The way of being
Anil Mitra, Copyright 1986 – 2025

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Contents

Plan

Source documents

Design

The way of being

Being

The concept

Why being?

Universe

Cosmos

Laws

The void

Possibility

Ideal metaphysics

Experience

Experience and being

The structure of experience

Real metaphysics

Introduction

Real metaphysics

Dimensions and paradigms of being

Method

Limitlessness of being

Cosmology

Value

Doubt and certainty

Enlightened pathways

Enlightenment

Attributes and issues

Means

Pathways

The way of being

Plan

See design and planning.docm.

Source documents

For source documents, see outline of the way.html.

Design

Material to be added.

The way of being

The way of being is shared discovery and realization of the ultimate in and for our world and beyond.

This essential version of the way has (i) essential ideas and conclusions (ii) two simple arguments (iii) a short account of a method.

The main terms do not have precise and universally accepted definitions. However, the definitions lie within main family resemblance, and are chosen so that their system achieves a natural and universal structure, which is a justification of the choices of definition.

The term ‘ultimate’ may refer to extent (e.g., in spacetime) or kind or both. Hypothetical conceptions of the ultimate abound in human thought—e.g., the enlightened being, peak being or God, or the self-contained cosmos of modern physics. Here, the nature of the concept will emerge with analysis. We will find a framework for the ultimate. However, the analysis will not be closed, for, as we will find, as we will find, the full ultimate lies beyond our immediate knowledge and being. Nonetheless, we also find that it remains open to transformation of our being.

Being

The concept

A being is an existent; being is existence.

The term ‘existent’ suggests but is not limited to entities and may include processes, relations, concepts, words, and tropes. Further, as far as matter, mind, and spirit are real, material, mental, and spiritual objects are also existents.

The following material may be placed in a separate strikethrough section to be placed after the section, universe.

The existence of particular beings may be questioned. Introduce abstraction—to filter from observation, detail that is distorted. This notion of abstraction is essentially concretion and shows that there are beings. Anticipating the next section, it further follows that there is exactly one universe, to which all beings and kinds of being belong. Thus, if there are such kinds as matter, mind, and spirit, they belong to the universe.

Why being?

In asking what is real, what is in the universe, and what is not, there is a tendency to think in terms of individual and cultural experience, which may (i) be distorted, (ii) limited, and therefore (iii) proliferate existents, kinds, and categories. Being is neutral to the distinctions explicit or implied in these items, and therefore avoids the errors they entail. This is part of its power (another part is that it can also be a container for our being). However, that lack of kinds and distinctions could be a weakness—it could even render being as essentially a void concept. It will turn out that the reverse is the case—that being is ultimately empowering, metaphysically (we will find an ultimate metaphysics and that we are on a low to intermediate rung of a hierarchy of being), and, as will be seen, epistemologically, axiologically, and logically.

That we are on a low or intermediate hierarchic rung is not a judgment of value but a (judgment of) fact. It is a judgment that our sometimes over-optimistic estimation of our place on the hierarchy is negative in its consequences—e.g., how we treat other humans and species and how we limit ourselves when we think ‘we are it’ or that ‘our knowledge is it’. The limit to ourselves is, especially, that in thinking we are at some apex of being, we limit our achievement in this world and beyond.

Universe

The universe is all being.

Cosmos

What lies beyond the empirical? Can we talk about it? Realistically?

A cosmos is a causal domain whose interactions with the rest of the universe are presently negligible.

Currently, our observation does not extend beyond our cosmos.

It is consistent with observation and reason for there to be limitlessly many cosmoses of limitless variety. A goal here is to find a way to talk realistically of what lies beyond our cosmos.

Note that ‘beyond’ does not mean only in space and time but also (i) within our world but at too low a level of interaction to be significant (ii) beyond spatiotemporal description or even above such description.

Laws

Here and subsequently, strikethrough is used to indicate brief vs more complete treatment. It eliminates the need for two versions of assertions.

A natural law is a summary reading of a pattern of behavior for a domain of phenomena within or across a cosmos.

As they are immanent in the world, laws have being—that is, laws are beings.

The void

The void is the absence of being.

Existence and nonexistence of the void are equivalent. Therefore, it may be said that the void exists—that is, the void is a being. That is—

The void is the being that contains no beings.

There are no laws of the void (since laws are beings).

Should doubt be introduced here?

Possibility

Possibility goes here.

A description of the world or part of it may be mistaken because it is not possible due to its form or because of its mismatch with its intended object.

The condition for formal possibility is called logic; another term for formal possibility is logical possibility.

This notion of logic is identical to deductive logic, which may be called formal logic. The notion is that of necessary deduction from premises to conclusions. Another way to conceive formal logic is to look at structures to which logic has been applied and see them as grids. Then, logic is the condition for absolute validity of a structure—i.e., the condition for the structure to exist in some possible world.

Formal or logical impossibility is often but not always obvious. For Russel’s famous paradox regarding the set of sets that do not contain themselves, it is implicit.

Real possibility is what avoids errors of mismatch with objects. Examples are agreement with laws.

Real possibility presumes logical possibility. Logical possibility is the most inclusive possibility, for a description that violates logic is unrealizable at all – in any possible world.

Our cosmos as a whole is one possibility. Relative to limited spacetime regions of the cosmos, we may imagine other hypothetical possibilities that are consistent with logic and realism. Other cosmoses are other possibilities.

Ideal metaphysics

Metaphysics is knowledge of the real. The analysis so far shows that such knowledge is possible, even if only elementary.

If a logically possible being did not emerge from the void, that would constitute a law of the void. Therefore, all logically possible beings emerge from the void. That is, the universe is the greatest possible—limitless—in the sense that it contains all logical possibility.

Various points at which doubt should arise!

From the nature of the proof, motivated also by the magnitude of the conclusion, doubt should arise and is addressed in doubt and certainty.

That is, the universe is limitless in the sense that all possibility obtains. Particularly, the universe phases eternally between peak being and dissolution to the void.

This concludes a resolution of why there is something rather than nothing, i.e., to the problem of why there is being at all. Particularly, there must be phases of nothingness but they cannot span the universe.

It is effective to place further conclusions later, in the real metaphysics.

This will challenge intuitions that serve well in ordinary and scientific realms. However, from limitlessness, except that logic obtains, laws and paradigms from a cosmos – cause, variation and selection, mechanism, quantum behavior, and coordinate measure – have no necessary purchase. This may summarily be written – for the universe, cosmological realism is suspended.

The limitlessness of the universe is the fundamental principle of metaphysics (abbr. fundamental principle, fp).

The question of validity of the framework is addressed as in the discussion of abstraction in the section, on being.

The argument to the fundamental principle and its consequences constitute a framework that may be called an ideal metaphysics. The ideal metaphysics is perfectly faithful to its object and as a framework it needs to be filled out with content that may be pragmatically faithful at best. Later we will see that the system that results from filling out is perfect in a value sense.

Experience

Experience and being

Experience is awareness in all its kinds and levels.

We are experiential beings—it is in experience that all significance registers and without experience we are effectively nonexistent.

The hypothetical being that does not register in experience is effectively nonexistent.

The structure of experience

The structure of experience is (a) ‘experience of’ (subject or as-if mind) (b) ‘the experience or experiential relation’ (c) ‘the experienced’ (object or as-if material).

It is effective to further develop the structure of experience later, in dimensions and paradigms of being > the structure of experience.

Real metaphysics

Introduction

The ideal metaphysical framework shows that all beings realize the ultimate but not how to best realize the ultimate or what the ultimate is.

Real metaphysics

The perfect metaphysical framework may be supplemented by what is at least pragmatically valid in the system of (human) knowledge. The perfect illuminates and guides the pragmatic and the pragmatic illustrates and is instrumental toward what is revealed in the perfect. The join is not perfectly faithful to the real. However, in terms of the value of ultimate realization, as our best instrument toward guaranteed realization it is perfect. The join is named the real metaphysics or just the metaphysics.

While the real metaphysics has application in our world via, e.g., theories of science, how does it apply across the universe? It began in the ideal metaphysics, with the universe as the realization of possibility. It continues with dimensions and paradigms of being, below.

Dimensions and paradigms of being

Simplify so as to separate essence from detail.

The dimensions, which are similar to the categories of being (the highest kinds or genera), are conceived as kinds of or within being (or understanding, in the case that we doubt our ability to completely list the kinds of being), that are efficient in understanding, explanation, and prediction for domains of phenomena of interest. The paradigms are general forms of our experience and theories, selected so as to be useful in hypothetically projecting understanding beyond our cosmos.

Aristotle’s Categories, Categories, (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

Though categories are the highest proper genera, just as a set is a subset of itself, being may be taken as the highest of the genera—a category itself.

As the highest genera, we expect and want the categories to be pivotal in understanding, explanation, and prediction. We might want perfection in this matter. However, we might not always have perfection and we also want understanding etc. at levels below the high genera. These functions are the desiderata that motivate the dimensions and paradigms.

We classify the dimensions as pure and pragmatic in just the senses that the real metaphysics has pure and pragmatic sides.

The structure of experience

The general form of experience above was given earlier in experience > the structure of experience as follows,

The structure of experience is (a) ‘experience of’ (subject or as-if mind) (b) ‘the experience or experiential relation’ (c) ‘the experienced’ (object or as-if material).

We now further develop the form of experience.

In pure experience there are no real objects but may be potential ones.

Matter and mind are not denied but are regarded here as ways of speaking about (an) experience.

The subject side has reason (perception and thought via intention to fact and inference), emotion (with feeling, especially pleasure and pain), value (e.g., ethics and aesthetics, which results from reason, emotion, and selection), and will to action.

The object side includes the person (self, body, mind), community, and world.

The subject side connects to the object via intention, will, and action.

The universe is effectively a field of experience – from limitlessness, experientiality (i) cannot be inherently pervasive but (ii) can reach down in primitive form to elementary objects (i.e., to elementary levels of description) (iii) is therefore, effectively pervasive as an experiential, i.e., subject-relation-object field.

The pure dimension

Since experientiality and being-as-being are effectively co-extensive, we may say that experiential being (experientiality) is a pure (co) dimension of being. Further, it is an approximation to treat the subject and object sides of experience as real. Therefore—

Experiential being is the pure (co) dimension of being—it subsumes subject – experiential relation – object.

Thus, the pure dimension is at a higher level than the categories, unless, of course, being itself is taken as a category (as suggested above).

The general paradigm—as realization of possibility under logic (as explained in possibility).

At this level, every being is all being and being-as-such and, so, all beings, including the void, would be this highest level of category. However, for ordinary purposes, in our ordinary world, distinctions are necessary, and the beings are not categories. Still, (experiential) being, the universe, and the void remain categorial.

A good – perhaps one of the best – path paradigm is the philosophical school of yoga, understood as a way for experiential beings to unite as with the ultimate (with only pure metaphysical foundation). However, in the our world, yoga requires supplement by modern scientific and technological categories – natural, psychological, and social – which did not exist in modern western form when yoga was written. For western readers, yoga may be supplemented by mysticism in action.

Research modernization of yoga beginning with yoga.

The pure dimensions are chosen as the relational aspects of experience, i.e., subject and object.

Though the choice may seem subjective and limited, it level of description transcends that of subject-object and matter-mind. With similarity and difference, these yield exhaustive markers of identity, extension, duration, and property, demonstration of which is taken up in longer versions of this document.

Which will be linked later (older versions may be temporarily linked).

Pragmatic dimensions

Pragmatic dimensions are categorized (i) according to the above aspects of experience (ii) and then, according to divisions of human knowledge and experience (pure or abstracted aspects included).

Object aspect of experience

A western emphasis—emphasizes disciplines and paradigms from philosophy and the science.

Justification – pragmatic metaphysics.

Metaphysics and abstract sciences

Metaphysics

Metaphysics as science (with epistemology, ethics, and logic), i.e., philosophy as general knowledge.

Abstract sciences

Abstract sciences – symbolic systems, linguistics, ideal metaphysics as an abstract science, formal logic, mathematics, computer science.

Paradigms for metaphysics

General logic

Concrete sciences

The sciences

The sciences – physical, life, social, and psychological; and their application including exploration of space, time, and the universe.

The social sciences and technology

Some detail on the social sciences and technology is relevant, especially to exploration of the universe from the as-if material side – sociology (individual and group, one and all, few and many), politics, economics, law, technology, exploration, resource location and extraction, and culture.

Culture is conceived as knowledge development and transmission and includes tradition, art, religion, and entertainment.

Paradigms from the concrete sciences

Paradigms include indeterminist (random) process; formation by incremental variation and selection to form (e.g., void to transients to structures to cosmoses and particles to molecules to replicators to species to species); causation and mechanism – with and without probabilistic process; groups – formation and process.

What is the role of these paradigms? Logic in its pure form allows worlds and beings that we would normally think of as absurd; the paradigms enable estimation of probabilities or likelihood.

Subject aspect of experience

Exploration of and with mind – metaphysics (knowledge, its development, and paradigms) and meditation (yoga is implicit, for though yoga transcends the subject-in-a-limited-sense, in reality the subject is not separated from the object).

Paradigms are similar to those of the object side.

The subject side has reason, emotion (especially pleasure and pain), value, and will to action.

The subject side is elaborated in the structure of experience.

General logic

In possibility, logic was deductive logic. It may be extended to further include establishment of necessary fact, e.g., that the void exists. Parallel to the notion of argument, this extension may be called necessary or formal argument. While the establishment of logics is inductive, argument under them is deductive. Similarly, establishment of scientific theories is inductive, while deriving conclusions under them is deductive; and the establishment of facts and conclusions under then constitute argument which is good in some sense but not (necessarily) necessary. Given this parallel between necessary and good argument, they may be collected under one umbrella notion and labeled general argument or general logic.

General logic is the paradigm of being.

Category Theory, (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

Essence and summary of the dimensions and paradigms

Dimension—experiential being.

Theory—real metaphysics.

Paradigm—general logic.

Method

Metaphysics and general logic

The metaphysics implies that all logically consistent conceptions are realized.

That we do not experience all possibilities in our world is not contradictory, for the world is but one possibility. In and beyond our cosmos, the realization of all possibilities constitutes the universe.

Some possibilities seem absurd. Examples are that the world was created a moment ago, complete with histories and memories, and will be destroyed in a moment seem absurd. Similarly, that the world is nothing but the content of my consciousness, also seems absurd. That the world is as in the big bang cosmology seems robust. To rule out the absurd, and to rule in the robust we appeal to the paradigms. Incremental adaptation makes robust worlds more likely, and the fact it takes beings capable of high level perceptivity to experience such worlds makes their apparent preponderance great.

Imagination

Possible worlds

Possible Worlds, Possible Objects, Impossible Worlds, Modal Fictionalism, Haecceitism, Leibniz’s Modal Metaphysics, all from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Binaries – opposites – and continua

Informal

Reflexive

Metaphysical

Epistemological

Axiological

Aesthetic, ethical

Logical

Limitlessness of being

It has already been seen that “the universe is limitless – it phases eternally between peak and dissolution to the void”.

Further conclusions now follow—with some repetition.

It follows that every being is unconditionally limitless, i.e., realizes peak being, for otherwise there would be a limit on the power of the universe.

The limitlessness of all beings also follows since a being is the void and the being. This is not a contradiction, for beings merge in the peaks.

While peaking is given, there are (must be) enlightened, effective, and share paths to the ultimate.

The limitless universe has identity; the universe and its identity phase eternally between peak and dissolution – are limitless in extension, duration, variety, peak of being and variety of peak, and dissolution; all beings inherit this limitlessness; birth and death are real but not absolute – in birth we emerge from potential to which in death we return; if we do not see this in human form we can know it (as here) and there are higher forms in which we will see it – in the peaks we see and are all.

The following to be reviewed for adequacy of the elements “reflection, valuation, and action—thought and emotion – pleasure and pain”.

There are efficient shared paths to the ultimate, which are a balance of reflection, valuation, and action—thought and emotion – pleasure and pain.

Cosmology

Cosmology is the theory of the variety and extent of being over sameness, difference, and property.

General cosmology

The theory is general logic.

There is no distinction between real metaphysics and general cosmology except for emphasis—the metaphysics focuses on depth, the cosmology on breadth.

Cosmology of experiential being

General cosmology as experiential cosmology

Hierarchy of being

Cosmology of form and formation

In form we find symmetries and causation. The cosmology of form is the theory of behavior under form and formation. It is part of general logic.

Whereas cosmology of form is and has theories, these are locally but not ultimately foundational. The ultimate foundation is metaphysics > general cosmology in which there are explanations of form and formation starting from nothingness or, equivalently, from any being.

Physical cosmology

The theory of the general features of our cosmos based in cosmology of form and general cosmology (and modern physics).

Value

Add…

Doubt and certainty

Doubt ought to have arisen regarding the arguments and conclusions at various stages.

However, the conclusions are demonstrated and are consistent with reason and experience, despite any apparent contradiction of worldview.

Further, alternate proofs may be given.

Yet doubt may remain. Given that essential doubt should arise regarding existence of the void, the following options arise—

To regard the existence of the void as one or both of (i) a postulate for metaphysics – a system of understanding of the universe and beings as ultimate (ii) an existential principle to guide living and action.

To reject and abandon the system developed here.

Enlightened pathways

Enlightenment

In other documents, this may be ‘An enlightened pathway’; word ‘enlightenment’

Realization of the ultimate and its value are given; pleasure and pain (physical pain, doubt, anxiety) are unavoidable; however there are enlightened and efficient paths to the ultimate in which enjoyment (the ‘sum’ of emotion, particularly pleasure and pain—but note that emotion and cognition are intertwined) is ideal.

An enlightened pathway synthesizes (a) living well in and for the world (b) process toward the ultimate. It sees that pleasure and pain are unavoidable and seeks enjoyment via four ingredients:

Shared negotiation and enjoyment of paths—given that entire experiential being is agent and object of realization, full realization requires full participation of being in be-ing and becoming,

It learns from but does not just follow prescribed ways, even with understanding—leaders arise but are not (seen as) sources of absolute truth.

Seeing that pleasure for its own sake need not be avoided, but paths emphasize pleasure in being on the way—on the path,

Addressing pain by (a) healthy living – physical, mental, communal, and spiritual (b) the able giving aid to the less able or fortunate and where appropriate, the best therapy of the time, and, especially—

enlightenment that avoids illusions of ideal perfection but seeks a pragmatic balance of emotion, pleasure and pain, perception and reason, will, and action on shared paths—which, as far as reasonable, seeks process through and not around pain.

Regarding emotion, pleasure and pain, perception and reason, will, and action – have the italicized in one place and link or paste special from all other uses.

Enlightenment pertains to being on pathways to the ultimate; in received religion, enlightenment is often thought to be ideal perfection; however, real perfection as emerged here sees it as a balance of the ideal and the work – even struggle – of being on a path.

Attributes and issues

Dimensions and paradigms of being

Pure

Dimension—experiential being, i.e., subject – experiential relation – object.

Paradigms—for being – universe as realization of possibility under general logic; for beings – yoga or uniting of beings and being.

Pragmatic

Subject

Structure and processing of experience— emotion (feeling, with enjoyment, and pleasure and pain), intellect, intention (will), and action.

Revise other accounts accordingly.

Object

Metaphysics, science.

Focus – self, community, world, ultimate

Other

Individual with group.

Immediate with ultimate.

Every day with universal.

Here -now with everywhere -everywhen.

Risk with security, doubt with confidence.

Acceptance – be-ing – contentment with stirring – seeking – becoming.

Means

Consider order

General

The real metaphysics of the universe as experiential being emphasizing yoga, meditation, limitlessness, science, technology, and dual object-subject exploration of experiential space.

Received

We do not present received religion here but note that readers may supplement the narrative with their preferred tradition. Received ways and masters are informative but not merely followed (religion, philosophy of, …and science), e.g., Christian mysticism, the four truths and the eightfold way of Buddhism.

About religion and its use

Get religion – what, eightfold; combine with discussions of religion below.

What is religion?

Meta-questions

How can we best conceive religion? Is it via empirical study, finding common elements and differences among what are called the religions, and (i) in a simple or naïve empirical approach, leaving it at that or (ii) in a rational approach superposed on the empirical, analyzing the empirical results for essence?

But that has deficiencies, (i) the pre-judgment in appealing to institutions named religion without a concept of religion (ii) the idea that an ideal can be extracted even from the ‘best’ institutions of a limited species (we are a low rung on the hierarchy of experiential being)?

How can we escape this apparently inescapable limits? We need an ultimate picture of the world to frame the question and its answering. However, it is commonly thought that we have no such picture and on this view we will forever flounder without any finality, no matter how sophisticated our analysis (except that we may by chance hit upon finality). But we now know that that common thought regarding our limits is only partially correct—though the pragmatic side of the real metaphysics is limited relative to purist conceptions of knowledge, the pure side is not so limited – is ultimate. We might supplement this knowledge by asking “How would an ultimate being conceive religion?” (a similar approach may be used for metaphysics itself and indeed is implicit in the way of being).

What is religion?

Sometimes its estimation is limited by the limits of self evaluation and the sometimes conflict of science and religion.

The real metaphysics suggests the following.

What is the name of the activity of entire being in search of all being? We identify it as the essence of spirituality and religion in their views and shared practice. They are framed by the real metaphysics.

On the use of religion

Religion and other ways – ‘cults’, ‘secular humanism’, varieties of religious experience…

See means > about religion and its use, above.

Pathways

Personal—beings

Defined above in dimensions and paradigms of being.

Universal—being

Defined above in dimensions and paradigms of being.

Program

A range of time frames

The program below is an amalgam of (i) the goals and elements of my life (ii) general options for planning focus of an individual-as-individual-as-communal-and-for-discovery-and-realization as a flexible routine. Readers may construct their own program from the program below.

Defining the program

The morning and the day items are daily and may be set up in a daily routine.

The path is a life endeavor and may be set up as a program for periods from a week through life, death, and beyond.

Morning

Awaken early – affirmation of being, dedication to realization, meditation on sustaining an attitude of achievement and equilibrium with others through distraction and pain, review priorities and how and when to die.

Recognition of ground issues—safety, security, focus on the way, health issues (medications, diet, mental and physical exercise, sleep), and discipline.

Morning tasks—medications and treatments, open files to edit, walk – stretch – vitamins – breakfast – fluids, set times and reminders.

The path

Developing and foundation for the way—ideas, experience, reflection, study, cowriting and editing, publishing, and presenting.

Living the way (one’s way)—ideas, attention to self – meditative and physical, immersion in nature and the real, attention to community – social action (see elements of being for aspects), attention to spiritual being, relations and networking, acting roles.

The day

Pressing and urgent action—being present to the real – emptiness now, security, safety, money, place, and pushing the way.

Daily and weekly tasks, lunch, review of plans and planning, preparation and planning for travel and immersion.

Exercise—aerobic, stretching, light weights; excursions and photography.

Evening rest and review, preparation for the next day, relaxation, social activities, networking; sleep early.

Summary

path programs—(i) morning routine and tasks (ii) the way – foundation and transformation, with relationships and sharing (iii) pressing and urgent agenda – emptiness now, security, safety, push and execute the way of being at personal and world levels (iii) tasks and lunch (iv) exercise (v) pm routine (vi) sleep early.