The Way of Being
An extended outline for The Way of Being
Anil Mitra, Copyright © (this document) – February 2024 – November 29, 2024
Anil Mitra, Copyright © (the way of being and precursors) September 1986 – November 29, 2024

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Contents
The study topics include topics, persons, sources, and ‘to do’ items

Part I	Preliminary [ temporary ]

1	About the outline

1.1	Plan for this preliminary part

1.2	About the outline

1.3	About the structure of this last version of The Way of Being

1.4	Net plan for the version

1.4.1	to be done in parallel with

1.4.2	Done

2	The concepts – template and system

2.1	Template

2.1.1	Introduction

2.1.2	Definition, meaning, and significance of the concept (-object) in the way of being.

2.1.3	Related concepts and place in the hierarchical concept system

2.1.4	Place in the historical process of received meanings.

2.1.5	Miscellaneous items

2.2	The essential way

2.3	The system of concepts

Part II	[ Outline of ] The Way of Being

3	Into The Way

3.1	Overview

3.1.1	The core

3.1.2	Representation and reality

3.1.3	Holism – the system of concepts

4	The Way of Being

4.1	Experience

4.2	Being

4.2.1	Being

4.2.2	Beings

4.3	Possibility

4.4	Metaphysics

4.5	Cosmology

4.6	System of knowledge

4.7	Realization

4.7.1	Pathways

4.7.2	Pleasure and pain

4.7.3	Program

5	Return

Part III	Parallel developments

Part IV	Reference

The Way of Being

Preliminary [ temporary ]

About the outline

A temporary in-process outline and plan for the ‘last’ version of the way of being

Plan for this preliminary part

As it speaks of the ultimate, this work cannot be complete. Further, every culture necessarily recreates truth. As the work is evolving, residual plans may be absorbed into a section on resources.

About the outline

The outline will flow from a system of concepts and their relationships.

About the structure of this last version of The Way of Being

The version will

Have a core structure of the way at the following levels—(i) main – essentials for realization and minimal academic material with stems for #ii (ii) implications for ideas and endeavor.

Presentation will be center – out and top – down. The core of the core will be the essence of the world view and paths of realization. The core will be in a toc.

Minimality and detail (captured at two or three levels with ms word styles). Minimality is the core. Detail is the system developed around the core.

Have explanation, sources, and historical material of relevance to the developments.

Net plan for the version

to be done in parallel with

… with focus (i) on simplification (ii) per dynamic need (iii) as in—

part, chapter, and section order imported from the earlier outline with stars for sections that are to go to the parallel developments

concepts with sources from earlier outline…, concept organization per below, concept development

concept template with dynamic reordering and re-hierarchizing

implementation of the system in a database which will show concept level, hierarchy, relationship and alternate terms.

import elements of the outline from the earlier outline—

main elements

but first complete the following list of things to import from the earlier outline

minimal import

complete this list of things to import from the earlier outline

things to do, sources, study topics, comments, content with parallel topics

eliminate the earlier outline

write, co-edit, publish

continue to review and simplify plan while implementing it

Done

key points from multiple points of view summarized at a minimal emphasizing enlightenment (realization) or academic metaphysics—as in the essential way

The concepts – template and system

A link to a concept database will be placed here.

Template

Introduction

The concept template is a systematic approach to concept presentation and development.

Among the issues regarding the concepts and their system are

Meta-issues of meaning, definition, and method,

The structural issue of holism,

Epistemic and existential motives for the concepts and the system.

These issues shall be addressed naturally and systematically via incorporation to the (system of the) concepts themselves, thus making the system stand on its own (of course, saying does not make it so and therefore demonstration is needed and given).

Thus

Definition, knowledge, and rationality (and thus epistemology – and method), and value (and motivation) are among the concepts,

Holism is addressed (1) in an informal overview section (which also addresses value) (2) in the detailed development.

So, a final template has these issue built via the concepts themselves—

Definition, meaning, and significance of the concept (-object) in the way of being.

Definition for the way of being

That definition alone does not guarantee or determine an object and that this is addressed in the definition of definition.

Meaning—the concept-object and nature of the object—intrinsic and definite vs indefinite

Significance of the concept

Alternate and related terms and reasons for choice

Some terms—spirit for experience, salvation for enlightenment.

Related concepts and place in the hierarchical concept system

Main vs constituent or subordinate

Related

Place in the historical process of received meanings.

Relation to received meanings and reasons for differences.

Miscellaneous items

Comments and commentary that do not fit the above categories

The essential way

In beginning with the void, the following emphasizes realization. To emphasize academic metaphysics first, it could begin with experience or being.

This is to be (i) simplified (ii) reviewed in parallel with development of the main narrative.

As the void has no laws, all possibilities emerge from it—of absolute necessity; it is of necessity that there is no eternal nothingness.

The universe is the realization of all possibility; it is experiential and has identity, which phase eternally between nothingness, the manifest, and peak states of being.

The universe and its identity are limitless in duration and extension; in variety, peak, and dissolution (it phases eternally between the void and the manifest); there are cosmoses of limitless number and variety, whose isolation is at most temporary, and which must be connected at the edge of their boundaries (in extension-duration); there are (effectively) no-interaction cosmoses passing through ours.

We are experiential beings in an experiential universe; in experience there is a relation between ‘experience of’ and ‘the experienced’; the former is the concept or subject or as if of mind; the latter is the object or as if matter.

We are experiential beings in an experiential hierarchy—neither the merest of sentients nor the peak, but phasing between both; all beings inherit the limitlessness of the universe, which is not a contradiction as they merge as one in the peaks of the universe.

That we will realize peak and dissolution eternally is given; however, there are intelligent pathways to the ultimate, which, to be effective, are shared and negotiated rather than merely followed (but tradition may be useful in charting paths); ultimate god is not remote—it is in process – a process in which all beings take part.

Birth and death are real but not absolute. In death, we go back into potential being. In birth, we are (generally) not copies of our previous beings. Why do we not have this awareness (in general)? Pan-awareness of universal existence occurs at higher levels of experiential being – beings that populate cosmoses with greater forms than ours. Perhaps this is not the most common mode, but from limitlessness it is necessarily one mode of pan-being. Thus, discounting those who say they perceive past lives, we do have the conceptual power—here and now—to see our pan-being. Therefore, the ‘why’ question above is really—ought to be—a ‘how’ question and the answer is that while we do not have the perceptual awareness, we are at that place in the hierarchy of experiential being such that (i) we can think the question (ii) answer it conceptually even though we do not see it and perceptual awareness will arise in going back into potential being and emerging again, higher in the experiential hierarchy.

An alternate perspective is not that we are ‘this’ being and will emerge again, ‘higher’, but that we are all just one being, constituted of many, discrete relative to the time frames of our cosmos, but continuous – one – on sufficiently long time frames or at a level of description above time and change. Now, given these reasons, we can intuit our oneness of being, but can we perceive it? It may depend on what we regard as our instruments of perceiving. From the point of view of an individual ‘self’, the boundary between the body and the environment is the location of instruments of perception; from a universal perspective, that boundary as locating what is to be called perception is arbitrary and internal-internal and internal-external flows of information have the same status; neither perspective is in error, neither is finally basic, but each is more illuminating for some purposes and less illuminating for others.

Limitlessness reveals an ideal metaphysics, which is perfectly faithful to the real in virtue of the abstract character of the void. It shows an ideal of perfection but needs complement to develop paths to the real. The complement is our pragmatic knowledge which is not perfectly faithful. The join of the two—the perfectly faithful and the pragmatic—is not perfectly faithful but as the only and necessarily effective guide to the ultimate it is perfect relative to the ideal of realizing the ultimate in this world and beyond. This system reveals dimensions of being—(i) the pure dimension—experiential being in form and formation of worlds and beings on the way to the ultimate and (ii) pragmatic dimensions from our knowledge—which, since imperfection is allowed in process, may be chosen from the western system: nature (material, living, experiential), society, and the universal, together with paradigms projected in process to the universe (non-determinist variation and selection for near equilibrium, mechanism with and without probabilistic change, dynamics of systems and societies).

The effective or healthy life is one which attends to the needs and expression of the individual, society, the world, in their ‘material’ and ‘meditative’ aspects on a path to the ultimate.

Pleasure and pain are unavoidable; the way emphasizes pleasure in being on the way; pain, doubt, anxiety, are addressed in healthy living, by therapy, by the more fortunate assisting the less fortunate and, especially, in avoiding illusions of ideal perfection but finding pragmatic perfection in a balance of doubt-angst-pain where they arise with simple pleasure and pain in being on a shared path.

Effective pathways address living in the immediate world on the way to the ultimate—they address the everyday and the universal.

My process currently emphasizes—the way (ideas, yoga and meditation, immersion and action and journeys in the dimensions of being), safety, security (money, a path conducive place to live, and health), relationships (shared path).

The system of concepts

To avoid repetition the system is now in the main development that follows.

[ Outline of ] The Way of Being

Into The Way

earlier outline

Overview

The core

At the core of the way of being is a worldview (i) of the immediate and the ultimate as one (ii) with pathways of enlightenment for living with attention to material and ultimate aspects of individuals, societies, and the world.

The way captures the real (i) in a framework whose abstraction results in perfectly faithful representation (ii) seamlessly joined to pragmatic detail grounded in human knowledge which is imperfect as faithful representation (iii) such that the join is perfect relative to ultimate values revealed in the abstract framework (and is perfectly faithful only for ultimate being).

The claims of capture and perfection are demonstrated in the development.

Representation and reality

High-level: universe = self – at a level of description above time

Process: universe > self > nothingness > endless repetition

Thus narrative may begin with self-experience or being-universe

Holism – the system of concepts

The purpose of this section is (i) to give a brief picture of the system of concepts (ii) showing how they stand together as a whole.

The aim of the way is to realize what is good and ultimate in our world and beyond. Therefore, we need to know what the universe is like—to understand knowledge as guide and value as motive; where knowledge is incomplete, value is also a guide.

We begin the way to knowledge, value, and realization with experience as awareness in all its varieties and which is grounding and anchor in the real—without experience we are (effectively) nonexistent: to understand experience enables initial characterization of our nature and grounds what comes next.

The concept of experience includes consciousness and agency, awareness in its feeling and cognitive modes, its levels from sense to thought, and its receptive and active or agentive aspects (this conception of experience is more inclusive than in common received use; we prefer the term to ‘consciousness’ because the latter is less inclusive and conflicted in current thought; agency is ability to conceive and act toward outcomes and includes will and perhaps freedom of will).

What is knowledge and what are its criteria of validity?

The form of experience is experience of and the experienced (in ‘pure experience’, the experienced is absent though potential, and the ‘of’ may be dropped from ‘experience of’). A concept is an experience of an object (‘object’ just means ‘referred to’ and is not restricted to ‘things’ or particular kinds and may be empty); thus, here, concepts are referential concepts. Meaning is a concept and its possible objects and linguistic meaning is a sign attached to a concept via habit, use, and, sometimes, by formalization. Knowledge is meaning realized—a concept and its actual (and intended) objects. Now this presumes that concepts depict the real. However, intended depictions may be in error and, further, the depiction model itself may be in error (for there is no ‘picture’ in the brain but what we have is a picture of a picture model).

With perfect representation as criterion, we cannot validly claim perfection unless it is demonstrated. However, ‘everyday knowledge’ has obvious pragmatic validity. On the other hand, perfection is an ideal that is sometimes desirable to achieve. Here, there will be significant cases in which perfection is achieved by abstraction, which is to filter from the referential concept, all elements that are necessarily distorted.

The outcome of understanding is a metaphysical system. Here, we find deficiencies in classical substance metaphysics, in science as perfect or complete, and religion (though not necessarily the aims of religion), which leads us to a neutral approach from ‘being’—i.e., beginning with the world as it is (which, though it is often thought either too trivial or too deep to be useful, will be found to be powerful). From abstraction, there are abstracts of being and the core concepts that follow, which are perfect. The concepts of universe, cosmos, natural law, and the void, form the core of the approach, and enable showing the universe to be the realization of all possibility. Therefore, we develop the concept of possibility, which leads to an ideal system of metaphysics and cosmology, which shows us the nature of the universe and our place and path in it. At this point in the main development we return to our nature and the concept of experience with a more mature understanding.

The abstract framework above is perfectly faithful to reality. However, that knowledge is ideal – an ideal metaphysics—and only a framework—and to make it useful in mundane matters and in developing paths to the ultimate, it is complemented with paradigmatic knowledge from our received traditions; the consequent real metaphysics (‘the metaphysics’) though imperfectly faithful is found perfect in terms of realization of ultimates here and beyond as value. The key to this perfection is to form a seamless dual of perfect and pragmatic metaphysics, which is apparently unrecognized thus far (perhaps a result of a desire for a false purism, which is also found in metaphysics as substance and in ethics as in right ends vs right action vs right principles or consequentialism vs deontology vs virtue ethics). Note that this ultimate system does not displace received metaphysics and epistemology but places them in context. The metaphysics reveals that our status in limited time contexts, is value-perfect and incomplete, and that we are moving toward (and then away from) ultimate being, which is perfect in that its knowledge is perfectly faithful and complete and its being is ultimate in that there is no greater (in senses to be discovered rather than postulated). As far as our language is inadequate to capture the real, a (partial) complement is found in art and immersion in the real (remarkable because, though it is our situation, it often passes unrecognized). The full cosmology, system of knowledge, and realization and pathways to the ultimate (in and from the immediate) flow naturally from this system.

In review, the approach from being enabled freedom from assumption generally and freedom from limiting (even crippling) received approaches grounded in substance metaphysics including general metaphysics, science, and religion.

The Way of Being

Experience

experience (experience-of or mind-like, the experienced or object-like or matter-like, relation; sensation, sentience, feeling, perception, thought, self-knowledge, agency), value (ethical, aesthetic, significant – in the sense of the ‘meaning of life’), concept (referential form – related to intentionality, referential concept), definition (real, linguistic / axiomatic; circularity of definition and escape), object, meaning (received and/or in use; infixity, indefiniteness, and multiplicity; search in dual space of concepts and objects; atomism and holism), abstraction, knowledge (what – adequacy of representation – pure and pragmatic, for the present purpose; how, criteria; ordinary knowledge, philosophy of perfection and its problems and pure-pragmatic resolution), method, reason (rationality, pure-pragmatic), sophistication (the problem of)

Topics to add so as to amplify meaning—language, grammar and syntax (and experimental syntax) and relation to logic, semantics.

Abduction (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Combine and minimize method / reason / rationality / pure and pragmatic.

Abstraction does not necessarily de-concretize the referent or result in an abstract object (more on this later).

In contrast to linguistic definitions, in real definitions one locates things or kinds in the world, finds words to specify them, show the specification is valid, and name them; one approach to locating an object and showing validity is abstraction.

Being

Revert to title ‘Being and beings’?

Being

a being (plural: beings), being (existence), ontology, metaphysics, foundation (substance, infinitism, regress, self – superficial vs deep / trivial vs powerful, modal – e.g., necessity), grounding (constitutive determination or explanation)

It should be shown that knowledge—content and method—is immanent in being, perfectly at the ideal (abstracted) level and pragmatically at the concrete level; ideally, the demonstration or ‘showing’ shall be immanent in the concepts.

Beings

experiential (self, other), (experiential) hierarchy (primitive; societies, world; experiential—animal / person / human—god / God / peak / greatest / ultimate), dimensions of being (categories) – pure and pragmatic, real, universe, cosmos, law (natural), the void

dimensions of being

Possibility

possibility (impossibility), coherent possibility (logical possibility), greatest possibility, real possibility, natural possibility, possible being, contingent being, necessary being (relative, logical / absolute)

On universe as realization of logical possibility (i) this does not contradict science or experience for science is—ought to be—silent on what lies beyond the empirical boundary and while our cosmos is one possibility, the other possibilities lie beyond the empirical boundary (ii) the universe would have identity; the universe and its identity would be limitless in variety, extension, duration, peak, and dissolution; there would be cosmoses of limitless number and variety, which may be temporarily causally disconnected from our cosmos; the other cosmoses may be beyond the spacetime boundary of ours or may be passing through ours but without interaction; all beings would inherit the limitlessness of the universe and merge with one another in peaks of being.

Metaphysics

Of course, metaphysics began with consideration of experience.

existence (extended to the void), dialetheia, limitlessness of the universe (fundamental principle of metaphysics), metaphysics, ideal metaphysics, real metaphysics, doubt (knowing-doubt)

Cosmology

A more complete title would be ‘Cosmology – metaphysics continued’

cosmology, general cosmology, concrete objects, abstract objects, knowledge (repeated from experience), value (repeated from experience: ethical, aesthetic, significant – in the sense of the ‘meaning of life’), birth, death (their absolute vs non-absolute nature), cosmology of form and formation (paradigmatic principle and principles, mechanism, determinism, indeterminism, probability, sameness, difference, identity, extension-displacement-space – relation-identity-being – duration-change-time, space-being-time, properties), experiential cosmology (hierarchy, peak, god, gods), physical cosmology, pure dimension of being, pragmatic dimension of being: nature (experiential, living) society (individuals and groups, economics and politics, law, culture, religion), universal

What is religion? The concept should not just be empirical. Conceptual and rational perspectives come from religion as (i) about the real – beyond immediate experience and science via reason (ii) from dogma vs reason (iii) symbolic truth (iii) cultural meaning and social bonding (iv) source of power – within and among cultures and societies (v) lie (vi) and therefore, dialetheic

The experiential aspect of nature is (as if of) matter and mind. What are politics and economics and how do they join or interact? What are the forces of social division and unity and what is the nature of their interaction – stable or otherwise? What is the law?

On concrete and abstract objects—a received view is that while concrete objects are ones that we sense, take part in causation, and are located in space and time, the status of abstract objects, while they exist, is in question; yet one view is that they are conceived, rather than perceived; here, abstract and concrete objects have the same kind of existential status, that both partake of abstraction and concretion, but the more abstract objects have aspects of existence filtered out in abstraction—thus objects can be more and less abstract; there is, however, a difference in how we treat the more abstract objects such as number (for example); since number has had causation and spatiotemporality filtered out they are not sensed and are therefore (today) usually defined in abstract terms, i.e., by specifying undefined terms, definitions, axioms, and rules of inference; which means that their existence and nature is not guaranteed and must be investigated, e.g., by studying the system as well as systems of inference as objects – and by developing formal methods of such study

System of knowledge

Knowledge was discussed in experience, above; the aim here is to discuss the extent of knowledge, the disciplines, their nature, their relations, how they constitute a system; and how all that informs the individual disciplines

disciplines, over-discipline, general logic (with art) and argument, system, formal metaphysics, living or lived metaphysics (a continuum rather than binary distinction and the mutuality of the lived vs the formal)

Realization

pathways, traditional ways, an enlightened path

Pathways

the way of being, ideas, transformation (realization), pathways (lifeways) – shared-intelligent-negotiated paths in the pure and pragmatic dimensions of being, immediate, ultimate (immediate and ultimate as one), pure and pragmatic (aspects of real metaphysics and cosmology), mind and object (aspects of experience); (human) being (as discrete and limited in time, but peak being over long enough or above time), peak being (god, gods, ultimates, all-possible-being-as-one)

Pleasure and pain

pleasure, pain, enlightenment (contentment, salvation—inner and outer, individual and shared, worldly or immediate and universal or ultimate; intelligent, shared negotiation; therapy; healthy living – physical, mental, communal, and spiritual) as process with or through rather than around pleasure and pain.

Program

program (everyday, universal), dedication, affirmation, commitment with acceptance of pleasure and pain.

Everyday program

ideas (the way, metaphysics, science, dimensions of being, art), action (path, meditation, yoga; risk, urgent imperatives; community), ground (discipline, routine, safety, urgent issues, and security; planning – set up a flexible daily schedule with priorities, perhaps in the form of a table)

Universal program

For details of the elements, see the everyday program.

being in the world (ideas – knowledge and its means, art; pure – yoga, meditation, immersion, ideas to action, retreat and renewal; community – education, work, relationships, paradigmatic action), becoming (immersion in nature and animal being as catalyst and inspiration; immersion and action in society and civilization as a place of being and as vehicle and path to the real; artifact—civilizing the universe, especially with technology; universal – following paths of pragmatic perfection); planning (review phase of life and needs for action in the dimensions of being; assess current situation and review and select activities of focus – immediate, short, and long term; set and review a time frame of action; build these elements into everyday planning)

Return

earlier version

Parallel developments

See outline of the way.

Reference

See outline of the way.