From International Viewpoints (IVy) Issue 18 - August 1994
See Home Page at http://www.ivymag.org/
Problems
By Leonard Dunn, England
A brief article by Frank Gordon in the current Ivy (no. 13)
asked for the subject of problems to be dealt with.
What is a problem?
A wrote to me that B was his problem whilst B said that A was his.
Actually neither is correct since a person is not a problem
but only a terminal in regard to a problem. When we had services on
Sunday afternoons at the London Org there was one very fine speaker
conducting them. On the subject of problems he said that, basically,
this was a 'how to'. To this I add, 'Or a how not to'.
This undercuts the idea of opposing and equal forces which may
be difficult to locate. Finding a 'how to' may still present
great difficulties.
LRH said that there are no unsolvable problems but only unacceptable
solutions - something very evident in the states comprising the
former Yugoslavia at the time that I write this. His answer was
that one has to find the least unacceptable of the various possible
solutions and abide by this. In other words, one has to reach some
moderately acceptable compromise that is better than the existing
state of affairs.
If my friends accept the idea that the other is a terminal and not
the problem itself they come up with the idea that the other is the
source of the problem. This, too, is totally untrue by my way of
thinking.
Responsibility
Although I have now had my present body for 80 years it is only
recently
that I have come to understand, accept and apply the idea that one
is solely and totally responsible for everything that happens to one
in one's life. This means that one cannot really be at unwanted effect
from anything. There must be some reason why one desires it to happen.
Perhaps to punish oneself for past bad deeds. One may not have done
anything of the sort but there is an implant that tells you that you
have and since this has been put over as a way to 'salvation'
one has accepted it as being true. One may draw such things to
oneself for the sake of experience or for fun to liven up an otherwise
dull life. There are plenty of reasons if one looks for them. One's
creation may simply be the acceptance of what one has been told as
being true and valuable.
Coming to harm
When I was about 20 I came into contact with R.W. Trine's book, In
Tune with the Infinite, and this made a lasting impression on me.
In it he says that one cannot be harmed unless one lays oneself open
to being harmed. This means that despite appearances to the contrary
one is willing for such problems to happen. In those days this
statement
was just words to me. Now it is a great reality and very workable.
The full acceptance of personal responsibility may be much too hard
for some people. It is much easier to blame another but that doesn't
resolve the problem, but just increases it and reduces the chance
of resolving it. The 'Problems Level' of the Bridge was supposed
to produce the EP (end phenomena) of being able to resolve any problem
that one encounters in one's personal life. This worked for some but
certainly not for all who have done that level.
The four flows
Some while back I was thinking about the Four Flows which are used
in many processes and felt that they can be related to responsibility
and provide a gradient scale to the acceptance of resonsibility. FLOW
1 - what another has done to you - requires no responsibility
as the other person is to blame. (One thinks!) FLOW 2 - what one
has done to another - well maybe, just possibly, I might have
done something to deserve this. FLOW 3 - what another has done
to others - teaches one what is one's responsibility and what
isn't. One is not necessarily responsible for what another has
done to someone else unless one has in some way been actively involved
in the incident. FLOW 4 - what one has done to oneself - is
the most important one of all for it is this that brings about the
acceptance of one's responsibility. This can lead one to the difficult
realisation that one is really responsible for everything in
one's life and that is a very major step forward.
Communication
Thinking about this subject, I thought that having any sort of
problem that doesn't resolve is also a matter of failure to
communicate
fully with the area involved. In the A and B situation that started
this off, they were writing slightly antagonistic letters to each
other - not very good comm. LRH stated that full comm. with any
problem would result in its being resolved. So we get the process
'What is the problem' used repetitively until the underlying
problem is realised and the current problem just blows. This lines
up with his statement that the solution to a problem is the problem
itself. The trouble is that this may need going back along the time
track to an incident of long ago and past incidents are not always
easily available to the person seeking them.
I came up with an idea recently and asked yet another friend to try
it out since I don't have unresolvable problems. If you try it
out and find it works I'd like you to write to me care of the Editor
to tell me about it.
Basically there are two ways of destroying something. The first and
most used is to As-is it. This means that by postulate one re-creates
the original happening in its own space and time and using its own
energies. On the other hand, LRH said that which is not continually
created ceases to exist. It is this way that I am thinking about since
a continuous problem means continuous creation. So realising what
one has that one doesn't want, one stops creating it and instead
creates that which one does want. You may know by now that I am very
much involved with the creative power of thought and this is directly
involved with the fact that whatever one thinks, that one creates.
As soon as one finds oneself thinking about the subject of the
problem,
just reverse the thought with an even more powerful one to create
what you do want.
Before this can work it is, of course, necessary that you accept full
responsibility for the creation of the problem and NOT blame someone
else, fate, or what have you. You created the problem so you can also
uncreate it and replace it and replace it with something more
positive.
I trust that this will give you some food for thought.
How failure occurs
I wrote this article mainly for those who have done Level 1 of the
'Bridge' which deals with the handling of problems, but who
still have problems that don't resolve. Any readers who haven't done
this level I suggest that they should so with a reputable auditor.
The same applies to any who have done this, or any other of the
grades,
as a 'quickie' which is to say that the level hasn't been
fully completed.
I was told of a pc who had made very good gains but who gradually
lost them and finally was in much the same position as at the start.
On the Clearing Course theory section LRH said that this level
eliminated
the R6 bank but warned that one could recreate it. This can apply
to any level. One can get rid of one's troubles but unless one
changes the thought patterns that created them in the first place
then such troubles, or problems, will be created afresh.
Unknown postulates
A person may have worked fully and honestly and has created a new
and better attitude to life but can still have an old trouble turn
up again. The life has been changed by positive thinking but there
can be an old counter postulate that can still act against the
positive.
I am working with such a case at the moment and am trying out a method
of handling this search for a radical negative postulate by working
in present time, since going down the track became too enturbulating
and was making the situation worse. This is still in the experimental
stage but is being done with the full co-operation of my client. It
appears to be working but I will give full details of it at a later
time if it works as I hope it will.