My Success in Scientology: When I was about 19 years old and an art student, I had an occasion to become painfully aware of a problem about myself that had been bothering me off and on for some time. I and other friends at the time were intensely critical of what we regarded as "phony" people, sort of along the lines of JD Salinger's Catcher In The Rye. However, I had a nagging feeling that I wasn't actually entirely honest myself, though I really felt I wanted to be.
One day I was visiting the SF Museum of Modern Art and noticed a painting that instantly and immediately communicated it's message to me from clear across the room. It was a spray of reddish colors and spiraling lines radiating out from a pair of yellow discs from which descended the subtle features of a face. When I walked closer, I could read the title, "Nearly Hit." It was a perfect title for exactly what the painting communicated to me; a sort of deer-in-the-headlights shock of a person turning and realizing that some vehicle was right on top of them. The problem was that the painter was Paul Klee and I had already decided I "didn't care for his work, " and I'd had all sorts of reasons why which I could expound on at great length, yet here I was confronted with the best piece of communication I'd seen all day. I felt extremely phony.
I went home and wrote up a little essay, trying very hard to learn something worthwhile from what was for me an intensely painful bit of hypocrisy. What I ended up writing was that I really did want to be an honest person, at the very least with myself. I saw that there was a part of my mind that seemed to have a mind of it's own, that was not quite under my own observation and control and which blocked my efforts to determine my own point of view and my own conclusions. I wrote that I wanted to know what that sub-mind was and how it got there and what was in it and that if I ever came across anything that really knew what this was all about, I would apply myself to learning that subject very thoroughly.
A few years later, I came across Dianetics and Scientology. I found them interesting as ideas, but didn't really relate to them personally until I realized they had answers to the problems I had been trying to solve. That got me interested enough to actually want to learn and apply the materials I was reading about. When I actually did that, I had wins far beyond what I was even hoping for. I realized that I really was the sincere and truthful being I thought I could only try to become. I also learned that I could be influenced by other people, and even by past versions of myself, only when I left a sort of "power vacuum" by failing to create and establish my own vision and ideals. It was a kind of laziness of not wanting to trouble myself to think things through and take responsibility for concluding what was right and then insisting that things work out as they should.
In other words, I learned how to determine what my own truth actually was and how to keep faith with myself. It may seem like a simple matter to some, but these realizations reversed an inexorable process of decay and corruption I had felt going on within myself, that I had felt powerless to stop, much less repair. I had felt that living was making me worse, more opinionated and phony, but with the application of Scientology "auditing" (pastoral counseling), I realized I had halted that decline and that from then on, I would actually change for the better. That was only the beginning, as marvelous as it was. I had achieved what I hoped for most (and expected least) right out of the chute!
The plusses since then have been many and phenomenal. I had always dreamed of what it would be like to really be aware of myself as a spiritual being, but it seemed so out of reach it wasn't something I would ever actually ask for or seriously expect. I just thought maybe if I die I might become aware of myself as a spirit (maybe to my eternal regret!) if I didn't just totally cease to exist, but I didn't really expect anything much before that. However, I have had experiences with the application of Scientology that have not only made me aware of my true nature as a spirit, but have left me more certain of myself on that basis than I had ever been of myself as a body, or even as a composite of being, mind and body.
I am now engaged in finding out what my true capabilities are as a spirit being, and what an adventure this is turning out to be! At the very least, I am realizing I am capable of causing everything that is happening to me, even things I don't like. It has the effect of making me realize I can take as much responsibility as I want for anything I want. I don't think any other realization I've had has had the effect of freeing me as much as this one has. After all, barriers are what a person resists and if you know you can be what you can see you don't have to feel confined by anything.
