Buddhism vs. Scientology.

[Petey C]

First off, I don't know if there really are past lives. I just like the idea, so I entertain the idea. And I credit memories of them because it makes me happy and gives my life meaning. Sort of like a Christian believing that Jesus will take them up to Heaven where they will live in eternal bliss. Might not be true, but, hey, sure makes life easier to bear.

Or you could say that it's a sort of risk management. If you believe in God and that belief turns out to be right, you win. If you don't believe in God and you turn out to be wrong, oops, you lose. (If you don't believe and there is no God, then no win/loss. If you do believe and there is no God, then oops again.)

 

[BardoThodol]

I have no conclusion one way or another if "past lives" recall is real. I ran zillions of hours of it. If true it could be very cool. If not true, something else could be very cool. Doesn't really matter to me.

But, you seem to be pretty certain that it is real.

I will relay something that I experienced after Scientology.

When I sold my first screenplay, I began writing a lot of scripts. Sometimes alone, sometimes with a collaborator. Doing that kind of creative work for years, the creative facility called imagination gets quite a workout and improves in much the same way that lifting weights produces muscles.

When I was in writing sessions I did not find any difference between the phenomena that I experienced from when I was in session. The "pictures" were always there to "find". I went through the steps of trying to figure out what it all meant, as if coming thru a haze into a bright clearing--upon which I would brighten up tremendously with an epiphany. In this case, it was how the scene worked and how it all fit together for the entire story structure and puzzle. It produced "FN" and "VGI's" and a "COGNITION" and "RELEASE".

There wasn't the slightest difference between using the imagination and auditing, in my experience.

Do you reserve a part of your thinking to consider the possibility that running wholetrack pictures might just be imagination?

HH,

Look, I know this is a lot to ask, but could you go back into screen writing? At least as a consultant.

My son and I went to the new Bourne movie yesterday. I mean the concept had so much potential. Yet...yet...bleghhhhaghhh! It was so friggin' mediocre. Not bad, but just such a disappointment.

Speaking of movies, one of my favorite fictional characters is Jack Reacher from the Lee Child novels. The guy is 6'5" and 250 lbs. He's an elemental force of justice and ethics.

So guess who the mental midgets in Hollywood cast to play the role. 5'6" TC.

Maybe they're dyslexic. I mean 6'5" looks like 5'6". Sort of.

Lee Child has some very pissed off readers.

 

[uniquemand]

Ummm... gee! Why do you think the guy who played Jason Bourne for the first three movies opted out of participation in another?

 

[BardoThodol]

Ummm... gee! Why do you think the guy who played Jason Bourne for the first three movies opted out of participation in another?

Uh, didn't think of that.

Except the plot line was there were other agents of the Jason Bourne mold, all hyped up on chemicals which enhanced their abilities.

Sort of like some of the Chinese athletes.

I'm sure none of the Americans would do anything like that to improve their performance. Such as that American swimmer from the last Olympics who was about 40 years old and still swimming sprints. Surely not.

So, why pay Matt Damon BIG bucks when his character's presence wasn't essential?

 

[HelluvaHoax!]

HH,

Look, I know this is a lot to ask, but could you go back into screen writing? At least as a consultant.

My son and I went to the new Bourne movie yesterday. I mean the concept had so much potential. Yet...yet...bleghhhhaghhh! It was so friggin' mediocre. Not bad, but just such a disappointment.

Speaking of movies, one of my favorite fictional characters is Jack Reacher from the Lee Child novels. The guy is 6'5" and 250 lbs. He's an elemental force of justice and ethics.

So guess who the mental midgets in Hollywood cast to play the role. 5'6" TC.

Maybe they're dyslexic. I mean 6'5" looks like 5'6". Sort of.

Lee Child has some very pissed off readers.

Yeah, the percentages of well-written films has plummeted decade by decade but fortunately there are still masterpieces that come out occasionally. Just nowhere near the volume as previously for many factors.

The transition from owner-operated studios to corporations indelibly changed things as hands-on decision-making went to committees and were driven by film executives that operated more like focus groups than visionaries. You can see that old-school model still at work in some corners like Harvey Weinstein's independent film company (Miramax) that has turned out a very high number of films of extraordinary quality.

Somehow some amazing movie projects still manage to get made in spite of the blockbuster mentality.

Another factor is that the craft of story structure and writing itself has taken a backseat to formulaic screenplays, sequelmania and "high concept" story lines struggling a losing battle to build a 2 hour motion picture around a "hook".

I could go on and on but it is still worth it to me to see dozens upon dozens of mediocre or abysmally inferior movies just to find that rare gem. God, even a hundred pieces of junk are worth seeing to me to find one great fllm watching experience. I kind of still regard it an almost sacred moment to have the privilege of seeing great artists collaborate in a masterwork.

Sorry for the brief derail from Buddhism and Scientology.....

Hey! How about a time-travel, buddy-film about Buddha & Ron--starring John Travolta and Tom Cruise? LOLOL

 

[HelluvaHoax!]

TThe ability to read an undeciphered script like Minoan Linear A, for instance, would be pretty hard to explain other than by reincarnation.

(I think it would be very hard to fake that just by making stuff up and pretending that you were reading Linear A, because linguists could tell almost immediately if you were doing that. They would give you a hundred apparently similar texts in Linear A characters, some of which were real texts from archaeological sites and some of which were fakes composed at random, and if you couldn't immediately and exactly pick out the real ones, you'd be discredited.)

In fact, the fact that nobody has so far come forward with a remembered translation of Linear A is itself a pretty good indication that there are no real past lives. Or at least, that past lives don't fit the preferred New Age ideal! Not everybody can be an Antlantean, after all, and with being priests or royalty of ancient Minoa being the next best thing, you'd really think we'd have found quite a few people who were literate in Linear A by now ...

Great points. But that never stopped a faux guru and a cotillion of cavorting cultees before.

For example, Mormon "Source" Joseph Smith's transcendental "translation" resulting in the Book of Mormon. The magical "stone" he used as a prop was the same variety that he had used earlier when scamming local farmers that he did "readings" for in order to discover where riches lay buried their land. He was convicted and sentenced as any good con man deserves. But a huge religion was formed around his "sacred scripture" in spite of that.

Emma Smith, wife of Joseph Smith
"In writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the (seer) stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us." (History of the RLDS Church, 8 vols. Herald House, 1951, Volume 3, page 356, "Last Testimony of Sister Emma.")

The great number of uncanny parallels between the cult of Mormon and the cult of Scientology abundantly support the fact that the human threshold of naiveté & delusion is easily low enough to allow con men to go unnoticed by an eager and growing congregation.

Even this message board has devotees who speak in reverential tones about the "tech" and its wonders, despite a nano-scale autopsy of Hubbard & Scientology having been performed on the very Internet and Message board that they are using! LOL.

 

[Student of Trinity]

Standards for assessing validity or invalidity sometimes baffle me. ... [Sometimes one fact is not decisive.] ... Sometimes one fact is enough.

Sometimes there's no clear answer. I like the investment analogy for belief. I would even say it's like gambling. Sometimes you just have to decide where to put your chips, and hope that the dice roll your way.

Only things that can be tested get to count as science, but not everything worth holding an opinion about can be tested. Refusing to believe anything without decisive evidence seems to me to be like insisting on looking under the street lamp for your car keys, even though you probably dropped them in the dark alley, because the light is so much better under the lamp. If you do that you'll be less likely to stub your toe in the dark, but you'll also be less likely to find the keys. Still, if there is any reason at all to hope that the keys might be under the lamp, then it's only smart to look there first, because that's quick and easy, and it might save you the long and difficult search in the alley. So my attitude is to try to test any belief that can be tested.

I don't see any way of establishing by test that absolutely no-one can remember past lives. But I do think it's clear that most past life memories must be bogus, because it's so hard to see why there'd be nothing useful, or as convincing as a Linear A translation, out of that many genuine past-life memories. But maybe there are a few genuine ones amid the mass of false ones, and we just haven't been lucky enough for those few to include anything useful. I myself don't believe in any past lives at all, but that's just my personal chip placement. I don't think that anybody should believe that most past-life memories are real, though, because I think the theory that most past-life memories are real can be tested, and the test says No.

That test of past-life memories doesn't prove there are no past lives, of course. It could just be that most people have past lives but don't accurately remember them. My understanding is that this is in line with Buddhist teaching, where memory of past lives is supposed to come only with quite a high degree of enlightenment, or something like that. Scientology, on the other hand, seems to say that accurate memory of past lives is routinely available with just a bit of auditing. This seems like a pretty sharp difference between Buddhism and Scientology.

 

[Demented LRH]

I think it is helpful to keep an open mind about the existence of past lives. Certain things, including ability to recall phrases spoken in foreign languages, do indicate possibility that we are dealing with recollections of past lives. When all other explanations of recall of foreign languages are ruled out, one has no choice but to admit that the phenomenon in question is a memory of an episode from a past life.

I suggest to use old newspapers, if it is possible, to confirm that a subject had recalled the events from his past life correctly. If he is honest about the recollections, meaning that he did not study the material prior to a past lives recall session, then there is no alternate explanation of his memories of the, say, past century events in a certain country.

In nay case, a smart investigator should be able to design a past lives recall experiment in such way that would exclude possibility of a fraud.

 

[Mark A. Baker]

... we'd have found quite a few people who were literate in Linear A by now ...

Weren't all that many people literate in Linear A the first time round.

FWIW, I suspect that Mahayan Buddhist views on karma come closest to an understanding of any mechanism (immaterial of course) which might account for past life memories.

Simply put (a bit over-simplified actually) what is remembered is that which holds some sort of fundamental significance to the conscious entity. This also naturally accounts for emotionally charged subjects & concepts being the focus of instances of apparent regression


Mark A. Baker

 

[Mark A. Baker]

... Do you reserve a part of your thinking to consider the possibility that running wholetrack pictures might just be imagination?

Since I do not consider that information gleaned from running wholetrack is necessarily reliable, the distinction between wholetrack & imagination is not an important one to the discussion. It is only of significance to those who choose to believe that what they experience as whole track must be true.

That for which I see auditing as having value is in alleviating a condition of limitation which arises from fixed considerations. Whether that is achieved through mock-ups or recalls is a matter of technique. It's only lasting significance is the one the individual assigns to it.

It is as much an evaluation to say "this must be true" as it is to say "this can't be true". The only one with a fundamental right to evaluate is the pc himself.

The prime mistake most scientologists have made is in believing what they have been told.


Mark A. Baker

 

[Mark A. Baker]

... But I do think it's clear that most past life memories must be bogus, because it's so hard to see why there'd be nothing useful, or as convincing as a Linear A translation, out of that many genuine past-life memories. ... .

That presumes a certain standard of utility which in itself may well make little sense from the perspective of an apparently immortal and immaterial being undergoing experiences of limited physical existence.

That which apparently seems a sensible expectation from the perspective of a physically limited existence as an human being is not necessarily reasonable when viewed from the perspective of the interests of a truly spiritual existence. The personal conflict the more intelligent among monotheists have had at reconciling the fact of human & physical life with the concept of the will of god gives ample evidence of the inconsistency.


Mark A. Baker

 

[Student of Trinity]

Well, I suppose. But given the number of claimed past life memories, and the total lack of anything useful or testable in them, it wouldn't be enough of an explanation to say that spiritual beings were just ignoring practical usefulness or testability in selecting memories to preserve. To account for the total lack of useful or testable memories, you'd have to presume that spiritual beings are actively filtering usefulness out.

That could in principle be the case, but for me the suggestion really crosses a line where it sounds a damn sight too convenient, you know? It rings 'bogus' bells. I'm willing to squint a bit when weighing evidence about these kinds of things, but I'm not willing to poke myself in the eye.

 

[Mark A. Baker]

Well, I suppose. But given the number of claimed past life memories, and the total lack of anything useful or testable in them, it wouldn't be enough of an explanation to say that spiritual beings were just ignoring practical usefulness or testability in selecting memories to preserve. To account for the total lack of useful or testable memories, you'd have to presume that spiritual beings are actively filtering usefulness out.

That could in principle be the case, but for me the suggestion really crosses a line where it sounds a damn sight too convenient, you know? It rings 'bogus' bells. I'm willing to squint a bit when weighing evidence about these kinds of things, but I'm not willing to poke myself in the eye.

Actually I agree with you. However, when it comes to matters relating to spirituality I don't consider any testable hypotheses to prove likely to be useful. It is not even a matter where belief can be accounted to have value.

Spirituality and matters relating thereto for me is wholly a matter for personal experience. It can be informed by reason but not replaced thereby.


Mark A. Baker

 

[Gadfly]

Actually I agree with you. However, when it comes to matters relating to spirituality I don't consider any testable hypotheses to prove likely to be useful. It is not even a matter where belief can be accounted to have value.

Spirituality and matters relating thereto for me is wholly a matter for personal experience. It can be informed by reason but not replaced thereby.

Mark A. Baker

Well, I suspect that there is SOME TRUTH about what is REALLY going on. I don't KNOW for certain what that may be, though I have various theories.

If it is true that spirit precedes all manifestation (reality), on all levels physical, mental and emotional, and if it is true that each human being exists as a spark or flame of some great Central Spiritual Fire with similar abilities and traits, then there could be a way to define and explain all of these factors.

Part of this "truth" would be that reality is an illusion. Probably on all levels. And if that is true, the aspect of belief enters in as a key psychological factor dictating, affecting and even possibly defining and determining WHAT is viewed and experienced by any person.

Hubbard sort of attempted to explain such things in the PDC tapes, where the subject is defined as the "creation, maintenance and destruction of any and all universes". The book 8-8008 was said to be the "companion book" to the taped lectures. On only a certain level, to me, he may have gotten some of it right.

If there is a "spiritual" that exists as an actual basis of any and all realities, with the capability on the larger and smaller scales to "create any reality via imaginative fiat", then there COULD be a "subject" about such things that accurately defines and explains such things.

I disagree that "spirituality and matters relating thereto for me is wholly a matter for personal experience". Granted, for most people THAT is exactly what it is. Tibetan Buddhism has probably researched into this realm far more than any other group of people on Earth. Hubbard only pretended to do so.

Of course, such things will be greatly misunderstood by those who do not exist at the higher levels of awareness and ability of such things. Part of this spiritual subject would involve the notion of how and why any person's viewpoint affects and molds what is seen and experienced. But if THAT is the way it works, then that can be explained "scientifically". A problem is that people who are "stuck in illusions" cannot see or understand that any of what they see or understand IS an illusion. They mistake what they view as being "real" and "true" (objectively).

 

[Hatshepsut]

I'm gonna put this here cause I was kinda surprised at the crossing of paths between these two.

http://vajratool.wordpress.com/2010...ring-the-living-force-of-buddhism-to-britain/

With the outbreak of World War I he was forced to live in poverty and illness. Aleister Crowley tried to rekindle their friendship, but to no avail. By this time Crowley had rejected Buddhism in favour of his own reworking of the Hermetic Tradition; Bennett would have nothing to do with it. He remarked, “No Buddhist would consider it worthwhile to pass from the crystalline clearness of his own religion to this involved obscurity”

also: GOLDEN DAWN MEMBER Charles Henry Allan Bennett writes his Buddhist Essays after leaving roommate Aleister Crowley to his own developing practices. Bennett aka Ananada Metteya

http://hermetic.com/bennett/

-

http://carolineletkeman.org/propaganda/metteyya.html

Snippet

 

[onthepes]

I would like to pose this question to Scientologists -- how do you explain the fact that the Buddhists have not accepted Hubbard as Buddha?

good point. I was on staff at an Org. I read "Hymn of Asia" as did other staff. There were a couple of opinions that LRH said he was "THE" Buddha in a past life. When I read the "Hymn of Asia" I did not get that at all. I felt he was saying he was "Mettaya" (by the way , that is an equally gross concept so please don't think I am making Hubbard right - not the case). My understanding on "Mettaya" (please make me eat humble pie as I am okay with that) was that he was "A" buddha (or enlightened being) who was "carrying on and completing" the previous work initiated by "THE" Buddha. So as much as LRH was full of shit on many levels I don't feel he was saying he was "THE" Buddha. This is not a make wrong on my behalf. I just wanted to open it up. "A" Buddha is different to "The" Buddha. I have this reference from Wikipedia (yes I know it is not the ultimate, but it is a reference). As follows:
"
What is a Buddha?

Buddha is a word in the very old Indian languages Pāli and Sanskrit which means "Enlightened one". The word "Buddha" often means the historical Buddha named Buddha Shakyamuni (Siddhartha Gautama),[6] but "Buddha" does not mean just one man who lived at a certain time. It is used for a type of person, the equivalent of a prophet, and Buddhists believe there have been many - that there were Buddhas a very long time ago and there will be for a long time in the future.
Buddhists do not believe that a Buddha is a god, but that he is a human being who has woken up and can see the true way the world works. They believe this knowledge totally changes the person. Some say this puts them beyond birth, death, and rebirth. Others think this represents the final extinction of desire. This person can help others become enlightened too.
Who was the first Buddha?

According to Buddhism, there were countless Buddhas before Gautama Buddha and there will be many Buddhas after him. In short, he is not the first, nor will he be the last.
However, counting from the present kalpa (the beginning of our present universe) Buddha Gautama is considered the fourth Buddha. The first is Kakusandho Buddha, second Konakamano Buddha and the third Kassapo Buddha. The last Buddha of this kalpa will be Mettaya Buddha. Then the universe will renew itself and from then begins a new kalpa."

 

[Demented LRH]

good point. I was on staff at an Org. I read "Hymn of Asia" as did other staff. There were a couple of opinions that LRH said he was "THE" Buddha in a past life. When I read the "Hymn of Asia" I did not get that at all. I felt he was saying he was "Mettaya" (by the way , that is an equally gross concept so please don't think I am making Hubbard right - not the case). My understanding on "Mettaya" (please make me eat humble pie as I am okay with that) was that he was "A" buddha (or enlightened being) who was "carrying on and completing" the previous work initiated by "THE" Buddha. So as much as LRH was full of shit on many levels I don't feel he was saying he was "THE" Buddha. This is not a make wrong on my behalf. I just wanted to open it up. "A" Buddha is different to "The" Buddha. I have this reference from Wikipedia (yes I know it is not the ultimate, but it is a reference). As follows:
"
What is a Buddha?

Buddha is a word in the very old Indian languages Pāli and Sanskrit which means "Enlightened one". The word "Buddha" often means the historical Buddha named Buddha Shakyamuni (Siddhartha Gautama),[6] but "Buddha" does not mean just one man who lived at a certain time. It is used for a type of person, the equivalent of a prophet, and Buddhists believe there have been many - that there were Buddhas a very long time ago and there will be for a long time in the future.
Buddhists do not believe that a Buddha is a god, but that he is a human being who has woken up and can see the true way the world works. They believe this knowledge totally changes the person. Some say this puts them beyond birth, death, and rebirth. Others think this represents the final extinction of desire. This person can help others become enlightened too.
Who was the first Buddha?

According to Buddhism, there were countless Buddhas before Gautama Buddha and there will be many Buddhas after him. In short, he is not the first, nor will he be the last.
However, counting from the present kalpa (the beginning of our present universe) Buddha Gautama is considered the fourth Buddha. The first is Kakusandho Buddha, second Konakamano Buddha and the third Kassapo Buddha. The last Buddha of this kalpa will be Mettaya Buddha. Then the universe will renew itself and from then begins a new kalpa."

In Theravada Buddhism there are only 2 Buddhas -- Gautama, who is the historic Buddha and who lived approximately 2,500 years ago, and the future Buddha, whoes title is Maitreya (Meteyya), which means "Friend",
Mahayana Buddists believe in countless Buddhas who abide in various universes.
Habbard proclaimed himself either as a Buddha or as the Buddha. I do not understand his proclamation, and, frankly, I do not care about it.

 

[AnonKat]

Hubbard BEFORE OT3

From the Scientology lecture "The Hope of Man", L Ron Hubbard talks about Gautama Siddhartha Buddha.

[video=youtube;vzngYUP1jc4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vzngYUP1jc4[/video]

 

[ClearedSP]

And, in keeping with the Law of Commotion, before OT III he also equated the ep of Buddhism with spiritual death. I'll just scratch the surface, others can chip in with their favorites.

Now, Scientology would go the way of many other good things unless some thought is put upon its future. Buddhism went its way, collectively, and actually wound up enslaving people. Bum show. The East, the paralysis of the East, the fatalism of the East, and so forth, are as attributable to Buddhism as to any other single item. I don't know what Gautama Siddhartha said, but I sure know that people have been saying since, "If you just sat and regarded your navel for enough years and did nothing, you would become part of nirvana." And nirvana, as far as I can figure out, is the GPM.

The Buddhists spoke of Nirvana. Without knowing it, they spoke of vanishing forever into the GPM (Nirvana). They had become completely overwhelmed, lacking any meters and a map.

We are Scientologists. We won't fall into the abyss. And we won't join Nirvana. We have meters and a map. We know the rules and the way.

This the greatest adventure of all time. Clearing. The way is strewn with the skeletons and skulls of those who have tried over the past trillenia. The bottom of the Abyss is glutted with failures. Nirvana is choked with the overwhelmed. To say it is not a dangerous way would be false. Only the faint-hearted will add any bones to the Abyss or apathy to Nirvana.

 

[AnonKat]

And, in keeping with the Law of Commotion, before OT III he also equated the ep of Buddhism with spiritual death. I'll just scratch the surface, others can chip in with their favorites.

Actually that is how I view the break down of buhddism when it becomes apathic and a ritual nonsense. What's an EP ? Is that end product ?

I am glad there are still people like the Dalai lama to point to a more investigative and mystic side of Buhddism more in connection with developments in the world than visiting golden statues in temples burning incence although it is a very estetic thing like catholics burning a candle in a church.