Another excerpt from Deconstructing Scientology:
Once sold on the reactive mind construct as fact, the next most fundamental belief instilled through the scientology catechism is that we have all fallen from grace and must strive to re-attain it. We came from a state of perfection that was infinite in terms of potential and capability. Each of us once was divine ‘cause’. A scientologist’s mission is to return to that ‘native state.’ In order to do so one must confront that which created his descent into the human condition. Thus, the central practice of scientology is a form of abreaction therapy that returns one to and addresses each step one took down the ladder from his native condition.
Unlike more conventional psychotherapies, scientology’s abreaction practice is intended to be, and is in practice, interminable. That is due to scientology also teaching that each of us is a positive, separate identity that has been intact for quadrillions of years and beyond. It preaches that the unraveling of all the quadrillions of years of falling from perfection is the only road to spiritual freedom, even the only means to fully wake up from insanity.
The cathartic byproduct of witnessing events in the past serves as the glue that fixes the scientologist’s attention there forever. The belief in the holy grail lying in the deep past is firmly and cumulatively reinforced by every session one participates in that results in relief or release – or some other form of heightened emotion or consciousness – by witnessing an incident from one’s past.
Consequently, the second important prong of the scientology indoctrination is the belief that the answers to the mysteries of the universe all lay deep in the past. As much as scientology promises to create freedom from the past – and irrespective of how personally liberating one finds certain instances of regressing back to face it might be – scientology never releases the adherent from it. To the contrary, scientology continues to offer indoctrination at its highest levels that enforces a fixation yet deeper into the past. Scientologists will vehemently argue with a great deal of righteous indignation that this notion is blasphemous and defamatory. Yet, the words of scientology’s founder L. Ron Hubbard – which scientologists swear to understand and abide – demonstrate this to be the case. Hubbard’s thousands of recorded lectures are strewn with references to the good old space opera days. He liberally dropped dates like millions, billions, trillions, quadrillions, and quadrillions to the infinite power years ago when reminiscing about his exploits and by positive suggestion those of his adherents. In virtually all of Hubbard’s sci fi narratives beings possessed capabilities far exceeding anything known to humankind.
Moving On Up a Little Higher 
Mark C wrote:
“We came from a state of perfection that was infinite in terms of potential and capability. Each of us once was divine ‘cause’. A scientologist’s mission is to return to that ‘native state.’ In order to do so one must confront that which created his descent into the human condition. Thus, the central practice of scientology is a form of abreaction therapy that returns one to and addresses each step one took down the ladder from his native condition.”
This is one of those things that you accept early on in Scientology and which acts as an unexpected assumption for the rest of the time spent as a “Scientologist”.
Before past lives and “thetans” in Scientology, there was the stated premise in Dianetics that your mind was a perfect computer which out-puts the correct answer instantly every time, and only through accumulated pain and unconsciousness did your mind ever become aberrated. Therefore, all you had to do was to remove ALL the accumulated pain and unconsciousness that you had accumulated and your mind would be perfect yet again.
The problem: the human mind never was like a perfect computer.
And so digging around and finding all kinds of pain and unconsciousness, both real and imagined, never was going to return anyone back to anywhere that ever existed.
It would only instill delusion.
Alanzo
Good afternoon Marty.
Excellent insight into the danger of fixating on the past and the addiction to looking at every imperfection as being caused by past events.
It can become like digging a hole. You keep digging and digging and sooner or later the purpose can become digging the hole, instead of what am I going to put in the hole, or what in the ground am I looking for.
On the other side, knowing the past is an obvious necessity of life. What did I do with my car keys last night. Sorry honey, I didn’t think you would get upset when I watched the game with my friends last week. My brother got fried out on drugs years ago, and I have stayed far away from them since.
Exactly where do we draw the line. What is reasonable and prudent. Do we glance back from time to time? Do we take a solemn look every now and then? Do we do a quick clean up on a regular basis? Do we take a close look only when there seems to be a current problem?
This is not an argument, this is a request for actual knowledge to someone who is knowledgeable. You have a lot of experience with persons who got into trouble digging into the past. You know my work pretty well, but I’m always looking for more insight. Since I am the only one on your blog who post reports on my past examination, I can assume this article is at least partially referring to me. But, maybe not.
I try not to dwell on the past, there’s no future in it.
Mark
PS: You learn from the past, you work and plan for the future, but your actual existence, your life, is here in the present, right now. … And now. …And now. How well am I handling what is right in front of me right this moment.
Some physicists hypothesize that the Big Bang occurred over 13 billion years ago. According to Ron that would be like yesterday, so he must have known the exact time, place, form and event. I, myself, don’t recall being there when it happened. Not even with Date/Locate. Did he ever reveal when and where?
I can’t help but hunk of the visual that was provided for a thetans vastness in the Understanding the E-Meter book. Where LRH says basically that you have tio imagine a thetan like a giant and your body like a tiny sliver in that giant.
I always wonder how all these infinity sized people could all cram themselves into this planet. I mean just think about an elevator ride. Talk about claustrophobia.
But in all seriousness, this is all a part of the ego stroking the works so brilliantly in Scientology. I mean, we were ALL gods! Fuck yeah. Take that Jesus Implant, bullshit! I am a fucking infinite God motherfucker. Oh I have to donate my house, my car, my wife, my first born and my health? Sure. No problem. Fuck that MEST shit. I am immortal. I just gotta pay for it first and you better not get in the way of me getting my infinite power back!
To me this has often felt like driving into life facing backwards.
Your self-identity, or who you tell yourself you are, is mostly made up from your memories of who you tell yourself you were.
What if the pressure of having to answer the constant “earlier/similar” auditing questions that are built into the structure of almost all Dn and Scn auditing caused you to imagine “memories” which never really happened?
You would have created a bunch of false memories of yourself and your “whole track”, and those would have become who you tell yourself you are – your self-identity.
What if Dianetics and Scientology created a false self-identity in you?
Alanzo
I think LRH’s basic discovery was helping the patient (PC) find an earlier similar incident (without invalidation or evaluation) and let him talk about it until he felt better and realized something about life or his life… and, go earlier if he din’t feel better.
There were other “present time” OT processes that he created that didn’t seem to work or get used much, like “be three feet in back of your head”. And, there were also objective processes that didn’t require the patient to look into the past … but, I agree, most everything in Scientology was looking into the past and if you got a good dose of evaluation (which you were NOT supposed to get, by the auditor code) about volcanoes or even read History of Man, it sure was easy to see this “history” come alive, whether it was true or not.
But, until the 3 swing FN requirement and the abolishment of just inspecting something that blew, I most always had good realizations and came to present time regarding what happened in the past. So, I think the basic therapy of running “earlier similar incidents” to some sort of realization is on solid ground and superior to Jung, Freud, Rodgers, etc… But, I also think there is a lot of blind worship of the “evaluated” past in Scientology and it gives me something to think about.
I do believe there was a “state” that a being was part of, or a connection they had, and from which they “fell”. Reconnecting to that “state” is worthwhile. One does not need to go into ones past to do that. In fact it would serve no purpose. The achievement of an awareness or reconnection is done through positive steps and practices ones takes going forward.
This is not just in Scientology. It is there in Christianity too.
(1) I do not think that we have fallen from grace and that we must strive to re-attain it. Human state is the result of a long evolution. We are simply striving to understand it.
(2) Full understanding will come from an understanding of the evolution of awareness. This effort is currently going on with research in Quantum Mechanics.
(3) There is no such thing as a divine cause in the beginning. That is a computation from human-centric fixation.
(4) Please see The Human-Centric Fixation.
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Marty: ”Unlike more conventional psychotherapies, scientology’s abreaction practice is intended to be, and is in practice, interminable. That is due to scientology also teaching that each of us is a positive, separate identity that has been intact for quadrillions of years and beyond. It preaches that the unraveling of all the quadrillions of years of falling from perfection is the only road to spiritual freedom, even the only means to fully wake up from insanity.”
This is the most insane postulate that a “thetan” has been there forever. I do accept “awareness – non-awareness” dichotomy. Awareness would appear to be there forever by its very nature. Human awareness and beingness are much later developments.
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Marty: ”The cathartic byproduct of witnessing events in the past serves as the glue that fixes the scientologist’s attention there forever. The belief in the holy grail lying in the deep past is firmly and cumulatively reinforced by every session one participates in that results in relief or release – or some other form of heightened emotion or consciousness – by witnessing an incident from one’s past.”
I believe that the “thetan” (self) and body are two sides of the same coin. When body disintegrates at death, the “thetan” disintegrates too. A new baby is formed from disintegrated pieces from different bodies and thetans. A complete thetan does not pass from one body to the next. That is just a human-centric wishful thinking.
Therefore, a person’s past ends in the genetic code being carried by him. All that “billions of years of past” resides in that genetic code. Past life incidents seem to be created from the programming contained in this genetic code plus the “definition-logic” matrix of the mind.
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It is interesting to me that it was on OT 8 that I gained a freedom from the past, from shame, blame and regret.
Marty: ”Consequently, the second important prong of the scientology indoctrination is the belief that the answers to the mysteries of the universe all lay deep in the past.”
An “answer” is not some incident in the past. The scientific method searches for truth in the Universe by coming up with a hypothesis from empirical observations, testing the hypothesis by making predictions, and then verifying the predictions. This works to the degree one is objective.
It is much easier to be objective when studying physical objects. This is not so when studying mental objects because the mental processes one uses to study are very similar. This difficulty may be overcome by the practice of mindfulness (seeing things as they are). Mindfulness requires the following criterion.
Truth is determined by consistency in the broadest context possible.
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Mark N: ” Exactly where do we draw the line. What is reasonable and prudent. Do we glance back from time to time? Do we take a solemn look every now and then? Do we do a quick clean up on a regular basis? Do we take a close look only when there seems to be a current problem?”
One doesn’t have to draw a line, as mind takes care of it automatically when one is practicing mindfulness. When a past reference is needed it appears by itself or it gets computed in the background.
The point is that mind will bring up from the past the needs data automatically as can be seen in this exercise: Memory Recall
Randomly digging into the mind is just asking for trouble. Scientology auditing forces one to do that.
Hahaha! Jane, you are good. 🙂
“scientology continues to offer indoctrination at its highest levels that enforces a fixation yet deeper into the past.”
Hubbard had a fixation on implants and what he called “amnesia” on the whole track. Reading the Saint Hill Special Briefing course especially presents the problems Hubbard had with the past. He had many threads which he tried to coordinate into a single narrative. He was, of course, especially critical of Christianity and Jesus.
What really hit me about Hubbard was his fictitious association with the Eastern tradition, especially Buddhism. He even made a comment that Gotama Buddha was “on to” Hubbard’s space opera stories. You can read the Pali Canon all day long and see that there are reference to strange beings and different realms. But the entire structure makes sense as compared to Hubbard’s stories which center on implants and amnesia. The Buddha taught that ignorance is the root of “Dukkha” which has no English translation.
I like “mental pain” or “stress”.
But in truth Hubbard does at the higher levels “enforce a fixation yet deeper into the past.” This happens because even in OT VIII, Hubbard is always throwing in the “research angle”. He even gives the impression he is going to chase beings into other dimensions. If one follows Hubbard to his logical conclusion, it is a deeper fixation into the past. In one sense, it is worse than a deeper fixation into the past. It is an endless circle of imagined research.
Hubbard was “gnostic” in his approach. His stories about his own role as “the bringer of light”. can be found in gnostic ideas. Personally I never really cared about Hubbard’s wild imagination. I let him have his day until he ran out of his overbearing nature to continue on in “research”. If anything Hubbard had a fixation on sharp words to nail home his points. He made such wild threats concerning “eternity” and your role in it. IMHO Hubbard displayed a large ego because he was covering wide gaps in his knowledge. For example, it is obvious he by-passed study of Buddhism yet he inflated himself into the role of a Buddha. In reality only a child can easily do this. Hubbard says that Jesus was a lover of young boys and men. It is a strange conclusion and a speculation on the part of Hubbard.
GMW
Stay tuned for part II, coming soon.
They are not only YOUR memories (leave aside if they are true or imagined). After you reach the (current) top level of the bridge to total freedom, you have to sort out IF your memories were really YOUR memories.
If having been fooled by others feels already weired, having fooled yourself feels even more weired.
Remember what Geir wrote about in his article about OT8?
“OT 8 is a short level, usually taking about a week to complete. In the theory part you learn that many of your memories of past lives that has come up in earlier auditing sessions are in fact not your memories. Most are memories served to you by body thetans having had those experiences. On OT 8 you do an auditing procedure that let you sift out which past life memories are yours and which are from other beings. The end result is that you learn who you have not been and that you are ready to learn who you have been (presumably on the next level or so).”
(http://isene.me/2012/12/10/ot-8/)
MF,
I cannot answer your question but I can direct you to someone who has studied the question in depth. His name is Chuck Beatty. He posted some information which I recall only in outline form. Hubbard basically said two conflicting things about the beginning:
1. In the “Time Track of Theta Tapes” published in the 1980’s, he implied he was present when a large body of theta split in smaller pieces and produced thetans. I do not recall what date Hubbard gave but he did give an order of magnitude. If he claimed to be present, he surely would have reported the date.
2. Chuck did research on another Hubbard approach to the problem. According to what I got, Hubbard also claimed that the universe began not from a single cource of “theta” but from diversity.
This is all I know. But Chuck has done the research.
GMW
What do you think of the Buddhist conception of the “gandharva”, defined as: “Gandharva or gandhabba is also used in a completely different sense, referring to a being (or, strictly speaking, part of the causal continuum of consciousness) in a liminal state between death and rebirth.”
It has always seemed to me that this was what LRH meant by “thetan”.
Well, I’m looking forward to Part II of Marty’s post, because so far, th ebeliefs he describes seem not much different from traditional Hindu, Vedic, beliefs, as desribed in brief here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-realization
It seems to be right in line with what the “gurus” from India have been teaching for a long time – achieving “God-realization” or “Self-realization”, both terms meaning the same thing. As explained in the Bhagavadgita, and more recently by the likes of Yogananda, Ramakrishna, and others.
I think the spin put on it that it an interminable process is just that, spin.
Valkov, I remember reading about “gandharvas” in the Hindu mythology that interested me greatly in my childhood. They are mentioned in Vedas too, so they predate Buddhism.
My understanding is that a lot of mythology was created by Vedic sages who got their intuition from drinking Soma (juice extracted from plants) that keyed them out. “Gandharvas” were part of mythological stories.
My current understanding is that every object in this Universe is imbued with awareness. That awareness is expressed as the inherent nature of objects. Awareness does not exist by itself. It is always expressed through motion, which is part of the inherent nature of the objects. “Gandharvas” may a mythological code for some specific kind of awareness.
Please see Universe and Awareness
Mark (Marty),
The above passage you have provided contains the ultimate explanation of the scientological trap from my view:
And that is the premise that “We came from a state of perfection that was infinite in terms of potential and capability.”
From there Hubbard got us hook, line and sinker all cloaked in an emotionally charged subject- religion.
Valkov wrote:
It seems to be right in line with what the “gurus” from India have been teaching for a long time – achieving “God-realization” or “Self-realization”, both terms meaning the same thing. As explained in the Bhagavadgita, and more recently by the likes of Yogananda, Ramakrishna, and others.”
What Hubbard taught is nothing like what these other people taught, especially the technology to reach these states.
Yogananda and Ramakrishna and others never had you sit there and go earlier similar in paid-for hourly auditing to “as-is” pain and unconsciousness and body thetans holding you back from an earlier perfection.
Just because the Upanishads describe a timeless, formless awareness at the root of all existence does not mean they taught that there is a “main body of theta” and you are one unit of it called a “thetan”.
The Bhagavad Gita did not teach anything like Scientology.
Yes, you can find similarities. But you can find similarities between Christianity and Naziism, Microsoft Windows and the previews before the movie on a DVD, or even a video and a campfire.
But these are is very different things in themselves.
“I think the spin put on it that it an interminable process is just that, spin.”
The only way to get off the eternal hamster wheel of Scientology is to self-determinedly LEAVE. That is how it always has been.
Otherwise, Scientology just goes on and on forever.
That is how Scientology was designed.
Haven’t you noticed this?
It is not spin, Valkov.
Maybe you never did enough of it to see this.
Alanzo
I gained freedom the “The Past” running the clearing course platens. I ran them after I went clear as they looked very interesting.
“The Past” was an item on them. Running it , it became real to me that I was mocking it up.
That said, I didn’t think about “the past” before I got involved in Scientology and it was made to be such an important issue.
So, laughter, on some level I was coached to mock it up, and later on coached to realize I was mocking it up.
LAUGHTER!
I realize that a lot of people did come in with a lot of attention on the past already. They mocked it up and then got stuck in it. Was my final thought on it.
More fun than thinking about the stock market.
KA quoted Geir:
“The end result is that you learn who you have not been and that you are ready to learn who you have been”
To me, this is proof that Hubbard created Scientology to replace peoples’ self identities with ones that he could fully control.
It is the ultimate brainwashing “EP”.
Your own self-identity has been fully erased and you stand ready to replace it by being told who to tell yourself you are.
I realize that some people got wins on it. All I can say is “good for them”.
Most OT 8s are NOT self-determined people AT ALL. In fact, those who did not make it out of Scientology on their own are delusional cripples who are even paying for their purif and objectives again, never noticing that they are going around and around on the hamster wheel, and are still not OT as Hubbard defined it.
Alanzo
When, after death, body disintegrates into particles, each of those particles have their own awareness, which could be considered part of “disintegrated thetan”.
I don’t know what LRH revealed but I don’t think that the Universe was ever created. The Universe simply transitioned from non-awareness into awareness.
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Thank you GMW for your answer, and for pointing me to Chuck. I’m sorry that you took my question literally. Perhaps I wrote it so that the tongue-in-cheek was so subtile, that the tongue (or the cheek) was nonexistent. With due respect, and I certainly respect your viewpoint, the truth for me is that Hubbard’s lives billions and quadrillions of years ago was hogwash, and if he indeed had dated the Big Bang, I couldn’t give a tinker’s damn. Again I appreciate your considered response to my question.
“On OT 8 you do an auditing procedure that let you sift out which past life memories are yours and which are from other beings.”
How does one differentiate oneself from others, I wonder.
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Yes and no Val. The vast difference is this: in th Sanatan Dharma or the eternal religion, the practicioner does not mess with the unconscious to become more conscious. Past memories are things that pop up from time to time in self inquiry and meditation. One does not go searching in the murky seemingly endless past to understand and “come up to” the present.
Yes the goal is to get back to direct perception of our true nature as souls. And yes the further one travels we pick up different abilities. But those abilities are not the goal. Spiritual or metaphysical powers are not a goal. They are a byproduct of spiritual practice. Spiritual powers are actually warned against by the master teachers.
In Scientology power is the goal and the reward not an afterthought.
I remember a time when I was a “true believer” and I had this sick feeling in my stomach considering that this “look into the past thing” would go on and on and on and on and never stop. Always looking into the mind, always seeking chains of events that went deep into the realms of imagination and actualities and loosing the distinction between the two.
The urge to evolve and grow spiritually is innate. We joined Scientology to express that urge. The urge is real, the urge is life itself pulling us up the line.
So what is in common with eastern practices is that: the urge to learn and grow. But that is where the similarities cease.
My view is that Scientology builds the ego with promises of a super duper big being superman fantasy.
Meditation destroys such notions. And in the end that purity of being is expressed in selfless love with powers attained as an afterthought, not the goal.
Eastern religions do not have the concept of “original sin” or “fallen from grace.”
>
Fascinating post – for I do remember that my “cycle” of getting stuck to LRH’s theories followed more or less the sequence you have described. It gives me a much better clue to the much pondered question how come intelligent people (I generously include myself) get involved in Scientology and STAY with it through thick and thin and are willing to do the most illogical and destructive things.
So you come in as “raw meat” and very early on you learn (actually it’s in the very first paragraph of DMSMH) what incredible capabilities you actually have … followed by: now we will show you how you can rehabilitate those abilities. If that was actually possible – and relatively fast as well …. who would object?
Once you buy into that you definitely are stuck with Scienology because NOBODY else offers a “route out”, every other school of thought aims to achieve the “wrong target” …. it’s the carrot in front of the horse’s mouth that can’t be reached. Makes a perfect hamster wheel.
All just because you accepted a few (ego stroking) statements as fact without inspecting them. And any wins and gains you had along the line serve as proof (to yourself) that in fact you are on the right golden track. Like a self fulfilling prophecy.
Answers a lot to me.
By the way:
I don’t mind anybody aiming at achieving those goals – far from it. Any schooling, training, education, memory training, philosophy, religion etc. aims at higher states and abilities. I only object to selling it as fact when you are still testing or theorizing about it. And I’m aware that any improvement method holds the same liabilities (religion comes to mind first though by far is not limited to it) to the degree that a mere belief (based on whatever, other than self-experienced evidence) is made into an unquestionable fact.
That’s why we grow older (and hopefully wiser) … and find our very own way that we can tell but not necessarily sell to others.
If Hubbard had written that 634 billion quintillion years ago the universe was made entirely out of cheesecake, most Scientologists would accept it as Gospel, especially if he had added that it was all non-fattening!
The soul exists, God exists. Thou art That.
When the body dies it is not the conscious being that disintegrates into a million pieces. It is nature dissolving. Dream bubbles bursting. Externalities becoming dust
“Never was there a time when you were not. And never will there be a time when you will not be” Krishna
The soul is eternal. That is spiritual knowledge.
When the body dies it is the end of the person. That is materialism.
And the ancient sages found truth through meditation. Just read the Upanishads, The Gita and Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. That is where to find out these things.
My favorite commentary on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras is from Christopher Isherwood and Swami Pranavananda.
Vin said: “My current understanding is that every object in this Universe is imbued with awareness.”
So, who imbued every object? Or was it just spontaneous, or just magic?
Just curious, Mark
It is the end of a specific configuration of awareness (the person). It is not end of awareness.
Say something!
I agree with you all you stated Brian. When I followed a meditation program for years, not group meditation, and with knowing scientology, I saw when things just popped up and I’d just look at, get a win or not, but that was not the goal. Being in present time and looking for real spiritual progress was the goal, being in a divine nature so to speak and being aware of oneself with the universe was primary.
Reminds me to do more of that. But am currently hooked for awhile on the internet and my earthy goal to educate and help others see destructive paths. It’s my karma, one could say.
I’m with you MFairman. I couldn’t care less.
Brilliant Jane!
Exactly Alanzo!
MF,
Yes, That’s what I really wanted to say, but I was not sure of your viewpoint.
Valkov,
Here it is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandharva
It is the manifestation of the energetic projections of individual awareness that has been reified by Hubbard and other religious people for control.
They invariably turn the perceivable manifestations of awareness into a permanent, concrete entity, with defined and set personality traits.
As to our exact nature, the only way to ascertain that is through direct experience of being unencumbered awareness.
It also helps applying the Tetralemma to temper one’s extreme views, whether pro or anti, as it turns out Fundamental Reality is beyond the 4th possibility. Sorry but there are no easy answers.
Good to hear. I believe that any person who Truly wants that state will find it by one way or another, whatever it takes. Seek and ye shall find.
I have fallen from, for and in front of Grace… All at once. In high school, she looked at me and smiled as we passed in the cafeteria. It was as if Aphrodite herself had smiled at me. Just gorgeous. I smiled back. But I thought I noticed something wrong with the stitching on the impossibly tight skirt she was wearing, so I slyly glanced back over my shoulder to see if the issue affected the back of the skirt as well.
As it turns out, I’m not very sly. I tripped over my own foot. I landed face first on my tray of food and everybody laughed at me. And I don’t blame them at all, it was pretty funny. I would have laughed, too. But Grace was sweet. She didn’t laugh, and she asked if I was alright. I said I was, and then she asked why my lunch tray consisted only of dozens of Fruit Rollups. I said it’s because they are delicious. Then she asked her friend, as if I couldn’t hear or understand her, if “special needs kids” are allowed to eat that much processed sugar for lunch.
And that’s how I
met my wifefigured out that pretending to be a sped kid gets you free Fruit Rollups at the cafeteria.iamvalkov,
One of the most difficult concepts in Theravada. Vinaire says that it predates Buddhism which does not surprise me because Karma is not Buddhist but was simply used as a concept by the Buddha.
The final thought of the being is they key. This is why there is total silence and mindfulness at the moment of death. Consciousness in Theravada is a relatively broad concept which comes in many forms. One specialized form of Karma is the Karma formed at the moment of death. Since the being comes from nowhere and goes nowhere, like a void, the consciousness can only be dependently arisen when contact with material form resumes.
The mother and father must have intention to produce the required material form. This may be different in other forms of Buddhism. I know that in Tibetan there is a more traditional spiritual interpretation. We do not follow these ideas. Death in Theravada is essentially an illusion formed by the interplay of the factors of samsara and it is is thus dependently arisen.
GMW
Of course it’s spin. Maybe LRH’s spin, maybe someone else’s. The fact is it is unnecessary to continue on interminably. Of course I say that not having done it all. The point is, the Past does not exist, except in the mind.
It’s great that you are aware of differences. Once you get those all run out, let me know, we can talk about similarities and commonalities.
Remember, we are comparing “maps” drawn by different people at different times in history, conditioned by different languages molding their thinking and the xpression of what they perceived. Sometimes it is apparent they are talking about the same “territory”. Sometimes it is not so clear that they are, or whether they are.
This part of Marty’s post is relevant: “…the next most fundamental belief instilled through the scientology catechism is that we have all fallen from grace and must strive to re-attain it. We came from a state of perfection that was infinite in terms of potential and capability. Each of us once was divine ‘cause’. A scientologist’s mission is to return to that ‘native state.’ ”
This is reminscent of Christian theology, but also of the Vedic teachings through the ages. And Buddha is said to have, at one point in his sitting under the tree, recalled ALL his previous lives…..
I dispute this. If we were not fallen away from blissful “God-realization”, we would not need to strive to return to it, to “yoke” (yoga) ourselves to disciplines designed to facilitate this “union”.
Well Brian, I go by what I hear in the lectures from the 1950s. As far as “messing with the unconscious”(whatever you mean by that word), that all “comes out in the wash” as one progresses with attentiveness. From the very beginning LRH did describe “the mind’s protection”. Perhaps he departed from following that principle, as he apparently did in designing the Ls, for example.
I am simply saying that the basic goal is, to my eye, the same, no matter how far the CoS deviated form it, or falied to achieve it, under LRH’s guidance or otherwise. I am not arguing the existence of “ego” in scientology as it is practiced. It is the same “ego” that pervades human existence. Human nature is fertile soil for the sprouting of cults and objectivization of the spirit, which is something that actually cannot be objectivized.
Let me ask you a question – What is wrong with being a “true believer”? Do you believe in what you post about the Vedic traditions and teachings?
Brian, perhaps you have just pointed to exactly WHY and HOW the CoS fails to produce people with “powers”. Because it’s the wrong goal.
Good point Vinaire. Also eastern religions are not an only way. India embraced the Jews, the Tibetans, Zoroastrians and Christians as well as the varied approaches of the Hindu and the yogi.
India is the Mother of religions. And the birthplace of the Great Ones. Because India is the land of spiritual practice that leads to God/Liberation through direct experience.
Thanks for this, it is interesting stuff, Marty.
I wrote a blog post of my own on this subject, back around New Year’s 2013. I’ll let that stand as my two-cents input on this post:
“The past can serve as a kind of catch-all, where we can put the blame for everything that is wrong now. LRH sold the seductive idea that we can somehow return to some native state of infinite potential and calm, if only we can “unmark” ourselves by erasing the past — or certain select parts of it.”
Mark,
You seem to be one of those people who have a human-centric fixation. Sorry!
Here are my recent realizations. They may go against the thinking of a lot of people here.
The Human-Centric Fixation
Regards,
Vinaire
Of course, you can. It is your right. 🙂
Conan, my quote was from that very article, at the end of the Buddhism section – “Gandharva or gandhabba is also used in a completely different sense, referring to a being (or, strictly speaking, part of the causal continuum of consciousness) in a liminal state between death and rebirth.”
This is a reference to the Three Bodies of Buddha – the Trikaya. One of these is someimes translated as the “causal body”, or, as above, the “causal continuum of consciousness” Here is one explanation from Tibetan Buddhism:
http://www.kagyu.org/kagyulineage/buddhism/cul/cul02.php
This contrasts with what you describe. It is said to be “always present” It is the “pure water”. This is said to have no beginning and no end. This is what gets reified into “immortal spirit”, etc. Just another “identity”.
I believe Buddha was being iconoclastic towards the Hindu culture of his time precisely because of these kind of reifications having become embedded in the culture.
It is these kind of reifications that have done “scientology” in also. You can lead horses (or sheep, or donkeys, especially donkeys) to water, but you can’t make them drink. Pearls before swine, another guy said. Very unflattering, eh?
Brian,
I am reading THE TAO OF PHYSICS these days. It is a wonderful book. I am going through it slowly and savoring every thought in it.
Regards,
Vinaire
But I do not intend to get into this dispute with you.
Yes, as in the quote I posted. The word in there is “liminal”. The “causal continuum of consciousness” is said to be “liminal” between lives, when it is on the threshold of the next life, at the moment of death. That is the Tibetan meaning of “bardo”. A “bardo” is a transition. At that moment there is no identity. Here is more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liminality
LRH’s apparent goal was to create beings who would retain some identity through periods of transition.
Who’s to say it’s not possible? The Tibetan Buddhists believe that the Buddhas have each retained their individual nature even while having reached Nirvana.
Thanks George. Please see my posts just above, to Vin and Conan. I assume Theravada scriptures reference the idea of the 3 Bodies? (Trikaya). I base what I say on a little bit of knowledge from Tibetan traditions.
Mike, in an infinite universe, it is possible to contemplate the realization of all possibilities.
Thus that cheesecake universe may well exist. It might be 634 billion quintillion light-years away. Or it might be much closer. We need to develop a good space travel system to go look for it. I bet Tony DePhillips would come with us to look for the Ham Sandwich universe.
Have not commented on Marty’s website in a long time maybe 2-3 years. Likely will not again. See no reason to. It had a good run that caused many changes. Best of luck to the future.
Very true
Scientology is just another ideology and institution that sells ‘salvation’. In exchange they take your money and your soul.
That’s the essence imho. They have many precursors. History is full of them.
It’s important people get educated in the fact that they don’t need salvation (super powers). That there is no salvation from existence. Selling yourself for salvation, is not confronting your own responsibility. It’s the human condition, the human weakness, all too understandable.
Scientology makes a very clever use of this weakness. It’s criminal in its perfection and attractiveness.
I don’t a Hindu or a Buddhist want to get back to any state of perfection that existed. They simply want to understand the whole picture. With this understanding as-isness of misunderstanding takes place.
The idea of “sin” or having fallen from grace is not there. Being a Hindu this is how I see it. Some may interpret it differently through their Christian filters.,
Let me enter my own view of things, here, Val.
My current outlook on all of this is as follows:
The entirety of the universe, as we conceive it, is a summation of energies of various types. These energies have different density of vibration. At the highest levels of density, things are far more ethereal and light and one has a distinctly different perception of reality. In this system of densities, we are now at a level understood to be “third density”. I am not going to go into the mechanics of it right now, although I can give you definitions, if it interests you. There are 12 densities in all.
Higher densities are understood to be more desireable. Lower densities have to deal with a vast spectrum of more dense energies and therefore are more material. The downside is that our instinctive spirituality is cluttered with unwelcome mass; the upside of it is that there is a vast potential for experience, both at a physical and at an emotional level.
Various sources, which promote and advocate this system of creation of the universe, report to us that “Man” originally was a spiritual being that belonged to the 11th density. It is also reported that, at some point, there was a conscious decision from a large group of these beings to come down the “density” levels to gain much needed experience. The logistics of this descent have been told in various manners by various people. It is a common factor, though, that, at some point, a bunch of people decided to leave the 11th density dimension and enter a lower lever density dimendion. Was this a fall from grace? I hardly think so.
I think that, at higher levels of density, time flows differently or even does not exist and, the more you come down the density levels, time stretches longer and longer and has a higher effect on the spiritual being. Therefore, what might be quadrillions of years to us, might be a day up at those levels.
We do not have to redeem ourselves; we probably just need to get back home from our school trip, or something.
I can`t understand this. Free of shame and regret ?
Those are natural emotions Feelings that help a Person to not do the same faults again and to think more about future Actions.
I can’t imagine a Person having no more those Feelings…….or perhaps I got a MU ?
George: If that was actually possible – and relatively fast as well …. who would object?
I did not object to it, but said it is false. I said further, if it would be true, then you will run that style of help forever in all your eternities .. you would be for all times under the rules of scientology ..
Why I did stay with this meaning than for 43 years in. Good question. But I did it. But I came in 1973, and did stay for some months. I came back in 1977 because of an incomplete comm-course .. especially TR 8. Then I did stay in up to 1979 .. attested here Clear (which was okay) .. but got it then very quick canceled .. went again out, and came back in 1981 .. wanted to clear the evaluation .. did stay up to 1984 .. did say I come back when you know what you really are doing .. left the church .. came back in 1994 also 10 years later .. was already married with an OT VII and all my friends around were also on the OT levels .. my 2 childs were very interested to go into the Sea Org .. and also their friends .. so I wentt to Saint Hill UK .. most of the people were vey friendly .. Iiked it to stay in an AO .. but the service was poor, much poorer than in earlier times .. much more meter centered auditing and C/Sing than before .. was also regged up to Class VIII and all this stuff up to OT V .. did not make my grade, and left in 1997 ..
For what is this story? It had cost me only a lot of money. I made at no time progress. Do not know what they wanted from me, it had absolutely nothing to do for what I have asked and paid for .. so they declared me for my complaints and protests about this nonsense ..
Someone said in this thread that on OT VIII you should seperate your own rememberings or incidents from these of others .. okay, I would say very easily: Nothing of all is mine .. it is all of others and mostly imagined from collissions of posible possibilities .. nothing remembered all imaginations ..
I have no trouble to acknowlege me as a being. It is part of my life since my birth. I am myself. I had no ideas of my past .. and this surely not in the way of early similiar .. I said once: I have no sense to such a question, because if I had earlier a similiar situation .. I would know how to handle it .. it means that I would not run twice in the same situation .. I would avoid it ..
The church could not convince me that the used style of auditing works as good as they tried to convince me about .. but if you run not well in concept of LRH you are an ethics case .. I am not an ethics case .. but said that the church stove me always down into danger .. which was then called as a liability for the church .. but better than that, it was called as doubt about the tech from LRH .. yeah good point .. but it was unwanted and signed as a lower condition ..
To handle doubt in life is one thing, to handle doubt in scientology is not an really aasy thing .. why? You are always wrong as long you do not say that LRH is right. And your doubt did cause you in liability .. and so you have to give sorry for being in doubt .. asking for acceptance as a member ..
I would never asking for acceptance .. because it is basic life behaviour to do right .. if wrong, it would be necessary to find out about .. and clear it ..
I worked a long time about the logic in the lower conditions assignments, it is only useable if you were fallen down under non-existent .. which means that your are there but has quit with it .. doesn*t want to be there ..
Liability is following bullshit .. see, this blog from Marty here is liability for the church .. but not for him .. also not for me .. and all of us here .. it is from my view clearing the liabilities which the church gave to us .. looks more right to me ..
So LRH has doubt not decribed as liability against liability .. but in normal life it is the only position where doubt is useful .. it includes not the question who is right or wrong .. but in scientology it does ..
I have after studying the BC and a lot of ACCs many doubt about the work of LRH .. but if I remember right, he himself had lot of doubts on his way ..
Unfortunately are all of his doubts erased in the BASICS .. now in the new books was everything clear from the beginning for LRH .. but it was not his writings ..
It seems to me that with his invention of lower conditions he did cut his doubt out .. and declared everybody who did not agree with him .. and it is still used as solution ..
For what I am wrinting that? Oha now – running earlier similiar incidents is the same as going down in conditions .. naturally, because you have gone a way where you have allowed to happen it again .. which is not quite the game as described by LRH about the mind .. it is only a mix max of ethics and tech .. and LRH justifies why tech does not work ..
Okay – to honor for LRH he has never said himself to run down to lower conditions if you have trouble .. only on the internet you can read that he did it at large .. so on, I wrote what I have say about .. my experience ..
Thank you for hearing me ..
From The Tao of Physics:
For most people, and especially for intellectuals, this mode of consciousness is a completely new experience. Scientists are familiar with direct intuitive insights from their research, because every new discovery originates in such a sudden non-verbal flash. But these are extremely short moments which arise when the mind is filled with information, with concepts and thought patterns. In meditation, on the other hand, the mind is emptied of all thoughts and concepts and thus prepared to function for long periods through its intuitive mode.
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Vinaire:
I think that in meditation the “mind is emptied” in the following way:
(1) One allows free association to occur.
(2) One lets the mind associate freely without interfering with it
(3) One lets the thoughts and concepts merge into each other
(4) That is how thoughts and concepts reduce
(5) One makes it possible for such merging to occur
(6) And that is how mind appears to empty.
.
When the rational mind is silenced, the intuitive mode produces an extraordinary awareness; the environment is experienced in a direct way without the filter of conceptual thinking. In the words of Chuang Tzu, ‘The still mind of the sage is a mirror of heaven and earth-the glass of all things.‘ The experience of oneness with the surrounding environment is the main characteristic of this meditative state. It is a state of consciousness where every form of fragmentation has ceased, fading away into undifferentiated unity.
.
In the intuitive mode all the various thoughts and concepts are merged into one. All inconsistencies are eliminated. All gaps are filled. No discreteness is left. There is just a single, continuous flow. One is part of that flow and not separate.
.
In deep meditation, the mind is completely alert. In addition Tao of to the nonsensory apprehension of reality it also takes in all Physics the sounds, sights, and other impressions of the surrounding environment, but it does not hold the sensory images to be analysed or interpreted. They are not allowed to distract the attention. Such a state of awareness is not unlike the state of mind of a warrior who expects an attack in extreme alertness, registering everything that goes on around him without being distracted by it for an instant.
.
In this state, all perceptions from the surrounding environment just slip easily into that single continuous flow, which the mind has become. Any inconsistency is immediately observed by itself.
NO – no universe were made out of cheesecake .. but out of some juice with was liked .. you have only to define the juice .. love, harmony, hate, communication, cleverness, rightness, wrongness, playing, disturbing ..
Being on earth tells you something about yourself. For LRH it was declared as hell being on earth. Okay – but it was one of his big failures. It was his idea that everybody is trapped who is on earth. I think he described his coming to earth on the lecture Free Being (maybe wrong) .. he landed here after a malfunction of his space ship .. he do not say why he was around and why he did stay .. but said later that he became Buddha for giving the world truth .. he did not say which truth .. it is his truth ..
So on. My track is per my knowingness quite the same. I landed also with a space ship on this planet. I did land in Australia .. LRH says not where he came down. I say I have looked at Aborigina and found them very native.
LRH became Buddha .. but he doesn’t say a word how he came to India, I went from Australia to India and China and looked at the games which were around .. LRH describes nothing about his way to become a buddha ..
I myself came from a planet more outside of this galaxy than earth, there were not a lot of people .. it is like the planet as given in Star Wars II where the rebellions took place .. anyway, doesn’t matter that’s my way, and LRH says nothing about his way .. says only that he knows all of this universe for his own .. I know also a lot of this universe, but a lot of it is confused by the references of LRH ,, I do not agree .. why? Planet earth is still protected as a planet .. there are still some real OTs around .. but they are surely not in Scientology .. Scientology is cheesecace as you said ,,
It is perfectly possible to decide not to repeat a mistake without creating any feelings of shame or regret. Why would you want to add those feelings to a failure?
(1) I see it as disintegration of identity into atomic and molecular awareness.
(2) Such stomic and molecular awareness then comes together to form a new identity in the new life of a baby.
(3) In case of Buddhas who have attained nirvana, the disintegration of identity goes even deeper. Even the atomic and molecular awareness dissolves further into electromagnetic (uncondensed) type awareness and simply dissipates. It does not participate in the formation of a new identity..
This is how I see it.
Roger,
No I don’t think you have an MU.
What is often missing out of this endless crappola, is what the person considers important, relevant or where and how far they want to take their investigation of themselves.
In Scientology you are made guilty of not looking enough as well as looking too independently without Ron-Deus blessing. Go figure.
I see your point Val. We did join to find spiritual happiness, a happiness not based on materialism. The urge is the same. But Total Cause over life is still a goal in Time and Space. It is still a goal defined by “a doing” a cause over something.
Meditation resolves both cause and effect back to its source. It is a non doing-doing if you will.
Ron was a dilletante regarding eastern thought. He took from it things that fit his mental tendencies without regard to actual understanding.
Ron fashioned Sciwntology after Eastern Knowledge and Frued. That about sums it up.
Regarding being a true believer. That is a good question. I’ll give it some thought and get back to you.
Oh, and by unconscious I meant what it simply implies: seeking pain and unconsciousness as a goal in auditing: engrams etc.
Resolving pain by remembering pain. That is what I meant.
Yoga meditation does not have that approach. And thank God. The mind is totally made up of seemingly endless events of this nature. The concept of time track is only used in eastern thought as knowledge that the past does extend beyond one life. It does not jump into the muck all the time to resolve issues.
If you can resolve issues that way was fine. I do it when it pops up or dissolve ignorance through reason or sometimes whole chunks of mind just goes poof!! In meditation.
The Fruedian approach is a sort of Kindergarden prep school compared to actual meditation.
Just make sure your guiding principles and practices do not create more ignorance and delusionary cause.
It is interesting that auditing seem to restimulate certain kind of imagery. Hubbard himself was subject to such imagery. I think that drugs restimulate certain imagery too. Exteriorization is part of such imagery. I myself have experienced such imagery.
But what significance such imagery has?
This imagery is like dreams, but it goes much deeper. “Past life” and “exotic” imagery, which does not seem to belong to this life experiences, may come from genetic coding.
It is genetic coding and the minds “definition-logic” matrix that seems to get activated under certain circumstances (sleep or deep concentration) and produces such imagery.
But what is its significance?
It is entertaining for sure.
.
Friend, looks like you took the Scientology bait but not all the way.
What is the bait that you took?
I love the wisdom of the Tao Vinaire. It resolves complexities back to a pristine simplicity through wisdom.
Hi Marty,
Thanks for the brevity. When I read Dianetics a few months ago, I was simultaneously reading the internet and I was overwhelmed by how much L Ron wrote. There are huge amounts of literature to sift through and they don’t always seem to agree with each other. I look to you for clarity.
I was very interested in Scientology because it DOES consider what was going on pre-big bang. I believe there was a lot going on before that physical beginning. The Catholics and the Mormons both espouse a war in heaven, but the Catholics place it post big bang, while the Mormons consider it part of the ‘pre-existence’. I believe L Ron and the Mormons are right about this war being a long time ago, and I believe the ‘invention’ of the physical universe was in answer to the war.
A few years ago I was also introduced to the Mandaean Book of John. The feel of that book is that there is a spirit being detained against his will for crimes he committed. I believe those crimes were part of the pre-existence.
When I was much younger I wondered why God would create a horrible place to send bad people to. I thought that maybe eternal sleep would have been a better remedy. After finding out that the Mandaeans believe that spiritual beings can be detained inside planets, I felt sure that those detained spirits might be asleep. I came to believe that the period of time that they slept would change their demeanor from chaotic tantrum to benevolence – a metamorphosis designed to enable them to join the hosts of heaven. The duration of their sleep would coincide with the length of time their planet lived. So when the Sun gets old and burns off the physical body of Earth, the sleeping spirit inside would be ready to join heaven.
For our sleeping spirit, that would be about 5 billion more years.
But what if our planet’s sleeping spirit got woken up early, while still in a state of chaotic tantrum? Then the humans living on the planet would be in danger of the negative effects of being born ‘inside’ of this spiritual being. We naturally share space with Earth, Sun, Galaxy and Universe. Therefore, if there is a large, detained spirit living here, we also share space with him.
When I read Dianetics, I came to the conclusion that God has engrams, but because the nature of the pre-existence was ‘everything God thought of came to life’, then God’s engrams were very really alive. What if the physical universe was created to encapsulate God’s engrams for the purpose of dealing with them over time? This seems to make sense.
The current nature of the awakened spirit on our planet is to incite chaos and spread tantrum. If this spirit wants to harm you, then you are targeted by a great deal of demonic influence. I believe that is what L Ron was facing during the later portions of his Scientology writings.
I don’t disbelieve the idea that things were happening in the pre-existence millions and trillions of years ago, but I don’t necessarily believe his version of those events. I do, however, consider that Plato was referring to the pre-existence when he discussed ‘ideals’ and their ‘being’ before anything physical was created.
So a question I return to often is, what was God’s ultimate plan when he set the big bang into motion? There seems to be a lot of miraculous stuff surrounding us that would appear to be there to enable us to have fun, while at the same time, there is a bunch of engramatic stuff that begs to be dealt with. And I don’t mean human engrams – I mean God’s engrams.
My cautiously open minded answer is that humanity is here to help God both physically and spiritually.
L Ron found something amazing, but he got derailed by demons. I look forward to all of your posts because you seem to be shedding light on the ‘something amazing’ part.
What I’ve learned from this post is that the focus of Scientology was shifted into the past in error. L Ron ‘dangled a carrot’ of super-human capabilities and blamed the lack of achievement on a demon filled past that must be overcome in order to snatch that carrot.
I look forward to knowing where you think our focus should be.
“It’s the action, not the fruit of the action, that’s important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there’ll be any fruit. But that doesn’t mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.” — Mohandas Gandhi
Thanks for all of your hard work.
Granny
And as the time goes by, the continuos introversion this practice causes, prevents oneself to look outside, to extrovert and compare other datums and experiences thus ending hypnotized and blind to the many other rewarding aspect of life and living.
Is fixation and a degradation of oneself as one ends placing the cause of any apparent weakness, minor problem or minute difficulty to what happened ‘over there in the past’ rather than live, experience and create in the now, in the present moment.
But I have not read this text yet. I probably will.
Just a thought on reading:
At some point after Scientology I read and read and read books that Scientology would consider other practices. I learned a lot.
When I came to the discipline of daily mediation, month after month, year after year, decade after decade; my reading became less and less.
Not because I knew everything already, but because I felt that I was drinking at the well that other sages drank from.
At some point the journey goes within. A solo ride into the essence of life itself far beyond the pages of scriptural and scientific findings.
In this state of being, all answers come. Each saint, sage, wiseman or women, adept, student, Buddha, Christ that has written anything has received their knowledge from the book of intuitive withiness: the all knowing library of the soul.
That is not to mean that I am above reading. But reading now has a different meaning for me. Reading, as well as increasing my intellectual knowledge now has a more important inspiration:
When I read the words of truth by anyone, my heart leaps and all I want to do is go into meditation and bathe in the radiance of truth that those words on the page triggered in my soul memory.
And in that temple of silent brightness I dissolve in joy.
Hi Iamvalkov,
I love your links.
IMO Marty is doing something very different from the traditional guru beliefs. L Ron was attempting to, as well. There is a lack of direction in those old beliefs as they are mostly centered around ‘the self’.
We truly are ‘multi taskers’. We are nested inside of several other beings and we coexist inside of even more beings. We must realize our place in these physical/spiritual realities and understand that when we do just one ‘thing’, we are actually doing many ‘things’.
For example, Milky Way is on a collision course with Andromeda. It won’t happen for a long time in human conception, but from the point of view of a star, it will be much sooner, and from the point of view of the galaxies involved, even sooner than that. So, a big problem on Earth gets smaller from the point of view of a star, and quite tiny from the point of view of our galaxy.
So, the collision can be looked at as a ‘sacred marriage’ from the point of view of our galaxy, and simultaneously be like a ‘war’ from the point of view of our star.
So if Earth is a physical/spiritual mess right now, and we are spiritually quarantined from the ‘normal standpoint’ and all of the spirits here are stuck here until we clean up our mess, then Earth is currently ‘festering’. That fester is real bad for Earth (think AIDS), it is like heart disease to our sun, and it’s like a zit on the forehead of the bride from the point of view of our galaxy.
If Marty can point humanity’s actions in the right direction, we can lift the quarantine, clean out Earth’s wounds, heal our sun’s heart disease and cause the zit on the forehead of the bride to vanish.
Keep it up, Marty!
That is wonderful.
Yes, Vin.
I believe in the supremity of the individual, all individuals.
I also believe in the oneness of all. All individuals, all life, all things.
To me, I am myself, and I am everything, and the two do not have to interfere.
You and I are like two fingers on the same hand. An imperfect but workable metaphor.
I can confront the idea of being at one with Gandhi, with Charles Manson, Marty R. and LRH alike. And I don’t give up my individuality.
Agree or disagree or in between, it is a difficult concept for most to gather. Like time and space warp, it clicks or it doesn’t.
This made ARC completely real to me and clarified what harmful acts do to an individual. On one level, when you harm others, you harm yourself. Not just metaphorically or potentially, but actually.
Mark
Hi Roger.
Blame, shame, regret.
I believe these are common feelings, but not necessarily ‘natural’. When replaced with Joy, Serenity, and Industriousness, they are unnecessary.
I have met people with little or no blame, shame, or regret, and have resolved much of it in myself.
I am aware of my past and I look forward to tomorrow.
Mark
Responsibility:
The willingness to be cause, or more accurately, the source of action or occurrence. It is pro-active, before the fact. A responsible person is one who is willing to DO.
The other common usage is the willingness to HAVE BEEN the source or cause. It is after the fact and is more properly put under the heading of fault or blame. An irresponsible person avoids having been the cause of things and therefore avoids doing.
We all know this, but it is good to look at it from different angles from time to time.
Mark
Geir said: “I gained a freedom from the past, from shame, blame and regret.”
That’s a good start, now it’s time to get to work.
Mark
Geir Isene.
I have a short article that I would like to get you thoughts and opinions on.
marknr@hushmail.com
Mark
Vinaire:
“How does one differentiate oneself from others, I wonder.”
Find an intention, purpose that was given to you. Develop related questions that are right for you. It’s really a good start. It is an enjoyable and productive process. You may be surprised how many you will find.
Has anyone ever said to you to “just be yourself”? Well, here’s how.
Mark
PS: It really gets fun if you take a look at the inconsistencies that followed after each intention, purpose. Be wary, if you have any physical conditions that strenuous laughter could aggravate, it is at your own risk.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incident_%28Scientology%29
1 A History of Man Incidents
1.1 Before Earth and Before MEST
1.2 Body Builder Incident
1.3 Bodies in pawn
1.4 Fly Trap (Bubble Gum Incident)
1.5 Coffee Grinder
1.6 Ice Cube Incident
1.7 Jack-in-the-Box
2 OT III Incidents
2.1 Incident I
2.2 R6 Implants (Incident II)
3 Routine 3N Incidents
3.1 Aircraft Door Goals
3.2 Gorilla Goals
3.3 Bear Goals
3.4 Invisible Picture Goals
3.5 Train Goals
3.6 Black Thetan Goals
3.7 Heaven Implants
3.8 Helatrobus Implants
3.9 Obscene Dog Incident
Vin said: “Randomly digging into the mind is just asking for trouble. Scientology auditing forces one to do that.”
I’m with you there Vin. I have, several times, said that I believe in a structured, methodical means of self improvement. That would include, BUT IS NOT LIMITED TO, some past examination.
If something is a problem, LOOK. If not, then don’t.
A superficial, lighthearted way of looking about it is : If someone asks you, “Where did you get that crazy idea?” You answer, “I dunno, it just seemed right to me” Then you think “Oh yea, my brother told that to me years ago”.
Do this in a more structured way and good things can happen.
Mark
That is not so different from what I posted. It is the idea of a “descent”, and the need or desire for an “ascent”. Some have spoken of “ascended masters”. “Fall” is just one way of expressing it, and it is a translation of another word anyway. In some systems it is said the “ray of creation” “falls” away from its source.
Given to you? “You” seem to be something subjective.
“Just be yourself” to me translates as “remove all inconsistencies.”
To think of oneself as something permanent seems to be an inconsistency.
“ignorance”, “sin”, what’s the difference? “Sin” is the English translarion of another word which is closer to the idea of a “stain” or obscuring of the original shining purity of beingness of the soul.
These are “maps” created by different people in different times and places, using different languages, attempting to express the ineffable. They are talking about the same territory, IMO.
Sure, the specific embodiments, the cults and rituals that accrue around the basic teachings diversify endlessly. It is just “evolution”. There is no reason for there to be hundreds or thousands of different kinds of butterflies or different kinds of flowers, yet there are.
Mark, Here is A Model of Self that was published on my blog. It describes the individuality.
There is nothing about an individuality that is permanent or eternal. To think it to be permanent is the deepest of hypnotism.
The above model was further expanded upon as A Model of the Mind
Individuality is dteremined by the uniqueness of the “definition-logic” matrix.
As opposed to your Universe-centered fixation, it might be possible to say. LOL.
Thanks granny. I like your ideas. You may be interested in a couple of books I’ve read. Or maybe not? One is ttiled “Gifts of unknown things” by Lyall Watson, and 2. Parable of the Beast by John Bleibtreu.
“Gifts” for sure I think you would like:
http://www.amazon.com/The-parable-beast-John-
Bleibtreu/dp/B0007FOV6W
“Each of us once was divine ‘cause’.”
I’m inclined to agree with that. I don’t consider there is any
being inherently superior to thee and me and others. So if a universe is created who else could have created it?
” The cathartic byproduct of witnessing events in the past serves as the glue that fixes the scientologist’s attention there forever. ”
I believe it can do but I don’t think it has to. I consider that one can be
at cause over such matters. I’ve had great wins from this process of past
recall. I’m still wondering if much of it dosn’t become creative processing.
Specially on OT 2. Grade 4 was a recall from my teenage years and was a terrific win. On L-11 I apparently recalled splitting from the main body of theta. Don’t have any strong view it was or wasn’t a real incident. Sure was fun though. I very much enjoy your recent posts and agree with much. But still consider Scientology worth doing with the right people.
This The Human-Centric Fixation can said to be deeply embedded hypnotism.
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Sorry, the second link broke.
In scientology, knowledge is sin.
http://rutube.ru/video/465ebe29c4e8e88e439faea0adc80211/?ref=logo
It is a mystery to me why the Church went in that direction, as Hubbard’s earlier work (to the extent I am familiar with it), was all about coming up to present time and extraverting, as the desirable goal of processing.
Mystery, as I said.
From Wikipedia article “Space opera in Scientology”:
In the 1950s, as Hubbard’s followers recalled their past lives, he recorded many details of these recollections.[9] With this as his source, he constructed an intricate history of the universe, identified as “space opera”.[10] Although Hubbard believed that he had developed a comprehensive history, Urban cites the isolated and incomplete record of the statements,[11] wherein Hubbard identified a thetan universe, separate from the material universe, created by its inhabitants.[12] The material universe, in Hubbard’s view, began when other universes created by thetans collided,[13] from which they entered the material universe in six invasion groups roughly 60 trillion years ago.[12] Hubbard also described a series of events, called the “incidents”, that divorced the thetans from their self-knowledge,[13] but maintained that thetans could regain their former divinity,[14] and referred to thetans that freed themselves from the material world as “operating thetans”.[15]
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Hubbard took the idea of separation of spirit and matter to an extreme in his THETA-MEST THEORY. From this came his idea of separate Theta universe and MEST universe.
The book THE TAO OF PHYSICS traces back this idea of the “separation of spirit and matter” to Parmenides of Elea. It is one of those ideas that came from a human-centric fixation. It got popular because this fixation is embedded in Western societies. Hubbard took advantage of this fixation by incorporating it in his religion of Scientology.
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Hi Vin.
I suggested something easily do-able and potentially very productive.
If you want to find reasons not to DO it, I understand. Not your path right now.
ARCL, Mark
I call it reality-centered viewpoint. 🙂
When confronted with a mystery always follow the money.
Hinduism does not see ignorance as a “sin”. The concept of “sin” comes from a fixation of self.
Hinduism sees ignorance as a pheonomenon and does not individualizes it as “sin”.
Terril: “I’m still wondering if much of it doesn’t become creative processing. Specially on OT 2.”
I’ve had that thought too, even about the OT levels above OT 2 – and wondered if LRH intentionally wrote the narratives the way he did in order to get people into specific “frames of mind” that would allow them to break free of specific barriers.
Buddhism teaches to look at yourself with kindness
Human-centric fixation seems to give an idea of an individualized time-track. Therefore, digging into the mind can occur in the narrow context of the individual. in the form of “structured, methodical means of self improvement.”
The narrower is the context in which a person is trying to be rational, the more chances are that his digging will have hypnotic effect.
Please see: The Secret of Hypnotism
.
Some “demon” got a hold of the Church – or LRH himself – the word “demon” being used in the broadest possible sense.
A long those line, Michael this brings up some interesting thoughts for Scientology believers.
Following the Scientology doctrines:
Axiom 7
Time is basically a postulate that space and particles will persist.
Combined with the narrative of the fall from the native state, one would have to conclude the fall depends on the persistence of space and particles; otherwise the history of the fall could not exist and the fall from grace would have never happened and Thetans would be free from any implants.
So once one removes space or particles, time would cease to exist as with it would any history.
That again would mean a Thetan being pulled into the singularity (which has zero volume) of a black hole would instantly return to his native state?
That would explain though why Scientology Orgs imitate black holes at a lower harmonic by sucking people in their orbit spiritually and financially dry.
Don’t shoot me, just trying to figure things out here. 🙂
From THE HISTORY OF MAN
BEFORE EARTH: There is a BEFORE EARTH and a BEFORE MEST UNIVERSE in all banks. The incidents are not dissimilar. They consist of the preclear being summoned before a council, being frowned down, being sent elsewhere than where he was. The odd part of these incidents, to the preclear is that he is not usually guilty of anything, not aware of having offended. He is simply recruited, is brought in, is sentenced to be transported and goes to a new area. The only thing remarkable about these BEFORE incidents is that they are a very definite degradation and condemnation of the preclear. They are best run by scanning the preclear backwards on each column of the CHART OF ATTITUDES, from for instance, “I KNOW NOT” to “I KNOW,” etc., for the council’s intent is to reduce the person down scale in order to get a more obedient colonist.
Looks like this incident is being used to make obedient Sea Org members.
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This is why Scientology made the Internet angry in a nutshell:
“Certainty, not data, is knowledge.”
―L. Ron Hubbard
Source/Notes:
The Factors (1967)
Read more at http://izquotes.com/quote/239026
How very Western-Christian. Isn’t that what “God” exiled Adam and Eve for? Eating of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, in disobedience of Yahweh?
“Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever”.
The basic issue was, the disobedience was a challenge to Yahweh’s power, according to this article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_and_Eve
It doesnt surprise me that this aspect was stressed by Miscavige, whose heritage is Polish Roman Catholic, reputed to be among the more “severe” of the Roman Catholics.
Aside from issues of Hubbard’s realtionship with him.
When one is being mindful, it is the universe that acts through that person.
The idea of responsibility is quite human-centric. It may be needed when majority of people are not being mindful.
Lovely DeElizabethan 😉
Mark C Rathbun wrote:
“In scientology, knowledge is sin.”
Heresy!
Alanzo
Ok Val, I gave the “true believer thing some thought —
Yes, I am a true believer. But now my true beliefs are inclusive of other’s true beliefs.
Now, I honor other teachers other than my own
My goal is love, wisdom and joy, not metaphysical powers
Now my true belief is that the after life, in the astral or causal worlds, are filled with beauty; not electronic torture, immediately looking for a hospital, getting a body and buying more Scientology.
Now my true belief is to be a joyous servant not a “big being.”
Now my teacher invites my own original thinking and seeks to develop it, not tell me they are going to liberate me and than reward me with punishment and destroying my family when sovereign thought is demonstrated.
Now I am free to love God with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul without being CSed for implants.
Now my true beliefs invite scrutiny, from myself and others. I do not now go to war to destroy those who scrutinize my beliefs. That is intellectual cowardice.
I would now rather be wrong than foolishly deluded
Now I am in control of my journey across the bridge. I am “in session” anywhere, anytime, anyplace with anyone I choose for free.
Yes I am a true believer. Each rung of my ladder I have been a true believer. And with each ascended rung my true beliefs approximate closer to the truth.
Now my true beliefs are informed not from “Ron says” “my teacher says” “this book says” “Buddha says” “Jesus says”………………….
Now my true beliefs are informed by bypassing all authoritative injunctions and going right to the core of knowing; direct perception
Just me and the presence of Spirit-directly, silently and joyously.
Anything else is being a clone of someone else.
Thanks Cat Daddy. I didn’t know about any “Obscene Dog Incident” but that explains a pet I took in to foster care recently.
You might want to pick up Ismael by Daniel Quinn or The Gospel According to Jesus by Stephen Mitchell to get thoroughly different takes on your conventional take. Your obsession with Miscavige betrays denialism with respect to Ron.
Which is a rather sociopathic trait.
So did my mom
What work?
Mark,
I find your action objectionable per The Guru Complex.
Vinaire
Than you don’t need no Scientology
Terril, are you absolutely certain that this universe was created? What if it were not?
From The Human-Centric Fixation
Many believe that this Universe was created. When one conducts thought experiments in a broader context, one finds that the Universe could have transitioned from non-awareness into awareness. The Universe did not have to be created. The belief that this Universe is created has never been verified objectively. In fact, the ancient Vedas do not believe that this Universe was created. This raises doubt about this religious belief in creation.
It is a human-centric belief that this universe was created.
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Are you implying that Hubbard borrowed even the idea of disconnection from Bible?
LOL! That was a good one, Cat Daddy.
Excellent comment Brian and thank you for that!
Thanks Brian. I like what you write and it is helpful to me.
“AXIOM 7: TIME IS BASICALLY A POSTULATE THAT SPACE AND PARTICLES WILL PERSIST.”
I find this axiom to be faulty. A postulate is something arbitrary. Hubbard claimed Time to be the basic arbitrary. This doesn’t seem to write
Time is basically a dimension just like space is. A dimension exists only to measure something. A dimension does not exist in the absence of something to measure. Therefore, Time cannot be a postulate.
Per Motion and Space-Time
In its most fundamental form motion is perceived in physics as a varying field that has wavelike characteristics, such as, wavelength, period and frequency. We may postulate awareness as motion to vary with different wavelengths, periods and frequencies.
POSTULATE: Fundamentally awareness as motion has wavelike characteristics.
The period provides a sense of duration. This duration is defined objectively by the dimension of time. Time is not arbitrary at the fundamental level. It is marked by awareness as motion.
Time is a measure of the duration of awareness as motion. Time is not arbitrary.
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Marildi, do you mean LRH had lack of demons? I have a feeling that he researched Dianetics to handle his demons.
Actually, God kicked Adam and Eve not just because of eating from that one tree, but also lest they eat from another tree — the tree of life — and become immortal like the Gods / God (Genesis 3:22).
In this version of creation, God required that humans remain ignorant and mortal. It may sound like God is pretty cruel, but it can also be taken as symbolic of the human state — humans are imperfect in their knowledge and they are mortal. If they had perfect knowledge and immortal, they would indeed be like Gods.
But it didn’t work out that way. Looks like Hubbard did not test it properly.
iamvalkov,
The three bodies are not part of mainstream Theravada.
Vinnie.. It appears anyone who is helpful, supportive and nurturing has a Guru Complex. You said before that it also is the actions of Grannies and babies.
Never said I did
There’s another way Scientology fixates on the past: auditing records. Whether handwritten or videotaped, all those words get recorded for posterity. Every “confession.” Every supposed Whole Track incident. Every time someone masturbated or picked their nose or shoplifted or you name it. Translated from words and condensed into “MEST” and for all I know being digitized as we speak.
This traps some people in the past. Your auditing records, in the hand of an uncaring group, now record your innermost soul in all its beauty and shame. And your auditor is not the only person to read those materials — there is the C/S (Case Supervisor) and typically some 20 or more other people. Not to mention jokers who may just read them for amusement.
Miscavige himself was accused of reading Travolta’s sessions and making fun of the content. More alarmingly, there was a promising artist/Singer in Oregon named Tayler Tweed, who committed suicide early in 2014. One of the things on her mind — she posted this online before she died — was about staff from the Portland Org taking PC folders home, including hers, and reading through them for laughs.
Picture that for a moment. Your innermost secrets being used for laughs.
And not only used for laughs by just anyone, but used for laughs by the people you trusted — by the members of the supposedly most ethical group on the planet.
Scientology does not free you from your past. It imprisons you in it. I think some people cannot get past that, and they remain silent and petrified with fear the rest of their lives after leaving Scientology. Or they commit suicide. Or they stay in it as brainwashed slaves.
Those who get over the Scientology “we’ve got the goods on you” mind f*ck” / control manage to quantum over it and put in the perspective of “who gives a sh*t” in today’s world. But not everyone makes it.
When Scientology spouts its “millions of members” propaganda, remember this. The current inmates total <50,000 most likely. That means those millions who may have bought a book, been in for a while, done some auditing, and so on represent quite a mixed bag of outcomes. In my opinion and gut feeling — with no data to support me — I would hazard a guess that there are far fewer Scientologists currently "in" than there are persons "out" whose lives were ruined by Scientology — and in some cases not just ruined, but driven to suicide or maltreated to the point of death.
So three hip-hip-hoorays to the greatest friend of mankind — Hubbard — who did indeed manage to smash his way into history, though not as his narcissistic self would have wanted.
Something
Does that include Hubbard?
No, I meant that a “demon” may have taken hold of him or gotten in control of him. Here are two definitions of “demon” from Merriam-Webster, either of which might have applied:
: an evil spirit – “only in rare cases is the ancient rite of exorcism performed to cast out a troublesome demon”)
: something that causes a person to have a lot of trouble or unhappiness – “a man who was finally able to conquer his demons and kick his drug habit”
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/demon
And that awareness is the person.
Could be. But I’ve also seen reports that the earlier NOTs completions got far better results than those of later years, and some OTs have stated that DM kept changing the NOTs procedures. Another thing that changed was when he instituted 6-month checks, which is out-tech because it violates the no-interference zone.
I second your comment deLiz.
Thanks George. I did not know. Yet the idea of “gandharva” apparently is there in Theravada?
Valkov wrote –
“It is a mystery to me why the Church went in that direction, as Hubbard’s earlier work (to the extent I am familiar with it), was all about coming up to present time and extraverting, as the desirable goal of processing.
Mystery, as I said.”
Not really a mystery.
You have to read and understand Hubbard’s real purpose for Scientology.
Click to access Admissions.pdf
Alanzo
I am not obsessed with Miscavige except to the extent of wondering what LRH saw in him. I think his RC background was part of it. I think LRH was entirely capable of using any trick and ploy that he thought would help him accomplish his ends. Never thought otherwise. I imagine he saw in Miscavige the RC pitbull zealot he wanted. Miscavige was never anything but a bagman, whom LRH convinced, was destined for greatness. I think flattery and collusion would have appealed to Miscavige, especially when total power was the carrot.
All this I think, without having met either man, however. My speculations from outside, attempting to resolve apparent discrepancies or inconsistencies.
Your remarek about me smacks of a fixed idea.
Sure, why not? LRH was surely at lst somewhat familiar with the Biblical stories, which are loaded with political ploys. The whole account reeks of power plays and petty political maneuvering by tinpot demigods.
I don’t doubt that LRH was capable of reading those and thinking “hmmm, that’s a good gag! I may be able to use that one.”
The Bible is really raw stuff, if you ever read it.
Didn’t I put that quote right in my post? I thought I had….
Also, mainstream Western Christianity is not necessarily “coterminous” with the teachings of Jesus. But I do have the Mitchell book on my reading list. He is good.
Yes, but possibly not in the way you mean.
Don’t underestimate the influence of Miscavige’s heritage. To this day, Poles are perhaps the most devout Catholics, with about 80% still regularly going to Confession. The Poles have been Catholic since the 10th century. LRH chose him for a reason.
Interestingly to me, Tom Cruise was also raised in a Catholic family in which the father was a physically abusive disciplinarian.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholicism_in_Poland
One of the very real and powerful hooks that held me like glue to my auditing experiences and created a powerful association (every bit as powerful as any drug addiction and possibly even more) was the sensation of release – a euphoria so superior to any drugs or experiences I had ever had that they paled in comparison. It never occurred to me that euphoria or release was not necessarily a marker of truth, of integrity, of self development. And yet I had experienced release and euphoria using drugs — no truth there. Or was there? To my mind the truth that emerged was that release states and euphoric states are very much of great value to people, they certainly were for me!
You touched on this to some degree in your last two articles — this assumption that there is no subconscious mind that can be manipulated a la BF Skinner. I accepted that idea — after all its a wonderful idea that one will be invulnerable to mind hacking and demons of the past — but the truth is that positive reinforcement is every bit, if not more powerful that negative. And the release state is without rival for me.
I have since learned that I can enter that state pretty much no matter what external circumstances I find myself in — I did have a great deal of practice with hundreds of hours of auditing!
Vinaire said: “I find your action objectionable per The Guru Complex.”
Sorry to offend. Just that I’m in production mode right now. I like to share.
Mark
iamvalkov,
I have read your posts above and the link about the three bodies.
In Theravada, we do have a mind-made body. It is a duplicate of the main body. It is used in super-powers. However, the three bodies in Tibetan Buddhism are altogether new concepts not found in detail in the Pali Canon.
The more I study Theravada, Mahayana, and Tibetan, the more differences I see. Theravada is very specific and does not venture into eternity or consciousness or ideas of the thetan. I think you will find that the thetan is
more of a possibility in all forms of Buddhism except Theravada.
A shift and wake up call:
This morning on my newsfeed I read rather horrifying news. A young man who I know mostly through his family but have actually met … has ebola. He has been working for years in West Africa first as an aids worker and now more recently as an NBC photographer in Monrovia. His family is a well known and deeply respected within my former buddhist group.
But Ashoka knew the risks and chose to go.
While the circumstances are entirely different nonetheless Marty knew/knows the risk in exposing first Miscavige, then further the fundamentalist KSWers, then finally to the ultimate deconstructing of Scientology.
When we wake up in the morning we face the risk of being human. Some put themselves more deeply into harms way; hopefully in doing so that they might help others.
Some of the conversations on this blog have prompted me to comment less often than I might — the endless mis-direction (IMHO) of some. The blathering back and forth about emptiness, non-emptiness … which IS experiential only not an intellectual exercise.
Someone recently posted that he is posting for the first time in a couple of years and probably won’t again.
There are others in the same category.
Marty continues to put himself at risk by his relentless exposure of scientology — my hope is that he continues to do so, until those IN HARMS WAY are out.
But — I will add — those who banter back and forth about something that is an INTELLECTUAL EXERCISE for them and not from what I can see remotely something that has effected the core of their lives … (i.e. they have not lost family, jobs, friends, years of their life – they just like to debate)
Please — get real.
Windhorse
Yeah, Ron blamed the RC too. You are carrying on tradition.
its rubber/glue with you. No sign yet of the ability to think analytically, let alone critically, with the subject.
Blame is one the hallmarks of a scientologist.
It is okay to let your “research” known, as Marty is doing, or as I am doing.
But then leave it to others what they want to make of it. If others have any questions they will ask you. Then you do your best to answer them. That is all a “researcher” can do.
Of course, there is this desire to help others. But any help must occur in terms of what the other person needs to sort out, and not what you want to sort out.
I had the feeling that earlier similar to LRH is the Bible. Scientology suffers from many of the fixations that Christianity does.
I think that Hubbard’s work suffers greaty from a lack of poka-yoke. I do give him credit for being a pioneer, but his work did not follow what is essential to be scientific.
Roger says, *** Shame and regret**
” Those are natural emotions Feelings that help a Person to not do the same faults again and to think more about future Actions.
I can’t imagine a Person having no more those Feelings…”
…………………………………………
Roger they are absolutely natural feelings. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise. Making amends with those that you have wronged and/or correcting a problem may take care of those feelings..
but absolutely they are natural. Hopefully one can move on from them and not dwell on them for positive mental growth.
Equating the idea of person with the concept of awareness is very confusing. The word “person” denotes an identity of “human”. The word “awareness” doesnt.
The use of the word “person” comes from The Human-Centric Fixation
.
Reading Eastern Philosophy in its original language does not impart this human-centric fixation, but Western viewpoint of Eastern Philosophy does.
I prefer original Dianetic definition of demons as mental circuits. From that point of view, the demons were already there but got activated as the time went on.
Vinnie says.. “But what is its significance?
It is entertaining for sure.”
……………………………………………………..
Vinnie.. I do not find it entertaining in the least.
I find it quite disturbing to be so out of touch with reality as some posters have written about their space adventures. This is the mind fuck of Scientology. Of Hubbard. Because Scientology is Hubbard.
I would advise you not to encourage this imagery from posters. It is not conducive to positive mental health and/or moving upwards.
There is NOTHING entertaining about it. It is NOT genetic coding. It is mind control programming.
OT 2 was my favorite bridge level, even more so than OT3. I’ve no
interest in doing higher OT levels though further L’s would be interesting.
I find OT 2 rather strange in that I don’t know why it works. Its supposed to break up the composite case. At one point on it I had a revelatory experience. I separated from another being at least Theta Clear. I’m totally sure that was what happened. This may have something to do with “Twin Flames” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_flame
Now I’m less certain about separating from the body of theta, but both these experiences had the same sort of sensation that is difficult to describe.
Something else strange, I did a painting when I was a lot younger and its very much like I was painting the OT 2 GPM “Sun Swing”. A friend of mine also paints and I was amazed to find that he had painted what also looked like “Sun Swing”. The paintings though totally different seemed to have the same narrative. His a little child holding her lollipop up to the sun, mine
a young woman holding her arms up to the sun.
A F*ckinMen Cat.. xo
To me the real mystery is why Val calls Scientology a Church.
If you want to know why, begin by reading the Tao of Physics, carefully.
Baby, what you resist you become. In this I agree with Hubbard.
And be careful and think hard before you try to invalidate the above.
Great comment!
And Ron adopted the fixations of RC too.
“Thetants didn’t like this”
Maybe, Val likes money too at all costs.
OT2 works because one is looking at certain areas with mindfulness and letting the mind unwind.
It is as simple as that.
You will know when you will know. We’ve had this discussion before. I wave the Pom Pom for the existence of the soul, it’s eternal nature as a person and as the Uncreated Absolute; with form and formless.
Infinity is infinite and can do what It chooses.
Yes, you put it right iamvalkov. My starting word “actually” was misplaced.
In my experience some people (not you) have the misunderstanding that it was just about the tree of knowledge, whereas it was the tree of life that was the show stopper for God.
That sounds condescending!
iamvalkov,
Yes there is the idea of “gandharva” and I have explained most of it in my prior post. However, I see I must clarify a few points and expand.
In Theravada, there is no being except one which is formed. Thus there is no being that goes from life to life. A special type of Karmic energy is required and you can call it “gandharva” or whatever you want. Buddha emphatically claimed that no “I” goes from life to life. There is no consciousness either that goes from life to life, he claimed. In Theravada, all is a combination of many causes. Karma is like the glue or the energy that holds it all together. At the final moment of death, the last thought pattern creates a special karma. This Karma, because it craves, will manifest itself in a baby. However, there is no “I” or no consciousness. These will be formed from mentality and materiality. The new consciousness which arises from contact is a new “I”. It is not the last “I” which has been disgarded.
Bridge stops here :
meany
Thank you
And yet, when selfblame is alsoo there when doubt about Scientology itself.
The Thetan has build a Machine to punish Itself.
Vinnie says..
” Baby, what you resist you become. In this I agree with Hubbard.”
……………………………………
I am not resisting anything. I am merely stating a fact.
There are those that are trapped in the mindset of Scientology.
They are not thinking with their own minds. They are thinking with Hubbard’s.
By validating these thoughts of Space Operas you are enabling them to continue to do so.
Yes, it was a mean joke. 🙂
But what the purpose of a Scientology Church?
Hubbard is pushing hard that the human identity survives death. Eastern philosophy doesn’t say that as he is claiming here with “authority.”
After death, matter survives and so does awareness. But that matter does not carry forward the identity of the body. Nor does that awareness carry forward the identity of the person.
These Western Gurus have been feeding the western public their own Western bias. The Western public eats it up because it matches their bias.
That is why “Vedic hordes” have been unpopular with Western critics like Alanzo, and promoters like Brian.
Wow Maria, wonderful comment about euphoria and its association with release! For me, the euphoria associated with release does seem to come with some kind of new awareness, and I actually write down these new realizations, awarenesses, and cognitions. Later when I reread them, they do seem to make a difference in the progress made in my life. I ask myself, what has happened in this subject since my new realization? There is usually progress toward some known goal, sometimes very remarkable progress.
I have also experienced euphoria from alcohol, but that doesn’t necessarily come with any new awarenesses that seem to be trackable toward goals in life.
I also had hundreds, if not thousands of hours of auditing, and I can feel my body “blowing charge”, and am very in tune with these feelings. Until your comment I never looked upon this aspect of life as a separate subject to be examined, as to the differences of types of release, and any accompanying mental processes. Thanks!
My aim these days is to clear out any negative decisions that I made in the past that might conflict or contradict present time goals. I have found that examining these decisions and eliminating them as “standing orders” enables me to very swiftly and easily accomplish goals. I am making incredible progress on some goals that before seemed very difficult, if not impossible. It appears to me that a person will execute on his goals when his thinking is clear. Part of this is the false data stripping that Marty talked about in a recent post. I have been using false data stripping in my life, to clear out any idea that was stopping me from realizing my objectives.
I have found that when I find one of these old decisions or false datums, I get euphoric, and definitely feel a “release”, if nothing else, released from that old idea that held me back.
Perhaps this is my “synthesis” that I have taken away from my 43 years of studying Scientology and receiving auditing. September 30 marked my 43rd year since I entered my first Scientology organization and signed up for training and processing.
I am happier than I have ever been before, because I am truly realizing my dreams and making progress toward my goals, and I am thankful for the things I learned that is making this possible. One of the things I have learned from this blog is to inspect the data I have learned, and find out what works for me, and I am talking about the real world when I say works for me!
What is really funny to me now, although it was a trajedy earlier, is: I used LRH’s data found in OEC volumes to get my son back after he had been forced to disconnect from me. We are still in good communication, and I suffered no adverse effects from doing so. It is very nice to have my son back. That particular set of datums worked for me, even though it was considered “against corporate policy” to do what I did.
This, and other experiences, have shown me that a principle either works or it doesn’t. An example is LRH’s first policy : “Maintain friendly relations with the environment and the public”. I found that this works very well for me. It has saved me in several situations in which I got mad at somebody and was going to burn bridges behind me, but then thought about it, and decided to employ this policy, and did it, only to find that it would have been disastrous, and very costly, not to maintain that friendly relation. I have also gone on a program to repair past relationships that I “burned” while using the “disconnect policy”, which I have found, does not work for me, except in situations where someone is truly trying to do harm.
If the Church would ONLY practice LRH’s FIRST policy, many of their present time situations could be resolved. But they don’t even practice that OR the most basic fundamentals of “Affinity, Reality, Communcation = Understanding”, which also works for me and which I use every day in my business. In fact today I sent an email to a client about how a party that is stalling a negotiation, probably doesn’t understand the full implictions of what he is doing, and that will cost him dearly in the future, and how it is important to explain it to him so that he does understand, and the efforts I will take to bring this about. (i am a real estate broker and I use these basic principles to effect transactions.) When you are dealing in an industry that is all about communications and negotiations, these kind of simple basics are very handy. They make or break deals!
When I was in junior high school I had a science teacher who was a very interesting guy. He taught us about “Pragmatism”. He said the basic fundamental idea behind pragmatism is: “If it works, it’s true.”
When I was studying Scientology I actually had that as a datum in the back of my mind, so I would learn something, and actually go try it out on my customers and my business, If it worked and produced good results, I kept it and considered it “a successful action” and if it didn’t I either restudied it to find out if I really understood it, and if it still didn’t work, I wouldn’t use it.
So through the years I developed LRH data that worked for me and which I still use.
I do this with every subject that I study, and although I haven’t really examined the idea that: “If something works, does that make it true?, so far, it works for me to develop the kind of life that I want.
Just my two cents . . . .
Maria: “One of the very real and powerful hooks that held me like glue to my auditing experiences and created a powerful association (every bit as powerful as any drug addiction and possibly even more) was the sensation of release…”
This observation is just as true for Hubbard who measured “truth” by his reactions as observed on the e-meter. It is just as true for people like Brian who associate their understanding of Eastern philosophy with the release they might have gotten from their exposure to it.
This is how hypnotism works too.
Per The Human-Centric Fixation
POSTULATE: Truth is determined by consistency in the broadest context possible.
Please also check out The Secret of Hynotism on my blog.
Windhorse: “But — I will add — those who banter back and forth about something that is an INTELLECTUAL EXERCISE for them and not from what I can see remotely something that has effected the core of their lives … (i.e. they have not lost family, jobs, friends, years of their life – they just like to debate)
Please — get real.”
Quite a generalization!
George,
“Buddha emphatically claimed that no “I” goes from life to life. There is no consciousness either that goes from life to life, he claimed.”
That is not true. You are generalizing an taking a sort of spiritual-materialist position. The entire idea of recounting past lives was part of the Buddha’s awakening, and there are plenty of literature that memorializes that.
I found your viewpoint on Theravada not unlike Hubbard’s authoritarian “one way” with Scientology. And you seem to be doing the same one viewpoint collapse that Scientology is predicated on.
If I pay close attention to what you are presenting here, Buddha was the only one to perceive and know, and the thousands of people that contributed to Buddhism and other Eastern practices advances on consciousness are inconsequential and to be discarded.
You might want to review the model for the mind and the creation of reality through the Skandhas that the Buddha presented. Somewhere along there might be an insight on how beings assemble and disassemble themselves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skandha
Alanzo
You have pretty much expressed my ideas on this whole thing.
However, If one considers that there is some validity to the concept of having some individual existence, prior to this current life, then it is conceivable that he might have some memories from such times.
At this point I am not willing to say that the whole thing is totally bogus, but I do feel that many of the procedures and indoctrinations of Scientology push beings into realms of fantasy that end up being adopted as truth, or as you say, adopted as part of their self-identity.
In a world full of indoctrinations slamming into you from all sides, it is tough to get a clear view, free from any indoctrination.
There seem to be two main lines of thought in the resolution of this dilemma. One is to get in there with the tools of logic and evaluation, and deconstruct it, and the other is to sit quietly and let it simply fall away, and for a new reality to float to the surface.
But the very tools of both of these courses of action, are themselves colored by indoctrinations of various kinds.
So, perhaps a synthesis of both, or a “middle path”, will open doors that neither open separately.
Eric
Thank you for your thoughts, Vin.
Oh, by the way, that unapologetic rant of mine from a few days ago was not directed to you, but at various people who tag all my posts with invalidation, thereby causing them to be discounted by the few who may otherwise find some of the insights useful. It is a common tactic, sometimes conscious, sometimes subconscious, to discount opinions that are not in one’s agreement in an effort to prevent anyone else from having any agreement with the former.
I am not offended or angered, but I’ll take actions to counter those efforts from time to time. I have noticed a few things here and there, and I like to share them with my friends. Makes no sense for my work to get buried in a KSW style onslaught.
Mark
Got a few ‘demons’ of my own, but I’m working on em.
Life’s good. The ‘getting my body back in shape’ program is going great. My daughter, 29, and I are taking martial arts. I studied for years when I was younger, but let it lapse. I feels good to resume something that you enjoyed in the past. I’m doing OK for a guy of 59.
My half brother is an instructor and tournament judge. He married a rich girl from Hong Kong, which I would highly recommend if you ever get the chance. He studied Asian language in college. I always pictured him as a translator.
Mark
I suspect the army of “demons” that Hubbard faced were the ones
he conscripted himself.
Afternoon Mr. Waterkamp.
Interesting thoughts about ‘the beginning’. Seems to me that my first thought about such things was the intention to continue. To be and to continue being. Much later came the idea of particles, persistence, and of things which I considered separate from myself.
I agree with much of what Ken Ogger described, but I have several differences along the line of time and the order of considerations at the beginning. Perceptions were quite different than now. ‘Seeing’ is more likened to rolling a pebble around in my hand, ‘seeing’ with my fingers. That is, unless I take the viewpoint of the pebble.
Would like to hear your observations.
Mark
I think that knowledge is knowledge. Tagging it as “Scientology”, “Hinduism”, “my work”, “somebody else’s work” may serve them to be associated with bias.
When I want certain ideas to be commented on for what they are, I don’t tag them. I tag them only when it is necessary for reference purposes only.
As much as possible a datum of knowledge should be examined for itself in its own context.
.
So, I am validating space opera? Is that fact or just your opinion? Care to explain?
Conan, what is your criterion for truth?
As I see there is no “I” that goes life to life. We can discuss that Conan if you like.
Vin, going all the way back to Vedic times and places, a person is said to be potentially at least, composed of 3 bodies. 2 of which are more long-lasting than the common physical body. They are not said to die all at the same time.
My point is, this is not a “Western” invention, as you so love to claim, for reasons best known only to yourself, if they are known at all even by you.
Don’t take it so personally Vinaire — it wasn’t directed per se towards you.
That said — am I now going to be subject to the scientologese vocabulary and thus accusation of generalities = sp = blah blah blah blah?
Please.
As I said — getting real here on this blog and sharing real life instead of intellectualizing might be a good idea. AS IN — get ON with your lives. Do whatever YOU want to that MIGHT help others … and it doesn’t have to be something HUGE or VAST or planet changing.
Something like smiling at the shopkeeper would be good for starters. It’s real. And just might help them feel better.
Windhorse
Lady Min, thank you for relating your experience. I think you have been very wise.
I am sure you realise that a datum may work in a certain limited context but not broadly. It would then be ok to use that datum knowingly in that limited context only.
It is an attempt at correction.
How so?
Vinaire, I dont know how you can assume you know what Brian is experiencing,
Well, I’ve read them before and I just went through and read them again. I guess I don’t see them the same way you see them, because my question still remains. It seems to me they were a means to an end or ends, among other means. I do think LRH exaggerated his role in codifying the philosophy and “the tech” which he was using to make a name for himself, and for which he hoped to be remembered forever; however I think he did put quite a bit if work into doing so.
What do you make of the Admissions? And what’s your point about the “real purpose”, as if there could be only one “real purpose”?
“You will know when you will know.”
I don’t call “scientology” a “church”. Never did. You obviously have not read my posts very carefully. When I say “the CoS”, I mean precisely that entity known as the CoS. This is odd. I have just recently made several posts that the CoS is NOT “coterminous” with “scientology”. In other words, the CoS : Scientology :: the Eastern Orthodox Churches(or Roman Catholicism) : Christianity.
My point is, there are other branches of “Scientology”, that are not the same same as the CoS. The CoS calims to be the “orthodox” and “catholic” branch, just as Roman Catholicism calims to be the “true” Christian church, while the others are “heretics” and “cults”. Of course some of the Protestant churches claim Catholicism is a “cult”.
What that notation means is, “A Is To B”, as “X is to Y”. It is called analogy.
Ah! So you mean you are no longer intellectualizing and getting more real.
That is good. 🙂
I know what he wrote.
VINAIRE: Equating the idea of person with the concept of awareness is very confusing. The word “person” denotes an identity of “human”. The word “awareness” doesnt. The use of the word “person” comes from The Human-Centric Fixation.
BRIAN: You will know when you will know. We’ve had this discussion before. I wave the Pom Pom for the existence of the soul, it’s eternal nature as a person and as the Uncreated Absolute; with form and formless. Infinity is infinite and can do what It chooses.
There is no soul in Eastern Philosophy with nature as a person. This goes back to the point Marty is making about “original sin” or “fall from grace” and trying to get back to some perfect state. There is no such thing in Eastern Philosophy as I understood while growing up in India as a Hindu.
.
From The Human-Centric Fixation
Furthermore, the religious belief goes on to say that this Universe was created by an eternal Being who has awareness and intelligence more sophisticated than those of humans. Scientific studies show that human awareness is only a recent development that has evolved from earlier forms of awareness. Ancient Vedas speak only in terms of elemental awareness at the beginning of the universe. It is highly unlikely that a highly sophisticated Being existed at the beginning of the universe.
It is a human-centric belief that this Universe started from highly developed awareness.
.
Most people in the West seem to look at Eastern Philosophy through the lens of their background in Western thought fixations.
Val, can you provide quotes from original Vedas that show that human identity survives death?.
It all boils down to accepting something as truth without examining it thoroughly. Did you examine the above data thoroughly or simply accepted some interpretation through your own filters?
Without making it more complicated, Val, do you think that human identity survives death? Is your answer, “Yes?”
Brian, let me ask you a straightforward question.
“Do you think that human identity survives death?
.
Brian, please answer my question honestly. Thank you.
.
Gretchen Dewire gave me a scary thought, when I combine it with what Maria wrote.
How much can we trust our experience as being true?
A hypnotized person would act per the experience manipulated inside him. He will think of that experience as true without doubt. Is there some kind of self-hypnotism that colors our perception of truth?
Haha! We come back to the concept of filtyers. So there seem to be a link between FILTERS (bias, prejudice, fixations, etc) and HYPNOTISM.
Could hypnotism be naturally imparted through “feel good” moments? Maybe.
Now that is something interesting to follow up on.
.
Lady Min, my experience with Scientology is similar to yours. And I too have learned from this blog and from Geir’s blog “to inspect the data I have learned, and find out what works for me.” One principle that I found doesn’t work for me is not to engage in “verbal data.” 🙂
Seeing Vinaire’s comment, I’ll modify what I said – that is, there may be a limited context where one should not give out verbal data. Judgement is called for, as is always the case,
If I understand what you mean, CD, I would say that’s good extrapolation of that one tape you posted.
My answer is “I don’t know” what survives. I am merely recounting what I have read and heard. I do know that I was apparently born with a sense of myself and I was really pissed at my parents for oohing and aahing over the little baby body they were holding, when I was way over here and they were apparently not aware of me.
Thus the Buddhist idea that one creates oneself as an “observer” makes sense to me. And that this “observer” can continue from one life on to the next makes sense, too. That may well be how one continues on the Buddhist path over the course of several lives. It may wel be a “self-created ego”. Use whatever words make sense ot you.
Intellectualizing about the physics of it is irrelevant.
Maria: “I have since learned that I can enter that state pretty much no matter what external circumstances I find myself in — I did have a great deal of practice with hundreds of hours of auditing!”
Awesome ability gained, Maria. It sounds like you can shoot up the tone scale at will. (Putting it in terms of the tone scale is just one way to word it.)
So now you want quotes from “the original Vedas”? LOL!
Here is just one link from India:
http://www.indiatribune.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=5576:what-vedas-say-about-death-and-rebirth-of-human-body-&Itemid=460
I think you’ve been away from India a long time, and that there may be more to it than stories you heard a s a child. And that was likely the opinion of someone in your family or a local guru. When I was a child, I was told there was a Santa Claus.
http://www.indiatribune.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=5576:what-vedas-say-about-death-and-rebirth-of-human-body-&Itemid=460
I counted the number of comments you have made on this subtopic thread of about 70 comments. 35 of them were yours. That’s as many as everyone else put together. And you think anyone wants to go and read your blog, too?
Mark, good to know more about you – and I do like this bigger picture.
On a side note, you wrote: “My half brother is an instructor and tournament judge. He married a rich girl from Hong Kong, which I would highly recommend if you ever get the chance.”
Since your post was in reply to me, I just wanted to make it clear to anyone who doesn’t know otherwise that I’m not a man. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. 🙂
(Funny button, huh?)
Marty.. Respectfully. You have your work cut out for you. ; 0
Thank you
And I am not sorry to hit you left right and centre, In amsorry to hurt your feelings:
You nailed it Windhorse from my experience and perspective.
Is it possible we’re getting too ‘old’ for this blog, though?
Yet some recent newcomers sure seem to blather in a circular formation. I guess they’re demonstrating “basic writing 101” to stroke an ego.
Marty this song was hiding after it:
He my bro so you cool, he cool, I am watching you.
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Why should they?
That is not a logical response at all.
That’s what I thought. You just repeat what you read, like Marildi. There may be a filter there but no brain in between.
No excuses or justifications please. You can find Vedas on Internet.
You are not adding anything intelligent here Val. Anybody can count.
Great comment Maria.
Dear FOTF2012, I agree with your comment and find it one of the more perceptive comments I have read. I’d like to give you a couple of emails if you have the time. Just email me at: cognitive1@hushmail.com
Oh Yay.. I just ordered Mitchell’s book Marty. Thank you. For those interested I just paid one cent for a used hard back with $4.00 shipping via Amazon.
I apologize, yes that was a bit condescending.
What survives death of the body are the soul; the pure incorporeal independent conscious exisitence – and the mind; the reflected repository of all experience. The holds the traits and characteristics that clothed the soul through the filters of the mind and give the soul a manifested quality.
You study music all your life and you develop a music mind and experience. This becomes part of the oersonality but is not the essence of the person.
These modifications of the mind, not being a physical, but are part of our energy body survive death. So when I drop my body I do not drop my love of music, because that tendency is not a lump of clay. It is a spiritual possession that stays with me.
So there are two things here, two because we have to use words to descibe these things: the soul and the intellectual and emotional natures.
The trait, being a musician, can resede into the subconscious as I find new interests to fashion my personality, and in that regard you can say I am a different person. But that is inaccurate. I am the same person but with a different personality.
It is my experience, with reading your take , is you equate the changeable mental modifications as the soul, and even equate the body as the conscious being because you consider the conscious being a conglomerate of forces.
So yes, what ever traits we have developed stays with us after death- characteristics, the good we have done, the pain we have caused, the mysteries solved……….. everything.
And it is through that unquestionable retention of developed intelligence that the law of karma operates through us to help us grow.
The records of the mind are permanant. Check one for the old man.
The soul is not a composit of forces, the soul is an indivisible oneness of being. One with the Supreme Being and given a personality through the localization in time and space of consciousness through a body vehicle. Whatever type of body, be it physical, astral or causal.
The person is the soul
The personality is the emotional and mental ever changing modifications.
Both survive body desolation.
I’ve died many times and it hasn’t killed me yet!
Brian, Thank you for your answer. I would like to ask another question to understand where you are coming from.
Does a monkey have a soul? If so, what are the similarities and differences between a monkey’s soul and a human soul ?
Brian.. Absolutely Brilliant Reply. You not only speak to me, but you speak for me. Thank you.
Hi there Miss Marildi.
Yes, I gathered your gender a long time ago. I mistakenly used the term ‘you’ generically in that comment. I am a bit flirtatious normally, but have avoided that with you since I don’t know your status. My lady puts up with it since we communicate pretty much all our thoughts to each other constantly. She knows me and I know her.
Any answer on what work you may be doing lately?
Mark
I really wanted to answer dishonestly but since you insist:-)
My answer is above. What a great topic hey Vinaire!
Sorry Vinaire, I have a lot of mispellings and wrongly worded sentences. I write fast and should edit better.
Brian, I shall wait for your answer.
Brian, it seems that you think that human identity survives death instead of disintegrating into component parts. Am I interpreting you correctly?
iamvalkov | October 2, 2014 at 2:33 pm | Reply
“It is a mystery to me why the Church went in that direction, as Hubbard’s earlier work (to the extent I am familiar with it) ”
…………………………………………………..
iamvalkov October 3, 2014 at 2:53 pm
“I don’t call “scientology” a “church”. Never did. You obviously have not read my posts very carefully. “
He did some testing but perhaps with flaws. OT 2 worked
brilliantly with me and for many who did this level. This is from 14 years
of seeing and posting successes. in the FZ.
Thing is he conceived it. Thats the brilliancy IMO. Why should I or any one for that matter get gain from running weird concepts?
In the FZ almost unanimously people really loved this bridge level.
Hopefully this also happened in the Church and I believe it did.
I like to flirt a bit too, just for fun. And I’m not married so no worries there. 🙂 Flirting is a sort of playful ARC – even uncles flirt with their nieces, for example, with no ulterior motives.
By “work,” I’m guessing you mean along the lines of furthering the quest for spiritual freedom. In that regard, I don’t do much more than take part in the ongoing dialogues. It benefits me personally, if nothing else. I’m also involved in the activities of a Mystery School near where I live. I find it complements what I know from Scientology.
My actual job is as a copy editor, if that’s what you mean. And btw, any time you decide you want to publish your articles or a book, let me know. 😉
marildi xoxo 😀
Again, read Tao of Physics to understand what you were running, and perhaps even why you continue to insist upon promoting other people go worship ultimately entrapping constructs.
Brian said,
What survives death of the body are the soul; the pure incorporeal independent conscious exisitence – and the mind; the reflected repository of all experience. The holds the traits and characteristics that clothed the soul through the filters of the mind and give the soul a manifested quality.
Brian, it seem that you consider “spirit and matter” to be separate. Please correct me if I am wrong.
If you read THE TAO OF PHYSICS, you will find that the consideration “spirit and matter are separate” is a characteristic of western thinking. It is not part of Eastern philosophy that I grew up.
.
Terril, I don’t know if it has anything to do with “Twin Flames” or not, but there was a 1952 lecture titled “Entities,” where LRH talked about one’s “Partner.” That lecture was compiled in written form by D. Folger, which was what I downloaded from http://www.stss.nl. It mostly has to do with entities, but he also said the following about the Partner:
————————————
7. The thetan apparently co-exists with an entity which is almost its equal, but not quite. This entity may be called the Partner.
8. Any entity may take over the whole of the organism and may exist as the whole organism but each entity has a position of its own, where it may be considered to act, customarily.
9. The Thetan occupies the head, facing forward.
10. The Partner occupies the head, facing backwards.
————————————-
SCS18 Entities 100352 D. Folgere.pdf.
Terril, Hubbard tries to make OT Level 2 sound mysterious and makes it very complicated. There is no mystery to it really. I looked at some of its GPM items with simple mindfulness and got interesting results that come from letting the mind unwind.
For example, to run items “CREATE” and “CREATE NO”, I simply got into mindfulness mode (something like OT TR0 mode), and start looking at the concept of CREATE from all angles. If any response appeared I let the mind freely associate. Then I let the mind unwind without interefering with it. After a while when no responses were coming up I expanded my attention to include the concept of CREAT NO. Again I let the responses rise and freely associate and let the mind unwind without interfering.
I went through most of the items pretty fast. On some I had some action. One interesting one was EXPLOSION. The action was so much and so fast on it that I lost all track of time. Then I came back quite refereshed.
I think that I probably ran the fastest OT2 very simply with some very interesting results. I attribute it to looking per mindfulness. I also thank LRH for providing some interesting items.
But it was ordinary business with mindfulness.
.
From my studies:
The difference between a monkey and a human. And does a monkey have a soul.
First let me say that my answer is coming from a students point of view. I am not a spiritual master and only have indirect knowledge of these things through the writings of others and also from my experience and observations.
The difference:
The human body has a more highly developed brain with highly specialized spiritual centers in the spine (kundalini) called chakras. The chakras are also called the plexuses because they are also main nerve bundles that feed the body with energy (prana).
The human body affords the soul a very unique opportunity to experience the world with a highly developed intelligent apparatus. Our capacity for mobility, cognitive functioning, creative extrapolations, abstract reasoning is in part the byproduct of our own personal evolution up through varying types of bodies.
Human beings also have the unique capacity to go against our natures and transcend our natures.
We are capable of conscious self evolution through the instrumentality of a highly developed intelligence that is able to “know itself”.
The animal kingdom’s evolution is more governed by the prime directive of nature HerSelf. They are not so much governed by self will but by the automaticities imprinted into their natures by Nature.
That is why animals do not accrue karma. They are acting out of nature’s prime directive, not independent action – self actualization.
The killing of prey for the tiger is natural. The breaking into a home and killing in a robbery is not. That was a choice.
Yes animals have souls. It could be said that the entire cosmos is throbbing with them.
We peek out through these forms in varying degrees of evolution. I have promised my sweet little Kitty, Mira, that when I am liberated, I will find her and help her find God. On that very day I made that vow to her, she went from my wife being her go to human, to following me around all the time and me being her favorite human. She felt my love and sincerity.
When I pet the heads of beautiful creatures, I bless them with my human vibrations and ask the Supreme Being to care for them throughout their ascendant travels through various forms and places.
And that is how I approach the Great One’s. They help me in the same way. We help each other. That is how it should be.
Cool Cat!
Terril: “I find OT 2 rather strange in that I don’t know why it works. It’s supposed to break up the composite case. At one point on it I had a revelatory experience. I separated from another being at least Theta Clear. I’m totally sure that was what happened. This may have something to do with “Twin Flames…”
The problem with OT2 is mixing straight looking with filters created by Hubbard’s philosophy, such as idea of “composite case,” “pure beings,” “Theta clear,” etc.
If a person simply lets the mind unwind, as happens in mindful meditation, he’ll gain a lot more, than if he starts evaluating what is happening using Hubbard’s hypotheses.
.
Vinaire: “You just repeat what you read, like Marildi.”
Is that worse than what you do, which is to invent theories about things of which you have no actual experience?
Wowsers! Quite a game to view when a person is able to stand back and look.
“In order to have a future I must dwell in the past. In order to dwell in the past I must consume the present.”
Rinse, and repeat.
The weird thing is, he completely ignored my first-hand account of my experience post-birth, to focus on the brief statement about my reporting what I read/heard.
This was not an ability gained. This was an ability abused. I salvaged myself by recognizing that this was a form of abuse. And tone scale has nothing to do with it.
I am wondering if you are adding anything intelligent here.
Thanks for all the info! To be clear, what I find is that euphoria can be a part of the feeling of release but mostly it is not. So I am not talking about confusing euphoria with release. I consider euphoria to be a form of release that can be blissful or exciting. I have learned that euphoric or not, release is not necessarily as a result of finding truth nor is it any accurate measure of the truth “discovered.” I have had it associated with “truth” at times, however, an aha! isn’t necessarily truth – it is an insight that makes it possible to let go of something – an explanation after the fact of release and really I believe it could be most anything that makes sense with the ongoing session content. I am not good with is being left with the belief that auditing produces release and all other methodologies are “squirrely” and “ineffective,” and the proof is the “release.” The servitude results from becoming dependent on “release” and on LRH and the CoS. Years down the road I find that I am far better off to manage my own inspection — so far I have not been led down a “garden path” that leaves me lying in a ditch. Nonsense.
Hi FOTF2012
I think they ate a baby. The ‘tree’ of the knowledge of good and evil would be a ‘human’ tree. The fruit – a baby. Of course if this is correct, then our body would be called a trunk. It is. Our arms limbs. They are.
When the spies went to check out the Promised Land they said the land would devour them.
2nd Kings Chapter 6…those ladies not only ate a baby, but the mother of the baby they ate felt comfortable asking the king (the cops) for the other woman’s child to eat.
The Tabernacle of Molech is used to sacrifice children up to the age of 6. They beat the drums so the father wouldn’t hear his own child scream and attempt to save him. Who eats the sacrifice? The congregation. Ezekiel 16:20 and 23:39.
Lamentations 4:10…they sodden their own children, they were their meat. The Book of Lamentations answers the question asked by the Hebrews, ‘why did this happen to us?’
And don’t forget that Jesus, who came to correct the broken code of human conduct, said ‘eat my body and drink my blood as a remembrance’. As a remembrance of what??? Cannibalism! Note: He didn’t say ‘give each other a big hug as a remembrance of my love for you’.
The skeletons in the closet of humanity are human…and children.
The Native Americans, who claimed that Kachina Gods traveled from across the water and told them what sand paintings to paint and what stories to tell, said things like this: A long time ago, people knew they needed to eat deer to survive. They made a mistake and ate people by mistake.
They also relate the story of the Hopi Boy and The Sun. The Hopi Boy had trouble with his nouns. He kept calling things by the wrong name and ended up eating people each time. The first time he mixed up birds with people. The 2nd time he mixed up wheat grass and people. The third time he mixed up corn mush and people. All three times the other Natives said ‘you’re eating people’. The corn mush time, the Hopi Boy asked them to join him. They said ‘we are not cannibals, we don’t eat people’.
The Book of Mormon (about people who escaped the old world before the cannibals had been eradicated by the Romans) ends with Cannibals…Moroni 9: 8-9.
The cannibalistic stories of the northern Native Americans, and the actions of the southern Meso Americans both seem to have their roots in the Old World.
Did any auditors come upon cannibalism in all of those sessions?
Thanks so much, iamvalkov.
There is a children’s story in Africa about a spider who gathered all the world’s knowledge and put it in a cauldron and tried to get it back up into his tree. He tried and tried but couldn’t do it. His son was watching the whole time and suggested that he try it his way, and it worked. So the father, holder of all wisdom, was bettered by his son. He realized that he was not ready for all the knowledge and he poured it out all over the world and each got some, but none got all.
I love reading stories from other cultures for this reason. I’m always looking for the Spider’s knowledge. I try to puzzle together the contents of the cauldron.
Have a wonderful day, and thanks for the suggested readings.
🙂
Thanks, I shall get the book.
Lovely!
This makes good sense to me.
Thanks, hadn’t come across that before. It seems a precursor of NOTs.
Dosn’t seem to me to to be about Twin Flames. It was a very extraordinary event to me and I was curious to learn more about it, I felt the strongest flows of affinity I can recall. I went to some twin flame forums. It seems most or many of the people there had special abilities, precognition, telepathy, empathy and found these to be normal run of the mill experiences. They also for the most part experienced romantic disasters. It seemed to me that maybe I’d split in two and that we both would meet again sometime. These forums contain almost all people talking of meeting their twin again. No stories like mine of apparently splitting in the first place. I asked on several forums if anyone had experienced such a thing and got no answer.
I was going to mention that but figured he would say he’s had the same kind of IMAGININGS (or “delusions”), and then he would miss the main point – which is that he writes all kinds of theories about things that are apparently based only on IMAGININGS. And, as I said, I can’t see that as being better than study of others’ works – specifically, the works of those who talk about their direct experience, and especially when their experience aligns with that of others.
That really means a lot to me babybunker. Thank you so much.
Hey Val, good perspective. You could be right.
Actually, the saints and sages I have been influenced by have said that the pursuit of powers without the foundation of basic morality and ethics- Dharma, is dangerous to one’s spiritual growth.
In Scientology success stories in the 70s, it was rife with power as the end result of some level of auditing.
Giving a knife to a child is not a good idea. The knife is not the problem, the undeveloped intelligence of the child is.
There is nothing wrong with power, it’s who is using it and the values their actions are governed by.
Ron had Crowley as a model to look up to. That in itself is telling.
Too bad it wasn’t the ideal of Christ, Gandhi, Martin Luther King and the saints and sages.
Power was his goal and infamy is his legacy. Their in lies the illustrated reasoning to the injunction of not seeking power while one’s moral nature is underdeveloped.
Val: “I am wondering if you are adding anything intelligent here.”
I wonder the same Val. I see mostly picking apart what others say and then suggesting or promoting some self-imagining ideas or links.
I’m not trying to be mean, but I wonder if he suffers from a Guru Complex. Half of those posts don’t say much as far as I can see.
If we live in light, darker beings don’t come around. The brightness makes them uncomfortable.
I have wondered from time to time what the effects of Ron dabbling in trying to make contact with disembodied beings had on him.
It is obvious that he was a pathological liar. That in itself is not a trait of being in the light.
It is obvious that he betrayed family and friends. That is also not a trait of goodness.
He made less of other wisemen and considered himself the Prince of Darkness and the bibles anti Christ.
He was in awe of Crowley.
Do these traits constitute darkness? I say yes, they do.
Could hypnotism be naturally imparted through “feel good” moments?
That was my point in part. But I wouldn’t necessarily restrict it to hypnotism, nor do I think that it is necessary for creating memories – I am learning more and more that the mind is naturally malleable, memories, filters, and all — particularly the “subconscious mind” — which is extremely receptive and ignored and negated in Scientology except as a manifestation of a low-toned individual’s state of mind.
I’m thinking lately that a more accurate description of the process is deliberate or unwitting neuro-linguistic programming — i.e. behavior modification (which isn’t hypnosis but is nevertheless compelling) and more in keeping with the way people actually process memory.
http://www.human-memory.net/processes_recall.html
What an awesome experience you had. Thanks for sharing it. If I ever run across anything like it, I’ll let you know!
LOL!
False memory is a very interesting subject. Thank you, Maria, for posting this TED talk. Loftus present many excellent points.
She is correct in saying that memories are more likely to be reconstructed than recalled as-is. I always doubted Hubbard’s claim that exact details of memories are recorded in pictures. Per “A Model of the Mind” essay on my blog, mind is a multi-dimensional matrix of increasingly condensing forms of definitions and logics. Memory, when recalled, is likely to be reconstructed out of these defintions and logics as initiated by some seed memory.
By slightly readjusting some well-placed definition, or logical relationship, the reconstruction of memory may be influenced. It may not require much force or stress at all, but covert suggestion only, as well demonstrated in the studies done by Loftus and described in her talk.
The bottom line is, as Loftus says, “We cannot reliably distinguish true memories from false memories.”
How do we determine the truth then? This has been the key point of the essay on The Human-Centric Fixation
.
Sorry for the misunderstanding. You wrote\:
“I have since learned that I can enter that state pretty much no matter what external circumstances I find myself in — I did have a great deal of practice with hundreds of hours of auditing!”
From the above it sounded like it was because of all the practice in auditing that you learned how to enter the release state at will.
Val….. Bingo!
And I have read the Guru Complex.
There is, however, evidence that the brain distinguishes between true and false memories:
http://www.nature.com/news/2007/071106/full/news.2007.220.html
Very interesting talk. She says that memory works sort of like Wikipedia – you yourself can go in there and change it, but so can other people.
This makes me think of the theory that our universe is a continuous co-creation. We influence each other’s thoughts, perceptions and even memories. That’s why negative thoughts, statements and attitudes are contagious and pernicious.
The following is interesting from Val’s reference.
The researchers found that when study participants had confidence in their answer and they were correct, blood flow increased to the medial temporal lobes located near the dividing line between halves of the brain. This region of the brain contains the hippocampus, and is important for memory.
But when subjects had confidence in their answer but were wrong (which happened up to 20% of the time depending on the circumstances), the frontoparietal region lit up. Those regions are associated with what Cabeza calls a sense of “familiarity”.
Here is another important point.
For Valerie Reyna, a cognitive neuroscientist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, the results underscore the fact that judges and juries should not use a witness’s confidence in their own answers as a signal that the answers are more likely to be true. “It is really surprising, but there is a very weak relation between accuracy and confidence,” she says.
From Val’s link:
Familiarity is a general feeling that an event has happened in the past, even though you can’t recall the specific details, such as when you are sure you have seen someone before, but can’t remember her name or how you know her. “It’s basically an empty feeling,” says Cabeza. “In the case of true memories, you have real details to retrieve.”
Familiarity means “deducing the details”. Such details did not come directly from storage.
So, storage seems to be located at medial temporal lobes, whereas, the deduction circuits seems to be located at frontoparietal region.
Here is a study relevant to the topic of “memory”:
http://www.wired.com/2011/12/london-taxi-driver-memory/
It also mentions the hippocampus. It also seems to support the idea that “form follows function”, whether Hubbard was actually the originator of it, he did promote that idea. Is it possible he was right about something? 🙂
From Aristotle:
Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character of the speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the third on the proof, or apparent proof, provided by the words of the speech itself.
This quote from Aristotle goes along with
The Secret of Hypnotism
Wham Bam
Hi Brian and Vinaire,
Nice thread.
IMO animals serve two purposes. First, they are a system of living organisms that enable the growth of the spirit detained inside of the body of our Planet. I don’t mean the Planet’s soul. I mean a soul that is impregnated inside of Earth. That detained soul is supposed to be in a type of metamorphic sleep. The animal kingdom facilitates the metamorphosis of that sleeping soul. When Earth is burned off by our Sun in around 5 billion years, that soul should be ready to join heaven. Unfortunately, our detained soul got awakened early and is still in a state of chaotic tantrum.
The second purpose of the animal kingdom is more like a step ladder towards the ultimate goal of ‘human’. Once you reach human, you are capable of contemplating the Universe and your place in the Universe. You are also capable of communing with the Creator to establish your personal job.
The difference between the soul of a monkey and the soul of a human is age and ability. The real question is where do souls originate. Islam says the soul comes into existence with the body, and continues to exist even after the body is gone. Some people believe that means the human body. I believe it is referring to both the heavenly body and the human body.
I posted part of this poem on another thread, but I don’t know where. Here is the whole thing, so if you have a few minutes this will explain my belief. It’s also fun.
The Asteroid part 1 by GrannyDeepSea
I was flying through outer space one day
When a planet happened by
I saw her coming right toward me
But no matter how I’d try
I couldn’t move to the left or the right
I could only continue to fly
I got too close to her atmosphere
And my body said goodbye!
I couldn’t escape from the atmosphere
It held me inside like a bubble
I could fly all around on the inside though
But I seemed to be sensing some trouble
Feelings of terror and chaos loomed
And although my old body was rubble
I felt the desire to help in some way
And some Angels were there on the double.
The Angels said you’ve got so much to learn
And we know the best way to teach you
We’ll put you in bodies from small to quite large
We’ll be using your spirit to reach you
You’ll suffer and learn and then suffer some more
But we will stay right beside you
Because you desired to help in some way
We will always be right there to guide you.
We know it seems harsh but it’s the best way
To show you with what we are dealing
By climbing the ladder of life in this place
You are certain to get the right feeling
And then by the end when you have your own voice
Even though it’s our words you’re revealing
Your will, will be strong, you’ll continue to push
Through the games and the wheeling and dealing.
I didn’t yet know what was happening when
I felt my real self being trapped
I could no longer fly through the atmosphere
And my spirit was somehow strapped
I felt something else of a physical sort
But I didn’t yet know how to act
They had placed me inside my first body on Earth
And my progress began to be tracked.
The first bunch of bodies went by in a blur
And much later I found out why
I started out tiny, so tiny in fact
That I couldn’t be seen with the eye
Only later were my bodies complex enough
To sense anything other than me
And in between bodies my spirit took breaks
Where the Angels would teach me to see.
My bodies got larger and time zipped by
As I went from one life to the next
And in between bodies I started to note
That my brain was becoming complex
And unfortunately, the bigger the brain
The more for the body to suffer
I began to be happier in between lives
In between’s like a spiritual buffer.
I realized soon that my spirit had changed
I was gaining more knowledge with age
I began to see what the Angels had meant
Each new life was like turning a page
And as I progressed through the book of my lives
My spirit was feeling much stronger
I began to desire the end of my book
And did not want to wait any longer.
But that’s not the way that the ladder works
You can’t jump ahead to the top
You must patiently suffer each rung as you climb
To the lifetimes that wait at the top
And as you get closer, the in between times
Make you focus on what’s at the top
Until your whole spirit desires to live
In those lifetimes that wait at the top.
But before I’d attain my souls one desire
The animal kingdom awaited me
My lifetimes got longer, my spirit grew stronger
As the will of the Angels persuaded me
To just keep on climbing the ladder of life
To the place where my power abides
And continue to learn from the suffering I’d face
Knowing that’s where the power resides.
The suffering I faced in the animal world
Was caused by both eating and sleeping
If you aren’t the one being eaten, well then
You’re the one who is doing the eating
The nice little herbivores make the right snack
For those who do not eat green plants
And because that is where the right nutrients are
We get stuck in the food chain dance.
It’s important to know why these creatures exist
And the Angels explained it quite well
They’re the end of the line of the bottled up stuff
That is commonly thought of as hell
Cuz God has a thing like the Midas Touch
And His Being imbues all with life
The creation was made with some feelings entrapped
Because Heaven cannot endure strife.
God is responsible for all that there is
He created the good with the bad
Before the beginning there once was a time
Where thinking was all that He had
And because He was younger and didn’t yet know
The power His Being possessed
He created some things just by thinking of them
And their life forces must be addressed.
You see after a thought is created by God
It can’t just be unthought away
It’s part of creation, created by God
And that means that it’s here to stay
In fact, the idea of erasing a thought
In turn was created as Being
And He is the dude now responsible for
All the death we are currently seeing.
But don’t have a fear said the Angels when I
Was feeling quite sad at the thought
If God is the one who’s responsible for
All the bad stuff wherein we are caught
And He’s the creator of all that there is
And thinks that this Hell is okay
And all I can do is just pray in vain
That all this could just go away.
In the first place they said, this isn’t okay
He knows that some things are not right
He can feel His insides which is where Earth is
And He knows it’s a terrible sight
So much so, in fact, that He had to come here
And take on a human form
He’s making a plan to save the whole world
And supporting us all through this storm.
At that moment I felt an incredible wave
It hugged me right down to my spirit
And a still small voice said thanks for your help
And not only my soul could hear it
The Angels all smiled as they watched this occur
They know about soul hugs as well
Because God’s ‘all ways’ there underneath it all
Even when we’re residing in Hell.
Then the Angels continued to tell me those things
Which I needed to do my next task
I was going to be leaving the animal lives
It would be like removing a mask
My spirit was ready to move to the top
I would soon have a human brain
A brain that the Angels can pluck like a harp
To help certain pathways remain.
A thought is a lot like a string on a harp
And that’s what the Angels can use
To talk to a person when they are awake
It’s much like contacting a muse
Of course when we sleep we can talk to them all
But we cannot remember the meeting
Because when we sleep, our brain’s on vacation
And the thoughts like the dreams are fleeting.
Being human is quite a bit different
Than life in the animal world
I was very surprised when the journey began
And my first human life was unfurled
I expected much more than what happened to me
In my new and improved state
It seemed like forever, where ever I was
And I felt I was just supposed to wait.
And then something happened I didn’t expect
My body was somehow being torn
I found out much later that this was the time
That my new body was being born
I couldn’t remember the experience before
It’s hard to remember your birth
It’s a humble beginning that everyone faces
When they become humans on Earth.
Even God had to do this when He came down here
To suffer with us as a man
He came here to teach the right way to be
Like only our creator can
Unfortunately over many rebirths
And the improper eating of meat
He’s forgotten His reasons for taking a body
And He won’t take His destined seat.
And that is the reason it all seems so wrong
When you look at our lives here on Earth
I remembered the time when my body burned up
Long before my first Earthly birth
I remembered the feelings of terror and chaos
That first made me want to give aid
I remembered the Angels taking me under wing
And my suffering through the parade.
And parading it seemed as I now look back
Over all of the lives I did live
All leading me here to my human form
All enabling me to give
An account for our reason for being alive
I’ll tell you the truth now and here
Human beings are God’s immune system, and yes
We currently have something to fear.
See our present condition is not very good
AIDS is what we represent
That’s why the creator had to come down
And His purpose is Heaven sent
He wants us to wake up and do things right
So we don’t give the Universe AIDS
But He can’t even wake up Himself right now
Unless everybody persuades
Him to look at things differently than before
He just needs to change his mind
He has all the facts in His brain, you know
But He hasn’t been able to find
The keys to the puzzles that He thinks are real
But that really aren’t real at all
And that’s been my task for the sum of my lives
I’m now ready to answer the call.
I found all the clues that were left behind
By other Earth helpers like me
And I’m ready to share them to help wake up God
And for everyone else to see
We all have our reasons for being here
And while some of those reasons seem odd
In the end when you find out the truth you will see
That we are like Pokemon for God.
Geir.
I said, ‘good start, now it’s time to get to work’.
You said ‘what work?’.
Release and freedom from forgotten decisions and opinions. The ability to change your mind.
Mark
Brian said:
“Now my true beliefs are informed not from “Ron says” “my teacher says” “this book says” “Buddha says” “Jesus says”………………….
Now my true beliefs are informed by bypassing all authoritative injunctions and going right to the core of knowing; direct perception”
Brian, the more I learn, the smarter you become. You are truly on your way.
Mark
It is my opinion that in Chritianity the lie is eternal damnation.
In Buddhism the lie is there is no soul/God
If the existence of God or the soul is the lie, that would make Buddha the only sage to get it right, and every other sage is wrong.
That would make Buddhism the “only way” to truth, because the Buddha was the only one to get it right.
Since the words of Christ and Buddha were written by others way way after their deaths, it is reasonal to conclude they got some things wrong.
My opinion is that the Buddhists misinterpreted nirvana.
It is the extinguishing of the ego self not the self existent.
If there is no one their (conscious being) to enjoy the bliss of nirvana, why try?
That is a form of nihilism that took over Buddhism in its decline in India in the 7th century.
One man-the Buddha-could not have been the “only one” to get it right and Jesus,Rumi, Moses, Yogananda, Ramakrishna, Sivananda, Vivekananda, Thomas Merton, Aquinas, Shankara, Mira Bai, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, all the founding fathers, Emerson, Thoreau, Newton, Vyasa, Patanjali, Saint Francis, and all the countless countless lineages of student disciple relations the entire Gita, Bible, Upanishads, Mahabharata (of which meditation techniques were learned by the Buddha) got it wrong. Preposterous!
It is egotism that gets extinguished(nirvana) not the Self.
How would Buddha know that nirvana is blissful unless someone was there to experience it, come back to the human state and report on it?
+++ 🙂
+++ impeccable logic.
Vinaire, thank you so much for your comment. I have been almost overwhelmed at the depth of your understanding and your ideas on certain issues; for you to say that you think I have been very wise is a HUGE compliment. I appreciate it. I did a lot of stupid things while I was in the Church, but still value the data and skills I learned while there. I was always interested in philosophy long before entering the world of Scientology. I studied the German philosophers as a teenage, and they made no sense to me. Ayn Rand, and then later L. Ron Hubbard, wrote of things that I could observe and were understandable to me. I USED what I learned from LRH and could do so many things that I couldn’t before studying his works. The things that were the most usable were the administrative policies, and the communication skills learned on some of the courses. Up until I wrote the comment above, I didn’t realize how practical a person that I was, so even relaying that information led to a new realization about myself. I appreciate your acknowledgement of my comment.
I will have to examine your remark about a datum being workable in a limited context — I hadn’t really thought of that before. I don’t know that I have bumped into that situation. Most of the principles that I have used seemed to work in broader contexts, also. An example of this is public speaking: the communication skills I learned in Scientology seemed to apply as well to public speaking, as in one-on-one communications.
I want you to know I really love your posts and YOUR wisdom, which I consider to be exceptional! You are a great asset to this blog, and always give me a lot to think about!
Wow! Thank you. 🙂
“It is egotism that gets extinguished(nirvana) not the Self.”
Funny brief comment about ego. When My hubby and I started studying a meditation path we read “The Path of the Masters” by Julian Johnson. After studying awhile I realized and profoundly said “Hell, I spent so many years and so much money to get an ego and now I have to get rid of it? Dang”.
So started a new path which was very good for us for many years. Faults we did see in the path, but they were reasonable and caused no harm, therefore we lived with it as we chose to, was happy and learned a lot.
Thanks for the excellent post which broadens my view.
Brian: “If the existence of God or the soul is the lie, that would make Buddha the only sage to get it right, and every other sage is wrong.”
From what I’ve read, Buddha was “silent” on the matter of the soul, and that it was because he didn’t want his followers involved in a matter that wasn’t provable. He basically said, “Shut up and meditate.” 🙂
That ability is pretty well clamped already.
Marildi, I wouldn’t think any master would say “shut up” haha. What I’ve heard and read is always to go within, do your meditation and the answer you seek lie within yourself. One just has to do it, therefore a reminder of, and not count on another to give answers. There are various types of meditation and one can find which suits one best or none and just wing it. imho.
Good deal, Geir. I may have some catching up to do.
Mark
Dee, I agree. I’m leaning more and more towards the principle of going within – along with considering what those who have done it themselves have to say. “Independent Spirit” posted a comment on a recent thread and gave a link to the website of a man named Jurgen Ziewe, who spent 40 years studying the realities/perceptions he experienced in out-of-body states. And the thing is, they correlate with what other OOB researchers have to say, such as Tom Campbell, Bob Monroe and others. I do believe that as time goes by there will come to be a “consensus reality” on each of these other realities (some physical, some non-physical) much as there is a consensus reality on the physical universe. I’ll post below a 10-minute video of Jurgen Ziewe, Part 1 of a 4-part interview of him. You might find it as interesting as I did.
“Shut up and mediate” was a takeoff on the quote “Shut up and calculate” – that was supposedly what the physicist Richard Feynman said to his students who were asking for answers to the mysteries of quantum physics. I stole it. 🙂
I think you’re right.
I actually believe that the word religion actual means RE-Legion. In the past, horrible things were going on and they had to stop them. The Republic even says lie to the masses so they don’t know they have a problem with one another. And I think they did just that. They burned the libraries, encoded all the writing that was allowed to survive, and then they RE-Legioned the masses. From Lord Buddha to Muhammad and everything in between, they actually grouped everyone with a ‘guru’ and tried to get them to settle down and respect others. At the same time, they gave each group a key piece of the puzzle (part of the Spider’s wisdom) and they also gave each group a lie.
Buddhism doesn’t believe in a Creator God. Christianity doesn’t believe in reincarnation. Islam believes God accepts Jihads. These critical points keep us separated.
They used ‘divide and conquer’ on humanity, and it worked to the extent that we are no longer burning babies in the name of Moloch. But the truth is, we have to ‘unite and win’. We have to determine the puzzle piece from each religion that brings humanity together, and we have to disregard the lies that were told to keep up apart.
I believe that newer religions like Mormonism and Scientology must also figure out what is worth keeping and what must be thrown out. That’s why I love this blog.
Have a wonderful day!
Marilidi, that was a good steal, thanks for the info. I’m in line with your post. 🙂
Terril, I came across an article about “twin souls” that seems to indicate something quite like what you were saying about them “splitting.” Here are a few isolated quotes:
“Definition. Twin souls or really twin sparks are souls or sparks that were designed to formed together at the same time.”
“The sparks or flames. The tiny sparks of life that are the basic units of consciousness. At our most basic or essence level, this is who we are.
“The making of the sparks is very special, especially since it is who you and I really are.”
http://drlwilson.com/Articles/TWINS.htm
Lots of other fascinating data in that article too.