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

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.

"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."

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. Understood and applied by a single individual, these discoveries lead to a far better life. Applied by everyone, they would lead to a far better world.

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; from his 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.

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!

Your mind: It is your constant companion. You live with it 24 hours a day, every day of your life. Yet Man has known practically nothing about how it works. And from marriages that end in divorce to careers that wind up in frustration, from tensions that interfere with work to conflicts that divide nations, virtually every human crisis can be traced to Man’s ignorance of the mind. Imagine, then, the potential benefits of finding the answers.

From his adventurous youth in a rough-and-tumble American West to his far-flung trek across a still mysterious Asia; from his two-decade search for the essence of life to the triumph of Dianetics and Scientology - such is the story L. Ron Hubbard recounts in a lecture so legendary, it has been heard by millions.

Here is a story that begins with Ron’s immersion in a deeply spiritual, deeply traditional Asia, where he met and befriended - among other savants - the last of the great magicians whose predecessors served in the court of Mongol emperor Kublai Khan.

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.

It betrays the brightest hopes of individuals, drives families apart, incites organizational turmoil and pitches nations into chaos. 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.

"Here we are surrounded in this society by lots of people who say, ‘Oh well, there’s nothing I can do about it.’ But clearly to me, this is and seems to be a situation that one can’t say that about. For the first time we’re faced with the fact that, the absolute fact, that exactly the wrong thing to do is nothing." (L. Ron Hubbard)

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.

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.

To overcome tyranny is to win freedom as a people, anation or even Mankind. Toward the full attainment of that better future, here is Ron’s personal story of how he kept his discoveries about the human mind out of the harness of a modern tyranny. And, in consequence, how individuals today can achieve a level of personal freedom never before possible.

The single word “liberty” articulates not only basic rights, such as freedom of speech and religion, but many other vital concepts: opportunity, choice, security and even happiness. Indeed, it is a word that symbolizes the dreams and goals of every human being. Yet its very power makes it liable to abusive ends entirely opposed to its true meaning. In consequence, both individual and national freedoms can be eroded in a manner that escapes detection.

From the dawn of time, Man has cherished the hope he could achieve a greater freedom. That hope, articulated by the greatest religious leaders across the centuries, has time and again renewed his strength to face the future. But with no practical means to convert hope to reality, the goal of a greater freedom remained, for most if not all, a distant and unattainable dream. Then, with the onset of the twentieth century, came the rapid and unprecedented advance of the physical sciences.

What does the other fellow consist of? What is that other fellow? Well, the philosopher had to answer that question. And it’s the one question he never answered satisfactorily. And it’s the one question that’s been answered satisfactorily in Scientology.

It has been bought and sold in a thousand dramas. It has been preached about from every pulpit—debated, contested, condemned and exalted. And with no means to accurately measure or quantify it, the physical sciences either ignored it or denied its very existence. The human soul. Here, then, is a discovery all the more remarkable for being grounded not merely on faith and belief, but on proofs as irrefutable as any in science.

The most popular book ever published on the human mind, Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, generated an unprecedented wave of popular demand for personal instruction from the author. This lecture is L. Ron Hubbard’s first recorded spoken word on the breakthrough technology that inspired a movement now spanning every culture, across every continent, in over 50 languages. Here, then, is where the adventure began, an exploration into Terra Incognita - the mind.

It has been bought and sold in a thousand dramas. It has been preached about from every pulpit - debated, contested, condemned, and exalted. And with no means to accurately measure or quantify it, the physical sciences either ignored it or denied its very existence. The human soul. Here, then, is a discovery all the more remarkable for being grounded not merely on faith and belief, but on proofs as irrefutable as any in science.