I just received another volley from an irate, prominent self-anointed ‘with Ron’ type of ‘Independent Scientologist’. It was actually an attempt to control through command, assigning me a Treason condition with instructions – after lengthy evaluations – to first apply the Confusion formula.
I only raise the matter here because it is live evidence of two of the most insidious elements of Scientology that in my estimation are at the root of its demise. It is a great learning opportunity.
The first I will address here, blame. The propensity to find and assign blame is woven into the woof and warp of Scientology, making it perhaps one of the most difficult character deficiencies to remedy in a veteran member.
The rather lengthy screed I received pronounced me guilty of the current horrid state of Scientology on the planet today. One central allegation was that I allegedly totally mishandled the corporate Scientology attacks upon me and my family, by …’ Your response to the attack of Miscavige is quite predictably stimulus and response…rather than tangling with the cur dogs nipping at the wheels of the fire engine, you have become one of them.’ .’
Not more than a month ago two other prominent ‘Independent Scientologists’ as much as accused me of being a suppressive person for failing to automatically and continuously attack David Miscavige and blame him for virtually every shortcoming of Scientology – really on a stimulus-response basis.
The common denominator of these self-professed ‘with Ron’ Indies on both sides of the GPM (goals problem mass – the resultant mass from the collision of opposite intentions or flows colliding) is the seemingly stimulus-response tendency to blame. In all of their authoritative, judgmental communications the overriding theme is to assign responsibility for whatever it is they are suffering upon another. Ironically, anyone who witnessed much of Miscavige in action knows that his stimulus-response habit of blaming is perhaps his most destructive and prevelant tendancy.
Here is a central dichotomy with Scientology. The technology, in pure, sane application can deliver a person to the state where he or she truly understands that he or she is responsible for his or her own condition. In fact, a person only reaches the pinnacle of the state of Clear, by recognizing this fully and thus losing all inclination to engage in blame. Yet, I ask you to examine the matter for yourself and see whether there are not other conditionings added to the mix along the route that make that realization in practice short-lived.
I was also accused of ‘You are not getting people to do, you are getting people to question and think about.’
Good point. Here, I’ll ask people to do something.
Get yourself a copy of the Tao Te Ching, preferably ‘a new English version’ by Stephen Mitchell.
Read it more than once at your leisure, and particularly when you sense the onset of anxiety.
Learn to let go. I assure you that if you work on it it will move you on up a little higher in disposition and character.
Since apparently the ‘with Ron’ guys won’t listen to Ron on the matter of blame, maybe they’ll listen to Lao Tzu:
Failure is an opportunity.
If you blame someone else,
There is no end to the blame.
Learning the art and honing the skills of differentiation, identification and association increases accuracy of observation. It increases intelligence. It increases ability. L. Ron Hubbard aptly defined the application of those skills as sanity.
When one observes while exercising differentiation, identification and association one has assumed and assigned identity, differentiated himself from and made associations between himself and those phenomena and things that he observes. By doing so, one is experiencing duality in the mode of causation.
Continued practice in these skills can reduce complexities and systems to simplicity and create a heightened sense and certainty of oneself and his place and role in the cosmos. It can bring about an unrepressed, self-determined, well and happy state of being. Scientology technology, sans cultish policy/group think indoctrination, is well equipped to bring about that state (the means and reasons why are covered in some detail in the book What Is Wrong With Scientology? – along with vital data on how to steer clear of the policy/group think cult indoctrination).
Once attained, one can trade on those skills to bring about higher intelligence and power of observation in others and/or more profit and power to oneself. Some, though they would be the last to admit it, obtain and exercise a feeling of superiority and a comfortable identity for having accomplished a high degree of competence in the skills of identification, association and differentiation. If the exercise of one’s skills are of sufficient value by way of their scarcity, more penetrating observation beyond them might seem a threat to the value of those skills of differentiation, identification and association and all that they garner. One can very easily find a contentment level where further observation of higher truths and unexplored realms might be seen to upset the comfort of the help, profit and power zones one is experiencing or operating in. Some have even bought into the idea that to transcend or move on from that which increased one’s ability to identify, associate and differentiate would be tantamount to eschewing those skills and constitute the most heinous form of treason. The act of continued observation beyond the constructs provided apparently threatens the very identity the skilled one carved out and created for himself as a master of identification, association and differentiation.
On the other hand, one could also value curiosity, sense of adventure, and thirst for higher truths above comfort and power – and possess the courage to explore them – and one could thus seek to view larger and more complex systems and the interactions between them. Over time, one might begin to observe entire universes and their interactions. One might even transcend identity and the differentiation, identification and association that defines it and catch a glimpse of all of existence and the synchronicity with which all elements within it seem to interact. Contrary to the fears announced by those profiting and comforting by expertise in the skills my personal experience is that further exploration only sharpens those skills.
When one observes the whole of existence with no differentiation, identification and association in mind – simply observes the whole of existence as it is – one does not differentiate, identify or associate himself. One is not separate and apart from the whole of existence. One is experiencing nonduality.
If one also studied advancements in science, he might find that the higher reality of nonduality is being validated in the laboratory. And if he continued to observe, beyond differentiation-association-identification, he might find that the universe can be seen to behave as quantum mechanics is beginning to demonstrate. That is, the behavior of the universe is dependent upon the character of the observer; that there is a synchronicity and interconnectedness across the cosmos that is largely invisible and undetectable to the five traditional human senses which are all bound up in identity, and its dependence for survival upon differentiation and association. Planet earth’s greatest scientific minds – historically, the most skilled at differentiation, identification and association – tend to say of quantum mechanics, ‘if you think you understand it, then I know that you don’t.’
They might more accurately have stated that ‘if you think you can explain it in words, then you haven’t witnessed it.’ As Lao Tzu noted: The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is no the eternal Name. The unnamable is the eternally real. Naming is the origin of all particular things. Free from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught in desire you see only the manifestations. Einstein called it ‘spooky’ phenomena, as phenomena observed potentially could turn our entire concepts of all of existence, our very identities and the definition of God, upside down. For decades hence science agreed to steer clear of examining how quantum phenomena might impact or shed light upon the nature of the soul, spirit and consciousness. For the past five decades, however, scientists have increasingly explored consciousness and contemplative philosophers have begun to explore science. And in this meeting of minds more clarity is arising.
The heightened abilities to differentiate, associate and identify are demonstrating with greater accuracy how we can better predict the manner in which the universe responds to stimuli. The universe can be more causatively manipulated. It can be more thoroughly controlled. It can be caused to bring about more comfort, profit, and power to the identities exercising identification, association and differentiation on a more causative level.
However, it seems that only when one transcends identity and the need for comfort, wealth, and power and the need to differentiate, identify and associate in order to collect and maintain them, that the higher truths of the universe can be directly experienced and perceived. Not with the five traditional senses. Instead, with the sixth sense and beyond – referred to in Scientology as theta perceptics, referred to in Eastern traditions as nondual consciousness or awareness.
It seems that if one can learn to let go of an avid craving and drive for the ultimate, everlasting state of ‘causation’ he or she might get a taste of it. Ironically, contemplative teachers increasingly refer to such tastes as ‘causal consciousness.’ It might just be an activity that one cannot do, but instead a state one must actually be in order to realize.
In that experience, the universe does not respond to one’s causation. It is not something separate, apart, or even associated with you. There is no association or differentiation between you and it. It is you and you are it. It and you simply is.
Is one then a separate, distinct identity or a part of a single infinity?
It would appear that it all depends upon how one is viewing himself and the universe.
Can one have it both ways?
Inevitably.
Posted in healing, independents, l. ron hubbard, Scientology, Tao Te Ching, tech, the world, Uncategorized
Tagged "mark rathbun", l. ron hubbard, Lao Tzu, marty rathbun, Scientolog, Tao Te Ching
Possession is the way you pin people down. If you give them enough possessions, you fixed them. You really fixed them. The way to ruin somebody would be to give him a million dollars! That would just ruin him. Right now there’s a government on the face of the earth which is making a principle of giving everybody money. And I’ll be a son of a gun if people don’t take it. It’s a sure way to ruin. To have, to have, to have, to have; a dependency, a dependency, a dependency — it’s ruinous. Because the only way to have is to create and then not have. Just create and not have, create and not have, create and not have will put you in full command of time and make you cause without ever getting an effect And the magician wanted this answer — oh, my God, how he wanted that answer! And there it is for you. If you create, create, create, create, create, you never violate the second law of magic, “Do not be hoist by your own petard.” “Do not be an effect to your own cause.” And the only way you can be an effect to your own cause is to keep moving up the time stream and acting after you’ve postulated. So you want it — if you can get it on the level of create, create, create, create, create, create, then you’ll never have “have” You haven’t got time!
So, how do you avoid this? Never borrow any money from a bank — make it. Never accept a gift — make it. Dealing in the MEST (Matter, Energy, Space, Time) universe you can shilly-shally around and monkey around a little bit if you want to, shift possessions around — don’t take them very seriously.
– L Ron Hubbard, 7 November 1952
Fill your bowl to the brim; and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife; and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner.
Do your work, then step back
The only path to serenity.
-Lao Tzu, circa 500 BC
Posted in independents, l. ron hubbard, Tao Te Ching, tech, the future, the Reformation, the world
Tagged "mark rathbun", l. ron hubbard, Lao Tzu, marty rathbun, scientology, Tao Te Ching
How has radical corporate Scientology gone down the chute into chaos?
An ethic, really, is different than a code. People can be beaten into being moral but they can never be beaten into being ethical because an ethic requires a very good estimation of force. You have to be able to judge to be ethical. And one of the first things they tell a people that they only want to be moral — the first thing a ruler will tell a people that he only wants to be moral is to tell them that they mustn’t judge anything. And then he lays in a code of morals with a club, you see, and then expects them to live up to it and punishes them if they don’t.
– L Ron Hubbard 7 November 1952
When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is morality.
When morality is lost, there is ritual.
Ritual is the husk of true faith, the beginning of chaos.
– Lao Tzu, ca. 500 b.c.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged "mark rathbun", l. ron hubbard, Lao Tzu, marty rathbun, scientology, Tao Te Ching
Moving On Up a Little Higher