Excerpt from Pancho Durango and the Zen of Fishing:
Wilson studied a couple of sea gulls fighting over a shred of dead shrimp on the surface of the bay. When the battle no longer held his interest, he turned and asked the old man, “Pancho, how old are you?”
“I am not sure.” Pancho continued to slowly reel and jerk his line, his attention thirty yards out and ten feet deep.
“How can that be?”
“I was born deep in the Copper Canyon. We did not keep records of anything, including birth.”
“Well, we know you are at least in your seventies and perhaps in your eighties.”
“Perhaps.” The conversation held less interest for Pancho than the three dimensional chess match he silently waged with fish that apparently only he could see.
“And you are strong of mind and body. “
“Some apparently believe so.”
“What is the key to longevity?”
Pancho said with no hesitation, and with as much emphasis as you’d expect from a request for another live shrimp to hook for bait, “You live as long as you have something worthwhile to give”.
“And who is the judge of that.”
“Only you of course.”
Wilson frowned as he squinted at the horizon. “So, goodness and righteousness have nothing to do with it?”
“It all depends on what you consider is good and right.”
Wilson sunk his head and smirked apathetically at the ripples beneath his feet. Once again Pancho had blithely turned a simple question into a deep philosophical riddle. Time to rebait the hook and make another cast. Always the right thing to do when you know your next question will be hit out of the park by the old man like a twenty year old on steroids.
Moving On Up a Little Higher 
Nice Marty. I’m going to make that into a story book with pictures 🙂
I hope this is the title of your latest book — I’ll buy it in a flash
Check it out Dave.
I like Pancho.
Dio
The simple things don’t necessarily have to taken as a deep philosophical approach that then turns into a back and forth argument if it is right or wrong.
Simple truths are just that, very simple and and acknowledgment with a smile will suffice. Thank you Marty.
Moderated out, see reply
I am at home 🙂
When George Burns was asked what he thought was the key to his longevity and health in his old age, he replied:
“You gotta have a reason to get up in the morning.”
Wise words.
Mark
+1
‘Wilson frowned as he squinted at the horizon. “So, goodness and righteousness have nothing to do with it?”
‘“It all depends on what you consider is good and right.”’
Wow, that answer can be understood in different ways. It could be alluding one or more universal principles of what is good and right. Or it could be referring to what YOU as an individual consider to be good and right. OR maybe they ultimately come down to the same thing.
Make that “…alluding TO one or more…”
New rules. Which are actually the old rules, only now I am going to pay more attention. If you want to spread such small-minded, ill-informed and ill-intentioned innuendo in the form of a question, state your name and interest.
😉
Boiling it down into less artistic and poetic prose, You gotta have a basic purpose of benefit to others. I don’t know if it’s true but I like it.
Great story!
I was asked to speak on meditation at a group that is world renown. A friend who practices their techniques asked me to talk as he felt I had something to offer.
I decided to not plan my talk but simply to have two ideas upon which I would base my linguistic improvisation.
On my way to the talk, driving, I felt a subtle tremble of insecurity and self doubt: maybe I should have planned a little more for this?
Since I was already on my way I decided to change my state of mind instead of fret.
I set my goal for the evening: to inspire others.
I made a strong decision to fall in love with the people I would be talking with and to simply be their servant. I imagined people new to meditation there and how it was possible for me to be that person that someone was for me when I was a beginner.
So I swept all doubts and insecurities aside with one fell swoop and put all my attention on being a servant with authentic love for each and every person in the audience.
The talk went amazing. Afterwards people openned up and an incredible dialog took place.
The next day, my friend who arranged for me to speak told me: there were people there who have been coming to these meetings their whole life and they told me this was the best one they have ever attended.
I say this not for my ego or anything about me. I am mentioning it because it blew my mind as well, and because it supports Marty’s blog post.
It is simply impossible to be unhappy when we serve others and put them first.
I think it can be stated that selfless service to others is the essence of true happiness and one of the most important, if not the most important, virtue on the spiritual path.
It really does boil down to love.
It’s been said:
“All the suffering in the world comes from seeking pleasure for oneself. All the happiness in the world comes from seeking pleasure for others.”
Shantideva
Marty’s story illustrates this beautifully — you LIVE as long as you have something worthwhile to give.
The operative word to me here is LIVE
One could alive until he’s 100 and yet be dead … walking dead.
Marty’s story is exceptional in it’s honesty and simplicity.
Very nice quote. I think this is so true for me, anyway.
It’s my goals to help others in this game of life after life that gives me longevity in the game… I call it the “long game”… it’s like karma, but with more purpose, more fun and more doingness involved.
Nice.
Ah, very good. 🙂
Marty,
Since I was very young I’ve always had this thought that I’d live to be about 80 or a few more years.
Later this year I’ll achieve 60, hence, I’ve been contemplating this subject, “Longevity”. The quote, “You live as long as you have something worthwhile to give” has more relevance than ever before because it’s my conclusion.
One’s legacy is ones future.
“You live as long as you have something worthwhile to give”.
Very true, especially when one is passionate about it.
Love in all it’s forms.
This sounds like a book I would like to read this summer. I plan to do a lot of fishing, too. 🙂
I think playing games will help a person live longer. Especially if it’s a game that they want to play.
How do I know if I have something worthwhile to give? All the ‘find my purpose’ work has left me confused. I am not inspired or alive, and wish I was. I can see, for me at least, if I had something worthwhile to give and someone(s) to give it to, it would not matter how long I live. What would matter was that I lived.
Vinaire,
Re: Passion: Good point, Vin, I would say passion is essential.
It is the energy generated by passion( a type of out flow energy) that would be the life generating and sustaining factor.
But there is still more than that:
Hubbard said ( I think it was in Dianetics 55) that we get old and die because of accumulated engrams and GPMs, blocked flows, and the like.
So for longevity, we must get clear and stay clear.
Then there is learning to understand the GEs body chemistry
and learning how to feed it properly.
Body chemistry courses here:
http://www.advancedideals.org/
Then there is this factor:
http://naturalhygienenetwork.yuku.com/topic/446/How-to-live-forever-by-Dr-Bernarr#.U4B-8ihPrZ4
And this factor:
http://www.revelatorium.com/starrgram19.html
Dio
I am 82 now and looking for a new game as knees are restricting my ability to compete in running and jumping so am restricted to throwing.
.Also had to give up collecting as house full of clutter. I felt little to get up for which has changed now as having builders in to repair my neglected house gave me more purpose.I am feeling better now and just today had thought that it would be good to HELP OTHERS with thier problems. I hope I can live up to that idea. Hope I can find a way to help de-stress others.Anyway the thought seemed worthwhile.
I interpreted Pancho’s replies to Wison’s questions as being this simple but profound message: What you believe is real is real for you.
Just did a search for “Pancho Durango and the Zen of Fishing:” and the only thing that comes up is Marty’s blog.
Where is the book available?
Dio
For me, Brian, your experience that you’ve been so generous to share in relaying this story is a wonderful example of trust – trust in SELF.
You wrote: “I think it can be stated that selfless service…”
It occurred to me that SELF cannot be anything other that ‘selfless.’
“All the suffering in the world comes from seeking pleasure for oneself. All the happiness in the world comes from seeking pleasure for others.”
Shantideva
Seeking pleasure for oneself demonstrates a belief that one is separate from others. Seeking pleasure for others demonstrates a belief that one’s interests and the interests of others are one and the same. There really are no ‘others.’
The concept of suffering, in it’s seemingly countless forms, depends on a belief in separation. A belief in separation depends on self-deceit.
Tom, Last I saw you was by accident at the Post Office on Vermont in Los Feliz. We were both checking our mail. Maybe in 2004? I remembered you from being a ‘public’ at AOLA and I was staff.
I asked about your lovely daughter Liz and you only said she was well.
You had a smile that went right through me. I do believe you will live way beyond 80 – why? Because you live in other peoples hearts because you (unknowingly) give that.
Thanks for those links Dio.
A sage that I have been greatly influenced by has a moto for his ashram and extended lineage:
Serve-meditate-realize
Service for me is sometimes a practice. Whereas my wife just has it in her nature.
Years ago I asked her,”how come your serve and do for others so naturally?” I was wanting her secret.
She looked at me as if everyone should know this and said,” because it makes me happy.”
I laughed at the utter simplicity and power of her statement and once again thanked life for her in my life. I am getting better at naturally serving because it does bring happiness.
I have a gay friend who decided to help feeding people at a Christian food bank. Previously he did not like Christians because of the demonization of his sexual preference.
Simply as a result if feeding the homeless and working along side Christians he is so excited to help the homeless and all of his feelings towards Christians have been changed.
All because of service, all because of love.
In yoga this practice is called karma yoga: seeking unity with all life through selfless action.
Hi Cliff, I love that picture Richard put on your FB! Want to help? I sent you a message. I like how you leave yourself wide open to discussing. And as for ‘using Marty’s Blog for this’. Well If Marty doesn’t like this he will say so.
.“You live as long as you have something worthwhile to give”.
“And who is the judge of that.”
“Only you of course.”
‘You live as long as…’ implies that ‘you’ can cease to live. This instantly informs us that the ‘you’ being pointed to is the mind/body you i.e., the mind/body construct of ‘you’ that appears to live then, at some point, ceases to live. So Pancho, in his exchange with Wilson, is not pointing to the eternal YOU. However, when he replies, “Only you of course.” I think in that statement, while he is still not pointing to the eternal YOU, he is referring to a ‘You’ that observes from a much higher level of consciousness/awareness, perhaps this is a ‘Higher Self’ that is capable of observing all causes and effects in both past and future occur in a single instant of NOW.
Mind/body constructs of ‘you’, because they are incapable of ever seeing the entirety of anything, cannot even begin to recognize what is actually ‘worthwhile’ and what isn’t. For example… consider the question, “Is genocide ever worthwhile?” Although, a mind/body construct ‘you’ will most likely answer that question definitively, that ‘you’ can never actually answer such a question because, besides not being able to see the entirety of anything, it is unable to see past its own belief systems; its own truth of what is and what isn’t.
Dio,
“So for longevity, we must get clear and stay clear.”
Very true. Spirituality and physical longevity go hand in hand. Clarity means a clear understanding of both spiritual and physical makeup.
Both spiritual and physical decay does set in with age. A “solution” that only addresses one and not the other is only a partial solution and would not result in eternal longevity. The idea that a person can live as a spirit without the body is merely a cop out.
Physical and spiritual are two aspects of the same phenomenon. Saying that spiritual can exist without physical is merely a subjective speculation. It is just not possible. Even if mental forces and energies go somewhere after physical death, they must remains as patterns in some physical electromagnetic field, the same way that software resides in a computer as patterns carried forth by electrons.
Vinaire
The most worthwhile thing to give is education to yourself and to those in your immediate environment.
Please check this out: http://vinaire.me/research-on-learning/
Beliefs are filters. The actual reality is beyond filters and ultimately unknowable.
Of course, what you perceive through your filters is real to you, if not to another or others.
Yes Monte I agree. When Self (Universal) with a capital as apposed to self (individual).
I think the sages use the word selfless to denote “non selfishness”.
Good auditors experience that state.
Vin,,
The idea that a person can live as a spirit without the body is merely a cop out.
I suppose that there could be at least some truth to that.
Dio
You are welcome Cece.
To the best of my knowledge, as a result of a lot of research, I think that is the best knowledge on earth.
I am glad that someone checked it out and appreciated it.
I was debating whether to post it or not.
Dio
Perhaps Marty is the author of this tale … which I alluded to in my opening comment on this thread.
Perhaps …
Am hoping it a tale included in his new book …
Absolutes are unobtainable. Spiritual and physical are complementary like software and hardware. They cannot be cleanly separated as believed.
Vin.
“The idea that a person can live as a spirit without the body is merely a cop out. ”
Mark.
How depressing.
I’m serving up some food for thought, with attribute to Clif High at Half Past Human…………….
“No matter what the question: chemtrails, oligarchy, space aliens, poisoned oceans, freaking replitian politics (ukraine, syria, libia, egypt…), banksters, fracking, deep state…..you name the problem, this man shines out the one word solution: Coming to a globe near you soon….”
It is not really depressing of you can fly on the wings of imagination.
Sent from my iPhone
>
Monte:
The knowledge and understanding of the connectedness and oneness of all is just as important as individuality, A knowledge of and understanding of individuality is just as important as oneness of all.
To favor or discount either is to leave oneself incomplete.
Mark
Brian.
You and others like you (if any exist) are needed and wanted.
Mark
Vin.
“Absolutes are unobtainable.”
Mark
“Perfection is unobtainable, but if one doesn’t strive for perfection, he’ll never get close.” MNR
Ha ha ha Mark. I have a feeling you are one of them!
Yes, I’m no mother Teresa (lol, Marildi), but I enjoy if I can truly offer something good. I don’t think I blog to somewhat benefit the first dynamic, although some times it hapens (cogs). It’s also the reason why I am careful to not make gross mistakes such as to fully support or fully attack all labeled ‘SCN’.
I do feel a little closer to death if I mess up, and I want to correct. Yes, loyalty to own ethics is greater than any other moral ethics. And there can be great freedom too, while adhering to such ethics. How many ways can there be to do good? I think infinite. So, I wont go to hell unless I work for ______ nor unless I donate to ________ .
🙂
I totally agree with you.
I sort of disagree on the idea that a spiritual being must live a material life to be able to amount to anything in this material plane of existence.
I strongly believe that a phisicality exists in all the 12 planes (or dimensions) of reality, except that the word physicality kind of falls short of describing the concept completely.
A spiritual being can experience physicality — and not necessarily in a “meat suit”. This is what I believe.
I may not not how to achieve that, yet, but it does not mean I exclude this as an option.
The concepts of right and wrong are probably the main column on which a civilization is built.
This particular civilization we live in, called the Western Civilization, by many, is the by-product of thousands of years of thinking men (and unthinking ones, too!) deciding what is good or bad for the self, for the family, for a specific group of people and for mankind itself.
However, as for everything on this plane of existence, there is a dichotomy in the dichotomy.
Some really enlightened people have tried to set down moral codes that promote survival; some other ones, who were not so well-intentioned, have also set down morals and have had them enforced on people, which were not the best morals in the end.
Some of these morals may apply to a certain amount of the population and, for the rest, they may not. “Not everything that is good for the duck hunter is good for the duck:”, the saying goes.
In the end, what Hubbard said about good and evil was pretty spot on.
After all, two-valued and three-valued logic are a primitive concept, where one is forced into a dichotomy or a duality.
I find the words that Pancho said correct, if seen in the appropriate light. Because this concept of right/wrong is a dichotomy, we need to start looking at the world with a different viewpoint, if we want to reach a little higher, in my honest opinion.
What if we started to consider all that surrounds us is we? I don’t mean that we need to be “one with the universe” in a glib manner, without retaining any identity or individuality.
We, as individuals, need to start looking at the world as if we were the world. We need to start loving it, as if it were each one of us. I have reason to believe that the increase in affinity, reality and communication, which would ensue, would be so great that we might actually “clear” the planet in one fell swoop (those of you, who have heard that particular Scientology term, will know what I mean). It’s a hypothesis, guys — just saying.
This also would cancel the need to have a right/wrong, good/evil dichotomy. After all, we would not want to do something bad to something we feel so much love for, right? This is the fundamental teaching behind the Golden Rule: Do unto others as thou wouldst others do unto thee.
I try to apply this rule in my life and with the people I deal with it. Of course, I go through my human emotions and reactions — I accept and welcome that as part of the deal.
Emotions are there to be experienced — both the higher ones and the lower ones;.they help you interface with the physicality we call the world.
So long as one retains the feeling of love, acceptance, tolerance, and responsibility for everything that may happen around us, there is no danger to remain stuck in a lower (or falsely high) emotion and thus behave in a manner that would be counter-survival.
Have anyone tried a meditation practice calle Tong-lang? I suggest you research it and find someone who can put you through the paces. I believe you will see the world with a renewed sense of wonder. I know I did. For all the horrible stuff that is happening, we can still win this “war” by cancelling the war with love, one person at the time.
What is the key to longevity? It is the ability to exit a two-terminal world, ruled by fear and to enter into an infinity of love and consciousness, where one reaches true immortality by being aware of our spiritual nature.
Now, I hope you guys see that what Pancho said was not as philosophical as it could have been expressed. He just has what I call the “elder’s outlook on life” — deep but to the point.
Mathematically, it is asymptotic.
Yes, Mark,
Matthew 5:48
King James Version (KJV)
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
Dio
Fixation on anything is problematic. Fixation on individuality is specially problematic.
From the work “Thinking and Destiny” by Harold Percival.
“The span of life of every human is already determined at the close of his previous life, but the period may be somewhat lengthened or shortened. The length of the span was marked on the breath-form at death, and that impresses the sign on the first cell with which the building of the new body begins. Accordingly a coil is developed in the astral body by elementals. The coil will let a certain amount of life force pass, namely, enough for the span of a persons life.”
“The length of the span is predetermined so as to let the person do the work and pass through the events called for by his destiny. Within the span he generates new thoughts, does or refuses to do the work, makes new destiny, and he puts off some minor events. In a general way the course of his life and the salient events, and the time within which he must finish, are laid out for him, but he has a choice as to how he will act in details and with what mental attitude he will view these salient events.”
“The manner of death is physical destiny, and is already pre-determined at the end of the preceding life. There is one exception, suicide. The mere disposition to commit suicide is predetermined, but even in that case the man can choose whether or not he will die by his own hand.”
“All the ‘find my purpose’ work has left me confused.”
Letting go, I suspect that there are many people (I was certainly one of them) that get caught up in the search for their purpose; their ‘true’ purpose. And indeed, this is a search that can be quite perplexing and, at times, enormously confusing. This is not at all surprising once it is recognized that the search for one’s purpose is a lie. If a person believes they need to search for and find their purpose, they must first believe that they are lacking a purpose or have somehow misplaced or forgotten their purpose. How does one’s purpose go missing? Of course, it doesn’t. It only seems to go missing when one believes that it has. And if a person attaches concepts like happiness, self-worth, aliveness, inspiration, etc., to the concept of purpose, and makes the experience of those concepts dependent upon knowing their purpose…well, they set themselves up for suffering.
Believing that I needed to find my purpose became a mantra for me for quite sometime. I created much stress for myself with this notion. And because I believed that my purpose was missing my environment was constantly supplying a steady stream of circumstances that gave witness to my belief. As ‘luck’ would have it, though, a little book intercepted my path (I Am Word by Paul Selig) that pointed to some concepts that eventually prompted a shift in my thinking. I let go of my ‘find my purpose’ mantra, in all its guises, and adopted a different one. My new mantra: I know who I am, I know what I am, I know why I’m here and I know what I am to do. It didn’t take long for me to begin believing what I was thinking and my environment instantly began to reflect this.
Letting go, you write: ” I am not inspired or alive, and wish I was. I can see, for me at least, if I had something worthwhile to give and someone(s) to give it to, it would not matter how long I live. What would matter was that I lived.”
Perhaps it’s time, Letting go, to thoroughly review your beliefs and see if there are any you’re holding that might not be serving your best interests.
Much Love, Monte
Vinaire, if absolutes are unobtainable, how can you say with absolute finality that knowledge of the soul as separate from the body is absolutely unknowable?
Brian, I know that you are going logical on me. But here is how I see it.
Click to access 01-the-quest-for-certainty.pdf
It is a very worthwhile postulate.
Brian, here is the related link.
.
These are my thoughts on this subject. Please see the graph at the bottom. Awareness aspect of spirituality, and electromagnetism aspect of physicality go hand-in-hand at different levels. They condense and finally precipitate as self and body.
http://vinaire.me/2014/03/06/khtk-postulates-for-metaphysics-part-1/
.
Terrific comment Flavp — thank you
Tonglen is the meditation practice of “sending and receiving”
Here is a wonderful short you tube video by Pema Chodren – very well known American Tibetan Buddhist nun. She has lots of books and is easy to read without heavy duty “incomprehensible” stuff 🙂
At the bottom of all purposes there seems to be a ‘desire to know’.
It is from there that the desire to know one’s purpose comes from.
Haha!
In my opinion, the way to increase ARC is the reduction of filters. Getting rid of biases, prejudices, and fixed ideas shall be a good start.
The reduction of filters comes from the practice of mindfulness. This has to be decided by oneself. It cannot be enforced.
.
“A man ninety years old was asked to what he attributed his longevity. I reckon, he said, with a twinkle in his eye, it because most nights I went to bed and slept when I should have sat up and worried.”
-Garson Kanin
Yes, that is very nice. This practice of breathing in with a wish to take away the sufferings of others, and breathing out with the wish to send comfort and happiness to the very same people does the following:
(1) It puts the attention away from self
(2) It makes one more reality-centric..
(3) It also puts attention on breathing, which grounds one into the reality of the moment.
Buudhism is all about being reality-centric (atheism) than self-centric (thiesm).
.
“All the suffering in the world comes from seeking pleasure for oneself. All the happiness in the world comes from seeking pleasure for others.”
Shantideva.
This is very interesting. My only question would be, if pleasure is dangerous for me, why would I want to impose it on others? Is it somehow beneficial for them yet not for me?
Also, “pleasure seeking” is relative. For me the highest form of pleasure is in the conversations. Not just current ones, this involves reading books. Of course, I have been penalized for having conversations. And I have suffered to some degree for having them. But I have had far more benefit through the conversations than penalties.
Thank you, Monte, what you write is helpful. Perhaps by ‘find’ I really mean ‘name my purpose’. How do I do that when I feel I cannot see it?
That brings me to your second point, review of my beliefs. There are several methods to do this, so I will give it a go, although I usually end up wishing there were an ‘easier’ way. But a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. So thanks again for your advice.
I do not think I could live by any creed where I would need to denounce all pleasure seeking. I have done it before, and it does help one to step away from themselves and their own misery, if one has no other solutions. It is a therapy. But I have found that unhappy people do not forward happiness to others. You can not gift to others, what you can not gift to yourself.
Marty, good point, but you know what, I am actually envious of all those people that gave MILLIONS of dollars to the IAS and became Patrons and Platinum Meritrious members. That is what I wanted to do! I wanted to give 2.5 Million dollars to the IAS. Now I can’t any more unless I come back and start all over again and I am not! 🙂
The truth in Marty’s story, and of being valuable, is that if I did not feel my words had any value to others, or theirs to me, I would have little pleasure in the conversations. May not even have the urge to speak, or listen.
Hey Pancho,
what you consider is what you consider. I like that.
“You live as long as you have something worthwhile to give”.
or get a virtue, purpose.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue
you get to choose, be cause, be OT.
practice it, make it a habitude. Not what you can do, but what you can be.
http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=148928
Thank you, Dio. Wisdom from all sources align. The sources are everywhere.
ARCL, Mark
Vinaire, I agree. After all, filters, as I understand them, are a by-product of some sort of dichotomy, just like biases, prejudices and fixed ideas are.
Can you describe for me the concept of “practice of mindfulness” in a concise manner?
This all appears to be rather fatalistic, don’t you think?
This little song pretty much says it all.
Pass it on.
What your hands do,
It’s your own eyes that’ve seen.
So won’t you judge your actions
To make sure the results are clean?
It’s your own conscience
That is gonna remind you
That it’s your heart and nobody else’s
That is gonna judge.
Be not selfish in your doings:
Pass it on. (Pass it on, children)
Help your brothers (help them) in their needs:
Pass it on.
Live for yourself and you will live in vain;
Live for others, you will live again.
In the kingdom of Jah,
Man shall reign.
Pass it on;
Pass it on;
Pass it on;
Pass it on.
What’s in the darkness
Must be revealed to light.
We’re not here to judge what’s good from bad
But to do the things that are right.
On a hot, sunny day,
Follow the shadows for rescue.
But as the day grows old,
I know the sun is gonna find you.
Be not selfish in your doings:
Pass it on.
Help your brothers in their needs:
Pass it on.
Live for yourself, you will live in vain;
Live for others, you will live again.
In the kingdom of Jah,
Man shall reign.
Pass it on;
Pass it on;
Pass it on;
Pass it on. (Pass it on)
Marty,
Thank you for your kind insight.
Hey Vinaire, I think to argue soul/no soul is fun but that is not my question.
And obviously we won’t solve this age old argument.
I am questioning your assertion of no absolutes than claiming that there is absolutley no soul.
Going logical? I thought it was logic you were using.
Here is a nice perspective on the art of meditation:
Developing ‘Witness Consciousness’ Could Change Your Life
Biofeedback devices such as the emWave29 can help personalize your interventions and improve progress toward toning that parasympathetic nervous system. For treatment of significant pathology, I recommend these more formalized interventions including computer-based coherence training. However, liberating oneself from the day-to-day perceptions of negativity, overwhelm, and loss may be far less complicated.
Perhaps, my favorite text on the matter of how to free ourselves from the effects of stress is by Michael Singer, called The Untethered Soul.10 He makes the bold assertion that happiness and freedom are the result of cultivating “witness consciousness,” a state of willfully observing one’s own mind, emotions, and behaviors, rather than feeling that you are these things.
He deftly argues that focus and awareness is what makes disturbances real – a hammer falls on your toe and your awareness moves there, then you hear a bang, and your awareness moves there. He implores the reader to experience pain as energy passing through before the eye of consciousness, and tasks us with the imperative to relax and release, stay centered, don’t get pulled in. Let the parade of thoughts and emotions pass by without running along with it to see where it’s going. You remain a quiet observer of your neurotic mind and eventually, the chatter starts to go quiet.
This is a means of defining our comfort zones more broadly, appreciating the limitations of our preferences, and the impossibility of matching up our external world with our arbitrary internal definitions of what should be. I particularly love his analogy of sitting by a river, noting a swirl in the water. You could try to frantically smooth out the surface of the water, continuously and senselessly, or you could reach in to pluck the rock out, only to notice that it is your other hand holding it there. We create our own distress, in many ways, and then we try to use our brains and emotions to resolve that stress. It doesn’t work.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/02/20/meditation-relaxation-response.aspx
Yes. Here you go:
1. Observe without expecting anything, or attempting to get an answer.
2. Observe things as they are, without assuming anything.
3. If something is missing do not imagine something else in its place.
4. If something does not make sense then do not explain it away.
5. Use physical senses as well as mental sense to observe.
6. Let the mind un-stack itself.
7. Experience fully what is there.
8. Do not suppress anything.
9. Associate data freely.
10. Do not get hung up on name and form.
11. Contemplate thoughtfully.
12. Let it all be effortless.
The 12 Aspects of Mindfulness
+1
LG, what I think is workable in finding one’s purpose is to do what you enjoy. It seems to me that it correlates.
Brian, you are misinterpreting me. The reference that I gave you above, says,
“Similarly, in the field of spirituality, we cannot be absolutely certain that self or soul is permanent. The phenomenon that is described as self or soul must be open to further investigation.”
I never claimed, as you said, “There is absolutley no soul.”
Haha!
Correct logic comes from operating on correct data. Take a look at Data Series.
Beautiful! Thank you Valkov.
Oracle: Shantideva’s quote comes from a much larger context “The Way of the Bodhisattva”
His point is that IF our focus is solely for the benefit (pleasure) of oneself – that will lead to suffering.
Pleasure also means good health, enough food, roof over ones head, beneficial conversations etc …
In other words, wishes for others to have pleasurable things … which would include conversation and not selfishly want everything for oneself.
Obviously the danger is in quoting from a source just a few words as I have done.
Vin,
Re: . Do not suppress anything.
What if:
I was so angry at you, that because you were such a dirty rotten SOB, that I felt like wringing your effin neck….
Does, your datum apply here, that I should go ahead and wring your neck?
I have many of those types in my universe, and I keep suppressing the desire, which causes me great stress. And the stress compromises my health and sanity.
Should I go ahead and wring every one’s neck that I feel deserves it?
Dio
You’re Welcome Vin. It’s one of my favorites. It says in those few words just about everything about how to live LIfe. It was originally done by the Wailers, of Bob Marley fame.
You stated that there is no entity separate from matter or mind.
Dio,
Mindfulness provides the discipline for looking and contemplation. It does give you the license to act out on every impulse you have. “Do not suppress anything” means you observe without suppressing anything. For example, the sense of morality make you suppress certain thoughts, so you prevent yourself from observing those thoughts in detail.
Observe without suppressing anything. Follow your attention where it goes naturally. Do not attempt to control or direct it. If something shameful appears then observe and experience the shame. If something threatening appears then observe and experience the threat. Do not pre-judge and avoid something just because it seems to be painful. Simply experience it without interfering with the mind. It is the suppression of perceptions, memories, knowledge, visualizations, thinking, etc., that causes all difficulties in life. By not suppressing you establish complete integrity of perception.
To practice this aspect of mindfulness, first make sure that the environment is safe and free of disturbance. Any medical condition should be addressed appropriately first. Then start observing without suppressing anything. If there is any dopiness or unconsciousness then do not suppress it. Simply go through it.
Regards,
Vinaire
The above was a very concise presentation of mindfulness. This link will provide you with the context also.
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I’m extremely healthy myself it seems but I have seen too many die apparently losing control over their bodies. I think if the body was well understood it would easier to fix. I also think understanding will be pretty simple in the end. So I just keep reading 🙂
One day my father couldn’t anymore carry my suitcase up the stairs.
He looked so defeated and said”I cannot help anymore”.
Soon after, his decline started. He had considered that he had no more to give and I saw it and there was nothing I could do to convince him otherwise.
thank you for this story, told so well.
Did I? I don’t remember. Could you please provide the link to that post. Thank you.
There are plenty of references to soul on my blog.
Hi Flavp. I can see how you could have gotten that impression. The book Thinking and Destiny details the eternal progression of the person. Upwards. Ones thinking is tied in with their destiny. One can generate new thoughts in this life. And thus create change in that destiny. It is about growth, and not about being shot out of cannon without any control. Its a very interesting book, 1000 pages on Gods and their religions, past lives, character, etc. On the thinking portion, I would point to strong parrellels with the book “As a Man Thinketh”, by James Allen.
Marie, your post reminded me of reading Peter Freuchen’s “The Book of the Eskimos”. In the past these people lived in a very difficult environment in which it took 2 people, a man and a woman, just to do all the work of surviving. There were men’s work and women’s work. men’s work involved much hunting and strenuous work. When a man got older and could no longer do the work, he would find a way to die so as not to be a burden on his family. He felt if he could not work, he was not contributing to the production of food. Usually the family would try to talk him out of ending his life, but sometimes he would go off and do so anyway. Sometimes they successfully postponed his leaving several times; but eventually he might prevail. Then one traditional alternative was to have a big farewell party, like an Irish ‘wake’ but before he passed away. At the end, his son(s) would help him pass in some way, often by hanging. This was an age-old tradition among these people. They also believed that a person had a spiritual nature that survived death.
In early America, historical records show that suicide was quite common among aging farmers. They perhaps felt the decline of their ability to provide and contribute to the general welfare of their families, and ended their own lives for that reason.
Thank you for sharing your story; I am sure you did what you could to sway him into staying. We never really wholeheartedly want to let our friends and family go ahead into the future, even when it appears to be their wish.
“Physical and spiritual are two aspects of the same phenomenon. Saying that spiritual can exist without physical is merely a subjective speculation. It is just not possible”
Can you explain this for me Vinaire? I am willing to be wrong. If it is impossible for a soul to exist without a body, then what is a soul in your understanding?
I would rather not go to your blog all the time if that is ok with you. I’d rather talk between us.
I do believe it is very easy to survive never thinking about oneself, if one is assisting the survival of others. One is rewarded with out ever needing to worry about one’s self. People assist you in return.
I think a lot of people are terrified at pleasure seeking. It somehow translates as sinful or unholy. Hubbard said pleasure moments can not be erased. Not sure who would want to erase them. ?? There is a sort of general can’t have on pleasure and of course for some people, this creates a must have.
There is a lot of pleasure to be had in helping others. Makes one wonder why the staff in the Orgs are not on cloud nine all the time. But I think it is the seeking of pleasure at another’s expense, that is unholy.
My greatest personal pleasure these days, on a heavy work schedule, is to grab a one hour nap on the couch with my weenie dog. For me, that is heaven.
Laughter!
What we call a ‘being’ or an ‘individual’, or ‘I’, is only a combination of ever-changing physical and mental forces or energies. This statement shall apply to ‘soul’ also.
So you believe the soul to be a combinations of mind and body. I have never heard that definition except for a materialists view.
You talk of Vivekananda and yoga on your blog. No yogi has ever defined the soul as mind and matter. Here is what he says of the soul:
“It is nature that is changing, not the soul of man. This never changes.”
Vivekananda.
So you are a materialist. Someone who sees the soul as brain and body functions: the outcome of matter. That is materialism.
Here is one more from Vivekananda. This quote is actually the same idea as any sage I have studied. This definition also matches my experience:
“Soul is not a force; neither is it thought. It is the manufacturer of thought, but not thought itself; it is the manufacturer of the body, but not the body.”
Vivekananda.
Your definition does not align with the experience of liberated sages and my own and I’m sure any Scientologist that has experienced exteriorization.
I just want us to be clear on that definition.
You are most welcome Letting go!
As I was ‘prompted’ to respond to your origination a thought instantly appeared to dissuade me from doing so. Such thoughts are increasingly becoming easier to recognize as originating from a false deficient self-concept that has a propensity for adopting and holding onto destructive belief systems; belief systems that have elaborate and efficacious mechanisms for self preservation. However, that said, anything coming from this false deficient self immediately collapses when recognized for being what it is.
Letting go, I suspect that one’s True Purpose is beyond description, explanation or label; it just IS. And like the sun, it is always there and it is never not shining. But clouds (belief systems, considerations, etc.) can and do obscure any view of the sun and its shine. Yet, until one actually recognizes that True Purpose IS, there is a progression of purposes; a hierarchy of illusory purposes (beingnesses/hats), that we seem to need to ascend in our seeming journey through space and time. And throughout this illusory journey it also seems, that we require ourselves to traverse and experience periods commonly referred to as being “dark nights of the soul.” These periods of ‘dark nights of the soul’ I have come to recognize as being those times when the false deficient self grabs the reins and attempts to murder the “awakening mind.” Of course, it is impossible for this ‘murder’ to occur, but certainly, lives and bodies that seem to be can appear to be laid to waste in the process.
Okay, all that said…I should now put things into perspective. And it conveniently just so happens that I came across a video by Scott Kiloby that I can point to and say, “Yeah, what he said. The same goes for me.”
All the best to you Letting go!
I’ve participated in a practice called Speaking Circles that essentially teaches the same idea as a way to speak to groups. Your story is exactly what I needed to set myself up for a talk to my family.
I spent years of my scientology career wanting to find my purpose….. assuming that when found I my life would align and I would expand into this exhilerated state as I moved in that direction. Now I look at meaning, purpose, etc as being self generated and changing. I cannot see a purpose to self or existence that we don’t make up as we go along.
Along that line a quote from Neil deGrasse Tyson.
The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things in life like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people in life recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation. For me, I am driven by two main philosophies, know more today about the world than I knew yesterday. And lessen the suffering of others. You’d be surprised how far that gets you.
Brian,
A lot gets lost in translation. Unfortunately, the English language doesn’t have the vocabulary to define all the spiritual concepts of Vedas from which Hinduism and Buddhism descend.
Here are the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda that you may download.
https://archive.org/details/CompleteWorksOfSwamiVivekanandaVolume1To9
Let me know the actual reference from which you got your definition so that I can look up the context.
Thanks,
Vinaire
Why do you keep changing what I said?
Brian,
I do not think that there are separate entities called body, mind and soul. These are simply three different aspects of the same phenomenon.
There are physical and mental forces and energies. Part of the physical energies are visible as the body. There is very likely and electromagnetic field that is part of the physical energies but not visible.
Mental energies lie in the changing configurations of the physical energies.
The soul is the “center of awareness” associated with mental and physical energies as described here.
http://vinaire.me/2012/07/29/the-self-and-the-soul/ Vinay
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Check it out Dave? Does David Miscavige ever really check anything out? I am reminded lately of Lisa McPherson who David Miscavige with full “HQS Course C/S Tech” t back him up C/S’d Lisa McPherson over the phone. It is similar to reports of Freezone auditing I have heard about whereby people get a phone call from an auditor and hold the phone like meter cans while the auditor telepathically audits out engrams over the phone. Lisa McPherson stood poised on the podium a “Full L-11 Clear”. A full L-11 Clear? And what exactly is that, something that most tech trained people normally produce in auditing? Lisa believed it and that is sad, but other people did not and don’t. Immortality and longevity are not such hard things to come by these days. In the best interest of all concerned. 🙂
To answer Brian more completely, here are some thoughts.
(1) The soul is trying to understand itself.
(2) It is actually looking at its “reflection” to do so.
(3) This is like looking at oneself through a filter.
(4) The filter is made up of mental and physical forces or energies.
(5) So the soul appears to have mental and physical forces or energies.
(6) As filters lessen the energies comprising the “soul” also lessen.
(7) The complete cessation of filters is nirvana.
(8) At that point the “soul” and its “reflection” become one.
(9) Both annihilate each other because who knows which is the soul, and which is its refelection.
(10) There is no longer that effort to understand oneself.
(11) No longer is any awareness needed.
(12) With its reflection gone, the soul is gone too.
(13) There is only BRAHMAN.
Brian, if you really want to understand what Swami Vivekananda says about soul you need to diligently study his complete works. Check this out in the introduction:
http://www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info/vivekananda/introduction.htm
Others stood beside the Swami Vivekananda, on the same platform as he, as apostles of particular creeds and churches. But it was his glory that he came to preach a religion to which each of these was, in his own words, “only a travelling, a coming up, of different men, and women, through various conditions and circumstances to the same goal”. He stood there, as he declared, to tell of One who had said of them all, not that one or another was true, in this or that respect, or for this or that reason, but that “All these are threaded upon Me, as pearls upon a string. Wherever thou seest extraordinary holiness and extraordinary power, raising and purifying humanity, know thou that I am there.” To the Hindu, says Vivekananda, “Man is not travelling from error to truth, but climbing up from truth to truth, from truth that is lower to truth that is higher.” This, and the teaching of Mukti — the doctrine that “man is to become divine by realising the divine,” that religion is perfected in us only when it has led us to “Him who is the one life in a universe of death, Him who is the constant basis of an ever-changing world, that One who is the only soul, of which all souls are but delusive manifestations” — may be taken as the two great outstanding truths which, authenticated by the longest and most complex experience in human history, India proclaimed through him to the modern world of the West.
Swamiji’s concept of soul is not very different from the Christian concept of the soul. The Christian concept of soul comes from looking through a filter. That soul is made out of mental and physical forces or energies.
Without a filter the soul and Brahma are the same. This concept does not exist in Theism.
It should say, “Swamiji’s concept of soul is very different from the Christian concept of the soul…”
Very good set of posts, Brian, I believe it to be true. I’m certainly not a natural like your wife. Several years ago I decided on a career change, and fumbled around for a couple years trying to find my place in life. A scientologist asked me what my purpose in life was. Then I realized what I’d been doing, and responded, ” raising people’s tonelevel
Sorry, didn’t finish. I said, ” raising people’s tone level”. It wasn’t quite enough for her, but hey, I was already out, and had more friends than I could keep up with. So it was certainly good enough for me, and somehow it must have been enough for others. It certainly showed me what was really important versus what’s important to the “church”.
Vinaire, thank you. This answers the question.
Interesting.
Getting is not natural for us….giving is who we are. 🙂
marildi, it is funny how many answers I have received over the past couple months point to that simplicity. Perhaps it’s just a matter of relaxing, letting go of seeking, and just living 🙂 Thank you.
Monte, I’m very familiar with the deficient self you describe, although I wouldn’t have called it that. This holding onto destructive beliefs that seem to be meant to “protect” is something I am wont to do. But there is one thing I do not understand – this deficient self isn’t really an entity of its own, is it? It is just us/awareness identified with thought. If so, is talking about it as though it were separate just a clever ploy to remain identified with it?
By creating states to achieve it seems improvement became something “over there”. I confess I haven’t found my purpose under a rock or under my pillow. Some people believe you are born with a purpose, others that you make it. If we exist across lives perhaps we do have an overarching purpose, and perhaps the universe does also. And if we don’t, but make the meaning ourselves, then how does one decide what is meaningful and what matters without feeling like a total fraud?
Thanks, Vinaire. I checked out the articles and agree that education is valuable. I’m not sure I’d make it the most worthwhile thing bar none, but it helps. I will see if I can work with your subject clearing article.
Correction:
It does NOT give you the license to act out on every impulse you have.
Just unstacking the mind is good enough for me. 🙂
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I love it Maxim, may it be fruitful!
Nice Ed
Hi Vinaire, Thanks for engaging this wonderful subject. Thanks for the link on Vivekananda but I have been reading him my whole life and attend the Vedanta center from time to time in Hollywood and Santa Barbara.
I have one question:
Does the soul survive body death as an independent, conscious, personal being?
There are mental and finer physical forces and energies that continue after body death.
My pleasure!
You probably instinctively know this anyway. Just look at your posting name. 🙂
So in your definition the soul is mental and physical energies.
I would simply say, that is not what eastern yogic thought says.
And that is not what a lifetime of yogic discipline reveals as a reality.
The soul, or the “I”, is the creator of these things. Not the byproduct of them.
My view is not from theory. I is from my experience.
And that experience of mine, is the same as, the mystics of all time.
But as discussing these things theoretically may be fun, we will never see eye to eye because you and I connot compare experiments.
That is because my experiment is not in the realm of theory and conjucture. It is in the realm of 44+ years of meditation.
The mind is the problem, when it comes to comprehending that which the mind, through theory and extrapolation, can never fathom.
“It is unborn, though born in a body;
it is eternal, though its bodily dwelling is impermanent;
it is changeless, though it may experience change;
it is ever the same, though in the long pathway of reincarnation which ultimately leads to God,
the soul appears in countless forms;
the soul is not slain when the body dies; and even when the soul returns to Spirit, it does not lose its identity, but will exist unto everlastingness.”
Yogananda
This is the view of the Master sages.
“Know yourself, therefore, to be separate from the three bodies ( physical, astral, causal) and beyond Prakriti (nature). Relinquish all sense of ‘I’ in the body and become a Sage of Wisdom. Realise your own Self to be free from the conditions of waking, dream and deep sleep, as Truth, Knowledge and Bliss Absolute.”
Sivananda
Vinaire, your views are more in line with the bodies we have. Your theories touch on all three of these.
But the soul, the “I” is not these vehicles.
To understand the process of how we, the soul, descended into these three bodies- I would recommend reading Autobiography of a Yogi.
The process and discription is layed out plainly. And the disciplines and proceedures to understand directly is delineated.
God originated, in the form of the causal body, thirty-five ideas as the matrix of human creation. These ideas are the basic or thought forces required to create the astral and physical body. Nineteen of these ideas were manifested as the subtle astral body, which contains the ten senses; the five life forces; and the ego, feeling, mind, and intelligence. The remaining sixteen ideas were converted into the gross physical body of sixteen basic elements. In other words, before God created the physical body consisting of iron, phosphorous, calcium, and so forth, and the subtle astral body of lifetronic composition, He had first to project them as ideas, the constituents of the causal body. Each of the three bodies has its distinguishing qualities. The dense physical body is the result of solidified vibrations, the astral body of energy and mind vibrations, and the causal body of nearly pure vibrations of Cosmic Consciousness.
The physical body may be said to be dependent on food; the astral body is dependent on energy, will, and evolution of thought; the causal body is dependent on the ambrosia of wisdom and bliss. The soul is encased in these three bodies. At death the physical body is destroyed. The other two bodies, astral and causal, are still held together by desires and by unworked-out karma. The soul, wearing these two bodies, repeatedly reincarnates in new physical forms. When all desires are conquered by meditation, the three body-prisons are dissolved; the soul becomes Spirit. (Chapter II, God Talks With Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita by Paramahansa Yogananda)
I think part of the post was letting you decide what is meaningful, not some standard. Marildi said it well. If it gives you pleasure then it has meaning. It may lead you to other meaningful things. I believe that following your heart will give the greatest meaning and purpose.
This is a continuation of discussion with Brian above at https://markrathbun.wordpress.com/2014/05/23/longevity/#comment-305119. I am thankful to Brian for this discussion as it is helping me look more deeply.
Before I address the specific points raised by Brian, let me address a very basic point.
Most people who come from theistic tradition look at eastern knowledge through the a “theism-atheism filter”.
I wrote the following essay to explain this. This eassy about Theism and atheism is from eastern perspective. West looks at it differently.
The fact is that western atheism is a reaction to western theism. The concepts of Theism and atheism are exclusively western.
In the East there has been no theism, so there has been no atheism either.
West looks at eastern religions through its filter of theism-atheism and comes up with further terminology like monotheism and polytheism.
All these terminologies are foreign to the East and do not apply to the eastern religions.
Here is the essay:
Theism views God existing of itself from eternity, and considers it the cause of all other things. In this special role God is separate from all existence. A theistic culture assigns a similar role to self and assigns it a spiritual status, which is senior to, and separate from the physical existence around it.
Atheism is based on the reality of existence. An atheistic culture does not separate self from other things, but sees everything as part of the same reality of existence.
Abrahamic religions, such as, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, are theistic. The Eastern religions, such as, Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism, are atheistic.
Theism, therefore, is self-centric. Atheism is reality-centric.
Theism is based of subjectivity. Atheism is based on objectivity.
Theism takes the affinities of people and molds it into a reality that is built around the idea of God.
Atheism takes the existing reality and transforms it into a sense of all-inclusive affinity.
The focus of Theism is on the separation of self (individuality). This gives rise to the ideas of us and them.
The focus of Atheism is on oneness of all existence. Thus, differences may arise but they are secondary.
Theism holds a special idea of God. The idea of being one with God is unacceptable to it.
Atheism holds no special idea of God. The idea of being one with ultimate reality is part of it.
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Quoting authority doesn’t make a good argument. It is not mindfulness.
>
“Can have” is actually natural.
In response to summerwind, not to myself thank you.
Can have is actually natural.
I read the Autobiography of a Yogi back in the 60s before I came to USA. It was written for western audience. To understand without the filter of theism-atheism, one needs to study the original eastern writings in the original language and not just quote somebody’s interpretations.
>
“But there is one thing I do not understand – this deficient self isn’t really an entity of its own, is it? It is just us/awareness identified with thought.”
Letting go, I suspect that the ‘deficient self’ as well as the ‘magnificent self’ and the myriad other self-concepts, whether interpreted to be good, bad or a blend of both, are constructs made by…what I now refer to as… the ego thought system. All of these self constructs are essentially belief systems and they do appear to exist as individual and separate entities having their own intelligence, purposes, goals, beliefs, defenses, emotions, will and so on. Yet, they are not, in actuality, individual, separate or real. They are simply compositions of thought generated by the ego thought system. And, as you mentioned Letting go, (and I think you’re right on the mark here) talking about them as though they are separate is a clever ploy to keep us identifying with and making real that which is unreal (not exactly your words). This would, of course, include the ego thought system as another seeming entity that is unreal yet has been made to seem incredibly real. By who? I figure we did itBy us before we existed as a perceived ‘us,’
Perception is a result not a cause.
Letting go, obviously this is just more BS pouring out of ‘me.’ 🙂 However, that being noted, it’s BS that I find useful in making some sense (Ha! An impossibility! 🙂 ) out of this predicament of life and livingness I seem to be caught up in.for the moment. I know that the self-concept package ‘Monte’ that I identify with currently will never be able to even conceive of what is really happening or…perhaps never really happened at all. It could turn out that ‘it’ was never anything other than a dream.
Dear Brian,
This is my conception of the spiritual-physical “Big Bang”.
(1)Beyond all reality there is ultimate reality. (2)The ultimate reality is unknowable until it is disturbed. (3)Awareness arises only when the ultimate reality is disturbed. (4)The disturbance then appears to be traveling through a primordial field. (5)The spiritual aspect of this disturbance is awareness (consciousness). (6)The physical aspect of this disturbance is light (electromagnetic radiation).
The theoretical ground state for this universe is postulated to be an undisturbed primordial field that has no frequency, wavelength or period. But if there is such a ground state, it is unknowable because awareness does not exist at that level. Awareness arises only as a disturbance. So, this ground state is simply a theoretical postulate.
The disturbance is made up of awareness and light. Awareness appears to be the property of light. Light appears to be outward expression of awareness. But awareness at this level is of a primordial nature. As light builds up in terms of frequency and wave-length, awareness also builds up in terms of discrimination and perception.
There is no self at this level. The universe consists only of light and awareness. So, the universe itself may be considered the “primordial self or soul.”
This is the postulate of the universe that quickly propagates and persists as a consideration. The universe develops from this initial postulate and consideration.
In the eastern religions, the ultimate reality is Brahma that comes closest to the concept of ultimate divinity or “God”.
Respectfully, Vinaire
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Sorry Vin, but I do not think most people in the West understand the word ‘theism’ in the way you are using it, and I also think there are many branches of Hinduism which are ‘theistic’ by the commonly understood definitions of the word. “Union” with God is a concept that exists in Vedanta, Islam, and even in Christianity, if you take Jesus as one of the faces of God the Trinity.
So I guess I think you need to work on your dichotomy of East and West, as it doesn’t ring true to me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theism
Valkov, I understand what you are saying. Words can be slippery. I see two primary systems as follows.
(1) A Self-centric system
(2) A Reality-centric system
Of course there can be a whole lot of gradients between them.
Where these systems are practiced geographically is not significant as we are now dealing with a global scene.
I prefer reality-centric approach to spirituality as it seems more consistent to me. The more reality-centric it is, the more useful I find the approach to be.
“Deficient self” is the view of the “Magnificent self” through a filter. It is the filter that makes it seem deficient.
vinaire, I think that ANY concept used to qualify Self is a filter and the filter is a judgment. But from where does the judgment come and why?
That is a very good question. In Vedic philosophy this filter is called Maya.
Existence exists in the backdrop of BRAHMA. This whole existence is Maya. The observed and the observer are part of this Maya. When there is no existence there is neither the observed nor the observer.
Thus, awareness is part of existence or Maya. So when the existence is gone the awareness is gone too.
Awareness is generated with existence. Prior to existence there is no awareness. So, the answer to the question, “Where existence come from?” is unknowable.
But once existence is there, one can go to town discovering relationships between one part of existence and another. There can be infinite number of relationships that can answer your question, “where does the judgment come and why?”
Aren’t we lucky to have minds Vinaire! It is really so much fun in it’s purest form.
Sometimes I think I know. And sometimes I am a fool. This song is really how my heart feels.
For those who get it I am in tears. For those who scoff at such nonsense please move on. Nothing to see here people 😉
Hari Om Tat Sat!! Jai Guru Deva!!
Brian,
What you are presenting here is the Bhakti (devotional) approach, which is perfectly fine. It is one of the four approaches that Shastras approve of. The approach, which is closer to my nature, and which I prefer is Jnana (through knowledge).
Knowledge approach can be discussed as it is objective, but devotional approach cannot be discussed being subjective.
Regards, Vinay
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Consciousness is imperishable.
“The learned do not grieve for the dead or for the living. Never, indeed, was there a time when I was not, nor when you were not, nor these lords of men. Never, too, will there be a time when we shall not be…He who regards him [i.e., the soul] as a salyer, and he who regards him as slain—both of them do not know the truth; for this one neither slays nor is slain. He is not born, nor does he die at any time; nor, having once come to be will be again come not to be. He is unborn, eternal, permanent, and primeval; he is not slain when the body is slain.”
Bhaghavad Gita, Chapter 2
Here is a commentary on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 2 that I wrote sometime back. It goes into the concept of consciousness much more deeply.
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vinaire, have you watched the four part video series Inner Worlds, Outer Worlds? If not I expect that you would enjoy doing so. The video production is high quality and the photography and graphics are exceptional! Here’s part one – Akasha.
Monte,
Thank you for this video. I am watching it. By the way, my conception of the Big Bang is as follows:
(1)Beyond all reality there is ultimate reality. (2)The ultimate reality is unknowable until it is disturbed. (3)Awareness arises only when the ultimate reality is disturbed. (4)The disturbance then appears to be traveling through a primordial field. (5)The spiritual aspect of this disturbance is awareness (consciousness). (6)The physical aspect of this disturbance is light (electromagnetic radiation).
The theoretical ground state for this universe is postulated to be an undisturbed primordial field that has no frequency, wavelength or period. But this ground state is unknowable because awareness does not exist at that level. Awareness arises only as a disturbance.
Awareness appears to be the property of the disturbance. Light appears to be outward expression of the disturbance. Awareness at this level is of a primordial nature. As light builds up in terms of frequency and period, awareness builds up in terms of perception and discrimination.
There is no self at this level. The universe consists only of light and awareness. So, the universe itself may be considered the “primordial self or soul.”
This disturbance is the postulate of the universe that quickly propagates and persists as a consideration. The universe develops from this initial postulate and consideration. Regards, Vinay
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I finished watching Part 1 of this video. This is an excellent video.
Per my understanding, the basis of awareness and light is disturbance of a postulated primordial field, This disturbance may be looked upon as primordial vibration. Space and time are aspects of this vibrartion. Energy and mass result from the condensation of this vibration. What this video calls “prana and akasha,” I refer to it as “awareness and electromagnetic radiation (light)”. In my view awareness is inseparable from electromagnetic radiation.
Fractals are an important aspect of how the universe has evolved from the disturbace (awareness-light). Thus, “awareness-light” is interwoven in every particle of this universe. Consciousness is this awareness and it does not stand separate in isolation as believed by many. If there is a God, it is interwoven into the fabric of this universe. It is part of the “illusion” that this universe is.
I consider this universe to be the ultimate filter. The idea of soul is part of this filter. When this filter is gone, the universe and soul are gone too. The awareness and light are gone as well. Only the unknowable ultimate reality remains. Vinaire
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In the end what are we so pissed off about? We find out we are vulnerable. Imperfect. Maybe a little hallucinatory. Scientology promises restoration to the perfect self. But doing the math, One discovers if one was happy there, why did we choose another condition then? Hmm? I have personally discovered “clear and OT” is not about being all happy all of the time and floating on cloud nine all the time and never making any mistake ever and having total power all over the universe. It is about simple understandings. Admissions. Owning it. The life I am in now is one of longest lives I have ever had. I have been doing research on genealogy, until recently, women married between 13 and 15 years old, cranked out 6 to 15 kids and kicked off in their 40’s. That was considered “normal”. The conditions change. Who honors that effort anymore?
Who honors our effort as Scientologists? Maybe others care to make nothing of that but not me. I do not care to make nothing of my life.
If we were all happy living as static total serenity of beingness with total power we would not have changed a thing. Being OT for me is doing the math and figuring out people didn’t really want that, and do not want what the the C of S is selling until they are over their head and want to “go home”. Even then they wobble. Clear and OT is a total no games condition. Unless you are a maker of games. In all of the universe, only makers of games survive. And good players in games. Some folk have gotten very protesty about understanding any of this. It kind of takes the game away.
Longevity is a given. That is why I am brave. It is not about today or a conversation with time limits. We are all here by choice. Because we were bored with being clear and OT. Sane. That is what clear and OT is, admitting it. Thetans can be gnarly creatures when bored with reason and sanity. If you can face that, you have made it.
Just want to say, in all fairness, Marty contributes to honesty. This is the only blog or exchange on the Internet where I have not been punished for being entirely honest, Thanks Marty. For giving me some time to get familiar with my own voice. For granting my rightness in a world dedicated to my wrongness. You do walk on higher ground.
“Just want to say, in all fairness, Marty contributes to honesty.”
+1
Marty himself is honest. I’ve seen that, even though I don’t always agree with his views. I was just telling someone this a couple days ago.
Here is a personal perception. I’d be interested in your thoughts.
The nearly perfectly chaotic and random creation and destruction of the quantum foam creates a strange attractor which at the macro level appears as the nearly perfect regularity of space/time for this physical universe.
Thanks Vinaire, for the interaction. We will converse again I am sure.
Om Tat Sat Om
Oracle,
” Clear and OT is a total no games condition. Unless you are a maker of games. In all of the universe, only makers of games survive. And good players in games. Some folk have gotten very protesty about understanding any of this. It kind of takes the game away.’
That sounds like a bunch of generalities, and it is not true. Should we all begin the Ron’s clapping & worshiping séance now?
Because we sure know that Hubbard was THE Game Maker of this sector of the Universe.
Perfect song and beautiful musical poem Oracale. Thanks!
I am sure we’ll converse again.
Live long and prosper! Vinay
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LOL
Like Einstein, I find the explanations of Quantum Mechanics rather confusing. I am looking for better explanations. Here are some suggestions.
KHTK Postulates for Metaphysics – Part 1 Vinay
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Off topic question…..
I can’t get into Mike Rinder’s blog all of a sudden.
Anyone else having this problem?
Never mind
My purpose in my post was to poke through some illusion. Not to tear down L. Ron Hubbard. I’m on the east bound freeway and you are on the west bound freeway. No need for a collision.
Another version I like……….
Oracle, I second that emotion.
And thanks for the song. It is amazing how many beautiful songs “God” has written and sung, and continues to sing through so many, many beautiful voices.
This is one of those special ones.
Well we all are not interested in love. But I think one can not understand Scientology with out it.
Surely we find ourselves surrounded by hate about it. The flip side which would ot be possible with out the first.
I should also say, love is not the basic purpose in all of this controversy about it. But for me and I don’t care. The fact that I continued to love through out my life, all of the people I have known, has been the biggest victory for me. Way beyond any other promise of deliverance. Whatever I have been through, I can still love. For me, I am still good.
I mean, I do see people flip into the total purpose of hate and blame, and good Lord, they live with that on a daily basis. It is a self imposed sentence of discontent.
“Well we all are not interested in love. But I think one cannot understand Scientology without it.”
The way I see it is that love and understanding are ultimately the same thing..
Awesome. Couldn’t be more so.
Ooops, I posted wrong llink. Marty, please delete that and post this one instead.
Oracle, your post above inspired me to post the vid on “Forgiveness and the Freedom Letting go,” which is a bit downstreeam on this thread.
Marty, I want to thank you for this very important and pertinent post. I spoke today at my brother’s funeral. Although he had stage 4 cancer he lived several years longer than the doctors expected. I said, and believe, that it was his acts of helping others that gave him the purpose to continue living, even when it looked hopeless. I only hope that I and others can follow his example, like yours and that of so many others here who find that helping others is a reward in and of itself.
Oracle,
So was the purpose of my post. I’m very much into piercing illusion and delusion.
I didn’t say that You were tearing down Hubbard, and I reject your covert characterization of me as an anti-Hubbard.
I pointed out to you that the corollary of a lot of you posts seem to go back to the old implant of Hubbard is God and let all of us little thetans stick together with Scientology.
We are on Marty’s blog not in http://www.scientology.org You might want to post over there you Hubbard worship, I’m sure they will appreciate it.
Marty has been providing for a long time now, the remedy for what you are continuously complaining. That is “the losses’, “the wrong items”, “the un-mocking” and the ” being made nothing of”.
By the way, are you suggesting we are somehow responsible for your afflictions, because we criticize Hubbard and Scientology?
There is no collision here, unless you are talking to yourself, expect your comm to be taken up.
Here is one recommended book to get over Scientology without having losses and keeping your gains.
http://www.theendofsuffering.org/
There is a lot of truth in this. When I was growing up it was during the Vietnam war. Of course the attitude about that war and the soldiers and the effects of that war and subject of war itself, was very anti anti anti war. Everyone over 40 years old was evil, all politicians were evil, money was evil, and all police were evil. I grew up thinking of war as a money maker for the puppet masters, all soldiers as puppets and victims. All war evil.
Then a few weeks ago I picked up a book called “American Sniper”. It was an amazing book in detail in itself, about the life of a Navy Seal. But the thing was, this guy was totally uptone about war and being a soldier. Which made the book read hysterically funny. It finally occurred to me, that there are people who are very uptone about war and soldiering. Not just a few. I mean, not just a few. There are guys who view it as a party. And as I read the book, my tone level really came up about war and soldiering. Geeze this probably sounds weird.
The thing is, a lot of wars are started because people are unforgiving. That is the foundation.
When I had to run out my “soldier identity”, the purpose behind being a soldier, was “to bypass”. Because when you are a soldier, you just bypass everyone there. The customs, the laws, the traditions, the agreements, the civilization, it is a junior bypass all the way. You actually put the people in a lower condition. Whatever was “normal” for them before, not they are in “danger”. So, you actually put them in a lower condition. Usually because their “normal” is not your “normal”.
But from reading this book, and some other related afterwards, I realized some soldiers go to war for “payback”. For sins that can not be forgiven. They get all stirred up into a ser fac. A “ded dedex”. Not only that, they can be very uptone about it.
To “forgive” I have to look inward to see how I caused that other person to behave the way they did, and see how I caused it. Often I “permitted” it, through a “hope” or “fixed idea”. Or it would not have occurred. And just because I can forgive, doesn’t mean I should lay down force. If your tone level is enthusiasm when you pull a trigger, you are pretty close to games.
In short, you do not have to forgive anyone if you never permit yourself to be harmed. And if you do permit yourself or your family or friends to be harmed, sometimes the only way to forgive yourself is to make sure the person who did it, will not do it again. That is handling the situation and any danger in it. Some violence and force is “in ethics”. If the same people come into your home and terrorize your family week after week, you can forgive them all you want week after week. But you do not have to forgive them if during the first home invasion you are waiting in a darkened hallway with an AK47. And you work yourself, family and friends out of the danger situation.
It is important to know if you are handling a danger situation, or just seeking revenge.
The soldiers who went to war with the purpose of handling a danger a situation, even after several tours in special ops, Navy Seals, came home alive.
It behooves everyone to be forgiving.
Purpose is senior to policy. And “payback” is a plan.
GOALS
PURPOSES
POLICY
PLANS
PROGRAMS
PROJECTS
ORDERS
IDEAL SCENES
STATS
VALUABLE FINAL PRODUCTS
Why do you think the “fairgaming” has recoiled so violently on David Miscavige?
He is the head of the Church and can’t think with the fucking admin scale.
He is all the way down south into pushing “ideal scenes” with real estate. Laughter! And pushing this as top priority.
Do I forgive him for lack of ability? Sure. He hasn’t stood in my way. Do I forgive others for letting him stand in theirs? That is the hard part for me but I am learning to let go.
You just can’t stand in the way of other people’s purposes. Because there is always some rightness in that, you will never know.
Did David Miscavige break my heart? No way. I was slightly mislead by him. I could never love a man like that. He created some confusion that I rose above. I could never love a man like him. So, secondary on the scene. So, trivial and limited. So paranoid with the need for bigger and better men to stand on the front lines for him. So needy for wardrobe and make up. Applause. Fine linens and tailors. So, Marie Antoinette. So feminine in only synthetic ways.
The idea of running out identities in Scientology auditing is quite interesting. I have been looking into spiritualism, mediums, guiding spirits etc., that were quite popular in late 19th century. There seems to be a similarity in the “spirit” channeled by a medium and the identy which is run out in Scientology.
Just like the channelled spirit an identity seems to be a “center of awareness” generated by a confluence of certain thought or awareness vectors. An identity is essentially a self-like filter. The medium has either read about, or is familiar with the personalities whose spirits it is supposedly channeling. A channeled spirit seems to be some familiarity coalesced in the medium’s mind as a “center of awareness.” The utterances of a medium are most likely coming from such a center that is manifested under trance as something separate from medium’s own center.
A channeled spirit is, therefore, a “self-like filter.” It is an identity.
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The reason David Miscavige can’t think with Hubbard’s Admin Scale. Is because Hubbard had TWO sets of Admin Scales, one public pushing
” A World without Insanity, war etc.” and one private pushing Scientology domination over the Mental Health field and for covert control over the governments of the planet.
You are stuck in Hubbard’s thought implant, and don’t seem to be able to get your bearing out of his trap.
website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernatural_abilities_in_Scientology_doctrine
“In Church of Scientology doctrine, supernatural or superhuman abilities are a recurring subject, appearing throughout Scientology and Dianetics materials, from the most basic introductory texts to the highest-level Operating Thetan information. Virtually all of these concepts were authored by the church’s founder, L. Ron Hubbard, and have not been subjected to testing outside the Church.”
OK. Here is something you might consider: a completely deterministic universe couldn’t exist. It would be totally predictable and would probably as-is. One of the foundations of Quantum Mechanics, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, defines a level of unpredictability at the micro level which, in my opinion, allows the continued existence of the universe. But at the macro level this effectively “disappears” and the universe appears predictable.
I get your point about there is no awareness unless there is something to be aware of. I’d be interested in your comments on “awareness of awareness”.
Even if the universe were deterministic I would not know. Due to its complexity it would appear random to me. So, determinism is a dud concept as far as I am concerned. Quantum Mechanics does nowhere near understand the complexity of this universe. We understand this universe only in relative terms. Uncertainty comes from the observation that there appears to be no bottom to the rabbit hole. In my opinion, this universe will continue to exist as long as we are looking through filters. Interestingly enough the very fabric of the universe filters the ultimate reality. The awareness of an object is its properties. A ball is aware of itself as a ball. A body is aware of itself as a body. An inanimate object is aware of itself as an inanimate object. An animated organism is aware of itself as an animated organism. The self would be an object made up of body and its neural network of thoughts. This self is aware of itself. When the self is aware of its surroundings, it is actually a larger object (self plus surrounding) that is being aware of “itself”. In my opinion, “awareness of awareness” is at best a theoretical hypothesis that is mainly an assumption at this point.
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I have to say Conan, I never perceived there being 2 admin scales involved there. I worked in Mental Health in the 1960s and 1970s, and it seemed obvious that in order to create that “world without war, etc” the basic ideas and therapeutic methods of dianetics and scientology needed to be integrated into the field of mental health. This seemed to me to be what LRH was saying all along.
Conan, you wrote: “…you are continuously complaining. That is ‘the losses’, ‘the wrong items’, ‘the un-mocking’ and the ‘being made nothing of’.”
The actual outpoint, as I see it, is the generalities that are stated about “Scientology” and about “Scientologists.” I think if someone started posting generalities about women, for example, and some of the women posters started objecting, no one would have trouble understanding their objection. It’s the barrage of generalities about Scn and Scn’ists that T.O. is objecting to, and I feel the same way about it.
As another example, I doubt that people here would think it’s okay for someone to start posting negative generalities about people from New York, or from the South, or from Germany or Australia, etc.. By the same token, it isn’t okay to assume that anyone “from” Scientology is _______ (whatever). Maybe those who only see the negative in Scn or LRH can’t understand this because of their own “beliefs.” The ironic thing is that this is the type of thing they criticize “Scientologists” for.
Nice post, ed. And our condolences to you and your family.
Ouch! Ouch! OUCH!
Have a win!
Excerpt from Cece:
Less is better
Simplicity is gold
Thank you Marty to you and yours for all you do. I’m going to make it!
And I appreciate the help.
Marildi,
I understand what you said, but that in itself is a generality, I don’t know to what and to whom you are referring to.
We have deconstructed Scientology step by step for several years now, many people contributed with a lot of specifics. We followed the lead from Marty who presented some of the best evaluations and documentations in his books and in here, and we took it all the way to Hubbard, in his intent and his actions.
So I’m sorry but I can’t answer any better and I’m not going to try to regurgitate all of the information all over again for you. Some of you guys just do not want to see it, and is becoming a silly game, and that is not what I came here to do.
Valkov,
See my replay to Marildi.
Marty produced the GO/OSA policies where Hubbard shifted the main purpose of Scientology into taking over the World’s mental health field and to take control of governments. The documentation is huge, is embarrassing and repulsive and it is confidential, that is why you, me and the majority of people never had a clue
It was a PARALLEL and SECRET Scientology and it shows Hubbard to be almost insane, at the least he was one dangerous cult leader.
Beyond that, you stated the problem under ” I never perceived”, at some point you need to make the decision that you are capable of KNOWING and that you will let yourself know. Nobody can do it for you.
This is gem of a writing that I ran across recently. It is “How to Make Our Ideas Clear” written in 1878 by Charles S. Peirce
http://www.peirce.org/writings/p119.html
This shows how Hubbard’s word-clearing falls short of mark because it depends entirely on definitions provided by authority. Word Clearing is not designed to question the definitions themselves in light of new facts of observation.
.
Conan, This is a very good and succinct response.
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No, I wasn’t referring to all posters. Just those who use the generalities and do so repetitively and quite often. Haven’t you noticed this too?
I mean some of them repeat the same generalities quite often. That’s what is objectionable, because not only are they generalities but there’s no need to keep repeating them over and over. The point gets made – why the obsession to keep drumming it in? And in the form of a generality?
I’m not saying this about you as I haven’t noticed that. But I could be wrong. 🙂
Conan, I don’t mean to be rude, but off the top of my head, as well as you may know the “secret” GO writings etc, you seem ignorant of the very basic LRH writings and lectures and attitudes from the very beginning of it all, from the 1950s. All his goals vis-a-vis the various fields of human activity are broadly outlined in DMSMH. Everyone connected to Scientology that I knew in the 1970s understood these as endeavors designed to evolve human institutions upwards, ie “move them on up a little higher”, as Marty puts it. The broad outlines are all there in DMSMH. Try rereading that.
If it makes you feel better to laud your own supposedly superior degree of confront, OK. But frankly I don’t think it is my degree of confront that is the issue here, but perhaps your own.
The fact that LRH apparently became obsessed with the politics of it all and creating unusual solutions to the problems he perceived is a separate issue.
I don’t have the impression you have much of a grasp of the overall history of Scientology and LRH’s life goals in general.
And frankly Conan, I feel you are possibly one of the last people qualified to tell me what I need to decide about anything. Your evaluation is so far off the mark it borders on delusion. But hey, whatever rolls you over I guess.
Lovely sentiment Ed. May your paths across again on even greener fields of purpose.
Nicely said Ed. It’s a nice acknowledgement that you give. Thx
The indications that I talk to myself or respond to myself on a forum, are wrong indications. False reports.
I have hit the “reply” button and then added further thoughts and it has finally hot home to me that some people, can’t think that far out of a box. So I do not do it anymore. I do not talk to myself or respond to myself. There is only one of me here, at this time.
If you look closely above, my response was to Summerwind. You were not in mind at all and I had forgotten you ever existed. I have no idea why you thought my conversation may have been directed towards you, that I was blaming you for something, holding you accountable for something, or thinking of you, when I wrote it.
I have no need or purpose to “get over Scientology” and I have no idea why you feel compelled to diagnose me with such. I am neither searching for recovery help or your advice.
I have also done you no dis service and I am not on any motivator flow. Why you assume I am open for your verbal abuse is beyond me.
I assume, you are tripping.
There is nothing wrong with having a conversation with oneself. That simply amounts to inspecting one’s considerations to remove any inconsistency. That is quite healthy. It is learning.
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This statement from Marildi is a generality itself.
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Marty!
This post has achieved longevity……..
Long live the inevitables?
We are not exclusive in our inability to celebrate the differences in one another.
This is a rather new social concept. There are people in every tribe and every group in society who are repelled by differences and threatened by them. Similarities are tolerated as a norm. Differences are viewed as ab berated and something that needs to be corrected. If I am different than someone else, there must be something fundamentally wrong with me.
It is really not a “Scientology” issue. Although uniformity is the standard in that group on every level. And celebrated. But that is typical in almost every group including McDonald’s hamburger stands.
It is a self imposed unattainable goal to wish that every person was doing and thinking just as yourself. Because we are all different. No two people are the same. Creating duplicates is an unattainable goal.
I had a pivotal incident when I was seven years old, that opened my eyes to celebrating the differences between myself and others. I was sent to spend the day with my great grandmother. My great grandfather had gone off to work at the store he owned. Bored to tears, I found her sewing box with several spools of thread. I had this idea to wrap the thread about the house until it was all gone, and then rewrap it carefully back around every spool.
I took every spool of thread, and wound it about the house. As one spool went empty, I would tie the piece of thread to the next piece of thread of another spool and continue. I kept at it until I had a basket of empty wooden spools.
Time flew and the entire day had passed and my poor old great grandfather returned home, he could not see very well, and found himself full of whiskey from drinking at the store all day, and prevented from entering the home because of some force field. He was wound into daily routines and this event quite disturbed him. I split to the backyard in a right away fashion. His wife found him sobbing in front of the house on his knees and wound up in thread. She had never seen him like this as he had been a very dominating force in the family and everyone was scared to death of him. I was too.
At the end of the day she sat me down at her kitchen table and asked me to consider what the world would be like, if everyone in it was just like me that day. Where everyone took things that did not belong to them. Where everyone created their own agenda. Where everyone interfered with the routines and wishes and comforts of others.
In that moment I became so glad that everyone in the world was not like me. And I was truly grateful that people were different.
Even more important, that thought stayed with me for the rest of my life in every difficult situation where I was faced with a moral choice. Or faced with an immoral person. “What if everyone in the world was like this? What kind of world would we be living in then?”
I try to think with my actions and decisions in this way, that I should conduct myself in way that at least if everyone were just like me, the world might still be a livable place. Where people would care to live in it. And I can celebrate the people who are different than me who do a much better job than I.
If I did wake in a world to find everyone was just like me, it would be a very sad day. First of all, I don’t know anything about medicine.
Oracle, you have really good taste in music. Janis Joplin “The #1 Best Selling Pop Female Vocalist of all Time”. At the height of her career she was in between drug cluster formations. 🙂 Why not be rock star?! 🙂 “She gonna live a’ long time! 🙂
Valkov,
You are mistaking Hubbard’s writings, his publicly postulated goals and ideal scenes he was selling around for the reality of Scientology. Make believe propaganda is manufactured reality not actuality.
Reality my friend is not just about what somebody wrote back in the 50’s. Nor is made only by your rosy dreams, it includes everybody’s experiences and viewpoints and the actuality of what is there. And in the case of Hubbard and Scientology they don’t match.
By the way since you love Hubbard’s writings so much you should also include his affirmations:
“Material things are yours for the asking. Men are your slaves. Elemental spirits are your slaves. You are power among powers, light in the darkness, beauty in all”
Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior, page 248
You answer validated my earlier observation. You are not only unwilling to know, but by stubbornly asserting your ignorance you are slipping into delusion.
How so? What’s your definition of “generality”?
“…it includes everybody’s experiences and viewpoints and the actuality of what is there.”
I think that’s the point, Conan. Not “everybody’s” experience was the same.
Hello Vin.
I think talking to myself is the best conversation.
I’m never misunderstood. I always agree. I never get any backtalk. Yes I do, no I don’t, yes I do, no I don’t.
Mark
What a profound story. I love it. I love this site. Love you, Miss Oracle.
Formerly MarkNR
Conan, I don’t know how to put this politely so I won’t even try. You know nothing of where I’m coming from and as a result your evaluations and commands to me are beyond stupid.
I am well aware of the affirmations and others of LRH statements about his goals and purposes, such as “smashing my name into history”, starting a religion to make money, etc etc.
As I said, beyond stupid on your part to assume I am not aware of these things. Therefore, I suggest we drop it, I am not interested in exploring your delusions about what I know or don’t know, what I confront or fail to confront etc etc. You may maintain whatever “altitude” you imagine you have towards me, if it makes you happy. But don’t expect me to bow when you ride by.
Having somewhat recovered from the appalling shock of your demonstrated ignorance, I decided I would expand on and back up my original post about DMSMH. I do recommend you read this book. LRH published this in 1950, and he lays out his program in this very “public” publication. He makes it quite clear he was already looking for a total assimilation and integration of the basic ideas of Dianetics throughout the societies of Earth, particularly in two chapters – chapter 10 of Book 2 and chapter 10 of Book 3, of DMSMH. He mentions these ‘branches’ of Dianetics; 1. Preventive Dianetics 2. Educational Dianetics 3. Political Dianetics 4. Medical Dianetics 5. Social Dianetics. He saw Preventive Dianetics as one of the most important branches because it would be involved with preventing the genesis and spread of aberration.
Then, in Book 3 of DMSMH, he presents an essay on another branch he saw as preeminent – 6. Judiciary Dianetics. This quite obviously covers the fields of Law, Jurisprudence, as well, as the Law-making functions of Government!
My point is, there was nothing “secret” about his goals, which were along the lines of influencing and dominating virtually every aspect of human existence along the first 4 Dynamics. There was no “secrecy” at all – he openly promoted these goals and purposes in the very first best-selling book, attempting to get as many people on board with these goals right from the start. His goals included right from the start, this kind of influence and dominance in human societies around the globe. He saw this as the solution to “war, crime, and insanity”.
There were no “two Admin Scales” in play, unless you are considering that the Sea Org operated on different orders and different principles than everyone else in Scientology. That I’ll certainly grant you. But we all know how THAT turned out.
As I’ve posted before, LRH was driven by and trying to juggle and actualize at least 4 different basic goals and sets of purposes, which I won’t go into again now. They include “smashing his name into history” etc. LRH was playing several roles at once, and as noted by Sarge in Marty’s last book, he felt at the end of his life that he had failed in some major and unspecified way(s).
Vinnie is just applying his principle that “I’m rubber you’re glue whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.” 🙂 Sooner or later he comes back to that. I believe it is rooted in Hindu Martial Arts. 🙂 LRH expressed it as “Effect on others, no effect on self.”
Oops I just violated the discussion policy…..
The thing is, just as there may be an Unknowable, I believe there is an Undiscussable. Not to mention an Incomprehensible.
Conan, you don’t seem to realize that many people have “deconstructed” Scientology going back to the 1970s and 1980s and left at those times. I think you have some catching up to do.
LOL!
I am not getting into a Q&A with you. Take it for what it is.
Dialectic
The art or practice of logical discussion as employed in investigating the truth of a theory or opinion.
[C17: from Latin dialectica, from Greek dialektikē ( tekhnē ) (the art) of argument.
Excerpted from the book “The End of Suffering”
http://www.theendofsuffering.org/
The hidden craziness underlying the conditioned behavior that makes us suffer is the dualistic, “either/or” mode of thinking we have been immersed in since childhood. And its all Aristotle’s influence. Aristotle defined a profoundly dualistic system that he called the “law of the excluded middle”–which asserts that everything in the world is either black, or it’s not black, excluding any other possibilities.
Most things we read or encounter in life are neither true, nor not true. For example, physicists know it is true that the light we see is neither a wave nor a particle, but can manifest as either. Also, who we truly are as conscious beings is neither physical, nor not physical. The so-called wave-particle paradox and the famous mind-body duality are both examples of incorrectly posed questions, confusingly masquerading as dichotomies. Think of the well-known “glass half-full or half-empty” metaphor … What if it’s neither?
Our usual black and white dualistic frame of mind almost inevitably creates suffering for ourselves and others, because we seriously misperceive reality — polarizing it into incommensurable opposites and therefore experience delusion. But, once we learn to shed our conditioned awareness and move our consciousness to what the Buddhists call naked existence, we are finally able to experience our lives free of our habitual conditioning.
This non-dual understanding of reality was perfected by Nagarjuna–the second-century Indian genius and teacher of the “Middle Way”–whom the Dalai Lama described as one of the truly enlightened people of all time. The Middle Way is a very generous path that runs brilliantly between dogmatic, materialistic absolutism and insubstantial nihilism (where nothing means anything). It teaches that ignorance of who we really are and attachment to materiality are at the root of all our suffering.
It was just my first inconvenient truth. I got it though, at the age of seven, If everyone was just like me, this Earth would not be a livable place. I do give myself credit for getting it early on. I give myself credit for that. It kind of hurt but the truth of it permitted some escape from pretense that was so liberating at the same time. I was able to free fall into my wrongness. When it really did not matter.
The biggest flaw with Scientology, is that it turned into a culture where your wrongness mattered more than your rightness. I do not care to blame. I would not invest. Every action counts. And this one did too. It will count in long run. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yop62wQH498
Afternoon, my good friends.
Please excuse my communication gap as I have been doing some work, both physical and spiritual. I find ‘doing’ a bit more satisfying than ‘debating’. I have learned a couple of things. They may be of use to some.
The very nature of a ‘cognition’ and a ‘basic’ on a chain of events has changed for me. I have touched on this before, but the extent was not fully known at that time. I cannot go into very specific details, since the details are different for each, but the principals are the same for all.
When searching for a past source of current aberrant thought and behavior, there are, of course, key events which, when found, produce some relief. That has been well documented for centuries. LRH and his associates produced the most precise and methodical method of tracking down these events to date. No one system is perfect for all and several errors and shortcomings have already been pointed out in his work. Corrections and revisions will be developed for centuries to come. Entirely new directions of enlightenment are forthcoming.
When a single source for an aberration is discovered, and a realization is experienced, the work is less than half over. The mass that is blown is only a subconscious reminder of the event and how you have told yourself to operate since then. Like a string tied around your finger as a crutch to help your subconscious memory. Cutting these tons of strings off your fingers removes a tremendous weight from you and releases much clarity, but does not completely clear the fixed opinions and stupidity that have built up over half an eternity. These strings can easily be re-tied at any instant. MASS, AFTER AS-ISING, CAN BE RE-CREATED AT ANY INSTANT.
In addition, there is no guarantee that the cognition you had upon finding a believed basic on a chain is correct. Exaggerated example: After having a fear of red skinned people, one may get to an incident in which you were harmed by a red skinned person. The cognition could be “Wow, red skinned people really are evil.” Not a valid cognition, but one which, at the time, could produce an F/N and VGIs.
I mentioned scanning up the track for related incidents after a believed basic incident is reached. This was an understatement. There can be hundreds or thousands of later related incidents which are the basic of their very own variant and adjustment of the original postulate or consideration. EACH ADDITION AND ALTERATION OF THE ORIGINAL POSTULATE MUST BE DISCOVERED TO COMPLETELY FREE YOU FROM IT’S EFFECTS AND TO PREVENT RE-CREATING THE MASS AND RELATED ABERRATION.
Simply look up the track and find a few score of incidents where you were operating on the basic postulate and gather a full understanding of how you were affected by it and how your opinions changed with additional occurrences. You will find this will produce a lightness, a cleanness, and an ability to think in all directions that you will find astounding.
If you find yourself unsessionable after a win, as is often the case, make a note of the area of case being looked at, and come back to it with curiosity and enthusiasm. In order to prevent crossing chains and winding up in a bowl of spaghetti, find and write down the most basic purpose, postulate, fixed opinion that you were operating on, and work towards incidents directly related to and/or altering that. The number and speed of finding these incidents makes it impractical to do with an auditor, although a system of getting started with an auditor should be developed.
This should be done on a large scale when body thetans are not a distraction, and after you have gained a serenity which dissolves by-passed charge. The ability to not find what you are looking for today, and come back to it tomorrow is essential. It is a learned ability which is not that hard with practice. It is worth the effort. As before, positive processes and actively interacting with PT on a daily basis are necessary when doing whole track examination. You must develop your own habits to prevent caving in to your past or others past track that you encounter. It may seem a daunting task, but becomes more fun as it goes along. That is why you must use discipline to do present time interaction every day. Between every session, you should do something that fully involves your attention in present time. That will take care of it. To those who have gotten the idea that past track examination is harmful, read those last two sentences. Problem solved, gains unleashed.
Mark
Next: Being led to certain cognitions and how to handle it.
Val, you are merciless (and hilarious) sometimes – but only when it is deserved! 🙂
And yes, there is an Undiscussable. That would be anything Vinnie says for which he has no support or explanation when it’s even mildly questioned – he runs for the hills! (Psst…not the best advertisement for mindfulness… 😉 )
Take it for what it is, Vin? Well, at the very least you don’t understand what a generality is, or what a Q&A is.
But only The Shadow knows “what lurks in the hearts of men…” 😀
I am looking at the “generality” sub-thread, which started with a post by Oracle. I am in favor of taking a reality-centric view rather than taking pro/anti Hubbard-centric, or pro/anti Scientology-centric views.
To me some of the Scientology terminology has been more confusing at times than it has brought about clarification of general basic concepts. Terms like OT, Clear, Games conditions, Makes of Games, Survive, etc., have been very unclear by their emphasis in Scientology by Hubbard.
When Oracle used these terms, it was not surprising the way Conan responded to them. It is good that both Oracle and Conan agree on their purpose of poking through some illusions, but conflict occurs when there is disagreement on what those illusions are.
From reality-centric viewpoint the purpose is never one of tearing down Hubbard or Scientology, but it is simply to tear down illusions.
Conan seems to be crtical of Oracle’s extremely pro-Hubbard viewpoint, which I think is not the right way to go about because he seems to be carrying a narrow anti-Hubbard viewpoint compared to a broad reality-centric viewpoint. He definitely dislikes the Scientology vocabulary that Oracle is using.
Them Marildi jumps in accusing Conan of generality. She is correct in picking on Conan’s narrow anti-Scientology stance, but she is herself carrying a narrow pro-Scientology stance. She fails to see that the actual confusion is coming from the use of Scientology vocabulary that is not very well defined in terms of general reality that exists in the “wog” world.
I do not think that the issue is generality here, which seems to be Marildi’s favorite. A lot of confusion may be settled by clarifying this Scientology vocabulary in non-Scientology terms.
Interesting. There have been exhaustive tests of Quantum Mechanics and observations and predictions based on it have not failed. In fact much of the world we live in (computers, etc.) would not exist without the understandings of Quantum Mechanics. It is as “solid” as Newtonian Physics. I suppose you could go off into some “maybe” world to argue with it but then you would have to somehow show that the “maybe” world existed. I’d love it if you could. And I do mean that seriously, I’m not being facetious.
One of the primary conclusions of QM is that the observer affects the observed. Do you disagree with that?
I guess I’m a much simpler guy. I am aware of being aware so it exists.
It is not that something is neither true nor not true, it is more like things are true in a relative sense only. There is nothing that is absolutely true. It is always true only in relation to somethging else.
I do agree that Aristotelian black and white thinking is very limiting and does not always lead to correct estimation of a situation. Even Hubbard was critical of this two-valued logic. He criticized even the three-valued logic used in Engineering as limiting and recommended the infinite-valued logic of a scale to be used. Hubbard was correct if we understand that any value on a scale is relative to other values on that scale.
There is wave-particle paradox only when viewed from two-valued logic. There is no such paradox when we view wave to be transitioning to a particle mode gradually as the frequency of that wave increases.
Mind to body is a similar condensation in very small gradient steps. Hubbard did warn us against looking at dichotomies with two-valued logic. He always postulated a scale between dichotomies, such as, right-wrong.
The infinite-valued logic comes into play automatically when one uses a reality-centric view with as broad conception of reality as possible. When one is using a self-centic view as in spiritual-physical, one is unwittingly using a two-valued logic.
Nagarujna was my ancestor, and I have studied him briefly. He basically described truth being relative, just as Hubbard said. The only criticism that I have of Hubbard that he did not follow through with what he came up as principles of logic. The proof of that is the present deteriorating condition of Scientology that is following Hubbard’s policies. It is not just the Church of Scientology is not able to follow Hubbard’s policies as Hubbard intended. They are following Hubbard’s intentions quite well actually.
I am a legend in my own mind. Feral White Russian from Manchuria.
Val, there are many indications that LRH succeeded in his goals to quite a degree. Just as he was ahead of the mental health field as regards the existence of prenatal “memories,” so it seems he was with regard to body thetans, or entities.
Here’s an excerpt from the first part of a 2008 paper titled “Depossession Healing: A Comparison of William Baldwin’s ‘Spirit Releasement Therapy’ and Dae Mo Nim’s Ancestor Liberation:
“Dr. Shakuntala Modi, who developed her own depossession techniques, gives the following description of one of her clinical sessions with a hypnotized patient named Dave:
“‘As Dave looked, he was surprised to see that he had many layers of these spirits still left in different parts of his body. He described these layers as thin layers of a pastry. He indicated having twelve layers in his brain, fifteen layers in his eyes, fifteen layers in his shoulders, four layers in his lower back and twenty-nine layers in his abdominal area. We requested angels of the Light to remove entities from each and every layer of his body. He described how the angels, very patiently and systematically, released the entities from each layer and helped them to the Light. Then the angels cleansed and healed those areas and filled and shielded them with the Light.[1]’
“It is noteworthy that this description of attached spirits is remarkably similar to accounts by Unification shamanic healer Dae Mo Nim. It also matches the descriptions of Dr. William Baldwin (1939-2004), whose Spirit Releasement Therapy to remove earthbound spirits has striking similarities to the work of Dae Mo Nim. This paper will examine both similarities and differences between Baldwin’s therapies and Dae Mo Nim’s shamanistic healing.
“Dr. William Baldwin, together with his wife Judith, developed their clinical depossession techniques, which he later termed Spirit Releasement Therapy (SRT), quite independently of Dae Mo Nim. For numerous reasons, it is safe to suggest that Baldwin and Dae Mo Nim had no knowledge of each other’s efforts. Yet, they arrived at stunningly similar understandings of the nature of attached, i.e., possessing, earthbound spirits, as well as of how their liberation can be effected.”
Here’s the link to the above paper: http://www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Publications/JournalUnificationStudies9/JUS9-07.html
I don’t think Quantum Mechanics is as “solid” as you are portraying it to be here. Einstein had big doubts about it. He never accepted it. If there are solid principles of Quantum Mechanics, like that of Newtonian Mechanics, I would love to discuss them here.
I have tried to express my view of reality in detail, but it would be too long to put it here. But if you are interested you may go to the following link.
.
A much shorter version is here:
Reality is essentially what is there.
Reality may be distorted by the personal filters being used by the observer. But then such filters shall also be part of the reality.
So, the reality is made up of what is observed by the observer. But then the observer also should be included in that reality!
The filter separates what is observed from the observer, while modulating the observations.
But when the filter is gone then that which is observed and that which is observing are gone too.
In a sense, the very existence of what is observed, and the observer, depends on the existence of the filter.
Thus, reality is the filter that is observing itself.
A nuclear scientist friend of mine, to whom I showed this essay recently, recoiled very sharply at the idea of the observer being part of the reality.
I wonder why?
Tetralemma:
tet·ra·lem·ma noun
An argument analogous to a dilemma but presenting four alternatives in the premises.
tetra- + dilemma
The tetralemma is a figure that features prominently in the classical logic of India. It states that with reference to any a logical proposition X, there are four possibilities:
X (affirmation)
X (negation)
X (both affirmation and negation)
x (neither affirmation nor negation)
The history of fourfold negation, is evident in the logico-epistemological tradition of India, given the categorical nomenclature ‘Indian logic’ in Western discourse. Subsumed within the auspice of Indian logic, ‘Buddhist logic’ has been particularly focused in its employment of the fourfold negation, as evidenced by the traditions of Nagarjuna and the Madhyamaka.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagarjuna
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhyamaka
If we focus on the doctrinal agreement that exists between the Wisdom Sūtras[25] and the tracts of the Mādhyamika we note that both schools characteristically practice a didactic negation. By setting up a series of self-contradictory oppositions, Nāgārjuna disproves all conceivable statements, which can be reduced to these four:
All things (dharmas) exist: affirmation of being, negation of nonbeing.
All things (dharmas) do not exist: affirmation of nonbeing, negation of being
.
All things (dharmas) both exist and do not exist: both affirmation and negation.
All things (dharmas) neither exist nor do not exist: neither affirmation nor negation.
With the aid of these four alternatives ( affirmation, negation, double affirmation, double negation), Nāgārjuna rejects all firm standpoints and traces a middle path between being and nonbeing. Most likely the eight negations, arranged in couplets in Chinese, can be traced back to Nāgārjuna: neither destruction nor production, neither annihilation nor permanence, neither unity nor difference, neither coming nor going.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catuskoti
Great link mar!
About LRH, he was quoted by Sarge as saying he felt he had somehow “failed”, but never specified what he had failed at. Lacking that information, what do we know about it? Not much. It was a subjective statement on his part. What was he looking at? I don’t know, and neither does anyone else that I know of. At any rate, no-one has come forward with any first-hand knowledge of what LRH was actually talking about, that I know of.
We can conjecture he was referring to his situation at that point, near the end of his life, on the run, wife in jail, CoS on the ropes, no “All Clear” achieved, etc. I imagine he had envisioned it going rather differently!
Miraldi, You may find this book very interesting. People often regard Genghis Khan as a historical brutal tyrant because he adopted and unified thousands upon thousands of people. He was a “conqueror” before being at cause socially was politically incorrect. The truth is, he was the first person on this Earth that taught social responsibility. The policies in Military he created are still used this day by the United States government. Such as “never leave a man behind on the battlefield”. Tributes and support for widows and children. He never, never turned on one of his own generals. He established laws against kidnapping women, stealing of animals, and created laws about religious freedom.
The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in 25 years than the Romans did in 400. In nearly every country the Mongols conquered, they brought an unprecedented rise in cultural communication, expanded trade, and a blossoming of civilization.
Vastly more progressive than his European or Asian counterparts, Genghis Khan abolished torture, granted universal religious freedom, and smashed feudal systems of aristocratic privilege. From the story of his rise through the tribal culture to the explosion of civilization that the Mongol Empire unleashed, this brilliant work of revisionist history is nothing less than the epic story of how the modern world was made.
Yet, he is widely regarded as a brutal tyrant because people do not read beyond statistics of land and populations he managed to control.
Brief summary of the book:
“The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in 25 years than the Romans did in 400. In nearly every country the Mongols conquered, they brought an unprecedented rise in cultural communication, expanded trade, and a blossoming of civilization.
Vastly more progressive than his European or Asian counterparts, Genghis Khan abolished torture, granted universal religious freedom, and smashed feudal systems of aristocratic privilege. From the story of his rise through the tribal culture to the explosion of civilization that the Mongol Empire unleashed, this brilliant work of revisionist history is nothing less than the epic story of how the modern world was made.”
Not everyone who makes a new path for men to walk and explore is regarded kindly. I doubt that is possible. One can not please all of the people all of the time.
I have come to think all spiritual progress is directly proportional to a person’s propensity towards forgiveness. Not only to forgive and tolerate others, but most importantly to forgive ones self. For me, the entire benefit in auditing, has been being able to go back on the track and forgive myself. For being in the wrong places at the wrong time. For not making the best choices or the right choices. For doubting myself. For not fighting back when I should have. For losing when I should have won. For fighting back when I should have been learning more and plotting better courses. For creating unattainable goals for myself and others. For arcX’s with myself.
I have come to see all of case as connected to some inability to forgive myself or someone else.
Probably what Christ was trying to say when he said, “Turn the other cheek”.
And I do not mean suggest people should become passive in any regard.
If someone is harming attacking or suppress you, how can you forgive yourself if you do not fight back? But you handle it and move on otherwise you become hung up in “the past”. And you become lost in time.
And this is what you are running into when you find people attacking figures from “the past”.
No doubt there are people standing on podiums today railing against some figure that, in their mind, is actually Genghis Khan. The Navy Seals today and the president himself, are under attack by some today for their “no soldier left behind” policy. Which was formed as social policy by a man over 1,000 years ago.
Genghis Kahn was a Shaman and was considered a Shaman with magical powers when he lived. It took more than one thousand years for people to codify his contributions and view him as a positive force in this world with value.
That is longevity.
Two types of discussions or arguments:
eristic
adjective
characterized by disputatious and often subtle and specious or and spurious reasoning.
Dialectical
“Dialectical argument is a cooperative, two-sided truth-seeking art that requires having the right knowledge on the subject to be properly qualified to discuss the subject, education and training in proper communication skills, a mind that knows what truth is, is capable of recognizing truth when encountered, a constructive and balanced attitude, and using the best available empirical science and facts, partial only to the truth, to compute the most superior computation, the highest truth possible,
whereas eristic dialogue is one-sided, quarrelsome, and antagonistic, usually based on specious and spurious reasoning and opinions and beliefs, instead of facts..” — From Douglas Walton’s 1999 book One-Sided Arguments (paraphrased)
“Does free speech tend to move toward the truth or away from it? When does it evolve into a better collective understanding? When does it collapse into … the pointless and eristic game of talking the other guy into crying ‘uncle’?” — From an article by Mattathias Schwartz in the New York Times Magazine, August 3, 2008
Most people are not qualified to comment on anything.
Almost everything everyone knows is wrong.
Most people are only intelligent enough to argue to defend their own ignorance, stupidity, insanity, with holds, false and limiting data, sins, wrong doings, harmful acts, and crimes.
Val, I knew you would appreciate that link. Did you catch the term “attached spirits”? How close is that to “body thetans”?! From what I’ve read, there have been many individuals and peoples, both now and throughout history, who give credence to the existence of bodiless spirits which can and do affect individuals – but, other than LRH, that article was the first time I have come across the idea that there are spirits which are actually attached to an individual’s body. Same for the idea that the spirits “around” a person exist in vast numbers – as LRH indicated they did.
Also, really great point you make about what should or could be made of LRH’s statement that he had “failed.” As you indicated, it really is a matter of conjecture. One would be that he failed to achieve the goal of a path to full OT. Nevertheless, it seems to me that – for quite a few individuals – he did achieve this: “The goal of Scientology is making the individual capable of living a better life in his own estimation and with his fellows and the playing of a better game.” And IMO, that goal is still possible for others to come.
Wow, Oracle, amazing data about Genghis Khan. How relevant: “It took more than one thousand years for people to codify his contributions and view him as a positive force in this world with value.”
And your other point: “I have come to think all spiritual progress is directly proportional to a person’s propensity towards forgiveness. Not only to forgive and tolerate others, but most importantly to forgive oneself. For me, the entire benefit in auditing, has been being able to go back on the track and forgive myself.”
What an insightful way of summing it up, and a beautiful guiding principle. Simply put, you’ve stated how to get and stay in PT and be at one’s best. 🙂
Hi Mark
Interesting looks you have been having….
I have also changed many of my viewpoints regarding “postulates”, “truth”, “cognitions” and “whys”. It also includes what I consider represents a “basic incident” at any given point.
I have come to the conclusion that “postulates”, “truth”, “cognitions” and “whys” are all basically the same thing. They are times when you decide “that’s what”, “that’s why”, “that’s how”, “that’s when”, etc. They may or may not reflect any other reality than your own, and they are arrived at circumstantially it seems.
In my opinion, what is a “basic incident” on any given “chain”, is simply the one that contains the last piece of data one needed in order to create a new postulate about the subject at hand. A being may find that final “aah haa” datum anywhere, on the track, in ones daily living, in a book, in one’s thoughts, in conversations, etc. We are doing this constantly!
I no longer feel that it is necessary to ransack one’s memories or “track” or “case” as the key method of changing one’s postulates. I do not even consider it true that one need to “find the original postulate”, or any consequent postulates, or any such thing. One simply needs to have the ability to cleanly “change one’s mind”.
Anything that constitutes a “why find” of some kind, is valid. Auditing is simply addressing a particular data set until one spots enough similarities, differences or identities to make a new postulate about the data.
I do not consider that one “blows” INCIDENTS when one cognites. I think that all that is happening is that the being has stopped “stressing” (read “building up charge”) over some unwanted condition. The charge that he has built up (is actually creating in present time) simply dissipates when he “resolves” ( considers something true, creates a postulate that “explains the situation”, finds an acceptable WHY, etc… ie “cognites”) the issue at hand. No pictures are refiled in some other “bank” or “mind”. You simply are looking at the data from a different “postulate” or “why” or “point of truth”.
So… there you have it, just some other “Truths” from another viewpoint.
Eric
Miraldi,
The Oahspe bible book channeled in 1870, which I posted several times on different blogs goes into significant detail on what it calls “engrafters”.
It deals with a lot of other stuff too. It is a mind blowing book. It is must read for everyone on a spiritual path of what ever kind.
Click to access OAHSPE.pdf
It is one of those books that when you read it over from cover to cover, you will never be the same, not see life and the universe the same, again.
I read it twice in the 90s, BS (before scn).
Dio
Mirildi, there is a difference between making generalization about an entire sex (women) that is just a people, and making a judgement about a man who says:
“We’re playing for blood, the stake is EARTH.”
– L. Ron Hubbard, Hubbard Communications Office Policy Letter, 7 November 1962
“It is a frightening level of bravery to use men you know can be cruel, vicious and incompetent.” Bolivar
“She never handed over any daughter of a family clamoring against her to Negro troops and then said, “Which oververbal family is next?” Bolivar
I find it almost sad and maybe desperate, that now Genghis Kan is being used as an example for how LRH will be viewed in the future.
In other words, once we all get past all the indecent, lies and harm done to people, when time has gone by…………… we will then be able to witness how great he was.
That is a lot of mind gymnastics to arrive at that.
Brian: “…there is a difference between making generalization about an entire sex (women) that is just a people, and making a judgement about a man…”
Firstly, I wasn’t talking about the man in that post – it was about Scientology. And secondly, you left out the other example I gave regarding the generalities about Scientology, which was this:
‘I doubt that people here would think it’s okay for someone to start posting negative generalities about people from New York, or from the South, or from Germany or Australia, etc.. By the same token, it isn’t okay to assume that anyone “from” a Scientology background is _______ (whatever). Maybe those who only see the negative in Scn or LRH can’t understand this because of their own “beliefs.” The ironic thing is that this is the type of thing they criticize “Scientologists” for.’
Generalizing about Scientologists, how they think and what they did or didn’t get out of Scientology was the topic. Can you please just speak to that, or simply ack it for me?
Thanks, Dio. That’s very good to know.
I would have to say, “of course”. The observer being part of the reality. That is also clearly expressed in Quantum Mechanics.
Just as a side comment I wouldn’t stake my opinion on the opinion of one other – even if his name is Einstein.
As far as the “solidity” of QM I can only point out that the devices we are using to communicate could not exist without the calculations of Quantum Mechanics. Something seems to be working there. And no predictions made by QM (that could be tested) have been proven false.
And only from my personal experience (and I would not hold this up as definitive) I have concurrently been a self aware of the allness-of-all and the allness-of-all aware of the self. Just personal experiences. We all have our own paths…
Nice, Marty. I like this excerpt.
This is such an important, and elusive, thing to understand, if one is on the path of the seeker.
You keep saying it, in many different ways. I’m not sure how many folks are hearing it, though.
Oh well, no matter. Please post more inspiring stuff like this. I am really enjoying the food for thought you are offering. Thank you! 🙂
“As far as the “solidity” of QM I can only point out that the devices we are using to communicate could not exist without the calculations of Quantum Mechanics. Something seems to be working there. And no predictions made by QM (that could be tested) have been proven false.”
What would be an example of such a device? Could there be other explanations for it than what QM provides?
________________________________
You are welcome Miraldi,
Make sure to read it.
It is a phenomenal book.
It is a book of knowledge, extraordinaire.
Dio
Excellent summation.
Thanks for the clarification Mirildi. 😉
I actually get that, Dio. Thanks again.
And thanks for the ack, Brian. 😉
Have you read the Oahspe book yet, Miraldi?
Has anyone else read it yet?
Dio
No, I haven’t read it yet. The only other person I know of who I think said she read it was Maria, and she spoke highly of it too.
I am glad to hear that Maria read it.
Thanks,
Dio
Here I am talking about computer chips or any micro electronics for that matter. They could not be designed and constructed without the understanding and formulas of Quantum Mechanics. But it also enters into chemistry and much of compounds of the modern world from drugs to plastics could not have been created without that understanding.
This from Wikipedia: “A great deal of modern technological inventions operate at a scale where quantum effects are significant. Examples include the laser, the transistor (and thus the microchip), the electron microscope, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The study of semiconductors led to the invention of the diode and the transistor, which are indispensable parts of modern electronics systems and devices.”
If your are interested go to Wikipedia and look up Quantum Mechanics under the section “Applications” for more.
Now could there be another explanation? Absolutely! But it would have to “fit the observed facts and predict phenomena that had not hitherto been observed” – a standard test of any theory.
Say, have you read “The Tao of Physics” by Fritjof Capra? I think you would enjoy it.
You are the second person today who has referred me to this book. So I am going to read it.
Here is another interesting quote from Urantia.
(BTW: Urantia is the name for Earth.)
A Thought to Ponder from The Urantia Book
“Because of the presence in your minds of the Thought Adjuster, it is no more of a mystery for you to know the mind of God than for you to be sure of the consciousness of knowing any other mind, human or superhuman.”
(1123.1) 102:4.1
A Thought to Ponder from
The Urantia Book
“Never…can either science or religion, in and of themselves, standing alone, hope to gain an adequate understanding of universal truths and relationships without the guidance of human philosophy and the illumination of divine revelation.”
(1135.7) 103:6.5
The real truth is hidden and protected by many layers of lies, deception and traps to protect it frome swine and prostitutes.
And for everything genuine there is a perfect counterfeit.
Dio
My effort here is to penetrate that truth:
http://vinaire.me/research-on-learning/
.