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PM Chapter 2: Postulate of Self

Reference: Postulate Mechanics

The ever present ingredients of the universe are unknowable until they are sensed and known by means of the most intimate of postulates possible. These postulates are inherent to all parts of the universe. They are inherent to us in the most developed form.

The Vedic religions describe these inherent postulates as “sat-chit-ananda”. We may translate this in modern vocabulary as follows:

Sat = Substantiality
Chit = Awareness
Ananda = Oneness (continuity, consistency and harmony)

The intimate nature of these postulates forms the very definition of self. In other words, self is substantial, aware and infused with oneness. There is a profound sense of interconnectedness, love, and beauty, where the observer and observed become one. This awareness is experienced beneath thought, acting as a direct knowing that all life is woven into a single, cohesive fabric. The “oneness” does not mean  sameness. “Oneness” means continuity, consistency and harmony. 

The Self of the universe, and the self of the human form is one.

The natural affinity that we feel towards one another is the oneness of self. It is this oneness that is serenaded as love. The oneness characterizes our communications, and our realities.

The postulates that we make spring forth from the self as it senses the universe. There is a natural effort to maintain oneness among all postulates. Considerations ensue but they also are part of this oneness. 

As sensations change, the postulates and considerations also change. Actually, this universe is very dynamic in nature. But its essence, which is “Sat-Chit-Ananda” (substantiality, awareness and oneness), always remains. 

This self is ever present even when buried under misconceptions and confusions.

The next chapter shall look at the inherent postulate of substantiality (sat) that makes up the self.

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Notes and Postulates

The major concepts introduced in Chapter 2 are SUBSTANTIALITY, AWARENESS, ONENESS, and SELF. These concepts are defined in Glossary: Postulate Mechanics.

PM Postulate 2.1: The core ingredients of the universe are ever present.
PM Postulate 2.2: They manifest as substantiality, awareness and oneness.
PM Postulate 2.3: The source of these postulates is unknowable.
PM Postulate 2.4: These postulates are inherent to each one of us as self .
PM Postulate 2.5: Each self can continue to postulate its own universe further.
PM Postulate 2.6: There is no single creator of the universe.

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PM Chapter 1: Creation of Universe

Reference: Postulate Mechanics

Creation means to bring something into existence. When your mom bakes a cake, she is bringing that cake into existence. She is creating that cake. 

How was this universe created?

Like ‘mom’ in the above example, we assume that God created the universe. But that makes God knowable. If the universe is everything knowable then it would include God too. 

How does God create a universe in which He Himself is included?

May be God is an earlier version of universe that transformed itself into the current version. This idea of an earlier version shall also supply all the ingredients, which, when “baked” produce the current version. We do not know how many different versions this universe has gone through, but the basic ingredients of the universe must have been there always. How these ingredients were created initially is unknowable; but these ingredients have always been there to be sensed. This supports the Vedic assertion that the universe has neither a beginning nor an end.

It is the sensing of the ever present ingredients of the universe that triggers the postulates. It is through postulates that we come to know this universe. Knowledge builds up as we consider based on those postulates. This is how we start creating our universe.

Suppose you grow up in a family, where everyone genuinely cares for each other. This develops in you a deep sense of security. It is natural for you to postulate, “Man is basically good.” This postulate becomes a part of you. When you go out in the world and come across a person who harms you, you consider, “Oh! He is just having a bad day.” Such postulate and ensuing considerations are a part of your universe.

In the ancient Vedic religions, such as, Hinduism, the Nirākār Brahman uses Māyā to arise as Sākār Brahman. The Nirākār Brahman is considered to be a reality without attributes. Māyā is considered to be the process that generates attributes. And Sākār Brahman is considered to be the reality with attributes. Thus, the Vedic religions appears to support our arguments above.

In Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) God is postulated as the source of all creation. God is then assigned the attribute of omniscient (all-knowing) among others. But God itself is presented as a mystery.

We come to the conclusion that the ingredients of the universe are ever present. When these ingredients are sensed, postulates come about to give meaning to the universe. These postulates are inherently there in us. We consider based on these postulates to generate our universe.

But we are operating blindly in a conditioned manner if we do not know these postulates that are inherently there in us. As we discover the actual postulates bit by bit, layer by layer, we wake up and truly create our universe.

But, “Who or what are we?” “What is this thing called self?”

This question shall be taken up in the next chapter.

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Notes and Postulates

The major concepts introduced in Chapter 1 are CREATION, GOD, VEDIC RELIGIONS, and ABRAHAMIC RELIGIONS. These concepts are defined in Glossary: Postulate Mechanics.

PM Postulate 1.1: The ingredient of this universe are eternally present.
PM Postulate 1.2: These ingredients, when sensed, trigger postulates.
PM Postulate 1.3: Postulates are the basis of ensuing considerations.
PM Postulate 1.4: Postulates/considerations are building blocks of universe.

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PM: Introduction

Reference: Postulate Mechanics

When the subject is the whole universe, what is the starting point from which to begin clearing any misconceptions? There are all kinds of theories available about the universe in religion, philosophy and science. The sciences study matter and try to describe a physical universe. The religions study life and try to describe a spiritual universe. Philosophy speculates upon all things unknown.

I decided that the first concept to clear would be the meaning of UNIVERSE. 

It is always beneficial to start with the etymology or origin of a word to get some idea of its derivation and history. This provided me for the universe, a sense of “all things combined into one.” 

What is that characteristic that combines all things into one? 

The obvious answer is, “All things in the universe are knowable.” Whether we are looking at the physical characteristics of the universe, or the spiritual, they all are knowable. 

What is the unknowable then? What cannot be considered a part of this universe?

Here the penny dropped. We cannot even consider the unknowable because it is unknowable. The moment we consider something we know that consideration. Even God is knowable because we consider God to have all these wonderful attributes.

My first realization was that the fundamental dichotomy is UNKNOWABLE-KNOWABLE. Both spiritual and physical aspects of the universe are knowable simply because we have considered them. The highest echelon concept was UNKNOWABLE. This was supported by The Creation Hymn of Rig Veda.

Whence this creation has arisen
– perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not –
the One who looks down on it,
in the highest heaven, only He knows
or perhaps He does not know.

So, how do we come to know anything?

We come to know because we have considered something. That consideration must have been reasoned somehow. All reasoning starts from some postulate—something taken for granted—isn’t it? 

We sense this universe, and we give meaning to that sensation by postulating what it might be. This is then followed by different sensations and different postulates arising for them. All these sensations and postulates then must come together in a way that they make sense. We may call this the process of assimilation. This assimilation leads to the perception of what is there. Thus comes about the consciousness of the knowable universe.

This was excellent sleuthing. These ideas did not appear overnight. A lot of study preceded them. But everything I studied pointed to the above conclusions. Furthermore, these postulates were not quite visible. But, at least, they were there, and they were knowable.

And so, a hunt for those postulates began. 

This endeavor give this book its title: POSTULATE MECHANICS, which is abbreviated as “PM.”

For the “matter” we have Classical Mechanics. For the “radiation” we have Quantum Mechanics. For the “thought” (which includes the search for fundamental postulates), we now propose Postulate Mechanics.

The purpose of Postulate Mechanics is to investigate, in a scientific manner, the postulates underlying this universe. It uses the technique of Subject Clearing to do so. The definitions of concepts, as found during this search, are being compiled at Glossary: Postulate Mechanics.

This is a live search, and the definitions of the various concepts are continually being refined and updated.

This search makes up the rest of this book.

I hope you enjoy this search. 

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NOTES AND POSTULATES

The major concepts introduced in this introduction are UNIVERSE, DICHOTOMY, KNOWABLE, UNKNOWABLE, POSTULATE, CONSIDERATION, and POSTULATE MECHANICS. These concepts are defined in Glossary: Postulate Mechanics.

PM Postulate 0.1: Unknowable is that which can never be fully sensed. 
PM Postulate 0.2: Knowable is that which can be sensed.
PM Postulate 0.3: Universe is the totality of what is knowable.
PM Postulate 0.4: Postulates arise to make the universe known. 
PM Postulate 0.5: Considerations arise to describe the universe.

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Remedy of Laughter

When a person finds himself in an environment that makes it difficult for him to reject what he doesn’t like, he is likely to feel very uncomfortable. When this continues, he may become serious, and even neurotic. Getting a person to laugh is always a good remedy because, besides surprise, laughter is rejection. Laughter surprises the person into rejecting, and that is very therapeutic.

The Remedy of Laughter could be entered simply by having the individual predict that a wall would be there in ten seconds, count off ten seconds on his watch, and then ascertain with thoroughness that the wall is still there.

A direct mock up process can be applied to the Remedy of Laughter by having the person mock up alternately himself and others laughing.

The person can also be made simply to stand up and start laughing. He at first will demand to have something to laugh at, but at length will be able to laugh without reason. 

The goal of the process is to regain the ability to laugh without reason. One may run this process simply by using the following two commands.

Start laughing.’
‘Keep on laughing.’

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The Excerpt

Here is the full excerpt of this Scientology process from the Book, The Creation of Human Ability by L. Ron Hubbard.

R2-26: REMEDY OF LAUGHTER 

The earliest known psychotherapy consisted of getting a patient to laugh. Laughter is rejection. A preclear being continually inflowed upon by the physical universe at length may find it difficult to reject anything. Getting him to reject something could be made an auditing goal. The best manifestation of this is laughter. Laughter includes both surprise and rejection. The individual is surprised into rejecting. 

In order to laugh, he must have laid aside some of his ability to predict. An individual who is serious has laid aside so much of his ability to predict that he now cannot be surprised into rejection. The anatomy of mystery consists of, in this order, unpredictability, confusion, and chaos covered up because it cannot be tolerated. Therefore, this is also the anatomy of problems. Problems always begin with an unpredictability, deteriorate into a confusion, and then if still unsolved become a mystery which is massed confusion. It will be observed that as a person falls further and further away from the ability to laugh he becomes more and more confused until at last he sees no points in any jokes, he sees only embarrassment when confronted by laughter, and the whole action of laughter itself escapes him. The ability to laugh is rehabilitated in general by Scientology as it advances the ability of the preclear to know – which is to say, predict. 

The Remedy of Laughter could be entered simply by having the individual predict that a wall would be there in ten seconds, count off ten seconds on his watch, and then ascertain with thoroughness that the wall is still there, to establish if the wall is there, then to predict that it will be there in ten seconds, then to count off ten seconds on his watch and ascertain if the wall is still there. By thus bringing solid objects into the realm of prediction, an individual at length comes to a point where he can predict very slowly moving objects. A cheap train and track could be set up for this purpose and the preclear could be led to predict with accuracy the position of engines on the small circular track. However, the preclear can be made to watch automobiles on the street – a process which serves just as well with no such equipment. 

The preclear would then be led to predict the positions of his own body, first by predicting that it was going to be in a certain spot, then moving it there and seeing whether or not it had arrived at that spot. He would then be brought to swing his arm in a circle, predict that it would swing faster, and swing it faster. And thus being led to predict the motion of his body with these simplicities, he could be exercised in making his body go tense and go limp by his command until he was thoroughly certain that he could both predict the tension or relaxation by doing it. Then he could be led to predict the positions of people walking on the street until he felt some security in predicting without exercising physical control. By thus remedying his ability to predict, one brings the preclear up into a tolerance of motion. He is then led to put his attention on one moving object, then on two moving objects at once, and so forth using the processes of spanning attention on moving objects.

A direct mock up process can be applied to the Remedy of Laughter by having the preclear mock up alternately himself and others laughing or by having him mock up an acceptable level of amusement and remedy his havingness with it until he can have people laughing very broadly in his mock-ups. The preclear can also be made simply to stand up and start laughing. He at first will demand to have something to laugh at, but at length will be able to laugh without reason. The goal of the process is contained in the last line – to regain the ability to laugh without reason. 

In this Intensive Procedure only two steps are employed to remedy laughter. The first consists of these commands, ‘Be completely certain that the wall is there’. And when the preclear has become with considerable conversation completely certain that the wall is there, touching it, pushing against it, and so forth, the auditor then says, ‘Sit down, take this (your) watch’, ‘Now predict that the wall will be there ten seconds from now’, ‘Have you done so?’ ‘All right wait ten seconds by your watch’. And when this is done, ‘Is the wall still there?’ And when the preclear has answered, ‘Now make absolutely certain the wall is there’ and the preclear does so by touching it, pushing at it, kicking it. ‘Now make very sure that the wall is there’. And when the preclear very vigorously has done so, ‘Now predict that it will be there in ten seconds’. And when the preclear has done so, the remainder of the commands are given and this is repeated over and over. 

Then the second part of lntensive Procedure’s process of laughter, but only after the preclear has experienced considerable relief and is absolutely sure that he can predict that all parts of the room will be there, not only in ten seconds, but in an hour – although no such timing is used, and only ten seconds of time is employed – ‘Start laughing’. And no matter what the preclear says thereafter, or what arguments he advances, or how many things he asks about, or how many reasons he wants or gives, the auditor merely says (adding words that urge the preclear), ‘Start laughing’. And when the preclear at length does so, no matter how half heartedly, ‘Keep on laughing’. The two commands which are used in addition to words necessary to urge the preclear without giving the preclear any reason whatsoever are, ‘Start laughing’ and ‘Keep on laughing’. 

This process is then done until the preclear can actually enjoy a laugh without any reason whatsoever, without believing that laughing without reason is insane, without feeling self-conscious about laughing, and without needing any boost from the auditor. The auditor in this second part need take no pains to agree with the preclear by laughing. He need not chuckle or smile nor need he even particularly act seriously, his laughter is not needed or used in the process. An auditor can be as serious as he pleases, and indeed, if he wishes to do so, can be even more serious than is usual when running this second step of R2-26. 

In earlier Scientology it was learned that serious preclears would often recover considerable ground simply when they were made to do things without any reason whatsoever. This achievement is much greater when they are made to laugh without any reason.

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Comparative Analysis (11-18th century)

Reference: SC: Psychology

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Ontological Assumptions

Western and Eastern traditions diverged fundamentally in their conceptualization of self and consciousness. Western thought, particularly after Descartes, increasingly adopted substance dualism, treating mind and body as distinct entities requiring connection. Eastern traditions maintained holistic monism, viewing psyche as inherently embodied and integrated with physical and spiritual dimensions.

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Methodological Approaches

The West progressively prioritized empirical observation and rational analysis, with Vives’s inductive methods and Enlightenment experimentalism establishing psychology’s scientific trajectory. Eastern approaches emphasized introspection, meditative practice, and holistic observation, with Indian yoga and Chinese dialectical analysis providing systematic introspective methodologies.

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Emotion Theory

Medieval Western thought treated emotions as physiological-psychological responses requiring rational direction. Islamic psychology similarly viewed emotions as natural responses needing cultivation through virtue ethics. Indian psychology identified emotions as expressions of manas and hrdaya, requiring equanimity rather than control. Chinese philosophy developed polarity theories, understanding emotions as manifestations of qing requiring balance between Confucian cultivation and Taoist naturalness.

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Mental Illness Treatment

Western approaches evolved from supernatural explanations toward medical models, with compassionate care replacing harsh treatment by the 18th century. Islamic psychology maintained holistic treatment combining physical, psychological, and spiritual interventions throughout the period. Indian and Chinese traditions developed sophisticated psychotherapeutic techniques emphasizing meditation, lifestyle modification, and restoration of balance.

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Consciousness Studies

Western consciousness theory progressed from Ockham’s intuitive cognition to Descartes’s cogito, emphasizing self-awareness as rational certainty. Eastern traditions explored altered states (Indian turiya, Buddhist jhānas) and developed detailed cartographies of consciousness levels, with Islamic mystics (Sufis) mapping spiritual stations (maqāmāt) of self-transformation.

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Conclusion

The 11th–18th centuries established foundational frameworks that continue shaping contemporary psychology. Western development demonstrated increasing methodological rigor and scientific orientation, moving from theological to naturalistic explanations. Eastern traditions maintained holistic integration, developing sophisticated wellness models that modern psychology has only recently begun to appreciate. The period’s most enduring contribution may be the diversity of psychological paradigms it produced—demonstrating that human consciousness can be understood through multiple valid frameworks, each offering distinctive insights into the complex relationship between mind, body, and society.

This comparative history reveals that psychology’s “progress” is not linear but multidimensional, with different civilizations developing complementary approaches to understanding human nature. The 18th century’s synthesis of empirical method and holistic concern prefigured psychology’s ongoing integration of biological, psychological, and social dimensions—a reconciliation of insights that Eastern traditions never divided.

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