, paprika, and a hint of a certain pepper sauce. Add some beans, greens and cornbread (skillet baked, crunchy edges), fried cabbage and potatoes and sweet iced tea. Mmmmmm…You’re not a vegan, are you?
This invitation is open to all of you, my friends. I’ll cook at the drop of a hat.
Mark
Here is my proposed theory of Consciousness.
KHTK Postulate M-1: Awareness is a disturbance of some ground state.
Awareness is known to arise, change and disappear. It may be likened to a disturbance that arises, changes and disappears. We may assume
some ground state, which when disturbed gives rise to awareness.
.
KHTK Postulate M-2: It is a desire to know, which disturbs the ground state into awareness.
The ground state is disturbed because of some desire. It is the desire to know that desires awareness. As awareness arises from the ground state it
becomes aware of this desire.
.
KHTK Postulate M-3: The ground state is absolute but unknowable.
The ground state is the undisturbed state. It is the absolute zero. It is an absence of desire and awareness.
In the numbering system, zero is the absence of counting numbers. It then becomes the reference point of all numbers whether positive or negative,
rational or irrational, real or imaginary. Similarly, the ground state is an absence of awareness. It then becomes the reference point of anything that
one can be aware of, whether potential or actual, real or imaginary, etc.
All awareness, therefore, is relative. No awareness is absolute. It is the ground state that is absolute. But the ground state shall forever remain
unknown because awareness of an “absence of awareness” is not possible.
.
KHTK Postulate M-4: The ultimate Self of Vedas is this very ground state.
The idea of self exists throughout the spectrum of life. There is plant self, the animal self, and the human self. Thus self is relative. The absolute Self
of the Vedas is arrived at by the process of “neti, neti” (not this, not that). It leads to the same ground state described above. The “Brahma” of
Hinduism and the “Nirvana” of Buddhism are based on the concept of this ground state.
.
KHTK Postulate M-5: The concepts of God and Static are relative to this ground state.
The God of Abrahamic religions is defined as the Creator of the world. Thus defined, God is relative to the ground state because the ground state
has no definition.
The Static of Scientology is defined as individuality that can postulate and perceive. Thus defined, Static is relative to the ground state.
.
KHTK Postulate M-6: The fundamental awareness is consciousness.
In the beginning there is only awareness. Since there is nothing else to be aware of, there is simply self-awareness. This is consciousness.
.
KHTK Postulate M-7: Consciousness oscillates between perceiving and knowing.
As awareness arises it perceives itself. It then recognizes itself as awareness. Knowing that it is awareness it perceives. Thus, consciousness
oscillates between perceiving and knowing like a pendulum because of its desire to know.
.
KHTK Postulate M-8: The physical form of consciousness is light, and its spiritual essence is awareness.
Since consciousness seems to be oscillating, there is some justification in associating consciousness with light, which is also a fundamental
oscillation. It appears that such association has existed since ancient times on an intuitive basis.
Form (physicality) and essence (spirituality) seem to go hand in hand. They do not seem to exist separately as absolutes.
For a long time space and time were regarded as absolute concepts in themselves. Newtonian mechanics built on those concepts has been very
successful on a human scale. But, on a cosmic scale, it has been found by science that space and time are relative.
Similarly, Abrahamic religions have long regarded spirituality and physicality to be absolute concepts in themselves. This has been adequate on a
human scale. But, on the cosmic scale, we find it necessary to regard spiritual and physical to be relative.
A spiritual state will have physical form, no matter how subtle. And a physical state will have some spiritual characteristics, no matter how subdued.
Thus, consciousness is both physical and spiritual. It has the form of light and essence of awareness.
.
KHTK Postulate M-9: Consciousness represents a wave that has a frequency and wave-length.
Thus, we may say with some confidence that basic consciousness has the basic form of light, which represents a disturbance of nearly infinite
wave-length, and which has a frequency of practically zero. This is a very raw level of consciousness.
Soul, energy, matter, etc., come later with increase in frequency and a decrease in wave-length.
.
KHTK Postulate M-10: Consciousness is the fundamental property of all existence.
This is a very raw form of consciousness that develops into more complex forms and awareness of inanimate matter, minerals, plants animals and
humans. Thus, every part of existence has the property of consciousness. All things are conscious to some degree.
.
Yup!
Sounds wonderful!
>
Thought I was God at one time. I had a hard time getting everyone else to play along. We decided to just take turns. It was fun for awhile.
Deity based religions tell us that God ‘gave’ us free will.
Tell me, what have you given up in order to have some randomity, activity, a game, something to do? If you control every single thing, then you control nothing.
I have found recently that the greatest quantity of case (stuck considerations, opinions, purposes, confusions etc.) to have as their source, the games universes era. Small, private universes, playgrounds. Practically every series of events that occurred in the large common universes, like this one, can be traced back to this long and wide open era of existence.
For instance. The whole idea of being able to look in only one direction at a time was invented during this era. That way, there could be something behind you that you don’t see. If you can’t sneak up on someone it’s just no fun, This was used in spook houses and chase games. Areas far more horrifying than anything you have seen in a movie or war film. It was fun. Getting locked in a chamber of horrors for a few thousand years was a bitch, but no big deal, really. Of course we were a lot more durable then. We would come out laughing, complimenting the builder.
Those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it. Takes on whole new meanings once you take a look.
Mark
Yes Mark, I agree with you, as long as you are talking about MEST-games – only.
EverFun
Per
Raw, raw ,raw. Yes perhaps. To me those early egos resemble the gods of Greek mythology who used to bicker and fight amongst themselves and 3P each other. Or the Norse “gods” like in Marvel’s “Thor” movies. Or the jealous Yahweh of Biblical fame. Powerful but not particularly evolved. KInda degraded at times, in fact.
Al:
Since you are yielding, I will spare your life once again. 🙂
I moved on about 30 years ago. Don’t forget what you learned about “falsification”.
Prior to the human “I” there were less evolved “I’s”, such as, the animal “I”, the plant “I”, the mineral “I”, the atom “I”, the electromagnetic “I”, and so on.
When you are talking about the “I’s” of the Greek gods you are still at the level of less evolved human “I”.
The earliest “I” was very raw.
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Ping.
Yes, I know what you mean. Even these thoughts, purposes etc.trace back earlier. But it was simpler, less active, less group oriented. The earliest ideas, creation, accomplishments are more deep seeded, but less complex, fewer oppositions, confusions.There only so many emotions one can have about throwing a rock back and forth, but many, many aberrations can be related back to those original considerations.
It has been a long ride and there is a lot of ground to cover. But, damn, it’s fascinating.
Mark:
What i mostly agree with is your concept of simplicity which is the modus operandi of my existence (and life).
Everlove,
Per
Eric
Tell me more about your thoughts on ethics.
One thing that you will find is that I don’t quibble on the various meanings of words. If I understand what you are trying to get across, fine. If I miss something, I’ll ASK, rather than TELL you what you did wrong. If I use a work wrongly, and I will, just ask me to explain. No problem.
Sometimes some people display an effort to not duplicate what is said. I think that if something is close to duplicatable, no prob.
Mark
TYPO:
If I use a WORD wrongly, not WORK.
Hope I was duplicatable in any case.
Mark
Hello, Monte.
Good to speak to you. Been reading your comments.
“Doing is senior to thinking”
Perhaps I used the word in too narrow a sense. Thinking, in one sense, implies stopping, pondering or examining the state and actions and deciding on those states or further actions. This is a lower level of thinking.
A higher order of thinking is often called knowing, but that does not exactly describe the concept in a duplicatable way. The higher order order of thinking is outside of time and requires no effort. It is instant. Contemplating, deciding, planning comes about when knowing is not present. It is an effort to scratch one’s way back up to knowing. Then, doing becomes possible.
Hope this better explains my viewpoint.
Mark
Wise Fool.
Hubbards description of the makeup of MEST is very mechanical. Perhaps due to his trouble in resolving these mechanical restraints which bind and restrict us. The Axioms describe a being who is obsessed with mechanics from the very inception of his existence.
This is not exactly the way I recall it. I see a being which became more used to and comfortable with an increasingly rigid framework, bit by bit, over an immense length of time. Time being the first of all MEST principles that I can recall. The intention to be, to exist as an individual and the intention to continue, to persist, to have duration, being simultaneous. Each experience adding to the previous, never to be completely forgotten. Each prediction of the future being a thought in present time which is now a new part of your past, just as with any other experience.
BUT THAT DOES NOT DEVALUE THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE MECHANICS OF LIFE WHICH ARE NOW EXTANT. We are in it now, and need to learn to deal with it. You can work with someone on his ability to handle mass and energy and comm flows and such without any substantial working knowledge of such, and get results. But to design and implement these procedures requires a working knowledge of how they came to be. A knowledge of which direction to go is necessary and pre-mechanics principles will determine that direction.
One can be told “How it all got started” and “How we all got in this condition”, but eventually one must learn for himself, from his own experience, how he came to be in this place and time. That is what separates belief from true knowledge. Hence the nature and direction of my work.
Yes, there are dangers and pitfalls. They are avoidable, and damage is repairable. These dangers decrease as knowledge increases.
Quantum mechanics gives us some insight into the nature of mechanics and how we interact with the universe. But keep in mind that all these rules are secondary to the basic nature of beingness, which is CHOICE.
My take on things, Mark
That is definitely true. But are your ignoring your day-to-day existence? If you have at least a body you can’t escape it.
Alonzo,
Just curious. How do you account for your beingness(es)?
Miraldi,
We could be talking about two different things here. “I” am no less than Infinity itself. Of course we run into the language problem immediately, so I hope you understand.
Alonzo,
I understand what you are saying. I can only speak from my personal experience. Almost every session I have had in the last 6 months has ended in Infinity.
And as a side comment since Infinity is infinite there are an infinity of experiences of Infinity. No two are ever the same.
I don’t see day-to-day existence as a game. I see it as day-to-day existence. It is what the reality is. It just evolves influenced by innumerable factors. You are just part of those factors.
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