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Apr 16, 2008
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Supposing every postulate would stick
"Think of that for a moment supposing every postulate you made would stick. Supposing every time you said, I wish I was dead, there you lay, really. Wouldn't that be wonderful? But supposing every time you said, I can best serve this situation by being old and feeble, and you were; and supposing you said, Oh childhood, childhood! Those were the times! Da-da-da. "So one of the best things this awareness of awareness unit does is hold a gun on itself. It says, Well, these postulates are not going to stick. I'm going on being Joe Jones. And if I had my way of it, I would be Joe Jones, Bessie Smith, P.T. Barnum, a greyhound dog, probably all in the course of half an hour. And this would be disconcerting to my friends, so I will take mercy on one and all, and just be Joe Jones. You could imagine how disconcerting it would be to have a friend like that. He makes a postulate, and there he is in full mass. That would be upsetting. "So we do all sorts of devious things to keep from
obeying all of our postulates at will because we know we can't trust
ourselves; of course, that's the first thing we have to know. And we
do all kinds of things to make it automatic, so that we will become surprised
about it." ![]() Excerpted from the Anatomy of the Spirit of Man Congress lectures
Having an independent attitude toward existence An article by I have had this odd experience: I have been on a ship which was having a very hard time struggling in high seas and high winds, which had its engines disabled. And I had a rescue party drop aboard. All the sailors were convinced that the ship was going to pound itself to pieces and go down. This was really not a justified conclusion, it was just that the sea was so violent that it appeared to be likely. But they had all come to the conclusion that they were going through their last days right there in those last minutes each minute about twelve years long. And the rescue party dropped down on the deck of the ship and didn't share this conclusion. And three men in a rescue party did work which twenty-eight men on the derelict had been unable to accomplish. And the three men in the rescue party did it in about ten minutes, where the others had failed for almost ten hours. Different set of conclusions. Same situation, same ship. Of course, you could say, "Well, the crew that was already aboard were tired." So was the rescue party. They had to row across three miles of open sea to get there. They were twice as tired as the boys who were still aboard. So we conclude there that you must be able to have an independent attitude toward existence, regardless of the circumstances of existence. It is obviously possible to have an independent attitude toward existence, independent of an existing attitude toward existence. And it is not necessarily certain that the independent attitude of existence is going to succumb to the general attitude of existence. This is not an absolute certainty. Well, we started out talking about postulates. A person can have an independent attitude toward existence, regardless of what is going on, and make things better or worse at will, to the degree that he retains his confidence and faith in himself and his ability to make postulates. He can say he feels this way, and he feels this way. But he has to be able to trust himself, to say that. He should be able to say, "I can persevere; I can succeed," and then succeed. He should also be able to say, "Well, I guess I'll fail this time," and simply fail. He would have to be alike unimpressed by winning or losing. He would have to be somewhat unimpressed. But he would be able to do that. He could then take command of the existing situation or better any situation without being tremendously influenced by the circumstances which surround him. What do we call this? We call this self-determinism. An individual, then, is as capable of happiness or livingness I would rather call it livingness he is as capable of living as he is capable of determining the actions of himself and others by a simple postulate. And an individual who can do this is a giant amongst his fellows. And an individual who can't, has been, is, and always will be a slave.
L. Ron Hubbard Excerpted from the lecture COMPONENT PARTS OF BEINGNESS This lecture is available in the Anatomy
of the Spirit of Man Congress lectures
Successes from listening to the
"I had a big win on the Anatomy of the Spirit of Man Congress lectures. I listened to the first four lectures in one day. My health started to improve. I started to get more in communication with my body and my skin improved. I was also able to rehabilitate a perceptic, the perceptic of gravity. This was no small win. I was able to stay keyed out of my bank, which before, I was collapsed into. I am functioning so much better without effort after rehabilitating this perceptic. Thank you!" T.O.
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