Monthly Archives: March 2018

Book: “The Axioms of Scientology” by L. Ron Hubbard (1972)

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Written by Mr. Hubbard in 1954, the Scientology Axioms are a condensation of all earlier Axioms and Logics. These Axioms are truths which are proven by all of life and which represent the most succinct distillation of wisdom regarding the nature of the human spirit (scientologyreligion.org).

Axiom 1

Life is basically a Static.

Definition: A Life Static has no mass, no motion, no wavelength, no location in space or in time. It has the ability to postulate and perceive.

Axiom 2

The Static is capable of considerations, postulates and opinions.

Axiom 3

Space, energy, objects, form and time are the result of considerations made and/or agreed upon or not by the Static, and are perceived solely because the Static considers that it can perceive them.

Axiom 4

Space is a viewpoint of dimension.

Axiom 5

Energy consists of postulated particles in space.

Axiom 6

Objects consist of grouped particles and also of solid masses.

Axiom 7

Time is basically a postulate that space and particles will persist.

Axiom 8

The apparency of time is the change of position of particles in space.

Axiom 9

Change is the primary manifestation of time.

Axiom 10

The highest purpose in this Universe is the creation of an effect.

Axiom 11

The considerations resulting in conditions of existence are fourfold:

a. As-isness is the condition of immediate creation without persistence, and is the condition of existence which exists at the moment of creation and the moment of destruction, and is different from other considerations in that it does not contain survival.

b. Alter-isness is the consideration which introduces change, and therefore time and persistence, into an As-isness to obtain persistency.

c. Isness is an apparency of existence brought about by the continuous alteration of an As-isness. This is called, when agreed upon, Reality.

d. Not-isness is the effort to handle Isness by reducing its condition through the use of force. It is an apparency and cannot entirely vanquish an Isness.

Axiom 12

The primary condition of any universe is that two spaces, energies or objects must not occupy the same space. When this condition is violated (perfect duplicate) the apparency of any universe or any part thereof is nulled.

Axiom 13

The Cycle-of-Action of the physical universe is: Creation, Survival, Destruction.

Axiom 14

Survival is accomplished by Alter-isness and Not-isness, by which is gained the persistency known as time.

Axiom 15

Creation is accomplished by the postulation of an As-isness.

Axiom 16

Complete destruction is accomplished by the postulation of the As-isness of any existence and the parts thereof.

Axiom 17

The Static, having postulated As-isness, then practices Alter-isness, and so achieves the apparency of Isness and so obtains Reality.

Axiom 18

The Static, in practicing Not-isness, brings about the persistence of unwanted existences, and so brings about unreality, which includes forgetfulness, unconsciousness and other undesirable states.

Axiom 19

Bringing the Static to view As-is any condition devaluates that condition.

Axiom 20

Bringing the Static to create a perfect duplicate causes the vanishment of any existence or part thereof.

A perfect duplicate is an additional creation of the object, its energy and space, in its own space, in its own time, using its own energy. This violates the condition that two objects must not occupy the same space, and causes vanishment of the object.

Axiom 21

Understanding is composed of Affinity, Reality and Communication.

Axiom 22

The practice of Not-isness reduces Understanding.

Axiom 23

The Static has the capability of total Knowingness. Total Knowingness would consist of total ARC.

Axiom 24

Total ARC would bring about the vanishment of all mechanical conditions of existence.

Axiom 25

Affinity is a scale of attitude which falls away from the co-existence of Static, through the interpositions of distance and energy, to create identity, down to close proximity but mystery.

By the practice of Isness (Beingness) and Not-isness (refusal to Be) individuation progresses from the Knowingness of complete identification down through the introduction of more and more distance and less and less duplication, through Lookingness, Emotingness, Effortingness, Thinkingness, Symbolizingness, Eatingness, Sexingness, and so through to Not-Knowingness (Mystery). Until the point of Mystery is reached, some communication is possible, but even at Mystery an attempt to communicate continues. Here we have, in the case of an individual, a gradual falling-away from the belief that one can assume a complete Affinity down to the conviction that all is a complete Mystery. Any individual is somewhere on this Know to Mystery Scale. The original Chart of Human Evaluation was the Emotion section of this scale.

Axiom 26

Reality is the agreed-upon apparency of existence.

Axiom 27

An Actuality can exist for one individually, but when it is agreed with by others it can then be said to be a Reality.

The anatomy of Reality is contained in Isness, which is composed of As-isness and Alter-isness. Isness is an apparency, it is not an Actuality. The Actuality is As-isness altered so as to obtain a persistency.

Unreality is the consequence and apparency of the practice of Not-isness.

Axiom 28

Communication is the consideration and action of impelling an impulse or particle from source-point across a distance to receipt-point, with the intention of bringing into being at the receipt-point a duplication and understanding of that which emanated from the source-point.

The Formula of Communication is: Cause, Distance, Effect, with Intention, Attention and Duplication with Understanding.

The component parts of Communication are Consideration, Intention, Attention, Cause, Source-point, Distance, Effect, Receipt-point, Duplication, Understanding, the Velocity of the impulse or particle, Nothingness or Somethingness. A non-Communication consists of Barriers. Barriers consist of Space, Interpositions (such as walls and screens of fast-moving particles) and Time. A communication, by definition, does not need to be two-way. When a communication is returned, the Formula is repeated, with the Receipt-point now becoming a Source-point and the former Source-point now becoming a Receipt-point.

Axiom 29

In order to cause an As-isness to persist, one must assign other authorship to the creation than his own. Otherwise, his view of it would cause its vanishment.

Any space, energy, form, object, individual or physical universe condition can exist only when an alteration has occurred of the original As-isness so as to prevent a casual view from vanishing it. In other words, anything which is persisting must contain a “lie” so that the original consideration is not completely duplicated.

Axiom 30

The general rule of auditing is that anything which is unwanted and yet persists must be thoroughly viewed, at which time it will vanish.

If only partially viewed, its intensity, at least, will decrease.

Axiom 31

Goodness and Badness, Beautifulness and Ugliness, are alike considerations and have no other basis than opinion.

Axiom 32

Anything which is not directly observed tends to persist.

Axiom 33

Any As-isness which is altered by Not-isness (by force) tends to persist.

Axiom 34

Any Isness, when altered by force, tends to persist.

Axiom 35

The Ultimate Truth is a Static.

A Static has no mass, meaning, mobility, no wavelength, no time, no location in space, no space.

This has the technical name of “Basic Truth.”

Axiom 36

A lie is a second postulate, statement or condition designed to mask a primary postulate which is permitted to remain.

Examples:

Neither truth nor a lie is a motion or alteration of a particle from one position to another.

A lie is a statement that a particle having moved did not move, or a statement that a particle not having moved did move.

The basic lie is that a consideration which was made was not made, or that it was different.

Axiom 37

When a primary consideration is altered but still exists, persistence is achieved for the altering consideration.

All persistence depends on the Basic Truth, but the persistence is of the altering consideration, for the Basic Truth has neither persistence nor impersistence.

Axiom 38

1: Stupidity is the unknownness of consideration.

2: Mechanical Definition: Stupidity is the unknownness of time, place, form and event.

1: Truth is the exact consideration.

2: Truth is the exact time, place, form and event.

Thus we see that failure to discover Truth brings about stupidity.

Thus we see that the discovery of Truth would bring about an As-isness by actual experiment.

Thus we see that an Ultimate Truth would have no time, place, form or event.

Thus, then, we perceive that we can achieve a persistence only when we mask a truth.

Lying is an alteration of time, place, event or form.

Lying becomes Alter-isness, becomes stupidity.

(The blackness of cases is an accumulation of the case’s own or another’s lies.)

Anything which persists must avoid As-isness. Thus, anything to persist must contain a lie.

Axiom 39

Life poses problems for its own solution.

Axiom 40

Any problem, to be a problem, must contain a lie. If it were truth, it would unmock.

An “unsolvable problem” would have the greatest persistence. It would also contain the greatest number of altered facts.

To make a problem, one must introduce Alter-isness.

Axiom 41

That into which Alter-isness is introduced becomes a problem.

Axiom 42

Mest (Matter, Energy, Space, Time) persists because it is a problem.

It is a problem because it contains Alter-isness.

Axiom 43

Time is the primary source of untruth.

Time states the untruth of consecutive considerations.

Axiom 44

Theta (the Static) has no location in Matter, Energy, Space or Time. It is capable of consideration.

Axiom 45

Theta can consider itself to be placed, at which moment it becomes placed, and to that degree a problem.

Axiom 46

Theta can become a problem by its considerations but then becomes Mest.

A problem is to some degree Mest. Mest is a problem.

Axiom 47

Theta can resolve problems.

Axiom 48

Life is a game wherein Theta as the Static solves the problems of Theta as Mest.

Axiom 49

To solve any problem it is only necessary to become theta the solver rather than theta the problem.

Axiom 50

Theta as Mest must contain considerations which are lies.

Axiom 51

Postulates and live communication not being Mest and being senior to Mest can accomplish change in Mest without bringing about a persistence of Mest. Thus auditing can occur.

Axiom 52

Mest persists and solidifies to the degree that it is not granted life.

Axiom 53

A Stable Datum is necessary to the alignment of data.

Axiom 54

A tolerance of confusion and an agreed-upon Stable Datum on which to align the data in a confusion are at once necessary for a sane reaction on the eight dynamics. This defines sanity.

Axiom 55

The Cycle-of-Action is a consideration. Create, Survive, Destroy, the Cycle-of-Action accepted by the GE, is only a consideration which can be changed by the thetan making a new consideration or different action cycles.

Axiom 56

Theta brings order to chaos.

Corollary: Chaos brings disorder to theta.

Axiom 57

Order manifests when Communication, Control and Havingness are available to theta.

Definitions:

Communication: The interchange of ideas across space.

Control: Positive postulating, which is intention, and the execution thereof.

Havingness: That which permits the experience of mass and pressure.

Axiom 58

Intelligence and judgment are measured by the ability to evaluate relative importances.

Corollary: The ability to evaluate importances and unimportances is the highest faculty of logic.

Corollary: Identification is a monotone assignment of importance.

Corollary: Identification is the inability to evaluate differences in time, location, form, composition or importance.

The above is a summary of states of being which can be used to create, cause to persist or destroy.

HAVING AGREED TO THE MECHANICS AND RETAINING THE AGREEMENTS, THE THETAN CAN YET MAKE INNUMERABLE POSTULATES WHICH, BY THEIR CONTRADICTION AND COMPLEXITY, CREATE, CAUSE TO PERSIST AND DESTROY HUMAN BEHAVIOR.

(Suggested by Richard Branam.)

Book: “The Story of my Life” by Helen Keller

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Helen Keller

Born in Tuscumbia, Alabama,
June 27, 1880
Died June 01, 1968


Helen Keller would not be bound by conditions. Rendered deaf and blind at 19 months by scarlet fever, she learned to read (in several languages) and even speak, eventually graduating with honors from Radcliffe College in 1904, where as a student she wrote The Story of My Life. That she accomplished all of this in an age when few women attended college and the disabled were often relegated to the background, spoken of only in hushed tones, is remarkable. But Keller’s many other achievements are impressive by any standard: she authored 13 books, wrote countless articles, and devoted her life to social reform. An active and effective suffragist, pacifist, and socialist (the latter association earned her an FBI file), she lectured on behalf of disabled people everywhere. She also helped start several foundations that continue to improve the lives of the deaf and blind around the world.

As a young girl Keller was obstinate, prone to fits of violence, and seething with rage at her inability to express herself. But at the age of 7 this wild child was transformed when, at the urging of Alexander Graham Bell, Anne Sullivan became her teacher, an event she declares “the most important day I remember in all my life.” (Sullivan herself had once been blind, but partially recovered her sight after a series of operations.) In a memorable passage, Keller writes of the day “Teacher” led her to a stream and repeatedly spelled out the letters w-a-t-e-r on one of her hands while pouring water over the other. This method proved a revelation: “That living world awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away.” And, indeed, most of them were.

In her lovingly crafted and deeply perceptive autobiography, Keller’s joyous spirit is most vividly expressed in her connection to nature:

Indeed, everything that could hum, or buzz, or sing, or bloom, had a part in my education…. Few know what joy it is to feel the roses pressing softly into the hand, or the beautiful motion of the lilies as they sway in the morning breeze. Sometimes I caught an insect in the flower I was plucking, and I felt the faint noise of a pair of wings rubbed together in a sudden terror….

The idea of feeling rather than hearing a sound, or of admiring a flower’s motion rather than its color, evokes a strong visceral sensation in the reader, giving The Story of My Life a subtle power and beauty. Keller’s celebration of discovery becomes our own. In the end, this blind and deaf woman succeeds in sharpening our eyes and ears to the beauty of the world. –Shawn Carkonen

Invention by Thomas Edison (That You’ve Never Heard Of)

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BY MARTHA BARKSDALE (science.howstuffworks.com)

The Spirit Phone
Wouldn’t it be cool if you could just dial up a spirit? © H. ARMSTRONG ROBERTS/CORBIS

Taking the idea of the telephone and the telegraph a bit further, Edison announced in October of 1920 that he was working on a machine to open the lines of communication with the spirit world. In the aftermath of World War I, spiritualism was undergoing a revival, and many people hoped science could provide a means to access the souls of the recently deceased. The inventor, himself an agnostic who admitted he had no idea if a spirit world even existed, spoke of his quest in several magazines and explained to The New York Times that his machine would measure what he described as the life units that scatter through the universe after death.

Edison corresponded with British inventor Sir William Crookes, who claimed to have captured images on “spirit photographs.” These photos allegedly encouraged Edison, but he never introduced any machine that he said could communicate with the dead, and after his own death in 1931, no machine was found. Many people believe he was just playing a joke on the reporters he’d talked to about his “spirit phone.”

Some people claimed that at a séance in 1941, Edison’s spirit told the participants that three of his assistants possessed the plans. The machine was reportedly then built, but did not work. Later, at another séance, Edison supposedly suggested some improvements. Inventor J. Gilbert Wright was present and worked on the machine until his own death in 1959, but, as far as we know, never used it to contact spirits.

I and Thou: Philosopher Martin Buber on the Art of Relationship and What Makes Us Real to One Another

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By Maria Popova (brainpickings.org)

“Relationship is the fundamental truth of this world of appearance,” the Indian poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore — the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize — wrote in contemplating human nature and the interdependence of existence. Relationship is what makes a forest a forest and an ocean an ocean. To meet the world on its own terms and respect the reality of another as an expression of that world as fundamental and inalienable as your own reality is an art immensely rewarding yet immensely difficult — especially in an era when we have ceased to meet one another as whole persons and instead collide as fragments.

How to master the orientation of heart, mind, and spirit essential for the art of sincere and honorable relationship is what philosopher Martin Buber (February 8, 1878–June 13, 1965) explores in his 1923 classic I and Thou (public library) — the foundation of Buber’s influential existentialist philosophy of dialogue.

Martin Buber

Three decades before Buddhist philosopher Alan Watts cautioned that “Life and Reality are not things you can have for yourself unless you accord them to all others,”Buber considers the layers of reality across which life and relationship unfold:

To the man the world is twofold, in accordance with his twofold attitude.

The attitude of man is twofold, in accordance with the twofold nature of the primary words which he speaks.

The primary words are not isolated words, but combined words.

The one primary word is the combination I–Thou.

The other primary word is the combination I–It; wherein, without a change in the primary word, one of the words He and She can replace It.

Hence the I of man is also twofold. For the I of the primary word I–Thou is a different I from that of the primary word I–It.

In consonance with poet Elizabeth Alexander’s beautiful insistence that “we encounter each other in words… words to consider, reconsider,” and with bryologist Robin Wall Kimmerer’s conviction that words confer dignity upon that which they name, Buber adds:

Primary words do not signify things, but they intimate relations.

Primary words do not describe something that might exist independently of them, but being spoken they bring about existence.

Primary words are spoken from the being.

If Thou is said, the I of the combination I–Thou is said along with it.

If It is said, the I of the combination I–It is said along with it.

The primary word I–Thou can only be spoken with the whole being.

The primary word I–It can never be spoken with the whole being.

[…]

Every It is bounded by others; It exists only through being bounded by others. But when Thou is spoken, there is no thing. Thou has no bounds.

When Thou is spoken, the speaker has no thing; he has indeed nothing. But he takes his stand in relation.

Art by Olivier Tallec from Big Wolf & Little Wolf — a tender tale of transformation through relationship

Each battery, Buber argues, has a place and a function in human life — I–Itestablishes the world of experience and sensation, which arises in the space between the person and the world by its own accord, and I–Thou establishes the world of relationship, which asks of each person a participatory intimacy. Thou addresses another not as an object but as a presence — the highest in philosopher Amelie Rorty’s seven layers of personhood, which she defines as “the return of the unchartable soul.” Buber writes:

If I face a human being as my Thou, and say the primary word I–Thou to him, he is not a thing among things, and does not consist of things.

Thus human being is not He or She, bounded from every other He and She, a specific point in space and time within the net of the world; nor is he a nature able to be experienced and described, a loose bundle of named qualities. But with no neighbour, and whole in himself, he is Thou and fills the heavens. This does not mean that nothing exists except himself. But all else lives in his light.

Buber offers a symphonic counterpoint to the presently fashionable fragmentation of whole human beings into sub-identities:

Just as the melody is not made up of notes nor the verse of words nor the statue of lines, but they must be tugged and dragged till their unity has been scattered into these many pieces, so with the man to whom I say Thou. I can take out from him the colour of his hair, or of his speech, or of his goodness. I must continually do this. But each time I do it he ceases to be Thou.

[…]

I do not experience the man to whom I say Thou. But I take my stand in relation to him, in the sanctity of the primary word. Only when I step out of it do I experience him once more… Even if the man to whom I say Thou is not aware of it in the midst of his experience, yet relation may exist. For Thou is more that It realises. No deception penetrates here; here is the cradle of the Real Life.

“Real isn’t how you are made… It’s a thing that happens to you.” Illustration for The Velveteen Rabbit by Japanese artist Komako Sakai.

To address another as Thou, Buber suggests, requires a certain self-surrender that springs from inhabiting one’s own presence while at the same time stepping outside one’s self. Only then does the other cease to be a means to one’s own ends and becomes real. Buber writes:

The primary word I–Thou can be spoken only with the whole being. Concentration and fusion into the whole being can never take place through my agency, nor can it ever take place without me. I become through my relation to the Thou; as I become I, I say Thou.

All real living is meeting.

[…]

No aim, no lust, and no anticipation intervene between I and Thou. Desire itself is transformed as it plunges out of its dream into the appearance. Every means is an obstacle. Only when every means has collapsed does the meeting come about.

I and Thou, translated by Ronald Gregor Smith, is a sublime read in its entirety. Complement it with physicist David Bohm on the art of dialogue and what is keeping us from listening to one another, Amin Maalouf on identity and belonging, and Ursula K. Le Guin on the magic of real human communication.

Thinking Quantum

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Perimeter PhD student Barak Shoshany has collected his notes from three summers of teaching quantum theory to high…

Posted by Perimeter Institute on Monday, March 26, 2018

Biography: Ramana Maharshi

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Ramana Maharshi
Sri Ramana Maharshi - Portrait - G. G Welling - 1948.jpg

Sri Ramana Maharshi in his late 60s.
Religion Hinduism
Philosophy Advaita Vedanta
Personal
Nationality Indian
Born Venkataraman Iyer
30 December 1879
Tiruchuzhi, Madras Presidency, British India
Died 14 April 1950 (aged 70)
Sri Ramana Ashram, Tiruvannamalai, India
Guru Arunachala
Literary works Nān Yār? (“Who am I?”)
Five Hymns to Arunachala
Quotation:  Of all the thoughts that rise in the mind, the thought ‘I’ is the first thought.
Part of a series on
Advaita
SwansCygnus olor.jpg

Ramana Maharshi /ˈrʌmənə məhʌˈrɪʃi/ (30 December 1879 – 14 April 1950) was a Hindu sage[1] and jivanmukta.[2] He was born Venkataraman Iyer, but is most commonly known by the name Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi.[3]

He was born in what is now Tiruchuli, Tamil Nadu, India. In 1895, an attraction to the sacred hill Arunachala and the 63 Nayanars was aroused in him,[4] and in 1896, at the age of 16, he had a “death-experience” where he became aware of a “current” or “force” (avesam) which he recognised as his true “I” or “self”,[web 1][5] which he later identified with Ishvara. This resulted in a state that he later described as “the state of mind of Iswara or the jnani”.[web 1][note 2] Six weeks later he left his uncle’s home in Madurai, and journeyed to the holy mountain Arunachala, in Tiruvannamalai, where he took on the role of a sannyasin (though not formally initiated), and remained for the rest of his life.

He soon attracted devotees who regarded him as an avatar and came to him for darshan (“the sight of God”), and in later years an ashram grew up around him, where visitors received upadesa (“spiritual instruction”)[7] by sitting silently in his company asking questions.[8] Since the 1930s his teachings have been popularized in the West, resulting in his worldwide recognition as an enlightened being.[9]

Ramana Maharshi approved a number of paths and practices,[3] but recommended self-enquiry as the principal means to remove ignorance and abide in Self-awareness,[web 2][10] together with bhakti (devotion) or surrender to the Self.

More at:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramana_Maharshi

SUNDAY NIGHT TRANSLATION GROUP — MARCH 25, 2018

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Translation  is a 5-step system of syllogistic reasoning using words and their meanings and histories to transform the testimony of the senses and uncover the underlying timeless reality of Being/Consciousness.

Translators:  Hanz Bolen, Melissa Goodnight, Richard Branam, Mike Zonta.

Sense testimony:

Perpetual exposure to too much negativity can be toxic and prevent intuitive solutions.

Conclusions:

1)  Truth is uninterruptedly knowing, seeing Itself, the substance of all that is, firmly in place, inalterably whole, complete and perfect, the Universal solvent, the unveiled and unveilable tutor within.
2)  The Infinite One, That I AM, is always already boundlessly free and absolutely protected, by the Perfect Panacea of innate/inherent True Identity as Consciousness Beingness.
3)  The Self Evident Radiance of Healthy Joyous, Beautiful Essential Well Being is Clear, Sound Agreeable and Valiant in each and every Individuation and all presence of I We Thou Truth. // Clear Radiant Truth is Ever-present Beautiful Valiant Always,
4)  To come.

The Sunday Night Translation Group meets at 7pm Pacific time via Skype. There is also a Sunday morning Translation group which meets at 7am Pacific time via GoToMeeting.com.  See Upcoming Events on the BB to join, or start a group of your own.