Category Archives: Self-Improvement

These are exercises that one may apply to oneself to improve.

KEX #1: Detachment

November 1, 2020 – 5:10 PM

Reference: TR0 and Mindfulness
Reference: Sadhguru: Isha Kriya Instructions

Introduction

“Neti, neti” is an ancient Vedic method to discover and get rid of unwitting identifications. People generally identify themselves with their body and mind, and identify others by their body and mind. The body is an accumulation of physical elements. The mind is an accumulation of impressions of such elements. So a person is neither the body nor the mind.

The purpose of this exercise is to help a person become aware of the primary misidentifications with body and mind, while seeing them for what they really are.

This is the first exercise of “KEX” series. “KEX #1” simply means “Knowledge Exercise #1.” Elements of this exercise are borrowed from Scientology exercise called TR0, and Sadhguru’s exercise on Kriya Yoga (see the two references above). It is important that you become reasonably familiar with these two references.

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The Posture

The purpose of the posture in meditation is to keep the body stably erect in a natural and comfortable manner, even in deep meditation. The legs are crossed while sitting in meditation because it locks the body in a stable position. In many cultures, especially in European culture, people are not used to sitting with their legs crossed. Therefore, as in TR0, one may sit in a straight-backed chair with feet flat on the floor and arms resting comfortably in the lap. The knees are positioned parallel to the shoulders. This alternate posture allows the body to remain stably erect.

For KEX #1, we use the posture as used in TR0, while focusing the attention mildly between the eyebrows as in Isha Kriya.

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The Exercise

In this exercise you simply BE there and face all perceptions, sensations, feelings and emotions without avoiding, resisting, suppressing, or denying them (see TR0 and The Discipline of Mindfulness).

In addition you do the following (see Isha Kriya).
… (1) Inhale and exhale gently, slowly.
… (2) With each inhalation, mentally say to yourself: “I am not the body.” The inhalation should last the whole duration of that thought.
… (3) With each exhalation, mentally say to yourself: “I am not even the mind.” The exhalation should last the whole duration of that thought.

Do this exercise for at least 20 minutes at a stretch so that your energies get properly organized,

OPTIONAL: You may do this exercise while walking on a treadmill at a gentle pace. Make sure you have a safety cord attached to you, in case you stumble. Your body is generating more energy on a treadmill and that helps organize the energies better.

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Please Note

This is an experimental exercise derived from Hubbard’s and Sadhguru’s interpretations of ancient knowledge. Here we have a consolidation of those interpretations.

Do this exercise for 20 minutes, twice a day, for 48 days; or once a day for 90 days. This is your commitment as recommended for Isha Kriya.

In doing this exercise one may get into very deep concentration, in which the thought being repeated turns into visualizations. Simply BE with those visualizations without interfering with them.

If you want, you can do the sitting exercise for up to 2 hours at a stretch, safely, as was determined on TR0.

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By vinaire | Comments (0)

Isha Kriya of Sadhguru

November 1, 2020 – 2:11 PM

Reference: Course on Subject Clearing

This exercise is taught at Sadhguru’s ISHA Foundation. Please do this exercise as instructed. If you cannot sit in a cross-legged posture comfortably then you may sit on a chair facing East (see Detachment).

This exercise requires a long commitment. During the 48 days that you would be doing Isha Kriya, find some time to study the documents under the section: The Discipline of Mindfulness.

Here is Sadhguru’s video on Isha Kriya.

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By vinaire | Also posted in Sadhguru | Comments (1)

Exercise 3: Something Missing

August 24, 2019 – 4:42 PM

Reference: The 12 Aspects of Mindfulness

If something is missing, then recognize that it is missing. Do not imagine something in its place. If someone asks you a question and no answer come up in your mind, then do not feel obliged to make up an answer. Accept that you do not have an answer.

Purpose:

To discern the influence of something missing on the perception of what there is.

Pre-requisites:

Complete Exercise 2: Assumptions.

Instructions:

In this exercise you simply become aware of something missing that could influence your observation. You may do this exercise while sipping coffee in a café or strolling along a river. You may even find a place where you can sit comfortably for a while without being disturbed. Then patiently observe the world go by.

Notice something that is puzzling, and about which full understanding is missing. Do not feel obliged to accept the explanations given; as the explanation could be wrong. For example, you see an empty lion’s cage in the zoo. Explanation given is that lion is out to lunch. The explanation is still more puzzling.

Carefully consider the broad context of the scene, and the purpose of the activity that you are observing. Narrow down to something specific that does not make sense. Examine it closely including your viewpoint with respect to it. Observe your mind imagining reasons to fill the uncomfortable gap in understanding. Notice the impulse to come up with an answer. If there is no answer, then acknowledge the fact. Do not make up an answer. Simply become aware that the right answer is missing and move on to the next observation.

Expand your span of attention and let the physical and mental perceptions pour in.

Continue this exercise for at least 20 minutes. You may repeat this exercise as many times as you wish.

End of Exercise:

When you can discern the influence of something missing on your perceptions, then this exercise is passed.

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OT 1948: Glossary

April 28, 2019 – 3:12 PM
Reference: DIANETICS: The Original Thesis

This paper presents Chapter 18 from the book DIANETICS: THE ORIGINAL THESIS by L. RON HUBBARD. The contents are from the original publication of this book by The Hubbard Dianetic Foundation, Inc. (1948).

The paragraphs of the original material (in black) are accompanied by brief comments (in color) based on the present understanding.  Feedback on these comments is appreciated.

The heading below is linked to the original materials.

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Glossary

A.A.—An attempted abortion case.

ABERREE — An aberrated individual, sane or insane, containing unrelieved engrams.

ANALYTICAL MIND — The residence of consciousness in the individual and the seat of his basic personality. This is an analogical term. The analytical mind can be sub-divided.

Alternatively, the analytical mind is the assimilated part of the mental matrix.

ASSOCIATIVE RESTIMULATOR— A perceptic in the environment which is confused with an actual restimulator.

BREAK ENGRAM — The secondary engram after the receipt of which the individual experienced a lowering of general tone to 2.5 or below and became therefore unable to cope with his environment.

CLEAR—(1) Dianetic Clear: An individual who has been cleared of all engrams and chains and who has achieved a general tone four; a Dianetic Case Completion; one who through Dianetic processing has become free of those things which make a person susceptible to, and “hold in place,” psychosomatic ills, and is a healthy, happy human being. In this book Clear means Dianetic Clear. (2) Scientology Clear: A person who, having received all the processing gains from Dianetics to Grade VI (highest Scientology Release Grade), has then completed the Clearing Course at an Advanced Organization. A Scientology Clear has by definition the ability to be cause over mental matter, energy, space and time as regards the First Dynamic (ref. chapter The Dynamics, in this book).

Alternatively, when the mental matrix is cleared of all aberrated and engramic nodes, it is fully assimilated. Such is the matrix of a person designated Clear.

CONFUSION — The condition of an area of an engram or the condition of a chain. Instants of existence which are not properly aligned on the time track.

CROSS ENGRAM — The severe engramic experience wherein two chains have met causing a marked change in the life of the individual. This is an engram which is on the time track of each of two or more chains.

DIANETICIST— A skilled user of dianetic therapy.

DIANETICS — Means “through the soul” (from Greek dia. through, and noes, soul). It is the first fully precise science of the mind. The world before Dianetics had never known a precision mental science.

DISPERSAL— The action of a dynamic or purpose meeting an engram. It is describable by an analogy of an electron stream striking impedance and showering around it, much weakened.

DYNAMIC — The dynamic thrust into time and space of an individual, a species, or a unit of matter or energy. Especially defined for the purpose of Dianetics as “Survive.”

DYNAMIC DIANETICS—The science of the basic drives of the individual and his basic personality. At this writing the branch of Dianetics most intensely under observation and research is this one. (See Science of Survival by L. Ron Hubbard.)

ENGRAM — A period of physical pain including unconsciousness and antagonism experienced by an individual, group or society and residing thereafter as irrational and restimulatable dramatizations.

Alternatively, this is a traumatic experience, which could not be assimilated in the mental matrix, and which remains connected as an unassimilated node.

ENGRAM CHAIN— A series of similar engrams on one or more dynamics which impede the dynamics of the individual.

Alternatively, this is a network of engrams, secondaries and locks.

LOCK— A period of mental anguish depending for its force upon an engram. It may or may not be available to the analytical mind but it does not contain actual unconsciousness.

Alternatively, these are tentacles of the engram reaching into the mental matrix.

PRECLEAR — Any individual receiving dianetic auditing for the purpose of being cleared; anyone not yet Clear.

Alternatively, this is the auditee, the person who is being audited.

PURPOSE—The survival route chosen by an individual, a species, or a unit of matter or energy in the accomplishment of its goal. (NOTE: The purpose is specific and may be closely defined being a subdivision of one of the sub-dynamics. It has been tentatively established by investigation that an individual human being has established his purpose for life at the age of two years and that the actual purpose is not derived in any degree from engrams but is only warped by them.)

REACTIVE MIND — That portion of the nervous system which contains reflexive or reactive data which does not clear through the analytical mind but is subject to dramatization or aberrations. It uses as a thought process the conception of identities. A equals A equals A. This is essentially the animal thinking mechanism.

This is simply the unassimilated portion of the mental matrix. In animals, the mental matrix is very coarse and not necessarily unassimilated.

RELEASE — ( 1 ) Dianetic Release: A preclear in whom the majority of emotional stress has been deleted from the reactive mind. Has had large gains from Dianetics, is not yet a Dianetic Case Completion. (2) Scientology Release: A series of major levels of gain wherein Scientology processing frees the person from the principal life difficulties or personal “blocks” stemming from the mind. Called Release Grades, each of these levels must be completed for one to be ready to undertake Scientology Clearing. Note: Release, in this book, refers to Dianetic Release.

RESTIMULATOR — The environmental perceptic which approximates a precise part of the engramic perceptics in the reactive mind.

SCIENTOLOGY — The study of knowledge in its fullest sense, and applied religious philosophy that covers man’s relationship to the universe. Dianetics is the forerunner of Scientology. Dianetics was the ultimate development of the mind of human beings. Scientology is the road from there to total freedom.

SOMATIC—The physiological counterpart of mental aberration. A somatic attends every aberration. This term is used in lieu of “physical pain” in auditing due to the high engramic value of the word pain and its failure to include in its meaning all painful perceptics.

TIME TRACK—The memory record of an individual, motor or sensory, precisely aligned in moments of time. In a Clear all such moments are available to the analytical mind. In an aberree areas of the time track are obscured, but the time track is considered to be in perfect condition, if partially and temporarily obscured. The existence of two time tracks is suspected— one sensory and one motor, the latter being more available to the dianeticist in the form of somatics. The time track is precise but as the analytical mind addresses it in the aberree, it is apparently obliterated in part, or tangled.

Alternatively, there are networked relationships, which, in a broader form, may appear to be sequentially connected. If there is a linear chain it exists within the facsimile only. It is not a property of the mind.

TONE—The emotional condition of an engram or the general condition of an individual.

TRAUMA — A term from a school of psychology implying an experience which would create a psychic scar. It is unused in Dianetics as being liable to misunderstanding of the nature of severe experiences. Scars cannot be removed; psychosomatic experiences can be.

UNCONSCIOUSNESS — A condition wherein the organism is discoordinated only in its analytical process and motor control direction. In the physio-animal section of the brain, a complete time track and a complete memory record of all perceptions for all moments of the organism’s existence is available.

Alternatively, this is a circuit, when activated, bypasses the assimilated matrix, which represents the consciousness of the individual.

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By vinaire | Also posted in Dianetics | Comments (0)

OT 1948: Case Histories

April 28, 2019 – 2:21 PM
Reference: DIANETICS: The Original Thesis

This paper presents Chapter 17 from the book DIANETICS: THE ORIGINAL THESIS by L. RON HUBBARD. The contents are from the original publication of this book by The Hubbard Dianetic Foundation, Inc. (1948).

The paragraphs of the original material (in black) are accompanied by brief comments (in color) based on the present understanding.  Feedback on these comments is appreciated.

The heading below is linked to the original materials.

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Case Histories

The following case histories have been selected at random. Due to lack of time, these case histories are Releases, not Clears. The Releases have been fully diagnosed and researched.

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CASE NO. 1

HYPERTENSION, COMBAT FATIGUE
TUBERCULOSIS, ARRESTED
MYOPIC ASTIGMATISM

A forty-three year old ex-Army officer and author; inclined to petty tyrannies; twice divorced; no children. Processed by army as psycho-neurotic.

Birth was discovered immediately but would not satisfactorily release. The preclear experienced great difficulty in visualizing and his aberrations intensified during auditing.

By use of dreams and restimulation of somatics the preclear was able to reach the beginning of the engramic chain as counted backwards from birth. Fifteen prenatal experiences were unstacked. They were found lying in two loops. The loops were corrected and the basic engram of the basic chain was reached. (A loop is a redoubling of the time track back on itself. In this case incidents are not in their correct place on the time track. )

The basic consisted of a severe quarrel between his mother and father with several abdominal blows being received by the mother. The mother was protesting that it would make her sick all of her life. At the same time the mother was coughing from a throat blow. The father was insisting that he was master in his own home and that people had to do what he told them. This quarrel occurred at about four and a half months after conception and resulted in the temporary paralysis of the preclear’s right side. The remainder of the chain consisted of similar incidents, evidently dramatizations on the part of the father of his own engrams, as the words used were almost identical, one engram to the next. This chain accounted for and relieved the subject’s fear that he would be ill and his desire to tyrannize others.

Birth was then found to consist of near suffocation and considerable antagonism between the doctor and the nurse. This was registered as commands to himself to the effect that he was blind and could not see. Birth was in the home and dust, camphor, the smell of clean sheets and greased metal were the restimulators for this severe lung irritation. This birth was not restimulated until the age of five and the prenatals were not restimulated until entrance into the service when the need for authority manifested itself.

No locks were found to need attention and only one half hour of his war experience failed to release, that being a new basic.

Number of hours on case: fifty-five.

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CASE NO. 2

APATHY, PRECLEAR HAD BEEN UNDER PSYCHIATRIC TREATMENT FOR TWO YEARS PRIOR TO DIANETIC AUDITING. SHE HAD EXPERIENCED NO RELIEF. MALNUTRITION.

An eighteen-year-old girl in a condition of apathy bordering upon a break and worsening. She had been recently married. Afraid of her husband. She had done very badly in school, sporadically engaged in sexual escapades, relapsing afterwards into an illness which was variously diagnosed.

Case was entered with ease. Birth was reached and would not exhaust. A search for prenatals was for ten hours fruitless, until certain somatics were artificially restimulated and intensified to the point that the preclear had to recall the incident to find relief. Eight prenatals were then unstacked and only two incidents were discovered in confusion with each other, held together with a head somatic.

The basic proved to be a mutual abortion attempt by the mother and father. The mother said she would die if anyone found out but that she would probably die anyway. The father said that the baby was probably like her and that he didn’t want it. Eighteen penetrations of the head, throat and shoulders with a long orange-wood stick—probably in the third month. Several similar incidents completed this chain. Coitus followed each attempt at abortion. Another incident proved to be a basic without a chain and with innumerable locks: an attempted abortion by a professional abortionist who used some form of needle and scraper. Birth was found to be a mild experience. Three infant engrams with their own basic were discovered. They consisted of the mother’s fear over the injury and the fear that the baby would die.

Contagion of attempted abortion engrams was particularly manifest in the mother’s neurotic dwelling on fear of death, which was obviously a dramatization.

All neurotic and psychotic symptoms were relieved with a marked improvement in the health of the preclear and an increase of twenty-seven points on the Army Alpha test. Time of work: 65 hours.

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CASE NO. 3

PSYCHOTIC MURDEROUS RAGES.
CHRONIC SKIN RASH.

A thirty-year-old male negro, six feet four inches in height, about two hundred and fifty pounds—swamp worker. He was in continual trouble with police and had a considerable jail record. He continually dramatized a hatred of women. He also dramatized a continuous suspicion that he was about to be murdered. His I.Q. was about eighty-five.

Uniquely enough this case offered no difficulties in entrance. The subject was extremely cooperative with the dianeticist. Birth was found and exhausted without improvement in the case. A number of infant and childhood engrams were discovered and tested. Continual address of the preclear’s attention to prenatal life finally brought about a convulsion in which terror and rage alternated. The dianeticist was able to induce the preclear to listen to the voices he was hearing and to go through with the experience.

The convulsion proved to be twenty engrams nearer birth than the basic, which lay on another chain and which was discovered by dream technique. The convulsion was caused by the dramatization of an engram involving the injection of turpentine into the uterus by the mother in an attempted abortion. The main engramic chain consisted of the mother’s efforts to abort herself. From engramic content it was gathered that the mother was a prostitute, for as many as twenty experiences of coitus succeeded two of these abortion attempts. They were too numerous to be evaluated.

The basic chain contained many quarrels about money between the mother and her customers. The somatics of this chain were largely bruises and concussions caused by the mother ramming herself into pointed objects, or beating her stomach and abdomen. There were many loops in the basic chain caused by the similarity of incident and the confusion of coitus with abortion attempts. The basic incident was at last discovered and exhausted. It was found to lie about twenty days after conception, when the mother first discovered her pregnancy.

All engrams were exhausted in the basic chain. The convulsion was fully cleared and birth was suddenly found to have been a very painful experience, particularly because the child was taken by others immediately after birth. Only one engram chain (unconsciousness resulting from fist fights) was found in childhood.

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Final Comments

These hypnotism-oriented techniques of Dianetics require skill that is beyond the reach of general populace. There should be an easier alternative.

It is important to reach the engramic node and assimilate it into the mental matrix. After that the aberrated circuits can be straightened out quite easily. But the effort to reach the engramic node may require unburdening of some other aberrated nodes as a gradient.

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By vinaire | Also posted in Dianetics | Comments (0)