Holy crap! That can’t be possible! The car was heading for disaster at 170 km/h. The space between the two cars in front of us was surely not enough for this cab to squeeze through. Three lanes wide. Three cars driving at perhaps 80 km/h. And here we were coming up at more than twice their speed. I could be freaking out. Instead I reached for the safety belt. Slowly. I didn’t want to offend the taxi driver. I was part terrified, part determined to put on the safety belt unnoticed before I could brace for impact.
Woosh! Like a baby squeezed through a tiny opening at birth, with a few centimeters to spare at each side, and with the the driver whistling a funny tune while he turned around wondering if I said something to him. My lips had let out a tiny squeak, and he wondered if enjoyed the scenery. Scenery? What scenery. I was close to shitting my pants and he was looking at me and the mountains. Look at the fuckin’ road.
Now what?? Off the road? This time there was no space in between the car in front. So this bat shit taxi driver decides to pass on the outside of the road at 150. Gravel, sand and dust everywhere and again – woosh! We were back on the road. The only thing that indicated that this driver was not acting on his death wish was his relaxed and jolly whistling.
In between the death defying stunts I got around to ask him “How long have you been driving a cab?”. In Greek-English he revealed that he had been driving since 32 years and with only 1 or 2 weeks of vacation each year. And 7 days per week no less and some 14 hours each day. Sure to offend the guy, my lips formulated a rude question before I could swallow the words “Is this how you usually drive?”. “Sure” he answered unaffected in between the funny tunes.
I started calculating – 14 hours times 7 days equal 98 hours. Times 48 weeks or so becomes 4700, times 32 years is more than 150000 hours of driving like mad. And with less than two hours from Athens to Poros, my chance of dying on this trip is less than 1 over 75000. I am safe! The maths got to me and I immediately decided to relax and enjoy the ride like it would have been in an amusement park.
Then it dawned on me – this guy is displaying a degree of trust like I’ve never seen before. Not just in his own abilities as a driver but in all the other drivers on the road. From then on I was enjoying the scenery, the ride and the admiration of this cab drivers display of trust.
Geir Isene - uncut 
Great story about your cab driver’s competence and your calculated trust. I am a fan of Keith Code’s books on riding motorcycles fast. He has quite a bit to say about a person’s “available attention” when handling a motorcycle and by my extrapolation any activity.
A synonym of trust is certainty. And certain comes from distinguish, decide… and it originally comes from “crisis”….decide, judge, separate.
I have had some pretty narrow escapes myself this lifetime and it wasn’t until later that I realized it was due to “trust” that I made it through. : )
Neat comment.
Wonderful story and wonderfully written.
I see the taxi driver the way you do – a man who had complete confidence and trust in his own proficiency. He had to have had a full understanding of the related mechanics and been very practiced in dealing with them.
When it comes to his attitude toward others, I see it not so much as a confidence or trust in them but in the power of his own intention. This takes the situation out of the physical universe realm, and it put a smile on my face just thinking about it. 🙂
Well, he had to trust that the other car wouldn’t move an inch to the left during the next three seconds, and that I wouldn’t interfere with his driving or a dozen other possible interferences from others… 😉
Yes, of course, those were the possibilities. My thought was that the reason for the “trust” had more to do with his own intention without reservation, regardless of whether others could be
trusted or not. But what you say may also have been true. 😉
p.s. Thinking about it more – you’re right. What a person “puts there” or “puts out” is what they get back. And that’s not just the Scn principle to do with postulates; other philosophies express the same idea in different words.
Oh, right. Geir enjoyed the driver’s trust of others on the road. Got it.
Trusted other drivers, trusted his car, trusted his tires, trusted the compaction of the shoulder of the road…
Hi Marildi, I’m back from camping. We spent three days camped out in a pine forest at 7700 ft elev and in 40F cooler weather than we have been suffering since months. It was like an alien world to what we are used to.
I do not precisely know what intention without reservation is exactly or maybe what an example of that would be like or how to apply that; However, there is also another possibility that one’s attention has an approximate limit and sometimes the world can present an awful lot of confusion. Sometimes I think competence is knowing and paying attention to the bare minimum of what MUST be paid attention and excluding every other non-essential thing from one’s focus. I do this by paying attention only to the essentials and trusting that the non-essentials will fall as usual.
Competence is achieved by repetitious training, such as years and thousands of hours practicing behind the wheel of a taxi. We see this in athletes and competitions such as gravity games, etc.,.
Hey Chris 🙂
I made a similar comment to yours about competence (my word was proficiency), i.e. that it requires a person to be “very practiced”. And your point about “focus” is another good one. Along with those is the factor of intention – just as important as the other two. The phrase “intention without reservation” you may remember from TR 8. It means total control. It’s a “positive postulate”. Here’s a quote from the Tech Dict:
“POSITIVE POSTULATE, it’s not only that there’s no negative given attention to but it does not assume that any negative is possible”. (ESTO 67203C03 SO II)
It’s also called “tone 40” and here’s one of the definitions:
“TONE 40, a positive postulate with no counter-thought expected, anticipated or anything else; that is, total control”. (PAB 152)
.
Hey, good for you on the camping trip, and good that you’re back now. I’ve been having to cut back on the time I spend on the blog due to being really busy with some family stuff, but it seems that “wild horses couldn’t keep me away” (entirely… ;)).
I saw your earlier comment about your frying other fish with your family but I forgive you! haha
I am not forgetting your questions to me to try and describe my vacillation between high praise and high criticism of Scientology basics. I think the “Tone 40” and “positive postulate” definitions might be tipping points where I disagree with you and LRH. I might think these definitions describe imaginary and non-existent or impossible and also non-essential mental states.
In this example of the Greek cab driver, I tend to think the man was focusing on the essentials of his driving stunts, while ignoring a multitude of other distractions. Geir’s cool-headed decision to trust and not provide any further distraction to the driver might have also provided a tipping point that allowed Geir’s ride to result in him arriving at his destination rather than becoming a crash statistic. I do not think “total control” and “positive postulating” were the reasons Geir completed his ride.
First – I wasn’t referring to Geir but to the taxi driver’s trusting of others (Geir was too, I believe).
Second – You’ll have to say more about why you think tone 40 (positive postulating) is imaginary, non-existent, impossible and non-essential. Do you not think that postulates of any kind are valid? For me, a positive postulate (tone 40) is a way of specifically describing a very “strong” postulate. Another definition of Tone 40 is “unlimited space at will”, like at Tone 40 on the tone scale.
I’m out of time tonight (got to tend to the fish frying ;)) but will look for your reply tomorrow and answer as soon as I get a chance.
Marildi, I am working on my answer to your question daily. To reply around the edges and give you insight into my point of view about this I can say that I think of decision making an oscillation between both “made” and “not made.” It is a kind of a tuning of my mental state to find harmony with my environment. It seems to me that at a moment when that harmony occurs then I can successfully manipulate a little part of my physical world.
I think this might be why practice works to improve competence — ease of finding that harmonic.
As an example, for those who agree with Yoda that there is “only do or not do, there is no try,” — I do not agree with this. I see trying all around me and possibly this can be explained as a sort of build-up of energy toward a shift in energy state, which precise moment of shift can then be described as the “do” or “not do.” I believe there can be a build up of energy toward a tipping point without reaching that tipping point. This is “try.”
I got the other idea, that Geir decided to trust the taxi driver.
On one occasion, I made a taxi driver stop his car and let me out long before reaching my intended destination. I made it home but do not know what happened to the taxi driver. haha. So at that moment, I trusted my own instincts to not trust the taxi driver… That for sure was a fork in the road of my journey but what really was the iteration compared to the iteration which never occurred? I think I have to say in this iteration I found myself standing alone on a curb as the cab sped off with the cabby gesturing aggressively with his finger pointed toward me. in a multi-universe of infinite possibilities, every other possibility happened? Or not? Did I save the cab driver’s life that day? Was I both killed and not killed? Injured and maimed and crippled and both lived out that iteration on iron lung and also learned to walk again? Found true love in the compassion of my wife and care-giver and also learned the bitter lesson of being abandoned due to my overwhelming neediness?
I have done some electrical work high in the air. Using at various times tall aerial equipment and also just working on towers hundreds of feet above the ground. The experience can be unnerving but how I handle it is to TRUST the equipment that I am using and ignore the multitude of other possible results and this attitude and focus steadies my hands and allows me to complete “scary” tasks. Maybe my thought processes utilize a fractal to reduce my focus and experience to a microcosm and thus locate and crystallize the essentials and look at only those.
Regardless, this is an interesting subject harkening back to older discussions of intention and one worth sorting out. I tend to think of the universe of Scientology as a frame of reference wherein its axioms do rule and are self-fulfilling. It is a game unto itself. Again I fail to use aptly descriptive language but I am trying,
I used to live in a country with this kind of driving culture. Some people used to go to the USA for some months. When they came back, they complained about the driving culture in USA. They complained about how boring was driving there, and said that driving there is bad for the reflexes.
However, the country I used to live had one of the highest accident rates in the world.
As I expected:
Greece Has Highest Car Accident Rate in Europe
http://greece.greekreporter.com/2012/04/07/greece-has-highest-car-accident-rate-in-europe
Right. No doubt most drivers aren’t as well “practiced” and focus as Geir’s cabby and don’t have his high intention either.
When I was in high school, one of my classmates use to come to school on a motorcycle. One day he didn’t come, next day a teacher told us he suffered a motorcycle accident on the freeway, 2 days later we attended his funeral. This is what happens in this kind of driving culture.
When I read this blog post, I felt I’ll do an omission overt if I did not post a warning comment.
About half hour after I posted this comment, I checked again this blog, and found out that Geir have posted a new blog-post (titled “I get the ball, I pass the ball”). It was strange because he usually does a new posting every 3 to 7 days, and this time it was his second blog-post in the same day. I guess Geir picked up my concern, and started a new discussion.
This is not to say that this blog-post may lead to an interesting discussion.
Regarding marildi’s fish frying, here are some possibilities: 🙂
http://www.quickurl.info/Fish_Fry_1
http://www.quickurl.info/Fish_Fry_2
Ferenc, I love those fish images! So theta, and I can even read into them philosophical meanings that apply to this context. 😉
marildi,
It looks like you are busy with fish frying to write about the philosophical meanings of the fish images applied to this context. So, I wrote it down for you 🙂
An Illustrated Philosophical Essay On Trust And Fish Frying.
Faith is blind trust : Fish with faith in good luck ends up caught at a higher rate. Risky drivers with faith in good luck end up accidented at a higher rate.
http://www.quickurl.info/Fish_Fry_1
Trust based on expertise: Fish with high expertise (and “some” evolution) may catch the hunter. Driver with high expertise avoids risky driving, risky drivers and risky driving culture. (Obviously, if we plot risk driving vs driver expertise vs accident rate, we’ll find that at any risk level, the higher the expertise, the lesser the accident rate.)
http://www.quickurl.info/Fish_Fry_2
http://www.quickurl.info/Fish_Fry_3
Sometimes, trust has unexpected consequences.
http://www.quickurl.info/Fish_Fry_4
Trust based on OT abilities: Fish with OT abilities avoids unseen dangers.
http://www.quickurl.info/Fish_Fry_5
High tone (less than 40) trust: High tone (less than 40) postulate. Non strong counter-postulates.
http://www.quickurl.info/Pre_Fish_Fry_1
Tone 40 trust: Tone 40 postulate. No counter-postulate(s).
http://www.quickurl.info/Pre_Fish_Fry_2
LOL! Very cute and very philosophical. I wonder if any other philosopher has been wise enough to use cartoon pictures to get across heavy ideas. Kind of reminds me of the lyrics of classic country music – they say so much in such an everyday, down-home way.
Thanks for the amusing creativity, Ferenc! 🙂
I’m glad you enjoyed it.
I hope others enjoyed it, too.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/Theta-LOL
I have a new icon because I changed my e-mail address.
Ooops, I messed up the link. This is the correct link: http://tinyurl.com/Theta-LOL
OMG, that is just wild! 😀
Theta works in mysterious ways. 😉
Wait…did YOU create that URL?
marildi,
You can make your own custom URLs here: http://tinyurl.com/
http://tinyurl.com/Enjoy-and-Smile
Thanks. Yes – on a comm lag I figured you had something to do with that URL. At first I thought it was by wild chance that the Greek letter theta was used.
Btw, does the pronunciation of Ferenc rhyme with Terence? I may have heard the name when I was at Flag. Quite a few Hungarians were on staff there. Very able people, from what I observed – must have been a pretty good culture they grew up with.
I also want an experience like that. Guess i have to put myself in situations i fear more often
hehe – that we can handle 🙂
Trust for me is the knowledge and acceptance that I participate in a universe mostly outside my control. It is also a decision to lower my anxious and compulsive attempts to control what I factually cannot control. It is also a decision that somehow and someway things outside my control are going to turn out in a predictable manner, and if I am an optimist then I believe things will turn out alright.
Trust seems to me to be very subjective but always involves the relinquishing of control. So in this context, what does it mean for me to “trust myself?” Maybe I painted myself in a corner.
Hi Chris. I came across this quote of Thoreau and thought of you and some of your philosophizing. It’s from “Walden”:
.
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.”
Thank you Marildi for that excellent and apt quote from Mr. Thoreau. Thank you for digging it out and sharing it.
It is my extant opinion that men and women have not only struggled with the problems and purposes of life but have solved them satisfactorily for themselves throughout the tenure of man and having done so accomplished all that we can legitimately can hope for in this corporeal existence.
Chris, very interesting comments, all the recent ones. As usual.
I’m glad you’re working on the answer to my standing question, but it’s time to go from “replying around the edges” to a more direct answer. Or should I just say it’s time for “an answer” ;).
You know, I’m beginning to get the idea that the basic reason for your disagreements with Scn is that you have begun to doubt not just the existence of postulates and intention but of anything at all other than the physical universe and its laws. If I have that wrong, please adjust it accordingly. If I have it right, I’m curious what you got “into” (or however that should be phrased) that caused your viewpoint to shift.
Marildi, sometimes I find extant spiritual knowledge to be cliche’ and irrelevant but also I find it to be more.
When I was 18 years old I took a look around me and seeing the the world for what it was to the best of my ability at that time, I decided that the world was both just what it appeared to be and also more. I thought then that I had been fed much false data but also some useful bits of data. The useful data seemed to come in bits from a variety of sources and I developed the philosophy that I could reason and I began trusting myself that given enough communication with enough people that I could glean “truth” for myself. 40 years later, I find that observation to still be workable and useful for me.
Early this life I participated in a few variations of Christianity and then at 23 years old I began participating in Scientology. I’ve experienced the best of what Scientology had to offer and found much satisfaction in that experience. Spartan Sea Org life agreed with me personally, but once again, looking around I decided that my own governing values demanded that I do something about the sorry condition of my marriage and of my soon to be adolescent daughter. Through subsequent turbulent years I was excommunicated from the Church that I honored and denied by that Church the right to both help my marriage and my daughter while remaining a Scientologist in good standing. So I departed though remaining a Scientologist and following the rules of secrecy and self-censorship to the letter. Ten more years passed and kept my head down and worked. I worked on all the parts of my life that had been neglected and prospered except for in the jargon of the Scientologist, on the 7th dynamic.
So having thus prospered on the 1st through 6th dynamics, I emerged to take a new look with a new focus on the 7th dynamic. Years have passed. I studied and I lived. I made mistakes. I received intensives of auditing both to repair my past auditing and to move me forward in understanding of some fixed conditions. Move forward, I did.
To my own satisfaction, I have moved back to trusting myself to gleaning truth for myself. If my writing is cliche’ then blame that on the redundancy of man’s search for truth “all over again.”
Marildi: “You know, I’m beginning to get the idea that the basic reason for your disagreements with Scn is that you have begun to doubt not just the existence of postulates and intention but of anything at all other than the physical universe and its laws.”
Chris: What in my writing would make you beg the question whether I “… doubt the existence of postulates and intention” when I have built an entirely comfortable and satisfactory life, using both postulates and intention? Do you want to know if I think my postulates and intention have conquered the “counter-intention” of the physical universe? If so, then no, I have never violated a single physical universe law but have only been working in cooperation with the physical universe.
Yes, we have not exhausted understanding MEST. Yes, it is important to do so. If I still am not answering your question, then maybe you could work on rephrasing your question? I am trying to be clear in my responses.
Well okay, one good example for my saying what you quoted is this comment of yours from upstream:
“I think the ‘Tone 40’ and ‘positive postulate’ definitions might be tipping points where I disagree with you and LRH. I might think these definitions describe IMAGINARY and NON-EXISTENT or IMPOSSIBLE and also NON-EXSENTIAL MENTAL STATES [my caps]”.
The above is pretty unequivocal – cut and dry. Isn’t it? And to my way of thinking, postulates and intention are the essence of the 7th dynamic (or call it “spirituality” if you don’t want to use the Scn term).
You may need to rethink that if it is not working for you. On the other hand, if you are having success with that, then continue.
I can write using the dynamics but they can become clumsy, cumbersome, and I think we have to use them with lightness for there are not hard lines.
You and LRH may be in agreement on that. He said that the dynamics are arbitrary divisions.
Here again, I’ll say that constructs and terminology are just ways of dividing things up so that we can view them and/or communicate about them with others.
My view is that free will and postulates/intention are of the same order of things. Two sides of the same coin. Free will is another thing that I’ve gotten the idea, from your comments, that you doubt, or maybe have decided doesn’t exist.
I am trying to write to you in a sensible way but it becomes ineffable. In my own opinion, Scientology does what it can with these materials to make it palatable, to get the points across. There is finally just you alone with your own thoughts and your own opinions, filters, experience, reality. Your own Field of Dreams is where the answers you long to hear reside.
Each of us states this to one another but then we go on to explain and explain what our realities are and it is fun but maybe the ultimate truth resides in trusting ourselves to glean the truth for ourselves. The truth resides within each of us but beyond the cliche’, that’s the best I can do. It would be fun if you could climb inside my brain and then I in turn climb inside yours but somehow we can’t do this so we finally are left with asking ourselves the auditing questions.
You are powerful beyond measure, but it is not in the ways we think. There. See how unsatisfying that sounds? This is why you simply have to introspect.
Free will is ineffable for me. Vinaire would have said unknowable. Geir may think it resides outside the complete physical universe set or not. I might think that the words free will are too anthropomorphic to be accurate or taken seriously.
Reality has never been quite exactly what I thought it was going to be once I got there. I see no reason for this pattern to change.
Marildi, you have much knowledge, much more than the typical person who begins solo auditing. I have a lot of confidence in you. I think you are a very able person and a well trained auditor. I would totally trust you to audit me . . .
If you’re trying to butter me up and soften me up…you’ve succeeded. 😉
Do you agree? Are you trust worthy? Would you help and not harm me? Do you believe that auditing works?
Nice piece, Chris. 🙂
And you even touched on the topic you’ve been dancing around. The 7th dynamic ;).
So you moved forward… And…? Or do you actually not want to go there for some reason?
Marildi, I’ve left Scientology behind in the sense of “I am a Scientologist.” I respect what I learned in Scientology and shall continue to use what is useful for me but not in the context of it is “Scientology” or in the context of “LRH says.”
To answer your 7th dynamic question to me, let me ask you back if you agree with LRH when he says of ARC that “before one can successfully disagree with the physical universe that one must come into complete agreement with it.” And if you do, then what have you done today to enhance yourself on the 6th dynamic? I assure you this is not reparte’ but an entirely serious question. I trust you to consider carefully before responding.
Chris, is that an exact quote? I don’t remember a reference, but my concept was that the way out of the physical universe was through it – that is, by fully understanding the axioms underlying it. A very different slant from going into “complete agreement”. That would omit the 7th and 8th dynamics, and would not be per Scientology principles at all. See what I mean?
Nope.
It is a big existence. Ignore any part of it to your peril.
You lost me there. Who said anything about ignoring any part of existence?
You and others make light of the physical universe without reason, methinks.
Marildi: “The 7th dynamic. So you moved forward… And…? Or do you actually not want to go there for some reason?”
Chris: I do not mind discussing any of these things with you; however, spiritual subjects becomes ineffable. This is by definition of the word effable. Regarding my moving forward, I’ve applied standard Scientology and other study tech to cut back the gradient from the 7th dynamic to studying the 6th dynamic. I think the reason may be apparent and if not then it involves ARC…
Nothing wrong with cutting back the gradient. However, it does seem that you’ve made certain decisions and conclusions about things beyond the 6th dynamic, and now I’m asking you directly what those are – specifically in the context of your disagreements with Scientology. But I’m interested in disagreements in general, don’t forget.
So you’re up to speed on the 6th dynamic?
Chris, this is in reply to the last several comments of yours:
“So you’re up to speed on the 6th dynamic?”.
“You and others make light of the physical universe without reason, methinks”.
“Do you agree? Are you trust worthy? Would you help and not harm me? Do you believe that auditing works?”
“…There is finally just you alone with your own thoughts and your own opinions, filters, experience, reality…”
All I want is for you to tell me, directly, what in Scientology you disagree with. That’s my interest area, at least for starters. It may be that the above comments are related but I don’t want to play a guessing game as to what they each infer about which part of Scn they might contradict.
Here and there, you’ve answered my question and stated something specific, then I indicate what misunderstanding you might have, but somehow that point gets dropped and you go on to other things – which are, as you said, our own “opinions, filters, experience, reality”. Great topics of discussion, but for now let’s just stick to what is stated in the Scn materials that you don’t agree with,
I read Chris as essentially saying “Words do not suffice”. Kinda like saying “The map is not the territory”.
This actually blossoms out in various ways and into numerous extensions and examples. It is also the reason Buddha and many others simply refused to speak about some things, or simply remained silent on some matters.
It could also lead to intellectual apathy in that one gives up conveying a concept due to own inability to formulate the words needed or the symbols needed to convey it.
… and from that point even resorting to selling the apathy as the solution – e.g. “this cannot be known”.
Yes Valkov, thanks for that. The map is not the territory.Very good.
If I say that I disagree with the Scientology claims that you can become cause over MEST then our conversation typically degrades into an argument over semantics and I am trying to avoid that. My encouragement is to practice your religion and audit to seek the answers. I believe for what you ask about that this will give a more poignant and meaningful result.
Geir, You are right saying that apathy can become the message but that is not my message. My message is that regardless of any descriptions of words that ultimately a persons experience and reality areuniquely their own. I believe this statement is not in dispute. Then it follows that certain realities and personal answers to personal questions can only be achieved by oneself from oneself.
First let me say, there isn’t any consideration by anybody that the map is the territory – just the usual intention with regard to maps, which is to HAVE one. One that can be a reliable guide through the actual territory.
The real dispute between us is that I am saying Scn is a particular map that can direct us through the territory, while you have said (both directly and indirectly), that it cannot – and that’s what I’ve asked you to elaborate on, i.e. where exactly does it lead us down a garden path? And I’ve asked that you be specific about that in relation to the materials themselves, rather than express generalities or generalizations of how and why Scn philosophy leads in a wrong direction or nowhere.
With your latest response, that it’s a problem of semantics and none of us can ever know another’s reality, you are basically saying that there is no such thing as a map (any map), or that everybody’s map is different and can never be “viewed” by anybody else. But that is getting into a discussion about some ultimate level of personal knowing – and that’s not the level we have been on and have been in communication about. (Save that for a future discussion and Valkov may join us.)
Let me put it this way: As you know, not just with Scn but in general, we all make agreements with each other as to the meanings of specific symbols (language) and then we as individuals arrange and use those agreed-upon symbols to communicate our viewpoints (again, to the degree that it is possible). As regards Scientology’s symbols, you and I and others here have all learned them, and we were going to exchange ideas about Scn itself by using its own symbols and its materials. But now you seem to be begging off communicating with and about the symbols and materials. That just doesn’t seem logical or fair of you after all this time of us already talking in those terms and trying to have this conversation.
Like Geir, I get sometimes that you are expressing an apathy, not just with regard to anyone’s ability to know another’s viewpoint but also when you talk in terms of the physical universe having utter power over us, and our utter insignificance alongside it. Regardless of that, though, your sense of humor alone tells me apathy ain’t what you’re about. 😉
Nevertheless, that was the other thing I asked you about – when did this extreme shift in worldview occur (which of course would drastically color your view of Scn)? I’ve speculated that maybe those impressive books on quantum physics that you’ve been reading have you snowed by the determinist viewpoint. That point, however, is a secondary one to the subject we’re on, unless you yourself feel it is directly related.
The central point of our still incomplete exchange is this: You’ve come out many times and clearly denounced Scn – which tells me you DO have specifics in mind that have lead you to that overall conclusion as you are not merely agnostic about it. That’s why all these other reasons aren’t enough to convince me that it’s not possible for you to express the specifics that your viewpoint is based on.
I hope I’ve made myself more clear with this comment and that you will see what I mean and what I’m sincerely interested in hearing from you. For my part, I promise I’ll do my best at keeping an open mind too. (If you reply when I’m out on a fish fry today, I’ll get back to you later.)
Marildi, I think that you do hold out Scientology as a form and a structure and as a map that needs to be believed in and supported and nurtured and preserved. But to a person, we are all just wayfarers on a journey of life. A little less reverence for the cult-rules of Scientology and a little more daring-spirit is what is needed. There is no one left to punish you for daring to pick up the cans and look for yourself. Scientology could be a perfectly good place to begin if it weren’t for its cult structure. The cult which promotes telling you the way that it is. This is an OP about trust and I trust you and I think you should trust yourself. Begin by using Scientology! It’s an adventure into terra incognita and may you never be the same! Remember?
No, I’m not saying Scn is a map that “needs to be believed in” and in fact no “belief” of any kind is in accordance with any principle in the basic philosophy. Quite the reverse, in fact. That’s part of the cult that evolved, so once again you’re talking about something other than core Scn. Is it time for me to give up trying to get you to do that? 😦
The fact that I support Scn and feel it should be preserved is simply because I think it is too valuable not to do so. And when someone like yourself is effectively discouraging its use with statements that aren’t backed up with anything in the materials, as well as patently false data as to what Scn IS, that’s where my efforts at support come into play. There’s also an effort on my part to help individuals clear up their false or missing data.
You indicate that I should be using Scn when in fact I use it all the time. Scn is much more than auditing and LRH has stated that the philosophy itself is capable of freeing an individual (or words to that effect). You may not have known that.
You’ve tried many times to get me to solo audit as the way to “use Scn”, but I think you must know as well as I do that other than OT levels per se, “solo’ing” ISN’T Scn. It’s a splinter tech. I have nothing on anyone doing it or doing any other offshoot of standard tech, such as what David St Lawrence does. He is one whose refinements of tech I would feel confident about as he is a well-trained and experienced auditor and knows the potential pitfalls and knows how to handle anything that might come up (out-int, out-list, what have you). But in the interest of you and I not now doing a Q&A off onto that subject let’s just leave it as “off subject” for now, which it is.
No, I do not have an apathy about people’s ability. This is a journey that has to be traveled and experienced rather than spectated.
The journey of Scn IS traveled and experienced uniquely. There are only guidelines, occasional guideposts that are based on this premise: Although we are all basically unique, we have all agreed upon the rules and axioms of this universe and thus have fallen into the same traps – each of which are undone at the respective levels of the Bridge. That’s the reason for the set route of the Bridge – it’s really just a map used as a guide through the territory. Now mind you, if individual researchers do find refinements or even huge changes that are proven more workable I am all for it. But I personally wouldn’t necessarily assume that the success of an offshoot on a single individual or limited number of them would be workable for everybody.
No, I must disagree. Speaking lightly about the “guidelines of Scientology” in one post and then “splintering” in another is cherry picking. You barely avoided using the word squirrel but it was left hanging in the air for every experienced Scientologist, wasn’t it? Scientology is an adamantly rigid practice and to say otherwise is either to show off one’s own misunderstandings of how to “keep Scientology working” or else to drift into wishful thinking.
See how these conversations about “standard tech” drift off into arguments of semantics? This is because of the practice of Scientology itself and not really because we are trying to be disagreeable. Your tendency is to use it in a helpful manner according to your own judgement and I on the other hand am willing to allow it to be what it says it is, but I use the tools of Scientology as I understand them and in a manner of my own choosing. So we neither one practice standard Scientology, though I believe you like to think that you do. We are alike in our cherry picking. We each use it in the same manner according to our own conscience, but talk about it differently.
Chris, it’s true that the tech is not to be altered as that would be doing something other than what has been proven by research to be workable. And I would say that this is a principle that any technology – just by virtue of it being such – would need to adhere to in order to achieve success WITH that technology. Do you know of any other organization that permits alteration by its own technicians of a technology they are claiming to use?
But aside from that, what you fail to understand about the tech is that it has built into it a flexibility, most easily seen in the TRs and their application so as to fit the individual pc in front of the auditor (“Audit the pc in front of you” is a basic). Flexibility is also seen in such things as correction lists (which handle pc’s that don’t respond “by the book”). Did you know, for example, that a C/S 53 is designed to handle anything that can go wrong with a case? That LRH datum is based on the Axioms and other philosophical principles based on universal agreements. Another example of flexibility is the use of an e-meter, which in itself provides a “tailor made” application of tech to the individual pc. In other words, there is much flexibility within the “rigid” basics – again, those being based on agreements.
So I don’t agree that these conversations “drift off into arguments of semantics”. Rather, they drift into one or both of two things: unwillingness and/or inability to (1) differentiate the “cult practice” from the actual philosophy and tech and/or (2) be familiar enough with specifics to state them rather than generalities. Maybe I should see the writing on the wall. 😉
That`s great Maridi you’ve learned to use you’re fallacies well and I do agree with your summation.
Wow, Chris. That is one cool reply.
Peace, brother of mine. 🙂 🙂 🙂
I’ve already challenged the OT concepts as taught by Scientology. I’ve said there aren’t any magician-OTs in the classic sense. Not here and not in this place. So I disagree with the premise of cause over MEST. I don’t believe in this, but I believe in something which for me is higher and more wondrous still. I am not an “-ist” and I don’t believe in “-isms.” At least I seem to be believing in these structures less and less. Can I be more clear?
Regarding my shift(s) and continuing shifts in world view, Many times I’ve written that I always had good sessions but the EPs were routinely satisfyingly surprising to me and this pattern has continued. My path always leads me to a surprising place. My path is my own and your path is your own. It’s formed as we adventure forth. It forms under our feet as we walk. I think we can tell campfire stories and ghost stories about our experiences all we want but all the stories should do is provide an ignition for the curiosity and adventure-spirit in one another, not provide the exact recounting of the adventure so that the adventure doesn’t have to be lived. I don’t believe in equality between people. I don’t think we are equal nor the same. Recursively similar but not the same. No iteration ever to be repeated but once per universe (maybe!)
The Grand Canyon is a big ditch in the ground with water running through it. There, now you’ve got the idea of the Grand Canyon. How else may I be of service? (See?)
Possibly it is you who doesn’t believe in Scientology?
Where you say you disagree with the premise of “cause over MEST”, do you mean in an absolute sense, as in being a “cleared theta clear”? Or do you mean there is no cause over MEST in any degree at all, that we are complete effect of MEST?
Do I think of cause over MEST in an absolute sense? Is there another kind?
This kind of wishy washy namby pamby pantywaist dilettantism is the reason for Scientology’s troubles today! But seriously, ants push dirt around and so do our bulldozers. This is not the kind of cause over MEST that any Scientologist refers to when they say cause over MEST. Every Scientologist from their intro lecture onward knows that the promise is for eternal life and omnipotent power. Lesser causes over MEST are winked at as just the beginning. This is a given and not in dispute.
Okay, but in addition to that ultimate cause, is there ANY degree of cause over MEST, i.e. can we choose, do we have choices. is there any amount of leeway on what eventually takes place in the physical universe that isn’t determined by MEST itself ? Or are we like the ants and can only push MEST around via MEST, always adjusting to MEST and acting in cooperation with MEST and it’s inescapable laws?
In other words, is there such a thing as postulates/intention/free will (again, all sides of the same coin)?
Well, we did split the atom. A new trick for man, but once again according to the laws of physics. I am wide open on this one and willing for anyone to present a situation where man is demonstrably at cause over matter.
There is of course the spooky effects of quantum mechanics but having spent some considerable time studying that now I find that I have come full circle to not understanding the significance of the experiment. Or should I write that I understand it a couple different ways? Regardless, what I know about it is inconsistent.
My answer to your question about whether there are postulates/intention/free will is of course there is! Don’t be a goof! What I don’t know is the full story. And the extant stories that I have been told seem inconsistent, therefore I feel that a more consistent answer may be (probably will be) showing us a universe quite different from the lore – but recursive and similar at the same time. Does that sound like double talk to you? Yes?
Well that is the world that I see. It makes my stomach lurch but I’d rather live with a queasy stomach and know that I am trying and failing to understand than find contentment down one of these superstitious dead ends.
Yes, I was pretty sure you did credit postulates, etc. I just wasn’t totally sure YOU knew that (LOL), because you seem at times to be saying you don’t. And just so you know, I’m all for splitting atoms and everything else that has to do with conquering the physical universe via the physical universe. I give MEST all due credit. Really.
So now that all that’s established, I wanted to say that the way I see Scn is as a means to increase one’s own powers of intention and creativity (creativity being yet another side to that multi-dimension coin). The more the barriers to increasing those powers are removed, as in auditing and training, the greater such powers (or simply call it “ability”) become.
As for total, ultimate cause over life and MEST, I don’t consider that the Bridge where LRH left off produces that result, and I don’t think LRH claimed that – no such EP is stated anywhere. But, as I said in a fairly recent comment you may or may not have seen (you were into some reprehensible fish frying for awhile there :D), I do believe that Scn is one path that is capable of bringing an individual up to the point of being able to continue in that direction. We could say that the elimination of enough of the barriers to “self-determinism” (in the broadest sense of the word, meaning something like “powers of causation”) is enough to create the potential for reaching a state LRH called “cleared theta clear”.
Regardless of the minutia, I want to make it clear that your friendship and comradery means more to me than a million of these bits that we argue about… It means a lot to me that you are here and so willing ready and able to connect. You’ve helped me immensely and along with that the trust has festered..!
And no matter how hard you try, you’re never gonna get rid of me either :D. Love you too!
But… the trust has… “festered”?? LOL!
I had to dig for that one. Like it? hehe
Maybe this video has something to offer on this subject:
SCRATCH THAT LAST POST AND THAT VIDEO!!! LOL! Its from the playlist I found the video in — this is the video I should have posted:
I liked that video Maria. It very closely resembles the type of solo-auditing that I do. How did you mean for that to dovetail into the discussion of trust?
Maria, this video is a great contribution to the exchange. It couldn’t have been more appropriate!
Amazing how David Hawkins and Tom Campbell and LRH, among others, are saying the same thing, just with different terms and different metaphors, i.e. the territory is the territory, no matter which valid route, on whichever valid map, is taken. “All roads lead to…”
Hawkins says “the engine behind actuality is Intention”, LRH said “Intention is Cause, and Campbell says it’s all a matter of “Intent”. Hawkins calls his method “self-hypnosis”, Campbell refers to tuning into and connecting with the various realities (including one’s own past) by the simple means of Intent to do so, and LRH has the Scn system of auditing – each of these being meant to achieve a freedom from the barriers to advancement in spirituality.
Chris said: “I liked that video Maria. It very closely resembles the type of solo-auditing that I do. How did you mean for that to dovetail into the discussion of trust?”
This is a collection of my ruminations on this matter. Its not cast in stone, but it has helped me to see a little more clearly on all this — at least it seems clearer! LOL!
The first point was that auditing and transformational processes of whatever kind rely on trust — the trust one has in one’s own ability to recognize or cognize truth. Also, one can see its effects as shift occurs in the amassed probabilities emerging into actuality. It seems to me that this is the same engine that made it possible for that taxi cab driver to shoot through traffic unscathed. Trust and intention go hand in hand and I have to wonder if they are not actually the same engine.
As well, you and Marildi have been discussing the possibilities of a state of being “cause over MEST.”
Here’s an excerpt from the video so its easier to review it:
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Everything happens spontaneously of its own as a consequence of potentiality emerging as actuality and so you don’t see change, what you see is emergence.
Therefore you see the world as evolutionary. Creation and evolution are one and the same thing. The face of creation is evolution. Creation isn’t just a one shot, one second and its all done already or you wouldn’t notice everything in the world is transitory.
So phenomena come and go, as potentiality becomes actuality. Now potentiality becomes actuality depending on local conditions — when conditions are favorable so the moth emerges from the cocoon under favorable conditions .
One thing that we can influence about potentiality manifesting as actuality is intention. So the mere intention to progress in one’s level of consciousness to become more and more spiritually evolved — that intention is already very powerful and just holding that as an intention in your mind gives much more power.
And of course we see that from the Heisenberg principle of quantum mechanics that potentiality becomes actuality and the engine behind it is intention.
One thing they haven’t experimented with is the power of intention, in other words, an experiment can’t be done twice because the second time because of observation its now become a new experiment. That’s been witnessed.
What’s never been done is what about the consciousness level of the observer? Could be that some people’s consciousness level is not sufficiently strong to very seriously effect. However other people’s consciousess level is very powerful and they could profoundly affect outcomes.
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– High level intention could profoundly affect outcomes.
– Emergence is dependent on favorable local conditions.
– It will appear evolutionary because that is the face of creation in this world…
– It won’t look like magic, it will look emergent / evolutionary.
– Yet the outcome (MEST) has indeed been profoundly affected.
So consider the story of walking on water:
— There was high level intention. This was the son of God acting in a connected way with all that is and ever will be, with love and joy and transcendent faith (intention.)
— The local conditions were that this was a time of faith, not of reason. The 12 disciples had absolute faith that they were indeed in the hands of God in the form of Jesus Christ.
— To them it appeared as evolutionary, for they believed they were in the right time at the right place for the messiah to appear and God’s will be made manifest.
— The outcome has been profoundly affected. Jesus Christ did not drown. He walked on the water.
— The disciple’s faith / intention wavered as he too tried to walk on the water. He would have drowned on his own, but Jesus reminded him to have faith and so he did not drown.
How about these days?
We now live in an age of reason / mentation / automation. We believe 100% in cause – distance – effect resulting from natural law, rules that rule and are more powerful than intention. We are taught to believe that we are repeating experiments and that proves that something is real and true. And yet, that repeated experiment is never the same time to time. It cannot possibly be the same. But we say it is the same. In reality what has happened is that the local conditions have been repeatedly set up and stabilized into a condition favorable to a particular outcome given a particular set of intentions (beliefs / faith.)
That the outcome can well be affected by the consciousness levels of the participants is something that is largely ignored or the experiment is designed to lessen the impact of intention / observer. The experiment is considered a failure if the observer phenomena is allowed to interfere!
@Chris: you mentioned that you step forward into your path. That’s what inspired to write all this. Surely you are affecting your path. It is unknown how much you are actually affecting it because we don’t have two paths running side by side that we can compare. Tricky isn’t it?
Sorry this is so long, but I couldn’t figure out how to frame what I wanted to say in less words!
So well said, Maria. You expressed the subtle yet certain – in fact, all-encompassing – influence that intention exerts in the physical universe, in creating and directing its very evolution. I agree as well with what you said here:
“Trust and intention go hand in hand and I have to wonder if they are not actually the same engine.”
My “coin” now has so many sides to it, all different aspects of the same thing.
Great post!
That was quite a mouthful! Yes, I get where you were going with dovetailing the comments into trust.
I liked the commentary on emergence — this is how I see creation as well and harmonizes with the fractal construct that I see both around me and within and “as” myself.
Maria: “One thing that we can influence about potentiality manifesting as actuality is intention. So the mere intention to progress in one’s level of consciousness to become more and more spiritually evolved — that intention is already very powerful and just holding that as an intention in your mind gives much more power. And of course we see that from the Heisenberg principle of quantum mechanics that potentiality becomes actuality and the engine behind it is intention.”
Chris: I do think there can be an intention to progress and it manifests itself as looking. I think that our emergent and fractal personal experience is a result of this looking. This looking and this experience are together.
I’m weak on the idea that intention is the engine driving Heisenberg’s Uncertainty. And I’m weak on understanding whether there is or ain’t a hard line dividing objective and subjective reality. I seem to be strong and influential within my own mind. When I use intention from my own mind and coupled with cooperation with physical law, I seem to be able to manifest objectively; however nothing magic. I have a new garage. It looks just as I imagined it would. It had its origin from my own intention to have the structure and space; however, I’ve done very usual things to bring it into being — to make it manifest. I guess that I am “weak on 7, 8, 9, and 10?”
The ants live and work in concert. Are the ants little robots or are they sentient life-forms simply agreeing to a way of life? This is Marildi’s argument for Sea Org life and in support of LRH’s rules of business. Possibly this is the worker’s paradise? I’m being neither snide nor angling an argument — just proposing what for me is a real possibility.
Maria: “@Chris: you mentioned that you step forward into your path. That’s what inspired to write all this. Surely you are affecting your path. It is unknown how much you are actually affecting it because we don’t have two paths running side by side that we can compare. Tricky isn’t it?”
Chris: I really think our path is our experience of our existence. “Our path” is my code for every aspect our experience. So far, as I write it, I mean in a subjective way. This is why I harp on its uniqueness. Affecting it? Yes, I feel 100% responsible for “it.” But on the other hand, I don’t feel 100% responsible for any randomness that greets me day to day. I don’t feel responsible for the thunderstorm, or the sunset, or even the meteorite that surprises me by landing where I am standing. I cannot make these interactions dovetail with intention but I do agree that my intention to survive or to have a certain attitude toward my experience is all important to that experience.
I dispute this:
“This is not the kind of cause over MEST that any Scientologist refers to when they say cause over MEST. Every Scientologist from their intro lecture onward knows that the promise is for eternal life and omnipotent power. Lesser causes over MEST are winked at as just the beginning. This is a given and not in dispute.”
What kind of squirrelly Intro lectures did you hear?!!
Eternal life is a done deal, there is no other kind of Life, if you believe there is such a thing as Life, as distinct from MEST. Life, here seen as Theta, as cause over MEST, develops Lambda. It is an unceasing process Life is engaged in. It is constantly organizing molecules into living organisms. That’s the micro level. The question is, is Life also creating the molecules and the atoms they are composed of, in the first place? If so, is that not omnipotence?
The only basic difference is between knowing and unknowing being and action.
Valkov: “The only basic difference is between knowing and unknowing being and action.”
Chris: Right. That’s what I’m trying to communicate. This is a big difference, isn’t it? This is precisely what Scientology sells: “knowing being and action all the way up the scale.” This is not in dispute. My question is: Is that true?
@ Chris:
I have been noticing that potentialities and probabilities can be thought of as tendencies that emerge as actualities.
i.e. It tends to be this way or that way…
Tend: Disposed or inclined in action, disposed toward an idea, emotion, way of thinking, lead or conduce to some result or condition, inclined to a particular quality, state, degree, lead or direct in a particular direction.
Tantra: from Sanskrit tantrum, which means loom, warp — groundwork, system, doctrine.
Tenet: principle, a thing held to be true, literally “he holds,” from the PIE root ten – to stretch and Sanskrit root tanoti – stretches, lasts.
Latin tendere: to stretch
Sanskrit tan: to stretch, extend
PIE ten: to stretch, extend
Related roots: from L. tenet “he holds,” “to hold, to keep, to maintain” from PIE root *ten- “to stretch” (cf. Skt. tantram “loom,” tanoti “stretches, lasts;” Pers. tar “string;” Lith. tankus “compact,” i.e. “tightened;” Gk. teinein “to stretch,” tasis “a stretching, tension,” tenos “sinew,” tetanos “stiff, rigid,” tonos “string,” hence “sound, pitch;” L. tendere “to stretch,” tenuis “thin, rare, fine;” O.C.S. tento “cord;” O.E. thynne “thin”). Connection notion between “stretch” and “hold” is “to cause to maintain.”
Attend: ad- “to” + tendere “stretch.” To expect, wait for, give heed to.
Intend: in- “toward” + tendere “to stretch.” To direct one’s attention, turn one’s attention.
Extend: ex- “out” (see ex-) + tendere “to stretch. To value, assess, to stretch out, lengthen.
Portend: por- “forth, forward” + tendere “to stretch.” Foretell, stretch forward.
Pretend: prae “before” (see pre-) + tendere “to stretch.” Lay claim, put forward, allege. (putting forward a false claim comes from false claims to a throne and the sense of make believe does not appear until 1865.)
Contend: com-, intensive prefix (see com-), + tendere “to stretch.” To strive after.
Distend: dis- “apart” (see dis-) + tendere “to stretch.” To spread in all directions; expand; swell.
Perhaps we are tending.
I tend to think so.
Marildi – After posting that clip with Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson I realized it emphasized differently than I wanted. I wanted the reparte’ to be more pronounced where they quibbled back and forth about “grave danger – is there another kind?” but the clip in its entirety makes it emphasized that comment about “you can’t handle the truth” which was not where I was going with my point. I wanted to highlight “absolute cause – is there another kind?” Comic relief, you know?
I got it, Chris. Very cute – typical Chris humor. And I always love the comic relief. 🙂
“My path is my own and your path is your own. It’s formed as we adventure forth. It forms under our feet as we walk.”
The commonality is in the fact that whatever your paths, you both must WALK. What each sees, even walking “the same Bridge” may be different, but you both must LOOK to see anything at all.
The above thoughts are the result of reading your posts to each other, and failing to see how you differ. Just because each “walks his/her own path”, does not mean you are not also
“on the same path”, if you can stand that idea. Let’s say you are each one on the path of increasing awareness. Why not just say “Yep, that’s what we’re doing.” To me, the insistence on “my own path” vs. “another’s path which is different from mine” does not really have a lot of meaning.
Good comments Valkov. The reason that I harp on the uniqueness of our own paths is that I see them as recursive and self-similar. We are as “individuals” like little pink houses in a housing tract. Near to one another – yes. Similar – yes. Recurring – yes. But same? – No.
This only becomes contentious when we shove our realities toward one another demanding agreement such as in religion. When we proselytize, it seems we ask for trouble. When we just try to understand one another and leave a wide margin to allow for different realities then it seems we get along fine. So your comment “Yep, that’s what we’re doing” dovetails nicely with this. But that is not the religious way. The religious way tries to locate, identify, package and disseminate a single or a very narrow reality and say “this is it.” I don’t see that working and I do see it as the root source of strife.
This is why I am not a Scientologist — why I am not a promoter of Scientology. I trust myself and I trust you but I don’t trust religion except to fan the flames. This is why I harp on the uniqueness of our paths. I think this uniqueness likes to remain unique.
@Chris
A review of the etymology of the word responsible is quite instructive, even entertaining. I took these definitions from the online etymology dictionary:
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Responsible: 1590s, “answerable (to another, for something),” from Fr. responsible, from L. responsus, pp. of respondere “to respond” (see respond). Meaning “morally accountable for one’s actions” is attested from 1836. Retains the sense of “obligation” in the Latin root word.
Respond: c.1300, respound, from O.Fr. respondere “respond, correspond,” from L. respondere “respond, answer to, promise in return,” from re- “back” + spondere “to pledge” (see spondee). Modern spelling and pronunciation is from c.1600.
Spondee: late 14c., “metrical foot consisting of two long syllables,” from O.Fr. spondee, from L. spondeus, from Gk. spondeios (pous), the name of the meter originally used in chants accompanying libations, from sponde “solemn libation,” related to spendein “make a drink offering,” from PIE root *spend- “to make an offering, perform a rite,” hence “to engage oneself by a ritual act” (cf. L. spondere “to engage oneself, promise,” Hittite shipantahhi “I pour out a libation, I sacrifice”).
Ritual (adj.) 1560s, from L. ritualis “relating to (religious) rites,” from ritus “rite” (see rite). The noun is first recorded 1640s.
Rite (n.) early 14c., from L. ritus “religious observance or ceremony, custom, usage,” perhaps from PIE root *re(i)- “to count, number” (cf. Gk. arithmos “number,” O.E. rim “number;” see read). Rite of passage (1909) is translated from Fr. rite de passage, coined by French anthropologist Arnold van Gennep (1873-1957).
Read (v.) O.E. rædan (W.Saxon), redan (Anglian) “to explain, read, rule, advise” (related to ræd, red “advice”), from P.Gmc. *raedanan (cf. O.N. raða, O.Fris. reda, Du. raden, O.H.G. ratan, Ger. raten “to advise, counsel, guess”), from PIE root *re(i)- “to reason, count” (cf. Skt. radh- “to succeed, accomplish,” Gk. arithmos “number amount,” O.C.S. raditi “to take thought, attend to,” O.Ir. im-radim “to deliberate, consider”). Connected to riddle via notion of “interpret.”
Riddle (n.) “A word game or joke, comprising a question or statement couched in deliberately puzzling terms, propounded for solving by the hearer/reader using clues embedded within that wording” [Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore], O.E. rædels “opinion, riddle, counsel, conjecture,” from P.Gmc. *rædislijan (cf. O.S. radisli, M.Du. raetsel, Du. raadsel, O.H.G. radisle, Ger. Rätsel “riddle”). Related to O.E. rædan “to advise, counsel, read, guess” (see read).
Interpret (v.) late 14c., from O.Fr. interpreter (13c.) and directly from L. interpretari “explain, expound, understand,” from interpres “agent, translator,” from inter- (see inter-) + second element of uncertain origin, perhaps related to Skt. prath- “to spread abroad,” PIE *per- “to traffic in, sell” (see pair (n.). Related: Interpreted; interpreting.
Moralize (v.) c.1400, “expound or interpret spiritual or moral significance,” from O.Fr. moraliser and directly from L.L. moralizare, from moralis (see moral (adj.)). Related: Moralized; moralizing.
Moral (adj.) mid-14c., “pertaining to character or temperament” (good or bad), from O.Fr. moral (14c.) and directly from L. moralis “proper behavior of a person in society,” lit. “pertaining to manners,” coined by Cicero (“De Fato,” II.i) to translate Gk. ethikos (see ethics) from L. mos (gen. moris) “one’s disposition,” in plural, “mores, customs, manners, morals,” of uncertain origin. Perhaps sharing a PIE root with English mood (1).
Mood (1) “emotional condition, frame of mind,” O.E. mod “heart, frame of mind, spirit; courage, arrogance, pride; power, violence,” from P.Gmc. *motha- (cf. O.S. mod “mind, courage,” O.Fris. mod “intellect, mind, intention,” O.N. moðr “wrath, anger,” M.Du. moet, Du. moed, O.H.G. muot, Ger. Mut “courage,” Goth. moþs “courage, anger”), of unknown origin. A much more vigorous word in Anglo-Saxon than currently, and used widely in compounds (e.g. modcræftig “intelligent,” modful “proud”). To be in the mood “willing (to do something)” is from 1580s. First record of mood swings is from 1942.
Mood (2) “grammatical form indicating the function of a verb,” 1560s, an alteration of mode (1), but the grammatical and musical (1590s) usages of it influenced the meaning of mood (1) in phrases such as light-hearted mood.
Mode (n.1) “manner,” late 14c., “kind of musical scale,” from L. modus “measure, extent, quantity; proper measure, rhythm, song; a way, manner, fashion, style” (in Late Latin also “mood” in grammar and logic), from PIE root *med- “to measure, limit, consider, advise, take appropriate measures” (see medical). Meaning “manner in which a thing is done” first recorded 1660s.
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Signs, symbols, omens, ritual — give me a reading. What does it mean? I saw three black crows flying before me in the full of the moon, pregnant with meaning, Let us dance, entrance and raise our drink, pledging to the Gods, to responsibility. Let us call our priest to sacrifice a lamb on the altar, spilling the entrails into signs and omens, a vision.
Small wonder most people dislike this word responsibility.
hahaha! I only lost one shoe before jumping back when I absent mindedly stepped off into that muck… !
Walking is done by putting one foot in front of the other, no matter who walks and where s/he is going. That’s how I see “scientology”. It explains how to “walk” in a certain direction. I see it as a funny trick to do solo auditing at the same time as saying “I am not a scientologist.” If you think solo auditing is beneficial to you, do you not think it may well be beneficial to others? It’s quite a tightrope you are walking, it seems to me, “I’m not a scientologist, but I gotta go solo now, catch ya later…..”
Hehe. I see what you mean. But let me ask you this: As a defender of the faith why don’t you participate more?
Because I never learned to solo audit. And, this involves “faith” about as much as a person’s ability to walk, or driver a car. We’re talking about mechanics here. At least, I am. I do drive a car, but if anyone dares to label me, therefore, a “driver”, I take umbrage and beg to differ.
No identities for me!
If you mean participate more on this blog, I have no faith to defend here.
The faith of Scientology. You are defending it but from your writing I cannot tell if you participate in it. It seems that you don’t. Or do you?
I defend only the conceptual understanding(duplication) of Hubbard’s particular expression of what others have termed the “Perennial Philosophy”, and a duplication of the applications he codified.
There ought not be any “faith” involved.
Maybe there shouldn’t be, but all religions are faith or trust based — all except for the One True Religion.
Regarding “how can I audit while not being a Scientologist,” is not a slippery slope. Auditing is my type of “praying” tool. You don’t balk at various parishioners praying though they aren’t of one faith, do you?
Regarding my affinity for Scientology, I’ll talk about it, however, ultimately it’s just a personal decision by me toward me. Maybe you’ve unfulfilled participation in Scientology? You are pretty well grooved in and to me, you think very well with the data, so if I felt like you do and if I were you, I would consider involving myself with others of similar predilection.
I am not a Westerner, so I simply cannot view scientology, or Buddhism for that matter, as “religions” in the way I view Western religions with their Bibles and Korans and their preachers and mullahs and ayatollahs and their churches and mosques etc. Those are all derived from or based on the Perennial Philosophy in some way – some very distant way. Just as the Church of Miscavige is. As in a mirror, or through a camera, they are reversed or upside-down images. Their goals are not my goals.
You can get a very good sense of what I’m talking about by reading a little book titled “Gifts of Unknown Things” by Lyall Watson:
http://www.amazon.com/Gifts-Things-Coronet-Books-Watson/dp/0340219742/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1347605666&sr=1-2&keywords=gifts+of+unknown+things+lyall+watson
It is an absolutely marvelous book that I think you would particularly like, as would several other regular posters like Marildi, Maria, Geir and some others. It points to the kind of issues you discuss here, entirely through very lucid narrative, I highly recommend it.
Yes, I failed to pursue scientology auditing and training anywhere near as far as I wanted to; it was partly due to the emerging descent of organized scientology towards the depths it has now sunk to, and partly due to other personal factors. Up to about 1982 I possibly could have grabbed some more of it than I did. I had my chance and missed it. So I am not currently involved and have not been for quite a long time, except as you see me posting in various places.
Now, I have the added problem of having become increasingly biochemical over the past 2 years, due to some medical treatments I’ve had. My space has gotten pretty dirty and my thinking has been impaired, compared to what it was. I read my own posts from 2-3 years ago and think, “Who was that guy? He was pretty smart.”
Well I still read your posts and think “. . . that guy is pretty smart.” I will check out the book you’ve mentioned.
As an aside and as a result of my own auditing, I tend to encourage others that all types and variations of thoughts voiced as ” it’s too late” and “my time has passed” are truly aberrational considerations which should be fought back. In our corporeal form, we come and go like fruit flies. Meanwhile, while we draw breath and while we spark sentient we should probe and think and adventure and celebrate our brief moment in the sun.
*Like*
Thank you. I’ve learned a log on this blog.