Tag Archives: meaning of life

Survival or Love?

“Axiom 1: SURVIVE!” Thus declared L. Ron Hubbard, delineating the Primary Axioms of Dianetics in 1948. A few years later, in 1951, he described the Eight Dynamics which are foundational for Dianetics and Scientology. Here he stated, “The FIRST DYNAMIC is SELF. This is the effort to survive as an individual, to be an individual. It includes one’s own body and one’s own mind. It is the effort to attain the highest level of survival for the longest possible time for self.”*

Lately I have been studying Scientology in preparation for a seminar on the group coming up next week. Scientology is a complex system, with a very convoluted process of advancement and an equally complicated belief structure. But wading through books by Hubbard and books about Scientology I have come to see that Hubbard’s declaration in 1948 is a fundamental, if not the fundamental, concept of the entire system of Scientology. It is all about SURVIVAL. Continue reading

Divine Stabs of Joy

C. S. Lewis called them “stabs of joy.” They were those moments of ecstasy that come at the most unforeseen times and often from the smallest incidents. As a child Lewis felt these piercings of his heart when seeing a picture of the Norse gods… and he was enraptured by the power of the scene, and its otherworldly “Northerness.” Music also could evoke these flashes of bliss for him. The search for joy became a focused desire of his life. Indeed, his autobiography is entitled Surprised By Joy and it is there he describes how he found the deepest desires of his heart fulfilled only when he discovered true joy in Christ.

I had one of these stabs of joy on the way to work this morning. Continue reading