part4.txt

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Ken Urquhart writes a regular column in the magazine International
Viewpoints called 'IVy on the Wall', and we bring here some of his
articles devoted to looking at Jon Atak's book 'A Piece of Blue Sky'.
These articles can also be found at
http://freezoneamerica.org/ivy/bluesky/.
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This one is from International Viewpoints (IVy) Issue 51- March 2001
See Home Page at http://home8.inet.tele.dk/ivy/




IVy on the Wall

By Ken Urquhart, USA



Comes the Dawn:

Chapter Four in a consideration of ' A Piece of Blue Sky' by Jon
Atack.


IN CHAPTER THREE, I proposed that L Ron Hubbard had contributed
three important differences to life that matter greatly -
chief amongst them being the discipline he developed that enables
the clearing practitioner to manage the session for the optimal
benefit
of the client who seeks the truth of his or her spirituality. And
I gave as my opinion that the discipline that the practitioner adopts
for his clients' sakes is the discipline of saintliness. This is not
to say that I elevate all of us practitioners to sainthood. I
simply say that the discipline a well-trained practitioner submits
to is a saintly one.

At the end of the last chapter I warned that I had even more to say
about Hubbard's contribution. Before I make good on this threat, I
would like to recapitulate the subject of saintliness just a little
bit, for the purpose of establishing the basis on which I will expand
to create Chapter 4.

Hubbard developed (not alone, others claim) vigorous and extensive
training regimens to ensure that the practitioner knows exactly how
to behave - in order to give the client full and free rein to
explore his or her spirituality - while refraining from the slightest
action that would distract the client, or would otherwise interfere
with the client's process of self-discovery. Even though nowadays
spirituality is becoming an acceptable and sometimes popular subject,
the idea of such self-discipline as LRH demanded of his practitioners
is utterly alien to suburbia. That something is unknown in suburbia
does not in itself make it right, of course, so why should this
discipline
be effective and why should it matter? The question leads us to:


Saintliness in Practice


LRH (or whoever around him claims it) built upon the principle
that if the practitioner listens to and understands what the
client is saying about an aspect of his or her spirituality, and then
lets the client know that he/she is understood, the client will
experience
relief. Now we all experienced that already; we have all felt we
just had to talk to someone, and all felt better for having got
it off our chest. Sometimes we talk to someone and don't feel good
afterwards because the one we talked to ignored what we had to say
and discussed something else.

The product of the discipline

What is new about Hubbard's use of this principle is that he trained
the practitioner

1.to not only understand what was said, but to
be sure that the client clearly knows that he understood it. And

2.then to understand it well enough to smoothly
direct the client's attention back to the subject so that the client
could look further and deeper into it, and to

3.continue this procedure until the client reaches
a point of very satisfactory understanding of the subject that he/she
had started with. This new understanding of self brings the client
to a more self-directed, rather than other-directed, behaviour in
life - which results in happier life for the client and those
around him/her.

LRH emphasized that every human being can be trusted with the truth
about him or herself, since every human is in truth decent,
responsible,
and caring. In every session the client takes a step or two closer
to full truth about self. When one knows the full truth about self,
one knows to what degree one is a body, or identity, and to what
degree
a spiritual and immortal entity; then one becomes fully aware of what
it is to be a spiritual entity and begins to see what the potential
thereof might be. Coming to truth about self, then, is to recognize
and embrace one's own spirituality. Sessioning as the clearing
practitioner
knows it is a basic mechanism of the bridge from the material to the
spiritual, or from non-awareness of spirituality, or lessened
awareness
thereof, to full awareness.

A spiritual leader of the past would recognize sessioning as the
beginning
of a very real connection between material reality and spiritual
reality,
and a practical way to bring to Earth those blessings that they wished
we all could earn. That, at any rate, is the postulate. How did it
work out in reality?


The pot well stirred...


Using the basic session discipline as a foundation, Hubbard built
up an approach to individual betterment. His approach suits some
better
than others. The questions of Who it works with and Why and How are
muddied by the facts that he commercialized his approach and built
up an organization to cultivate and protect his market share. His
organizations do their job partly through fostering exclusivity and
elitism amongst its members, particularly those who pay, and pay,
and pay, and keep on paying. Such feelings are both a self-fulfilling
prophecy and a treadmill that never stops for a moment: the more one
receives the perceived benefits the more exclusive and elite one
becomes.
The only way to remain elite or become more so is to receive more
benefits - therefore one forces oneself to experience benefits
and to proclaim them whether they be real or imaginary.

For some people the benefits they proclaim are real. But all members
oblige themselves to gratefully acknowledge the over-riding authority
of L. Ron Hubbard, a subservience that the management of the church
enforces constantly, meticulously, and jealously. To receive the
desired
benefit (or benediction) the member must perform the required ritual
before the gilded image. This is politics, not spirituality.

The 'independent' field, however, is a very un-managed agglomeration
of mostly individuals with very few organized groups and a few loose
associations. They apply differing approaches relating in some way
to Hubbard's. In this business, 'independent' always implies
'independent of the Church of Scientology', so the independence
revolves in some way around the subject of scientology. We see
approaches
that parallel Hubbard's but use different terminology. We find
approaches
that use parts of Hubbard's mechanisms with partially or completely
different content. We know of approaches that extend aspects of
Hubbard's
in different directions according to the leanings of the practitioner.
Some ex-scientologists develop their own approaches and describe them
as having nothing to do with Hubbard's ideas at all(1).


...and bubbling


Within these mixtures of orthodoxy, heterodoxy, reformation, protest,
breakaway, and so on, people are helping people more or less
effectively.
The really important thing is that the activity is happening,
continuing,
and developing. Out of this activity will come solutions.
Notwithstanding
the solutions, errors and outright wrongdoing will introduce new
problems
and distractions. Nonetheless, the thrust will be towards solution
for problems old and new. The world is beginning to wake up to the
fact that there are technologies, flawed as they might be now, that
promise relief from age-old stupidities and confusions. The world's
demand for solutions will call solutions forth.

Hubbard was and is a part of a universe-wide and pivotal evolution:
the change of basic focus in the universe away from problem and
towards
solution. The change of focus can be very painful for some. In the
part he played, Hubbard was partly solution and partly problem. We
all are thus. The Hubbard approach is partly solution and partly
problem.
All approaches are thus. All individuals and all approaches will be
thus for some time to come. If and when all individuals and activities
achieve solution in all things, the universe will disappear, and we
will find new and more interesting problems to experience and resolve
together. Meanwhile we have to accept that those who bring big
solutions
can also bring big problems.


Truth and Solution


Hubbard postulated the supreme ability of the spiritual entity to
be entirely truth. Truth is inseparable from solution. No solution
can embrace untruth; an attempted solution that includes untruth (even
if only to ignore the untruth in the problem 'addressed')
simply becomes another problem. Anything that persists, such as a
problem, or anything physical for that matter, any spiritual condition
other than entirely truth continues only because it contains
a lie or a number of lies. One of the principal lies concerns who
or what is the source of the condition and who is responsible for
it.

This is the basis of what workability there is in Hubbard's approach.
The practitioner guides the client to recognize in her own space and
time, any and all lies she is embracing that bring her to be in an
unwanted condition that her integrity tells her she should transform.
Given abilities on each side to work in this way, benefits result
because of the lies that are brought to light, examined, and
abandoned,
thus restoring truth. Given disabilities on either side to work this
way, problems result(2).

Hubbard's approach is not in practice universal, because he did not
find ways to overcome all disabilities in working this particular
way. I don't think one should fault him on this (one can fault him
on boasting that his approach is universal); I don't think any one
individual - or group for that matter - could possibly do
it in one lifetime. Others must contribute to the work, and all who
work on it in dedication will be working on it for some lifetimes.


Door to Truth


A major difference Hubbard's work brought us is, in my opinion, this:
He exercised a certain viewpoint of sanity, certainty, and solution
(yes, amidst personal and cultural nonsense), and out of this
viewpoint
he opened a door to work that people can do with each other. I
recognize
that not all people can use all specifics of his whole approach to
benefit all others, and that much work will be done before every
person
who wants this kind of work will benefit as much as every other. I
acknowledge that he poured out, along with his essential gifts,
material
that came from his own unresolved problems and issues, and he did
so without necessarily knowing the difference. While I don't think
he personally started this universal motion towards solution, towards
becoming the entirety of truth, he did grasp the motion and raised
it to a new level of effectiveness where it could lead to applications
for every human. Out of his advances will come many, many more. Others
found parts of the key to the door of Truth; he is the one who grasped
the key, turned it, and flung wide open the door that will never close
again.

I have said already that Hubbard's work in opening that door for all
people everywhere willing and able to walk through it to do so, he
created the first real possibility of access to a bridge for all
between
materiality and spirituality. And I said that in so doing he ranks
with all the great spiritual leaders who have blessed us. But there
is more to it than that.

The very greatest spiritual leaders have told us of the joys and bliss
of pure spirituality. Hubbard claimed that he had found the way for
each and every individual to reach such states. We know that his claim
has a boast - but it is not a completely idle boast. Others will
work on his work, others will work against his work, and out of all
this work, in the fullness of time, each and every individual on the
planet and in the universe and beyond will have the chance to enjoy
the bliss of pure spirituality. And not just once.


Stability of truth and bliss


Those who have experienced moments of bliss, no matter if through
other's work or their own, know painfully well that the bliss can
soon be gone. Very, very few have been able to reach such a far-out
state of bliss that nothing could affect them adversely again against
their own will. These few have attained complete freedom of viewpoint.
They can embrace knowingly and willingly any viewpoint at all, while
never abandoning the certainty of who and what they are - flawless
truth. They embrace fully, knowingly, and lovingly. No viewpoint ever
sticks with them or to them. The rest of us, however, have old
viewpoints
by the ton that we stick to as the miser sticks to his money. Neither
the miser nor we can conceive of living without our hordes. What
happens
when we temporarily enter a state of bliss, of being for a moment
pure truth, is that one or more old viewpoints that we have stuck
ourselves with will manifest itself and in doing its job, pull us
down from bliss, away from truth, into persisting untruth. Our very
experience of bliss empowers all our remaining lies and problems to
affect us. The effect can be excruciating spiritual and physical
agony.

No great spiritual leader had given us the steps by which we reach
bliss stably. Although many have left directions, none have left
directions
that communicate readily to the many. Hubbard is unique amongst
spiritual
leaders in that he envisioned the practicality of an approach that
would allow every single being to examine and to self-determinedly
choose to keep or to drop any fixed viewpoint. He envisioned the
practical
possibility of pure truth for every individual, and hence freedom
from self-created but out-of-control limitation. He thus postulated
that every being would come to be able to enjoy bliss, and to enjoy
it without ever again pulling self down out of bliss because of our
own stupidity and untruth. We may dispute his success in his own
endeavours
in this regard. But he stated his vision, and stated it so boldly
and clearly we can't possibly ignore it or forget it, even if we
reject
every other action he took or every other word he uttered.


Sanity, strength, and vision


I have not mentioned specific contributions of Hubbard's such
as the introduction of the repetitive process, the thousands
of different processes, the rundowns, the grades and levels, the
training aids, the use of the e-meter, the volumes of material
written and those recorded on tape. As I've said, not all of it is
to the point. He had, I repeat, much nonsense around a core of
undeniable sanity and of mountainous spiritual strength.

I say Hubbard's work does have value. I say that the value of his
work has been overshadowed by the errors he allowed himself to make.
Some of his errors affected others adversely. There is no
justification
or excuse for his errors; his errors, the adverse effects, and the
complaining about them - all these are parts of Hubbard's and
the others' paths. We all have to walk forward on our paths, or stand
still.

Not everyone wants to move forward on a path. Sometimes the path is
having no path for a while, even to the point of having no life beyond
the body and its needs, or beyond the culture and its needs. For some,
the path seems too stony and so beset with thorny thickets, any
movement is painful and motionlessness the only relief. Hubbard's
Scientology system and structure are by no means appropriate for all
beings and all life situations. Nonetheless, within the core of
Hubbard's
life and work is a vision that can apply to all - given that each
is permitted to be who and what he or she actually is in the moment
and to relate to the concept of 'path' as is appropriate to
his or her integrity.

I paraphrase the clear and unambiguous statement of his vision thus:


You, no matter who you are or what you have done
or what has happened to you or what mess you have got yourself into,
you have a path within you that you can travel step by step. Walking
it will lead you back to possession of the full truth of who and what
you really are. The path has difficult stretches where it is easy
for you to lose your way. However, a skilled and dedicated guide,
using a very ethical discipline of application can help you keep
moving
on your path. If you choose to walk your path and take advantage of
guidance when you need it, you will arrive at the full and developing
truth about who and what you are, and what you can accomplish.

Those black, black clouds begin to move away.

The purity, strength, and certainty of Hubbard's vision change the
universe forever.



copyright:Kenneth G. Urquhart.


(1)Since we all define our activities in terms of one form of
scientology or another, we are hardly independent of it. Perhaps
'independence' is
our sacred image. We are certainly free from any pressure to accept
C of S management's view of LRH and his work.

(2)Here is another way to describe the saintliness
of the practitioner's discipline. The practitioner (a) commits himself
to grounding the session in truth so the client has a stability
against
which to compare and evaluate, (b) dedicates what is true in himself
to the service of what is true in the client, and (c) disciplines
what is true in himself to remain above and unaffected by what might
be untrue in himself or in the client.

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Learning across a Distance implies Learning by Being an Effect.
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Therefore, Learning with Certainty implies Learning, but 
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