The craziest year in my life is nearing the end.
Never been this happy 🙂
Thank you all for inspiring me and letting me inspire you.
We just turned 25000 comments on this blog since its inception 2,5 years ago. But the quality of your comments easily outshines the quantity.
Love you guys & gals.
Have a crazy-good 2013!
Vunderbar, Wonderful, Happy New Year to you all!
To Each of You, my Friends,
I have just realized why I love being with You here! You know I keep using the word “Flow”.
Living the life of the Flow means continuous inspiration to people. Life is thus great as what you give you get back. Still, it is not always easy to make people see the walls they are hiding behind. I guess you have the same experience. In this space here I get a truely live inspiration whenever You write something. Unique “sparkles” like those of the fireworks. There is the felt sense of the “field / potential ” out of which your comments arise “ALIVE “. LIFE ! I am enjoying each and every part of what we are creating here! Thanks to each of You! Thank you Geir for your inspirational posts and comments and for this space that we can share! LOVE to YOU ALL ! It’s a MAGIC to be with YOU!
HAPPY NEW YEAR !
Happy New Year Marianne!
Some 46 hours left here. And then let’s create new dreams and may they all come true!
Hi Profant,
Why wait until “then” ? Create NOW !!! Love your comments!
Happy New Year to YOU!
Yup! I’m with you profant!
Happy New Year!
🙂
Here’s Happy New Year from me and to you from Australia. A great year coming……..
It’s an honor to write and to be written upon on the best blog and by the smartest people in my universe. Happy New Year!
I’d like to thank Geir and all the commenters who have helped me this year on this blog. This was a year of coming out and being honest, finding truth about scientology and how I fit into the universe. I found new friends and enlightened souls and I am blessed. I thank each of you for being here and helping me with my path. 2013 should be very special and a rewarding year and I look forward to it, also to continue participating here even if I say little. I know that you understand and that is Nice! 🙂
You were a welcome addition… more to come.
My postulate is that this year, 2013, will be Scientology’s best year yet!
It is the year that Scientologists will finally apply the Code of a Scientologist and take full responsibility for Scientology’s impact upon the world.
I’ve written up my OW’s, found my position on the tone scale, and re-studied my Hubbard Chart of Attitudes. I’ve completed repair of Past Ethics Conditions, worked myself up through Danger on the 1st 3 dynamics, got a brand new answering machine for my telephone, and opened up a whole new credit card account!
I am so ethical and in-valence as a Scientologist right now that I could just shit!
This is gonna be a GREAT YEAR!!
Alanzo 2.0
Geir, thank you for the granting of beingness that you do. Love you for loving all of us. 🙂
Happy New Year and my love to everyone who reads and posts here!
Thank you, Geir.
Is this, in present time, more like a theta site or is it just another entheta site, basically? .)
Do you, Geir, have the correct ratio between the two, I mean since you have the stats on your site, so far? 🙂 Haha
By the way – Have a magic and constrtuctive new year everyone!
– –
Slack, having a lot of fun in these times
Slack,
Basically…..it’s your sense of it. Wanna try? Read on…..
Stop……..just stop……..there is a felt sense of silence……motionless……..potential…….feel it?
and now a tiny little movement arises…….get the sense of it……..just the sense……….get it?
now name it……..put it into a word…………what’s that word?
It is a theta site. Theta=spirit. When the “sparkles” appear in forms of words, we feel the potential, the movement, the flow – so far it’s called the HEART. The movement forms itself into a word. We read it – that’s where the mind enters. It is also theta. When we understand a word
completely, it’s the same substance – the YOU/ME. What’s your sense of this YOU?
Slack…..it’s all theta, potential is theta, theta is potential…….entheta is basically confused theta like a twister………same substance………YOU ! Get the feel of it?
Happy New Year!!!
Interesting point Slack. Personally I see more theta than not. The fun part is skipping over the not so fun part (rather boring) where the real live theta discussion takes place. Magic New year to you too.
Wonder if space of a comment on a page counts in the stats?
Lol – That’s a goody good one! 🙂
We can start using 2 or even 3 spaces between words if we get to know the ultimate truth about this, maybe. I am really not sure here.
– –
Slack
Slack,
Glad you enjoyed it! Right you are in “start using 2 or even 3 spaces between words..” SO !
you “GET A TASTE OF ” …….”ULTIMATE TRUTH ” ……which is YOU…….. and this Truth/Infinity is creating……in this case a word………..simple……..it can be as simple as that.
The more “taste” you have of that truth/infinity (YOU) in between any creations…..and the more you ALLOW the Truth/Infinity (YOU) to create, the more ALIVE you are……LIFE !
To “know” the ultimate truth with the “mind” is impossible because the mind is the “product” of ultimate truth……..FROM the “space” of truth one can, observe the product (word, emotion etc.) and when it is truely observed. one lands in Truth/Infinity again…..you know this as an ARTIST……I know that you know it……
Geir,
My hat is off to you for creating such an interesting blog – it has been quite a ride so far.
And to All – my warmest wishes for 2013 – may you all have your dreams come true.
Dennis
Thanks Dennis!
We have to thank you, Geir. Without you, there was no blog. Simple as that…
Happy New Year! everybody, see you in 2013!!! All the best for you and your beloved ones!
Cheers!
Here are the lyrics:
Happy, happy new year
Another reason to rejoice is here
52 weeks to make your heart sing
And see what four new seasons will bring
Happy, happy new year
Toss out bad memories by their ear
Gather up new ones in a bouquet
Ring out the old, ring in a new day
Happy, happy new year
Our resolutions now we will hear
If we could all run towards the light
So many wrongs could be put right
Happy, happy new year
Lets not forget about the things that we’re
lucky to have in our lives
Ours sons and daughters, husbands and wives
Happy happy new year
Let there be summer, let there not be fear
The clouds will pass over our heads
And let the sun shine on us instead.
Happy happy new year
Another opportunity is here
To just believe in what we can be
And see our dreams become reality
Happy New Year Maria!
Wow – joyous! Thanks, Maria!
Thank you Maria! HAPPY NEW YEAR !
Happy New Year to you Geir. It’s wonderful to hear what a good 2012 you had. I look forward to 2013 and adding you blog to my reading this year. Gayle
Wild and crazy…and lots of love. A new life and a new beginning. Can’t ask for more. ❤
Obviously, Geir wants to create a mystery about June 23 2014. 🙂
(isene 2012-12-27 at 02:58 https://isene.me/2012/12/27/why-is-it-important-to-some-that-scientology-doesnt-work/#comment-25975)
In this thread, everybody is invited to guess about what will happen. All guesses (both logical and wild) are welcome here.
I start with these guesses:
¤ Geir and Anette will marry.
¤ Druids’ Summer Solstice Ceremony.
¤ This blog will have about 40000 comments plus about 1850 spam and deleted comments.
¤ Geir is going to give a prize to everybody who guessed what will happen.
¤ Nothing special will happen, but Geir is having fun with people trying to figure it out.
Ferenc, what a fun post!
My guess is that Geir is going to publish a book! A book on his philosophy, including how it relates to Scientology but not only that.
Or maybe it will be his autobiography.
Poor Geir…let him alone, don’t suffocate him with predictions 🙂
Hi Dragos. Happy New Year! 🙂
What makes you think predictions will suffocate him?
Here’s a different viewpoint: “The highest purpose in the universe is the creation of an effect” (that’s Scientology Axiom 10). By telling us to mark this date, Geir created an effect!
Also – Geir loves games and this is a game. Right?
The highest purpose is what a person thinks it is. The “creation of an effect” may be the highest purpose in the universe of the late L. Ron Hubbard, but not in my universe.
I don’t know why but that response strikes a pleasant chord within me.
.
Chris and Vinaire, what’s your highest purpose?
Marildi, it’s just my opinion. That it has relevance to me, doesn’t mean anything derogatory to your opinion.
You lost me, Chris. I asked the question because you said “creation of an effect” wasn’t your highest purpose, which plainly infers something else is. I’m just curious what it is.
Chris, I am with you in it! And with you too Vin – you say you don’t know why – you see Chris, you “had an effect” on Vin without any purpose at all! You just created something with a warm,
loving flow – perhaps you have created from outside this universe?
I think that ‘purpose’ is the resultant vector of the considerations that “I” is the center of. The purpose is fixed to the degree those considerations are fixed. So. Hubbard had his purpose and he wrote them down as part of Scientology axioms.
As these considerations as-is, so does the “I” as-is, and with that the purpose as-is. But as long as there are considerations which present the “I”, like the constellation of stars in the sky presents itself as an entity, we have purpose. That purpose plays a part in aligning the consideration with which “I” interacts.
I have come to see the interactions among considerations as the interactions among chemicals. Each consideration seems to have its own property like a chemical does, or for that matter, an element on the periodic chart does. Now this line of thinking is very exciting for me to pursue.
.
Vinaire, you haven’t answered the question either. Or do you mean to say that you have no purposes and thus no “highest purpose”?
Please, no accusations… OK. We can all discuss together without resorting to accusations.
I think that purpose at any moment is clear from one’s behavior. If I look at what is consistent in my behavior it is “looking and simplifying knowledge” and recording it under the label of KHTK.
So, you may say that my ongoing purpose is looking and simplifying knowledge.
.
Vin, it’s not an accusation to say that someone has not answered the question. It’s a statement of fact when that is the case – and it was. But now that you have answered, thank you!
Your purpose of “looking and simplifying knowledge” seems to ultimately come down to a desire for “fundamental knowledge”, which could be expressed as a high-level understanding. Understanding is the result of ARC (=U), and ARC occurs by applying the comm formula of cause-distance-EFFECT. So perhaps your highest purpose actually IS the creation of an effect.
That would be an application of the broad concept of Axiom 10, I do believe
If it makes you happy to interpret that way, that’s fine with me!
I would keep it simple the way I said it. 🙂
.
An axiom is a statement of a fundamental from which further axioms and processes are derived. It may or may not be the highest purpose of all purposes in all universes everywhere but it is assumed to be by LRH for the purpose of developing the subject of Scientology. It does not follow that there is some kind of requirement that an individual has to frame their life in terms of highest or lowest purposes or for that matter any purpose at all outside of that framework.
From my point of view, if you are going to say that the highest purpose is an effect, then the highest purpose must also be a cause because there is no such thing as a cause without an effect and an effect without a cause. Highest, lowest, best, worst, first, last, and so on, these are all concepts that live within contexts. In my perspective, a purpose can only be evaluated in terms of context.
Maria, I agree with you about context (Chris has even dubbed me “flogger of frames of reference” LOL). And I believe the Axioms do give the context.
In Axiom 10, the context is in the word “highest” and the correct definition of the basic word, “high”. Obviously, there are many contexts within that highest one.
As for cause, the context for highest Cause I think was given in the Factors.
In a universe of tautologies this particular “axiom” becomes ridiculously tautological. Rather than the “highest” purpose, we can be just as right to say that the only purpose in the universe is to cause an effect. It does not lead anywhere except to reinforce the delusion that Scientology is universal beyond the metes and bounds of its own little universe.
“Argument by Gibberish [also called Argument by Bafflement] – agglomerating several different superficial aspects of a subject, in hopes that the resulting verbal structure will be comprehensible:
“Each autonomous individual emerges holographical within egoless ontological consciousness as a non-dimensional geometrical point (Shingle Speech)”
http://e-ducation.net/fallaciousarguments.htm#gibberish
” Argument by Gibberish [also called Argument by Bafflement)”
LOL! That site is really interesting, thanks
oops. I didn’t mean to embolden all those words.
Isn’t “the creation of an effect” the common denominator of any and all “purposes”?
Is it? Who or what is the cause? “I” is the biggest misunderstood, in my opinion.
.
It doesn’t say “the highest purpose is an effect”. It says “the highest purpose is the CREATION of an effect.” This to me, implies that the highest purpose must involve the ability to be both cause and effect.
One might say that Purpose is senior to Cause and then Effect. There is probably an Admin scale or sequence of some kind that expresses this. I seem to recall something about Goals – Purposes – Plans etc.
“Considerations(postulates) are senior to mechanics.”
“First came the wings, and then the angel.”
… But before all that came CONSIDERATIONS! 🙂
Who or what considers?
Who or what itself is a consideration. Who is what considers that?
You have an inconsistency here.
.
Vin, the inconsistency seems to be yours. You are the one using the word “consider” and the meaning of that word includes the idea that someone or something does it. And if that itself is a consideration, the question is the same – who or what is coming up with that particular consideration?
Marildi, why do you always start out with an accusation? Can’t we work together looking at this problem?
When a person starts interpreting personally anything that is said, it becomes a fixed attention on “I”, “you”, “he”, “she”, “it”, “who”, “what”, etc. This is a category that spells out as “self”.
Thus, there is this idea that there must be someone or something that considers. Is that true?
Can’t a consideration manifest by itself?
.
Vin, you wrote this to Geir: “You have an inconsistency here”. And I wrote to you that “the inconsistency seems to be yours”. I don’t see any “accusation” in either, but I do see an inconsistency. 😉
Okay, let’s work this out together. Assuming that considerations simply manifest themselves, the question remains: Who or what has/holds those considerations? Again, this is simply looking at the meaning of the word “consideration”.
I have to get more precise with my English. My use of “You” in the sentence that you quoted was more a general usage of “you” than a directed usage. Anyway, the point is that a discussion would go better to the degree it is not accusative, and we act in the spirit of teaming together against “ignorance.” I am working on doing better at this.
There are no absolute answers, so we will be simply inching forwad exploring the known. The idea of “LRH knew absolute answers” needs to be discarded. When there is an inconsistency, everything around that inconsistency must be questioned and looked at more closely, whether it came from LRH or from somewhere else.
The inconsistency here is that “who” or “what” are part of considerations. So, when you say, “Who or what has/holds those considerations?” it is like assuming that considerations have considerations, or considerations hold considerations. A better model would be to look at considerations interacting among themselves.
.
Vin, you still haven’t addressed the point that if a consideration exists, implicit in the meaning of the word is the idea that someone or something has or holds the consideration. If you disagree, please tell me the definition of “consideration” as you are using it.
A consideration is a manifestation with certain properties, where these properties are considerations in their own turn.
.
So a consideration is a manifestation with “certain properties” which are themselves considerations. So does that mean that a consideration is a manifestation of considerations?
It is a fractal.
.
Got it. There exist many fractal sequences besides this one, so just telling me that much still doesn’t define it. What exactly is the specific fractal form here?
It is a fractal of alter-is-ness, as I see. when it grows. And it is fractal of as-is-ness when it lessens. It is the latter that I prefer under the current state of affairs.
So following up inconsistencies and dissolving them, or confronting complexities and turning them into simplicity are other ways of describing this latter aspect of the fractal.
.
Vin, alter-isness is defined as “the consideration that introduces change…” So your definition is circular. I got what you said but you still haven’t defined “consideration”.
The definition is circular. It is whatever is considered by considerations.
Sent from my iPhone
Wow, That doesn’t sound like the intellectual integrity I thought you had.
@ Vin and Marildi: Yes! The Tautological Universe will not succumb to empiricism! . . . or will it?
Or perhaps the tautological Vinaire will refuse to succumb to the empirical marildi. 🙂
LOL! Well, we love our religion of science and it is more workable and it has moved the civilization along better than any other religion that I know of!
Except you know what. 😀
hahaha, now that will be a reach! Do you mean the formula which describes it? Or something else?
I want Vinaire to say more than “it’s a fractal” as that doesn’t differentiate it in any way from other fractals.
Yes! Just what Marildi said!
Marildi. Yes, good. I can work with that.
Considerations are senior to the thetan too, because thetan, itself is the effect of the interaction among considerations.
.
Vin,
” I ” is the biggest misunderstood “. Yes, because …….
Do this…….look inside…..ask the question ” Who am I ? “……what do you get?
There is no answer in the mind. As there is no ” I “. What you find is a “sense” of infinite consciousness….no “boundaries”, just infinite….out of which different manifestations appear at the “level” of perception….
consideration : indo-European root meaning : sharing division. Interesting ……the infinite “uses” considerations, words etc. as “divided entities” to “share” what is perceived in them….can you “look” “sense” along this line?
Please work this out with Valkov.
.
Vin,
The point is there! As you already know / sense it! Please find my last two comments at the end of this thread. Waiting for your answer…..
Marianne, I thought you were simply giving me instructions.
What would you like to discuss?
.
Vin,
Answer Geir’s question. And then please read my last two comments and let’s discuss them.
All questions have been answered to the best of my capability.
Now you need to look at what is there.
.
Exactly Vin ! There’s ! the inconsistency, in the WHO / WHAT. Don’t try to figure it out on the level of mind! The inconsistency will disappear if you LOOK INSIDE ! LOOK ! SENSE !
Are you just being an echo?
.
Vin !!!!!
What ‘ I ‘ get ? ” Echo ” ?
Geir’s laser precise question CUT THROUGH ! Congratulations to you guys!!!!!!
You know Vin….when Geir asked the question of Who/What, I saw infinity and the whole world in the same instant!
When I read your answer that the Who/What is a consideration, I got a Flow of confusion underneath your answer. This confusion is TOTALLY GONE in your last two answers !!!!
You have made it VIN ! Has come through!!!
And now, LOOK and SENSE what I wrote in my last two comments on the thread.
Congratulations for playing with your own considerations.
I hope they are real to Geir.
.
Vin,
Answer Geir’ s question again!
(have to go now, talk to you later)
In case you haven’t realized, the question has been answered.
Now you have to do your homework and look at it.
.
Vin,
Yes, you have answered Geir’s question. Thanks for answering the question. You write
that considerations are senior to the thetan…..let’s have a discussion. The thetan is a concept used in scio. Can you tell me the number(s) of the axiom(s) it appears?
The word “thetan” appears in Scientology Axiom 55: “The cycle of action is a consideration. Create, survive, destroy, the cycle of action accepted by the genetic entity, is only a consideration which can be changed by the thetan making a new consideration or different action cycles.”
.
What Hubbard doesn’t realize is that thetan is also his consideration that comes out of his flawed THETA-MEST Theory.
.
Vin,
“flawed” is a a kind of evaluative concept. You are looking for inconsistency. If the word thetan appears only in axiom 55 undefined, is it an inconsistency?
The inconsistency is in Scientology Axiom #1, where STATIC is tied to individuality. I have explained this elsewhere on this blog and also on my blog.
.
I’m just joking, Marildi 🙂 You know that I never interphere in things I don’t manage very well. The same to you, Happy New Year! and all the best for 2013!
Okay, Dragos. But I hope in this New Year you will get brave, like the rest of us fools, and “interfere” once in a while. 😉
All the best in 2013 to you too!
One more ticket is sold. Geir, register me. Contact me in case there is a time change.
Geir will be the first Norwegian to do the Funky Chicken!
Funky chicken was fun! 🙂
.
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year to you Bro! and to all my friends here. 🙂
.
LOL !
Everyone start the new year by watching 45 seconds of the movie “Contact.” Click here and then go to 1:59:40 and watch at least to 2:00:25!
Happy New Year! Guys and gals. I start watching this movie CONTACT. It is simply riveting. I can’t imagine what the ending is going to be.
.
Beautiful!
I just finished watching this whole movie. I now remember the portion that you highlighted. Yes, it is one small move at a time. There is a lot more to go than what Hubbard envisioned.
I am an eternal skeptic. I will question everything.
.
By the way, Jodie Foster is brilliant, and so is Carl Sagan, and the script writer and the director of this movie. I love these guys.
.
A lot there to love. They are beautiful like the celestial event that Dr. Ellie was watching: “No words . . .”
“No words . . . they should have sent a poet.” — Dr. Elleanor Anne Arroway
(There’s no emoticon for this.)
Chris…….thank you! One feel to add. When Allie asks Dad what’s next, Dad answers that it’s the first step…..small moves. Yes….and also that these moves BE continuous and fast…..the change we are experiencing looks to be an evolutionary change…I can associate with how Allie
feels. It’s one of my favourite enlightening movies, great to start the “New Year” with. Thank you Chris!
Yes, the moves are small, no matter how much we want to take giant leaps. Possibly, one day we can speed up our rate of iteration or possibly understand entanglement. That ray of hope promises a bright future, if mankind doesn’t destroy itself outright first.
“You treat the earth as you treat each other.” — Klaatu, from The Day the Earth Stood Still
Vinaire: “I have come to see the interactions among considerations as the interactions among chemicals. Each consideration seems to have its own property like a chemical does, or for that matter, an element on the periodic chart does.”
Here is part of an article written by the neurosurgeon author of the best seller THE SCIENCE OF HEAVEN:
.
“…As a scientist, I know that the consensus of my tribe is that the self is created through the electrochemical activity of the brain. For most neurosurgeons, and most doctors generally, the body produces the mind, and when the body stops functioning, the mind stops, just like a picture projected on a screen does if the projector is unplugged.
“So when I announced to the world that during my seven days of coma I not only remained fully conscious but journeyed to a stunning world of beauty and peace and unconditional love, I knew I was stirring up a very volatile pot. Critics have maintained that my near-death experience, like similar experiences others before me have claimed, was a brain-based delusion cobbled together by my synapses only after they had somehow recovered from the blistering weeklong attack.
“This is certainly the assessment I would have made myself—before my experience…
[…]
“…My doctors have told me that according to all the brain tests they were doing, there was no way that any of the functions including vision, hearing, emotion, memory, language, or logic could possibly have been intact. That’s why, just as I now no longer doubt the existence of the world of expanded consciousness that NDE subjects, mystics, meditators, and countless other people have described for centuries, I also feel that my experience adds something new to those stories. It supplies a definitive new form of evidence that consciousness can exist beyond the body.
[…]
“…for a long time now many scientists have been telling the public a story that is not quite true.
“This not-quite-true story is that the brain produces consciousness. Most scientists accept this as dogma. I certainly did, and it’s why so many scientists still refuse to even consider that I really and truly experienced what I say I did. But we in fact have no real proof of this at all, other than our general distrust of anything we can’t put our hands on. But there are many established scientific facts that we haven’t placed our hands on either. No one has ever seen an electron, or touched the force of gravity. The fact is, most doctors, and most scientists today, are confusing the fact that consciousness and brain activity are related (which they certainly are) with the opinion that the brain actually produces that consciousness.
“…Brain activity and consciousness are indeed profoundly tied up with one another. But that does not mean that those bonds can’t be loosened, or even cut completely. The question of questions is whether the deep parallelism between brain function and human consciousness means that the brain actually produces consciousness. In the wake of my experiences during my week in a coma, my answer is a very confident “No.”
“…modern physics is pushing us in precisely the opposite direction, suggesting that it is consciousness that is primary and matter secondary.
“This may sound absurd to some, but it is really no less absurd than the facts—now solidly established by quantum mechanics—of how we see the world around us right now. Every moment of every day, we completely personalize the data coming in at us from the physical world, but we do it far too quickly and automatically to be aware that we are doing so. Physicists discovered just how completely consciousness is wedded to the physical environment at the beginning of the 20th century, when the fathers of quantum mechanics (physicists such as Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg, Max Planck, and Albert Einstein) established that units of light, called photons, can appear either as waves or as particles, depending on how we choose to measure them. The implications of this seemingly minor curiosity are in fact enormous, for they demonstrate that at a subatomic level, perception itself (our inner consciousness) is so wedded to the world that our consciousness of a physical event—say, a moving photon—actually affects that event. The very nonlocal features of consciousness, so well supported in Irreducible Mind and in Pim van Lommel’s wonderful book Consciousness Beyond Life, are the resounding evidence that consciousness itself is a quantum phenomenon. Refinement in our understanding of this mystery proceeds even today, as the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Serge Haroche and David J. Wineland for their innovative work in isolating the “collapse of the wave function,” or the exact process by which the conscious mind of the observer paints subatomic reality (hint: Einstein would still be frustrated!).
”Totally objective observation remains a simple impossibility. And while in our ordinary earthly life we miss this fact completely, it becomes much more apparent in near-death experiences, when the body and brain cease to mediate our encounter with the larger reality and we encounter it directly.
“Make no mistake: consciousness is a total mystery. As total a mystery now as it was 10, or 100, or 1,000 years ago. We simply do not know what it is. But consciousness is so familiar to all of us, so central to our identities, that we have learned to overlook this most obvious of facts.
“It is a deep mistake to do so. Far from being a shadowy epiphenomenon or “ghost in the machine,” as the philosopher Gilbert Ryle famously called it, consciousness is and always has been our primary link to the larger universe. My seven-day odyssey beyond my physical body and brain convinced me that when the filter of the brain is removed, we see the universe clearly for the first time. And the multidimensional universe revealed by this trans-physical vision is not a cold, dead one, but alive with the force that, as the poet Dante wrote some 600 years ago, “moves the sun and other stars.”
“I am as deep a believer in science, and the truth-respecting values that created it, as I ever was. As such, I want to affirm again—not just to my fellow scientists but to everyone—that there is a larger, more real world out there. Those who have experienced it are neither deluded nor dishonest, but they are hampered by the limits of language to convey the sheer exponential vastness of what they encountered. This world of consciousness beyond the body is the true new frontier, not just of science but of humankind itself, and it is my profound hope that what happened to me will bring the world one step closer to accepting it”.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/11/18/the-science-of-heaven.html
That`s a great article! Thank you Marildi!
So glad you liked it. When I read it I thought back to a post you wrote on the “If you travel at the speed of light” thread. Here’s what you wrote:
“I have experienced the images seen in the relativity video – it was VERY confusing but I concluded that I might actually be seeing things that were real – its nice to see a video that shows such similar images – its nice to have a bit of feedback! I recall that LRH discussed at one point that trying to get an individual to see everything as is in body is a very poor idea because everything is not as is in body – depending on the individual. That’s been my experience. Things do not look the same to me, and yet its hard for me to deny the reality of the experience I have. No real way to show it to anyone else either, perhaps other than telepathy. The images show up in my artwork frequently though!”
Wow, I completely forgot that I wrote that! One thing that really resonated with me on this article was that when he started to reconnect and regain normal brain function he had bizarre dreams. I`ve had that happen too, coming up or out of a rich, VERY real set of experiences that were so vivid and so rich that this world I awake to seems thin and dim. Maybe the deepest levels of sleep are a nearly complete disconnection state from the whole body and brain system, and more real than this waking world of mind-body.
Well, there you go. A person never knows how much their words can impinge and become part of someone’s “data base”. That post of yours expanded my viewpoint about perception. And after that, our physicist-philosopher Tom Campbell reinforced it with his research. He describes the brain as completely defining our perception – the ultimate filter! And he says the physical universe as perceived via the brain is just one “reality stream” (I think that was the term). Dreams are another reality stream – another reality to contact. And there are others – like contact with the “non-physical reality” of beings without bodies and who are not in any physical universe. And, for that matter, there apparently are other physical universe realities, similar to but not exactly the same as ours as to their laws of physics .
Actually, I think this is a more accurate description of some of his discoveries: The brain is a via (using my own word) for contact with this physical universe reality. Dreams and out-of body experiences are ways to contact other physical universe realities as well as non-physical realities. He even says that the “data streams” of past history can be contacted, and even the future (which is based on probabilities, btw). That’s my recall. But as you know, he has scores of lecture videos on the internet, for anybody interested.
Yes, a great find. While I disagree that consciousness is a quantum event (because it is infinite valued, not discrete valued as are the quanta which make up the matter of the universe), it is nice to see an argument for consciousness based on first hand experience being pushed by a scientist
To me self is “center of consideration.” It is only as real as the concept of “center of mass.” One may say that CONSIDERATIONS are created through the electrochemical activity of the brain.
The experience described here does not prove that consciousness can exist beyond the body as claimed by the author, because the body was alive during the coma, and electrochemical activity was also taking place. It may only bring into question the current theories about how visualization takes place in the mind.
Consciousness, in my opinion, is due to the interaction of considerations with each other. Such activity among considerations cannot exist independent of electrochemical functions of the body. However, considerations may exist as frozen patterns in space after the cessation of the electrochemical function of the body. Such considerations become active again only after their association with the electrochemical activity of a new born body.
Consciousness and electrochemical activity seem to go hand in hand.
Please see SOULS, BETWEEN-LIVES, DARK ENERGY & MATTER
[More later…]
Space seems to be the ultimate storage media for software.
.
Vin,
“considerations may exist as frozen patterns in space” – looks true.
“space seems to be the ultimate storage media for software” – looks true,
Both my answers are based on “observation by the flow (fluid no-viewpoint) – present reality.
The flow is not part of THE MIND. “Independent” of considerations.
Well Marianne, I am happy to know that your frame of reference is helping you come up with the same conclusions as mine.
.
Further comments on THE SCIENCE OF HEAVEN:
Brain activity and consciousness go hand-in-hand. Neither can exist without the other. Brain activity and consciousness both are the product of some more basic system.
Consciousness can be quantum phenomenon only when a consideration is conscious in itself. This could be possible.
In my opinion, Near Death Experiences cannot be perceived without the body and brain still engaged. Consciousness is not a mystery. It is basically the activity of considerations interacting among themselves.
“I” exists because it is the attachment to certain considerations. These considerations define the “I”. They also act as a filter through which perception reaches “I”. When this filter is removed then the sense of “I” is removed also. And all that remains of “I” is a perception-point that is completely fluid. What is then perceived is a fundamental layer of knowledge that was generated when the perception-point was separated from the original manifestation.
What the author is assuming here is that there was no brain activity during coma. This has not been confirmed.
.
Vin,
Interesting what you write! What do you think about beginning the last paragraph like this:
The sense of I exists because there is an attachment to certain considerations….
attachment def. 2: affection or regard for, devotion to. Affection is affinity flow…..the being and
the body there, there is perception, affinity……..can you think along this line? Because in my reality, as I wrote, the ” I ” is just a “sense”, it has no existence.
And yes, when the filter is removed, the sense of I is removed too….the next sentence looks true too.
Vin,
Or : ” I ” seems to have an existence because of an affectionate interplay of certain considerations……….(what do you say to this modification ? ). Also look at what I wrote above.
In my opinion, “I” is the result of picking up an identity during a confusion as I have recorded in my comment below.
https://isene.me/2012/12/30/happy-new-year/#comment-26509
.
“Data streams of past history can be contacted”….right. And some realities can be beautiful. When the flow/consciousness starts to “operate” in the NOW, or rather WITH NO TIME in it, it can “contact” any info, if “interested”. In my reality, endless “search” in the past is useless….one’s real “no-identity”, awareness is time-less and can create “fresh-alive” “new reality”. This could be the change we are experiencing now…..consciousness is “shifting back” to its source.
Vin,
I appreciate what you do…your works, I have been following them for about half a year back.
One can be pretty well (no I, no filter) and still there is THE MIND (fractal, or frozen patterns). Discussion helps! Precise, laser cut questions also.
Thank you, Marianne, for your interest in what i write.
.
Marianne: “This could be the change we are experiencing now…..consciousness is “shifting back” to its source.”
Amongst your many interesting observations that observation is, to me, a very interesting observation as it parallels both my own personal development and the context of the “age” we are living in, that being the age of Aquarius.
Whether or not the zodiac has an actual influence in the direction of things, mankind has been offered a concept to shake and shape thinking – that concept being the confirmation of the theory of Peter Higgs. The Higgs boson has been called the god particle because it is the source of all other particles: it is like an apartment building that breaks apart in a uniform way to make the various houses of a city, or like a set of Lego that comes as a stack but can break down and recombine to form other shapes.
The Higgs boson, itself, is a point condensation of the Higgs field – a yet unmeasured field which fully surrounds us as water surrounds a fish. Does a fish know it is in water? A fish that breaches a surface and finds itself in the relative vacuum (that we know as air) gets an inkling that there is another reality.
We are getting close to breaching our own breathing medium. Some “fish” already do it on occassion. Right now it seems to me that the Higgs field is the next level from “source” and that it may be an ability to breach into that field that opens up the door to the source mind, the universal mind, the part that is actually common to each of us, universal consciousness, oneness with the universe and however else we wish to name or define it.
We do live in an interesting time. Here’s a late toast to the New year and perhaps a new age. Cheers!
2ndxmr
Cheers! Thanks….I am…..yes! Higgs, boson, yes ! The last paragraph is my experience too….thanks for writing about it….one can experience, know and SPEAK, WRITE about it as you do! Experience is before ! speaking, and it’s true that experience cannot be put into words
and it’s also true that words/concepts are grasped by the mind and it can slow down experiencing BUT to keep back information is also not right. Equally, if the flow of consciousness/love/pure energy is FREE, info lands in a proper way. This is what I feel in your
answer! Thanks again! New age, definitely! More to come…..hope from you too!
Marianne,
Your approach of stopping……. is interesting. I can liken it to TR0 where that is the basic approach to the drill, to just BE there. Amazing things happen doing that drill and it has amazing applicability to handling the physical universe, beginning with things happening in the vicinity of self.
2ndxmr
Thanks….yes, stopping. TR0, OTTR0, getting off it, stopping to create it, BE……the truth of
life is truth, no matter how we name it. Do you do any “technique” “no technique” – if I can ask? And what’s your “drive” of seeking?
I have a number of techniques that came as a result of auditor training and delivery. Primary among these are spotting spots in space and TR8 which trains one how to put a thought at a spot in space.
2X: “. . . and TR8 which trains one how to put a thought at a spot in space.”
Chris: Interested. Tell me more about the sensation and benefit you feel that gives.
2ndxmr
Why do you “put a thought at a spot in space” ?
2ndxmr
Why do you “put a thought at a spot in space?”
And also Chris asked you, if you scroll down a little, ” about the sensation and the benefit” of
putting a thought at a spot in space.
A being is a thought at a spot in space.
.
A being can be at a spot in space but can put a thought there instead. This is the product of TR8, to get the realization that while you can occupy any space (like an ashtray) you can put a thought there instead. A thought is very close to the quality of a being but is not a being until it is endowed with the ability to make its own thoughts thereafter. That would be the being making another being. But the being can just put out a thought without creating another being.
How is a thought created? What is the process?
Sent from my iPhone
2ndxmr:“A thought is very close to the quality of a being but is not a being until it is endowed with the ability to make its own thoughts thereafter.”
(1) Is thought a dead being?
(2) Since thought and being are qualities, they both are manifestations.
(3) The first manifestation (being) can produce the second manifestation (thought), but the second manifestation cannot produce any further manifestations.
(3) What makes the first manifestation a unique manifestation? How is the first manifestation created.
(4) This this the same scenario that I have asked Marildi to explain. Being is like the “Uncaused cause” and thought is like the effect.
(5) Can the thought interact with other thoughts by itself, or is that must occur via the being?
.
2ndxmr: “That would be the being making another being. But the being can just put out a thought without creating another being”
If a being is created by another being, how is the very first being ctrated?
.
Marianne: “Why do you “put a thought at a spot in space?”
And also Chris asked you, if you scroll down a little, ” about the sensation and the benefit” of
putting a thought at a spot in space”
This is an ability drilled into auditors so that they can deliver a command to the PC on a bypass of certain PC circuits that would otherwise block the execution of the command. That is its purpose and it carries no sensation or personal benefit in the context of a session. It is strictly to get the PC to get the auditing command and get it executed. When the PC begins to see that an auditing command can get executed despite the rebellion from his bank he learns he can be at a cause point over the bank. At that point control turns from the auditor to the PC.
There’s really no major difference between that kind of control transfer than any training a person receives before operating a complex machine: there’s an introduction to the machine followed by some training and then hands-on experience guided or overseen by a competent person. The only difference is that the machine is the person’s own mind and the competent trainer is the auditor.
Vin: ” A being is a thought at a spot in space”.
When the creation of space ceases, there is no spot either. What is left then?
How does the creation of space cease?
Sent from my iPhone
Vin: “How does the creation of space cease?”
A thought is dimensionless so it neither creates nor ceases the creation of space. It is located by the intention and ability of the thetan placing it. It is a zeo point associated with a 3-space point.
Vin, a spot has no dimension but still can be located compared to the dimensions of 3-space.
There is no “how” in it. It is a STOP. Just a STOP. By ITself. In which the unmovable IT starts to “expand” – like a “flowless-flow”. Can’t put it into words in a better way.
I understand what you mean by STOP and expand. I think there are a number of means of achieving the result. Sort of like “How many ways CAN a thetan screw in a lightbulb?” 🙂
A spot is a location in space. It is just a consideration.
.
2ndxmr
2013-01-11 at 19.50, at 20.15, at 20.37
Thanks for these answers! The reality is the same here! You put it down beautifully!
I can add to it that when there is no filter any more, it’s beingness “expanding”. And also can be the “creation/uncreation” of a thought without any intention to “control” that is without any
“personal will”. It can be the creation of a thought out of Free Will (Flow/Love/Infinity).
Cheers!
Some people here are trying to look through others.
They need to look for themselves.
.
Thanks Vin,
“Some people here are trying to look through others”. It’s a consideration. Whose consideration is it ?
Nobody’s… It is an outcome from the interaction among other considerations present.
.
Got it. Can you look at my commment at 01.02. at 22.12. What do say to the modification of what you wrote?
Right you are Vin ! I can’t stop laughing! To each of you in the spirit of a little game!
Roll down the thread from the first comment to the last! Don’t read the words, just a quick look at the commentor’s name and get the FLOW of the comment! When you get to the last
comment, what do you get?
If this is of any help, I think Vin wants to get the idea across that who and what are anthropomorphic mental projections which attempt to tie the ego, AKA the self, to being “the cause of things.”
Tying ourselves to ideas or “fixing” ideas seems to me to be the root source of a person not being himself, or as the Scientologist would say, “out-of-valence.” If we work this fractal backward; if we start discarding manifestations until we run out of them (good luck! haha) then we might finally arrive at the most in-valence place of all, the Higgs Field, or Nirvana, or Heaven or somesuch, where the wave-function “resides.” Written another way, this would be something that we could say was from the Twilight Zone where it exists but is not yet manifested according to human understanding.
It is a lot of fun and we all like to speculate on what would be existing in that space-time or in that not-quite-space-time, if you will. Vinaire likes to use the adjective unknowable and the Scientologist likes the word static. Religions have words and science has the “Higgs Field,” etc.,. I like to conjecture that place is where everything that ever was or ever could be is. Where would it be located? — space-time which is right here, right there, & everywhere, & nowhere.
If I answered the question, “How would you approach this?” I would answer stop defining it; stop trying to bottle it, and all of us open our hearts and minds to the possibility of infinite possibilities and infinite actualities. If we do this, much of the chaff that we worry about or the confusions that we think is important would simply fall dissolve away and we would see things more clearly.
Happy new year!
Now that was just marvelous! I`ll drink to that!
A toast!
Chris – LIKE!
And a Happy and Simple New year to all!
Yup, this world can use a good dose of simple!
Previous thought. It seems that terminology can be a problem. In fact everyone is probably on the same page, almost everyone, but terminology makes the difference.
Yup, Funny that you bring that up as I deleted some verbiage in that post about how we were being picayunish with one another about the terminology… There is quite a bit of seeing things similarly to one another — more so than disagreeing. You just have to follow any other well trafficked blogs to see it how well we get along.
Yes, deElizabethan. And the Flow underlying terminology can as-is terminology- given one lets that flow. And then we get the amazing differencies of personalities-characters playing for the fun of playing! Kids we are, aren’t we?
Kids we are, to be sure, and playing. Well this is a good time to tell you, as a mostly watcher of the game. Most of you have the patience, fortitude and ability to persist on the path of trying to explain, clarify and understand, here on a blog. I give you guy/gals all a pat on the back and much credit, especially when confronted with a brick wall. You do not give up and I applaud you! I can not myself, nor wish to. Thanks for the very helpful, valuable information given and also some laughs. 🙂
deE – 🙂
Chris: “I would answer stop defining it; stop trying to bottle it, and all of us open our hearts and minds to the possibility of infinite possibilities and infinite actualities”.
I felt the sincerity in your comment but I still see it as an Argument by Gibberish / Argument by Bafflement. It sounds very significant but explains nothing in any meaningful way.
“Stop defining it” is overlooking the fact that “A stable datum is necessary to the alignment of data”. That is self-evident. And a “stable datum” is just another way of describing something that has been “defined”, i.e. given definite and “finite” (de-“fine”) boundaries – and meaning..
Perhaps it’s true that we we should be open to “the possibility of infinite possibilities” but how are we ever going to find that out, or anything else, without defining things first and then aligning data? It’s fine if we are capable of picking up the mountain and moving it all at once, but if not then we’re going to have to pick it up by dividing it into finite portions first and then picking it up one portion at a time.
Hmmm… It was very clear to me and not the least bit gibberish or bafflement.
As I have experienced in this direction, it simply is not possible to define that which is not a finite, physical thing. A definition is by its very nature a bounding, limiting, finishing – a statement of properties and functions. You can certainly define that which SEEMS to surround it, emanate from it, point to it, etc. And even then that falls short because one is not really every speaking of an IT. At best one can elect a symbol to use as a marker, but that symbol only facilitates making reference — it is not a definition but a marker.
define (v.)
late 14c., “to specify; to end,” from Old French defenir “to end, terminate, determine,” and directly from Latin definire “to limit, determine, explain,” from de- “completely” (see de-) + finire “to bound, limit,” from finis “boundary, end”
Example: One cannot constrain, specify, limit, determine or bound the infinite. The second this happens you no longer have the infinite, you have the finite and you are in a different domain altogether, the domain of the finite.
I got that Chris was in fact talking about finite, physical things like “manifestations”, “Higgs field”, “space-time” etc. As for “non-finite” things, I believe their understanding can be gradiently approached using finite symbols. i.e definitions, as LRH did. If not, understanding would have to be gotten through, intuition or revelation, and not everyone is up to those means.
Marildi: If not, understanding would have to be gotten through, intuition or revelation, and not everyone is up to those means
For me, the essence of a cognition IS intuition or revelation. I simply know it is so, know it is true. It may only be a glimpse, just enough to open the door and “let the sunshine“ in.
The explanation in terms of because of this or that or how it changes a state or understanding is NOT the state referred to as cognition, Reworded: it is not the explanation of how it was triggered or seemed to come about in terms of cause and effect after the occurrence of it. The explanation can easily be faulty and so can the understanding that results but that that has nothing to do with that transcendent instant of revelation. Aha!
The truth for me is that it this is not part of the chain of cause and effect, not a finite thing, not a thing at all, but is of an unbounded domain (state) that any participant in this domain (state) has access to (for lack of a better word) by any means or without the need for any means at all. Otherwise even the most basic of basic auditing would not work.
Maria, I can understand that. Makes a lot of sense, got the light! Thanks, DeE 🙂
Absolutely agreed that cognition doesn’t come about merely through rational explanations. However, in auditing, for example, it does come about through specific finite commands that work to open the door to that “glimpse”, as you put it, which opens the door to a cognition. Or as Alanzo put it in a comment just now, words themselves can “point in a direction”, and then have to be abandoned at the level higher than those symbols that words are.
This happens in life too, obviously. Sometimes when I’ve cognited on something and been on what I feel (intuitively) is a higher level than words, I have to make the deliberate effort to “come down to the level of words” (and have said it just that way) if I want to be able to describe it to someone as well as words can do.
That is exactly what I’m saying, that we can take words or other finite ways of “defining” an area of existence and use them as as a means to arrive at a cognition or intuition or revelation or other direct perception. In fact, that is all I’m saying about what Scientology as a path does too. It offers training wheels that enable us to learn how to ride without them.
With logic one stays on the same layer of onion.
With intuition, one travels deeper into the next layer of onion.
With speculation, supposition and assumption, one creates a new layer of onion.
That’s very good, VIn!
Thanks, Valkov. 🙂
You are very welcome,Vin.
And here’s the other thing with that, Maria: most of what happens inside me does not operate on english. In fact, once what I operate on is assigned an english word, it becomes something completely different, masked and hidden from me.
Nope. Human groups corrupt spiritual knowledge. Word clearing and words can only point in a general direction. In order to actually arrive, the words have to be abandoned, and so does any system or “technology”. You have to face the real stuff on your own – as it exists with no words or definitions placed on it.
Flashes, feelings, sensations, emotions – looking at and comprehending these things without any words is what causes spiritual insight.
Looked at this way, Scientology only begets more Scientology. You never leaves its masking apparatus and look at what is actually there – with no system, no language, and no words.
All words, and all systems of any kind, act as masks and barriers to insight.
That’s what I think.
Alanzo
Alanzo: You have to face the real stuff on your own – as it exists with no words or definitions placed on it.
I`ll drink to that too!
Yes, what I notice is that as one tries to explain then others try to align the explanation with the words they know, the systems they are working under, as best they can. And this effort constrains and shifts the essence as attempts are made to identify. I do my best on this blog to find ways to accurately describe while not introducing mis-interpretations but this seems to be nearly impossible, particularly where the effort is to try to align to a specific system.
I think that you know what I am talking about here, I think this is so because there was a post Geir put up with my questions and you got it — I remember you said something like — ah I see what you are doing! I realize now that I was trying to bypass the pre-conceived ideas and step into the essential without getting caught up in any system or definition that would immediately shift into another series of worked out meanings.
I wonder if you have been experiencing what I have been experiencing — if I can describe it well enough that is! It seems like you might have a sense of this too.
I have an instant of insight or revelation or intuition (take your pick of words here). No words can describe it except perhaps aha! It seems to start off as a glimmer, a glimpse, like a tiny ray of light. Understanding shifts. I describe the shift as best I can and see from a new understanding Then another instant of revelation. Its [bigger?] [deeper?] [more penetrating?]. Understanding shifts. I describe the shift as best I can and see from a new understanding The [less penetrating?] [earlier?]..understanding now appears less true or not as [accurate?] [nuanced?] [penetrating?]
This seems to [build?] [spiral?] [widen?] until there is a [mega?] [meta?] [sweeping?] leveling like in a video game where you level out. New panorama. think huge brilliant spotlight or even a vast illumination almost blinding — as an analogy But the explanations just don`t keep up with it — they more and more constrain and obscure that which is intensely profound locking it into a particular world view or paradigm and is not a complete understanding at all. And I guess that is my biggest frustration, that I have this profound state and someone comes along and says, oh yeah, that`s a blah — Confucius, LRH, Buddha, [name of system] covered that. But it didn`t and the system itself doesn`t really describe it. I am now working through how to respond to such efforts without frustration, trying to be patient about such efforts.
Brings new meaning to the old saying: Happy New Year!
So Happy New Year Alanzo. It is a pleasure to have you here.
To me it can also be a situation of “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”.
As another analogy, it also seems like some people object to someone who is, although speaking to the point in question, speaking French rather than Italian or Spanish or any other language but French – even though the others in the discussion understand French. There seems to be a prejudice against French, or in my case, Scientology terminology and phrasing. I’ve even tried not using Scientology terms and such but it doesn’t seem to make any difference as the concepts themselves get rejected if they’re recognizable as Scientology, which they usually are.
I got it that there is a problem you are running into when “trying to bypass the pre-conceived ideas and step into the essential without getting caught up in any system or definition that would immediately shift into another series of worked out meanings”. However, IMO that is always the potential problem with communication via language and it is always something that has to be overcome with additional communication using language.
If I am the one misconstruing what you write, I hope you would do me the respect of pointing that out, rather than feeling frustrated and impatient because you don’t think I could grasp the profound things you are expressing.
Marildi: No. This is MY frustration. Not yours. I am the one working through it. Not you. Not anyone else. I cannot tell you how many times this has happened to me, as I [cycle?] [spiral?] [revisit?] and what was an glimmer of an idea expands into a profound state for me that can often sound ridiculously innocuous as I try to explain it. Sometimes it even sounds that way to me!.
As an example, I have a very dear friend who is a born again Christian, who congratulated me with great enthusiasm on finally meeting the Lord God and our savior Jesus Christ one day after I had explained about what I experienced in terms of personal revelation. I had no idea what to say in response other than to acknowledge her obvious delight in what she saw as my finally coming to revelation. It was clear that she felt all along that I was lacking this and she was happy I had finally seen the light. She told me she had been praying for me and her prayers had been answered. Praise God!
I would have been far happier had she simply indicated that she was pleased for me or even if she had simply asked questions, instead of deciphering what I said into her own context. But Marildi, people don`t do that most of the time, they do try to align information from others into their own frame of reference or into a preferred frame of reference. I find it difficult and counter-productive to repeatedly say, no its not like that, no its not like that, no its not like that. For all I know they do in fact completely understand and I am simply objecting to finding out that I was the one who was short sighted all along.
Wow, Maria, that’s really generous of you to take that viewpoint.
I suppose people aren’t capable of communicating in any other way than in their own frame of reference(s) – just by definition. My own idea is that there are enough words in a language (at least in the English language) to get across a concept, no matter what it is. Nevertheless, I think you are right that it can be “difficult and counter-productive to repeatedly say, no its not like that…”. Depending on the background or frame of reference the person has, it may require more time and energy that you (or anyone) are willing to spend. And you should have the freedom to choose! I’m glad you got me thinking about this. Thanks for your response!
For me, these flashes, these emotions, these lights and sensations which can not be described ARE the “language” I actually use to operate. And once I become re-familiarized with that language, I begin to deal with the things that give me insight and meaning.
Any time I try to explain these things to anyone else, the insight and the meaning is lost. And if I operate on the language and the labels I am given through others words or instructions, I alienate myself from myself.
True spiritual insight can not be described to someone else.
That’s what I think.
Your example with your christian friend is a very good one. You used words, which began the derailing process, and she plugged those words into her words and systems and the two of you were derailed even further until you both were flying off into a cornfield, farther and farther from the track.
What begins with words, ends with words. Not with insight.
I think I get what you are saying, Maria. But I don’t know.
We can talk about apple pies and freight trains all day long. Totally fine. But spiritual insight? The conversation goes like the one we are having right now!
Alanzo
Marildi –
Scientology was a way for L Ron Hubbard to make money for himself. It was his business.
That is all.
I am asking you to please take a short break from Scientology and to try something else, anything else, for a while. I like mindfulness and insight meditation. But you can do something, anything, else.
Of course, you can do whatever you want to do. But I want you to remember that I am asking you to take a break from Scientology for a while and try something else. Scientology will still be there when and if you want to come back to it.
I know you probably don’t believe this, but I care about you. I care if you waste one more minute of your life in Scientology.
Alanzo
Very well said, Alanzo! 🙂
– –
Slack
Alanzo….got the flow about “language you use to operate”….nice….
Al, it’s really not an issue whether “scientology” was a money-making business for LRH. Let’s grant that it was.
Marildi and I work for Consumer Reports, and we are attempting to establish just 2 things:
1. What was the nature of the products he was selling, which appears to have been a set of tools, and,
2. What was the quality and value of this set of tools?
If you have any actual experience using and applying these tools, let us know, and we will send you a questionnaire to complete which will help us complete our evaluation.
Al, do you think all this thinking you do, hinders your attainment of spiritual insight?
See my reply to you below, Val.
I am going to let you be. I understand what you are going through right now, and what many of the Indies are probably going through right now. I would not wish it on my worst enemy.
It’s been fun working with you, Valkov. I think our discussions have probably helped lots of people tease out the various issues with Scientology and to start up thinking in different ways about it. You’ve been a great partner in this Vaudeville act.
Good luck on your path. You will be fine.
More than fine.
Thanks for all the good times and stimulating discussions.
Alanzo
Wait, Alanzo. Are you just going to blow before answering my question as to what specifics you have to add to the generality that Indies have decided LRH was crazy?
No Al, I doubt you understand what I am going through right now, as I was an “indie” 30 years ago. Do you suppose that blindfold prevents you from seeing clearly at times?
Anything defined becomes a consideration.
.
Maria,
In my reality, the Flow of a profound realization goes through…..a kind of fine energy…..touching the listener……who also “knows” “has” that fine energy but may
not be aware of it when you are speaking about your experience….it dissolves/cracks
some “solid” reality of the other….and you get different emotional reactions, you know…
difference of wavelenghts, that is……liked your comment !!!!
For my next magical trick, I shall attempt to flog a metaphor to death!
Think of the proverbial “box” that everyone is trying to think “outside of.” Think of your definitions and structure as gluing that box together. Think of the box as being “stable.”
Dozens of times we have been dancing on top of this box and discussing it. If a person likes this box then do nothing as it is well supported by agreement and doesn’t particularly need very much in the way of participation from you. Take the blue pill; the story ends; wake up warm and cozy in your own bed; believe whatever you want to believe.
However, if your inclinations run to the masochistic and you just hate being comfortable all soft and cozy in the box and the splinter in your brain is festering and you are ready to scream from the tedium of making all those plates spin on sticks; or you are ready to have a psychotic break and push the A-bomb button just to change up the rock solidness of our good-citizen lives, then let go of the anchor points that you are holding onto so firmly. (i.e. take the red pill and see how deep the rabbit hole goes.)
There’s not an exactly right way of doing this. It seems to take a big curiosity and a big heart to grind it out though. But that’s ok because after a while the grinding it out seems business as usual and we just go on from there.
And then we find ourselves in another box which we need to think outside of….
Yup. That is the way I see it too.
‘Think of your definitions and structure as gluing that box together”.
Actually, definitions and structure make up the box. And having a box allows us to stand on it and thus be outside of it. And then we can dance! Now, doesn’t this look like fun:
Yup! That really does!
I know!
So, let’s get busy and build a better box! 😀
Maybe better we understand this box first. As Alanzo said, “boxes inside boxes.” Possibly we can come to understand what we are doing; understand what is iterating; understand our involvement in these boxes as an undercut to piling on more boxes.
“Maybe better we understand this box first”.
That’s exactly what I’ve been working on by continuing my study of Scientology so as to come to all those understandings you listed. Rather than “piling on more boxes”.
Marildi
Thanks! I love dancing! Fun dance!
I like these magical tricks!
Chris!
Take my love for writing this about this box stuff!!! Can’t stop laughing !! Hilarious !
“there’s not an exactly right way of doing this” – trying to make the infinite into a finite thing is all the failure there is, my take. “dancing on top of the box trying to discuss it” …..but just all of what you write !!
Marildi,
The stable datum is true at the level of the game of the analytical mind. At the level of art there is just creation, no need for definition. We create and then “define” it. Definition gives
a kind of solidity. Analytical thinking is kind of “solid”. Art, love can get it to move, or even
dissolve some part of it which is rigid.
Chris….yes, stop defining it….. I Love your whole post!!!!
Chris:”…then we might finally arrive at the most in-valence place of all, the Higgs Field, or Nirvana, or Heaven or somesuch, where the wave-function “resides.” ”
You’re getting very close but this is where you could actually apply a few axioms and an OT maxim (“the power of a thetan is measured in light-year kilotons per microsecond”) and be even closer.
I believe the primary thing to consider is the zero dimension – the point, the thing closest to a static – which, if you can let your infiniteness go there, is what would be the starting point for a God. (The real simplicity of God’s infiniteness is that a zero point is common to every point in 3-space, which is what would allow “God” to be omnipresent.)
The Higgs field may well just be God’s vibration of creation. Consider what might happen if the creator of the universe was a thetan as defined by Scientology and alternately expanded and contracted its space. Very rapidly. Think in terms of light-years per microsecond. Think in terms of Planck second cycles between light-years large and back to “zero”. Does that sound like power to you? The consequences (a big bang?) are all there, well defined in the axioms.
Another idea that can evolve from this idea of an initial consciousness is the “universal mind”, a concept that is not new and has many names, but the new idea is that it can be understood by understanding the concept of a zero dimension and all the capability that goes along with that. That is your infinite possibility.
The difference between you and I is that I can see a mechanism that explains the infinite and how it can be defined. That definition does not in any way limit the infinite or force it to become finite. In fact, the infinite is well defined by properties of zero (just take your wave function and reduce wavelength to zero). How powerful can a zero be? I’ll re-submit something I wrote a few years ago at Casablanca Tejas:
“With tongue firmly planted in cheek I posit that “not only can theta be a static, but theta can have gender” and profer an old joke: “What is the proof that God is female?” Answer “Because only a woman can make something out of nothing.”
Sexist joking aside, physicists are pretty confident that the entirety of the matter in this universe originated from a spot in space smaller than viewable with the best electron microscope.
Way, way smaller.
And that all that matter appeared in less than a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a second.
Way, way less.
And it all started with a quantum of instability; a wrinkle, a wriggle, (a twinkle in the eye?!).
So, if that is acceptable to science, why is it so hard to conceive a static?
How about: thetan Yin spots thetan Yang and says “Hey big fella, is that a wrinkle in your space or are you happy to see me?” An uncomfortable silence and then Yin and Yang decide to go half-ers on a new static. But instead of Hollywood rockets in the background they get the whole shebang, er, big bang.
Well, that may be one way to try and conceive a static, but there is also a mathematical way. While the whole explanation of that may be just way too geeky, the provable point of the matter is that a static or even a slightly-less-than-static “static” (or two!) could have supplied all the energy-converted-to-matter that we see in this universe.
And still be able to make an infinite number of similar universes.
Conclusion: universes are just child play to a thetan.
That’s the power of zero.”
This comment is for Marildi:
All that is written above by 2ndxmr are nice examples of CONSIDERATION.
.
Yes, and a number are based on observation.
2ndxmr
Liked the way you wrote it . Asking a question, keeping it there….no mind….”insights” arrive….
2ndxmr:
Wow! Talk about aligning the principles of Scientology with the non-finite and undefinable experiences several people have been commenting on. I hope that some of them will comprehend what you wrote and give you some feedback. That would make for an interesting discussion!
2ndxmr,
” the zero dimension” “the starting point for God” , expanding and contracting “space”, “the Higgs field may be just God’s vibration of creation”.
Real to me. I find the “practical, free use” of the Higgs field’s vibration not only in creation, but also uncreating ! that which Vin defined as a “frozen consideration”. It seems that “one”, using this vibration can “melt” frozen considerations by being the “flow” of life. These “frozen considerations” “pregnant with” energy/emotion seem to be “just there” in “this” universe – giving the apparency/actuality of being solid. One CAN get it cracked up and thus one gets
a LIVE FLOW which produces that we see as CHANGE in this universe (mest, that is under change). And there seem to be “other” “universes”/”levels of conciousness”……
I find extreme value in our attempts to communicate honestly about our “findings” “realizations”
as we are doing now. It helps “beyond” what we call cognitions. “Deeper truth” is getting “out”.
Marianne: “One CAN get it cracked up and thus one gets a LIVE FLOW which produces that we see as CHANGE”
You are talking about something there that I have speculated on but perhaps not done or not the same way. I have used emotion waves at the long wavelength end but not really short waves of the length that I would predict needed to elicit CHANGE in mest. Emotion waves work fine for communicating at the theta level. Can you describe how you get it cracked up?
2ndxmr
“perhaps not done or not the same way”
STOP………………………………………………………………………………………what is the feel you get?
@ comment-26464Marildi commented,
“Wow, That doesn’t sound like the intellectual integrity I thought you had.”
Marildi, these kind of accusatory comments do not help with discussion. The purpose of a discussion is to learn by exchanging viewpoints. One uses experience and experimentation to obtain data and then brings it to the table to be discussed. The participants in a discussion focus on the subject and not on each other.
Marildi, you are as capable of looking as anybody else here. If another person cannot answer the question to your satisfaction then look yourself to answer the question. Do not try to ridicule the other person.
That kind of attitude shows that you think that you have the answer and the other person doesn’t. If you have the answer than why are you asking the question in the first place? Why don’t you just put your viewpoint on the table and clarify it.
We all are trying to make sense out of something that should be pretty obvious. It is the difficulty of putting it into words. This blog is full of considerations. All the time one is dealing with considerations. So, it should be pretty easy to express what a consideration is, but the language simply fails us.
The simplicity is that whatever is considered is a consideration. Now you are not only rejecting this definition, but also ridiculing the formulation of it.
Well, do you have a better answer?
.
Vin, it’s late where I am so I’ll have to get back to you on all this tomorrow. But the key point I’ll make right now is that you are using a particular word and if you are using it in a different way than the definition we all know, you have the responsibility of defining it in the way you are using it. This is a simple matter of making yourself understandable. If you don’t do that, how can a discussion be carried on with you? Please take a look at that and let me know exactly what you mean when you use the word “consideration”.
Then simply ask for better clarification. Don’t just assume things about the other person.
What is your responsibility in a discussion?
.
I found that comment hilarious!
You mean mine? If so, I would agree! was a nice way of saying, “That does not sound like the intellectual integrity you like to think you have”. But I got accused of accusing anyway. (sigh) 🙂
Oops, should have been “IT was a nice way of saying…”
Some identities have a lot of resistance built into them.
.
Or ask for a better obfuscation. 🙂
That is a violation of Discussions and what needs to be avoided.
.
No, Vin, I don’t have the answer to how YOU are using a word. Or the fact that you are using it in an incomprehensible way. I can only ask you to clarify, which I’ve done several times to no avail.
It’s also incomprehensible to me that when I point out a flaw or outpoint in your reasoning, your response is to claim that it is a personal accusation.
None of the above aligns with any sensible rules of discussion and if you’re going to conduct yourself in this way, there’s no use trying to discuss anything with you.
Here is what Hubbard says in THE PHOENIX LECTURES, Capter 5, para 5.
“Things are because you consider that they are and therefore something that is, is considered is. If you don’t consider that it is, it of course can be considered to be something else. But if you recognize that it is a consideration you only have to recognize that it is. And if you recognize that something is, then you have recognized merely that it is a consideration. As soon as you have recognized that something is, IS, you have reduced it to a consideration, and that’s that.”
So, consideration is a thought, a postulate, or whatever word that may appeal to your fancy, but is something perceived at a secondary level as a reaction to some input. That input itself may be another consideration, and this chain can go backward and forward forever.
So, Marildi, please don’t just ridicule other people’s answers. Try to look and understand.
.
V – In your post re Phoenix Lectures I observed six (6) times the word YOU is used in that paragraph, interesting!
Individuality is the stable datum in Scientology as enshrined in Scn Axiom #1. I happen to disagree with it. I believe that “individuality’ is not something native. It is a consideration, or an outcome of other considerations.
But “you” in the quote from Phoenix Lectures is not part of the definition of consideration. “You” is simply associated as being the source of considerations, which I disagree with. To me, a consideration is more like a pattern in space, much like a pattern of electromagnetic field.
.
I consider myself an average person yet a spiritual one. Since you have not given a definition of consideration that I could understand, your posts are all gobble gook to me. But thank you anyway for your viewpoint. I’m not of the higher intelligence as yourself, enabling to discuss adequately with you.
Btw, When I first wrote to your blog long ago and asked for help, you did not address it, except for attacking scientology and making them wrong, as you do to many others I notice, who discuss with you. We are on different wavelengths and I don’t wish to discuss with you further, but may comment, since I respect my own boundaries and I do hope you understand. Thank you.
I thank you for making some effort to communicate with me. 🙂
.
[Corrected version…]
Here is what Hubbard says in THE PHOENIX LECTURES, Capter 5, para 5.
“Things are because you consider that they are and therefore something that is, is considered is. If you don’t consider that it is, it of course can be considered to be something else. But if you recognize that it is a consideration you only have to recognize that it is. And if you recognize that something is, then you have recognized merely that it is a consideration. As soon as you have recognized that something is, IS, you have reduced it to a consideration, and that’s that.”
So, consideration is a thought, a postulate, or whatever word that may appeal to your fancy, but is something perceived at a secondary level as a reaction to some input. That input itself may be another consideration, and this chain can go backward and forward forever.
So, Marildi, please just don’t ridicule other people’s answers. Try to look and understand.
.
I have no problem understanding what LRH is saying in that quote. But did you notice that he says “YOU consider”? LRH gives a definition of “consideration” that includes the idea that there is always “a someone” involved in any consideration.
The thing I don’t understand about what you yourself are saying is that you don’t agree with LRH’s (and everyone else’s) definition – and yet you don’t or can’t state the definition you’re using. I’ve said this several times already but wanted to repeat it one more, for the record.
.
As I wrote yo Dee above, “You” in the quote from Phoenix Lectures is not part of the definition of consideration. “You” is simply associated as being the source of considerations, which I disagree with. To me, a consideration is more like a pattern in space, much like a pattern of electromagnetic field.
.
Yes, let me do the ridiculing, please!
Vinaire, where in the LRH you quoted is there anything at all about any consideration being a secondary level as a reaction to some input?
This is entirely your own dub-in.
LRH is very clear on the ability to create data out of nothing. On an action level, there would be an “unmotivated act”. In other words, one can create an act for no reason at all, with no prior input.
You seem to view everything as running on automatic, including yourself. That’s LRH’s very definition of a reactive mind, isn’t it? All “happening” without volition of any kind, at best a “ghost in the machine” spectator sitting there viewing it all but having no responsibility for any of it?
Much as I tend to see humanity mired in mechanicalness, I will stop short of saying this is ridiculous.
You call it dub-in. I call it looking.
To you LRH may be the standard bearer. To me it is looking and consistency.
Like Hubbard you seem to believe that there is a permanent thetan, self, or spirit. Like Buddha, I believe that it is not so.
Happy New Year!
.
So we really are talking based upon “beliefs”. Where does “looking” come in, then?
Buddha did not say, ever that I know of, whether he himself “believed” or disbelieved in the existence of a PERMANENT thetan, self, or spirit.
But then, neither did LRH, did he?
Buddha certainly spoke of gods, spirits, devils and demons, heavens, hells etc. I guess your issue is whether or not any of these things are PERMANENT, whatever you mean by that……?
Buddha was an iconoclast, and “Atman” just happened to be one of the “icons” or “idols” of his milieu; his point was that it was not necessary to know whether or not there was an “atman” and certainly not necessary to “believe” there was an “atman”, in order to free one’s self from suffering. That was his point, nothing else.
I guess I would say it is equally unnecessary to “believe” such does not exist. “Believing” either way could be a hindrance.
LRH himself would and did put that issue into the speculative bin of “parascientology”, not “scientology”.
PERMANENT means, according to Merriam-Webster,
: continuing or enduring without fundamental or marked change : stable
and according to the Online Free Dictionary,
1. Lasting or remaining without essential change
2. Not expected to change in status, condition, or place
It seems that compared to MEST, spirit or whatever you want to call it, is pretty permanent.
Beliefs, thoughts, speculations, assumptions, etc. are all CONSIDERATIONS. They exist like layers of an onion. Looking helps peel off those layers of onion.
I would rather focus on knowledge rather than on personalities like Buddha or LRH. Thinking in terms of what they believed or did not believe is thinking in terms of authority. One needs to look for oneself and mindfully contemplate if individuality, self, or thetan is something permanent of not.
My contemplation tells me that individuality, self, or thetan is not something permanent.
The steps of my contemplation are provided here:
PHILOSOPHY PROJECT
You are welcome to criticize it without resorting to attention and attacks on participants of a discussion.
.
Vin: “My contemplation tells me that individuality, self, or thetan is not something permanent.”
My question is, who or what is it that arrives at Nirvana?
No one, 🙂
Everything dissolves including the individuality.
.
Vin: “Everything dissolves including the individuality.”
You possibly answered this elsewhere, but when do you see that dissolution occurring? At body death?
At death, the body disintegrates into its particles and the identity that was body is dissolved. Similarly, the thinking and observing part of the person (the living soul) also disintegrates into its particles (considerations), and the identity that was the person is also dissolved. That is my current understanding.
However, the particles remain and they can recombine into another body plus living soul combination. There are infinity of such recombination.
What are the ultimate laws underlying this disintegration and reintegration, I don’t know at the moment. But this seems to be going forever like complex cycles of a wave according to Hinduism.
Nirvana is something different. It happens to a live soul. In my opinion, It is like exteriorization from CONSIDERATIONS. It is the perception-point separating from all surrounding considerations. This is called “giving up of all attachment” in Hinduism. One then sees things as they are without any filters as in Buddhism. There is no individuality in terms of considerations. A perception point is the same as any other perception point. It does not add anything to what is observed or experienced.
Paranirvana is probably what occurs at death, where the live soul, that was already reduced to a completely detached perception-point, merges back into the primary manifestation, extinguishing both and moving beyond the laws of disintegration and reintegration. But this is only my speculation.
The basis of this speculation is removal of all inconsistencies that I am aware of at this level.
.
Thank you, Vin. I got your views much better.
You wrote, “A perception point is the same as any other perception point. It does not add anything to what is observed or experienced.”
Okay, I can see a clear difference between your idea of a “live soul” or “perception point” – and a “thetan” or “viewpoint”. By definition, a thetan does more than simply perceive and record the perceptions. A thetan can form and add opinion (ref. The Factors) and give meaning to what is perceived, as well as postulate and create entirely new perceptions. Specifically, a thetan can originate and create. A thetan is a cause point.
As I see it, unless there is a cause point or element of origination in existence, the universe is nothing more than a vast, complex machine or computer program in operation. In your theory, included in the machine would be perception “points” where energies interact. Any so-called efforts (efforts made without intention) to “remove inconsistencies” are just a matter of mechanics in play with no other factor involved – such as decision, volition or choice. “You”, a perception point, are merely the result and manifestation of accumulated perceptions. And the term “considerations” would be superfluous since those are simply the result of the interactions of recorded perceptions. That is to say, “consideration” is just another word for an energy manifestation which results from other energy manifestations. If I’ve extrapolated wrongly, please explain how.
A very important distinction you bring up is the ability of the thetan to postulate.
At the top end this would include the ability to postulate mest. I don’t believe that is covered in Vin’s model below the level of Brahma.
Please see my response to Marildi in #comment-27196. All abilities are apparencies only. They need to be looked at more closely.
What is ability? What is potential? I think these are much finer considerations (for the lack of a better term), or phenomenon, that needs to be explored.
.
You say all abilities are apparencies only but I’ve seen to many and experienced too many of these abilities to buy the evaluation of armchair logic. Having experienced, I approach the question from “how did that occur?” not from “what possible logic could I come up with to explain how I could be delusional about what I experienced?” Following that path would likely turn me as solid as a rock, especially since I’d have to be in heavy denial of the plurality of observations, made during an unenturbulated state, that were in full alignment with what Hubbard wrote. I guess we’re not only on different pages, we’re in different books.
One is in a state of ignorance, in my opinion, becaise of what one has taken for granted. One does not know what one does not know. So it is better for me to question and look at everything, especially at this level.
You may travel whatever path you chose.
By the way, your remark about “armchair logic” does not belong in a proper discussion. It has no value.
.
@ 2ndxmr. I got the same idea as you – that Vinaire sees the universe as a creation of Brahma. And the creation he describes comes across to me as “an ever-so-intricately complicated set-up of almost infinite dominoes”(quoting myself again, hahaha), apparently created just for the sake of creation. LIke a glorious piece of sculpture to be contemplated. Or a 3-D movie (the original!) to be viewed. No game to it.
As for postulates, so far in Vin’s model, I don’t see that below the level of Brahma there is the ability to postulate, period, let alone the ability to postulate mest.
@ Marildi: I got the same idea as you – that Vinaire sees the universe as a creation of Brahma.”
Whether we call it Brahma, or the 1st awakened, or God, there is very little difference of view at that end. However, I find the Scientological capabilities of that being not only more acceptable but more realistic.
Consider: if that being is going to be able to build a whole universe, does it not make even common sense that the being would be able to make copies of itself? And if it’s an actual COPY of itself, then it would follow that the copy could make copies, and that the copies of the copies could…
Then, if we see that #1 can consider, it follows that all of the copies can consider. Then there is the postulate. If #1 could postulate, all the copies would be able to postulate.
I think it is much more sensible to assume that #1’s first creation would be a copy of itself as at that point “itself” is the only reference point it has. To think that #1 would, as a first step, create a universe, and get it right on the first try,… well, that logic would give me all the more reason to think #1 could have made an exact copy of itself even more easily. And if it was easier, wouldn’t it seem reasonable that it would have been done before the more difficult thing?
If you look at Brahma as a being then you have failed to understand anything that I have written.
.
This may end up as a copy as the first fracking instance hung. 🙂
@ Marildi: I got the same idea as you – that Vinaire sees the universe as a creation of Brahma.”
Whether we call it Brahma, or the 1st awakened, or God, there is very little difference of view at that end. However, I find the Scientological capabilities of that being not only more acceptable but more realistic.
Consider: if that being is going to be able to build a whole universe, does it not make even common sense that the being would be able to make copies of itself? And if it’s an actual COPY of itself, then it would follow that the copy could make copies, and that the copies of the copies could…
Then, if we see that #1 can consider, it follows that all of the copies can consider. Then there is the postulate. If #1 could postulate, all the copies would be able to postulate.
I think it is much more sensible to assume that #1’s first creation would be a copy of itself as at that point “itself” is the only reference point it has. To think that #1 would, as a first step, create a universe, and get it right on the first try,… well, that logic would give me all the more reason to think #1 could have made an exact copy of itself even more easily. And if it was easier, wouldn’t it seem reasonable that it would have been done before the more difficult thing?
I follow you. On the point of creating a universe and getting it right the first time, I think of what paranormal researchers have reported – that there are other physical universes that don’t have exactly the same physics laws as this one, although similar. To me, that seems to indicate first that a physical universe has to be worked out, evolved through trial and error. Since it’s never been done before! And secondly, it makes sense that there would be more than one workable outcome (like the workable tech of the mind :)).That’s actually what I had in mind when I theorized that the creation of the physical universe was an evolution, and that it was hard for me to conceive of a universe being created in one fell swoop in a Big Bang. But I’m not sure I’m looking at that from the right perspective because I don’t know enough of the data of physics. (I hope the physics buffs join in on this whole topic!)
Anyway, it does make sense that a duplication of a known entity, i.e. Oneself, would be a more A to B proposition – easier, as you say. Btw, I once had a student I was word clearing recall having created another thetan. And just recently I came across the LRH references concurring that it happens.
(I didn’t get the joke – “the first fracking instance hung”?
The inconsistency that appears here is the assumption of the First Being.
.
Oh, I know what happened when “the first fracking instance hung”. I bet you tried posting your comment and it seemed to be stuck in “posting comment”. I had that happen once but I found out by checking in another tab that it did go through. Another time before that, I tried re-posting the exact same comment and got the notification that comes up saying it had already been posted. So then I knew. I guess it’s these l-o-n-g threads that are to blame. Anyway, that was a cute line. Hasta mañana.
This thread is reaching its limit.
.
I do not see this universe as a creation of Brahma. If you think that way you have totally misduplicated what i am saying.
.
Vinaire, I googled these two words – “Brahma unknowable” – and found the following (caps are mine):
————————————-
Vedanta calls the ultimate Reality Brahman. Brahman is eternal Being, eternal Knowledge, and eternal Bliss. It is pure, infinite, all-pervading, formless, and without attributes.
The threefold distinction of the knower, the known, and knowledge is common to all empirical experience. This distinction does not exist in Brahman, since nothing exists apart from It. Thus It is described as nondual, or one-without-a-second. Brahman is the eternal Subject and is hence unknown and unknowable by the mind and the senses. It is Knowledge Itself. Brahman is unknowable but one can be united with It.
Conditioned Brahman is Brahman with forms or attributes, and It is worshiped in different religions as Personal God. According to Swami Vivekananda, Personal God is the highest reading of the Absolute by the human mind.
On the identical nature of God with form and God without form, Sri Ramakrishna says, “God the absolute, and God the personal are one and the same. A belief in the one implies a belief in the other. Fire cannot be thought of apart from its burning power; nor can its burning power be thought of apart from it. Again the sun’s rays cannot be thought of apart from the sun, nor the sun apart from its rays. You cannot think of the whiteness of milk apart from milk, nor milk apart from its milky whiteness. THUS GOD THE ABSOLUTE CANNOT BE THOUGHT OF APART FROM THE IDEA OF GOD WITH ATTRIBUTES.”
On the need for different manifestations of the same Reality, Sri Ramakrishna observes: “The Lord manifests Himself, with form or without form, just according to the need of the devotee. Manifested vision is relatively true, that is, true in relation to different men placed in different conditions and environments. The Divine Dyer alone knows in what color He has dyed Himself. Verily He is not bound by any limitation as to the forms of manifestation, OR THEIR NEGATION.”
The one Reality appearing as the many can be compared to the sun seen from different perspectives and through different colored glasses. Each view of the sun is true in that it represents the same sun. According to the Rig-Veda, “TRUTH IS ONE: SAGES CALL IT BY VARIOUS NAMES.”
Sri Ramakrishna practiced spiritual disciplines of different religions and realized that they all lead to the same ultimate Reality. He taught that ALL RELIGIONS ARE VALID PATHS TO GOD-REALIZATION. His message of “As many faiths, so many paths” is a much-needed antidote to all discordance in the name of religion.
http://www.ramakrishna.org/activities/message/message23.htm
——————————————
End of quote.
The above is how I see the validity of working out an understanding of the Creator and of his/her/its creation (even by the standards of Hinduism and its concept of Brahma). Doing so is a “valid path to God-realization”.
Brahma that I use is not the creator of this universe because that would be an absolutist statement. Neti, Neti makes sure of that.
Things may get lost in translation.
Sent from my iPhone
Based on your comment, I don’t think you got the point of that quote. If you did, then your comment seems like a brushoff.
And I don’t see that neti-neti negates the quote.
The inconsistency in the following statement is how can Brahma that has no attributes be classified as a being?
Sent from my iPad
The answer to how Brahma can be classified as a being is in that quote. Please re-read it.
I think this is the quote you are referring to:
“THUS GOD THE ABSOLUTE CANNOT BE THOUGHT OF APART FROM THE IDEA OF GOD WITH ATTRIBUTES.”
Do you always believe blindly in what is written? I think that “what is written is true” is a false datum. What do you say?
.
Vin, you appear to have misunderstood the meaning of “If it isn’t written, it isn’t true”. That is a Scn policy and pertains only to Scn – not otherwise (unless the policy happens to be adopted). It simply means that if you are given an order that isn’t in writing by the person who has the authority to order it, or you are verbally given a piece of Scn tech not written by LRH (the authority of tech), then it isn’t true and isn’t to be followed.
As for that quote I posted, the reason I did so was because it expresses my own viewpoint, and I thought the fact that it was expressed in terms of Brahma and Unknowable would make my view more comprehensible to you. You apparently disagree with the quote, however, which is fine – the discussion isn’t about Hinduism anyway.
The main thing I was trying to say is that I thought it might be enlightening for us to theorize about how the universe was created. And I hoped you would join in, since you like to theorize.
(1) It is difficult to say what is Hinduism and what is not Hinduism. Different people have different opinion about it.
(2) I may theorize, but my focus is not on theorizing.
(3) My focus is on spotting inconsistencies and then seeing what makes sense.
(4) The statement “how the universe was created” assumes that there is creation and that there must be a cause.
(5) To me that assumption leads to inconsistency. I resolved that inconsistency in my PHILOSOPHY PROJECT as follows.
.
FIRST CAUSE:
[“First Cause” is a misnomer. It has nothing to do with the notion of “cause and effect”. “Cause and effect” denote a certain association between two events where the second event is looked upon as the outcome of the first event. “First Cause,” on the other hand, is the property, which makes a manifestation simply appear without association with anything else. It is interesting to observe that the property of “first cause” may be applied to all manifestations before applying the association of “cause and effect.”]
TWENTY-ONE: We cut a tree; it falls. We strike a match; it lights up. Thus, we have a phenomenon that is a direct consequence of another phenomenon. This makes us believe that all phenomena are caused. We, thus, assume that a manifestation must be a consequence of another manifestation. This belief leads to an infinite causal series.
TWENTY-TWO: To resolve this inconsistency, we assume a First Cause that is not itself caused. But this makes the First Cause different from the way all other causes are understood. It allows the possibility that a manifestation may simply appear.
TWENTY-THREE: All manifestations simply appear as we perceive them. They disappear as we stop perceiving them. Thus, we may consider “First Cause” to be the property of all manifestations.
TWENTY-FOUR: The notions of CAUSE and EFFECT seem to indicate an association between two manifestations, which otherwise simply appear and disappear as we perceive or not perceive them.
TWENTY-FIVE: Hence, consistency with perception tells us that “First Cause” is a property that applies to all manifestations. On the other hand, “cause and effect” is a special sequence observed between two manifestations.
.
“By definition, a thetan does more than simply perceive and record the perceptions. A thetan can form and add opinion (ref. The Factors) and give meaning to what is perceived, as well as postulate and create entirely new perceptions. Specifically, a thetan can originate and create. A thetan is a cause point.”
In my opinion, all the above is apparency only. In truth, “cause” is the result of interactions between considerations at various levels as in a fractal.
.
”As I see it, unless there is a cause point or element of origination in existence, the universe is nothing more than a vast, complex machine or computer program in operation.”
The universe is what it is. “Cause-effect” and machine-like “action-reaction” are simply two different theories to explain it. These theories take the black and white approach. I see those two theories to be different points of an interminable fractal scale. So, there is neither absolute self-determinism as postulated for thetan, no is there absolute other-determinism, as postulated for a machine.
.
”In your theory, included in the machine would be perception “points” where energies interact. Any so-called efforts (efforts made without intention) to “remove inconsistencies” are just a matter of mechanics in play with no other factor involved – such as decision, volition or choice. “You”, a perception point, are merely the result and manifestation of accumulated perceptions. And the term “considerations” would be superfluous since those are simply the result of the interactions of recorded perceptions. That is to say, “consideration” is just another word for an energy manifestation which results from other energy manifestations. If I’ve extrapolated wrongly, please explain how.”
Please see my comments above about thetan and “cause-point” being more a part of black and white approach. The reality seems to be a lot more sophisticated. There seem to be a whole spectrum of considerations and interactions between them that has not been explored. There is a lot more that Buddha says here: THE STRUCTURE OF “I”
.
Vin: “In truth, ’cause’ is the result of interactions between considerations at various levels as in a fractal”.
My question is this – is there any “cause” which is not simply a reaction brought about by another “cause”? In other words, is there any “cause” that isn’t primarily an effect in its causation? Or to word it yet another way, is there any “cause” which is the actual source of the act of causing?
Vin: “The universe is what it is. ‘Cause-effect and machine-like ‘action-reaction’ are simply two different theories to explain it….there is neither absolute self-determinism as postulated for thetan, nor is there absolute other-determinism, as postulated for a machine.”
I’m not sure what you mean by “absolute self-determinism as postulated for thetan”, unless you mean self-determinism in an ultimate/fundamental sense. In any case, your model doesn’t contain any implication of self-determinism whatsoever, that I can see. I read it as an expression of mere mechanics, the description of a machine. What am I missing?
Btw, I got the same impression 2ndxmr expressed, that “Following that path would likely turn me as solid as a rock…”, and I wondered if you were doing your best to make Buddha right or someone else wrong. Seriously, it seems to require that kind of explanation to understand your approach. Unless I’m still missing something…
My thoughts about “Cause” are expressed as follows in the PHiLOSOPHY PROJECT: Let’s discuss that first:
FIRST CAUSE:
[“First Cause” is a misnomer. It has nothing to do with the notion of “cause and effect”. “Cause and effect” denote a certain association between two events where the second event is looked upon as the outcome of the first event. “First Cause,” on the other hand, is the property, which makes a manifestation simply appear without association with anything else. It is interesting to observe that the property of “first cause” may be applied to all manifestations before applying the association of “cause and effect.”]
TWENTY-ONE: We cut a tree; it falls. We strike a match; it lights up. Thus, we have a phenomenon that is a direct consequence of another phenomenon. This makes us believe that all phenomena are caused. We, thus, assume that a manifestation must be a consequence of another manifestation. This belief leads to an infinite causal series.
TWENTY-TWO: To resolve this inconsistency, we assume a First Cause that is not itself caused. But this makes the First Cause different from the way all other causes are understood. It allows the possibility that a manifestation may simply appear.
TWENTY-THREE: All manifestations simply appear as we perceive them. They disappear as we stop perceiving them. Thus, we may consider “First Cause” to be the property of all manifestations.
TWENTY-FOUR: The notions of CAUSE and EFFECT seem to indicate an association between two manifestations, which otherwise simply appear and disappear as we perceive or not perceive them.
TWENTY-FIVE: Hence, consistency with perception tells us that “First Cause” is a property that applies to all manifestations. On the other hand, “cause and effect” is a special sequence observed between two manifestations.
.
“Everything dissolves including the individuality.”
Yes, I get that everything of substance dissolves. And I know it isn’t substance that arrives at Nirvana, but what is it? It seems clear that there must be some non-substance thing that strives for and eventually achieves Nirvana. So what is it? I would really like to know your answer to this question.
Please see my response to 2ndxmr.
https://isene.me/2012/12/30/happy-new-year/#comment-27183
It is not what arrives at Nirvana, it is what remains after all attachments are dissolved. I call it a perception-point. But even the perception-point dissolves at parinirvana by merging into its own manifestation… something like electron merging into positron.
.
Vin, you post a quote of LRH that says absolutely nothing at all about any consideration being a secondary level as a reaction to some input.
You then immediately go on to expound, in a completely non-sequitur way, that the arising and existence of considerations is the result of some kind of reaction to some input.
This is exactly the opposite of what LRH taught. He taught that considerations occurred because someone considered them, not as a result of some kind of knee-jerk stimulus-response behaviorism or on a larger scale, some kind of dialectically materialist process of thesis-antithesis-synthesis, world without end.
That’s what I called dub-in, because you appeared to be using the LRH quote as a basis for the rest of your post. Perhaps it was really a “bait-and-switch”? I am left to wonder, did you think the quote would create an agreement in your audience, which would facilitate their acceptance of a completely contrary idea from you?
I don’t really think so. Alonzo is that guileful, but you are not, to my knowledge.
So I guess you were just free associating. But you had me worried there, for a minute! 🙂
Valkov, LRH is not an authority for me. My reference point is my own contemplation over inconsistencies.
If you find an inconsistency in the materials we are discussing, please present it without any attention on the participants in a discussion.
Thank you.
.
(1) Underlying all unwanted conditions there is always an identity shift.
(2) The unwanted condition comes about when a person gets stuck in some identity that was assumed during some confusion.
(3) A person is stuck with that identity because that identity is holding down the unresolved confusion for him/her.
(4) The identity operates as a stable datum to align the confusion. But the identity itself consists of confusion.
(5) An identity is basically a set of knotted up considerations that needs to be loosened up by closer looking.
(6) It is the original confusion that precipitates through an identity as an unwanted condition.
(7) Underlying the original confusion there is an original inconsistency that still exists within the identity that is apparently restraining the confusion.
(8) The identity becomes the source of further inconsistencies. It is the continual generation of these inconsistencies, which makes up the unwanted condition.
It appears that all identities and all “self” have the same or similar confusion at their core.
.
Vinaire; According to you: What is the defining difference between a consideration capable of generating further considerations and a consideration that is not so capable (if such exists)?
Well, Geir, I simply have a conjecture that there are some elemental considerations (axioms), from which all other considerations may be derived. There could be something like a periodic Table for these elemental considerations. Analogous to Periodic Table elements, some considerations are conjectured to be inert, some that supply “electrons”, and others that receive “electrons”. Thus, there are “molecular” considerations, which can be infinite in numbers. Many of these considerations may tightly knit together to produce a self or identity.
By the way, I assume these considerations to be some kind of field patterns in space.
So, at the moment I need to do further research into this area to get rid of all the inconsistencies that show up.
.
An interesting reply. But not an answer to my question.
Geir, I’m wondering if considerations can be described at their root as mathematical iterations. If so, then considerations might in some way be self propagating?
Geir
Love your question…..once again, laser precise….be here “with us” and share your questions
and your views (if I may ask you to do that)…some profound is coming out alive……
I am not always capable of answering. Please don’t think that I am trying to withhold anything.
It is a matter of looking, and answers come as they may. You have that capability of looking too. So, look and just depend on my answers.
Please be cooperative instead of being accusative.
.
Vin,
Who did you write this comment to?
That comment was addressed to Geir.
.
I was simply trying to find out what your answer to my question was – your rationale behind your philosophy. How did the notion of accusation enter the picture?
Geir said: An interesting reply. But not an answer to my question.
It comes across as an accusation or complaint that I did not answer your question. I can’t read your mind, so such a remark seems to be out of place.
What do you think would be an answer to your question? You seem to know the answer already otherwise how would you know that I did not answer your question.
What would be an answer to your question? What criterion are you going by?
.
Well, it was simply not an answer to my very clearly formulated and curious question. Please read it again and see if you can answer the question.
There was indeed no accusation in my response at all. I do wonder why you came to think it was. Could you please elaborate on why that came to be?
If your question was clearly formulated from your point of view, then my responses have been clearly formulated from my point of you.
Now please answer my clearly formulated questions to you. 🙂
Sent from my iPad
Vinaire: “Please don’t think that I am trying to withhold anything”.
I don’t say that Geir (or I, for that matter) was doing that but I know that it’s a very unpleasant experience to have someone not accept what you say. This can happen in session too when the auditor wrongly demands more than what is actually there to say. Horrible! Did you ever have that experience?
So, what is the responsibility of the auditor when he knows that he is insisting for an answer (that he wants), which the PC does not have. Should the auditor operate on his expectations, or accept the pc’s answer of “nothing there”?
.
Vin, if the auditor is applying tech correctly, he won’t be insisting on an answer the pc doesn’t have. Sometimes he sees something on the meter that tells him the pc does have more there but the pc may not want to say what it is or he may not yet have even viewed it, so the correct tech is to repeat the question.
Unfortunately, it has also occurred that the pc really doesn’t have anything there and the auditor keeps asking. This could be either because of a false read or because the auditor is mis-reading the meter. If the pc continues to say nothing is there, the auditor should now see the evidence of that on the meter and should indicate it to the pc. But if none of this resolves the situation to the satisfaction of both pc and auditor, the next thing to do is a correction list.
Was your experience different from any of this?
So, what do you think of Geir’s approach in our brief interaction here?
.
“So, what do you think of Geir’s approach in our brief interaction here?”
I think that his approach was based on the fact that when someone uses a word they are using it to symbolize a thought and to communicate that thought to someone else. Since Geir didn’t understand exactly what that thought of yours was (that you were using the word to symbolize) he was trying to clarify it.
Was he? I thought he simply rejected my answer.
Imagine an auditor doing that to his pc… just to use your analogy.
.
Vin: “So, what is the responsibility of the auditor when he knows that he is insisting for an answer (that he wants), which the PC does not have. Should the auditor operate on his expectations, or accept the pc’s answer of “nothing there”?”
That’s a problem that regularly comes up in a session. The simplicity is that the auditor needs to be sure he’s running a charged question. After that there is the task of PC + auditor being greater than the bank and the proper tech being used to help the PC. But it must always be to help the PC. The stuff that gets reported today that would have constituted gross out-tech in my time is something I wouldn’t want anybody to have to endure.
Yes, this is a big weakness in Scientology procedure. There is a great need for poka-yoke.
.
.
Vin,
Aside from this cycle. You keep using the word consideration, and also consider. Dee asked you to give her their meanings, how you use them in your writings. I am too asking you now. Can you please do that?
Marildi,
Can a misunderstood word give a reaction on the meter that would show up as a withhold?
Marianne, a meter read only shows there is charge on something. It is up to the auditor to determine what the charge is on, based on the tech to do so.
I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking but I’ll
[Correction to my post above…]
So, look and do not just depend on any answers.
.
.
Vin,
No, no, no ! You want to shut down the cycle ! No way ! Chris says after watching
the song I sent you that it gives him the chills ! I can’t feel that chills yet ! Do you,
Vin want to finish it like this ? Still, if you do, it’s fine with me, it’s the business of the two of you.
The good kind of chills – goosebumps!
There exists an atomic theory of matter. Can there be an atomic view of spirit?
I think that we can have an atomic hypothesis of spirit. It won’t be out of place in the information age of today.
Is the spirit made up of consideration equivalent of atom? What could be the structure of consideration?
.
I agree. Just in our daily life, we take so much technology for granted that would’ve been consigned strictly to the spirit world a century ago. How elementary will our technology appear a century from now?
It seems a very human mistake to organize knowledge into the physical world but unobservable or imaginary or thought into a spiritual world. Probably both words, physical and spiritual, harbor our misunderstandings about Nature.. I like the word universe. It seems adequate to contain everything. And if it does? We can stop thinking about not yet understood manifestations as spooky.
One of the common filters has been that spiritual is independent of the physical and that spiritual is the source of physical. That is the basis of THETA-MEST THEORY. It is the same filter that exists in Christianity.
To me, both spiritual and physical are different aspects of the same system. I would go as far as saying that both spiritual and physical may lie on the same scale, and that a gradient may exist from spiritual to physical.
.
Vin,
Can I ask you to give me your definition of consideration? Dee also asked you,
I am asking you now too. Thanks.
I have given my definition of consideration many times. If you are still rejecting my answers then you’ll have to go to my blog for detailed explanation.
Here something you could try:
(1) Consider something.
(2) Then look at that consideration closely and thoroughly.
(3) Look at how that consideration came about.
(4) Examine if there is something being taken for granted by you.
(5) See how your understanding of consideration differs from what you think I am saying.
(6) Isolate your disagreement.
(7) Bring that disagreement to the table for discussion.
.
I think what I am suggesting here is pretty fair.
.
Vin,
Thank you! I’ll go to your blog for detailed definition. I understand that you have told it
many times. Can you please give that to me too? In a simple way. Thanks!
Please read the PHILOSOPHY PROJECT on my blog as I asked Valkov to do too.
Please take some responsibility instead of just putting it on the other person.
.
Vin,
Pretty fair, thank you ! The exercise is superb! I would like to give you my observation I have about your cycle with Geir! There is an MU there. It could be the word consideration. You keep using it in your works. You finished the cycle by kind of blowing.
Then you had a discussion with Marildi about Geir – not in a very nice way.Then you were off
to another comment – leaving the “place” without any resolution of the problem.
Vin, the way I see it is, that you gave an answer but didn’t ANSWER the question (clearly
formulated, as Geir says and I agree).
Marianne, you are focusing on the participants rather on the subject. Please do the exercise that I recommended based on the subject.
Thanks.
.
I see it that way too.
I’m not sure how or why this happy new year thread turned to a heated discussion of Scientology – again, but this past year has been really fruitful for me to work out – yet again – the vestige considerations that I’ve had about Scientology — the doubts, the hopes, and the un-compared data. Sorting out the materials is a looming job but I’ve reached a sort of plateau where I can understand that Scientology was truly an unoriginal patchwork quilt of “50,000 years of thinking men.” Hubbard seems to have been at war with himself and confused whether to create and to send Scientologists over a “bridge to total freedom” using the “left-hand path,” or the “right-hand path,” and so sent his followeres down both.
It seems to me that a very basic confusion of Hubbard’s was whether mankind should evolve toward the deification of the self, away from a sense of “oneness,” or whether OT’s could never make it on their own and needed to organize into “hives” for survival. There is also conceptual confusion in The Tech which shows up in praising and striving for higher states of individuality yet all the while condemning any form of individuation. Two examples of this confusion can be demonstrated in Hubbard’s own words in the lofty and prestigious scripture-book known as SCIENTOLOGY 8-8008 versus the HCOPL (policy letter) of 25 June 1963 as follows:
“One of the control mechanisms which has been used on thetans is that when they rise in potential they are led to believe themselves one with the universe. This is distinctly untrue. Thetans are individuals. They do not, as they rise up the scale, merge with other individualities. They have the power of becoming anything they wish while still retaining their own individuality. They are first and foremost themselves. There is evidently no Nirvana. It is the feeling that one will merge and lose his own individuality that restrains the thetan from attempting to remedy his lot. His merging with the rest of the universe would be his becoming matter. This is the ultimate in cohesiveness and the ultimate in affinity, and is at the lowest point of the Tone Scale. One declines into a brotherhood with the universe. When he goes up scale, he becomes more and more an individual capable of creating and maintaining his own universe. In this wise (leading people to believe they had no individuality above that of MEST) the MEST universe cut out all competition.” — L. Ron Hubbard, SCIENTOLOGY 8-8008
and then versus the HCOPL:
“The trouble with O.T.s in the past has only been lack of cooperation and a commonly agreed upon objective. Without these O.T.s eventually fall prey again to smaller beings with bigger organization skill. O.T. is an unstable state only when O.T.s are not cooperating with O.T.s but each going his own way in the strong but fatuous belief he can single-handedly survive. The proof is, O.T.s have not survived as O.T.s whenever this super-individuation collided with the super organization of weaker beings. The answer is to remain organized, with mutual assistance and integrity and not lose touch with or responsibility for all levels of life forms and societies. This means that programmes for such agreement must be offered. — L. Ron Hubbard, HCOPL of 25 June 1963
When I was a devout follower of L. Ron Hubbard, I saw no problem with these types of contrary facts for the first and most important tenet of Scientology is that when in doubt about Scientology, just read and apply Scientology to find the flaw in your reasoning.
Chris, it seems clear to mean that “individuation” and “individuality” have two distinctly different meanings and that while still having individuality a thetan can either be or not be individuated. The definition of individuation is “a separation from knowingness”.
OK. You see higher states then being individual?
Chris, I don’t see the relevance of what “I see” to the discussion we were on. We were talking about what “LRH saw”. So I say again, let’s not change the subject quite yet.
To re-state it, you said LRH was contradicting himself and I still don’t know what you are calling contradictory in those quotes. Or did you change your mind about that?.
Hubbard is clear. Do you understand that spiritual improvement results in a more clearly defined individual? Or do you understand that as a person improves spiritually that his sense of self lessens toward a merger with the Great-All. These are different ways of looking at the spiritual path.
Okay. By “Hubbard is clear” I get that you no longer see any inconsistency in those references you posted (although you may disagree with what he contends). Correct me if I’m wrong on that (or forever hold your piece – or “peace”, depending on your school of thought :D).
The answer to your question as to what I understand spiritual improvement results in is – a more clearly defined individual. In other words, I would tend to agree with the excerpt you quoted from 8-8008:
“Thetans are individuals. They do not, as they rise up the scale, merge with other individualities”.
The reason I would agree and the reason LRH had for saying the above is based on his research, which he explained in Creation of Human Ability under the process R2-48–Separateness:
“This was the process that told me that we are not natively sprung from one
‘common body of theta’. If you run separateness, accentuating the
difference in unity of a being from other beings and things and spaces, he
continues to gain in tone. If you run this process in reverse, how he is
the same as, or is connected to various items, he continues to dwindle in
tone. By handling this latter process, one can press a being down into the
rock-bottom state of aberrations. We have long known that differentiation
was the keynote of sanity, and that identification was the basis of
aberration. This fact is utilized in processing by running separateness.
“It can be concluded that the being is an individual separate from every
other being and that he has never been part of any other being…”
Marildi: ““Thetans are individuals. They do not, as they rise up the scale, merge with other individualities”.(LRH quote)
I would agree with that but I believe that as we rise upscale we may find that we have a common communication medium (perhaps like dimension zero) that we simply are not aware of right now.
As an analogy, consider a sleeping person in the midst of a number of talking, awake persons. In this case the sleeping person may be getting some bits of the conversation about him and incorporate that into whatever reality he might be dreaming or otherwise aware of. (Certainly he may be so deeply asleep that no awareness is there.)
There are several points to this analogy:
1) There is the possibility of a plane of communication that all “awake” participants can join in on.
2) The asleep person may have limited, delusional or no access to that plane.
3) The individuals involved in the communication on the common plane do not sacrifice their individuality to participate on the plane.
I see no reason why individuals, as beings, would need to operate differently. They probably could, if they chose to (to merge or form some other “collective”) but I see no reason why they would be compelled to do so.
“I would agree with that but I believe that as we rise upscale we may find that we have a common communication medium (perhaps like dimension zero) that we simply are not aware of right now.”
I’m smiling here because I was going to say something like that but didn’t want to write too much in a single post. And in any case, I expected Chris to next ask me about my earlier comment about “oneness”. I do believe there is some kind of entanglement of beings and I think it most likely can be described in physics terms, as can the mind. We probably already do create continuous effects on each other “for better or for worse”, as I worded it earlier – even if we aren’t yet aware of it.
2ndxmr, regarding a sleeping person it may not just be an analogy. Everything going on around a sleeping person is being taken in and recorded and thus becomes part of his mind, and even though, as you said, there may be no awareness of it. From what we know in Scientology and other studies, perceived “data” is actually in the form of energy patterns which get “stored” in the mind and, energy being energy, is thus capable of interacting with other energies of the mind.
It also seems evident that people “pick up” (perceive) the energy patterns existing around others, i.e. in the minds of others (emotions, for example), even though doing so is usually below their awareness level. And, like the environmental data perceived and stored by the sleeping person, that “mental” data is also energy and can react with other energy. This is one way individuals may be entangled. They just have to be in the same physical universe with the same space-time.
What Hubbard says is clear — it is easy to understand. That he contradicts himself is the point that I made.
My prediction was and remains that if a person has a problem with these contradictions, then they are no true Scientologist.
Chris, I see your comment as ducking out of the discussion. That makes it look like you really have no good argument to make.
Marildi, can two individuals emerge from the same source?
What are your thoughts on God?
.
I don’t see the “contrary facts” you apparently find in the 2 quotes. Individuality and individuation have 2 distinctly different definitions.
LOL, Val, we almost posted the exact same response – you said the two words were “distinctly different definitions” and I said they were “distinctly different meanings”.
This seems to be the perfect example of a person having confusions about Scientology, based on his own misunderstandings, who then comes to the conclusion that Scientology itself is contradictory and/or in error.
Yep, and Chris’ vorpal sword goes snik snik snik in reply….
And I hadn’t even started ridiculing him!
This is a good example of cognitive dissonance. No wonder Hubbard went mad.
.
Vin: “This is a good example of cognitive dissonance. No wonder Hubbard went mad”.
Vin: “Chris, you have now joined the ranks of Alanzo and Vinaire in the eyes of the pious. Ha, ha!”
Vin: “I think these two belong to ESMB.”
Vin, you are descending along a path you’ve slid down before and you need to apply some looking, fast. Neither you nor Chris are going to win any arguments by getting into this state where you dramatize being the victim and resort to argumentum ad hominem as your final bastion of self righteousness.
What your responses do indicate to me is an unwillingness or an inability to differentiate between what in Scientology provided gains and what created failures. When one ceases to differentiate one begins to identify; there is no longer good and bad, it’s all identified as bad. That’s as equally true for many in the CoS looking outwards as it is for your complaint looking back at the CoS. That identification you see in the CoS is the source of cognitive dissonance there.
However, the argument you make above for cognitive dissonance here fails when the same persons being argued against have clearly stated that they can differentiate between the positive aspects of Scientology and the failures of it, including the failures of LRH.
Many of your arguments don’t make sense to me because they seek to contradict what I’ve experienced as workable fact, i.e. what is true for me is true because I’ve observed it to be true and I can see a result as following from the logic based on the premises of Scientology. If you make a tautological claim that denies one of the premises that I have, through experience, found repeatably true, you should not be suprised if I attack what I see as a fallacy in your reasoning. I don’t insist that you agree with me. Some of the things we argue about are as beyond immediate proof as the Higgs boson was 10 years ago. I am open to discussions about ways to prove or disprove them but not to a tautology that sums up as “Hubbard simply exploited the old superstitions by giving them a pseudo-scientific garb for the modern audience.” A summation like that inclines me to conclude that you know less than nothing about what your trying to argue. The “less than nothing” is a negative of intelligence, not just an absence of intelligence but an active negator of observed data that makes the negator look not just ignorant but stupid.
If you were to say “none of this business about a multi-lifetime being makes any sense to me because in applying Occam’s razor we should only be looking at what possible effects could arise from combinations of macromolecules”, I’d say “fine, let’s figure out some ways to test each premise.” We could have some fun and do some good. It doesn’t matter that we disagree, that happens in science all the time. And if the occassional argument or a fight draws some blood? That’s when you have to apply your Impermanence datum, grin and let it all go.
I’m up for it. Are you? Here’s to a future of high-toned fights, bloody noses and grins. Cheers!
All of us seems to have the tendency to impose one’s morals on others and I am no exception. I shall make no bones about the fact that I do not agree with Scientology morality, especially considering Hubbard to be source of knowledge in those areas where he uttered something.
That may make me an evil person in some people’s eyes. And if that upsets those people then it is their case and their responsibility.
So, the bottom line is to control one’s case and continue conversing without feeling upset.
I am sure you are up to it.
.
Agreed. I do it too, vow to stop, then fall off the wagon. I must be a PTS/SP rolercoaster case and this is proof. Oops. Doing it again… damn!
That wasn’t me. Alanzo made me write those ugly things! You know I wouldn’t do that if I were in my right mind.
2ndxmr: “Vin, you are descending along a path you’ve slid down before and you need to apply some looking, fast. Neither you nor Chris are going to win any arguments by getting into this state where you dramatize being the victim and resort to argumentum ad hominem as your final bastion of self righteousness.”
Please don’t get work yourself unnecessarily. I am looking. I may not be looking the way you want me to look, but I am looking.
I am not sliding down anywhere. If you think that I am heading toward getting myself banned on this blog once again, let me tell you that it is nothing for me to get sweaty about. So, please don’t deal in threats.
I am not here to win any arguments. I am not interested in debates. I am interested in discussion. Proper discussions can occur only when attention is taken off the participants and only kept on the subject. I find that Scientologists have the habit of focusing on the participant when the argument is not going their way. They take everything as a debate, which is not my approach.
It is funny that you consider me to be dramatizing as a victim. Well I don’t think myself to be a victim at all. I just laugh at your Scientology filters that you start pushing when you get upset.
Please calm down!
.
Actually Vin, I believe it was me he threatened with the yellow card. This is why I have gotten my ethics in. You’ll be having no more trouble out of me.
Chris: “You’ll be having no more trouble out of me.”
Cheers, Chris! Cheers!
You are right! That is a commendable rarely seen. But Chris is one who has shown that kind of character more than once.
I say the same,to you, Chris. Cheers!
🙂
LOL! Chris… this is hilarious!
.
2ndxmr: “What your responses do indicate to me is an unwillingness or an inability to differentiate between what in Scientology provided gains and what created failures. When one ceases to differentiate one begins to identify; there is no longer good and bad, it’s all identified as bad. That’s as equally true for many in the CoS looking outwards as it is for your complaint looking back at the CoS. That identification you see in the CoS is the source of cognitive dissonance there.”
Scientology is just a word. Please don’t get stuck on it. Gains come from certain actions that are not copyrighted by Scientology. Gains come from looking and that has been that way since ancient times. I would appreciate if you would converse in terms of particular facts without reference to Scientology, because reference to Scientology introduces all kind of biases. Let’s talk in terms of knowledge, which happens to be the super set to Scientology.
Please don’t take off on tangents by making your own assumptions. I am not complaining about anything. I am seeing Marildi and Valkov jumping on Chris’s throat for making an observation. I am simply riding on their wavelength. If you you want to get to the bottom of my response, simply look at what happened just before it and spot the inconsistency there. Right now you are looking at something late on the chain.
.
2x. thank you so much for pointing in a direction where all of us together can improve the quality of our discussions. Even though the posters here may hotly disagree as to whether an individual spiritual entity exists, I have the impression that we all believe that in some fundamental way we are connected. And affect each other for better or for worse. I think if we keep that “oneness” in mind while we passionately argue our own viewpoints, it will keep us from crossing the lines we shouldn’t if we’re going to “have some fun and do some good”, as you so well put it. This could be the start of a truly NEW year! I for one am making that toast with you. Cheers!!
Marildi, So I am understanding that regarding the basic dispute between “oneness-ism v. individualism” that you “side” with oneness and not individuated individualism?
Chris, if you have the idea that LRH sided with “individuated individualism” I say again that you have not comprehended his statements. We need to complete that discussion first, the one you started as regards there being a contradiction where LRH talks about “individuated” and “individual”. Once we get that sorted out, we’ll be set up to discuss this subject of “oneness”. I’ve been wanting to anyway.
Cool. Referring to the LRH quotes, and to Maria’s research definitions, how do you see it?
See my last comment to you and Maria and we’ll continue the exchange in the same thread.
Marildi, all one has to is discuss the subject and not the participants to have nice discussions going. Discussions gets derailed when one puts attention on the participants.
.
Vin, I get what you’re saying. However, the other point several of us are making is that in a discussion we should be able to discuss what the other person has said – not discuss HIM but what he is saying, including asking questions about that in order to clarify it, as well as pointing out inconsistencies. That’s all part of any normal discussion and is the reason we can learn from each other. So if we ask a question about what someone said, it shouldn’t be interpreted to mean we are discussing THE PERSON.
I never implied that. But to say, “you did not answer the question” is commenting on the person.
Do you see that?
.
No, I don’t. Saying the person didn’t answer is actually making a statement about what the person SAID, as with anything else he puts forth. If someone asks, “What is the color of an apple?” and the other person answers, “Four” or even “Apples grow on trees”, he isn’t answering the question. And the other person has the right to say so as this is a common part of discussion.
What if the person did answer the question, but it not acceptable to the other person.
See! it is just an opinion. So, it should be dealt with discussion. The comment of “you did not answer my question” comes across to me as a complaint and a discussion stopper.
You are taking it as factual, when it is an opinion.
.
No, it’s not a “complaint”. It’s not any different or worse than saying “I didn’t understand what you said”, except it’s “I didn’t perceive an answer in what you said”. But I don’t think we have to be picky about it and word it in some special way – we can use the ordinary wording of “You didn’t answer” and not be sensitive about it.
I would say that most of the time it’s obvious whether a person answered a question or not. But if you feel you did answer, why don’t you just point out what the answer was, or re-state it, or try to make it more comprehensible. At times your answer might be, “I don’t know” – which should be accepted as an answer, although it may be challenged as an inconsistency if it is one.
That’s a stretch.
.
2ndxmr:“However, the argument you make above for cognitive dissonance here fails when the same persons being argued against have clearly stated that they can differentiate between the positive aspects of Scientology and the failures of it, including the failures of LRH.”
Please focus on the point made. It has to do with what was quoted in that post from Chris. Look at those two quotes. Do you see any inconsistency? Do you see any inconsistency in individuality being made the cornerstone of Scientology by Hubbard?
.
2ndxmr: ”Many of your arguments don’t make sense to me because they seek to contradict what I’ve experienced as workable fact, i.e. what is true for me is true because I’ve observed it to be true and I can see a result as following from the logic based on the premises of Scientology.”
Let’s take an example of a person who sees all women as sexual objects. That is true for him. Obviously this does not make it universally true. That person is obviously looking through a filter based on his past experiences.
Do you believe that if there is a conflict between what I am saying and what is true for you, then you are right and I am wrong?
If there is an inconsistency, shouldn’t everything associated with that inconsistency be examined? Are you assuming Scientology’s truth to be absolute truth? Are you assuming Scientology logic, and the premise it is based on, to be flawless just because you agree with it?
Is it possible there LRH and you may have similar filters?
Just asking… 🙂
.
I disagree with this statement – “That person is obviously looking through a filter based on his past experiences.”, to the extent to which it seems to imply that “filters” are necessarily based on “past experience”.
Filters need not be based on anything except one’s immediate whim. Experiences, past, present or future have no relevance at all, unless one wishes them to have relevance.
All filters might be entirely arbitrary creations with no precedent at all, created simply just for the heck of it.
Your basic worldview as expressed in your posts, Vin, seems to be a straight dialectical materialism, which is a one-sided and limited philosophy.
Dialectical materialism is a very narrow filter.
Noted! When you are ready for a decent discussion on the subject, without complaining against the participant let me know.
.
2ndxmr: ” If you make a tautological claim that denies one of the premises that I have, through experience, found repeatably true, you should not be suprised if I attack what I see as a fallacy in your reasoning. I don’t insist that you agree with me. Some of the things we argue about are as beyond immediate proof as the Higgs boson was 10 years ago. I am open to discussions about ways to prove or disprove them but not to a tautology that sums up as “Hubbard simply exploited the old superstitions by giving them a pseudo-scientific garb for the modern audience.” A summation like that inclines me to conclude that you know less than nothing about what your trying to argue. The “less than nothing” is a negative of intelligence, not just an absence of intelligence but an active negator of observed data that makes the negator look not just ignorant but stupid.”
Try not attacking and being more humble and respectful. Then you’ll get a better response.
Scientology’s policy of always attacking and not defending smells of a service fac of believing that one is right and the other person is wrong.
Have you ever felt that way? (I am using Marildi’s technique here… 🙂 )
.
I used that “technique” on you without any implication that you had committed a wrongdoing. What you are saying to 2ndxmr does seem to have such an implication, so it’s not the same technique.
Does asserting one’s “rightness” always imply that one is asserting the other’s “wrongness”?
I think not.
2ndxmr: ” If you were to say “none of this business about a multi-lifetime being makes any sense to me because in applying Occam’s razor we should only be looking at what possible effects could arise from combinations of macromolecules”, I’d say “fine, let’s figure out some ways to test each premise.” We could have some fun and do some good. It doesn’t matter that we disagree, that happens in science all the time. And if the occassional argument or a fight draws some blood? That’s when you have to apply your Impermanence datum, grin and let it all go.”
Then stop attacking and start discussing the subject without any attention on the participants. That is the scientific approach.
Please take another look at Discussions and what needs to be avoided.
.
Vin, Marildi,
Can you please comment on my last two comments on Vin’s cycle with Geir? Thanks!
You’ll have to repeat them as I don’t remember.
Marildi,
Can a misunderstood word show up on the meter as a withhold? This was the question asked from you. Thanks.
I did answer but this thread is long and spread all over the place so you must have missed it. This was my reply:
Marianne, a meter read only shows there is charge on something. It is up to the auditor to determine what the charge is on, based on the tech to do so.
Sure, just as soon as you can tell me where the science is in a summation like “Hubbard simply exploited the old superstitions by giving them a pseudo-scientific garb for the modern audience”. That’s simply an opinion and an attempt to minimize the subject you are claiming to discuss. If you want to present a strong argument, present some evidence. If you just want to vent then open the discussion with that qualifier. I’d have no problem with that. But when you open with an argument about the definition of thetan (Vin:Let’s look at the following definition from Hubbard) and end with a base but baseless remark, you have jumped from presenting a point for discussion to attacking the subject by an ad hominem attack on the founder. I don’t know how you figure that qualifies as a good basis for discussion, but it is a good way to get a sharp comeback pointing out the outpoint.
You want a scientific discussion? Sure, bring it to the table but please leave your emotion based conclusions out of it.
There is nothing scientific about attacking. I have presented the following several time on this blog for a scientific discussion. Have a go at it without digressing into the criticism of participants.
Scientology Axiom # 1
.
.
2ndxmr: ” I’m up for it. Are you? Here’s to a future of high-toned fights, bloody noses and grins. Cheers.”
Yes. I have responded to all your points. Now, are you really up for it?
Do you plan to continue attacking? Or, are you ready to settle down to a discussion?
.
Yes! That was entirely too easy. Humorous that the two most energetic promoters of Scientology on this blog audit the least, ridicule, and condescend with the best. “When in doubt about Scientology, simply find out what is wrong with your reasoning.” I rest my case.
You’re going to rest your case on an Ad Hom argument? Come on, Chris, why not just admit you had an MU? It’s happened to all of us.
Chris: “Humorous that the two most energetic promoters of Scientology on this blog audit the least, ridicule, and condescend with the best.”
Wow, Mr. Pot. That’s a pretty incisive argument that the Mr. Kettle is black…. Ridicule, condescension, generality, questionable data… In some tamer circles a bystander might call out “Yellow card!!”, “Yellow card!!!”.
Thicker skins and leveler heads, however, would simply suggest you restudy the definitions of ad hominem and ad argumentum. Perhaps quickly… before some knuckle-dragging Elronner jumps all over your sorryassed sententiousness.
Seriously, when a bad argument gets shredded one might be better off saying nothing and looking stupid than spouting an ad hom that confirms it.
Chris, you have now joined the ranks of Alanzo and Vinaire in the eyes of the pious. Ha, ha!
That is the price of looking sometimes! 🙂
.
Thank you Vinaire for noticing! haha.
Well, I wasn’t trying to start or join a club. But I do bow to my betters: 2nd transformer for his expertise in “sententiousness;” Marildi for her expertise using “fallacious logic;” and Valkov for his expertise on the stoner drugs that inspired Lewis Carroll!
You have overlooked honorable mention of Vinaire for the superiority of his “Pious Humility”.
I should have said for his “Columbo-like Pious Humility”.
LOL – Colombo-like!
@2ndX — hehe Questionable data? Yes, this is why I quoted Hubbard verbatim so that the resulting bruhaha could be focused on his words rather than mine. I missed on that one, didn’t I?!
In light of your quotation of Hubbard’s “OT Maxim” and your opinion that creating universes is child’s play for a thetan, would you say that the current universe was created by one or more than one thetan?
@ Chris: “…would you say that the current universe was created by one or more than one thetan?”
What I’ve said on more than one occassion was that I could see a mechanism whereby a universe could be created by as little as a single thetan. It might be easier to set up the standing wave pattern if there were two, but I think a single one could do it.
What is basis of the concept of thetan?
.
@Vin
That’s a good question. I’ll answer that from my own perspective for now.
The concept of the non-corporeal starting point is pretty prevasive. Just about all cultures have some storyline that seeks to create an explanation of origin. Now, with a bit of modern physics to help with the timeline, we can track this universe back nearly 15 billion years. There has been speculation that the universe has been cycling (bang, expand, collapse, bang, …over and over)but let’s consider the prior state. For the purpose of a pure starting point there really should be nothing. A total zero. Now that fits the definition of Static:
STATIC, 1. a static is something without mass, without wavelength, without time,
and actually without position. That’s a static and that is the definition of zero.
(5410CM06)
at least once the “nothing” has become a “something.”(a static is something without…).
It may take another discussion to consider ways the original zero went from “nothing” to “something”, but that wasn’t the basis of your question. In considering the thetan we can consider that the static was already at the “something” stage since Hubbard defined the thetan as:
“the awareness of awareness unit which has all potentialities but no mass, no wave-length and no location. (HCOB 3 Jul 59)”
and
“a static that can consider, and can produce space and energy and objects . (PXL, p . 121 )”
So the thetan can be a zero or a static, but it is a static at the “something” stage.
There might also be another thing to consider re the question “what is the basis of the concept of a thetan.” The other thing to consider is that there was a tremendous amount of history already recorded re the spiritual aspect of man when Hubbard started down this path. That history includes records of paranormal activity and various attempts at harnessing that ability. It would be reasonable to conclude that any scientific mind interested in the exploration of this area would try and take the idea back to the starting point, the zero. From that point only one assumption has to be made to reach the definition of thetan: the “nothing” has to become “something” and at that point the something becomes thetan # 1.
2ndxmr, is STATIC beyond consideration. If not then it cannot be a zero.
Please comment.
.
hehe and the snake’s tail grows as fast as he eats it… hahaha. We have a hell of a time with this “static-zero-beyond-consideration-thingy,” don’t we?. None of these are beyond consideration since we just wrote them down. hehe (The glee of my insanity overtakes me, pardon me while I belch. – Where is Katageek when we need a good dose of craziness? Well, never mind, Slack is helping out in his absence and I am in his camp). I am pretty sure that we can count on NOTHING IS UNMANIFESTED and the corollary that EVERYTHING IS MANIFESTED — if that!
I wrote those words in bold letters so that anyone reading will know they are true. (You can’t write in bold unless its true, you know?)
Do you think that 2ndxmr can survive it, or he’ll go crazy too?
I cannot bet on Marildi, she’ll try to wiggle her way out somehow.
.
Well, it is a little bit like pulling the band-aid off a scab. Best to do it quickly so the tearing doesn’t hurt so much! These are the anchor-points; the frames-of-reference; the things to be let go of; the garage to be cleaned. hahaha, I am still feeling a little bit crazy. Your duplication of my original post helped me tune in better though.
This is helping me see that the point of view is not so important as the ability to change one’s point of view at will. Any point of view, any consideration seems to have the same mechanic as any other. The content is unimportant. But fixing one’s attention; investing a lot of focus on making one point of view hold still; seeking permanence seems to provide the oak which snaps in the wind.
Everyone wants to feel safe and secure. To close one’s eyes in their own bed and feel that the space will remain unchanged; still be there when they wake. Human existence can be difficult and fixating on making it hold still all the time seems to provide stress. Letting go of various solidity such as “expectations” is good practice and relieves this stress.
Wow, Vinaire, I’ve lost track of the number of comments you’ve now made about “the person”. Possibly as many as you’ve made criticizing people for doing that – even when they were only commenting on your statements.
Marildi, you are trying to make me wrong aren’t you? I was just joking about 2ndxmr. It was not an effort to target a participant of discussion to distract from a discussion. Tell me what is really your beef here. Please be honest with yourself.
Sent from my iPhone
How about this comment, Vin:
“I cannot bet on Marildi, she’ll try to wiggle her way out somehow”
That was just the one in a series of about a dozen, about me alone. You seem to be using two different filters. One for the comments you make about other people. And one for yourself.
I have said this before, and I still see this: Vinaire is the person with the highest concentration of self-righteousness and arrogance I have had posting on my blog.
@G. Yes, maybe but not the most illogical and I don’t think the most vindictive either. Superiority complex? Yes, but not worse than 2ndxmer. Obstinate and pigheaded? Yes, but not worse than Marildi. Ridiculing? Not really, not like me, Valkov and KG.
He has another side — one that patient, kind and burgeoning with original think. You’ve seen this side of him in person as well as on his blog. Analytical and organized. Being ridiculed seems to set him off and harden his shell, but it softens just as easily.
I know what you are talking about, how he can earn some of this criticism; however, I have been blogging with him on his and my blog for quite a while now and this negative side that you notice is fairly absent in those other venues and he really listens and considers and changes when the environment is slightly less wild than we let it get here. I am as guilty as any for letting my comments get too personal. I can do better. (For a while, until I rollercoaster because of Alanzo suppressing me again!@#$%)
I am glad you recognize what I mean. I hope he does as well so that he can correct this side. Because I do believe this side really hurts the positive sides of his products.
Chris, what you call pigheaded, some have described as persistent.
“…if the individual is not deviating very markedly on his course toward his goal even
when confronted by heavy environmental factors which seek to move him in other directions,
neither is he reacting heavily to his engrams, in proportion to the severe reactions he might
manifest were he less persistent. An individual may be known by his persistence…” (SOS)
It’s sort of the opposite of Q&A. Maybe I should give you some of my pigheadedness so you don’t so easily blow a discussion, eh?
What is that percentage? 🙂
.
*\o/* Appreciate you saying that Isene, thanks.
This will cease now, OK!
Now let’s get on with some meaty discussions.
.
Well, then I am in violation of the discussion policy, ain’t I!
The solution would be to point out a violation as soon as it occurs. This will gradually bring down the number of violations. I think it is already happening. This is a good thing.
.
Vin: “Do you think that 2ndxmr can survive it, or he’ll go crazy too?
I cannot bet on Marildi, she’ll try to wiggle her way out somehow.”
Whereabouts on your wonderful code of discussion does that fit in, Mr. Double Face?
Easy now, we should all maybe just take a break and breath?
Take a deep breath yourself and look over your own comments there, fella.
Thank you. I shall cease and desist.
Sent from my iPad
Thanks, Vin. May we all work towards better discussions. Cheers!
2ndxmr, let’s look at the quote that you provided.
“a static that can consider, and can produce space and energy and objects . (PXL, p . 121 )”
This tells me that Static is being looked upon as “cause” of consideration and MEST. This means that STATIC is not beyond consideration because a statement is being made about it.
That means, STATIC is not zero for Hubbard. It violates the neti-neti test.
.
2ndxmr: That’s pretty much what I see too.
Also, the persistent and widespread sense of being aware of being aware, persisting even in dreams, in NDEs and in altered states of consciousness.
And finally, the observation that a dead body is characterized by the absence of an animating -influence. It’s GONE, brother, GONE. And no amount of scientific or medical intervention brings it back once its gone. It’s “passed away!”
@Maria,
Yes, all the points you mentioned are other aspects of what would cause man to assume there was a non-corporeal part to the whole person. There is one more thing and that is past life recalls. There is way to much anecdotal data to ignore it totally. I would expect more than a few claims have been tracked down by researchers over time. The consequence of this data would be to cause researchers to consider mechanisms whereby the beingness could progress through time. To me, the simplest model of explanation of this is the concept of the thetan.
2ndxmr, past life recall simply tells me that a certain mental pattern of experience has existed before. It does not tell me that the soul or person has existed before.
.
Vin: ” past life recall simply tells me that a certain mental pattern of experience has existed before. It does not tell me that the soul or person has existed before.”
What you propose is a mental pattern of energy that hangs in space at the body death of one individual and somehow finds its way into the body of another individual.Why wouldn’t that pattern just find its way into the persons typically around the recently-deceased? Why would it WAIT for an new body? How does a simple energy pattern begin to get selective?
On the other hand, consider the concept of the thetan which can postulate and decide and select which body it will enter.
Which concept is simpler?
In my opinion a soul disintegrates into smaller pieces just like body does. Neither identity of body or soul remains. A new body is newly constructed from smaller pieces of matter. Similarly soul is constructed from smaller pieces of programming patterns.
The programming patterns have to be compatible with the pieces of body they attach themselves to. This seems more consistent to me.
Sent from my iPhone
All I can say is that your opinion does not match my experience with others, nor my own recalls, of which I have verified one.
Vin: “a static that can consider, and can produce space and energy and objects . (PXL, p . 121 )”
This tells me that Static is being looked upon as “cause” of consideration and MEST. This means that STATIC is not beyond consideration because a statement is being made about it.
That means, STATIC is not zero for Hubbard. It violates the neti-neti test.”
That reference was for the definition of thetan, which, as I said before, comes at the point when the static has become a “something” i.e., after it has awakened from “nothing”.
Awakening from “nothing” makes no implication that it does not fit the definition of zero:
the proper and correct definition of zero would be: “something which had no
mass, which had no wave-length, which had no location in space, which had no
position or relationship in time. Something without mass, meaning or mobility.
(Dn 55! p. 28)
There is no reason why an “awake” zero cannot consider as that does nothing to change dimension. So the “static” can remain a static after it awakens. It can stay a zero until it decides not to. It passes the neti-neti test.
Perhaps same as the basis for the concept of atman.
Buddha considers atman to be impermanent, and I see it that way too.
Do you see a thetan to be impermanent?
.
Yes, in a certain way I do. But I have no idea if we think of it in the same or similar ways. it is as Buddha said, nothing that exists in the universe is permanent. The $64 question is, does the basis, the “ground”, of a “thetan” exist in the universe? The Tibetan Buddhists believe that when a person dies , one of the stages that occurs is what they call the “Ground Luminosity”.. As this emerges, just about everything that was the person is absorbed into it. This is one opportunity to go free. Subsequently is another stage in which the Karmic bundle related to the person who died is reformed and eventually might be reborn. This seems to be if the person has not gone free in the meantime. Either way it appears there is a kernel of consciousness which exists past the death of any particular body.
I see “permanence” as a relative term. Certainly some things last much longer than others.
What is the Ground Luminosity? It sounds a bit like Native State, which could be termed the “ground” of all existence, that Light out of which all existence arises. It is called by some as equivalent to the Buddha Nature.
My reference for some of this is a book titled “The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying” by Sogyal Rinpoche.
It is a pretty meaty book but pretty clearly and vividly written. It describes one of the Tibetan traditions and teaching methods, which is direct person to person transmission of knowledge.
Valkov, please see my response to 2ndxmr here:
https://isene.me/2012/12/30/happy-new-year/#comment-27183
Also, please see my response to Marildi… #comment-27184.
.
I don’t promote scientology, but I do enjoy pointing out the misapprehensions of it on the part of others. Makes me feel smart. If you’re going to dislike something or criticize something, at least understand what it is you are criticizing. Otherwise you are guilty of straw man. Scientology should be criticized justly on it’s own merits or demerits, not because of personal misapprehension of some part of it.
Nyah nyah.
Valkov, In my opinion, Chris understands very well what he is criticizing.
.
@ Valkov, Between unity and individuality, Hubbard votes for both and for neither. If you understand this, please tell me how you see it.
Chris, I will simply refer you to the 4 categories of logic as understood in Buddhism:
1. Is
2. Is not.
3. Both is and is not.
4. Neither is nor is not.
This discussion has occurred several times on this blog over the past couple of years on several extensive threads.
Sounds like you need to Cram on those, or maybe do a complete retread.
I am too lazy to dredge and search this blog myself to find them. I don’t even really know how to find them all, or I would do a “Collected posts of Valkovuddin” myself.
“Although innumerable beings have been
led to Nirvana, no being has been led to Nirvana.”
—Diamond Sutra
Really?
So give us a legitimate criticism of Scientology, from your superior understanding, Valkov.
Let’s see just one.
Alanzo
Raises hand!! Me! Pick me! I can do this! Which definition of legitimate do you want me to use? Come on Alanzo! Pick me! Its not fair — you always pick Valkov!!!
le·git·i·mate (l-jt-mt) adj.
1. Being in compliance with the law; lawful: a legitimate business.
2. Being in accordance with established or accepted patterns and standards: legitimate advertising practices.
3. Based on logical reasoning; reasonable: a legitimate solution to the problem.
4. Authentic; genuine: a legitimate complaint.
5. Born of legally married parents: legitimate issue.
6. Of, relating to, or ruling by hereditary right: a legitimate monarch.
7. Of or relating to drama of high professional quality that excludes burlesque, vaudeville, and some forms of musical comedy: the legitimate theater.
No.
You’re too smart, Maria. And you criticize Scientology all the time. You even might be bordering on being considered to be in ranks with me, Vinny, and Chris soon.
No, I want Valkov and Marildi to answer this one. They seem completely unable to criticize Scientology and L Ron Hubbard, so I have this as a challenge for them.
I’ll give you another challenge assignment later.
Alanzo
Why should I take the bait of an Ad Hom argument about LRH? Really, Alanzo, you should work on those Logical Fallacies. 😉
Marildi –
My challenge stems from this statement by Valkov, not from an ad hom argument on LRH.
I’ve never once seen you able to criticize Scientology. Yet you seem too smart for that. So build up some of your credibility with all of us here and let’s see a valid criticism of Scientology, as Valkov describes above.
Alanzo
And as Marildi says, “For the record,” nyah-nyah is an Anasazi farewell which loosely translated means, “the divinity in me, acknowledges the divinity in you.“
nyah-nyah 😀
Al, you guys have to get rid of your fixed ideas about proponents of Scn – and about me. Here’s part of a criticism I made just the other day:
“It seems to me that LRH made a big mistake on the point of no ‘verbal tech’ (unless his intention was actually misinterpreted). I’ve observed that so much can be gained from sharing experiences and ideas about the written and recorded materials”.
http://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2012/12/31/thanks-for-participating/
Okay. Have it your way! I’m not happy about this but I will try to exercise some patience awaiting my challenge question. LOL!
Marildi wrote – on Marty’s blog no less! –
That is quite a step for you, Marildi. And I’ll bet the parenthetical weaseling you did there made you feel like less of a low-toned, out-ethics critic, too!
Can you flat out give a criticism of Scientology tech, and not weasel whatsoever?
Can you say, “You know WHAT! I frikking DISAGREE with ___________ and ________ in Scientology! I have never seen this to be __________________ or ______________!”
Can you do that?
Alanzo
Al, it was just a matter of communicating that I am open to the possibility that I might be missing something. And I was willing for someone to point out what misunderstood or missing data I had, in which case I would have been willing to change my mine.
Let me ask you in return: Have you ever done what I described in the above? Or can you do so now?
Yes. Yes I can.
Unless I’m missing something, it appears that L Ron Hubbard lied about being blinded and crippled in world war 2, and curing himself with Dianetics.
Unless I’m missing something, L Ron Hubbard was an unindicted co-conspirator in the crimes that sent his wife and 10 other people to prison in the late 1970’s.
Now, can you simply express an unqualified disagreement with something, ANYTHING in L Ron Hubbard’s Scientology?
Alanzo
But you haven’t completed the sequence I laid out, which ends where you do change your mind about whatever the criticism was. Give me an example of following the whole sequence.
LOL!
Send me some money first, Al. My educational services are no longer free – at least not to you.
And you want my educational services free?
.
Heh. Have I ever asked for your educational services?
You have asked me questions. 🙂
.
OK Al, here is a legitimate criticism of scientology, from my superior understanding:
It has produced overt products such as yourself.
OOOPs, sorry Maria, I should have told you to set your coffee down…… 🙂
Val –
Do you think that creating me as an overt product was the cause of straight 100% standard Scientology, or was it something from a stupid earth-man did who could not assimilate straight Scientology?
Because if it was a stupid earth-man’s fault then this would not be a criticism of Scientology, and I will have to flunk you on this one.
You have 30 seconds to decide on your answer, and while the wheels are turning in your analytical mind, and the engrams are sparking in your reactive mind, we will play the “Jeopardy” theme song….
Alanzo
Vin,
I commented on the “Post containing nothing.” Please look at it. Then, please, by observation comment on what you get.
I think these two belong to ESMB.
.
hehe I never go there!
Oh I am not so sure he has an MU. More like the variety of definitions on this subject are not consistent — these are all from the tech dictionary with the exception of the last two definitions. I solved the problem when I was in Scientology by determining that I had to use the definition of the time period I was studying, if one was available at all. Now I just ignore them (unless I am discussing on this blog or other Scn blogs) and decide what makes sense and works well for me.
DEFINITIONS:
INDIVIDUAL, 1. an individual is a collection of “memories” going back to his first appearance on earth. In other words, he is the composite of all his facsimiles plus his impulse to be. Individuality depends upon facsimiles. (HFP, p. 111) 2 . somebody who is operating in coordination with himself twenty-four hours a day. That’s an individual. An organism which is unhappy, aberrated, is an organism which is working at cross purposes with itself twenty-four hours a day. (5110CMllB) 3 . when we say the individual we are talking about something as precise as an apple. We are not talking about a collection of behavior patterns which we all learned about in the study of rats. We are talking about something that is finite. We are talking about somebody. The somethingness that you are and the capabilities you can be and this is what we are talking about. We are not talking about the color of your hair or the length of your feet. We are talking
about you. (Abil Mi 5)
INDIVIDUATION, a separation from knowingness. (5203CMlOB)
KNOWINGNESS, 1. being certainness. (PAB 1) 2 . a capability for truth; it is not data. (PDC 47) 3 . knowingness would be self-determined knowledge.(5405C20)
THETAN, 1. the living unit we call, in Scn, a thetan, that being taken from the Greek letter theta, the mathematic symbol used in Scn to indicate the source of life and life itself. (Abil Ma 1) 2 . the awareness of awareness unit which has all potentialities but no mass, no wave-length and no location. (HCOB 3 Jul 59) 3 . the being who is the individual and who handles and lives in the body. (HCOB 23 Apr 69) 4 . (spirit) is described in Scn as having no mass, no wave-length, no energy and no time or location in space except by consideration or postulate. The spirit is not a thing. It is the creator of things. (FOT, p. 55) 5 . the personality and beingness which actually is the individual and is aware of being aware and is ordinarily and normally the “person” and who the individual thinks he is. The thetan is immortal and is possessed of capabilities well in excess of those hitherto predicted for man. (Scn 8-8008, p. 9) 6 . the name given to the life source. It is the individual, the being, the personality, the knowingness of the human being. (Scn 8-80, p. 46) 7 . energyspace production unit. (COHA, p. 247) 8 . in the final analysis what is this thing called thetan? It is simply you before you mocked yourself up and that is the handiest definition I know of. (5608C——) 9 . the person himself—not his body or his name, the physical universe, his mind, or anything else; that which is aware of being aware; the identity which is the individual. The thetan is most familiar to one and all as you. (Aud 25 UK) 1 0 . a static that can consider, and can produce space and energy and objects . (PXL, p . 121 )
STATIC, 1. a static is something without mass, without wavelength, without time, and actually without position. That’s a static and that is the definition of zero. (5410CM06) 2 . a static by definition, is something that is in a complete equilibrium. It isn’t moving and that’s why we’ve used the word static. Not in an engineering sense but in its absolute dictionary sense. (5608C–) 3 . an actuality of no mass, no wave-length, no position in space or relation in time, but with the quality of creating or destroying mass or energy, locating itself or creating space, and of re-relating time. (Dn 55!, p. 29) 4 . something which has no motion. The word is from the Latin, sto meaning stand. No part of mest can be static, but theta is static. Theta has no motion. Even when the mest it controls is moving in space and time, theta is not moving, since theta is not in space or time. (Abil 114A) 5 . has no motion, it has no width, length, breadth, depth; it is not held in suspension by an equilibrium of forces; it does not have mass; it does not contain wave-lengths; it has no situation in time or space. (Scn 8-8008, p. 13) 6 . the simplest thing there is is a static, but a static is not nothingness. These are not synonyms. We speak of it carelessly as a nothingness. That’s because we say nothingness in relationship to the space and objects of the material universe. Life has a quality. It has an ability. When we say nothingness we simply mean it has no quantity. There is no quantitative factor. (5411CM05) 7 . a static, in physics, is called something which is “an
equilibrium of forces.” (Dn 55! p. 27)
*******************************
L. Ron Hubbard wrote:
Universe O/W is based upon the observable fact that a thetan is trapped in a thetan, a mind, a body and the physical universe. If he weren’t, he or she wouldn’t be sitting in a chair. Thus we process the extremely obvious, scouting out with an E-Meter only what obviousness is more troublesome to the pc than the other obviousnesses. Of course it seems strange that a thetan could think of himself being trapped in another thetan but you see this all the time in valences. Ghosts become ghosts by being overwhelmed by thetans they think are ghosts and so on. That a thetan is trapped in a mind and that it is not his own mind that he is trapped in is also obvious. If it were his own mind he would soon as-is it and you see what a hard time he has trying to erase it: that hard time comes about because he is misowning the mind in which he is trapped. And this is true of all traps. A thetan is usually quite sure that there is something wrong with the ownership of his own body and sure enough there is. And of course he’s in the universe without much understanding of it.
[…]
You are probably wondering how we can get away with running “conceive a static”, forbidden in the book The Creation of Human Ability. We can just barely get away with it because of the nature and power of the Comm Process. By damping out excessive individuation the Comm Process increases havingness. A total individual can’t have much of anything—you can’t even have a car really unless you can be, besides self, a “car driver” or a “car passenger”. A totally individuated person cannot be anybody but himself, cares for nobody but himself and can share in no activity of any other person. Hence as we flatten out this obsessive individuation we gain in the pc usually enough havingness to run a massless identity such as a thetan.
Hubbard, L. R. (1959, 5 October). Universe Processes. Technical Bulletins of Dianetics and Scientology (1991 ed., Vol. V. pp. 223-225). Los Angeles: Bridge Publications, Inc.
**************************************
By Collective Identity is meant an identity as a plural or generality; e.g. “I’m the army” or “I’m us”. There is no personal identity…
(I am not going to quote the rest of this on this forum as it is from the NOTs materials, but look for it on this forum and you can read about “we are all one” and other references on individuation.)
http://ocmb.xenu.net/ocmb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=32754&start=30
**************************************
Thanks Maria, great post and link!
Let’s look at the following definition from Hubbard:
THETAN: 3 . the being who is the individual and who handles and lives in the body. (HCOB 23 Apr 69)
Is there such a thing, or this is simply a consideration of Hubbard? What is the evidence?
What I see is an organization of macromolecules, which I assume, have the capability of computing at the molecular level through the massive electronic field in those co-valent bonds.
The physical part of macromolecules develops into various organs, which then organize into a body. Similarly, the computing capability part of the macromolecules develops into the purpose of those organs, when then organize into a soul.
So, there is body and there is soul. These are marvelous organizations. Soul and body are intimately integrated with each other.
To say there is a being that can live independent of the body is an extension of the old superstition that gave us the ideas of the soul going to heaven or hell, places which exist independent of this earth elsewhere in the universe.
Hubbard simply exploited the old superstitions by giving them a pseudo-scientific garb for the modern audience.
.
Excellent comment for stirring up extreme dissonance!
Perhaps it is always the three jewels in a new dress?
The Three Jewels
སངས་རྒྱས་ཆོས་དང་ཚོགས་ཀྱི་མཆོག་རྣམས་ལ།
Sang-gye cho-dang tsog-kyi cho-nam-la
I take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha
諸佛正法眾中尊
བྱང་ཆུབ་བར་དུ་བདག་ནི་སྐྱབས་སུ་མཆི།
Jang-chub bar-du dag-ni kyab-su-chi
Until I attain enlightenment.
直至菩提我歸依
བདག་གིས་སྦྱིན་སོགས་བགྱིས་པའི་བསོད་ནམས་ཀྱིས།
Dag-gi jin-sog gyi-pe so-nam-kyi
By the merit I have accumulated from practising generosity and the other perfections
我以所行施等善
འགྲོ་ལ་ཕན་ཕྱིར་སངས་རྒྱས་འགྲྲུབ་པར་ཤོག །།
Dro-la pan-chir sang-gye drub-par-shog
May I attain enlightenment, for the benefit of all migrators.
為利眾生願成佛
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Jewels
What dissonance does it create for you, Maria? 🙂
Sent from my iPad
Here’s the snap answer:
Ha!
.
Right here, right now I can see proof of why I am unable to assimilate straight Scientology. I am looking right at the “three jewels in a new dress” and I see “four.” Obviously due to O-W’s; mis-U, false data; and O’W’s.
OMG! LOL! 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀
The three jewels are: n the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha!
Vinaire, when you post “what I see blah blah blah….” what in the world do you mean by “I”? What “I”? Who sees? Are YOU “I”? Or do you “have” and “I”? If you are not an “I”, what are you? Or do “you” even exist?
I feel that until you obfuscate these more completely, anything else you post about life is not likely to make any sense to me. Geir has also repeatedly asked you essentially this same question for at least a couple of years now, and you have always evaded answering it.
If that is OK with you, please ignore this post and simply continue to bloviate to your heart’s content.
Wow!! New word!! BLOVIATE. What a fantastic word! Never seen it before — it rolls on the tongue just so! Jeez Louise Valkov how did you come upon that word?!?!!
Maria, a guy named RJ used to use it on Marty’s blog a couple of years ago.
hehe
Valkov, if you stop attacking and stop thinking “I am right and the person I am attacking is wrong” and show a bit of humility and patience then probably we can get down to some good discussion.
Obviously, you haven’t been reading all my comments closely enough. I don’t mind repeating myself. I can post my PHILOSOPHY PROJECT here. But I would suggest that you go to my blog, click on discussion, click on PHILOSOPHY PROJECT, and then read it. It is short. Give some time to understanding what “perception-point” is as opposed to self, identity or viewpoint.
If you are interested in knowledge. and you can set your ego aside for a bit, then you will do the above. You may want to shred the PHILOSOPHY PROJECT to pieces and that would be delightful for me. Because I want attention to be given to the subject and not to the participants.
.
I’ll ask it again – If one thinks or feels he is “right”, does that automatically imply the other is “wrong”?
Perhaps continuing to think in such dichotomous terms is actually a problem? So why create a problem where none actually exists?
You tell me twice in this one post, to “stop” attacking and “stop” thinking about rightness and wrongness etc. So, what’s so “right” about your doing this to me? Further on, you continue to say or imply I am not humble enough, not patient enough, too egotistical and possibly lacking in desire to acquire knowledge.
In fact Al is often just as or more “attacking” as I am, but since he is attacking the same people or viewpoints you enjoy seeing attacked, you vicariously enjoy his posts and laud him, instead of criticizing him for being so “attacking”. Well, what goes around comes around, as we say here in the West.
The answer is: There is definitely an inconsistency because there are no absolute right or wrong. When a person is disagreeing and insisting that he is right then he is definitely implying that the other person is wrong relative to him.
The point is by focusing on the participant you are moving away from the discussion. It is a big distraction. Why do you do that? In my opinion, the only reason that one would focus on the participant is egoism.
Let me know what you are interested in discussing.
.
A couple of other definitions from the abridged Scientology Dictionary:
THETAN
The person himself – not his body or name, the physical universe, his mind, or anything else – that which is aware of being aware; the identity that IS the individual. (From Theta, the Greek symbol for ‘thought’ or perhaps ‘spirit’.)
THETA
Energy peculiar to life or a thetan which acts upon material in the physical universe and animates it, mobilizes it changes it; natural creative energy of a thetan which he has free to direct toward survival goals, especially when it manifests itself as high tone, constructive communications.
AWARENESS OF AWARENESS UNIT
The individual, the personality.
ANALYTICAL MIND
(analyser) This mind consists of visual pictures, either of the past or the physical universe, monitored and presided over by the knowingness of a thetan. The keynote of the analytical mind is awareness; one knows what one is concluding and doing. It combines perceptions of the immediate environment, of the past (via pictures) and estimations of the future into conclusions which are based upon the realities of situations.
ANATEN
An abbreviation of “analytical attenuation” meaning a diminution or weakening of the analytical awareness of an individual for a brief or extensive period of time. If sufficiently great, it can result in unconsciousness. (It stems from the restimulation of an engram which contains pain and unconsciousness.)
BEINGNESS
The assumption or choosing of a category of identity. Beingness is assumed by oneself or given to oneself, or is attained. Examples of beingness would be one’s own name, one’s profession, one’s physical characteristics, one’s role in a game – each and all of these things could be called one’s beingness. TO GRANT BEINGNESS means to grant life to something: to permit or allow other people to have beingness.
GENETIC ENTITY
A composite of all the cellular experience recorded along the genetic line of the organism to the present body. It has the manifestation of a single identity. It is not the theta being or “I”.
“REACTIVE MIND: That portion of a person’s mind which works on a stimulus-response basis (given a certain stimulus, it gives a certain response) which is not under his volitional control and which exerts force and the power of command over his awareness, purposes, thoughts, body and actions. It consists of GPMs, Engrams, Secondaries and Locks.” Scientology Abridged Dictionary
Awesome research and resulting post as usual Maria. Thank you.
Between unity and individuality,I don’t understand Hubbard jumping back and forth between and all around these very different concepts — roller-coasting if you will. I would ask your own take on this but already know your opinion from your voluminous writing. 🙂
Aaaw!! And I had so much to say about all this!!! Wait! I guess I did already say it.
But really — really really this time — what I find really interesting about all of this is that I find myself shifting like mad on all these different concepts, with or without reference to any concepts presented in Scientology. i.e. looking from different “angles” and contexts gives me different answers. I am currently looking at the pads on the bottom of the elephant’s feet where they apparently touch the ground.
So true! I also shift points of view rapidly when working on these ideas. I don’t know if this is because I am psychotic or OT!
But seriously, I sometimes read LRH’s take on something and am just OMG! Brilliant! . . . then I’m continuing on and see the contrary statement and go, WTF?! As a Scientologist, I was not allowed t go “WTF” unless I was just thirsty for a good spanking. Being out here amongst the WOGS I have had quite a better time of it although occassionally such as today, here, on this thread, I have been put in my place very effectively!
Witness:
Me too!
Chris, don’t you mean LRH jumping between “individuation” and “individuality”? Or do you mean between “unity” and “individuality”?
The debate between “we are all one” and “we are each an individual” is a red herring, a moot point, if you accept the definition of Static as given by LRH. The reason is, “Static” is defined as unquantifiable. Therefore one cannot say that there is “one” or there are “many”. Those are “quantities”, therefore do not apply.
I understand “oneness” as referring to integrity, an unbroken state. That is the experience of “oneness”, right there. It is the experience of “wholeness”, of being whole and unbroken, as perhaps at the beginning of track or before, as one then comprises all 8 (or more) Dynamics.
As one falls away from this state, one might “individuate”, which means one falls away from being cause on all Dynamics and shrinks to being fewer and fewer Dynamics, eventually possibly getting down to considering he is just a 1st Dynamic which is pretty untenable for survival, because he is putting all other Dynamics in opposition to himself. By this time he is dying quite frequently!
According to LRH it is possible to sink even further down, with the Dynamics inverting through possibly endless iterations. There you get stuff like a person delusionally believing he is God and soon.
LRH actually does a good job describing this in some clear detail in some lectures of his, which if you listened to without prejudice and a little bit of interest, would save lots of time and bandwidth, allowing this blog to make some progress instead of having the same discussions over and over again for 2 or 3 years.
Should read “believing he is God and so on.”, not “God and soon.”
Here is my critiques of STATIC:
The very first Axiom of Scientology states:
AXIOM # 1: LIFE IS BASICALLY A STATIC.
Definition: a Life Static has no mass, no motion, no wavelength, no location in space or in time. It has the ability to postulate and to perceive.
.
However, the axiom uses the article “a” before Static. It further assigns the abilities “to postulate and to perceive” to Life Static. In THE PHOENIX LECTURES, Hubbard states:
“This is a peculiar and particular static, having these properties…”
When describing THETA-MEST THEORY in SCIENTOLOGY 8-8008, Hubbard states:
“In Scientology, the static is represented by the mathematical symbol theta; the kinetic is called MEST. Theta can be the property or beingness of any individual and is, for our purposes, considered to be individualistic for each individual.”
The Life Static expresses itself through individuality.
.
This above is consistent with the following statement from THETA-MEST THEORY:
“Scientology is essentially a study of statics and kinetics. If anything, it is more exact than what are called the physical sciences, for it is dealing with a theoretical static and a theoretical kinetic which are at the opposite ends of a spectrum of all motion.”
It is consistent because the same fundamental characteristic must apply to all points of a spectrum. THETA (individuality) is as much a consideration as MEST (matter, energy, space and time) is. Both THETA and MEST are manifestations of considerations.
However, THETA-MEST THEORY also states:
“It is now considered that the origin of MEST lies with theta itself, and that MEST, as we know the physical universe, is a product of theta.”
This statement is inconsistent because it assumes that one end of a spectrum produces the other end.
MEST is not produced by THETA as assumed in Scientology. Both THETA and MEST are aspects of existence.
.
Any spectrum, or scale, is a manifestation as a whole. It must exist within the background of ‘no manifestation’. That ‘no manifestation’ cannot be THETA or Static as implied by Scientology Axiom #1.
We have the following from the Vedas
The Creation Hymn of Rig Veda
This makes the background to be beyond what we can ever consider. The starting point is not individuality as implied in Scientology Axiom #1.
.
Vin: “This statement is inconsistent because it assumes that one end of a spectrum produces the other end.
MEST is not produced by THETA as assumed in Scientology. Both THETA and MEST are aspects of existence.”
These statements are inconsistent with the Hymn of Rig Veda “…The gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe.”
The concept of creation in the Hymn is very similar to the concept I have from Scientology and what I wrote about in answer to your question on “the basis of concept of a thetan”. The opening of the Hymn:
“There was neither non-existence nor existence then.
There was neither the realm of space nor the sky which is beyond.
What stirred?”
is essentially defining the zero condition from “nothing” up to the point it became “something”.
“…is essentially defining the zero condition from “nothing” up to the point it became “something”.
Becoming “something” would seem to be consistent with the assuming of a viewpoint, the first action of “beingness”, as in the Factors. Would you agree?
LRH also stated that the thetan is “in a little bit of mass”. That was in the Scientology Picture Book but I think it’s from a lecture originally.
@Marildi
Yes, it (becoming a “something”) would be consistent with assuming a viewpoint but there may have been an even earlier step: the “waking up”. That process calls for the ultimate in speculation, at this time. In Vin’s reference, The Creation Hymn of Rig Veda, the waking up point is described as desire:
“Desire came upon that One in the beginning,
that was the first seed of mind.”
That could be although I would have put “desire” out there with “creation of a viewpoint.”
From a physics viewpoint I would try and conceive some means that an instability could emerge in the nothingness. That instability, the first wrinkle, the first emotion, like the cry of a new born child starting the awakening process. Like waking in a dark, silent room and for a moment not remembering where you are, or, occassionally, who you are. That phenomena may be some sort of echo of the original wakening. Even thetan #1 may not be aware of what that was, exactly, so that may be the ultimate speculation.
The Creation quote: “Desire came upon that One in the beginning,
that was the first seed of mind.”
You said you would have put “desire” out there with “creation of a viewpoint.” Just to brainstorm it with you, how about another possibility, that the “decision” to be aligns with “desire”. I can think of it that way too – and the “desire” to be creating an instability. And then comes the action of assuming a viewpoint.
I think the desire to be would be post awakening. From a physics point of view I can imagine a tension occurring similar to getting a crick in your neck or the shrinkage of plastic wrap that is stretched over a bowl.
This would be easier to consider if space were already involved, but the same process of tension can be reduced in size and reduced and reduced towards infinitly small, towards zero.
Mathematically speaking it may be demonstable that the limit of tension as space goes to zero is a non-zero value.
That would mean that tension could exist at the zero point and the release of that tension would be the first wrinkle. (That’s my own tautology and it is open for attack by all my friends here. 🙂 )
However, (to continue the tautology) the first wrinkle could have started awareness of tension. The awareness unit could have made a copy of that tension to re-experience it. From that the awareness unit could have stretched the tension to begin to try and understand it. All is speculation taken from the perspective of an echo of our own awakenings.
Whoa, now we need the physicists here to speak up. Chris? Vinaire? Geir? And whoever? (You know who you are.)
I’ll just say this: per my understanding, every theory has to start with one or more assumptions – or it wouldn’t take us anywhere out of the box. So I don;t think you can be accused of a tautology. Someone can orrect me on that if I’m wrong.
PHILOSOPHY PROJECT
SCOPE:
To investigate the interface between physics and metaphysics
.
REFERENCES:
The Creation Hymn of Rig Veda
Neti neti
.
OBSERVATIONS:
[OK, I am using Buddha’s principle of seeing things as they are. I am defining the scope of Physics and Metaphysics at the outset. I see Metaphysics much broader in scope and Physics to be part of that scope. Physics deals with manifestations. Metaphysics must deal with perception because there is nothing else there. I have been reading Aristotle. Metaphysics did not start out as the subject of perception, but it should have. That would have greatly simplified the subject of philosophy.]
ONE: There is looking and perceiving.
TWO: There is something to be looked at and perceived.
THREE: Thus there is manifestation and perception.
FOUR: Physics is a study of manifestation.
FIVE: Metaphysics is a study of perception.
.
[I am posting this again with one less link to escape the moderation queue]
PHILOSOPHY PROJECT
SCOPE:
To investigate the interface between physics and metaphysics
.
REFERENCES:
The Creation Hymn of Rig Veda
.
OBSERVATIONS:
[OK, I am using Buddha’s principle of seeing things as they are. I am defining the scope of Physics and Metaphysics at the outset. I see Metaphysics much broader in scope and Physics to be part of that scope. Physics deals with manifestations. Metaphysics must deal with perception because there is nothing else there. I have been reading Aristotle. Metaphysics did not start out as the subject of perception, but it should have. That would have greatly simplified the subject of philosophy.]
ONE: There is looking and perceiving.
TWO: There is something to be looked at and perceived.
THREE: Thus there is manifestation and perception.
FOUR: Physics is a study of manifestation.
FIVE: Metaphysics is a study of perception.
.
But LRH Static is not beyond consideration as I pointed out with LRH quote that you provided.
.
Vin, I don’t see what you are talking about. The Rg Veda talks about “the One”. How is that any different than talking about a “Life Static”? The Veda even talks about the One having or developing a “desire”. That more than “implies” an individuality of some kind.
I really don’t see much difference, and certainly no critical difference.
Valkov, please see the recent discussion on this subject with 2ndxmr.
.
.
2ndxmr
I am not copying it here. What you are writing about in your comment of 2013-01-06 at 7:39 seems to be very close to the truth of how it started. Why are you just ‘speculating’ about it? Put your attention on it and ask the question: How did it start? What’s the root of it? Keep the question there. No thinking. Just keep the question there.
Maria and Chris, you’ve both posted LRH quotes and indicated there was a contradiction in them. Valkov and I thought we got what you, Chris, were implying was contradictory and we responded with why we thought it wasn’t. If you still think it is contradictory you need to explain why – otherwise, how are we going to discuss and resolve it?
Maria, the same for the quotes you posted – I see no contradiction in them either. Please complete the cycle on this.
I actually said: More like the variety of definitions on this subject are not consistent…
INDIVIDUAL, 1. an individual is a collection of “memories” going back to his first appearance on earth. In other words, he is the composite of all his facsimiles plus his impulse to be. Individuality depends upon facsimiles. (HFP, p. 111)
versus:
THETAN 9 . the person himself—not his body or his name, the physical universe, his mind, or anything else; that which is aware of being aware; the identity which is the individual. The thetan is most familiar to one and all as you. (Aud 25 UK)
My comment:
The one defines an individual as a composite of his facsimiles (mind) and the other says the identity which is the individual .(but NOT his mind). This is definitely inconsistent.
I prefer the definition “awareness of awareness unit” to serve as the definition for individual. I am definitely aware of being aware! But when I sleep I seem not to be aware of being aware most of the time I sleep. So what happened to me? Am I just not? Is it simply that nothing registers on the body time-space continuum? Yet when I do yoga nidra, I find that I can extend that state (awareness as found in states of sleep) as the body ceases to produce large motor activity and ceases to respond to external or even internal influence.
I’m an explorer you know. That’s what I do. I don’t really care if something is consistent or not, for most of the inconsistencies I discover seem to result from shifting context. Like I told Chris, lately I am examining the pads of the elephants feet where they touch the ground. I am examining from beneath the pads where the two forms (ground and pads of feet) meet and resist one another. its an odd place to look from but fascinating.
Maria, did you ever play the Elephant Game? It’s kind of a group process some scientologists played here in the 1970s. I’ll try to recall the patter and maybe I’ll post it here.
No I never did — I hope you can remember it!
Maria, here is the general patter and pattern for the Elephant Game:
This is a group process that can be done with kids and adults.
It is a great tension releaser.
Each person is sitting in a chair, or possibly standing up. Sitting is better because it is mostly done
with eyes closed and feet need to be on the floor.(You’ll see why)
Remember to acknowledge the performance of the commands.
The auditor (or facilitator, if you prefer) gives the commands as follows:
1. Close your eyes
2. Imagine a peaceful village of straw huts, with villagers walking around or sitting, children playing etc
(Embellish the scene as seems fitting, to get everyone involved.)
3. OK, got it?
4. Now faintly in the distance, imagine footsteps. Use your feet to slowly and create these. (Have the
group lift and set down their feet gently, alternating their feet as though they were walking.)
5. Gradually have them increase the force (loudness) of the footfalls as they come closer to the village.
6. Imagine the people in the village stop what they are doing to listen to the footsteps.
7. Make the footsteps come louder and faster now by stamping your feet more quickly on the floor.
8. Now stamp faster and faster.
9. Now realize this is a herd of Elephants and they are stampeding towards your village!
10. The Elephants break into the clearing and stampede into the village, flattening huts and anything in
their way!
11. The villagers throw their arms up into the air and shreik run around like crazy to avoid being
trampled by the Elephants!
KEY:
Encourage all participants to continue stamping their feet as the Elephants trample the village, at the
same time as they throw their arms up in the air and shriek at the top of their lungs as they mockup the
villagers running around in fear of the elephants. The people in the group need to experience being both
the stampeding elephants and the terrified villagers.
End off with the elephant steps now slowing down, quieting, and fading away as the elephants leave the village. The village becomes quiet and peaceful again.
That’s the Elephant Game. Anyone with some experience of group processing should be able to run this productively.
It is a great tension releaser.
Each person is sitting in a chair, or possibly standing up. Sitting is better because it is mostly done
with eyes closed and feet need to be on the floor.(You’ll see why)
Remember to acknowledge the performance of the commands.
The auditor (or facilitator, if you prefer) gives the commands as follows:
1. Close your eyes
2. Imagine a peaceful village of straw huts, with villagers walking around or sitting, children playing etc
(Embellish the scene as seems fitting, to get everyone involved.)
3. OK, got it?
4. Now faintly in the distance, imagine footsteps. Use your feet to slowly and create these. (Have the
group lift and set down their feet gently, alternating their feet as though they were walking.)
5. Gradually have them increase the force (loudness) of the footfalls as they come closer to the village.
6. Imagine the people in the village stop what they are doing to listen to the footsteps.
7. Make the footsteps come louder and faster now by stamping your feet more quickly on the floor.
8. Now stamp faster and faster.
9. Now realize this is a herd of Elephants and they are stampeding towards your village!
10. The Elephants break into the clearing and stampede into the village, flattening huts and anything in
their way!
11. The villagers throw their arms up into the air and shreik run around like crazy to avoid being
trampled by the Elephants!
KEY:
Encourage all participants to continue stamping their feet as the Elephants trample the village, at the
same time as they throw their arms up in the air and shriek at the top of their lungs as they mockup the
villagers running around in fear of the elephants. The people in the group need to experience being both
the stampeding elephants and the terrified villagers.
End off with the elephant steps now slowing down, quieting, and fading away, as the village becomes quiet
and peaceful again.
That’s the Elephant Game.
For some reason the whole thing got double posted!
OMG! That’s a scream! That would be so much fun to do!
Yep! It’s best when it climaxes with prolonged shrill shrieking and screaming from everyone, accompanied by the rapid and loud stamping of elephant feet!
And don’t forget the arms and hands thrown and held up in the air as the villagers run around shrieking.
It is a gas!
Maria, and any others interested, I believe the Elephant Game was played, and ought to be played, with eyes open, not eyes closed.
“The one defines an individual as a composite of his facsimiles (mind) and the other says the identity which is the individual (but NOT his mind). This is definitely inconsistent”.
Maria, I see it as simply a matter of choosing the definition appropriate to the context and I think you indicated in a previous comment that this is something you yourself do. It’s something everyone should be doing as it is part of study tech.
The (apparent) inconsistency you pointed out itself suggests the word “individual” is not used in the same way in those two definitions. And the other definition of thetan as “a static” would be one indication of which definition of “individual” is meant in the definition of thetan you quoted. The way “individual” is used in that definition, I would choose the regular English definition of “a distinct, indivisible entity” as the appropriate one.
Mind you, I definitely agree that it isn’t always an easy job to work out which definition is the appropriate one, and that is one big reason there are so many things misunderstood by so many people, in Scientology and elsewhere. But as for the claim Chris made that there is an inconsistency in the references he quoted, I think it’s a relatively simple one to work out.
No. This is a KEY, CORE concept of Scientology. I chose those two definitions because they are OBVIOUSLY and not APPARENTLY inconsistent. The one says IS NOT his mind. The other says IS his mind. And they are both from the the OFFICIAL dictionary for Scientology terms that I was REQUIRED to purchase and rely on. I was able to post this here because this is a real example from my own studies in a Scientology course room and no one could sort out in the course room or in qual. I went and got the references themselves to try to sort it out and they are simply NOT consistent. There is a key difference between the two statements. They are not just different contexts. They are DIFFERENT definitions for the same terms. I really resented being told I had a misunderstood back then, and I still do, especially when something like this is as obvious as it gets. And it was a piss off being told that it was my job as a student to sort such obvious differences out when I had to BUY the book that contained them and spend hours going over them because “I” had a misunderstood, I did not appreciate being made to buy student review hours either based on the notion that it was my misunderstood.
The first and only time I sort of got an answer for the problem was when I learned that others worked on compilations of these materials. That is the most likely reason for the lack of consistency. It came down to my own decision then and it still does. The problem then is, who wrote what? I suspect this is why there never has been a reissue of the promised new tech dictionary.
Maria, I believe I get where you are coming from with these definitions. Never having been subjected to any other-determined evaluations or pressures, I enjoy reading this dictionary and the various definitions. I understood that the definitions were compiled by others, but directly from LRH’s lectures/writings.
I always thought it was an interesting way to track the evolution of LRH’s thought through time – probably about 30 years of time! He published whatever conclusions he had come to at the time, based on whatever research he had done up to that point. Remember an “engram” being “a trace on a cell”, from DMSMH? How long before that was amended? 🙂
Or the evolving definitions of “Clear”? The publication line is like a big long itsa line of LRH’s thinking – that’s exactly what I find so interesting about it.
Fortunately I was never subjected to the kind of thing you’re talking about, with possibly well-intentioned but nonetheless robotic Supervisors etc “trying to do the right thing” on the job but making you wrong in the process!
As you say Valkov following the history chronologically one see the changes. Looking at a dictionary, how does one know which one is the latest or the correct one? Per Maria’s example.
This shows a lack of poka-yoke in Scientology procedures.
.
Vin: “This shows a lack of poka-yoke in Scientology procedures.”
There is a lot of poka-yoke in Scn. It’s called Qual and it can work very well. Operative word “CAN”. If it’s not overwhelmed by unhatted and difficult-to-hat staff. But, yes, situations like what Maria went through are what Qual should be looking in on and handling. When I was at Flag I dug my heals in on a point with a sup. I finally went to Qual – where they agreed with me. The sup went to the RPF.
@2x: And so the supervisor who had applied a wrong idea was fired as a Sea Org member and allowed to redeem themself by taking a couple years tour through the gulag rather than being corrected. Retrained from the bottom up for auditors who “miss withholds.”
To me, this is not poka-yoke, this is just mean spirited punishment. I have changed my opinion for the worse of the RPF since a couple of years now. And the notion of a Div 5 Qualifications is a quite good idea but I have no particular recollection of it being patiently applied.
The point was there is a Qual that can correct. If you had seen the way that sup treated students you might’ve agreed he needed to be fired. It was his choice to accept the RPF and back then it wasn’t nearly as crazy. Maybe crazier than I would’ve tolerated, but not near the reports we hear today.
I understand, then maybe he should have been fired. I was unjustly assigned to the RPF in 1989 and found the experience degrading, and not the good kind either!
In ’89 did they give you the option of RPF or…(I don’t know what the option was then – declare?)
At any rate, if you had the choice, you took the RPF. But you must’ve seen RPF’ers all the time. Did you have noe idea of what you were getting into?
Qual is correction after the fact. Poka-yoke are preventive measures so the error does not occur. An example is making one of the prongs of an electrical plug a bit wider so it can be plugged to the wall socket in one orientation only.
Wikipedia has a nice article on it.
.
Yes, Qual is correction after-the-fact but also training before-the-fact to help reduce the after-the-fact(s) just as electrical codes came in to improve wiring – after the fact of fires caused by shorts and after-the-fact electrocutions caused by undifferentiated plug prongs.
I’ve followed this discussion of poka yok’ing Scientology before. I mean there is the Auditor’s Code. That’s poka-yoke. But all poka-yoke can and will be defeated – no doubt. Especially your NEMA plug/receptacle configs! haha. The Qual is a great idea and applied with a good heart should work wonders. It is the heart of COS and of LRH for writing KSW using the words that he chose to use which has to be called into question.
Maria, I do get your point about the word “individual” in the definition of “thetan”. Would the definition make sense with the word “individual” being substituted with “a particular person”. That’s a definition of “individual” I found in Merriam Webster dictionary, which I’ve inserted in the definition (caps are mine):
THETAN 9 . THE PERSON HIMSELF —not his body or his name, the physical universe, his mind, or anything else; that which is aware of being aware; the identity which is A PARTICULAR PERSON [i.e. the individual]. The thetan is most familiar to one and all as you”.
As you can see, that definition of “individual” would also match the first part of the definition of thetan, which is “the person himself”.
And I think it would resolve the problem you had with “The one says IS NOT his mind. The other says IS his mind.”
The “one” (thetan) and the “other” (individual) are two different words which apply to two different entities. The fact that the definition of “thetan” uses the word “individual” isn’t a contradiction as it uses that word in a different way than how it was used in the definition of “individual” itself. There are many other examples where LRH gives a regular English word a specific Scn definition but in other contexts he uses the same word in the regular English sense. And I agree that it can be confusing.
An individual is a “center of considerations” analogous to “center of mass” What makes it a particular person is the particular bunch of considerations.
Here considerations may be interpreted as thoughts.
.
Marildi – I understand your effort here. You think you are clearing up a confusion for me. I am not confused. There is no confusion. No misunderstood. I do not appreciate you coming from a position that you are clearing up my “confusion” or my “misunderstood.” I understood all of this many, many years ago. Very, very well. How about instead of assuming this superior viewpoint that you understand and I do not, and you have to “fix me up” somehow and show me what I do not understand and have misunderstood, you simply acknowledge that this is YOUR way of working through this obvious inconsistency.
I already worked through all this and I have spent thousands and thousands of hours (years of my life) studying this material and doing exactly what you are doing. I do not think that LRH or Scientology are infallible and in my opinion this is an instance of that fallibility. The truth for me is that these materials need an overhaul to bring them into full alignment. This isn’t going to happen anywhere but in the indie field. And this is the indie field.
If you insist on holding onto and defending definitions that require this much mental wrestling there isn’t much hope for creating a version of it that is easy to work with and does not perpetuate confusions along the way.
Frankly I don’t care whether it is called Scientology or KHTH or [insert new name here] or whatever, what I care about is that when it is presented it is presented clearly and in a format that doesn’t subject people to mental wrestling and all manner of workarounds, with others pushing on others that they have MUs, confusions, etc. to get around difficulties in the materials themselves. This is a project that I am not interested in working on, but I am willing to participate in an ongoing discussion that assists to identify and remedy such problems. Otherwise it is more of the same, “you didn’t get it so you have an MU.” Please Marildi, there has been enough of that already and the C of S is a disaster zone because of it.
No, Maria, my effort simply had to do with your observation that there was an inconsistency. I don’t feel there is one and that was what I was trying to show. Since when is it assuming a superior viewpoint to do such, i.e. discuss one’s own way of seeing something that is in disagreement with someone else’s? I believe you were the one who started disagreeing with how I looked at it, but I didn’t view it as you trying to demonstrate a superiority. You did your best to back up your viewpoint and I did likewise. I would have expected you to continue to respond with whatever you saw to be in error in what I proposed – in and of itself, rather than speculate on my intentions, as that is the way it is done in a fair discussion.
For me, it didn’t take “much mental wrestling” at all to resolve what I can see might have looked like an inconsistency to some people. But that’s not to say a lot of mental wrestling hasn’t been required at times in Scn. I just happen to think it doesn’t happen nearly as often as some people say it does, because most of the time it really and truly is their own misunderstanding. And my experience as a long-time word clearer was that the vast majority of the time confusions are resolved to the person’s total satisfaction.
It isn’t that I’m saying there are no inconsistencies. But when someone presents it as a common occurrence, as Chris did, or someone insists, as you did, that such a basic definition as thetan has contradictions in it, I like to make an attempt to handle their consideration if I think it is in error, as well as to preclude anyone reading the comments from adopting a misguided viewpoint..
Marildi, a word clearer resolves MUs and not just blames others for having an MU. Let’s stop blaming using the phrase “You have an MU” and start discussing the actual subject without any attention on the participants.
.
Maria, this is a pretty dead-on response to Marildi. I wish I had expressed it this way. You referred to Marildi’s approach as “mental wresting”. I was calling it “stretch”.
.
Valkov, yes there was definitely an evolution. But at some point and I am really not sure at all just when, there began this notion that if you disagreed with LRH or found an inconsistency or materials from two different research times were being used at the same time with a resulting confusion, then YOU had an MU or confusion or false data i.e. YOU were the one with the deficiency — always you and never the materials themselves. Part of the problem was the redefining of normal English words such as individual to new definitions as in my example. WTF!. What I saw was the effort to make the Scientology materials work in an aligned fashion by ignoring all inconsistencies and finding definitions that served to make the definitions right even when they were not aligned or poorly laid out. That’s the problem I see on all this.
You said, “Fortunately I was never subjected to the kind of thing you’re talking about, with possibly well-intentioned but nonetheless robotic Supervisors etc “trying to do the right thing” on the job but making you wrong in the process!” — Amen to that!
Maria, the inconsistency that I see in Scientology is that the old theories, even when they are superseded by new ones, are still being promoted as if they are new.
I do not see that occurring in the field of science which focuses on knowledge. Scientology seems to focus on money in a businesslike fashion rather than on knowledge like science.
.
Maria, that was an excellent example and explained very well, thanks. I just say YES!
Marildi: I see. So you really wrote all that so that other people wouldn’t come away with a false idea from me. Okie dokie.
Partly, yes. But also to handle yours and Chris’ erroneous considerations, as I said.
Marildi, why do you think you are right and others are in error?
.
I agree that for training purposes, something may need to be done – I don’t actually know – but beyond that, I think all should be left intact, as a permanent record of the evolution of LRH’s development of the tech bridge.
Now, not having been “through the mill” the way you and some others have, of course I am no authority, but I think most of these definitions are largely academic. In the new Indie training centers they seem to be using materials from the 1970s mostly, checksheets like the HQS, Academy levels, NED and so on. Maybe even the HSDC after the HQS and before the Academy levels.
How important is it to know all these definitions? I’m wondering why you even had to face them? What course(s) were you doing?
I always figured that it would all be tied together in a chronological sense on the SHSBC, if a person went that far.
Almost all this stuff we talk about on this blog, is Parascientology and pretty irrelevant, actually, to being a trained auditor. Why let it intrude into the training of auditors?
What threw wrench in the works was KSW1. It made everything that Hubbard ever said to be scriptures. And scriptures can never be wrong.
It is the enforcement of unconditional absolute rightness of all Hubbard’s writings with no discussion allowed that has muddied the waters.
.
I see. Excuse me, but lets call a spade a spade. You do in fact consider that your considerations are superior (they are not erroneous) and Chris and I are (erroneous) and inferior. Period. You just plain well think that I am wrong (or misguided – more judgment) and you are right and that is the truth of this. Just come right out and say I DISAGREE! You have every right to disagree!!!!
Do you really see what you have been doing in this discussion with me as a workable way of getting your point across? What happened to what is true for you is true for you. Now. Which one is it? Is it true for me or not? Supposedly that is the important element that must not be dismissed. And if it is true for me, is my judgment erroneous and therefore inferior? Marildi this is WHY I am no longer a Scientologist. I will not tolerate this any more. Not from you. Not from anyone.
Here is what I care about: I care that that this method that you have been using to approach this subject causes so much upset that it is surprising that anyone continues with it after such an onslaught. And I think that the dwindling numbers in that group called Scientology reflects the truth of what I am saying.
For the record. I disagree with you. Period.
Maria, I thought what I wrote obviously said I disagreed, but I think there is a difference between disagreeing with someone’s interpretation of something written and considering oneself superior to the person. Big difference. And yes, one could use the word “wrong” to describe what is disagreed with but that’s kind of a loaded word to throw out.
Also, “what is true for you” is fine in terms of which definition a person believes would apply. I was actually asking you to consider a particular definition. You would have been within your rights to tell me you didn’t think it applied.
Marildi, this is mental wresting and stretch to make yourself right and others wrong. Why not look at an inconsistency for what it is without the judgment that your interpretation is right and that of others is in error.
There is nothing right or wrong in an absolute sense, and there is no permanent thetan to be right or wrong either. So, do not get hung up on that
Simply look at an inconsistency for what it is without assuming, judging, expecting or speculating.
This is KHTK advice.
.
Marildi – you said and I quote: Partly, yes. But also to handle yours and Chris’ erroneous considerations, as I said.
Now you are saying that all you were doing was disagreeing. No. You specifically stated that you were “handling” my and Chris’ erroneous (definition: containing error; mistaken; incorrect; wrong) considerations.
Disagree: 1. to fail to agree; differ: The conclusions disagree with the facts. The theories disagree in their basic premises. 2. to differ in opinion; dissent: Three of the judges disagreed with the verdict.
Erroneous: 1. containing error; mistaken; incorrect; wrong: an erroneous answer.
Next you say: And yes, one could use the word “wrong” to describe what is disagreed with but that’s kind of a loaded word to throw out.
Oh I see, you don’t think telling someone that you are handling their erroneous considerations isn’t loaded? Come on. What you did was insert a different word that has the same meaning and not the same meaning as disagree.
Now, Marildi, you say: Also, “what is true for you” is fine in terms of which definition a person believes would apply. I was actually asking you to consider a particular definition. You would have been within your rights to tell me you didn’t think it applied.
I considered it. I told you what I thought. You didn’t respect that. Instead you set about to handle my “erroneous” considerations in what I consider to be a very disrespectful way.
Okay, maybe I’m missing something. Can you give me an example of disagreeing where you don’t think what you’re disagreeing with is in error?
Valkov — you asked — How important is it to know all these definitions? I’m wondering why you even had to face them? What course(s) were you doing?
It was the Student Hat course! The first issue in the pack — Keeping Scientology Working!
The line was: (c) The lower the IQ, the more the individual is shut off from the fruits of observation. I flunked my starrate checkout on the word “individual.” And that’s when the whole thing began. I was referred to the tech dictionary definition of “individual.” And that clashed with what I had read in the Scientology picture book and on it went.
This sort of thing does need to be addressed for training purposes, at the very least some kind of indication that a definition is OLD and not in use. But that’s not allowed. That’s a tech degrade…
It does matter. But I think that it will only be resolved in the Indie field where it is okay to say that something does conflict, is old, is not being used, etc. And it can only be addressed if it is spotted, acknowledged and addressed so it doesn’t itself act as false data that hangs up the training of auditors.
Maria, I believe that one should be allowed to point out inconsistencies, without being blamed for having an MU. It should be followed by a discussion without any assumption of what is right or what is wrong. The discussion itself would lead to the establishment of the datum which resolves the inconsistency.
This is the KHTK advice.
.
Marildi says: Okay, maybe I’m missing something. Can you give me an example of disagreeing where you don’t think what you’re disagreeing with is in error?
No, but I will give you another definition:
OPINION: 1.a belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty. 2. a personal view, attitude, or appraisal.
Your approach to the problem I brought to light is YOUR approach. It is based on a series of beliefs and judgments that you have adopted for yourself. This particular approach does not work for me in this instance and that is likely why I get a different result from yours. We can argue all day long that my approach is erroneous, but in truth, there is no truly concrete evidence that it is right or wrong, only opinion, only belief, only judgment. We cannot go and inspect the object of the discussion together as it is not a physical object that we can measure and weigh, just the same as the way of approaching problems cannot be measured and weighed, and the underlying problem being approached is an intangible as well. So the opinion differs based on past knowledge, experience, approach, attitude, etc. There is every possibility that both conclusions are wrong and both conclusions are right. CONTEXT. I have mine. You have yours. They are not identical.
Okay. Well, we each stated our viewpoint and if neither of us has changed our mind about whether there is or isn’t an inconsistency, I think we can at least agree to disagree.
KHTK Looking is non-judgmental.
.
Yes, of course Marildi, I can agree to disagree! 🙂
Wow. This is a great discussion you guys are having.
You have Maria who is trying to be intellectually honest inside a cult teaching environment. Then you have Marildi, who is the orthodoxy enforcer. She can take any two completely contradictory ideas and shift her viewpoint to make them align, multiple times in the same conversation, and then use socially coercive techniques to wear someone else down enough to just shut up and agree.
This was her basic skill as a long time word clearer in the cult – like Torquemada with a dictionary.
And then you have Maria who refuses to be worn down any more.
So fucking cool Maria!
You are the hero of this story in the fight for intellectual honesty inside a pin-headed, fanatic cult environment.
It’s “Dead Poets Society” and “Braveheart” all rolled up into one!!
Yahoo!!! Go Maria!!!!
Alanzo
+ !
Yes, I am getting to know Maria now, She is cool.
Sent from my iPhone
Hey Alanzo, yesterday I asked you for specifics on the generality you were spreading that Indies have now decided LRH was crazy. You blew the thread right after that.
I also asked you to give me an example of any single time you ever changed you mind about some criticism you had made about LRH or Scn. I had already answered your question asking me for an example of a time I had ever stated a disagreement with Scn (even giving you the link to a comment I made doing just that). You blew that comm cycle too!
Alanzo’s continual blows from these important discussions is the result of his simply being a squirming mess of overts and withholds which he refuses to confront, hence his hit and run style writing of attacking true-Scientologists. Despicable! Now I am giving myself a yellow card for my emotional outburst of entheta but Alanzo knows as everyone everywhere knows that it is his fault for enturbulating me! I wish there was an Indie-RPF for me to send him to so he could clear up his misunderstoods and get better. Now I shall go quietly away and rollercoaster on my own.
*\o/*
It’s your steely eyed ethics presence, Marildi.
I can not bare the light of your dedicated glare.
Alanzo
I wonder how long I can keep “blowing these comm cycles” before Marildi routes me to Indy OSA for handling?
Wow!, Thanks for the acknowledgments!
Thanks Maria. The Student Hat course! My gut reaction is – Why the dickens even use the Tech Dictionary on that course? A good standard everyday English dictionary or 2 should be all that’s required to look up a word like that for that course!
Valkov: “A good standard everyday English dictionary or 2 should be all that’s required to look up a word like that for that course!”
It was one of my pet peeves (on all flows) that people doing a checkout considered that if the word is in the Tech Dictionary, the student being checked out had to give that definition – even when the word was simply being used as a regular English word. From Maria’s description. I got that this is exactly what happened to her. It’s a classic example of rote application rather than conceptual understanding.
Yes deE, to me it is an omission that each entry of a definition of a word, when there is more than one definition for that word in the Tech Dictionary does not have at least a year-date by it to locate it in time. A month-year would be best.
Thanks marildi, for this – “It was one of my pet peeves (on all flows) that people doing a checkout considered that if the word is in the Tech Dictionary, the student being checked out had to give that definition – ”
An example of rote obsequiousness towards LRH’s “authority” or something. I’m sure there are technical words which require the Tech Dictionary, but I think most words do not. Common English words ought to be defined by common English dictionaries, no?
The more I learn, the more I am glad I was never “Org”-anized. Whew! Though I lament not going up the Bridge as far as possible, it sounds like I would have much to unlearn had I spent any large amount of time in orgs.
Val, I would say you did make progress “up the Bridge”. Wish I could remember the reference, but I believe LRH stated that training is actually a road to Clear. It’s real to me that besides auditor training being one side of the Bridge itself, study in general can also bring about knowingness. I’m sure you can attest to many gains from listening to all those tapes. (And for anyone to assume otherwise would be “rote obsequiousness”! :))
Maria, that is a tight-fit. I meant to mention it before but of course you know that. Unless you are small enough, in which case there is plenty of room!
I have become entranced by the sparkles emanating from the elephant’s foot. Its a veritable constellation of flurrying particles vibrating between the topmost layer of ground. There’s lots and lots of room! I must admit that its pretty dark and there is a definite feeling of being weighed down!
Alanzo,
I wonder how many readers are watching the show ! + 5 for your flow ! And I also wonder what your ultimate quest is about?
Marianne –
Your reference is “Don Quixote”.
Alanzo
LOL!
Sent from my iPhone
@ Alanzo: 🙂
Alanzo-
Thanks! Two questions 1. Why “your” reference? Does it mean that you answer this question differently, depending on who asks you? 2. Have you found your Dulcenia?
No, truely : what’s the drive of your quest?
Marianne –
I don’t want people to be lied to about Scientology any more. I want everyone to have all the information they need to make informed decisions about their own involvement.
That is, and has been, my Quixotic Crusade.
As we all know, all the best crusades are totally impossible to win.
But I gotta tell ya, I really think I’m winning this one!
Alanzo
You sure are Alanzo, and that makes us all win! 🙂
.
Admirable crusade Alanzo. I’m on a similar path with same goals. I would be riding a much smaller horse then you of course, but I’m movin’ in the right direction and gaining speed. 🙂
Alanzo
Thank you ! Wow ! This is the flow ! Thanks for your honest words! “….all the best crusages are impossible to win “. You know, Gandhi said something like I am for the Indians and not against the British……..I say I am for/with/ the flow (of life) and not against the mind…..I like it when you are humorous! And also when you “empty your heart”. And your discussions with the other guys…..really fun to read!
Chris,
you say ….”and rollercoaster on my own.” No way! I love rollercoasters, you know, for real! The best I was on was in Florida, its name is Kumba! Ever been there? I have got an invitation to go to Colorado and Arizona this year. If I go, we can meet and have some fun! + Maria OK?
Of Course! Always welcome! But come in winter or adjacent seasons as summer is a time for hiding from our angry Sun God! My contact info is on my blog.
Thanks! I know about the heat from family member. It’s just a plan, we will see ! I am acting more from present time. Would be nice if we who are here met once ! Most possibly in a place with wild nature around, forest, perhaps lake or river…..space….and some “suvival” games….
Well, if you can get close, I will work to help make it happen. Remember the Grand Canyon is in Arizona as well as Indian lore and ruins.
THE SECOND NOBLE TRUTH – The Arising of Dukkha
At the core of dukkha is the idea of impermanence. It is the attachment to things that are inherently impermanent, which causes all suffering. When we look at things as they really are we come to realize the impermanent nature of things, and the futility of holding on to them. This awareness helps us replace fear and anxiety with peace and contentment.
Underlying dukkha there is a thirst, which is bound with passionate greed; and which finds fresh delight now here and now there in sense-pleasures and in becoming this or that.
But there is no first cause of dukkha. Even the thirst depends on sensation, which, in turn, depends on the contact of internal faculties with the external objects, and so on and so forth on the circle which is known as Conditioned Genesis. However, this ‘thirst’ has at its center the false ‘idea of self’ arising out of ignorance.
.
‘Self” is the effort to have something permanent in the confusion that impermanence seem to create.
The answer is let the impermanence be. 🙂
.
I love the Beatles song “Let It Be.”
.
The most fundamental dichotomy seems to be “impermanence – permanence”
On that depends the dichotomy of “confusion – no confusion”
.
I totally agree
– –
Slack
I have obviously totally agreed the wrong comment? hm. I totally agree to Let it be, Vin. .)
– –
Slack
I took your comment correctly the first time. Thank you.
Sent from my iPad
To Vin and Geir,
I like the two of you so MUCH ! I am sending you one of my favourite songs, to have some light fun!
Background story: This song is performed by two brothers in the first X-factor in Hungary. The younger brother registered the elder brother into the show without him knowing about it. The elder brother came out as the winner!!!! No consideration on my part why I am sending it.
Vin : Look and listen. Geir: Listen and look. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I am enjoying your discussions!
Forgot to write down: when the elder brother is speaking in Hungarian, this is what he is saying: my invited guest today is someone, who is very important to me, who I have learnt a lot from.
I like this video! I really like the lyrics to the song too:
I can’t light no more of your darkness
All my pictures seem to fade to black and white
I’m growing tired and time stands still before me
Frozen here on the ladder of my life
Too late to save myself from falling
I took a chance and changed your way of life
But you misread my meaning when I met you
Closed the door and left me blinded by the light
Don’t let the sun go down on me
Although I search myself, it’s always someone else I see
I’d just allow a fragment of your life to wander free
But losing everything is like the sun going down on me
I can’t find, oh the right romantic line
But see me once and see the way I feel
Don’t discard me just because you think I mean you harm
But these cuts I have they need love to help them heal
Thanks, Maria !
These always give me chills!
There should be no winners or losers in a discussion. The purpose of a discussion is cooperation in the clarification of a subject..
It is not like debate where the entire basis is egoism… a desire to win one’s argument.
.
For me, Vin, the problem is, I don’t feel like learning yet another idiosyncratic language, yours, in order to have a discussion. And you are quite right, I do not read your posts in much detail at all.
Then please don’t complain. You are responsible for your condition.
.
I’m not complaining. That appears to be dub-in on your part. No, I am not responsible for my condition. You have converted me to the idea that all that I am is the result of a bunch of considerations that are themselves the results of prior considerations, world without end. Therefore my condition is the result of input.
It’s all input. The input is responsible, not me. How could a humble effect such as myself be responsible? The very idea is ridiculous! Why do you talk nonsense? Can you obfuscate that for me a little further? Or are you just going to leave me here with an understood?
OMG! LOL! Valkov, sometimes you are so funny that I’ve taking to putting my coffee cup down before I read your posts so I won’t spit my coffee out on my keyboard. But you got this me this time! Daamn! 😀
I use one LRH datum and you deny it because it is Vinaire who is using it against Valkov.
Be consistent man. If you want to come my way, then come. Don’t dilly-dally.
.
It was an inconsistency. In using that LRH datum, you were not being true to yourself, since that datum is contrary to your own stated philosophy, which appears to resemble dialectical materialism, in which there is no responsibilty because there are no truly causitive agents, only endless chains of cause and effect.
I consider it cynical of you to use it that way.
Tell that to Al.
Both Marty and Mike have been preparing us for it: It is going to come out in Lawrence Wright’s book that L Ron Hubbard was totally, visibly insane at the end of his life.
In a recent blog post, Marty has found a way to give the blinking faithful an argument they can clutch to against the dissonant storm they will encounter when they consider that the greatest OT who ever lived, the man who created the Modern Science of Mental Health and who promoted and sold the tech that would make everyone sane, was batshit crazy at the end of his life.
It has been reported before that Hubbard was a major PR flap for anyone who was sent to or worked at the Int Base, because he had a Howard Hughes type look and walked around mumbling to himself. The only person not freaked out about it was David Miscavige, because he knew he could hide him and keep the money rolling in. Marty and Mike both worked with Miscavige for decades to ensure that Hubbard’s insanity was never revealed to the public.
So now that this will be totally nailed down and accepted fact, Marty and Mike have started talking about great artists like Van Gogh, who were misunderstood and crazy during their own lifetimes, but whose art was later appreciated. They are saying now that this is how it will be for L Ron Hubbard.
Here’s the new view of L Ron Hubbard from Mike for the faithful:
http://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2013/01/04/a-pair-of-worn-shoes/#comments
“Yes, Hubbard was crazy, but so was Van Gogh! And look what we think of him today!”
Will this one work on you? Will this one keep you from looking at and thinking with the facts?
Why or why not?
Here’s why not:
Van Gogh was a painter, not the founder of a self help group that was going to get rid of the need for psychiatry and get rid of insanity in the new civilization it would create. Van Gogh never had billion year contracts to sign to work for him for free, nor did he charge people hundreds and even thousands of dollars per hour to look at his paintings. He also never said that looking at his painting would make you go “clear” and “OT”, either.
Completely different man and completely different situation.
I say this one isn’t going to work. Eventually, even some of the people here on this blog will have to confront the fact that all the auditing and training in Scientology could not keep L Ron Hubbard’s madness from overtaking him.
So given these facts, what conclusion can you make to keep believing in the workability of Scientology?
Marildi?
Valkov?
Let’s see how you can incorporate the fact that L Ron Hubbard was insane to keep bolstering your faith in Scientology.
Start!
Alanzo
You never ask me anymore! 😦
Vinnie, Chris and I have a space for you in our ranks. You can stand right next to Chris. We even have a cap, a sporty blazer, and some shiny shoes for you to click to attention with!
Putting in my request for black uniform with shiny black knee high boots; full length shiny black leather overcoat and shiny black leather hat and golves. mmmm I can feel the power that univorm will give me… People won’t pick on me then!
I don’t look good in black. How about violet?
I mean really Chris, look at my little purple people eater icon! No way this black color scheme is going to work with that!
OMG — find your word!… there’s not going to be room for any colors!
“Mebbe vee must test your dedication?”
LOL!
This is the problem with adding even one Scn critic to our ranks. It’s impossible to please these people! They each want this or that, and no one can agree on anything!
I think I am going to write KCW Series 1 Keeping Criticism Working:
…”We’re not playing some minor game here in criticizing Scientology. Those guys up there mean business. So agree with everything I say or I will expose ALL of your crimes to OSA, and then see where you’ll be!”
(Hit critics with the expose their crimes thing – gets em every time. They shut right up!)
Sometimes the randomity just gets too unbearable and you have to lay down the law on these guys!
Alanzo
LOL!
Al, did you ever see the Russell Crowe movie, “A Beautiful Mind”?
Get it, watch it, then re-read your own posted questions and get back to me – if you aren’t feeling too embarrassed by then.
Many Scientologists just love to give advice but never take it. It is a one-way flow for them. By this you can know a Scientologist.
.
I guess you and Al are the most die-hard Scientological Scientologists I know. You both endlessly give advice to others.
They really really really really want to help. Isn’t that what all advice giving is about when it comes right down to it?
That may be true, Maria, to the extent that any person is “basically good” but then, why don’t they just help? No. The psychiatrists who like to drug and shock people will also say they just really really really really “want to help” all those pathetic “mentally ill depressed people” who just can’t help themselves and therefore need to be drugged and shocked to prevent them from harming themselves or others, and also need “talk therapy” to teach them how to stop their thinking and channel it in directions the therapist considers to be appropriate.
No. By that logic, Stalin may have “really x 4” wanted to help, too. Perhaps he actually thought he was “helping”.
The issue I see, is the person really helping, or is he really just being oppressive, behind a bunch of justifications that he “really wants to help”.
And that’s how I personally see Al. It’s all an ego trip on his part. He wants others to think like him, and will go to any lengths to enforce this and program others to think like him. It’s like he used on say on Geir’s forum – he’s on “a mission from God” and of course that makes him feel that anything he does is justified – ie, to him, the end justifies the means.
I’m sure he’s not unique, there are plenty of anti-LRH groupies on Tony O’s blog and other sites, as well as would-be anti-LRH opinion leaders. That’s not the issue. I have rarely met a person so self-absorbed, evaluative, lacking in understanding of others, lacking in the ability to grant beingness and duplicate, and unwilling to let others be self-determined, as Al is.
Vinaire is a bit of a different story, but he does feel he has advice to give. Other than that, he’s not really like Al to any great extent.
Sure, this will be called ad hom and an address to the person. However I see it more as a summation of Al’s presentation of himself towards me and others he perceives as “scientologists”, and who therefore need thought-stopping to correct their thinking, and behavior modification, or bluntly, brainwashing, to his way of thinking.
He may “want to help”, he may think he is helping, but his methods are antithetical to my values, to my Russian family’s values, and I believe, to the freedom values of most Americans.
Perhaps eventually, by the kindness of folks such as yourself, Al will give up his oppressive behavior and start to really help others instead of obsessively trying to change them. I won’t hold my breath. Hell, most recently he has stated in posts on this thread that he has been using me and my posts as a foil in order to influence others. Some would call a person who acted that way a “manipulative asshole”. But the bottom line is, because he’s “on a mission”, he doesn’t care.
These advice-giving guys need to wake up and apply the non-existence formula. And others who are enabling them to continue doing what they are doing might consider whether or not that is the best course to take with them. Of course any genuine admiration or respect should not be withheld.
Now-now! I was just getting ready to agree with Valkov and still do there in his “Stalin” paragraph but the rest I can’t agree with.
Alanzo has strong feelings toward the oppressive nature of Scientology and he isn’t wrong. If someone else is able to use various Scientology to a good placebo effect, nothing, not even Al is stopping anyone. His diatribes aren’t stopping anyone’s thinking that I can see, and I hope mine aren’t either.
Advice: an opinion or recommendation offered as a guide to action, conduct, etc.:
Valkov! You do realize that I was speaking of people “giving advice,” right? Obviously massacring, torturing, enslaving, drugging and electro-shocking people is not giving advice! I think it is quite a stretch to compare anyone on this blog to mass murderers of the twentieth century or perpetrators of physical violence or abuse against another’s will. Alanzo and Vinaire may engage in verbal jousting and smack downs, may trade insults, and may take positions that really offend you, but I hardly think this qualifies them as burgeoning Chairman Maos!!
Or are you just enjoying a brief reconnoiter as a Feral White Russian? If so, carry on (at least until that Viking Lord reappears and thunders across your sky) LOL!
Hubbard’s concept of “people are basically good” encompasses your comment and my understanding of what he meant by that was that good is surviving and people always try to survive even when committing suicide… odd way of putting, but there is an odd kind of consistency in this. Removing people’s aberrations and then training them in the right ways to do things would ultimately overcome even Adolph Hitler’s predilection to roast jews in order to help mankind. I don’t particularly adhere to this, though I can see examples of it and I do understand it. This was my point of agreement with Valkov.
Maria, Lost the right place for this …
I missed giving you a pat on the back for handling that confusion earlier with Maridi, it was very interesting and helpful. Thanks. 🙂
OK I’ll back it up a step from my logical extreme. Most psychiatrists do “advise” people who come to see them, to take a drug. Some advise some of their patients to get electroshock treatments. Some time back,some psychiatrists “advised” that some people be given lobotomies or trans-orbital leucotomies.
All in the name of “Help”.
I do not know what Al, for example, would actually do if he were in power. But I can look at his tendencies and approaches to dealing with me and others on the subject, and I can extrapolate those out to a consistent extreme. It sounds to me like Al would go to great lengths to insure that an interest in scientology was at the very least very socially unacceptable. That’s “big brotherism” in my book. That would not be a “free society” in which I would want to live. The “catholic”, politically correct mores in such a society would make studying or practicing scientology very difficult if not impossible. I think at bottom, this is the kind of society Al would like to see. “Deprogrammers” who use force also supposedly want to “help” people. Those kind of things are inconsistent with my cultural values.
Perhaps they were naive, but my family actually sought refuge in the USA because they were searching for “freedom”. Having a Big Brother like Al sitting on my shoulder nattering at me about how I should think about LRH or Scientology is not my idea of freedom. Whatnext? MyTV set scanningme tosee whatI am reading or listening to, and reporting it back to AL HQ? No thanks. Let me read or listen to whatever I’m interested in and think for myself, please. If I want his evaluation, I’ll ask for it!
I don’t agree with the above assessment of Alanzo as it contains lot of assumptions.
What I get is Alanzo is for the exposure of all information so people can make good judgments.
.
@Valkov
I believe that it comes down to a few extremely important principles that need to be fostered and protected at all costs:
Freedom of speech, and that includes dissenting & minority voice
Individual rights to life, liberty and justice
Individual rights to participate in civic affairs and processes
Freedom of religion, including minority religions and belief systems
Dissent, disasters and conflict play an important role in all of our lives, rather like the pain mechanism of the body that lets you know that something is in danger or is damaged. All life is in a constant state of flux and there is need to create and foster an operating basis that works towards sustainable systems, with enough stability for progress, encourages innovation and maintains enough flexibility to address inevitable change, be it environmental or due to earlier systems going stagnant or awry.
It is quite alright for you to protest what others do, and you should. And that means that it must be alright for them to protest what you do.
As regards Scientology, it should be addressed on the same basis as any other religion, and if the Church of Scientology acts in ways that are found to be offensive then it will suffer the consequences like any other organization will in this Internet enabled world. If it cannot garner and maintain sufficient support, then it will not prosper. It cannot and will not do well if it violates the principles above by its actions. It is in no different position that any one of dozens of religions (and organizations in general) in the world today — there are those who would ban Islam, those who would jail all Mormons, many who would outlaw all religion in general. All of them must face this sort of thing in today’s world of open information, including exposes, propaganda attacks, false and hate speech. Nothing new here except that every person has a voice now, not just those in positions of communication power.
I believe that it will all come out alright so long as the free flow of communication is not interrupted or stopped.
Thanks Maria. I’m fine with someone, even Al, criticizing something I specifically say or do which has an adverse effect on another. Bring it on. But that’s not what he does.
He uses obnoxious manipulative tactics to try to convert me to his way of thinking, by 1. negating what I think in various ways, mostly by labeling me and actually not responding to the substance of what I did say, and 2. telling me repeatedly what I should think instead. He’s not here to communicate with me, he’s here to push an agenda concerning how people should think and feel about scientology.
Yes, I am aware that I am myself often blunt and come across as negating. But I like to think I can usually tell the difference between fact and opinion. or the difference between LRH’s lectures and the actual practices of the Church, for example. He indiscriminately lumps it all into one big ball of whatever, and right there I tune out.
@Chris-
My problem is, I listen to LRH lectures (Congresses, ACCs, whatever) and I never seem to find this “oppressive nature of scientology” you mention.
Damn, Val. You are on a roll!
This is why, unlike Al, I recommend that you participate in Scientology.
Chris, my question is why would you recommend participation in something you think is a hoax and detrimental.
There is only dust covering a diamond. One just needs to dust it off.
.
What a nice observation, like it! 🙂 simple food for thought.
Valkov wrote:
This is quite a tirade, Val.
I have to believe that you really believe this, or else I don’t think you would have written this. I have to believe that when you look at me, you see a potential Joseph Stalin, or a Pol Pot, or dare I say, a potential Adolph Hitler, just clamoring to get a grip on governmental power so I can keep you, and everyone else, from being a Scientologist.
I will say that, if I had governmental power, I would find a way to prosecute the Church of Scientology for fraud – just as they did in France, and as they are now doing in Belgium. I would find a way to revoke the tax exempt status of the Church of Scientology in the United States, and I would find a way to prosecute DM for false imprisonment, human trafficking and anything else I could prove in a court of law, under the rules of evidence, and following the Bill of Rights and every other constitutional restraint that I would willingly have on my governmental power.
If I were in power, I would not need to make interest in Scientology socially unacceptable because it already IS socially unacceptable for anyone who knows what Scientology actually is, and who knows what a free society is. Obviously, this excludes you from that category.
This is hardly like Joe Stalin or Hitler in the 1930’s, though.
It’s more like, you know, present day France.
Or Belgium.
Having said all that, I think I’ve overwhelmed you, and if so, I apologize. I truly did not think that I could make you go so PTS to me. A little PTS, maybe. But I never thought you would start hallucinating on me.
Alanzo
Thanks Al. Now we’re getting somewhere.
So, I guess in your town, or your state, or your country, it would be considered “socially unacceptable” to listen to LRH lectures? Or how about, finding a twin and using the Self Analysis lists with each other? Socially unacceptable? What would be the social consequences of showing any kind of non-antagonistic interest in LRH or Scientology?
How about opening a training center where people could do courses, like the HQS course, a Dianetics course, etc? I guess that would be VERY “socially unacceptable” in your town, right?
What would happen? Would there be a whispering campaign about it? Would folks who showed an open interest in Scientology materials or5, God Forbid, actually doing some kind of practical, be de-friended by your social circle? Would the local restaurant still serve them, perhaps grudgingly? Would people frown when they saw me on the street, and cross to the other side to avoid me? Would parents hide their children when they saw me coming?
Just how “socially unacceptable” would it be, in your town, to be associated in any non-antagonistic way, with LRH and Scientology?
@Chris – “This is why, unlike Al, I recommend that you participate in Scientology.”
Not sure what you mean by “participate in Scientology”?
Probably because you already know all the pit-falls they don’t tell people about. Then you can experience more of the benefits that it offers. The problem isn’t keeping people from, it’s educating what they are going into.
Val –
What deElizabeth said.
One of the incredibly revealing things that happens when you wake up from Scientology is that people start to include you in the discussions that they were always having about Scientology, but because you were a Scientologist, they didn’t say these things to your face because they didn’t want to insult you and your religious beliefs.
I don’t know if this has ever happened to you before, but people WILL talk, and they DO talk about Scientology. Scientology is generally not socially acceptable.
Scientology is generally considered a bizarre space alien totalitarian cult which brainwashes its adherents with hypnotic techniques, by most people in society. Those people are simply not talking to you about this because they are too polite to talk about it with you. But they are talking about it among themselves. And that is what they are saying to each other.
Try this: Find a person who has known that you were a Scientologist, but who is not themselves a Scientologist, like a family member or someone you work with. Just as an experiment, tell them that you have realized it is a kooky space alien cult. See what they say. They are very likely to breath a huge sigh of relief and say something like “Thank GoD! I never wanted to say anything to you about this, but those people are WHACKO! And I am so glad that you have now gotten yourself away from them!”
I don’t believe it is the government’s role to tell anyone what is or isn’t socially acceptable. I believe, like it says in the Declaration of Independence, the government’s primary duty to protect the rights of its citizens. And a person has, and should continue to have, the right to believe or engage in any kind of whacked out space alien thing that he wants. The government should only step in when laws are being violated and people are being harmed.
But people themselves decide what is socially acceptable. Not the government. And I have to say, people really have decided that Scientology is not socially acceptable. Here, try this: Go into a bar and try picking up a chick with the line, “Hi there. I’m a Scientologist.”
See how far you get.
I have actually done this, by the way. It does not work. Just mention the word “Scientology”, in almost any context, and watch people scatter.
Alanzo
A good post, Al.
Since you are up for experimentation, try this a few times: get the girls attention with a smile and then look deeply into her eyes. So deep that she’ll be sure you’re looking at her soul. Then say the same thing – “Hi there. i’m a Scientologist.”
On an reasonably uptone girl it will cut through normal social responses more often than not.
Wow, that’s really creepy.
Well Al, since I’m not a practicing Scientologist, and don’t go around telling people I’m a Scientologist, your advice is moot. However, I’m well aware that in America, a person’s religion is a private subject and it is something folks usually leave alone in the interests of getting along in a diverse society.
Since I believe “most people” have never met a Scientologist and have likely never looked into the subject directly themselves, I assume the negative impression you depict is likely the result of negative press, and propagandists like yourself.
Where do you stand on this kind of demonization of the subject? Apparently you are wholly in favor of it?
It appears each person will have to work out for himself/herself how to deal with this kind of generality, or just stay “in the closet”, so to speak. Or just let “people” whisper about them, which some people will do anyway.
2nd, uptone girls may not be what Al is seeking, ya know? 🙂
@Vin
Maybe, but…
I suggested reasonably uptone girls as they can usually hold their position in space a little longer. It’s not fair, at all, to do that to a girl who’s anywhere near sad.
The best he can hope is that saying he’s a Scientologist will keep a girl from instantly falling in love with him. Being a Scientologist it might take a few minutes more.
There’s really no mystery to it. If there’s a ability to recognize the being and an admiration flow, a Hitler could get past a social recoil that otherwise would be the pre-programmed product of “Hi, I’m a _____.”
Speaking for the girls, I can attest to the workability of an admiration flow and recognition of the being. With Al it may take more than minutes, though. 😉
Valkov: “I assume the negative impression you [Alanzo] depict is likely the result of negative press, and propagandists like yourself.”
It looks like you didn’t read Alanzo’s comment 2012-07-26 at 17:50 https://isene.me/2012/07/18/mark-shreffler-tone-scale-seminar/#comment-20797
Valkov wrote:
Yeah. It’s all lies, Valkov.
The negative press and propagandists like myself made it all up. We’re terrified of anyone going free or getting better.
Wow, man. It’s amazing that you can keep reading all those blogs you say you read and still not see the damage that Scientology does to people. Some people just never will. Like the Nazis who fled to Argentina, the Communists still hunkered down in East Germany and holding out in Russia, and the Scientologists at Int Base and on Marty’s blog – they are just never going to get it.
Oh well. You have a nice life, Val. And keep me in your dreams.
Alanzo
Valkov & 2ndxmr,
highthetaorg (2012-08-05 at 16:34) have made a very good point https://isene.me/2012/07/18/mark-shreffler-tone-scale-seminar/#comment-21577
Al, Thank you for the totally straw man response. You depict attitudes that no real person here or on Marty’s blog(and those are real people over there,regardless of your attempts to stereotype them in cartoonish ways) actually holds.
I never said that what the critics post is “all lies”.That IS a LIE YOU POST ABOUT ME and others who find somethng positive in LRH’s works.
Ii never said or even inferred that you “made it all up” or are “making it all up.” That is another big LIE YOU are putting forth. Many of the posters on Marty’s blog are ahead of the curve in publishing first-hand accounts of the destructive side of Scientology.
What I object to in your approach is the one-sidedness of what you publish, the spin you put into your posts, of focusing on the negatives and leaving out the positives. Fox News IS “fair and balanced”, compared to you.
THAT is why I call you a propagandist, not simply because you just publish lies. You DO publish LIES, but those are usually lies or misrepresentations like the ones you just published in your post about me and posters on Marty’s blog. To that extent you are purely a “liar”, whether you believe what you publish or not is not the issue.
LRH said it as well as anyone. Since you are supposedly a grad of the Ethics Specialist course, this quote should be familiar to you:
“A test that declares only antisocial personalities without also being able to identify the social personality would be itself a suppressive test. It would be like answering “Yes” or “No” to the question “Do you still beat your wife?” Anyone who took it could be found guilty. While this mechanism might have suited the times of the Inquisition, it would not suit modern needs.”
It is useless to protest against how one is being misunderstood or being misinterpreted.
It is much better to make one’s position clearer more and more in a positive way. That is what I try to do. That is following the discussion policy.
.
Valkov –
You are not a practicing Scientologist but you will quote L Ron Hubbard to me.
All right. I can see that I upset you again, and I didn’t mean to do that. So let’s change the subject.
What do you think that Marty is doing on his blog right now?
You’ve probably seen these weird, whole track surveys he is doing. Today’s is really a doo-zee. Don’t you think?
Have you ever stepped back and taken a look at the idea that a person, by being asked questions from another person in a room, could look in to his human mind and come up with such pretended CERTAINTY as those people have on the questions they are answering?
Really. Marty is asking questions that no human being on Earth knows the answer to. But Scientologists not only believe they know the answers to these questions, they KNOW they know the answers to them! It is KNOWLEDGE to them, not faith!
Do you think this is healthy? I mean when you look at the relationship between self-identity and memory, and you realize that these people are telling themselves these stories about their own self-identities, and with such CERTAINTY as they are displaying there for the most part – don’t you think it looks a little crazy?
The reasoning processes they are using for these, the underlying rationale, really does border on the appearance of mental illness. Don’t you think?
I’m not saying they are. They are just acting out their “now-I’m-supposed-tos” as Scientologists.
But it has the appearance of total crazy to me.
Does it to you too?
Alanzo
It is playing with considerations. There are infinite variations of it. Within this perimeter lies everything from creativity to being created… from cause to effect… This is a large plateau…
But there are mountains beyond.
.
Yeah yeah Al. (Put your coffee down Maria)
I’m not a Scientologist but I quote LRH to you. Duh. I also quote St. Luke, St. Matthew, Lao Tzu, Dalai Lama, Gurdjieff, Berdyaev, Groddeck, Carl Jung, Gotama Buddha, Mark Twain, etc etc etc etc.
Doh! What is a poor Armadillo to make of this person? He doesn’t fit into any of an Armadillo’s ready made 2-dimensional pigeonholes. Oh my oh my what is Armadillo to do???
Al, I don’t know what Marty is doing on his blog, with the surveys. I speculate he is collecting data fora book he is writing.
As for the posters who have responded to this last survey, I don’t know.
Perhaps they are Martians, or work for the FBI?
The only advice I give is discuss the subject without attention on participants. 🙂
.
That might be good advice if the people making posts were able to keep themselves out of their own posts.
Do you really think that happens?
Yes, that happens on Vinaire’s Blog.
.
Confirmed. It does happen on Vinaire’s blog.
Yes, that probably does happen on his blog. btw, I read some good interesting things that were helpful for the moment and liked some paragraphs. However, imho he is not a good example of what he promotes and I don’t see much spirit.
Another btw, do you know if Vin has another person who posts for him, since he reply’s to his own posts quite often as if he’s someone else.
What do you say about that Vin, help me out here?
When there is an inconsistency one should also look at one’s own considerations and/or filters. One must not identify with them.
.
Honestly Vin, I don’t understand the way you communicate sometime. Guess I have to study your philosophy to do that.
I will assume you reply in 2nd person, for whatever reason, you have the answer, I don’t care That much, was just curious if it was only you or you change persons! Now I will consider it to be whatever I think it is, so why even ask you a question, right?
I will not identify with my considerations and filters, I “must not”, thank you very much, Radha Swami.
LOL! What is a person but a bunch of considerations!
.
See deE? I told you he would laugh.
@deE: LOL! No worries, it’s just a peccadillo of his writing… I used to be distracted by that as well. After a lot of practice, I just read right through the stuffiness and get to what he means and that works well for me… hahaha (“swami” LMAO – Vin will laugh at this as well!)
Thanks guys. It actually happens right here on Geir’s blog, too. And on most blogs, including Tony O’s! Most people are very respectful and considerate of the feelings of others.
I guess I shouldn’t bust in here and overturn furniture, break the fine china, and snark at people quite so much, as tends to happen when I’ve stayed away too long, actually!
The only one who really deserves it is Al, after all. 🙂
Valkov –
OK, so we aren’t even trying to say anything other than Hubbard was mentally ill now. All right. So Hubbard was mentally ill – and genius often goes with mental illness – that’s the PR Line now.
The trouble is that genius and mental illness often *does not* go together, especially when the person who is mentally ill is a guy who created a method he says will get rid of mental illness, and who audited himself his whole life. I know you have a hard time seeing this, because there is so much at stake for you if you really look at it.
But L Ron Hubbard was not anywhere close to John Nash, or Vincent Van Gogh, or any of the people the new shift in PR positioning is trying to make him into. It’s just not going to work. No one, outside of existing Scientologists who are desperately clinging to their past wins, are ever going to buy this.
Valkov, can you see how much the positions you have taken on L Ron Hubbard have shifted in just the short time you and I have been going around and around with each other? Can you see how many times you’ve called me a liar for saying Hubbard was crazy at the end of his life?
And now you have shifted to telling yourself that Hubbard is like John Nash?
Wow man. You must have really invested a lot of your self identity into Scientology and you feel like it will all be gone if you just face the facts. I know that feeling. I had to face it too. But I decided that it was better to seek and to live with the truth than to keep deceiving myself, and others about L Ron Hubbard and Scientology.
It’s hard. I know it is. And so I am going to lay off of you because I know that I am the last thing you need in your life right now. But you know now, and I know now.
You and I know now.
Good luck with stuff. I hope you make the transition easily and things go well for you.
Alanzo
Hey Al, I didn’t get that Indies are now saying LRH was crazy. The only specific you’ve give on that is a quote of Mike Rinder and I interpreted it differently than you. This was the relevant part:
“…And therefore, who is to judge madness? L. Ron Hubbard should be viewed this way, and ultimately will be.”
The operative idea there being “…who is to judge madness?”.
But leaving that aside as debatable, do you have any other specifics?