finishedman
Patron with Honors
The bodily organs do not ask anything about their functioning. Does a computer ask how it is? Does the brain?
Thanks, gadfly, for your very interesting posts. You have said many of the same things I would have said had I continued to post here on a regular basis. As it seems to be, though, most people are not ready to see beyond black and white. Something, or someone must be "good" or it must be "evil" and there is no separating the baby from the bath water, or taking what is needed and leaving the rest. Even here on this "kinder, gentler" board, people who intimate that there might have been anything good whatsoever about LRH or Dianetics and Scientology seem to be generally less accepted.
Thanks, gadfly, for your very interesting posts. You have said many of the same things I would have said had I continued to post here on a regular basis. As it seems to be, though, most people are not ready to see beyond black and white. Something, or someone must be "good" or it must be "evil" and there is no separating the baby from the bath water, or taking what is needed and leaving the rest. Even here on this "kinder, gentler" board, people who intimate that there might have been anything good whatsoever about LRH or Dianetics and Scientology seem to be generally less accepted.
Because the current Scientology management has perpetrated extreme abuses, then L. Ron Hubbard must have started the whole thing as a power and control con game, and because he practiced magick and had a peripheral connection with Aleister Crowley through Jack Parsons, he must have been a Satanist, and so on and so on. I don't think for a moment that it is all so simple as that - people are a mixed bag of black and white. For every power-hungry control freak to continue on, there must be those who are willing to give up their own power and be controlled.
It is very neat and tidy to compartmentalize and label things, but ultimately not very freeing. Whatever you hate will continue to come back and haunt you, in some form or another until you choose to stop hating it. When the desire for vengeance and destruction is replaced by the collective choice that such manipulation and abuse is simply not tolerable by anybody or any group in our societies, then our world will change. Scientology is simply a mirror reflection of our collective thought, and frankly, I can't see where Scientology has done any worse than some of major religions of the world.
I benefited from the tech, as much of it as I experienced, and I learned things in Scientology that are still useful to me today. The ability to look at "what is" rather than what I imagine is there, or suspect is there, is one of those things. In 1983, when management started to get very weird, I left. I took what was useful to me, left the rest and moved on. I am now glad I never made it to the OT levels, as I know now there was nothing there for me. As I perceive it, LRH had some pretty good, workable stuff, and then probably trying to create things for people to spend more money on, went way off the beam.
What I discovered in my journeys beyond Scientology, in case anyone may be interested:
There is no tech, ism, ology, belief system, system of enlightenment, religion, etc. that is going to work for everybody, although some of them may be useful in getting from point A, lower awareness, to point B, a higher state of awareness. Many paths lead to the center of the circle. Those who claim to have "the only way" are conning people and/or speaking from a place of extremely inflated ego.
There are certain universal truths and operating laws which apply to everybody. They have not been hidden, and are contained in all the scriptures of the world's main religions and in the works of the great philosophers. Hubbard had a line on some of them and Scientology contained some "truth." Now, in the "New Age" these truths have been elaborated upon ad infinitum by a million self-improvement gurus trying to cash in. Few actually understand them to the point of application, though, including most of the gurus.
The truth is, always was and always will be "the truth, and the power, are within you." The journey through all these other things which dictate our truth and take our power are not "ends" in themselves. They are steps on the path which give us the opportunity, if we choose to accept it, to find our own true power. "We" are the great mystery of the cosmos. It's all about the experiences of the journey and what we choose to do with them.
I learned these two concepts from Gadfly, here's how I interpret and alter them, for my own use:...One final comment. Planting people in businesses and governments to obtain special favor for the Church organization is VERY different than planting Church members and adherents who will somehow get local and federal governments to adopt and run their own organizations with Scientology principles. The gulf between the two is immense...
No doubt you mean well, but for purposes of understanding your post is a crock. There is not one useful piece of information that comes from a viewpoint that I can see. There is a haughty and superior overivew that is quite Scientological. Maybe you could do with a little de-Hubbardizaiton, huh?
If you want to show something that someone can compare to their own ideas, please do. Talk about the steps of the path that you refer to and what they consist of. Explain what you really mean by "journeys beyond".
"We are the great mystery" is an absurdity. Everything is understandable, if one wants to understand it. My feeling from your post is that you don't get it. Feel free to prove me wrong.
"This is the way the human organism is functioning too. Every cell is interested in its own survival. It knows in some way that its survival depends upon the survival of the cell that is next to it. It is for this reason that there is a sort of cooperation between the cells. That is how the whole organism can survive. It is not interested in utopias. It is not interested in your wonderful ideas. It is not interested in peace, bliss, or anything. Its only interest is to survive. That is all it is interested in. The survival of a cell depends upon the survival of the cell next to it. And your survival and my survival depend upon the survival of our neighbor."
Vinaire, there is no use even trying to answer this guy's posts. It is like trying to have a meaningful conversation with a box of hammers - or with a Jehovah's Witness, or a with a dedicated Scientologist, or with an orthodox modern biologist (bingo). What all of these folks have in common is a strict, largely unexamined BELIEF SYSTEM. All this talk about "survival", "evolution", "cells", and so forth stems from someone's exaggerated affiliation with the ideas of modern biology and neo-Darwinism. Read a few books by Richard Dawkins ("The Selfish Gene" or "The Blind Watchmaker"). I have read them, and I happily read many things I disagree with so that I can truly understand where the "thinking" goes awry with these seemingly "intelligent" people.
This is the viewpoint of modern biology in a nutshell. It aligns entirely with the idea of the Big Bang and that everything "evolved" "naturally" without any hidden (non-materialistic) cause of any sort. In other words, while these folks always talk about how well things are designed, because "nature" did it so well through the "forces" or "influence" of "natural selection" and pure cosmic chance, they reiterate that there is and can never be any cause other than senseless undirected atoms and molecules.
There is a famous argument where a watch is examined, and the details of its working, arrangements and patterns are brought alive in the reader. It is obviously "designed" and there by implication must be a "designer". When you see a "created thing", well, there must be a creator. That is true for any man-made thing. The argument starts by looking at many "made" things, and showing how, obviously, such design and complexity implies an "author" - the "designer". The argument has been used to try to convince people that there must also be a "designer" for all life forms, planets, stars and even the entire universe. The extent of organization, consistent motion in repeating patterns, and consistency inherent in all aspects of the observable universe is truly mind-boggling to any honest person who takes a little time and LOOKS. That is true when limited to simply the five senses. It gets even more amazing when you add in scientific instrumentation that detects waves and energies and patterns that we normally cannot perceive.
Anyway, the book by Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, is an attempt to dispute that entirely and to somehow make a case of "undesigned designs", "uncreated creations", and "unintended complex patterns". This is pretty much the accepted framework of modern biology and science. It looks as if there must be something behind it all, since it is so amazingly "put together". It is so well-arranged, but there is no arranger. The patterns are so amazingly integrated but nobody thought up the pattern. Basically, the dilemma was that there was no way to minimize the incredibly OBVIOUS detail, complexity, patterning and arrangements at every level of physical reality. Any awake slightly intelligent thinking being cannot help but SEE THAT. So, the problem became how to take the "creator" out of the created? That is what the theories of Darwin and all after him have attempted to do. Modern science in many regards is an answer to the question, "How can we make theories that seem to explain everything without resorting to any concept involving spirit, mind or God"? In other words, starting with little stuff (atoms), how could it all magically come together as if by nothing, but "accident"? THAT in a nutshell is the view of modern materialistic science. There is an obsession with many of these people, an urge that drives them to take the "being" out of "human being".
Modern biology today is almost entirely driven by companies selling products (bio tech firms, genetic engineering, etc). They have the money and they fuel the research that defines the accepted views on these topics in the universities. The view involves examining the details. This is called atomism. It involves the idea (theory) that there are fundamental, irreducible small thingies (called atoms) that somehow, through no plan of anything anywhere, then form into arrangements, such as molecules, on up into more complex arrangement of cells, until it ends with organisms. This modern paradigm attempts to explain all the properties of complex organisms in terms of the properties of their parts (as best as each of the parts can be understood). They do recognize arrangement of forms, patterns, and close working together of different things, BUT, and this is key, the underlying primary postulate is that NOTHING CAUSES ANY OF IT. God forbid, heaven help us if there were some "invisible" anything that actually influenced the forming of anything anywhere! These people can be defined in part because of their antipathy to any and all ideas involving a "hidden cause" that is not part of the observable physical universe of matter and energy.
I suggest that anyone who falls into this type of thinking read anything by Rupert Sheldrake. He has a Ph.D. in biology, is an accomplished biologist, he has lectured at Harvard, AND he easily and intelligently blows holes through the entire modern mindset of materialistic thinking. He delivers a stinging critique of conventional scientific thinking, which sees nature as a machine that, although constant and governed by "eternal laws", is nonetheless somehow evolutionary. Read any of his books; The Presence of the Past, A New Science of Life, or The Rebirth of Nature. He has an amazing ability to identify the weak spots of scientific orthodoxy. He also very well can get a "devoted follower" of science to begin to question their own many fixed ideas, biases, unexamined flawed assumptions, undefined abstractions and attitudes. The way Sheldrake portrays thought in modern science:
"Whether or not evolutionary faith is recognized as essentially religious or ideological in nature, it arouses what seem very like religious passions in its defenders; and like traditional religious faiths, evolution is interpreted differently by different sects and schools of thought. The passions aroused can be intense."
He hits the nail on the head here:
"The various schools of (evolutionary and biological) thought commonly criticize each other on the grounds that they start from preconceived assumptions. And so they do. But who does not?"
This is key. Any argument involves "logic". Any argument involves "ideas" and thinking with ideas. It is true, whether you realize this or not, that ANY train of thought can be traced back to some assumption, some basic attitude or notion that is simply accepted at face value. Any side of an intellectual argument can be traced back to basic willy-nilly held ideas. If you didn't hold that assumption, then your train of thought collapses. It is a good practice to awaken ones own intellectual activity by tracing back ones own beliefs (anything you hold to "be true" no matter and especially how "obvious" you think it to be). In the end Sheldrake is entirely right. Not only because he is brutally honest regarding his intellect, but because if anyone takes the time to investigate the working of your own intellect you will find the same exact thing. You will always hit a point where the idea can link to no earlier or related basic idea, not logically. Basically, you hit a point where you take a "leap of faith". This is the nature of ALL mental reasoning and logic. Bright honest thinkers know that. The rest don't. Interestingly, the "rational" people harp endlessly about sticking to the "facts" and "reality", but in truth, in the end, every thinking person hits a point with any train of logic or rational thought where he or she dispenses with all of that and simply ACCEPTS AND BELIEVES. Lots could be said about that actuality. If you disagree with that, then you have never taken the time to honestly examine how your own mind works. Or how your own activity of "thinking" links and relates internal ideas to external observations and experiences.
Now, what Finishedman does is exactly what you do - in some cases. You just state something as if it is a fact. You make an assertion. In that regard these two are equal:
"Every cell is interested in its own survival. It knows in some way that its survival depends upon the survival of the cell that is next to it."
"This is attachment. This is bondage."
Each is simply a statement of belief. It "may" be true in some aspect, but really, without a very careful and well written argument, these things are just STATEMENTS of agreement. You agree with the idea that the materialistic view involves attachment. This guy agrees with this whole biological, atomist evolutionary train of thought. Lots of "modern" people do who have been sufficiently indoctrinated into the related ideas.
In a sense this back and forth debate or discussion has been going on since the beginning of time. It is the solution to the question, "where does everything come from and why does it all do what it does?" Everybody has a different answer. Everybody tends to identify to some degree with their answers and get all wrapped up in their idea of it being "right". One can have an intellect and have a minimized ego, but it is rare. It is so easy to identify with ones intellect. Thinking is so very close to "you".
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As I am sure YOU know Vinaire, truth cannot and will never be realized through logic, reason, or examination of the parts by looking under some microscope of the five senses. Truth to a large degree, on a still physically observable level, resides in the ARRANGEMENTS, the PATTERNS, the ORGANIZATION, and interaction between the many parts. Modern physicists have been seeing the same thing by investigating very small sub-atomic particles. There really ARE NO "things", there are just relationships, patterns, and organization. Taking the time to notice the patterns, arrangements and organization, at all levels of reality takes time, but it has rewarding results. This is NOT "ultimate truth". But is different, and somewhat closer to the truth than the materialistic urge to examine the parts in detail ad nauseum, as if understanding tiny small parts can ever somehow bequeath "truth".
Fundamentally, is there some invisible "something" that is behind it all? Something that creates and defines the patterns? Something that sets into motion, well "motion"? I think there is. I am aware that this is my opinion. I also think that the many various "religions" that have come up with their versions of how this can true have been and are primarily peopled by lunatics spouting insane inanities to the answer-needing masses. I find most of it to be absurd fairy tales and absurd belief systems. I agree completely that the results of religion over many centuries have been often and largely "bad". The examples of stupidity, pain caused to others, and even torture and murder are extensive. But, and this is where I will lose many, I see the same sort of lunatics spouting insane inanities to the answer-hungry masses amongst the majority of the modern "scientists".
Notice folks that "dialectic materialism" (as materialistic as you can get), or in other words "communism, as a "science of the organization of society", killed about 50 million people under the reign of Stalin. Religion has no monopoly on inhumanity against man. Of course, it was an IDEOLOGY - just another bunch of IDEAS parading as truth, used as a way to get people to brutalize their fellow human beings. People happily torture and kill each other, whether under the name of religion or science. It is a false distinction, these two ideas "science" and "religion", created by immature unevolved thinking human minds.
The only way to ever find out whether there is some invisible something behind it all is to delve into it on the level of the invisible. At this point, to continue with honest investigation you must abandon all forms of gadgets and devices of perception. You are not looking out - you are looking IN. You must experiment with and research the invisible realms. The only "tool" for that is your "mind", but really not even that, but your AWARENESS. THAT is the key to opening the door here. But it is fraught with difficulties, tendencies to error, and delusion.
This has been done to some degree in areas of eastern "religious" practices, though really, I would call it more involving "mental practices". The word "religion" has a negative and largely disreputable connotation (deservedly so). Interestingly, this activity of "delving into the self" is not done at all in Scientology! That is another reason why it will fail as a spiritual path. Okay, I will submit that auditing does cause the PC to look inside some. But the "right" view in SCN is "extroversion". Be there, looking out at MEST, at all times. THAT is considered to be the "winning" attitude. But, that is NOT at all delving into the nearly infinite arrangement, organization and patterns of your own INNER self. Yes, you do contact past moments of pain and stress in auditing, and probably even do remove these. But, that is far different than tearing your intellect apart, or learning to willingly separate your awareness from all thoughts or from your body. Scientology has this weird idea that if you just remove all the bad stuff, that somehow you will become "OT". That is so much bullshit. It takes a pro-active approach.
So, to learn anything about this invisible realm behind the manifested everything requires delving in and sincere looking. That is, if there is even anything there to discover. This is a road that apparently has been traveled by only a few. It is not easy. There are not many places you can go to sign up for this adventure. But, there seems to me to be no other way to do it. You can't discover it by "thinking about it" with arguments, logic or reasoning. Talking about cutting the grass is not the same as cutting the grass. Thinking about cutting the grass is not the same as cutting the grass. Arguing about cutting the grass is not the same as cutting the grass. Imagining cutting the grass is not the same as cutting the grass. Reading stories by other people who have cut the grass is not the same as cutting the grass. You can only discover what it really means to cut the grass by cutting the grass.
The same is true regarding the inner workings of your own "inner space". You can talk about it, argue about it, think about it, read books about it, and even imagine about it until the end of time, but until you actually go there and spend some time LOOKING, well then you really just have no clue. You remain mired in "thoughts about" it. LRH correctly made the disctinction between "knowing about" and "knowing". It should be obvious which one is which regarding the example of cutting the grass.
There have been innumerable books written in the past 15 years or so which allude to the nature of the illusion we live in, and that it is most probably created by One consciousness expressing itself as an infinite number of separate parts; The Tao of Physics, Conversations with God; The God Theory, The Self-Aware Universe, Dancing Wu Li Masters, etc. Some of these books are written by highly educated, respected individuals in scientific occupations. The nature of the illusion was also described in the Vedas and in Buddhist scripture and even in the Bible: “Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:20-21). As I said, the truth has not been hidden. Whether it has been understood by more than a few is another matter. So it seems, as well, that not all the scientists are content with their scientific knowledge. They want to explore the mysteries of consciousness itself.
When I was studying Scientology there was one thing Hubbard said that really hit me the wrong way; he said somewhere that he had "verified" that the "thetan" was entirely and forever an "individual", and that there was no "Oneness" or great being that one dissolves back into. Of course, that very much counters what you said, "created by One consciousness expressing itself as an infinite number of separate parts". Granted, that separation occurs on many levels.
Gadfly, your post is full of incredible materiall. In this post I want to touch on just two points. First, I had a small exposure to Buddhism and practiced meditation for about 3 years before I got into Scientology in 1970. My early efforts at meditation brought me peace of mind and a bit of expanded awarenes and in this time period I began to feel that all beings had separated out from one consciousness and the game here on Earth was that we were trying to find our way home and reunite with the main body of theta.
In my early auditing, Life Repair, ARC Straightwire, and Dianetics I would often voice cognitions to the effect that I was on my way towards reuniting with the great body of theta. I would always have F/N, VGI's and the auditor would smile knowingly and tell me my needle was floating and we would take a break for me to enjoy my win.
This reinforced my assumption that we were all pieces of one large consciousness. It was on the Clearing Course I took in 1975 that I saw as the last material on the course, in LRH's own handwriting, something to the effect that, "Thetans's are individuals. Thetan's made the mistake of thinking they were all one." (Similar to what you recall reading)
This statement disappointed me, I wanted it to be the other way. I wondered why I always felt so good and F/Ned when I perceived that I had separated out from a main body of theta. Since LRH wrote we were individuals I accepted without challenge but it never felt 100% right. I never had cognitions that I was becomming more of an individual and I still had cognitions that I was reconnecting with a large body of theta.
My second point concerns how indiviual thetans might have separated out from a larger body of thetan. I believe I read the following in one of the Advance magazines put out by the Advanced Org of L.A. and the article was by LRH. He described a large body of theta or an expanded consciousness at 40.0 on the tone scale - Serenity of Beingness. The article states further that the expanded consciousness desired more randomity and a game to play. The next step was for the expanded consciousness to create a game which could be something like chess (the exact game didn't matter) and then the expanded consciousness had to have an opponent. What better way to create an opponent than to split off a part of the expanded consciousness to serve as an opponent? Being infinite the expanded consciousness was not reduced when some of its essence was split off. The split off portion was given a forgetter mechanism so that it was not aware that it had split off from the main body. This was relatively easy. The harder part was that the expanded consciousness, in order to play a game with actual opposition, had to separate in full from the split off part, endow the split off portion with powers and abilities similar to its own and then forever after, or at least until the chess game was finished, consider that the split off entity was an adversary in a particular game and was separate from the infinite whole.
To me this makes a lot of sense as a way indiviual thetans could have come into being. Do you or other members on the Board have comments, either pro or con about this concept?
lkwdblds
I never had cognitions that I was becomming more of an individual and I still had cognitions that I was reconnecting with a large body of theta.
Bear something in mind here - to say we are basically "all one" or to say "we are all many individuals" - these two statements are neither of them "true" nor are they at all contradictory. It is not an either-or situation in any way.
I don't believe one's individuality will ever disappear, and also we will all become all. Quantification breaks down completely, seperateness disappears but individuality remains. That is how I have experienced it in a limited way.