Italian Business

Since the deployment of the first atomic weapons, people everywhere have lived with the possibility that everything they hold dear—their lives, their families, their careers and even the human species itself—could be extinguished in a few moments of devastation. Such consequences would be so overwhelming that, for many, the only defense is a hope it will never happen. In a message of compelling urgency, L. Ron Hubbard shows how to resolve the situation at its very core.

The single word “liberty” articulates not only basic rights, such as freedom of speech and religion, but many other vital concepts: opportunity, choice, security and even happiness. Indeed, it is a word that symbolizes the dreams and goals of every human being. Yet its very power makes it liable to abusive ends entirely opposed to its true meaning. In consequence, both individual and national freedoms can be eroded in a manner that escapes detection.

Tyrannies are sown at times when nobody is very watchful, where everybody has a full stomach, where everything is calm, nothing much appears on the surface. And then tyrannies show up and become very obvious when individuals, growing a little hungrier, a little less possessed of production, suddenly notice that there is somebody saying they mustn’t talk, somebody saying they mustn’t have opinions.

In his lifelong quest to uncover the answers to life and Man, L. Ron Hubbard discovered that all life forms, from the lowest to the highest, are motivated by a single command: Survive! Yet questions still remained. What exactly is life and how does it accomplish its purpose of survival? Is life merely live matter? Or does it contain another quality altogether? Thus Ron set out to isolate and identify the very essence of life itself.

In his search to understand Man, L. Ron Hubbard discovered that there is a single common denominator to existence: Survive! No matter the varied experiences or activities of individuals, everyone is seeking to survive and that is the only common denominator to all life.

Every human being seeks to know the truth about himself and to resolve to his own satisfaction the mysteries of life. And therefore, for many thousands of years, countless philosophical and religious teachings have sought to enlighten people with answers. But where their practitioners insisted - indeed, demanded - that their answers must be the answers, they blocked the road to greater freedom for millions of people. For as history tells, to force an individual to accept a truth instead of permitting him to find truth is a road not to freedom, but to slavery of thought and belief.

Today weapons exist powerful enough to annihilate whole nations. And violence has become commonplace, often in disregard of human life. Why has there been such a lessening of moral responsibility and, most important, what can be done about it?

An extraordinary drama played out across thousands of years, Man’s long search to penetrate the mystery of “the other fellow”—and thereby to know himself—found its expression not only in philosophy and religion, but even in war and conquest. Yet in spite of, or perhaps because of, the crucial intensity of this quest, its continuing failure down the centuries accumulated ever-deepening problems for Man.

Man’s failure over many millennia to find the cause of aberration has exacted an incalculable toll in personal unhappiness and ruined lives. But were the answer found, the horizons would be unlimited. Individuals could achieve the lasting success they desire. Families would thrive, united and strong. Groups and organizations would reach new levels of prosperity. Nations would flourish, realizing they no longer need resolve their differences by violence and war. And even the brotherhood of Man might graduate from poetry to reality.

In a world of unpredictable forces racing headlong toward an uncertain future, how can a single individual control his own fate? How can he safeguard the well-being of his family, the prosperity of his group and the security of his nation? Must he mutely await the next unforeseen blow, which might well signal the end of all dreams and aspirations? Or should he endeavor by whatever means, through whatever plan, to secure the future for those he cherishes and the society in which he lives?

It has no mass or location. It is not energy. Yet it is alive. And it gives life. Such are the characteristics of “a life-giving unit”—the source not only of all thought, but of all that is decent, ethical and noble. Indeed, this is you. The discovery that each individual is, in fact, a source of life radically alters the relationship between Man and the material universe.

When still a young man attending university, Ron observed that those working in the humanities had no training in the exact sciences. Believing that the precision of the scientific method might furnish a solution to the problems of life and livingness, he urged faculty members of the psychology department to apply the principles of physics to the field of the mind. It was an entirely novel approach. And when no one took up the challenge - either then or in later years - Ron undertook the task himself.

Driving a car would be awkward indeed if one had to think newly of every tiny procedure. But what happens when someone puts a whole field of thought and action “on automatic”? His education, for example? Or his work? Or even his entire life? The answers are here and they open a completely new perspective on the mind. To the degree an individual has withdrawn from participation in an area of life, he substitutes an automatic mental mechanism for himself.

It has been bought and sold in a thousand dramas. It has been preached about from every pulpit—debated, contested, condemned and exalted. And with no means to accurately measure or quantify it, the physical sciences either ignored it or denied its very existence: the human soul. Here, then, is a discovery all the more remarkable for being grounded not merely on faith and belief, but on proofs as irrefutable as any in science.

What motivates life? What motivates Man? Those were the questions Ron posed when seeking workable answers to the problems of both the individual and society. After examining the whole of life in its variety and complexity, he isolated a common denominator to all living things—the Dynamic Principle of Existence: Survive! Here was a watershed breakthrough in Man’s understanding of Man.

What is life? Such was the central question L. Ron Hubbard posed when setting out to unravel the riddle of human existence. After examining all aspects and elements of existence, he arrived at an altogether startling discovery—one which suddenly clarified all life’s various phenomena: Life is a game.

From the dawn of time, Man has cherished the hope he could achieve a greater freedom. That hope, articulated by the greatest religious leaders across the centuries, has time and again renewed his strength to face the future. But with no practical means to convert hope to reality, the goal of a greater freedom remained, for most if not all, a distant and unattainable dream. Then, with the onset of the twentieth century, came the rapid and unprecedented advance of the physical sciences. Yet, at the same time, these sciences limited their research to the material world....

Through his extraordinary journey to the founding of Dianetics and Scientology, Ron did just that. From his adventurous youth in a rough-and-tumble American West to his far-flung trek across a still mysterious Asia; from his two-decade search for the essence of life to the triumph of Dianetics and Scientology - such is the story Ron recounts in a lecture so legendary, it has been heard by millions. How could one man discover the source of all human aberration and provide an actual technology by which Man could rise to greater heights of honesty, decency and personal freedom?

It is upon the individual that the success of an organization and, indeed, the civilization depends. Those who accomplish more with less effort are more willing, more capable, and in fact, more efficient. They suffer less emotional stress and strain. They are better suited to make key decisions. And as efficiency increases across whole industries, so the whole of society benefits. Such is the subject of Increasing Efficiency, wherein L. Ron Hubbard reveals discoveries that provide a wholly new perspective on efficiency.

Your mind: it is your constant companion. You live with it 24 hours a day, every day of your life. Yet Man has known practically nothing about how it works. And from marriages that end in divorce to careers that wind up in frustration, from tensions that interfere with work to conflicts that divide nations, virtually every human crisis can be traced to Man’s ignorance of the mind. Imagine, then, the potential benefits of finding the answers.