For many people who read only the media they will have picked up on the cosmic speculation in a few of Scientolgy's 100,000 pages of text.
Most religions have some kind of speculative belief that man is not alone in this universe. For the ordinary man such a thought that the only life in this universe is on this world could be considered very insular. Per some Scientists, this universe is teeming with life.
Mohammad said that all Muslims must understand all religions, even the religions on other planets. Buddhists also have similar concepts about life being out there. The Veda has it. Hindus definitely has it. As far back the Egyptian history has it. Even the Bible has it. Maybe we are not alone and maybe we never have been. But honestly, who really knows?
You have heard the controversy of Scientology. So what really is it? I mean, not just the silly babble of uneducated outsiders who have never read a book on the subject. What is Scientology to an insider?
First, what is religion? There are two kinds of religions. The first is the Revealed Religion. This is where someone says God revealed the answers to them. That someone may be a prophet or messiah. These religions dominate the West today. The other kind of religion is a Natural Religion. This is where a person or group of people have tried to work out what is life, what are the laws of nature, how does life impact on us, and finally, can life evolve to a higher state of being. These are more Eastern in concept. They are Buddhism, Hinduism and includes Scientology.
Scientology means a study of knowledge, or knowing how to know. It is a study of how to know life. I will give an example. You are life. The chair you sit on is not. Life can be seen as exhibiting emotion. Your chair does not. Emotions are symptoms of life being present. For example, your chair does not get angry and sulk. But life can. You see life in your dog, and it follows these same phenomena as you. It can communicate, sulk, be happy, sad, fear and so on.
Scientology is a study of the laws of life and how they impact upon you. That is all Scientology is. A Scientologist has knowledge of life. It is supposed that if you knew all the laws of life, then perhaps you could run life, instead of life running you.
What laws am I speaking of though?
If I were studying physics I could ask, what is gravity? If we knew the absolute answer I think we could send a man beyond Mars. But we do not know truly what gravity is. We see its symptoms. We certainly see its effects - airplanes crashing, bridges being built to straddle cars over an abyss - a grazed knee when we fall. But what really is gravity? Is it little gravity particles pulling at each other? If so, how do they pull? Where does the force within gravity actually come from? How does that force actually work? If it comes from atoms, what part? No one has these answers yet. But even if they do not have all the answers, it is obvious that gravity does indeed exist.
Scientology is a study similar to this, but is a study of life, not the physical universe. Physics studies the physical universe for its answers. Scientology studies life for life's answers.
Here is an example. One really simple law of life - and you will see this is true: Life likes other life to be at a distance it tolerates to that other life. In other words, life likes to have tolerable distance to what it likes, and that distance is inversely proportional to the amount it thinks likes it. If you like your wife, you will want to be close. If you do not like her you will put distance between you. And the reverse is also true, if you put distance between you and someone you like, you will like them less. Time plays a part too.
Fine you say. What use is this knowledge? Well, let us suppose you liked a person and they liked you. But you had to be separated for a time by a big distance. Then after this that person started to not like you as much. Well, what would you do? You could get upset at this other person. Most people use upset as a mechanism to solve this, but honestly, it does not help. Some could get jealous and think this other person you liked had found someone else. But if you knew this law, you would know the real problem. So, what could you do? You could somehow reduce the distance between you and this person so would like you more again. This is a simplistic example, but it demonstrates what I am saying.
With Scientology I can easily help marriages, raise a person's IQ, and I can bring back personal respect.
Scientology is thousands of these small observances, laws and speculations about life. That is all it is. There are tens of thousands of pages on the subject. It covers you as life, families, groups, mankind, all living things - basically all things alive. When you start to learn what life is, and you start to really know what you are yourself, life becomes very easy to live. You enjoy life.
There is a book about the easier to understand laws and phenomena of life. The book is called Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought. If you read this book, life becomes an adventure. Sure, if you know what life is, and how it works, you have an advantage over your opponents in the game-of-life. But that's life. Life is a game. It has rules and if you do not know those rules and thus you cannot win you will not enjoy the game.
Now there is also the subject of the counselling, called auditing, which simply means to listen. This is an effort to improve your memory - and as you do so, you learn about yourself, your life. Again, it is learning, but this time specifically about you. The more you do this counselling the better and better your memory becomes. First you counsel recent events, then earlier and earlier, improving memory as you go. Eventually you have past lives to deal with, and down your memory you go. It is quite exciting to counsel another and to also receive it. There is a book on it called Have You Lived Before This Life.
There is what is termed para-Scientology. It is only a tiny part. This is speculation about things not proven as yet. That would include ghosts, intelligence life out there, exrtra sensory abilities, and even past lives. All religions have this speculative unproven part, not just Scientology. Concentrate on the main stream of Scientology and not eddies to the side. Then Scientology starts to make sense and one can see why people do it.
