Showing results by author "L. Ron Hubbard" in All Categories

Help pervades every part of life. Yet few people realize the degree to which it determines their survival. For the willingness to give and receive help lies at the foundation of all human reactions and behavior. How does one increase a person’s confidence, improve his ability to communicate with others and heighten his interest in life? The answers all start with help, and they are contained in a series of techniques so effective they can practically “awaken the dead.”

Since the deployment of the first atomic weapons, people everywhere have lived with the possibility that everything they hold dear - their lives, their families, their careers and even the human species itself - could be extinguished in a few moments of devastation. Such consequences would be so overwhelming that, for many, the only defense is a hope it will never happen. Yet as the number of countries with atomic and nuclear weapons has risen and an international black market actively trades nuclear materials, action is likely to prove a far stronger deterrent than hope.

What malignant seed grows in the human mind that not only prevents individuals from “thinking straight,” but forces them to act out their irrationalities? Man’s failure over many millennia to find the cause of aberration has exacted an incalculable toll in personal unhappiness and ruined lives. But were the answer found, the horizons would be unlimited. Individuals could achieve the lasting success they desire. Families would thrive, united and strong. Groups and organizations would reach new levels of prosperity.

Through his extraordinary journey to the founding of Dianetics and Scientology, Ron did just that. From his adventurous youth in a rough-and-tumble American West to his far-flung trek across a still mysterious Asia; fromhis two-decade search for the essence of life to the triumph of Dianetics and Scientology - such is the story Ron recounts in a lecture so legendary, it has been heard by millions. How could one man discover the source of all human aberration and provide an actual technology by which Man could rise to greater heights of honesty, decency and personal freedom?

Using the most exact tools of thought to isolate the most inexactly understood aspect of a human being, Ron established that there is, indeed, a soul. Moreover, the knowledge of its nature and characteristics finally resolves the age-old question of good and evil, not only in regard to a future life, but with immediate application in the here and now. For with the answer to the greatest of all mysteries has come an entirely new understanding and, with that, the means to raise one’s ability to play the game called “life.”

What is life? Such was the central question Ron posed when setting out to unravel the riddle of human existence. In this lecture, Ron explains why life is best understood by likening it to a game, whereupon he defines both its prerequisites and conditions, showing that it follows the rules of any game. For regardless of what, where or how an individual plays the games of existence - and regardless of whether he consented to play - those rules are always the same.

What motivates life? What motivates Man? Those were the questions Ron posed when seeking workable answers to the problems of both the individual and society. After examining the whole of life in its variety and complexity, he isolated a common denominator to all living things - the Dynamic Principle of Existence: Survive! Here was a watershed breakthrough in Man’s understanding of Man.

"People ask me these questions: "How did you ever think about Dianetics?" Well, it doesn’t seem to me that it required much more than the cultural question itself - it has been with Man now for perhaps fifty thousand years: ‘What makes Man tick?’ ‘Why does Man act as Man does act?’ These questions are found in the oldest literature we have." (L. Ron Hubbard)

Help pervades every part of life. Yet few people realize the degree to which it determines their survival. For the willingness to give and receive help lies at the foundation of all human reactions and behavior. How does one increase a person’s confidence, improve his ability to communicate with others and heighten his interest in life? The answers all start with help, and they are contained in a series of techniques so effective they can practically “awaken the dead.”

The answers are here and they open a completely new perspective on the mind. To the degree an individual has withdrawn from participation in an area of life, he substitutes an automatic mental mechanism for himself. Here, then, are these mental mechanisms and exactly how they undermine an individual’s power of decision. Toward returning him that power, Ron details how they can be recognized in a person’s thoughts, acts and conversation, and thus detected in both oneself and others.

Ron reveals how Scientology, drawing from and building upon the aspirations and achievements of 10,000 years of thinking men, represents an historic, long-sought triumph for Man. For with its discoveries and technology comes the culmination of Man’s oldest quest and the accomplishment, in the here and now, of his most enduring dream - the freeing of the soul by wisdom. Here, then, is how East and West, science and religion, have finally come together.

Dominated by physical scientists and concentrated exclusively on the interaction of matter, energy and space, it was a world where the spirit formed no part of the equation. Realizing the answers lay in neither of these irreconcilable schools, Ron embarked on the perilous quest for a way to free the individual from the barriers that deny him happiness. In recognizing that Man is both a spiritual and a material being, he arrived at the breakthrough discovery - a state never before known in this universe - a state called Clear.

Today weapons exist powerful enough to annihilate whole nations. And violence has become commonplace, often in disregard of human life. Why has there been such a lessening of moral responsibility and, most important, what can be done about it? In providing the answers to these questions, Ron explores the history of Man's research and investigation in the field of the human spirit.

Since the deployment of the first atomic weapons, people everywhere have lived with the possibility that everything they hold dear - their lives, their families, their careers, and even the human species itself - could be extinguished in a few moments of devastation. Such consequences would be so overwhelming that, for many, the only defense is a hope it will never happen. Yet as the number of countries with atomic and nuclear weapons has risen and an international black market actively trades nuclear materials, action is likely to prove a far stronger deterrent than hope.

When still a young man attending university, Ron observed that those working in the humanities had no training in the exact sciences. Believing that the precision of the scientific method might furnish a solution to the problems of life and livingness, he urged faculty members of the psychology department to apply the principles of physics to the field of the mind. It was an entirely novel approach. And when no one took up the challenge - either then or in later years - Ron undertook the task himself.

In his search to understand Man, Ron discovered that there is a single common denominator to existence: Survive! No matter the varied experiences or activities of individuals, everyone is seeking to survive and that is the only common denominator to all life. Then, examining life still more closely, he further discovered that survival subdivided into eight separate urges or drives, known as the 'Eight Dynamics".

Every human being seeks to know the truth about himself and to resolve to his own satisfaction the mysteries of life. And therefore, for many thousands of years, countless philosophical and religious teachings have sought to enlighten people with answers. But where their practitioners insisted - indeed, demanded - that their answers must be the answers, they blocked the road to greater freedom for millions of people.

It has no mass or location. It is not energy. Yet it is alive. And it gives life. Such are the characteristics of "a life-giving unit" - the source not only of all thought, but of all that is decent, ethical and noble. Indeed, this is you. The discovery that each individual is, in fact, a source of life radically alters the relationship between Man and the material universe. Based not on faith or belief but on axioms as precise and workable as any in science, it has been conclusively determined that the life-giving unit preceded matter, energy, space and time.

When still a young man attending university, Ron observed that those working in the humanities had no training in the exact sciences. Believing that the precision of the scientific method might furnish a solution to the problems of life and livingness, he urged faculty members of the psychology department to apply the principles of physics to the field of the mind. It was an entirely novel approach. And when no one took up the challenge - either then or in later years - Ron undertook the task himself.

Man’s failure over many millennia to find the cause of aberration has exacted an incalculable toll in personal unhappiness and ruined lives. But were the answer found, the horizons would be unlimited. Individuals could achieve the lasting success they desire. Families would thrive, united and strong. Groups and organizations would reach new levels of prosperity.