For a long time I have been objecting to the dianetic principle of existence: Survive! I object because it is not the be-all, end-all stable datum for me and, apparently, many of my pc/clients. Survive! is a fine principle for a plant or animal body or organization. I assert that this kind of survival just motivates me only so far then it fails. At a very young age I looked at others working their butts off at a job they did not like, to buy a car, to get to the work they hated. Something about that just rubs me the wrong way.
There is another motivating force that is something else, not grounded in materialism. I have no word to describe it, perhaps, because no word can describe something so grounded in spirit. But it is easy for a spiritual being to discern. It comes to us as fantastic and even subtle moments of enlightenment. It is with us when we are on a right path, as Joseph Campbell would say, following one's bliss.
What is the other motivating force? It is spirit itself. It appears anywhere and everywhere. In sessions it has come to me as that sense that one's spiritual toilet has been flushed of ego, survival concerns, ill-will, and materialism. That flush brings about a genuine, persistent floating needle, an actual new realization about life, not just a reordering of priorities and perceptions (like a pretended "cog" to call off the process), and unmistakable good indicators, the type that attracts hap and spiritual teammates on similar paths.
From <http://montalk.net/matrix/157/spiritless-humans>:
Consequences of Lacking a Spirit
With the preceding in mind [text of article], consider what happens when someone has body, ego, and soul, but lacks spirit. First and foremost, their entire makeup would be the result of material influences like genetics and environment. The seat of their apparent intelligence would be the ego. And without the counterweight of spirit, their ego would reign king. Thus, in accordance with the function of ego, such people would be completely dedicated to material and social survival.
[Completely dedicated to "Survival!," as implied in DMSMH]
Notice that people with spirit who are awake to their spiritual impulses often make willful choices that serve no financial, social, or egotistic gains, that go against the expectations of Darwinian evolutionary principles, and that serve only spiritual ends. [Did hubbard or his church ever make a choice that served no financial, social, or egotistical gain? Probably not.] Such impulses are absent in spiritless people, thus they are truly optimized for survival in the physical world. Without conscience, empathy, or inner battle between ego and spirit holding them back, they can more quickly and easily succeed in their worldly environments regardless of the cost to others. [Here is a partial description of classic narcissism, very much hubbard.]
I found the hubbard books interesting enough even when I had my doubts. This is what got me started in my dianetic/scientology adventure -- reading, searching. The books, however, were not enough to hold me there. It was not enough to draw me into a church. I did not like churches.
Once I set foot in the door, the courses were not enough to captivate me. I had other plans for my life. I connected to the people, and not any people, but to specific ones. To this day, we are connected, by something intangible. Though we may not correspond in the physical world, we are nevertheless in a timeless correspondence of sorts.
What is that intangible yet very real something? It is spirit.