Gosh Toney Neil,

You never responded to my post, like you said you would and I believe it may be because of all of the other suggestions and beratements that you have received on this thread. But I really want to get your communication back, if you would be so kind, please.

I'm not going to try to tell you anything this time, after reading through this whole thread -- I'm just going to say that I hope SOMETHING happens to change your current views about the uselessness of your life and that you will not carry through with this.

Best,
Ann Marie

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Toney,

I'd say that for many people it is easier for them to take themselves out of Scientology than it is to take Scientology out of themselves.

That sounds glib, but I can give you an example of what I mean from my area i.e. computers.

Here is the scenario:

Someone tries to login whilst he is standing and fails. Yet every time he sits down to login he succeeds. Every time he stands up again to login, he fails.

There's no big mystery here. What has happened is that someone else has swapped a few keys around. The person logging in is a touch typist. So when the person is sitting down, he is not looking at (or thinking about) the keyboard. When he is standing up however, he is looking at the keyboard and pressing the keys that correspond to his login (and gets it wrong of course).

I can't give you any advice, because I have not lived your 40 years. I can answer questions though. But to the question: what would I do if I were in your shoes? I can only give you one answer, and that is, I haven't got a clue.

If however you think I have something that you can use, then you've got it, no strings attached.

Sometimes one can be pleasantly surprised by people and not just disappointed. The last time that happened to me was with Terril.

He agreed to meet up with MissDorfl and I (or if you follow the conventional "wisdom" of the board here or on FACTnet I met up with Terril with myself and I - in fact considering the amount of people I have been accused of being, Terril met up with about half of the board and I).

Apart from the Scientology bit, which I don't agree with, he is a really nice guy. Even with regard to Scientology, he was very open, and didn't try to dodge and weave or snow-job me. In other words we disagreed honestly, and I had a really good time.

I won't say what we talked about, because that is personal*, but I came away with the feeling that we had had an open and fair exchange of views (Terril would have to tell whether he sees it from that perspective or not) and I would go as far as to say that I would consider him to be a friend.

That's the way I look at people. It's the way I look at you. I see the massive amount of things I respect and admire about you (not least your ability to make me laugh when I read your posts on FACTnet or even on this thread - and I know that the humour is intentional). As long as the good bits outweigh the bad bits, then I am willing to take the bad bits into account.

What I don't do however is try to change those perceived "bad bits".

I would not want you to kill yourself for very selfish reasons, and that would not only be the loss of a friend, but also the loss of that friend's contribution to my life and enrichment thereof. I would lose a person who can make me smile at will, without even trying, even in his own darkest of hours.

I know that isn't something that should be a consideration for you in the decision you are making, but if I don't say it now, I may not have a chance to say it later.

*MissDorfl won't talk to me about what she discussed with you, because it is none of my business, there again I have not asked her because, as I said, it is none of my business.

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Hi Toney,
I'm friends with NEC. I'm a Freezone scientologist by the way.
I agree with his comment you are one of the most lucid of all posters.

It may be a possibility we can all meet for a beer or two. I'm up for it
if you are.

"There is suffering in life. It can degrade or elevate man according to the manner in which he meets it and the use that he makes of it. If it is intelligently understood and dealt with radically and not merely superficially, it brings in its wake that understanding which leads to happiness. For, instead of merely complaining against suffering, man then turns to removing radically the deep-rooted ignorance which inevitably brings such suffering. When suffering leads to real and eternal happiness by inviting our attention to the Truth, it should not be avoided. The lessons which it brings should not be spurned. They should be squarely faced. You must summon courage to strike at the ignorance from which such suffering sprouts. It is to eliminate suffering that suffering has come."

- Meher Baba

"Ordinarily, life in the physical body is terminated only when the sanskaras released for expression in that incarnation are all worked out. In some exceptional cases the soul gives up its gross body before the working out of these sanskaras is completed. For example, an individual who commits suicide cuts short the period of his life artificially and thereby prevents the working out of those sanskaras that were released for fructification.

When, due to untimely death, the sanskaras released for fructification are withheld from expression, the discarnate soul remains subject to the propelling force of these sanskaras even after the physical body has been discarded. The momentum of the sanskaras that were prevented from being worked out is retained even in life after death, with the result that the departed spirit greatly desires the things of the gross world.

In such cases, the discarnate soul experiences an irresistible impulsion toward the gross world and craves gross objects so badly that it seeks gratification of its desires through the gross bodies of those souls still incarnate. Thus, for example, the discarnate soul may want so much to drink alcohol that it takes to unnatural methods of gratifying the craving. It awaits its opportunity. When it finds someone who is a suitable medium drinking alcohol in the gross world, the spirit satisfies its own desire through that person by possessing his physical body. In the same way, if it wants to experience the gross manifestations of crude anger, it does so through someone in the gross world who is feeling angry.

Such souls are constantly waiting to harass incarnate persons with similar sanskaras, and they try to maintain their contact with the gross world through others as long as possible. In life after death, any lingering entanglement with the gross world is a serious hindrance to the natural flow of the soul's onward life.

Those who are subject to this precarious condition must be looked upon as particularly unfortunate, since they invite upon themselves and others much unnecessary suffering by seeking unnatural gratification of coarser desires through others who are still incarnate. Compared with these unfortunate souls, the posthumous life of other souls is much smoother."
 
Meher Baba, DISCOURSES, p. 305

love,
jack

Toney,

I talked to basicbasic about this thread and he had read some of it.

When I told him that I knew you, and might be meeting up with you at the weekend (you hadn't answered the PM at that time) he offered to change his plans, and meet up with us.

He did not offer that to proselytise to you (he really does not do that kind of thing), but to offer whatever support he could give as one human being to another.

Like I say, sometimes one can be very pleasantly surprised by individuals.

This is a person with whom, in the past, I have had pretty heavy disagreements with regard to Scientology.

There is one favour you could do me however. If you do decide to check out, could you please make arrangements to inform me (you know my E-Mail and tel. number). I won't try to talk you out of it, if that is your choice, but I would like to have the chance to say farewell, also with a view to helping to give you a burial worthy of a decent human being.

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Dear Toney Neil,

Thanks for your response and acknowledging my points/questions. So glad to hear about your decision.

My opinion -- I wouldn't even get into all of the negative responses you get here. What good does that do you? I mean -- you can get enough of that elsewhere??!

Please continue to talk to us here. You're a funny and friendly guy to have on the board.

Best,
Ann Marie

Annolian,

let me try to explain something about Toney, and I am not repeating anything he has said to me, I am interpreting from my own experience.

Toney can confirm or deny how close my thoughts are to his own personal perceptions of his own reality.

One mistake I think you are making is thinking that Toney is speaking from a position of weakness. He is not. He is speaking from a position of strength; it is the likes of Umike or Tigger who have betrayed weakness here on this thread (and elsewhere).

Toney has displayed:

Honesty
Openness
Realistic self-reflection
Courage
Bravery
Integrity

And he has managed to argue all of his detractors to a standstill.

Courage and bravery, surely those two things are synonymous?

No, Toney displays courage every day by facing up to the morning and the day, and making through to the evening and facing the darkness which is only coincidental with the night.

He displays bravery by talking about himself openly in public, and being willing to give straight answers, no matter how bent the questions (or twisted the questioner).

I do think that Toney's reaction to basicbasic was harsh and from my own acquaintance and friendship with basicbasic, undeservedly so.

So let's take a look at the detractors of Toney here on this thread.

One thing they all have in common is projection. They "make shit up", and then identify Toney with their own fiction.

Where does that fiction come from? It is based upon their own fears, weaknesses, and base motives, which they project onto Toney as if he were their canvas, upon which they can paint their own self loathing.

One thing that Toney (as opposed to some) does not present here is a holier than thou sanctimoniousness based on sheer ignorance, or worse, cowardly vindictive intent.

I've experienced some of what Toney has, is experiencing, I have a bit of a march on him inasmuch as I have been physically dead once (though not by my own hand).

I got lucky, and my support for Toney is not just based on the friendship we have for each other, but also as payback for those that were there for me.

It's my fervent hope that the day will come when the light that he sees at the end of the tunnel is not just another train coming right at him, and that the darkness which is not night is lifted from him.

That he can look forward to the future, and not, as now, with dread to the next day's pain (and boy have I ever been there).

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J. Swift,

and that is the difference between you and I. You only know Toney from the Internet

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