The next Terra Cognita essay. See earlier Terra Cognita: Cause Over Life — Really?, BT’s in the Belfry, Two New Conditions!, The Condition of Liabilitiness, Condition of Doubtfulness The Mind, The Way To Happiness: Really? A Story, Auditing: a PC’s Quest for the Holy Grail, The Knowledge Report, Integrity, The Almighty Stat, The Reg, The Horrors of Wordclearing, Why Scientologists Don’t FSM, Respect, The Survival Rundown – The Latest Scam, Communication in Scientology… Or Not, Am I Still A Thetan?, To Be Or Not To Be, An Evaluation of Scientology, Fear: That Which Drives Scientology and Justification and Rationalization.
The Is-Ness of Is-Ness
LRH lectured and wrote about four related conditions of existence: Is-ness; As-is-ness; Not-is-ness; and Alter-is-ness. Which is a lot of isness, let me tell you.
As-Is-Ness
“The condition of immediate creation without persistence, and is the condition of existence which exists at the moment of creation and moment of destruction and is different from other considerations in that it does not contain survival.”
Verb form, As-Is: “to view anything exactly as it is without any distortions or lies, at which moment it will vanish and cease to exist.”
I call foul!
In this definition, LRH uses the word “anything,” as in ANY THING. Which in my dictionary includes thoughts, memories, emotions, and rock, paper, scissors. And of course, big glass ashtrays rising off chairs. Has anyone ever seen a person actually “as-is” a physical object (when they weren’t drunk, stoned on LSD, or just about to go under the knife)?
If not, then nobody on the planet has ever actually viewed anything as it really is. Everything we’re seeing is an illusion, some sort of facsimile. My laptop, my cup of coffee, my spouse: all lies! Say it ain’t so, Ron!
But what about erasing engrams, you ask? Many of you have made plenty of those vanish, right? You’ve viewed a painful incident in session “exactly as it is without any distortions or lies,” and poof, it’s gone! Completely disappeared. Or at least the emotional aspect of it.
I always had a hard time reconciling the concept of “erasure” and “as-is-ness.” In DMSMH, LRH wrote that to erase was “to recount an engram until it has vanished entirely.” I could understand deciding that a particular incident no longer had any subconscious sway over me, but never fully believed the “erasure” part. Apparently, I was supposed to be able to make something vanish that had happened billions of years ago but in present time, I couldn’t make a mosquito disappear right in front of my face. Something seemed a little off. Or as LRH wrote, I just hadn’t duplicated the damn thing.
And what is “immediate creation without persistence,” anyway? Why would I want to create something that didn’t exist for a least a few minutes? Why create something only to have it “un-persist?” I need for my chocolate chip cookies to persist for at least five minutes after I’ve taken them out of the oven.
This is all too complicated for my simple mind.
Alter-Is-Ness
“The consideration which introduces change, and therefore time and persistence into an as-is-ness to obtain persistency,” and “the effort to preserve something by altering its characteristics.”
Ah-ha! Now I get it. In order for me to preserve my chocolate chip cookies I merely need to introduce change. Like make them oval instead of round?
In order to preserve something I need to alter its characteristics. For example, that stone Buddha statue in the corner of my yard isn’t really the original? The sculptor altered the original at the point of creation to keep it from disappearing? Just like every grain of sand, every molecule, every atom, and every subatomic particle in the known universe?
Apparently, I’ve continued this alter-is-ness because if I saw the statue for what it really was, it would vanish—or as-is. So I’m not looking at the original. I’m looking at a fake. Just like the rest of my world is one big lie. Because this is the game we’ve all agreed to play. Or something like that, right?
LRH wrote that consideration introduced change which made everything persist. Not only did he use the word “consideration,” habitually throughout his career as Founder, he used it as if it was no big deal; as if “consideration” was an innate ability we’d all kinda forgotten we had. All we had to do to make something happen was to consider it done and “voilà!” it was done. But if this were true, why is no one on Earth able to duplicate a simple little rock and get it to “as-is?” For is this not just another consideration? Or did I skip a step?
LRH couldn’t as-is all those alter-is’ed government agencies that were after him, much less, his own demons.
Is-Ness
“Is-ness is the apparency (sic) of existence brought about by the continuous alteration of an as-isness.” “This is called, when agreed upon, reality.” “Something that is persisting on a continuum. That is the basic definition of is-ness.” “The anatomy of reality is contained in is-ness, which is composed of as-is-ness and alter-is-ness. Is-ness is an apparency (sic), it is not an actuality. The actuality is as-is-ness altered so as to obtain a persistency.”
I thought altering something to obtain a persistency was alter-is-ness. Wait…maybe alter-is-ness is just the “consideration,” and “is-ness” is the resultant reality that everyone sees and agrees upon. For example, after alter-is’ing my Buddha, it becomes an “is-ness,” or our perception of reality.
And by the way, to keep him solid and persisting, we are continually altering its as-is-ness. Or something like that. All I know is that that stone Buddha in my garden hasn’t changed since I placed it there years ago. Perhaps if I really duplicated the statue and its message, he would bow serenely and as-is. Like if I was OT 7.
Not-Is-Ness
“Trying to put out of existence by postulate or force something which one knows, priorly (sic), exists. One is trying to talk against his own agreements and postulates with his new postulates, or is trying to spray down something with the force of other is-nesses in order to cause a cessation of the is-ness he objects to.”
This sounds an awful lot like what goes on in an average Scientology org. Staff not-is’ing bogus orders and sketchy policy happens regularly.
For years, I not-is’ed tech and policy that didn’t make sense, while at the same time, not-is’ing my own understanding—my own knowingness.
Last Words
This essay is as confusing and muddled as anything I’ve ever written. Hopefully, more enlightened readers will excuse my stupidity and shed light on the subject—or at least speak more eloquently
Not that anything is really real, anyway. This blog and all its replies are only an apparency (sic) of existence. And seriously, has anyone really seen Mike Rinder in the flesh and blood? Does the man really exist? Or is he merely a kind of Web-based, ethereal is-ness roaming around our agreed-upon reality?
The more I reread these definitions, the more confuseder (sic) I get.
Still not Declared,
Terra Cognita
P.S. If I don’t as-is your comments that I don’t agree with by viewing them exactly as they are “without any distortions or lies,” I’ll simply not-is them into oblivion.
It is so great to be able to see situations or concepts from different angles. The Scientology mindset induces the replacement of critical thinking by total submission to Hubbard think. Exegesis becomes heresy and the heretic is burnt in the process of word clearing.
“Has anyone ever seen a person actually “as-is” a physical object (when they weren’t drunk, stoned on LSD, or just about to go under the knife)?”
Here is the answer that is always correct upon testing. If it isn’t a lie, it isn’t scientology.
An investigation of enturbulated and non-producing areas in Orgs has a found low-toned joker and degrader behind the scene.
Engaged in a conspiracy to joke and degrade Scientology’s unique and highly workable form of customer service, this joker attempted to “satirize” the stable datum that Scientologists only complain when they have hidden crimes against Scientology Organizations.
Further investigation revealed that this joker was sent in by the American Psychiatric Association to destroy Scientology from within. Appropriate measures have been taken to handle the joker.
Whenever an executive spots a down statistic in an Org he can be sure that a Communist joker is behind it.
The so-called “war” between scientology’s THETA and MEST appears to be a fiction courtesy of a science fiction writer. In fact, it appears the prevailing argument which was first advanced by the VEDAS is that they are one and the same.
Fascinatingly, recent studies which atheists like to use as ballast for their mechanistic gospel refute Hubbard’s THETA vs MEST cosmology while proving the assertions of the ancient rishis of India who composed the vedic scriptures. The rishis said the individual person (self-determined thetan) is an illusion. Now scientific studies bolster that claim.
Neurophysicist, Sam Harris has an excellent argument in which he explains that free will is an illusion. (YouTube) Indeed we can see that thoughts enter our mind uninvited. We only know we’ve had a thought after it has appeared. We like to think we can choose which thoughts are useful and which aren’t but that choosing process is not actually one of choice.
Studies at the Max Planck Institute lead by John-Dylan Thomas demonstrate that our choices are made seconds prior to our subjective experience of making the decision. Our decisions are the result automatic reflexes and chemical reactions, all of which are beyond the scope of our individual awareness and control.
(I’m deliberately leaving out the issue of consciousness as it is a can of worms and is unrelated to Hubbard’s notions of THETA. Consciousness doesn’t have needs or wants, likes or dislikes. It doesn’t ‘postulate’ nor is it some sort of ‘energy’. Consciousness is what you are, thoughts and feelings are part of the physical body)
The laws that regulate the subatomic particles also regulate the heavenly bodies also regulate the thoughts in the higher organisms. “As-ising”, “alter-ising”, “not-ising” etc. are just part of the dance of the cosmos and the ‘thetan’ who thinks he is doing it, is himself, being danced by the unseen choreographer who simply can’t be found anywhere. This is stated in the vedas as “you are not the doer, you are the nonparticipating witness”.
The whole point of Scientology is to move from other-determinism to self-determinism. Ironically one has to learn how to be a “non-participating witness” in order to stop alter-ising and thereby begin as-ising, which opens the door to converting other-determinism to self-determinism. If you want to remain comfortably other-determined, don’t walk through that door. Instead, engage in high-wavelengh Vedic mood-making practices that bribe you to not really look. I quit Vedic meditation in favor of getting Scientology auditing because I wanted freedom, not comfort.
The whole point, or professed aim, of scientology may be to “move from other determinism to self-determinism” but that aim is based on a false idea of what “YOU” are. “Freedom” is merely liberation from that false idea.
The laughter that usually follows self-realization is that one sees there is not, nor has there ever been, anybody to be liberated. The false self was just a thought occurring in the consciousness that you are. There is NOBODY to be self or other-determined. That is the cosmic joke and that is why the Buddha is laughing.
“The conciousness that you are” IS the True Self and CAN be liberated.
The idea that you don’t exist is a covert spiritual control mechanism.
You’re employing a straw man. The knowledge of your existence is the one ABSOLUTE knowledge. I’ve never heard of any “spiritual control mechanism” that denies our existence.
Consciousness can be liberated? How can that which has no boundaries be liberated? Liberated from what? J. Krishnamurti once said, “It’s a shame to talk of such things on such a beautiful day as this.”
That which has no boundaries is, by virtue of that fact, not prevented from creating boundaries for itself, and quite obviously does create them. All valid methods of spiritual advancement get the seeker to uncreate the limiting boundaries he’s created.
At any point along the way a person can “just get into present time,” but present time for a beginner is not the same as present time for a master. And “liberation” that leaves conciousness still in a human body on planet Earth is accepting of boundaries, and is therefore not full liberation.
I’ve read a lot of Krishnamurti, too, and found that while he was a great man and highly aware, he never developed a methodology that worked for large numbers of people. He was really more of a Zen master than a Vedic guru, although he claimed to be neither.
Moments of enlightenment occur when one goes beyond mere methodology, but methodology is necessary to get to that point.
You’re beginning to make a little bit of sense now. This matter is complex but explicitly explained in vedic literature as well as by numerous teachers unaffiliated with the vedas: Francis Lucille, David Goode, Rupert Spira, Mooji, even Eckhart Tolle.
It would seem you prefer to uphold the reality described by Mr. Hubbard. It is the conventional model in which you see yourself as a separate person seeking to skillfully manage a surrounding universe. That model is shared by both atheists and religious people alike. I have nothing to gain by trying to dissuade you from it.
Roger, did you know that LRH said a thetan could be a separate individual or repostulate himself back into the theta body at any time? Sorry, I couldn’t find the reference.
I’ve read or listened to a few of those teachers you listed, and I’m fairly convinced that this subject of soul or no-soul could be just a matter of semantics.
Another thing that might reconcile two viewpoints is a comment George White (who posts as Path of Buddha) made not too long ago. He is a scholar of Theravada scripture – which strictly forwards the idea of “no soul” – and yet George added that the soul is “NEARLY permanent.” That, I can have.
Buddhism with its “no soul” doctrine is confusing and yes, it is a matter of semantics. Buddhism talks about “no self, no mind” and leaves it up to you to figure out what that means. Vedanta explains it in explicit detail and then you understand what the Buddhists are TRYING to say.
I don’t really want to go in to it. It’s quite simple but there are a lot of moving parts. What Hubbard refers to as the “thetan” is NOT ultimately what you are. A thetan has likes and dislikes and apparently has a need to keep itself busy with all kinds of terribly important high purposes and goals and the creating of effects etc. Not that there’s anything wrong with that but that’s not the big prize. Few people are looking for the “big prize” anyway so it’s all good in the hood.
Roger: “What Hubbard refers to as the ‘thetan’ is NOT ultimately what you are. A thetan has likes and dislikes and apparently has a need to keep itself busy with all kinds of terribly important high purposes and goals and the creating of effects etc.
Yes, Roger, Hubbard does say a thetan needs a game, and that he mocks up all kinds of likes and dislikes and purposes, etc. – but ultimately, the thetan is simply an awareness of awareness unit. That is all
By “coincidence” (if there necessarily is such a thing), at the same time that you posted the reply to me, My 2 Cents posted a comment about his discovery of “the anatomy of a trap.” That phrase reminded me of a PAB by almost the same title: “The Anatomy of Traps” – which happens to relate to what you wrote as quoted above. Here’s an excerpt from the PAB:
“The way a thetan lives is not and never will be the way thetans ‘should’ live. The basic reason for this is the desire for randomity, summed up in the desire of the thetan for a game. Infinite wellness is undesirable if it means that the thetan is to be in a state of total knowingness, total serenity, nameless, without ARC or contact with any environment.
“Evidently a thetan would rather be intelligent in relation to his environment, identified and identifiable, capable of emotion and experience and in ARC of whatever kind, with whatever type of playing field he may fancy.
“In other words, a thetan believes that he should be involved in a game. The deepest and most basic rationale is understood by the fact that a thetan must be part of the game. If he is not he is unhappy, no matter how purely and beautifully knowing and serene he may become.” (PAB 94, August 1956)
.
And come to think of it, the goal of Scientology is basically the playing of a better game.
” And come to think of it, the goal of Scientology is basically the playing of a better game.”
Hi Marildi old friend. Still peeling and sticking the bumper stickers I see. Hope you are well and that life is smooth.
Hi Chris!
Yeah, I’m still “peeling and sticking.” You are so funny!
Good to see you, old friend. 🙂
😀
Actually, the paragraph that follows what I quoted is also relevant to this exchange:
“However, there is a difference in games which is marked and obvious. There is the matter of playing a game and knowing one is playing a game, and not knowing one is playing a game. Between these two things is a world of difference. A thetan who is engaged in games he does not know he is playing is unhappy, since he does not believe he is playing a game and finds himself nevertheless in motion. This is what the preclear objects to when he comes to the auditor to be audited. The preclear suspects that he is playing a game and does not know what game he is playing. He simply wants to find out. He does not want to stop playing all games. If the auditor proceeds in the direction of making him stop all of his games, if the auditor erases all of the preclear’s games, why, the preclear is resultantly unhappy. The preclear wants to know what game he is playing and that is all there is to it.” (PAB 94)
Roger, I love Eckhart Tolle. He’s the real deal.
+1
Regarding this discussion thread (this post may be out of order, apparently comments are not allowed to be placed further along) – Eckhart Tolle is the L.Ron Hubbard for the 2000’s. People who thought Ron was brilliant and insightful will like him; those that thought Hubbard wrote a confusing mish-mash of gibberish will not. Personally, I think Ekhart Tolle is to be avoided, same thing for Byron Katie and “The Work” which seems to take only select pieces of Scientology philosophy and expand upon it, taking it in a harmful direction.
Just as LRH put mythical “body thetans” on people, then charged to get rid of them, Eckhart Tolle gives us an unproven “pain-body” experience, then tells us how to ‘correct’ it (among other things) while racking in the bucks from book sales, lectures and seminars. Byron Katie and her actions are downright dangerous. Both are based on earlier pop-psychologists, who took their stuff from even earlier philosophies. Tolle took ideas from EST (Werner Erhard).
I feel it’s ok to look into new and interesting ideas and schools of thought, but when they have dangerous cult-like properties and insidious means to trap you and subtly influence you into doing things that are to your detriment (disconnecting from family, spending funds you cannot afford, changing key parts of your personality, etc.) it’s best to be cautious. But if you must have a guru, there are plenty out there to choose from.
There is a lot of info out there if you research it – this site was sounding the alarm about these two over 10 years ago (in 2005): Byron Katie and Eckhart Tolle discussion at cult education network:
https://forum.culteducation.com/read.php?12,12906
My Two Cents, your ” Vedic Mood Making Practices” and “meditation making you avoid looking” is still you being affected by other determination of Ron’s view.
You are simply trumpeting Ron’s attempt to denigrate his competition.
What you have said about Vedic practices is like some non Scientologist walking by a course room and seeing someone screaming at an ashtray and concluding that is Scientology. That conclusion is the very definition of lacking experience and ignorance.
That is your “understanding” of eastern thought. My view is from my 40 years of experience. I know you do not truly know what you are talking about.
To have these views is evidence of very little experience with meditation; its theory and practice.
Scientology’s god is the mind. Scientologists fancy that if you are not always looking in the mind, seeking basics on thought chains, looking for past overts and always engaging thought, running ruds and ARCxs, running lists…………
then you are not confronting the source of suffering. You are non confronting.
Meditation takes you past the mind. Yes, there can be what we call a “spiritual bypass”, meaning that people do not deal with very basic aspects of themselves while reaching for higher states.
Sometimes people need therapy, a looking in the mind to understand aspects of human character, problems etc.
But meditation takes you past the mind. I find Scientologists can be stuck in always looking at the mind. And Scientologists have a very perceptible deficiency in understanding and relationship with the Supreme Being.
And that is a shame. Communing with God, melting the individual self into the Cosmic or Universal Self is a joy no tongue can tell.
Loving God is an ecstatic experience. It is the very source of all knowledge. All life is consciousness. The entire universe and all universes are the dream of the Great Dreamer. And when we awake from the dream of our individuation from the pool of Theta, of the nightmares of earth life, there is great joy, wisdom, love and perception of immortality.
We were never born and we will never die. We just change forms. There is no end to the expansions of conscious awareness. That is the goal of meditation. It is a direct looking into the true nature of life itself. So to say that meditation is “not looking” is your unwitting confession of ignorance.
Underneath the cloak of matter lies the true nature of life It-Self. The mind does not hold the answers. The mind is simply a mirror of matter. A reflection of what the 5 senses have recorded. It’s good to know what the mind is and it’s nature. But at some point the mind becomes the barrier. It happened to Ron running BTs. His mind became an impediment leading him to wish for body death at the bottom of the tone scale.
To transcend matter, commune with Spirit, commune with the truth of who we are: souls.
Ron did not get there. And if he did not, then it is unquestionably certain that his processes can’t get you there.
To believe in a process that brought Ron to suicide is……………….
someone must have a word for this. Ha ha ha! It’s amazing.
Yet I do honor that you are getting wins from your brand of Scientology. Keep up the good work.
Brian, you accused me of having no significant experience with Eastern religion, and claim 40 years of experience for yourself. But further down the page today you also said, “Don’t believe me about anything. I am just a student… I can give you ‘know about,’ indirect knowledge, not directly experienced knowledge.”
This is a little confusing. Meanwhile, here’s some background on my experience, including why I switched from Vedic meditation to Scientology.
I started reading Zen books while still in high school in the early 60’s, and continued in college. My reading included translations of Chinese and Japanese Zen masters, as well as modern psychologists who were also Zen practitioners. I eventually came face-to-face with the issue of non-existence of self, and it became my koan. “How could existence possibly exist? How could existence possibly not exist? How could I possibly exist? How could I possibly not exist?” I obsessed on this 24 hours a day for three weeks, and finally became intellectually exhausted. I literally couldn’t think– not just about my koan but about anything.
In that state I walked into my kitchen and began eating my usual snack, and it was like I’d never tasted it before. It was the greatest blend of flavors I’d ever experienced. I then noticed that the wall was no longer solid, but was a shimmering, pulsating liquid surface only pretending to be solid. I looked across the room at a flower pot and noticed that it was no longer an object of my perception, nor I a perceiver of an object. Rather, neither of us existed as separate entities, but were merely two aspects of an energy flow called perceivingness, which was creating itself. I realized that what I actually was as a being was that perceivingness. I thought about telling my friends about this, and found that behind the illusion of our being separate beings we were really aspects of the energy flow called relatingness.
This acute experience lasted only a few hours, then faded. But for the next several days I felt like I was floating three feet off the ground. My koan was “solved,” but I couldn’t get anyone to understand what I’d realized. To this day, the only people who have ever understood have been those who’ve had a similar experience of their own.
By the way, this happened during the psychedelic 60’s. But I’d never taken drugs, and I didn’t eat or drink anything spiked with drugs that day, because when I ate the same food the next day, from the same packages, I didn’t have another such experience.
I’d had “kensho,” or “first satori.” But one must have many satoris to attain full enlightenment in Zen. So, the next year I transferred schools in order to be near a real Japanese Zen master and participate in the meditation center he ran. But to my surprise I got nothing out of his program. I felt like I’d gone back to first grade when I was ready for graduate school.
Meanwhile my roommate was into Vedic mantra meditation and seemed to be doing well with it. I’d read some Vedanta and liked it, so I decided to give this type of meditation a try. And it worked from the very first session. I definitely became much calmer. Within a few weeks I was able to enter a realm of pure consciousness in which I had no perception of my body or the physical universe but was wide awake as an infinite, full nothingess. I also began having out-of-body and other psychic experiences when I wasn’t meditating.
After a year of this I met the Indian guru we were following, and he invited me to train with him personally to become an international teacher of his technique. I declined his offer, for several reasons.
1) The initiation procedure that launched my first meditation session had been hypnotic in nature. I’d gone along with it gladly at the time, but after a few months I found that whenever I wasn’t thinking of something else, my mantra would be there as a thought running over and over on its own, pulling my attention away from daily life. I didn’t like that.
2) I lived right across the street from the meditation center, and whenever I went into it I noticed that its space was full of a very subtle “stuff” that seemed like sweet, comfy, orange cotton candy. It felt good, but seemed like a substitute for real life. The guru had cautioned us against “mood-making,” but that’s what the “stuff” seemed to be.
3) When 700 followers of this guru met for a month-long retreat in a mountain valley, and meditated for six hours every day, this same “stuff” filled up the whole valley. It was very noticeable on leaving and re-entering the valley, or climbing high enough on the surrounding mountains.
4) By contrast, when I stumbled onto Scientology and attended a big hotel event with a couple hundred Scientologists the space was refreshingly empty. It didn’t contain the unpleasant emotional energy of the non-seeker world, nor the cotton candy wonderfulness of the meditation center. It was just clean, clear, empty, and free. I really liked that.
5) So I discussed meditation vs Scientology with the guru, and he told me I should try auditing in order to satisfy my curiosity, and then come back. I did that, and my first session blew my mantra so it no longer ran by itself. Within 10 hours of auditing I got tremendous daily-life case gain that dwarfed what I’d gotten out of meditation. So I stuck with Scientology.
But I never stopped reading about, and occasionally practicing, other paths. That included Tibetan yoga meditation techniques where one mocks up a mental image of an ascended master or avatar, and then merges with it. When I did this I experienced an immediate rush of positive feeling and power, but as something I was at effect of rather than being at cause over. I didn’t like that, so I pulled out and never tried any merging-with-another technique again.
There is much more that I could say, and someday will say, about “loving God” and “merging with God.” So my respnse to you is not yet complete. But I’m out of time for today. Stay tuned.
My Two Cents!!!! Thank you for sharing this.
Ok, I was wrong, you do have experience with eastern practices. Sorry for the judgement.
I accept with a smile being wrong ?
I guess I could go on an on about my point of view and you could go on and on about yours.
I think it would be more fun talking with you in person over a beer or glass of wine.
One of my favorite says from India is,” the paths are many but the goal is one.”
This forum is too shallow to really have a great discussion.
I honor that you have made Scientology your own. And I honor that you see Ron not as a god.
One final thought:
Just because someone says they are a guru, does not mean they are liberated.
Well, maybe two thoughts:
Yes, 40 years plus. One of the great attainments I have reached is knowing when I do not know. And consciously not knowing is so far far above the ego assuming knowledge.
So in all honesty I do not have mastery over life and death.
You asked about these two masters dying. I assumed that your assumption was that they died like any other human so what makes them so special.
There is so much knowledge about this. And this forum is not the place for it.
I still suggest reading Autobiography of a Yogi and Patanjali’s Yoga sutras by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood.
Your questions about Ramakrishna and Yogananda’s death is a good question.
Also, just because someone claims guruship does not award them the the state of liberation. Liberated souls are rare on this earth. But when you find them, it’s hard to look away.
You’re a good man. I enjoy your sincerity!
Thanks, Brian. Here’s a book for you: “Only Don’t Know” by Korean Zen master Seung Sahn. He’s my favorite living Zen master. He also wrote “The Compass of Zen,” which is more comprehensive but less personal.
BTW! My Two Cents, I have recommended these books only in answer to your question about these two men’s death.
In Autobiography you will find your answers to your question.
OT phenomena is explained in this book. There are individuals who are true OTs.
I’ve not found this much information in any other book regarding spiritual powers.
It’s the stuff stuff Ron marketed.
Your question regarding Ramakrishna and Yogananda’s death is answered there.
I did not recommend this book just because. There is a reason. It’s in answer to your question.
Wow, My 2 Cents. I’ll never read that cliche again without thinking of shimmering walls. How nice.
This deep and now polite discourse of yours and Brian’s and the other thinkers, seekers, and philosophizers that have weighed in on Vedic wisdom, Gurus and meditation is stimulating to say the least.
I liked when LRH suggested that given more points to view your space expanded or something. (I love saying that and not having to preface this with, ‘it’s my memory and my take, please don’t KR me for verbal data.’ And not having to look it up and give the exact reference to save myself from a trip to the Ethics Officer.) Getting more viewpoints gives me the gifts of thoughtfulness outside of my experience. I feel more spacious because I have read of your moment outside of normal. It is a gift to read about someone’s unique experience about consciousness and the world around us.
As an ex-scilon I am still looking around me at the real world and seeking to find where I fit spiritually. It’s a calm slow thing, greatly helped by the discussions of this group.
Part of my freedom from the cult is the realization that I really joined up to answer some of these spiritual questions. Interestingly, though I got “certainty” on my spiritual nature, I did not get data about spirituality beyond the cherch’s view.
Thanks for the book recommendations.
My freedom is chucking my former spiritual “certainty” and embracing the world I see each day, the people I speak to and hear from and learn from by experiencing and assuming nothing.
This day has started out with your wonderful shimmering walls.
This “Is-ness” essay reminds me of a sort of koan I came up with or heard somewhere, I’m not sure which, but it occasionally makes perfect sense to me.
“What is isn’t, and what isn’t is”
Example: This is a pencil – no it isn’t – it’s wood and graphite; no it isn’t – it’s molecules; no it isn’t – it’s atoms; no it isn’t – it’s electrons, neutrons and protons; etc.
Koans are designed to defy logical description. Looking at the “theoretically crucial” question of “Who Am I” and applying the above “koan” to it, “Who Am I” reduces to an absurdity not worth considering.
Krishnamurti might have been living in what is isn’t and what isn’t is.
The “Is-ness” descriptions might be looked at as koans with Hubbard’s “solutions”.
Krishnamurti’s viewpoint might be that any “thought” about existence is merely an attempt at “continuing” (life or awareness), a created mental escape from the inevitability of bodily death. This isn’t necessarily a negative viewpoint. It might lead some people to a surrender and acceptance of life as it is.
I’m not promoting “U.G.” – it’s just another viewpoint to consider.
You tube – “U.G. Krishnamurti Thinking Allowed” is a video I watched and got his basic viewpoint (I think – lol)
Roger From Switzerland says,”There is no Religion (incl. Hinduism and Budhism) that ever made any significant contribution toward science and real knowledge about the world we live in.”
Carl Sagan says,” “The Hindu religion is the only one of the world’s great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths.
It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long. Longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang.”
Schopenhauer says,”Vedas are the most rewarding and the most elevating book which can be possible in the world.” (Works VI p.427)
Albert Einstein says,”When I read the Bhagavad-Gita and reflect about how God created this universe everything else seems so superfluous.”
~~~Sir William Jones (English scholar) says, “The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity is of wonderful structure, more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin and more exquisitely refined than either.”
~~~ Will Durant (American philosopher) says, “It is true that even across the Himalayan barrier India has sent to us such unquestionable gifts as grammar and logic, philosophy and fables, hypnotism and chess, and above all our numerals and our decimal system. But these are not the essence of her spirit; they are trifles compared to what we may learn from her in the future.
~~~Jean Sylvain Bailly (French astronomer) says, “The motion of the stars calculated by the Hindus before some 4500 years vary not even a single minute from the tables of Cassine and Meyer (used in the 19-th century). The Indian tables give the same annual variation of the moon as the discovered by Tycho Brahe – a variation unknown to the school of Alexandria and also to the Arabs who followed the calculations of the school… “The Hindu systems of astronomy are by far the oldest and that from which the Egyptians, Greek, Romans and – even the Jews derived from the Hindus their knowledge.”
I present to you, my dear Roger, with options that challenge your assumptions.
BTW, the quotes are too many to continue.
Dear Brian
Thanks a lot for your beautiful quotes. They Sound reasonnable..
But if I look at what the Hindus and budhists do today in India I’m rather disappointed. I recently was in India. Each village has the most beautiful temple and masses of poor People living around it in dirt, and giving all their Money to the priests.
I don’t think they are educating their People to think…..and giving them any workable knowledge….
What i learned in the last years, and some People don’t like me because of it, is to look at what People do, what are their products, not what they say , write or think.. And this makes a big difference….
I’m perhaps too sarcastic, but all those beautiful thoughts from those religions do not solve the Basic Problems that People Need an education to be able to live in our world…
There is not one Religion that asks form their followers to go to School and learn about mathematics sciences, reading, writing etc.Such materialistic ideas….Only some priests found Schools, but it is not written in theier beliefs that this has to be done….
Countries that educate their People, have no Problems as you can see in most countries in Europe…Look at the USA now, that Trump and Clinton are the sole candidates for presindency is because the masses in the USA can’t afford anymore education and you can tell them all Kind of nonsense and they’ll believe it….
Have a good day 🙂
No doubt India as a country has problems. Multiple invasions from foreign nations over the centuries has affected India’s present condition. It is deplorable in many cities. It’s is getting better though.
But that was not your original post below. It was a statement that India, Hinduism has not contributed to knowledge or science.
I refuted your claim with quotes from men of science. And now you change your argument to India’s present condition.
The philosophy of India, being universal, must also be dudged outside of its borders. There are 18 million Americans who meditate. Google it. And that does not include Europe, Japan etc.
These men of science have Given their views of India. There is a cultural backwardness in India no doubt. But within its soul is also the birth of science, spirituality, language and many other subjects.
I can find you an endless track of quotes. You seem to want to only see that which supports your view.
If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, then baffle them with b.s.
I find I did not have the problem with as-is-ness” that you discuss, at least not as far as auditing. An “engram” erases from the “bank” — the “reactive mind” — and then is not gone except as an engram; it remains in the “analytical mind” as a freely accessible memory unburdened from “charge.” You now have a memory; you no longer have an engram. (I’m not saying I agree with the concepts, just that I could make sense of them, then and now.)
As to as-is-ness used to make things disappear by creating an exact duplicate, I could get my head around it on a mystical level but never saw actual evidence of it. Any OTs who could do that objectively (as original OT VIII seemed to promise) could rule the world.
The closest I did experience that could be called as-is-ness, perhaps, was internal, a sort of (temporary in my case) disappearance of a mental construct of the world around me. The construct changed; the world was still there. I believe that’s a valid experience and state of consciousness that can achieved doing anything from TR 0 to Buddhist meditation to you name it.
“Not-is-ness” made perfect sense to me. In plain English, it amounts to denial, and it is what we humans tend to do with great energy and passion when we encounter a serious threat or loss.
“Alter-is-ness” made sense as an analog to lying or illusion. Unfortunately, Scientology is one of the most “alter-is-ing” entities in this part of the “guh-LAX-ee.”
“Is-ness,” a persistent reality based on a lie (alter-is-ness) is not that far from some Buddhist conceptions of the world. I did not find the interaction between is-ness and alter-is-ness to be difficult.
I’ve mentioned Buddhism a couple times. I do think Hubbard tried to take some Buddhist ideas and dress them up in new jargon to claim “discoveries.”
Unfortunately, in the final analysis, Hubbard’s big “is-ness” was Big Business.
I met Mike. He is real.
I’ve met him too. I last saw him in 2001 before I was sent off the Freewinds to die of AIDS. I believe that he was CO OSA INT at that time. It is possible that he has alter-ised since then, which may be good although I have always thought that he was a good guy.
I’ve met his parents too and they seemed to be good people.
Now, the church is not in agreement with my still being alive as detailed in earlier comments. This is probably a good thing too, as they certainly have not as-is ed me, as I am still here. Many of us have been declared SP, which again is good as since it is a lie, guarantees that we will persist
Just for fun:
If you want to AS-IS matter you have to know how and why matter has been created. Matter did not create itself out of nothing or almost nothing as described in the big bang theory. Let us assume you are in a universe outside of this universe. Just to paint a picture: Let us call this forerunner universe the magic universe. In that universe the inhabitants could create things just by intending them to be there. I want a chair and a table and a glass of wine that I can drink. And bingo, there was a chair, a table and a drink. If I was bored with that I simply un make it. This evidently does not work in the physical universe. You have to have a job to get some money to pay a drink. Someone has to manufacture a chair and a table and the day those things are no longer wanted you have to dispose them the proper certified way. And why is this universe built that way?
In the magic universe control was not possible. Some bad hats had been sent to prison. For whatever rules they did not obey. In the prison the inmate simply un-made the walls. Those that had the idea that others should be controlled had no fun that all the inmates did simply go out and had a good life. So, they found the solution. They created the physical universe. The big agreement was, that everyone in that universe has to obey the physical universe laws. Then they dumped all the inhabitants of the magic universe into the physical universe. This new universe is built in a way that no one can simply un-make something. And that no one can simply make something. All that exists in this new universe has to be built with something that is already in that universe. This is the deal.
Therefore As-isness, is-ness, alter-isness and not is-ness do not work in this new universe. As this universe is a control universe. The only purpose of this universe is to CONTROL PEOPLE.
If you know that then you can figure out how As-Isness works. Just as a hint: Everything that has been created has a little “spark” within the creation of the creator in it.
That is exactly my understanding of it also
thank-you, scientology, for helping me invent a new word: smugasmarm def: a slug-like creature that is smug
about his/her smarminess. Here is the article that inspired me: http://gawker.com/on-smarm-1476594977
Quantum mysticism: (from Wikipedia)
is a set of metaphysical beliefs and associated practices that seek to relate consciousness, intelligence, spirituality, or mystical world-views to the ideas of quantum mechanics and its interpretations. Quantum mysticism is considered by most scientists and philosophers to be pseudoscience or quackery,
There is no Religion (incl. Hinduism and Budhism) that ever made any significant contribution toward science and real knowledge about the world we live in. In the contrary lots of phantasy with beautiful ideas…..tht have nothing to do with the real world.
I have seen may Gurus, esoteric preachers and OTs begging for scientific medicine when they they learned they have cancer, They forgot all their esoteric ideas very fast, as the cancer was real and not just an idea.
Some People have to be scared to death to understand…….
Try to as-is a cancer that is eating up your Body. It can be handled by not-ising it…..
🙂
Rog, I have two issues with what you wrote. 1. Buddhism and Hinduism may or may not have contributed to science, but I believe they certainly contributed to man’s knowledge. 2. I never saw in any book I’ve read on Buddhism where it was stated I could as-is cancer.
Lastly, if you are completely right and do know best. It doesn’t matter to me if science can not-is cancer. I don’t see any difference in existing for 50 years vs 80 years. If afterwards I experience eternal oblivion.
Dear good People
You read stuff I didn’t write in my post.
But your loving and caring friends and relatives see a big difference if you exist for 50 or 80 years….I didn’t write a word about eternal oblivion….This is an impossibilty…
While a Scientologist I knew everything.Now, I know there are vast amount of things I don’t know and I’m very curious about life, but if all those religions do have an answer we would be in paradise since Long time ago…so we still have to do lots of work…..and not care about all this fake knowledge that didn’t handle anything…..
Dear Roger, Thank you for the sincere and polite response. I guess we can split hairs. You did say Buddhism and Hinduism did not contribute to the knowledge of the world we live in. I do disagree with this.
I guess you didn’t explicitly state Buddhist’s begged for cancer treatment, for their lack of ability to as-is said problem.
But, If my much loved relatives also experience eternal oblivion(which your materialist view implies) it doesn’t really matter if they grieve my shortened life.
Lastly, I too have more questions than answers. I don’t firmly believe anything at present.
Dear Good People
So we think the same. I don’t see me as a Materialist.
I’m still grateful towards Scientology, that teched me that there is a spiritual world and I had spiritual expreinces tha can’t be explained with materialistic thinking.
Neither has it to do with Quantum phisics 🙂
Your column today
Hurts my head in a way.
Easy Ronnie was so issy,
So much is can sake you dizzy.
Is not is was is invention
Eat it up with no dissension
Kipling would roll over in his grave seeing what his Fuzzy Wuzzy testimonial to brave Arab soldiers has spawned
Lron’s ‘isness’ is an example of his mental illness.
I believe you’ve hit the nail on the head. It’s the most sane statement, imo, being remarked upon this article. I’m with you and TC.
All I can say is, Terra Cognita and 80% of commenters so far this morning, the problem here is not with the materials. It’s with your failure to understand.
Go see a word clearer!
Chin up! Others have understood this. You can, too!
TC is using logical discourse to advance a compelling argument. There is nothing stopping you from using logical discourse to disprove that argument. That’s how business is conducted in the philosophical domain. It simply won’t do to say somebody “fails to understand” and leave it at that.
TC’s discourse in his article today is neither logical nor compelling, but only embarassing, to someone who actually understands what he wrote about. I’ve posted comments correcting him on several earlier articles, but just didn’t feel up to teaching remedial Scientology today. It’s fine that he criticizes the subject of Scientology, but I think he should make sure he understands each topic he writes about first if his articles are going to be featured.
flunk
Clearly an attempt by L Ron Hubbard to understand reality from a philosophical perspective. A for effort F for actual result because his argument does not produce a reasonable formula for understanding the concept of reality because it has a logical feedback loop that cannot be resolved. This is something TC has, perhaps clumsily, detected.
Let us start with L Ron Hubbard’s valiant attempt to define reality or “Is-ness”: “Is-ness is the apparency (sic) of existence brought about by the continuous alteration of an as-isness.” “This is called, when agreed upon, reality.” “Something that is persisting on a continuum. That is the basic definition of is-ness.” “The anatomy of reality is contained in is-ness, which is composed of as-is-ness and alter-is-ness. Is-ness is an apparency (sic), it is not an actuality. The actuality is as-is-ness altered so as to obtain a persistency.”
The key feature of this text is “when agreed upon”. The key problem is “continuous alteration” by the use of as-is-ness and alter-is-ness, summed up in the final sentence “The actuality is as-is-ness altered so as to obtain a persistency.”. The problem is L Ron Hubbard says “As-Is-Ness” requires “Alt-Is-Ness” to create “persistence” but by definition said “persistence” would continually change. As-Is-Ness is not persistence and is so altered by “Alt-Is-Ness” and thus the logical loop that invalidates the argument; there cannot be persistence is a system requiring continual change, a continually changing system is not persistent as persistence requires that no change occurs, unless one changes persistence to existence in which case that would be a valid point; the flu virus exists but is constantly changing, conversely specific strains of the flu virus persist.
One could argue that “Alt-Is-Ness” becomes “Is-ness” when it is agreed upon, even though it may be a manifestation of something that is not what we perceive, maybe this was what L Ron Hubbard was trying to grasp; basic philosophy 101 can argue perception is everything or nothing. One then has to consider people with alternate forms of perception, simply the blind or the deaf or more complex those with synesthesia.
Yes, but what if something is not agreed upon? Does it still continue or is that where not-is is the dominating factor if one is associated with this universe. If a demarcation line exists with this explanation of existence, surely it has to include something to separate out a workable definition. I think this is where Hubbard, like anyone else trying to use language has trouble getting another to understand and explain something which understands. Something is viewing it to disagree with it (a non-reality? not according to Hubbard, hence the definition of problem, ie countering something). Perception and an agreement of types already exists if there is a denial or a non-reality is suggested. So it is with as-iness, isness and alter-isness. Consideration is an integral part of it all.
Hubbard’s solution was to theorize “theta” as having abilities and potentials. Apparently it’s workable to the degree auditing takes place. But I think we must remember it’s just a theory, because as soon as you put this “theta” experience into something that can be experienced or viewed by another (reality) it’s already passed the test as falling into one of the four conditions of existence. To go prior to that is nonsensical as T is a component in MEST – the agreed upon universe. If you attempt to do that, you are trying to operate above the level of the Qs. No one says, not even Hubbard you can’t do that. Scientology does not however, venture into the 8th Dynamic.
Accordingly, differentiation is the definition of sanity, then the falling away through things logical or associative to identification at the bottom of the scale. Having agreements may constitute making a reality but that doesn’t say an is-ness can’t exist for a singular being outside of this universe, or does it? The great unknown of all this is that perhaps we are trying to relate to something which as soon as you try to truly understand something – poof!
Hubbard never said you had to sane by someone else’s standards to understand this stuff that I know of.
To participate in the MEST universe one must agree to the moment-to-moment changes of particle position that constitutes time. That’s the basic alter-isness that creates the apparency of persistence called is-ness. If one stops alter-ising, then each earlier alter-is becomes visible and is as-ised and disappears. This is the basic mechanism of auditing, TR0, meditation, etc.
Yeah, that sure follows and it’s all on auto too.Yikes, if one doesn’t pay attention every now and again!
The “something” in all this I stumbled onto was the reverse flow. There’s a reach & withdraw mechanism that operates as a basic in this universe and my take on it is (theoretically of course) is that it’s a not-is flow back towards theta. Invalidation of the PC is the basic on the thetan’s introduction to this universe when they lost their home universe, replaced by this one using force. There really is an ongoing war between theta and mest. That’s why it’s all nice and solid and keeps on expanding and invalidating what a thetan tries to do with it. One could extrapolate it really is a losing proposition for theta if it doesn’t reign in the constant resistance it generates in the form of opposing postulates with mega charge connected etc. The chains are daunting to consider with the amount of energy that must be stored in them.
In this situation auditing serves a great value of reducing the accumulating masses a thetan creates just by its insistence on perceiving/communicating with mest (you know, the old, be there and communicating is the only real crime in this universe. There is more significance to this than just the petty squabbles of humans). MEST needs to do nothing to win this war, it’s an, on-auto mechanism. I think that’s what Hubbard was jumping up and down about and insisted you need training as well to know what is happening to you and yours so you can do something about it. It overcame him apparently from many dynamics.
Agreed.
I think Hubbard was trying to explain what couldn’t be explained, silly as that sounds. I spent a lot of time on these concepts and got quite muddied up with them for a long time. As a sup I saw numerous examples of misinterpretation and confusion about them, which, even with MU tech fully applied I cannot explain how we ever got around it. Smoke and mirrors type of thing I suppose, a mutual type of overt of, ‘fuck it’ was applied. The old bull pen got pretty full (now, that’s another Scientology mental concept, corralling what you don’t get for another day to sort out).
However, I don’t have a problem with that stuff now and they are kinda fun to fool around with, they do fit into a kind of ‘whole’. Like all things to do with auditing, you’ve got to have your goals sorted out why you’re doing it. If just going along for the ride is the goal, disappointment will surely ensue, same as believing what Church people tell you who themselves have no idea of anything except what they are told to say. However, if you want to disappear actual see-able, touchable objects, go play with explosives instead. Having a PC go through a long, long line charge, especially of tears & misemotion and come out the other side thanking you… well, so be it. Sit down and try to analyse it with the Qs, Logics & Axioms, now you’ve got yourself what can only be described as a, “good luck with that project!”
As I said earlier, I looked deeply into the Professional Course of 1951 where Hubbard just gave the basics of the Qs, Logics etc,on top of an SOP or two with a few amendments and go for it. He strived in that period to create, ‘experienced with being experienced’ as the goal of an auditor. That all went by the wayside as it’s virtually impossible anyway (like DMSMH done Hubbard style) and mock-up processing was introduced and replacing everything and just around the corner was god knows what new development. Has anyone ever tried to understand Black & White processing? That makes auditing with the understanding of the Axioms a piece of cake! Another aspect later on that also fell by the wayside was Clay Table processing, no-one seemed to be able to use it except Hubbard. Half a dozen HCOBs later it was dumped. It did show up on the TRs Course eventually and KTL etc. but originally it was supposed to be mocked up by the auditor what to get the PC to clay, apparently no-one got it well enough to run it.
I have no idea what to do with knowing this stuff now. I’m not going to cave myself in with, it’s all bs like many seem to think is the way to go. I’ve also got a head full of carburetor tech and mathematics without a calculator that I don’t use either, calculus is in there somewhere too with along with logarithms and a host of weapons & ballistic tech.
Take the criminality out of Scientology and it’s just another subject, kooky to some, life changing for others. I can’t play the guitar worth a hoot either but I keep on trying, that’s more than I can say for Scientology’s tech. One thing is certain though, anything applied or done in the Cof$ has been designed, tailor made, and fine tuned to not only take your money off you but to do you in and turn you into a mindless automaton.
Terra you really should do a piece on Method One WC. That has one really exaggerated EP if there ever was one, the recovery of one’s education – sheeh, what a claim!
Is “Method One WC” a scientific euphemism for going to the washroom for a “Number One” which is an old fashioned euphemism for being “Full of Piss”?
I Yawnalot – You’ve done a lot of thinking along these lines and I appreciate you relating your viewpoints.
What you say above I think might relate to the original intention of scn (not just of LRH but also of others who joined in the quest along the way) of applying Western technology to Eastern philosophy.
Regarding (1951) – “experienced with being experienced”, probably not in the way you are mentioning it, but peak experiences/cognitions of being/sudden awakenings etc. can be described by someone, yet they usually occur by chance or after many years of seeking.
Other than the one shot “Be three feet in back of your head” and perhaps a few other “processes” I don’t know of, there would be few ways to CAUSE a peak experience. Perhaps that was what Elron was working on back then?
TC, here’s my attempt to makes sense of the senseless.
I always loved the metaphysical side of Scientology. The weirder the better. “History of Man”, “8-8008”, I bought all those little green books and lapped it up. All in my first few months in. 1974. My win speech for the Communications Course was “When I started this course I was an atheist. (pause) I now know that I am a thetan!” I had more to say but the applause drowned it out so I took it as a successful success.
I say this not to impress anyone but just to let you know that I am not speaking from an outsider’s viewpoint, looking to mock something I don’t understand well. I studied it, memorized the axioms, listened to tapes, studied it again, did auditing, got auditing done to me, did the Training Routines many times. I am familiar with it.
The concept of as-isness contains a flaw. In the description, Hubbard talks of “looking” at something. The idea is that if you could look at something and see it for what it really is, you would be creating a perfect copy of that something. In Scientology they call that “duplicating”, like an old style copy machine. The “spirit duplicator” or “ditto machine”.
It is funny to see an angry Scientologist screaming at another “You didn’t duplicate me!” Meaning “You don’t understand!” Or “I totally duplicate that you need to see your mom before she dies, but the CSW (formal request) is still disapproved. You need to get through your Leaving Sec Check (interrogation).”
Total duplication would, according to the axioms, cause a vanishment (disapperance) of the thing duplicated, because supposedly two identical objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Hubbard sonorously contends “Thus auditing can occur”.
The problem is, you can’t “duplicate” all the atoms in the ashtray (or engram or demonic hanger-on) just by looking at them. You can’t see all the atoms. You can’t see all the nuclei. At some point he even says that you would have to know the whole history of all the “particles” in the ashtray. If it was made of glass from a sandy beach, you would have to know the story of the sand that was ground down from a rock that was created as part of a planet that some thetan (spirit) created from a solar system that was formed from another solar system that …. You would have to know all the thetans involved. You would have to know the kiln where the glass was melted and the mold that it was pressed into. On and on.
So it is not surprising that they don’t make the ashtrays move or disappear. But Hubbard clearly suggests that you could. Maybe ashtrays are hard, but your own memories and “mental mass” could be duplicated. All you have to know is exactly where you were when you created them, when, and all about it.
But actually ashtrays, engrams, chairs, rocks and galaxies all have the same problem. Even if you could somehow perceive them in every detail with your thetan eyes them you could not “totally duplicate” them. They are safe from vanishment by random thetans and that is probably a good thing. Nothing worse than having your planet disappear suddenly when you were just getting used to it.
The way Hubbard gets around this prickly issue is really quite subversive. He said “knowledge is certainty” and “what is true is what is true for you”. This is the perfect hook for a con man. He encouraged his followers to avoid looking for truth, to skate away from actual evidence, to skip all that hard stuff like statistical testing and analysis. A true Hubbard follower just “knows”. Just like Hubbard did when he was making all that stuff up.
In auditing (counseling) you are encouraged to come up with stuff. If it feels a little hazy or imaginary you are told to “go through it again”. The auditor is carefully trained not to “evaluate for the preclear (subject of therapy)” meaning he is not to make any statement or flinch or eye roll or anything that remotely suggests the preclear might be wrong about anything. The poor guy may be sitting there spouting on and on about how he met Jesus and the Buddha when they got together for tea three million years ago. The auditor can only say “Return to the beginning of that incident”. Not a word about it. That is a big part of the Training Routines. You are not to react.
So eventually the poor preclear gets the idea that he “knows” all about the incident and has “as-ised” it. He doesn’t know anything really. He made it all up or took it from a movie he saw as a kid or who knows. But he feels better about it. End of session. He is told not to tell others about his experiences in session so he will never be told that Jesus and the Buddha lived in different time periods and neither of them lived three million years ago. Truth and facts are not in the picture. It is all about feelings and “knowing” just by making it up.
That is what makes Scientology so pernicious. The believer has practiced “knowing” things that are impossible to know for so long that he is absolutely certain he knows all about things that are 100% imaginary. Like the quote from “Through the Looking Glass” about believing as many as six impossible things before breakfast. If you challenge his beliefs you get angry retorts about how it is all “scientific”. It is a trap that is hard to break out of.
Good summation, Bruce. As you describe, it is the PC who ends up convincing himself of the “validity” of the tech, simply because no one will stop him.
It’s also interesting that truth and accuracy do not seem to be a factor in the phenomena of auditing, which is bizarre, considering how Hubbard used to go on about truth. As a result, the PC can end up with “delusional truth”, and be utter convinced of it.
In the end, it appears ALL auditing is some form of Creative Processing.
Having grown up in Scientology, I believed the notion that matter is held together by the combined is-ness from every being somehow involved in its creation, and that for some OTs it’s possible to perceive these “energies” (for lack of a better term) and even deal with them if they so wished.
The simple chair at my desk would – to varying degrees of intensity, depending on the importance of the item for the being and their level of control over MEST – be connected to its designer (mocking up the idea and getting it to manifest), the people in the manufacturing plant (physical creation with valuable final product), the sales people (there IS a chair), and of course myself for agreeing to let this chair into my space and wanting to keep it there, thereby taking efforts (consciously or unconsciously) towards its persistence.
In some way every other being who continously creates the agreement that objects like chairs exist at all also plays their part, and by extension who create that my floor exists, my house, the ground it stands on, the laws of physics that keep my chair from floating away or falling apart on a molecular level, the agreements that glue holds things together, and that there is matter at all… taking this to a very meta-physical level.
Which is also why we all loved The Matrix so much, because our world view would snugly tie into that very idea.. and we as Scientologists are on our way to becoming Neo and learning to control our environment, and eventually wake up and take a stand against our oppressors.
I clearly remember my dad telling me he sometimes had moments when he could actually perceive these connections, and that it looked like an immense web of energy. I always wanted that ability myself, but funny enough never believed Scientology could help me achieve that goal in any shape or form. Eventually I came to suspect some illicit substances had been at play rather than an actual ability. My dad joined in the 70s and did have some “spiritual experiences” before 🙂 and therefore was regularly summoned for interviews to double- and triple-check if he might have taken LSD after all and could be an illegal PC, something he always fought against so he would not “lose his eternity”. Donations to the IAS and various other good causes, or volunteer work, would usually calm things down for a while.
TC, I think you’ve done a bang up job of taking a piece of Hubbardian esoterica down from its dizzy heights to reveal the cupboard is bare and has no real life application.
Remember that Peter Sellers’ movie (Being There) where the Washington political glitterati interpreted all sorts of deep philosophical insights from the moronic babblings of Chauncey Gardner? Well, when I read Hubbard’s four conditions of existence I see parallels to the Brahman, Isvara, Jiva Jagat tetralogy of the vedas. I also get flashes of ideas pertaining to quantum physics and I hear the echos of Nietzsche and Jung. Some Bod Dylan too!
Obviously Hubbard skimmed over some treatises imparting actual knowledge and rendered them useless through his lack of understanding combined with his talent for circumlocution. Even if it was only intuitive, I think Hubbard knew if you make the language sufficiently abstract you can make Chauncey Gardner sound as though he’s weighing in on Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.
Just so, Roger.
The cycle of action start change stop is in action and Scientology is approaching stop at a dead run.
What will start again after the crash is speculation. I want a good result that will heal and enlighten.
Peace out.
How come you kept on “siccing” apparency? It’s spelled right. I admit “the apparency of existence” is a weird and non-intuitive—and therefore oh so Hubbardian—twist of words in the Gordian Knot that is his explanation of the nature of reality. Seriously, I’ll take Sartres over Hubbard any day, and that’s saying a lot.
I agonized for hours and days over these obnoxious concepts. And, of course, Scientology supervisors and word clearers are just the worst for helping somebody actually understand poorly written materials. Which is about 80% of everything Hubbard ever wrote. And woe to any student who questions Hubbard too much.
“Apparency” was a word I got stuck on more than once. Because I was a weak-willed teenager, Scientology sucks and registrars are evil douchebags, at one point in the late 1980s I ended up on the PTS/SP course at CC and Grade O at the Org Fdn, simultaneously, all while I was working sixty miles away at Delphi. With no car. It was so obnoxious, I can’t even begin to tell you how pushy Scientologists can be who need to get their stats up. My weekends were spent in the morning at CC and then the night at the Org, all while I frantically figured out transportation so I could be on post at Delphi. Thank Xenu the PTS/SP course was so short.
Okay, somehow this turned into a rant. Sorry about that. Anyway, during this period I got stuck looking up the ole’ “is-ness” word chain. In the morning at CC, I argued and argued (and was threatened with Qual) about the meaning of “apparency”. Was it a mere appearance, or was it a seeming but not actual appearance? I finally settled on the latter meaning and the sup agreed. Of course that evening I got into an argument with the Org sup who made me look up “apparency” again! But that idiot tried to steer me to the first (and, in my opinion, obviously incorrect) definition.
It was at that point that I finagled to get the hell away from the Org to study at the much more upstat CC. The Org had to move—again—at some point and I used that as my excuse to transfer my services. The Org’s sups were jackasses.
Oh dear, I’m ranting again. Sorry. But my point is this: Hubbard was purposefully obtuse. And you are right: if we “as-is’d” everything, according to Hubbard, reality would cease to exist and our true natures would be reveal’d. Never happened with me, although I was a mere Grade 1 Release. But then, it never happened with anybody, including the many, many OTs I met during my day. Despite their super-powered presence, reality kept on existing.
Maybe I just didn’t understand “apparency” after all.
People have previously commented about Yogi. Below are some Yogi quotes and the way they are written one can see that LRH may have used a similar line of thought or at least a similar way of demonstrating pure truth in life.
“The future aint what it used to be”
“I never said most of the things I said”
“Half the lies they said about me aren’t true”
“If you don’t know where you are going, you might end up somewhere else”
“If you arrive at a fork in the road, take it.”
“it aint over til it’s over”
“I don’t know (if they were men or women fans running naked across the field). They had bags over their heads.”
“A lot of guys go, ‘Hey, Yog, say a Yogi-ism.’ I tell ’em, ‘I don’t know any.’ They want me to make one up. I don’t make ’em up. I don’t even know when I say it. They’re the truth. And it is the truth. I don’t know.”
Yogi Berra
Brilliant. We can’t forget “It’s like déjà vu all over again.”
CPO – Laughter – great quotes! Taken as koans, some of these yogi-isms might have already led some people to instant enlightenment!
Hey TC thanks for the confused essay possibly your best so far.The isness of the 4 conditions is that they do not make sense.So I had to notis commen sense to understand them.Your confued essay mirrors the confusion I experienced trying to make sense out of this nonsense.I only overlooked one thing:You cannot understand the ununderstandable.
What a bunch of word salad nonsense!
What kind of dressing would you use with a word salad?
Ranch is good. Home, home on the range…
If you take this level of confusing-ness and add the certainty of the group-think, you have the perfect recipe for mind-fucking the victims.
Most of the contents of the products sold by L Ron Hubbard do not stack up to sober analysis (i.e. by people who have not already bought into them), and indeed it is sold specifically by putting the victim in a state of emotional turmoil (“find their ruin”). Making the products confusing is one more way of making sure that the intellect of the victim is put out of the equation. Having the intellect out of the way (even for the very intellectual(1)) is a great way to get on with the core process: replacing the victims personality with that chosen for them by the cult leader. Check out Jon Atack’s “opening minds.”
(1) And Hubbard liked the clever victims. He gloated over them, according to the interview reported in the very excellent “Fair Game” by Steve Cannane.
Jeff TINGLEFF,
“If you take this level of confusing-ness and add the certainty of the group-think, you have the perfect recipe for mind-fucking the victims.”
Perfect! Your comment makes perfect sense.
When I got into Scientology and for decades thereafter, no one ever tried to find my ruin or “emotional turmoil.” No one ever sold me on Scientology. I never found any of it confusing. I never gave up my intellectual integrity or critical faculties. I did, however, give and receive auditing, and found that it works when done correctly.
You were never in Scientology. You have no experience with auditing, especially correctly done auditing. Your criticism is therefore group think on your part.
I always liked the conditions. I see the practical use of it.
As is = directly perceiving the nature of something
Alter is = introducing an arbitrary or bias into the perception thus distorting it a bit
Isness = agreeing that this new perception with added bias is the reality of the thing
Not is = complete denial that the previous three functions occurred and that these functions were consciously created by the individual.
Regarding the disappearance of objects. This is a bit tricky. Ron read (did not study) eastern thought. Ron got his info on spiritual powers from yogic texts. From Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, which go into the conditions necessary to acquire metaphysical powers, to Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi.
Yogananda was in LA when Ron was around. Yogananda’s book hit the scene in 1945. Yogananda was quite a celebrity in those days. Many celebrities of the silver screen were his students. He was even invited to the White House to meet the president.
In Autobiography of a Yogi is a chapter called “The Law of Miracles.” I believe Ron read this book as it was very popular then and still is.
The power of the yogis is were Ron got his idea of cause over matter. That is where this information exists. One of the side effects of liberation is the perception that the “real world” is in fact a dream of consciousness. That matter is similar to the perceptions of “reality” in a dream at night. And just as a dreamer creates worlds and people in a dream, the soul is unknowingly dreaming matter.
What “as ises” a dream at night? Waking up and knowing it was a dream.
Similarly, the liberated soul is awake just like the Buddha is considered awake. The movie about Yogananda’s life is called “Awake.” He has a book called “Awake in the Cosmic Dream.
I know I am putting myself in the catagory of blind – faith – cult – nut job, but there is data out there regarding the soul’s potential in the manipulation of matter through will.
Below is a paragraph from “The Law of Miracles.” There is much more info to be known regarding this. The powers that Ron wrote about, implied he had them, was taken from yogis; beyond a doubt.
Deducing the cosmos to consciousness instead of dumb matter, as Quantum Mechanics has, the perfected yogi has realized literally that the cosmos is a dream of mind, resolved back into it’s essence as an idea projection. And just like the sleeping dreamer can dream worlds and people, create them and dissolve them, the liberated yogi has resolved the solidity of matter back into the spiritual reservoir from which it has been dreamed.
The goal of the spiritual aspirant is to resolve the persistent, solid dream nature of MEST back to it’s source; God, Spirit, Soul, Consciousness, Mind, Idea, Thought.
“A yogi who through perfect meditation has merged his consciousness with the Creator perceives the cosmical essence as light; to him there is no difference between the light rays composing water and the light rays composing land. Free from matter-consciousness, free from the three dimensions of space and the fourth dimension of time, a master transfers his body of light with equal ease over the light rays of earth, water, fire, or air. Long concentration on the liberating spiritual eye has enabled the yogi to destroy all delusions concerning matter and its gravitational weight; thenceforth he sees the universe as an essentially undifferentiated mass of light.”
Paramahansa Yogananda
Brian, why did Yogananda die at only 59? Why did Ramakrishna die at only 37?
That morning, when he was with some students, preparing to give a talk at a banquet for the UN ambassador from India to the US, he said,”wish me luck. Today is my big day”
To another student, who I have met, he said that morning, “don’t you know I will be gone soon. We I go only love can take my place”
At the Boneveture Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, March 7, 1952, Yogananda was asked to speak.
He goes to the podium and talks about east and west sharing the best of each. He talked about the exchange of India’s spirituality and America’s industry and practical nature and its form of government and his gladness for being born there.
After speaking he resites his poem “My India”
It is a long poem. And the last stanza is:
“Where Ganges, woods, Himalayan caves, and men dream God-
I am hallowed; my body touch that sod”
And after the last word of a long poem, standing behind the podium, Yogananda looks upwards towards the spiritual eye, and collapses to the floor dead. In front of hundreds of people.
In yoga there is a name for it. It’s called Maha Samadhi. It is by definition a liberated, perfected yogi’s conscious exit from the body. And sometimes quite deliberate.
You can Google LA times and probably get the story.
This is not an isolated case. There are many.
Length of the body is of no consequence to those who do not identify themselves, their conscious existence, with matter.
Jesus died at 33, I think Buddha was 80. So what?
A spiritual master is not measured by the time length of a body.
Brian, I’m interested in your reply to My 2 Cents’ question. Are you not answering because you don’t want to hear anything negative about your favorite teachers? If so, I understand! But maybe it’s time for you to have a little taste of your own medicine. Are you up to it? 😉
Seriously, the same thing happened on another recent thread here on Mike’s. My 2 Cents asked you 3 times to clarify something you had written about the teachings you believe in – and you never replied. That isn’t like you, at least not when it comes to exchanges about LRH – you’re always very willing. So, come on – fair is fair. Let’s see how willing you are to discuss a topic that you yourself are sensitive to. How about it?
p.s. I do see that you’ve given a partial answer – and I look forward to the rest of it.
Reason for not responding when you think I should Marildi is because I do have a life outside these blogs and I was having fun with mi esposa.:-)
Well, you still haven’t really answered either of the two questions. You gave what you hoped was a smooth politician’s type of reply.
Which questions are you referring?
Just a suggestion Marildi. If you keep your questions to information and not passive aggressive ad hominems, it makes for a better dialog. And it saves you from embarrassing yourself publically.
When you attack people instead of exchanging ideas, you unwittingly confess to a bankruptcy of ideas.
But I think you can’t help yourself. It’s part of your communication style: belittling those you disagree with.
So how was what you just said “keeping your questions to information and not passive aggressive ad hominems”? Sheesh.
The question I was referring to was the one in My Two Cents’ comment above where he asked:
“Brian, why did Yogananda die at only 59? Why did Ramakrishna die at only 37?”
I think he wanted you to comment on Yogananda having died of a heart attack and Ramakrishna dying of cancer.
If you read my reply, the answer is there. If you need a more in depth understanding, keep studying outside of Scientology.
Yoganandas exit was conscious. Ramakrishna let cancer work itself out on his body.
The same with Ramana Maharishi.
When your knowledge increases regarding the state of liberation, you will learn the various conditions that masters experience at body death.
You guys should read Autobiography of a Yogi if you want to know about the powers of yogis.
That is my best advice; read. Don’t believe me about anything. I am just a student. If you want to know how liberated souls experience death, don’t ask a student. I can give you “know about”, indirect knowledge, not directly experienced knowledge. It’s above my understanding. Though I know the theory, if you truly want to know for yourself, please read Autobiography of aYogi. It will give you the knowledge you are looking for.
That is, if truly understanding is what you want.
There are answers. Be curious and read.
“That is my best advice; read. Don’t believe me about anything. I am just a student. If you want to know how liberated souls experience death, don’t ask a student. I can give you ‘know about’, indirect knowledge, not directly experienced knowledge. It’s above my understanding. Though I know the theory, if you truly want to know for yourself, please read Autobiography of aYogi. It will give you the knowledge you are looking for.
First of all, Brian, I’ve already read “Autobiography of a Yogi,” which I stated in a comment just recently. Hard to imagine that you missed it. 😉 But I do like it that you acknowledge that your own knowledge is indirect, a “know about” rather than “know.”
Secondly, I don’t think either of us (My 2 Cents or myself) was asking for your personal knowledge about “liberated souls experiencing death.” As for me, I was just curious about what point My Two Cents was trying to make by asking you those questions. But I think he may have essentially made his point in a comment he just posted, in another exchange, where he wrote:
“The whole point of Scientology is to move from other-determinism to self-determinism. Ironically one has to learn how to be a ‘non-participating witness’ in order to stop alter-ising and thereby begin as-ising, which opens the door to converting other-determinism to self-determinism. If you want to remain comfortably other-determined, don’t walk through that door. Instead, engage in high-wavelengh Vedic mood-making practices that bribe you to not really look. I quit Vedic meditation in favor of getting Scientology auditing because I wanted freedom, not comfort.”
I am glad you like Scientology. That is what you and My Two Cents are all about.
You enjoy running BTs and Ron’s metaphysical Freudian therapy.
You find happiness there. That’s the school of thought that resonates with you guys now.
Freedom of thought. It’s a wonderful thing. I hope you find what you are looking for in your search.
Brian: “I hope you find what you are looking for in your search.”
In a reply to My 2 Cents, you wrote that “some non Scientologists walking by a course room and seeing someone screaming at an ashtray and concluding that is Scientology. . .is the very definition of lacking experience and ignorance.”
You were comparing that to what you consider is My 2 Cents’ conclusions about Vedic principles.
Ironically, I would compare it to most of your conclusions about scientology. There is a lot about it you really don’t understand.
In any case, I hope you find what you are looking for in your search, too.
When I was the Distrib Sec (marketing manager) at the mission where I got into Scientology, one of the things I did was survey people on the street, asking which attitude on a long list they were most aware of in themselves or their environment.
One day I walked up to a guy and mentally heard what seemed like a mantra — a Sanskrit word of phrase repeated over and over to oneself. I knew it couldn’t be my thought because I’d blown my Vedic meditation mantra in my first Scientology auditing. So I asked the guy if he was into any self-help practices, and, sure enough, he said Vedic mantra meditation.
When I then asked him which attitude on the list he was most aware of, he said all of them, and none of them, equally, because they were all part of the relative world, whose only important quality was not being the absolute (God). His eyes were a little glassy and he seemed inappropriately serene.
From this and other experiences I came up with a principle I called The Anatomy of a Trap. A trap has two effects on the trapee — one good and one bad. The good starts out strong, while the bad lags behind for awhile. Then the good slows down while the bad speeds up and surpasses it. This guy I surveyed was in the trap.
The Church of Scientology wasn’t a trap to begin with, but it slowly became one after 1965.
But there are many other traps for seekers — various cults and practices that eventually put the believer at effect of energies that can function like heroin, causing ecstasy followed by oblivion.
For me the test is, “Does this pot of gold at the end of the rainbow require me to give over my self-determinism to someone or something else?” If the answer is “yes,” I won’t have anything to do with it.
My 2 Cents: “For me the test is, ‘Does this pot of gold at the end of the rainbow require me to give over my self-determinism to someone or something else?’ If the answer is ‘yes,’ I won’t have anything to do with it.”
As you may know, there’s a PAB titled “The Anatomy of Traps.” I probably read it on one of the Academy Levels. You brought it back to mind, and I quoted an excerpt from it in a reply to Roger just now. What you stated above relates to that PAB too, in that the thetan desires a game – and self-determinism is integral to playing any game.
You also wrote: “But there are many other traps for seekers — various cults and practices that eventually put the believer at effect of energies that can function like heroin, causing ecstasy followed by oblivion.”
That’s very good data for a person to be on the lookout for. Thanks. And thanks for all your great input.
Btw, I would imagine you were a great Div 6 staff member. My first post was in Div 6 too. 🙂
The key thing here is that if these statements had any truth in them then l ron could have made all his troubles vanish, the fact that he went into hiding instead tells us all we need to know about their veracity. So why did we lap all this up at the time? One possible explanation – we wanted to be different/better than those around us and by having this knowledge you could feel powerful, until of course you tried to use it! This is where the myth of ever higher levels of achievement comes in – ‘you can only do that when you get to ot8’ Yes it would be fantastic to have any of the fictitious powers described by hubbard, but scientology is surely not the place to find them, I’d suggest a Marvel comic and your own imagination is about the closest we are going to get any time soon.
Heh, it was this weirdness that got me hooked. It actually made sense to me at the time (although try as I might i couldn’t as-is the electricity bill)
Oh, I know what you mean – them, the factors and the axioms – heady stuff. I liked them, and they made some sense, however, when running out the same stuff in session over and over made me question their validity. “And what is “immediate creation without persistence,” anyway?” A) It is a description of the mental state of being old. B) it is where socks go. C) It is what happens in dreams every day – they cease to exist once you wake up, unless you alter – is them by telling them to bored spouse. D) it is what happens when you can’t remember why you went to the kitchen (or wherever). I hope you now realize how prevalent in everyday life the states of is-ness really are. 😛
Mimsey
Mike – that was not supposed to be the smiley face – but the one with the tongue sticking out. Can you fix it? Thanks M ;P
Yep, same here. Couldn’t enough of it.
Haven’t you ever forgotten to pay a bill? Same thing, sort of (you as-ised it), only that when you remember or are reminded, you have to mock it up again, time (change) has marched forward obviously (the altered bit) whether you like it or not (such as the inabilities of not being OT constantly plague us mere mortals). But if you haven’t got the doe ray me, you force the idea of paying out of your mind for a bit (not-ised it). If you pay it on time, oh my – the isness of it all! Keeping those agreements is a full time job generally and playing the existence game can get you in a lot trouble if you flex those rules too much.
What the hell, find another debt… repeat.
The as, is, not and alter isnesses still make sense to me, however unworkable they might be except to Scientologists and Christian Scientists who believe all reality is imagined. Once one data is accepted, then the next data is easier to swallow. Like the car salesman that gets you to keep saying yes by asking you questions he knows you will agree with and then gives you the zinger question that gets you to pay for the car well beyond your means.
I fly fish with half understood data in which one of the more successful dry flys is called a Royal Wolf. It represents nothing living or that has ever lived, yet it works well in fooling fish. Kind of like Scientology really. Applicability is the key to all mental activities, marrying that up with satisfaction is subjective, individual and personally very important. Being suckered with and by the principles of ARC was around a long time before Scientology began using it. But they learnt to professionally lie with it and money is handed over. Something is very strange about the games people play.
Quantum physics says that it’s all illusion anyway. Fascinating concept.
TC, these various states were the foundation of the auditing matrix. If you understood these 4 states the you could believe auditing works and you were on the road to total dumbdom.
MEST things are the result of plenty energy particles created by so many thetans. But you can as-is only what you have created. And in a MEST object, maybe you have no particles you had created earlier inside of it, so for sure it will not be as-ised!
I may have misunderstood- so pardon my example if it doesn’t apply- but if you and your partner conceive a child together (both contributing molecules – or matter if you will) wouldn’t you have created something that you could theoretically apply this to, yet I don’t see how you could apply it?
Please note I’m only using an example I can think of where two persons scientifically contributed “molecules” in order to create something.
Again, I could be misunderstanding this whole concept but I can’t make sense of it.
when you make a child, you are using mest particules already existing, to create a body but you dont create the particles of the baby body. The genetic entity will care to get this body to grow.
in any MEST objects, there are billions of billions or particules (include the electrons, atomes, etc…) to as-is an object you would need to know who is creating each of the particules!
But in auditing, you have recorded yourself the mental images, so you were the one creating them, so by returning, you can “as-is” the pictures you have made and you really erase the charge! Note that you remember the incident without the charge!
I appreciate your response. Though we may not believe the same things, I’m grateful when someone takes the time to respond to an honest question in a civil manner.
Have a lovely day.
Per Scientology this is not true. It doesn’t matter if you created it or not.
Scientology has “as ized” itself and is no longer persisting.
Scientology truly is a bunch of buildings with a few rotting souls to keep the lights on.
Scientology has been sufficiently suppressed thanks to all of us SP’s!
VWD people!
Please – continue!!
Speaking of rotting souls; Season premier of AMC’s “The Walking Dead” tonight.