Apologies for all my 'noob' style questions on here recently, but I've always wondered, was Hubbard 'enlightened'? Is that actually what Scientology is selling - behind all the hideous 3rd-rate sci-fi mumbo jumbo?

And while we're at it, are people like Eckhart Tolle's spontaneous awakening expereinces stream-entry? Or something 'more'?

And the Matrix is very much 'about' this stuff right? Are the Wachowski's on The Path? So many questions for you lot.....

That's cool, Robin. I find your questions are honest and I can use a little dose of that once in a while. I want to hear other peoples opinions on such questions, but I feel I need to appear too wise and cool to actually ask them.

Hubbard wasn't enlightened (what does that even mean?).

Eckhart Tolle attained at least stream entry in his flash of insight.

Yes, The Matrix is about this stuff and The Wachowskis are on the path.

I have no doubt that Hubbard was fairly highly realized, he was an initiated member of various occult lodges such as the AMORC (Ancient Mystical Order of the Rose & Cross) and the OTO (Ordo Templi Orientis), and was actually accused by the former of stealing material which was later incorporated into Scientology. He was also connected to a guy called Jack Parsons, a high initiate of the OTO, with whom he conducted an infamous ritual in the late-40's called "The Babylon Working".

In my opinion, he was, in terms of the Western magickal grades he'd have worked with, an Adeptus Exemptus (7=4) and, to me, his development of the cosmology involved in Scientology was his attempt to carry out the task of this grade. Hubbard was batshit crazy long before Scientology came about though, but I'm fairly certain that his decline from the 1950's onwards was due to quite a specific aspect of the magickal process which he failed to do correctly.

Also, the practices detailed in the OT documents, to me, seem very much like a bastardized version of vipassana/bare awareness. I also suspect that his use of concepts like "Thetans" and all that stuff were actually his attempt to find a metaphor to explain Scientology according to his own semantic models, hence the sci-fi heavy symbolism influenced by his years of writing pulp fiction and sci-fi, but that, due to having become 'a black brother' (too complicated to go into here, google it and you should get an idea of where I'm coming from) he became deluded and started believing his own words as literal fact.

All in all though, the dude was a fucking headcase.


I don't know whether or not Tolle's awakening was stream-entry, but I'm certain that, if it was, it didn't go any further than that. His own descriptions of how things were post-awakening do sound decidedly similar to how things were for me, at least for a few months, after stream-entry, but it's not hugely helpful trying to align other people's experiences in this way.

All you’ll get here are opinions, ideas, all of which have no relevance to you or anyone. Unless you are in direct contact with someone you can make no judgements, even then ask yourself whether you could possibly be clear concerning a person.

Enlightenment is being branded by each and all these days. So many experts. You know what ex stands for, and what pert means?

Don’t listen to anyone unless they say nothing. That isn’t a paradox, it simply means all we can talk about is talk. Words are empty, get behind the words.

Same goes for paths. There are so many, even within Buddhism, and all of them lead you astray.

Haha - thanks for the very 'Zen' response! I take it you're trying to say that all these kind of speculations/arguments/thoughts etc are precisely what lead people away from the direct, non-conceptual present moment experience which is what we are ultimately all looking for?

It doesn't matter. What matters is: are people becoming more happy, more kind, more human, less deluded, less caught up identifying with the stories they want to believe about themselves and the image they want to see themselves project out into the world? Is there a net increase in "good" stuff, for a pragmatic, non-dogmatic understanding of "good"?

That's what counts, as far as I'm concerned.



I didn't get much out of listening to his recordings, but other people have. It's what you get out of it, not what he may be.



The Matrix (and any book, movie, theatre drama, song, poem, and so on) is about you, the reader/viewer/experiencer. In the case of the Matrix, it's a neat trick if you can see how you are in fact Agent Smith, how it's Agent Smith's story rather than Neo's.

Cheers,
Florian

wow! I really want to go re-watch the matrix now.

Well, this opens up a relatively big sized can of worms, doesn't it?

I don't identify much with Agent Smith (or his story, for that matter), but I do utterly agree with his view on things. Especially that whole "humankind is a virus/cancer"-thing of his. That just makes sense to me.

I'm not bent on destroying any creature, much less it's whole race, like Agent Smith seems to be, but I've never really gelled with the idea that we humans are any much special.

It's hard for me to distill adequately that whole blob of beliefs, but I believe it serves as one of the lesser evils.

I'm not a biologist, so do call me ignorant (or rather, enlighten me), but believing that oxygen or water is necessary for life? That's just crazy to me. Isn't it obvious how biased and blind that is? Pollution, what is that really? That strong-smelling, chemicalized and toxic flow of liquid going into the ocean, with all that yellow foam on top, is that pollution? What about the thriving culture of - dare-I-say beautiful - bacteria living there?

Many a discussion with friends have ended for me when I realize that part of the premise of the discussion entails believing that humans are the most important thing to ever have happened. I mean, I'm not anti-human - more like anti-pro-human.

Why limit thinking like that?

Just wanted to say thanks for writing that. It is as-close-as-can-be to what I would have written in my first reply, but which I for some reason still inexplicable to me did not write.

Indeed, oxygen or water isn't necessary for life, there are Anaerobic Organisms after all, but for human life? I believe so. Do you know someone that lives without water and/or oxygen? And by that I mean, that can live long without it.


It is indeed extremely important, at least for humans.
Also, according to the buddhist suttas,

Agent Smith: It seems that you've been living two lives. One life, you're Thomas A. Anderson, program writer for a respectable software company. You have a social security number, pay your taxes, and you... help your landlady carry out her garbage. The other life is lived in computers, where you go by the hacker alias "Neo" and are guilty of virtually every computer crime we have a law for. One of these lives has a future, and one of them does not.

If you can talk about Stian Gudmundsen Høiland living two lives, then that makes you Agent Smith.



He also points out how he wants to be out of the game. Why are you posting to the DhO?



What makes you so sure? In the end, examining all the ways we are fooling ourselves is where this leads. Each at their own pace, of course.



For one, you are in a position to think that thought only because the bacterial sludge does not get into your drinking water. In other words, your anti-pro-human stance is conditioned. It's a good practice to follow those conditions and causes. There's always a dirty secret there to be found which we fool ourselves over. (Edit: this is another way of saying "precious human birth", as John P. already pointed out)

Cheers,
Florian

being anti-pro-human is also a form of limiting one's thinking!