By Steve Spargo

In 1994 I experienced my own personal spiritual wakeup call. I’d been given a PTS interview and told to “handle my Mum” for about the 12th time. I went home and did something unusual. I picked up the phone and had my first ever real and interested conversation with my mother.

I hadn’t spoken to her in a year and I was interested to find she was doing a whole lot of new things. Enrolled at university, doing charity tutoring, doing some new things.

As we spoke, she responded to my interest and went right into communication with me. Told me things about herself she’d never even hinted at. I discovered my Mum as a person and it added enormous dimension to my life. I felt part of my space become calmer, happier and more resolute. So easily achieved in just half an hour - yet I’d been unable to do it in all my 35 years.

This was a wake-up call for me. My new relationship with my mother was graphic evidence that I had not achieved all the gains available from the simplest basics in Scientology. It was overpowering evidence that being highly trained as an auditor and reading every piece of Scientology I could get my hands on was not enough. It was proof positive that auditing up to the OT levels would not be enough to bring me all the rewards of Scientology. Something else was needed.

From that point, I determined to review and start applying basic Scientology. My life was never the same again.

The Missing Ingredient

I have achieved so many things since then. But this article is about a missing ingredient. If this ingredient is missing, a person will not make it to OT. He can get trained and audited, but he will not kick on and make the grade.

That missing ingredient is something Ron called the Road Out. He described it as follows in PAB 119:

One of the great truths of Scientology is that INCREASED AWARENESS IS THE ONLY FACTOR WHICH OFFERS ANY ROAD OUT. That is an awfully simple truth, but you'll find out that people don't know that. They think that LESS awareness is the road out-and that is the road down into the basement.

No matter what we are talking about, increasing our awareness is the only way out. Doesn’t matter if we are talking about problems at work, relationship difficulties or designing a rocketship.

Ron told one of my favourite stories about this on the Study Tapes. It shows how this increased awareness thing works and also the relationship between confront and awareness.

A married couple were having problems and the husband was telling Ron about how terrible it all was and what his wife had done to him. Ron asked him “What did she look like?”

“What?” The husband was mystified.

“Well, what was the expression on her face?”

The husband couldn’t say. So he went off with the commitment that the next time they fought he would take note of what she was saying and her expression while saying it.

At their next meeting, the husband related what happened the next time his wife had started a fight with him. He had observed what was going on and the argument had completely fizzled out. It couldn’t be sustained while he remained in present time, observing what was going on.

This is the case with anything. An engram loses its power when it is directly observed. An argument falls to pieces when someone seeks greater awareness of the other points of view. Any problem ceases to be a problem when awareness of all the factors increases.

Reverse The Dwindling Spiral

In this quote above I found my answer to why I could be audited and trained, yet still fall into the same old traps. Yes, I resolved a lot of problems because Ron and my auditors had rubbed my nose into certain things. But on the whole, I was still running these habitual not-is and alter-is that I thought was natural.

Everyone has these things if they are in this universe. They put alter-is and not-is on automatic a long time ago.

The way to a far better place involves reversing these little habits. We must learn to seek greater awareness on an ongoing basis.

I started by looking at the news and wondering about each and every story. What’s going on there? How come? What would I do about this situation?

I heard a story about finance and I wondered why it said our Central Bank was deliberately targetting 3% inflation. That started a study into what money was, who creates it and all the different ramifications. That’s something people really need to be aware of.

I wondered about the difficulties I had with TR’s in session. So I looked into it and found that in the workaday world, outside session, I was not using what I had learned. I found that communication at large is in a shocking situation where interruptions, non-sequitur and out-arc are standard.

I watched my wife in social situations. She gets into long talks with people and finds out about them. They are very happy about it and so is she. She can relate to people better and I’m constantly amazed by what she knows about people.

I have been applying this principle in life for many years now and its amazing how fulfilling it is to find out more about one’s environment. The more I focus on increasing my awareness, the more ARC I find for all of life itself.

If you want to move up in the game of life, you must take note of this datum and apply it in your own life. It is the key to all your future freedom:

INCREASED AWARENESS IS THE ONLY FACTOR WHICH OFFERS ANY ROAD OUT.

Comments   

 

# Li Po 2013-03-03 03:13

You nailed it. Wonderful.

 

 

# steve 2013-03-04 05:09

thanks Li.

 

 

# Jim Logan 2013-03-03 03:16

Honestly, this is one of the most enjoyable blog articles I've ever read. It also left me with a greater awareness. Thank you Steve. For lots of stuff, including this wonderful piece.

 

 

# steve 2013-03-04 05:10

you are welcome Jim. And thankyou too.

 

 

# Lana M 2013-03-03 03:59

Steve, After 17 years in the Sea Org, with 13 of those at the highly inhibited Int base, I found that my own awareness of other people, on other dynamics, on society was so bad that I was completely out of comm when I left in 2005. I have been working industriously since then to re-establish my own awareness and reality of life. I agree with you wholeheartedly. My own ARC for the environment and the people in it, just continues to climb. My own awareness for the world around me, continues to increase. It is the road out. I have only just started my journey -- but it is exciting to look at the road ahead!

 

 

# steve 2013-03-04 05:11

yep - it just keeps getting more and more interesting as you go.

Anyway, my observation is you are making up lost ground fast Lana.

 

 

# tunedal 2013-03-03 11:45

This is a very good article, I think. I immediately started to look at how I could apply it.

 

 

# steve 2013-03-04 05:13

Yay. That's what I was hoping you would say.

 

 

# Paul 2013-03-04 13:41

Thanks. This is a great article.

 

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