The preview is a brief account of the way.
Its purpose is quick use and reference.
What it sacrifices in explanation is in the main essay
and other resources.

1. THE WAY OF BEING is a search for meaning and realization,
its outcome, and its narration. Its SOURCES are
(i) history of ideas and action, eastern and western,
(ii) search beyond common paradigms of the real,
(iii) experience, action, and reflection.

Aim of the way

2. The aim of (the way of) being is shared realization
of the ultimate for, in, and from the immediate.
There is no minimization of either the immediate or
the ultimate, which mesh and cannot be disentangled.

3. The nature and accessibility of the ultimate is not presumed
at the beginning of discovery.

What kind of activity is the way?

4. Reflection guides ideas, ideas guide action, and action
informs reflection and ideas.

5. The ideas have sources in philosophy, science, reason, and
the motive to symbolic religion but not from religious dogma.

6. The ideas accept science as pragmatically true partial
knowledge of the immediate world, i.e., of our cosmos.
But science does not limit the entire world (the universe)
to this domain; that there is a limitless world beyond the
current borders of experience (observation) is consistent
with but, of course, does not follow from science.

7. Though religion may talk dogmatically and without
rational basis of a domain beyond current experience,
to reflect on that domain is a valid, meaningful,
and significant endeavor.

8. How can we talk of (i) the entire domain that is consistent
with science and (ii) what part of that domain is real?

i. The consistent domain is—whatever is self-consistent
(logically) and agrees with observation and its coding
in the valid science of our cosmos, in our cosmos.
That is, our science is not assumed to project beyond
its empirical boundaries.

ii. From an analysis of beings (what there is), everything
(the universe), and nothing (the void), we will find
that that entire consistent domain is real.
What this means for the nature and extent of the
universe and for human destiny and consequences
for action are explored. Particularly, it is seen to
follow that we are eternal and merge with the
ultimate in peak phases of the universe.
It also follows that there are effective paths to
the ultimate. It is the real but not absolute nature
of the limits of our present state of being that make
all this difficult to see.

iii. There is and ought to be doubt.
Doubt and responses to doubt are explored.

9. The Way of Being develops a picture of the world which,
it is argued, is a rational metaphysics with an ethics
and a program of action. The metaphysics is argued
to be perfect in the following sense
(i) it has a framework that is a perfect representation
of the universe (ii) it is filled in with the valid pragmatic
knowledge of our traditions that, as representation,
has incompleteness and imperfection (iii) yet the entire
system—the framework and the pragmatic fill in—is
perfect in that it is the in-process best there can be,
relative to realization.

10. However, readers are asked to accept the view only
to the extent that they agree with the argument;
thus, while it has a program of action, it is neither
political nor religious dogma.

About the preview

11. As noted earlier, this is the preview to the longer essay
(see the introduction in the resources). It is a brief
account of the way of being (TWB).
Its purpose is quick use and reference.
What it sacrifices in explanation is detailed in
the main essay and other resources.

About ideas and action

12. The ideas are developed in the foundation and a path
and program of action is developed and laid out in
realization.

13. Some familiarity with the ideas is essential to the way.
However, full familiarity is essential to those who want
to further develop the ideas or pathways
(or to whom such knowledge is important).

14. The pathways of action are intended to serve as a guide
rather than as prescription.

Essence of the way of being

15. The essence of the way is (i) the universe is realization of
the greatest possibility (ii) relative to the universe,
limits are manifestations of limited time and space
horizons (iii) in eternity, all beings are limitless;
birth and death are real but not absolute limits
(iv) there are effective and positive ways to realize
the ultimate.

Preliminary concepts

16. ‘Thing’ and ‘exist’ are used in their most inclusive senses.
For example, entities, processes, and relationships,
whether concrete or abstract, are things
(sometimes ‘object’ is used for this meaning of ‘thing’,
but note that there are more inclusive uses of the term
that are not pertinent to the preview). Similarly,
existed, will exist, exist, exists, and supratemporal
existence will all fall under ‘exist’.

17. Something is possible if its existence is neither self nor
world-contradictory. If is not self-contradictory,
the possibility is coherent possibility
(also ‘logical possibility’). If it is not universe contradictory,
the possibility is ‘real’. Real possibility presumes coherent
possibility. Therefore, the greatest possibility is
coherent (logical).

The discussion of possibility is incomplete in that we never
know anything without a concept (i.e., percept-concept) of
the thing and therefore “its existence” at the beginning
of this item ought to be replaced by “its concept”.

Thus, logic is not an object but a formulation of a limit on
understanding and description of objects that is necessary
for existence.

18. The term experience is not used in the sense of
‘experience of’ but in the more general sense of awareness
in all its forms and levels. The terms ‘mind’ (or psyche)
and ‘matter’ are not used except as labels for two
related aspects of experience, to be described later.

19. The terms ‘being’, ‘universe’, ‘void’, and ‘law’,
are defined below. Their meanings, particularly as
distinct from received meaning, have been selected
by design, so as to avoid characteristic errors and
limits in the history of thought, up to the present time.
These terms are used with a range of shades of
meaning in common and philosophical use. These
shades often go unnoticed, which results in their use
being vague, and conclusions imprecise. This may be
acceptable in everyday life but may result in a
metaphysics that is worthless. Therefore, readers may
need to train themselves to follow only the given
meanings.

20. The way has sources in eastern and western thought;
one difficulty in reading it may be that some of the
deepest problems of thought may be implicitly
addressed but explicitly glossed over.
The preview will not take up problems of
philosophical thought.

21. One non-philosophical problem will be mentioned, that
of the idea of perfection suggested in some life-ways.
It has names such as ‘bliss’, ‘heaven’, ‘moksha’ (in some
systems of Hinduism and Buddhism); which translate
as perfection, freedom from pain, freedom from the
eternal cycle of birth and death (Hinduism and
Buddhism). In the way of being, there is no final perfection or
eternal freedom; rather, joy, pain, and imperfection
remain eternal and perfection needs a new
meaning—our best shared attempt at
continuing on with peak and dissolution of
being, while attending to pain as best we can,
without stopping to wait for it, except where
there is no alternative.

22. That is, TWB does not aim at bliss or perfection in any
received sense. The peak and the way to and from it
in and from the immediate are the focus. On the way
the aim is neither joy nor release from pain; nor are
they to be avoided; they arise naturally in effective
everyday and universal path negotiation.

23. We are now at a point where we can take up the
main part of the preview. As noted earlier, the
foundation emphasizes ideas; realization
emphasizes action.

Foundation

How to develop a foundation for knowledge of the real

24. Materialism, idealism, and process philosophy are the
names of some common approaches to foundation.
These approaches make unfounded assumptions about
the nature of the world. On the other hand, a foundation
in ‘being’ (defined shortly) makes no assumption.
Further, foundation in being will emerge as powerful.

25. With ‘being’ as foundation, the concepts of ‘universe’
(everything) and ‘void’ (nothing) may be conceived
with precision.

26. The analysis from being is at such an elementary
and precise level that ordinary logic
(e.g., the propositional calculus) may be used
with precision.

Being and beings

27. Anything that exists is a being (plural: beings); being
itself is existence (this is not circular, for it stands in
place of an ostensive definition, i.e., definition by
pointing at rather than a verbal definition).

The universe is all being(s).
The void is the being that contains no beings.

Existence and nonexistence of the void are equivalent;
therefore it is valid to assert existence of the void.

A law or limit of nature is a being.

The void has no laws or limits.

A fundamental principle

28. In the greatest sense of possibility,
all possible beings emerge from the void,
for the contrary would be a law.

29. Therefore, the universe is the greatest possible.
This demonstrated statement is
the fundamental principle of metaphysics, or FPM.

About precision

30. Review of the concepts of being, universe, void, and law,
shows that they are at such a level of abstraction that
aspects of the respective objects that are refractory to
precision have been filtered out. Thus, the foundation to
the present point is perfect.

31. Subsequently, ‘pragmatic concepts will be introduced’,
for even though they may lack precision, they are
essential. This destroys precision the sense of perfect
correspondence between concepts and objects
(and even that such correspondence has meaning).
However, we will develop a sense in which the perfect
foundation so far filled in with pragmatic concepts is
perfect relative to the ideal of realization of the ultimate.

We are experiential beings

32. We are experiential beings; two aspects of experience
are ‘experience of’ and ‘the experienced’—an as if mind
and an as if matter side, which are related in or by
experience itself.

‘Mind’ (or psyche) and ‘matter’ are not used except as
labels for these two related aspects of experience.
This use gives no support to the idea of mind and matter
as independent object kinds or substances. Instead,
support is given to the thought that they are
approximations to aspects of experience. That we
experience our experiencing, shows that mind and matter
cannot be distinct object kinds.

If we think of these aspects of experience, as if matter
and as if mind, as two terms that begin a series,
we may ask what terms or kinds continue the series.
As matter is object-like and experience relationship,
a next term, relation of relation, would be experience,
itself.

Therefore, let us suggest that, there may be
lesser and greater varieties – lower and higher forms
of experience, but nothing beyond experience, itself.

33. If our cosmos were constituted entirely and strictly of
matter, there could be no experience. Therefore, if the
cosmos were of a kind of thing, that kind would have to
be experiential.

However, from the fundamental principle, the universe
cannot be of a kind. Yet, in that there is experiential, the
universe has experientiality. But in that the capacity for
(very low level) experientiality must project to the most
elementary beings, the universe may be said to be
experiential – beings may have no experientiality but
not null experientiality, which would be a lack of a
capacity for experientiality.

The universe

34. The universe is experiential—it has identity; and from
the fundamental principle,

the universe and its identity are limitless in variety,
extension, duration, and peak of being,
and phases in and out of the void state;

its cosmoses are limitless in number, magnitude,
complexity, and variety (e.g., of physical law),
which may be temporarily isolated,
but are in communication with one another
and the void over eternity.

35. We have seen that we are experiential beings;
all beings merge as one in peak being;
and though not necessarily in the interval
between our birth and death, in eternity
we know the limitless universe with transparency;
we become it with fluidity.

Paths to the ultimate

36. There are intelligent, effective, and enjoyable
pathways to peak or ultimate states,
which may be realized in ‘this’ life, but, if not,
are realized and eternally re-realized in eternity.

In our present form we generally do not see these
ultimate states; they are therefore hard to conceive;
but their existence follows from FPM, and
their realization is available as—

(i) continuous transition from our present form
beyond birth and death, understandable in terms
of the continuity of our being(s) with all being
(ii) discrete transition.

37. If enjoyment, the appreciation of our experiential nature,
is a prime value, it is imperative to be on a path.

There are traditional prescriptions; however, it is in our
essential nature to negotiate, share, and develop paths
(metaphorically, we are all Buddhas).

While perfection (moksha, bliss) is a traditional value,
and will be attained, its attainment is impermanent.
It is not an ultimate value.

It is of permanent value to be in intelligent, shared,
and caring process toward and from the ultimate.

Pain is unavoidable, not solvable by salves or suicide;
an optimum resolution of pain is to combine
being on a path with the best therapy of the time;
it is the responsibility of the more fortunate to
help the less fortunate.

Though caring is of value, the world is not intrinsically
or always caring; this ought to be acknowledged and
approached accordingly. When needed, we will approach
conflict without stepping back.

The permanent way is a middle way between perfection
and pain, seeking and contentment, intelligence
and chaos, certainty and doubt, individual and sharing,
thought and action, and logic and paradox.

Being on a path is intrinsic entertainment; ‘mere
entertainment’ is not to be avoided, but path aware
performance may be most entertaining.

A framework for truth

38. Whatever is true in our thought,
whatever is true in religion,
whatever is true in science, and philosophy,
whatever truth is conveyed by art,
whatever is true of action and agency,
is framed by these ideas,
but not generated by them.

The ideas constitute an ideal metaphysics.

The generation of truth begins in our world
and peaks in peaks of being,
which are without end.

It is a process without end.

Doubt

39. It is expected that there will be doubt in thinking and
reading these thoughts (they arose in response to criticism
of received thought and the revisionary thought of this
work).

Doubt ought to arise regarding
(i) the demonstration,
(ii) consistency of the ideas (rationality) and their mesh
with the world (empiricism),
(iii) the magnitude of the conclusions, particularly
whether there are peaks of being to which there is
path access.

In response it may be noted that
(i) the demonstration is unusual in nature—
the crucial point being existence of the void;
however alternate demonstrations can be given
(see the way of being),
(ii) the ideas consistent in themselves and while
they may contradict some projections from
knowledge of the world, they do not contradict
that knowledge itself,
(iii) the magnitude and question of significance of the
conclusions are reasons to entertain doubt but do not
constitute invalidation of the demonstration or conclusions.

However, doubt will remain as residual and as it is in our
nature and response to such existential doubt may be
(a) existential—it may be energizing to live with absence of
certainty or in absence of guaranteed eternity of pleasure—
there is meaning in moments of pleasure and pain.
The fundamental principle (all possibility is realized) may be
regarded as an existential action principle. As such, it
complements an existential attitude toward life. And if it
should be said that it might promote nihilism, that would also
be an existential issue (that truth promotes nihilism is
never the case; rather it is some extra-alethic attitude—one
not having to do with truth—that may promote nihilism),
(b) scientific—the principle may be regarded as a postulate
rather than as demonstrated,
(c) practical—from the metaphysics under development,
the structure of the universe may be further developed,
to see how paths may be forged and negotiated.

The nature and form of the ultimate

40. It is a worthwhile project to sketch
the form of the ultimate and to locate
the place and significance of moksha within it.

Real metaphysics

41. The means of realization begin with
the ultimate picture above. It illuminates the peak,
but not the way.

The way starts in the immediate world and
our knowledge of it—knowledge both material and spiritual.
While the ultimate picture is perfect representation,
our knowledge of our cosmos is at best pragmatic.

However, since the pragmatic (in process) is all we have,
when the perfect and the pragmatic are joined,
they are perfect in another, yet ideal sense—
the perfect shows the ultimate ideal, and
the pragmatic together with the perfect
make the best instrument of realization—
the perfect illuminates and guides the pragmatic,
and the pragmatic illustrates and is instrumental
toward the ideal of the perfect; their union is named
the real metaphysics (rmp).

Dimensions of being

42. Paths will use and address dimensions of being.

43. The pure dimension is that of our experiential being
with two sides—‘experience of’
(as if psychological, subject, intrinsic, and immersive)
and ‘the experienced’
(as if material, object, instrumental, and manipulative)
which are related in ‘the experience’ itself
(which transcends the divide as experience
recognizes experience).

Experience is called ‘pure’ in the absence of
an immediate object.

44. The pragmatic dimensions are chosen pragmatically,
e.g., from western thought.

One system of pragmatic dimensions is—

nature or natural (material, living, psychological),

society (beings, groups, institutions, economy, politics,
culture – secular and transsecular views and ways,
recording, development, and transmission of
knowledge; and technology; universal culture—
culture unbound, trans-limit, as in real metaphysics),

universal (defined by the greatest possibility,
as elaborated above).

Realization

A project of realization

45. A project of realization may have two programs—
action now (‘everyday’) and
action toward the ultimate (‘ultimate’), which will mesh.
(The way of being has more on the programs.)

These programs began as personal programs, honed by
experience, expanded in view of the real metaphysics,
abstracted and generalized in terms of the dimensions of
being to be applicable to a wide range of personal and
societal contexts.

Everyday program

46. The everyday program will emphasize daily routine at home and away,
attitude—limitlessness, dedication, overcoming, relationships,
personal activities (work, school, play, spiritual—yoga), relationships,
health (diet, physical activity, sleep)
and mesh with the universal.

The everyday may be manifested in a routine that is flexible
enough to be adjustable to different life situations,
personality styles, and individual and societal needs
and opportunities.

Planning

1. Select activities,

2. Set up a daily schedule, perhaps in a table,

3. Enhance the schedule by introducing flexibility.
Given access to software with programming
capabilities, automation of the schedule may
be introduced (e.g., with Microsoft Word).

Sample schedule

FIRST THINGS 2:00 AM

Awake early—review-plan life, TWB, the day
affirm-dedicate.
Set attitude—focus self = Brahman; relate positively
if blocked, feel, accept, relax, accept, meditate, move on.

Rise 2:00 am—treatments, nature, breakfast, short walk, alarms.

REALIZATION 4:00 AM (+2)

Foundation – develop the way, edit (find an editor), publish.

Ground (life essentials—finance, place
work / school), discipline.

Transformation immerse-act (nature, society, universe),
yoga, share.

ACTIVITIES OF THE DAY 11:00 AM (+9)

Tasks 11:00 am (+9)—daily, as needed:
weekly plus (Thursdays); lunch.

Exercise 01:00 pm (+11)—two hours+;
excursions – photo essays.

Evening 3:00 pm (+13)—rest review life,
the next day (set focus);
the way, network, relations, entertainment,
meditate, sleep early (5:00 pm, +15).

Universal program

47. The universal program will emphasize individual and
shared involvement in the way and pure and pragmatic
dimensions of being. Choices from among the dimensions
will be according to personal ability and temperament,
occasion and need, and time and other resources.
The choices will be woven into the everyday,
according to a life or long-term plan.

It is intended that the planning should include planning
that is for and by society as a whole.

Outcomes and life are not expected to go as planned,
but planning—conceiving the future—is essential, as
flexible and adjustable planning is a critical aspect of
communication between ideas and world in process.

The universal may be manifested in personal and
societal mid to long range plans in interaction
with action and learning.

Planning

1. Review phases of life, reflect on possible
emphases for life and the phases.

2. Asses current phase and select activities of focus.

3. Review and plan daily, short, and long term aims
and possible activities.

4. Include time-frame to execute and then review,
assess, renew, and alter plans.

5. Build these elements into everyday planning.

Sample plan

Life and beyond—foundation, awareness of death as
real but not absolute, realization (dimensions of being);
yoga; minimize.

This year—ground – finance, place, network;
early spring – trip to realign attitude;
spring – fall six-month immersion in the world,
emphasizing (i) nature (ii) societies and cultures
(iii) the universal.

Then—continue; select emphasis and activity
from dimensions of being and work.

Affirmation

48. Affirmation—the view of the immediate world as being
of particular kinds, with many beings, has truth but is
not absolute; in the ultimate there is one peak being,
which we all are, and which has no kind except that
it is that which is, and has experience and agency.

Dedication

49. Dedication—we dedicate our being to living in the immediate
and ultimate as one;

to shared discovery and realization of paths
on the way to the transparently limitless ultimate;

to shedding the bonds of limited self,
particularly the blocks of fear and pain,
so that we see the way so clearly that
life is flow rather than force;

to realizing the ultimate in this life and beyond—
a process version of living in the immediate and ultimate as one.

Resources

50. Start with https://www.horizons-2000.org, and follow
the links near the top left, (i) HOME has main resources and
sources (ii) this essay is a preview in the INTRODUCTION,
which is a longer version of this essay;
(iii) RESOURCES is a longer list of resources.

The return

51. The return. Life is reflection and action. A phase of reflection,
though not of inaction, comes to fulfilment; it is now time to
return to an emphasis on action—a phase emphasizing
immersive action and commitment, though not of
unreflective life.

Narration will continue in-the-world and its foci shall be
improvement of the way via imagination and criticism,
an issue of what I have not seen due to focused seeing
in some regions of the real, and universal narrative—
i.e., collapsing the essential history of narrative and
thought so as to extract what is essential and to have
balance against tendencies to infinite detail and the sheer
weight of the cumulative record.

Death will be unremarkable in itself, but, if, at death, one
is incompletely realized, it will be a gateway to the ultimate.

Into the way

The way of being

‘The Way of Being’, which refers to a way of being and its narratives, will be shortened to ‘the way’.

The way

The way of being began as an attempt to know the universe and our place in it and to live accordingly.

I began with experience and received thought, east and west, and attempted to go beyond.

I believe that there has been some success in ‘going beyond’, that a true picture of the ultimate and a path to it has emerged.

Though it has sources in received thought, it goes beyond.

Aim

The aim of the way of being is to live in this world and the ultimate as one and from and for this world to be on a path to realizing the ultimate.

To readers

Though it has sources in received thought, the way goes beyond to the ultimate.

Therefore, readers ought not to expect a recapitulation of received paradigm. They may expect to have to put thought and time into reeducation of their ways of thinking and being.

To do this efficiently it is essential to follow the meanings of terms as given in the narrative.

1. Most of the terms are familiar from ordinary and academic use. However, even though we often think of meanings as definite, they are not fixed, even in ordinary contexts. When we attempt to go beyond our present knowledge, we cannot expect meanings to be defined by received use. The meanings here were arrived at by a process of trial and error with interaction among individual term meanings, a system of ideas, reading, and experience with the world.

2. As long as knowledge is incomplete, meaning and knowledge must be regarded as open. What I found is that knowledge of the universe and its contents can be closed in the direction of foundation or depth by abstraction (defined later) but, as long as we are limited beings, must remain forever open in the direction of variety and detail or breadth.

3. The outcome is a dual system—a perfect framework which frames an imperfect system of variety and detail. The imperfection, however, is a necessary aspect of being. However, that imperfection obtains on received criteria of perfection, e.g., that all knowledge must be perfect representation and all action ought to be at least based on such knowledge. The perfect frame reveals an ultimate, which will be achieved, the achievement of which necessarily begins in the mesh of the frame and the framed, which as what we have, is perfect relative to the achievement. It is important that this perfection is perfection of process and that as long as we are limited, we remain in process, on the way to the ultimate, never static, always being fulfilled but never fulfilled.

4. Therefore, readers should pay attention to both the individual meanings and the system of meaning, i.e., the ‘real metaphysics’, which emerged and is emerging from the process of trial and error, and whose perfection is as described above.

The approach

Origin of the way

‘The Way of Being’ is a result of my attempt to understand the universe, my place in it, and how I might live my life. I write as a record for myself, to improve the way and its narrative, and perhaps because it may be useful for others, society, and the world.

The idea is not new. Two approaches to understanding and knowing the world are—

1. Experience based—everything important that we know should flow from experience of the world, which includes science and the material world. In this approach, sometimes called secularism, human values flow from human experience. Critics say that its scope is limited; proponents argue that experience shows all that is real or, if there is more, it is all that is meaningful.

2. Reason with and beyond experience—that we can talk meaningfully and realistically about things beyond the material world. This more inclusive approach is found in philosophy, especially metaphysics, and religion. Critics say that religion has no foundation and philosophical speculation is not scientific. A proponent might argue that even the scientific view has speculation (incompletely verified hypotheses) and that not all metaphysics is speculative.

A problem and solution

Here is a problem—if neither approach does so, is there a hope of truthfully knowing the entire universe (everything)?

The problem was and is important to me. It is important to the world because any degree of resolution might illuminate and improve the world.

Here is a solution to the problem, which I hope you will neither accept nor reject without reading the arguments that follow—(i) in our present form we are limited beings that, despite limits, can know some but far from all ultimate aspects of things (ii) together with the universe, we have limitless form, which usually occurs in transcending apparent limits including birth and death (this idea is from eastern thought) (iii) there are ways from limits to limitlessness which are not only remote, but at least begin in and may improve the quality of the world.

Writing the way of being

A brief history of the way of being

Science was one base for my early thought. I have always seen science as (i) exciting and having truth (ii) almost certainly incomplete and not perfectly precise even in its own realms (which we know from its very nature and from its revolutions) (iii) leaving open a window, perhaps a large one, the possibility of realms and things beyond it.

One source for the open window was my interest in philosophy. Another was love of the natural world. I am a backpacker which, where I live (America), means spending days in the wilderness. I find being in nature beautiful, healthy, and a source of renewal. But more—nature is locally real and a portal to the universal real. Much inspiration for my understanding and writing—for my life—has been in and of nature. There is a tradition of ‘Beyul’ in Tibetan Buddhism, which is travel to remote natural places, to evoke inner and outer reals, i.e., reality of self and of world.

My thought has gone through a number of major transformations and at each stage there have been many iterations.

It has been exciting. At times it has been difficult. The discipline has been difficult but the conceptual transformations I have gone through have been especially wrought with slow labor toward greater understanding.

Part of that transformation has been thinking on some of the great problems of philosophy, thinking of solutions and methods of solution, and putting all that and more together, to attempt to build a net picture of the universe.

The outcome is that my writing has become technical and may seem remote, even to academic readers and researchers. The technical character is necessary in that the meanings of terms need to be carefully specified and arguments need to be precise.

This version of ‘the way of being’

In this version, I have attempted to make my writing accessible to a general audience—i.e., to readers who are not especially familiar with philosophy and related disciplines. I aim to balance care and precision with accessibility. I will sacrifice wheels within wheels—criticism, response, criticism of the response and so on. I will sacrifice side excursions that I find interesting, but which detract from the key issues.

Sources

My thought would have been impossible without reading and conversations on philosophy, science, and more. Here are sources and readings. The intent of what I write here is to build upon rather than to capture essences of eastern and western thought.

I do not always agree with the sources. I do see the latest versions of scientific theories as having some practical truth but not the whole or perfect truth. Philosophy is often at the edge of thought and so it is frequently in conflict with itself (it is often a productive conflict). I see much religion as having symbolic truth—that is, even though I might not find a given account of the ultimate as factually true, I may see it as pointing to higher truth and as having positive meaning for many people.

I hope no one will see what I write as minimizing to what they hold to be true.

About the source in philosophy

A caution

I have read, thought, and written on the material in this essay. However, I am not an academic philosopher. If your interest is academic philosophy in attitude or content, this essay may mislead you.

Of course, no one will be misled if they approach my writing with a mix of openness and questioning.

Is philosophy something?

It is clear that the narrative draws from the history of thought, particularly from philosophy. This section is pertinent to the development and is good to address the nature of philosophy early. The section may be omitted on the first reading.

Let us take up the question “What is philosophy?” The related question about metaphysics is taken up later.

The question is important because this work draws from philosophical thought and because it has implications for philosophy.

It is generally agreed that philosophy is not easy to define. But why? It is partly because philosophy is an inclusive discipline and also at the edge of knowledge. How may we then say what philosophy is? Let us look to history so as to find our way toward the nature of philosophy.

Western philosophy is agreed to have explicitly begun with Greek thought when Greek thinkers began to criticize religion and myth based in dogma and the supernatural but to a way of thought based in self-criticism and based in the world itself. This enables a preliminary conception—

Philosophy is creative thought which is (subject to and) based in self-criticism (rationality) and the world itself (empiricism); it is neither dogmatic nor merely speculative; it does not postulate or appeal to the supernatural.

As a discipline, especially in the modern academic setting, philosophy retains the creative-critical-empirical characteristic, but is also characterized by foci that have emerged historically—the main subdisciplines (metaphysics, epistemology, logic, value theory), the various schools, ‘isms’, applications, and specialized topics. One focus worth mentioning is that science emerged from philosophy but having developed its own methods and what is considered established if tentative knowledge, science is not conducted under philosophy (but the question of what science is, is a part of philosophy).

It is essential to note that ‘doing philosophy’ (a characteristic of part of the attempt in this work), is not just about reading, understanding, and importing ideas. It is the application of the idea of philosophy as conceived above to the total system of ideas, received, current, and under investigation in whatever undertaking is at hand. And, thus, philosophy is in its very nature self-referential or reflexive—metaphilosophy is philosophy, some current thought notwithstanding.

For similar reasons, the distinctions among metaphysics, epistemology, logic, and value theory are matters of focus rather than of essence. Epistemology, the theory-and-conception-of-knowledge, is crucial to metaphysics, for if metaphysics is knowledge of the real, then metaphysics without epistemology is critically empty. At the same time, as knowledge is part of the world, epistemology must be part of metaphysics.

Doing philosophy ought to refer to the history of thought but not stop there. It ought to be built upon that thought and to seek to go beyond it. At the same time, it ought to (also be willing to) begin from scratch—from no postulate or assumption of fact or method at all. In the end, we ought to (be able to) drop the word ‘philosophy’, for it becomes unnecessary and may even be limiting (if we accede too much to what has been thought before). In any case, every being should—perhaps, for authenticity, be a creation or, at least a recreation or an image, of original being and thought. This is the meaning of the title of this section, “Is philosophy something?”

Here, I will not further consider the nature of philosophy, but see philosophy.

Plan

We will first build up a solution to the problem and tentative solution described in the section, a problem and its solution. The solution is a worldview encapsulated in what is named the real metaphysics, which takes up most of the essay.

The concluding section is on pathways in and from this world to the ultimate. We talk about what the metaphysics implies for our lives and our world. It is common to prescribe ways of behavior and thought. I will do that very briefly, but what I want to emphasize is a scaffold of ideas and principles from which ways can be derived in parallel with shared negotiation of the world and more.

Ideas

Meaning

This is a preliminary section. It is designed to be helpful in understanding ideas or concepts and how they are used. However, readers could pass over the section and still absorb what is important to realization.

The meaning of words and sentences is definite only in definite contexts. Here, we use familiar words in attempting to go beyond the immediate. So, it is important to be clear about the meanings of the words used and how they fit together to make a complete system. However, to understand word meanings it is also necessary to know what a word meaning is, that is—what is the meaning of ‘meaning’. Most of us have notion of the meaning of meaning as association of a word with a thing. However, there is more to it than that and ignoring this often leads to confusion, unnecessary complexity, and errors of understanding. So, we shall look at meaning itself.

On meaning

Let us begin discussion of meaning with some preliminary reflections. When we learn our first language, we begin by associating sounds with the world. It is only later that we may begin to think about words, sentences, and meanings. So, when we first discuss meaning and meanings, we already have some notion of what common words mean and what the meaning of meaning is. This is also true in the knowledge disciplines, especially philosophy. A philosopher who discusses ‘mind’, for example, already has some conception of what mind may be. Therefore, the discussion of meaning and meanings does not begin at the beginning. Two early sources of meaning are (i) common use (ii) the thought of earlier thinkers. The problem of the meaning, therefore, is clarification, e.g., removal of vagueness and ambiguity, and improvement e.g., with regard to wider contexts, which require words and so on to be related to the world and one another. Sometimes, however, we may want to go as far back to the ‘beginning’ as possible.

We are now ready to begin a grounded discussion of meaning. What is the meaning of a word or sentence? Even in ordinary situations, it is not always clear. And ordinary meaning may and often will fail to extend beyond ordinary situations. Further, if I mean one thing and you mean another our conversation may be confused because we are not using the same meaning but do not recognize it. So, we ought to be careful about meanings.

It will be helpful to ask—What is the meaning of meaning?

Let us begin to discuss meaning with an example. Imagine you are in a remote area in Tajikistan but do not know the Tajik language. Your companion, a Tajik, says “palang” with a look of fear, but you see nothing noteworthy and wonder why the guide looks fearful. His fear is because “palang” is Tajik for ‘tiger’. If he had said “tiger” you would feel fear too, because, for you, the word ‘tiger’ evokes the image of a tiger.

That is, meaning is determined by three things—a word, the image it evokes, and the corresponding object (or objects). One reason we might not see this is that words are usually defined in terms of other words, and the other words in terms of yet other words. But that has to stop somewhere. Even though it may go unrecognized, a dictionary depends on our implicit knowledge of a simple set of words whose meanings we know because we associate the words with images. Now, that is not entirely true—as an example, what is the image for the word ‘and’? Well, though there is not an explicit image, we know it has a function—it joins phrases (clauses). But then there is an image after all—whereas most words have objects in the world, the function of ‘and’ is that it joins objects that are other words or phrases. One can image ‘and’ as a ligament between words and phrases.

Language is more than words—there are kinds of words, combinations of words (according to grammatical rules—and more—that assist in conforming to the world) such as phrases, sentences, and so on. Words, phrases, sentences, and so on are examples of signs, which may be simple or complex.

The meaning of ‘meaning’ generalizes from the example above—Meaning is a sign, an associated image (or icon), and their objects (definitions are marked by small capitals). This concept of meaning is due to the twentieth century philosophers, CK Ogden and IA Richards, presented in their work, The Meaning of Meaning.

Later, there will be examples of the importance of this concept of meaning. For now, let us consider a simple example of how it is important to be careful about meaning. Consider “elephants can’t fly”. Well, you might say “if you shoot an elephant out of a cannon, it does fly”. Here, the issue is the meaning of the word ‘fly’. When we say, “birds fly”, we mean “birds fly under their own power”. When you say, “elephants fly”, you have used a meaning of ‘fly’ that is similar to my use (and hence the con-fusion) but is different from my meaning (and thus a resolution of the confusion). The example is not interesting in itself, but it does show (i) that the meanings of simple words can be indefinite and (ii) if we want clear communication, we have to be at least somewhat definite about the meanings of words. That is, definitions are important for clarity and definiteness of meaning. If the writing that follows is to communicate effectively, a basic set of meanings will need to be made clear (see the concepts for a basic set).

On definition

Definitions are important so that (i) when we think we are talking about something, we are indeed talking about some definite thing (ii) in a community, we are all talking about the same definite thing, so that conversation is not confused and contributes to shared knowledge and action.

Given a system of terms (words) and how to use them (grammar), some words are basic. These words get their meaning from mutual but often tacit knowledge that most language users know that everyone knows that they refer to the same thing. Thus ‘London’ has definite meaning because we all know that we all know that London is a definite place which is more than marked by a word but also by a range of images (repetition of the phrase, ‘we all know’, is intended and significant because it is what makes use of the meaning automatic). The basic words are defined by shared use referring, at least tacitly, to shared images.

When developing a system of thought, we need more than tacit common reference. Thus, we need to be explicit about the basic words. How we do this will begin in the section what the world is made of. Along with the basic concepts, there will be transparent statements about them, and transparent ways to infer new statements, which, for efficiency, will involve definitions of non-basic concepts in terms of the basic ones.

That is, what will be built has the character of what is called an ‘axiomatic system’.

However, it is more than an axiomatic system, for the intention is to have the system describe the real (universe).

Having an axiomatic system does not guarantee that to a defined construct, there corresponds something real. So, it will be necessary to not just define the basic words, but also to show that they are (i.e., correspond to something) real.

What the world is made of

Our aim is to know the universe and act accordingly. We have seen that the universe is more than what science shows and religion suggests. A limitation of science is that it shows a part of the universe, but not the whole. To approach our aim, we ought to begin with an inclusive and non-detailed description, which will avoid coloring knowledge with unnecessary and pre-judiced conception.

We ask—What is the universe made of?

A preliminary observation—as far as the world is ‘everything’ it is not made by anything; asking what it is made of is asking what constitutes (makes up) the world.

A common view is that the world is made of matter. This view is called materialism. It can be incorrect in two related ways (i) our view of matter is inaccurate (ii) there is more in the world than just matter. To see how it is likely incorrect, think about mind and consciousness. They do not seem to be material. So, either (i) our view of matter is inadequate or (ii) the view that the world is matter is incomplete.

An obvious alternative to materialism is that the world is more than just matter. Some examples are (i) idealism in which the world is not material but is made of a substance (a basic kind that is a fundamental nature of things) that is like ideas, e.g., like consciousness (ii) spirit, which is trans-material, is also part of the world; religious people find spirituality in religion, spiritual but non-religious persons find it in their personal or shared experience.

These examples do not exhaust the possibilities. However, they do exemplify a basic source of error, which is to think we can know the universe, when we do not fully know its nature.

There is another possibility. It is to begin by saying that “The world is what it is.” To say that does not mean that we cannot say more. Rather, we say it at the beginning of understanding, with the thought that if we say more, we will need to give reasons, to give what we say some justification. Of course, we ought to justify our way of justification, which suggests a process without end; we will address this concern later.

In philosophy, there is a word that captures “the world is what it is.” That word is ‘being’. Since it is a basic word in philosophy and metaphysics, there is much that could be said ‘being’ but what we need for now is (i) ‘being’ is a common word related to ‘is’, a form of the verb to be (ii) so, talk of ‘being’ roots understanding in common experience (iii) it is a simple word (at least superficially) (iv) though superficially simple, philosophers that find it is hard to pin down in terms of something else because, e.g., that something else will also need to be pinned down (v) existential philosophers have found ‘being’ hard to pin down because they think of ‘being’ as an ultimate idea, one that is a container for all the depth that we are and know (vi) so, the definition we will use for being will be simple and non-specific, which will allow depth to emerge rather than to be pre-judiced by assigning it meaning which we feel but do not know to be adequate to truth.

Though obvious and therefore seemingly trivial the approach from “the world is what is”, that is, the approach from being, is conducive to truth (it does not cut truth off by the error of substance such as matter and mind). The introduction of ‘being’ in philosophy and metaphysics is analogous to the use of letters to designate objects in mathematics. That is, ‘being’ transforms philosophy from a simple concrete talk of what is known into an algebra in which we can talk efficiently of what is unknown or partially known.

Now, let us begin the positive developments. Here are two definitions—

A being is something that of which we can validly say “it is” (in the most general sense of the verb to be). Being is the property of beings which marks them as beings (or, briefly, it is the property of beings-as-beings). It is now rather clear that ‘being’ and ‘existence’ are, at least roughly, the same thing. Rather than investigate that thought, I will use ‘existence’ and ‘being’ as the same and if something is a being, I will say “it exists”.

This raises a puzzle about existence that is not important to the development of the way—you can omit this paragraph if you wish. If we say some things exist, we ought to be able to say that some things do not exist. In fact, we do say that. For example, we do say that the fictional person, Sherlock Holmes, does (did) not exist. The puzzle about something that does not exist is “What is it that does not exist?” That is, in order for “it does not exist” to have meaning we seem to be assuming that it has at least some kind of existence. This puzzle has been seen in philosophy as an important problem regarding the concept of existence (and it has a name—the problem of negative existentials). A simple resolution is via our meaning of meaning. ‘Sherlock Holmes’ is a phrase, a name, which is associated with an idea—the idea described in the Sherlock Holmes stories of the British author Arthur Conan Doyle. If there were a person ‘Sherlock Holmes’, we would say Sherlock Holmes exists; but since there is no person, we say, unpuzzlingly, that Sherlock Holmes does not exist.

What we know

In this section we question what we know. Do we know anything perfectly? We begin to answer the question, leaving a more complete answer to later sections.

But why do we ask this? It might seem obvious that we know some things well, that we are discovering more with time, and that is just the way things are and, so, it is good enough.

The asking is important because we would like to know how dependable our knowledge is. Is any knowledge (claim) certain? Is anything of importance certain? Incomplete and imperfect knowledge may be adequate for immediate purposes. But for ultimate purposes—if, for example, we want to know the ultimate destiny of beings and the universe—we need perfect knowledge, for otherwise small local imperfections may add together to make (claims to) ultimate knowledge or knowledge of the ultimate (real) worthless. Or, at least, so it would seem.

We are going to find (i) some certain knowledge—it will be abstract knowledge of ultimate things (ii) this certain knowledge will form a framework for less than certain and complete knowledge of everyday experience, science, and speculative philosophy (iii) the system of the abstract and the concrete is the best possible for living in this world and to knowing and realizing what is ultimate (iv) though this system is not perfect relative to certain and precise knowledge as criterion for validity, as the best possible for living and realizing, it has perfection.

To fully develop these ideas we ought to examine what knowledge is, but since this essay is intended to be accessible to a general audience, we will not do that here but refer interested readers to metaphysics and vocabulary for the way of being.

Here it is important to see that (i) philosophers often think in pure terms (ii) in this case, whatever knowledge of things is, purism would say that it is all of the same kind and should be subject to the same criteria, e.g., certain knowledge of things (iii) that kind of purity of thought is not productive of the best outcome of the individual and human enterprise but, instead, the best outcome results from mixed criteria.

Questioning what we know

We made definitions—A being is anything that is (in the world); being is the property of all beings (as far as they are beings).

It might seem obvious, then, that there is being and there are beings. However, given illusion and other kinds of error in knowing, we ought to doubt the claim. Perhaps appearances are entirely illusory, so we ought to doubt it (knowledge claims) altogether.

Is everything illusory?

However, if it is all illusion, then the world of illusion is the world, and there is being, there are beings—only, the world would seem to be quite different from the usual view we have of it. But would it really be different? At a most general level, to say all is illusion vs all is real, is to think—speak—differently without making a real difference.

The fact of illusion does not invalidate the assertion that there is being and there are beings.

The abstract and the concrete

That there is being and that there are beings is not reference to some specific thing or kind; it is this that makes it simple to verify, because we have removed from the assertion any specific or detail about which we could have illusion or error. To remove from a concept, as much detail as is necessary to leave only what perfectly known is abstraction. In this sense, ‘abstract’ does not mean remote or not concrete; rather, this kind of abstract thing is definite—more so than what we usually think of as concrete (i.e., what is concrete relative to our perceptual system).

You will notice that in the conception of being, space and time have not been invoked (‘is’ ordinarily refers to time but does—need—not necessarily refer to time or space). Are space and time (duration and place) real; are they the only such reals (generalized location); and is there a more inclusive realm? How might we answer such questions? Should our descriptions be in detail? Or, perhaps, we might talk at a level of detail that is sufficiently abstract that generalized location or its absence are not explicit. That would not involve error and is a power of abstraction. Subsequently, we would endeavor to introduce detail, arguing from experience and reason. There is some discussion of this issue in metaphysics and vocabulary for the way.

There is some illusion

It is more real to say there is some illusion—that some things that we think we know have a degree of certainty or a degree of truth of some kind.

Summary

There is some certain knowledge and some imperfect knowledge. The quantity of certain knowledge—there are being and beings—so far seems limited.

An aim in what follows is to develop the certain knowledge and patch together the certain and the perfect into a perfect and ultimate system—in real metaphysics and the universe as experiential.

What is in the world

Beings

We will make definitions and show that they do define something real—something that exists—that the definition corresponds to something in the world (or to the entire world).

There is being and there are beings—this has been shown.

The universe is everything there is (over all extension, e.g., all time and space). Given that there are things (beings), the universe exists.

A part of the universe has a pattern when the quantity of data to specify the (state of) the part is less than the raw data. For example, a circle has an infinite number of points, but is fully specified when the position of its center and its radius are specified.

Our cosmos has some patterns that are (as far as is known) patterns for the entire cosmos. Patterns that hold for the cosmos are laws (of nature). Given that (as we think), the laws are not imposed, the laws are immanent in the cosmos. That is, the laws exist—are beings. Under a law (or pattern), some conceivable states cannot be realized; and, so, a law is also a limit or constraint.

A cosmos is a relatively, if temporarily, isolated part of the universe, which has immanent laws of nature. The concepts of ‘universe’ and the ‘cosmos’ are different—they are ‘everything’ and ‘everything we know’, respectively. They are often taken to be the same but are fundamentally different. It is possible—consistent with experience and reason—that other cosmoses exist; it is not possible for there to be other universes. Later we will see that other cosmoses do exist.

While all parts of the universe have being, an individual has (more or less) distinct and separate being (existence). A person is an individual. My being seems distinct and separate from other beings, so the question of the existence of persons is not whether they exist but what is their nature (of course, my seeming distinctness may be illusory, but we have already begun a response to this concern and will complete the response later, in the nature of individuals).

The void is the being that contains no beings.

The void is also the absence of being and so it is valid to question its existence. But as the absence of being, the existence and nonexistence of the void are equivalent. So, it is valid to assert the existence of the void.

As the void contains no beings, it contains or has no laws.

Hypothetical beings

The purpose of this section is to imagine in advance some possible beings that may exist.

Imagine that the universe achieved a state that was the highest or greatest possible—an ultimate state. The hypothetical (so far) highest state is peak being. If peak being is indeed realized, it would not be ultimate unless it conferred that character on all beings; that is, all beings would merge in peak being—all individuals, human and other, would merge in peak being. What has been said so far in this paragraph is possible but a claim that it actually held would be hypothetical (and will later found to be real); and if all possibility is realized, the universe would phase eternally between peaks and dissolutions. There would be a hierarchy of being(s) in which we (and other living beings) are not at the bottom rung, but not near the top rung. However, it is characteristic of us, and this will shortly become clearer in the section ‘implications’, that we are able to conceive of the fact of hierarchy (in our present form), though probably not of all its details, and engage in realizing the peak, as hypothetically already noted (really and in our ultimate form). The aware reader will recognize that the Advaita Vedanta is an inspiration for these ideas. We will show the reality of the ideas.

Fiction

The literature called fiction is about stories that are interesting but need not be true. Though a piece of fiction may be non-factual, it may have a realism that says something about the world and our place in it. This kind of fiction may be fantasy but is not mere fantasy. The fiction itself need not be real but is not anti-real (though it may be critical of a theory of what is real). It is often about possibility and what may be real. And if sufficiently imaginative, it may be material for knowledge of the world that we do not yet have but for which we grasp. It could be mundane or esoteric. It is about how the world and our knowledge of it might be. An example of the somewhat esoteric kind is the writing of Jose Luis Borges whose Aleph is a source for the recent Everything and Nothing, by Markus Gabriel and Graham Priest.

The universe

Possibility

Given the concept (e.g., description) of a being, it is possible if nothing rules out its existence. If there is nothing in the concept alone that rules out its existence, the possibility is coherent (a technical term is logical in the sense of deductive logic), coherent (logical) possibility is the greatest or most inclusive possibility. If the existence is not ruled out by the form of the universe, the possibility is real. Real possibility presumes and does not exceed coherent possibility.

A fundamental principle

If from the void a possible being did not emerge, the non-emergence would be a law of the void. Therefore, all possibilities emerge from or are equivalent to the void. The sense of possibility here is greatest or coherent.

The universe is the realization of the greatest possibility. This assertion is named the fundamental principle of metaphysics.

Since the void may be seen as associated with every being, all beings are ultimately equivalent to one another, to the void, and to the universe.

This may seem contradictory to our experience of things being different and of limits, i.e., of not seeing all possibilities.

However, the equivalence is at a level of description that is above differences in time and place. In everyday time and place, beings have distinctness.

That we do not see all possibility does not contradict the fundamental principle. Not all possibility occurs in our cosmos in its present form (the empirical 13.8-billion-year-old, 80 billion-light-years-across cosmos is infinitesimal compared to the universe). There are other regions, other cosmoses in the universe. If a possibility does not occur here (our cosmos) it occurs there (other regions). If we start with a given region, it realizes some possibilities. If we then include more regions, further possibilities are seen. As all regions of the universe (over all extension, e.g., time and space) are accounted for, so is all possibility. Thus, it is for the universe and not for cosmoses, that all possibility is all reality, which is not contradictory.

Still, the void itself seems paradoxical in that it is nothingness, yet beings emerge from it (without limit). The (at least apparent) paradox is (i) the void generates something—that nothing does something seems impossible (ii) unless nothing is something which seems to be a contradiction. A response is (i) the void neither generates nor disallows generation of things (which is what might be expected of nothingness) (ii) it is not nothingness itself but eternal nothingness that is contradictory, for eternal nothingness would be a constraint (a law) on nothingness. A takeaway the approach of the universe to nothingness is occasional and no more; that is, the universe phases between manifest and void states. There is an analogy to quantum theory where the minimal state of the universe is not ‘nothing’ but the quantum vacuum which is misnamed because it is not empty but rather a ‘place’ of fleeting quantum fields transiently arising and decaying. However, the void is not the quantum vacuum but underlies it.

Implications

A first set of implications is as in the section, hypothetical beings. What is hypothetical there is, by the fundamental principle, real.

We now remove the hypothetical aspect and add further implications—

The universe has identity (self, awareness); the universe and its identity are limitless in variety, extension (duration, spatial extension), peak of being, and dissolutions; peak and dissolution are eternal; all beings inherit this character of the universe—they merge as one in the peaks (thus the assertion that all beings have peak being is not a contradiction); but the process of ultimate realization is neither passive nor the mere following of a prescribed way for, though the lower states of being may be explicitly as if material, the higher states have agency in which beings are agents of realization; thus, we are and have the potential to cultivate ourselves as agents and bearers of ultimate realization.

In all these processes given sufficient time, all beings are in transaction with one another. There are more and less states emerging from the void, no one is in itself eternal. But it is the transactions that make the whole eternal and a unity; and the transactions, perhaps across cosmoses, that make us universally aware despite our present at-least-apparent unawareness.

And—there are intelligent and effective pathways to the ultimate, which require shared and cultivated negotiation(over history), rather than mere following; pain is unavoidable; mere entertainment (and art) is not to be ruled out (for constant preoccupation with realization may be inefficient and mechanical); enjoyment is best, and the best address of pain is in entertainment and therapy, when integrated with (ways of) negotiation toward the ultimate (peak).

If the term ‘God’ is to be seen as having a real object, its best meaning is that of the process of peak being of which we are part. In this meaning God is not remote or other; all beings are part of god-as-process.

Transient worlds

It may seem paradoxical to our sense of realism, but there are cosmoses or regions, perhaps transient, that are puffs of awareness or mere as if material being; and all fictions including the stories of the religions play out in some region (when corrected for coherence). The question of the significance of these occurrences will be addressed below.

Real metaphysics

The fundamental principle has led to a view of the universe. The system of thought and its result is a metaphysics, where metaphysics is understood as knowledge of the real. Although it shows what we will achieve, it does not show how, for this metaphysics has abstraction from the everyday world (even though it applies to the world).

Note, as an aside to the main development, that the idea of metaphysics was introduced in what the world is made of, of which a critique was initiated in what we know—that is metaphysics is (crucially) dependent on our understanding of knowledge (‘epistemology’). In turn, since knowledge is in the world, epistemology is an essential aspect of metaphysics, at least tacitly. Metaphysics and epistemology are implicitly bound together or, said in a better way, epistemology emerges in the study of metaphysics. To be understood and secure, knowledge, especially as it is considered in philosophy, must also turn its focus upon itself—in all disciplines in which truth is critical, the study must be a metanalysis or even a reflexive study in which all relevant elements should be considered, and all elements may inform and interact with one another.

For the means (how we achieve), we turn to human knowledge. This is our knowledge of our immediate world, including our cosmos, and the various aspects of the knowledge, e.g., the sciences (natural, social, and abstract), art, technology, history, religion, and the humanities. It is not intended that the system should be limited to western culture; it is intended that all knowledge should be subject to criticism and imagination. The system addresses natural, social, and spiritual spheres. It addresses living well in this world with ideas of living for realms beyond the world.

For moving beyond our world, some paradigms from knowledge are especially useful. From evolutionary biology there is a paradigm of variation and selection (indeterminism and determinism), which shows how complex systems emerge incrementally from simplicity in a manner that does not have the improbability of mere randomness; from physics, there is a paradigm of mechanism with indeterminism; and from philosophy, east and west, the recognition that we are (at least as if) material and spiritual (in the sense of as if mind that may move beyond apparent human limits). For further discussion and paradigms, see fundamental paradigms for metaphysics and ‘little manual’.

It is these paradigms that show (i) the robustness of the idea that the cosmos as we see it—the big bang, evolution and so on—is real and stable over an extended period of time (ii) the transience and lesser significance of transient worlds. How is this shown? If a being comes into existence incrementally by variation and selection, the variation is the source of newness and the selection the source of relative stability; and that the process is incremental is a source of longevity and greater probability.

What is really implied in (i) above is that the cosmos as we see it is real and stable with pragmatic but not absolute certainty.

In a similar vein, that ‘my world’ is the full world and not just the content of my awareness (that there is nothing but ‘my awareness’ a position called solipsism) is pragmatically certain. There are a number of ‘normal’ positions that are similarly pragmatically rather than absolutely certain. An example is that our cosmos and its history according to big bang theory is pragmatically certain and an alternative explanation that it just happened into existence five minutes ago (complete with human beings and memories) is, pragmatically certainly false (the example is due to Bertrand Russell), even though not impossible. Another example has already been mentioned—that all fictions including the stories of the religions play out in some region (when the stories are corrected for coherence). The question of the significance of these pragmatically improbable occurrences will be further addressed below.

Now consider a join of the abstract and perfectly true or ideal metaphysics to our pragmatic and concrete human knowledge. The ideal illuminates, frames, and guides the pragmatic (and contains it implicitly); the concrete illustrates and is instrumental toward the ultimate revealed by the ideal. The combined system is thus (i) possessed of oneness or unity (ii) instrumental in realization of the ultimate (spelled out a little more in the means of realization) (iii) imperfect by criteria of perfect truth but perfect as the best instrument of realization. The system is named the real metaphysics.

Persons

We saw that there are effective pathways to the ultimate. However, we have said little about the nature of the beings who would engage in pathfinding. Surely, that nature is important (i) to the quality of the process (ii) as instrumental in the process. In this section we see that an essence of our nature is that we are experiential beings in an experiential universe (the meaning of ‘experience’ here will be different from our earlier use of the term).

This section is skeletal but sufficient for the aim of this essay. There is greater detail in metaphysics and vocabulary for the way and the ‘little manual’ which point to other writers and sites.

Experience

We are going to use two new meanings for the term ‘experience’. The first is as follows.

Experience is awareness, particularly consciousness, in all its forms (I prefer the term ‘experience’ because it is sometimes used this way and does not have the—especially twentieth and twenty-first century—limited or contentious connotations of consciousness).

In an experience, there is an experience of something which is the experienced thing (in what is called pure experience, the experienced thing absent or zero in magnitude). The experience itself is the combination of the two in relation.

Without experience, the universe would be inert. Experience is the place, though not necessarily the source, of all that has significance; without it we would be as if mere robots. Subjectively, at least, experience is the essence of our being (and without subjectivity, we would be mere robots with an inner life less than that of a pebble or electron).

If our cosmos were (i) of a particular kind of thing, and (ii) that kind was matter without mind, then there would be no experience. But there is mind (experience of), and so #ii cannot be true. So, if the cosmos is of a particular kind, the cosmos must be an experiential cosmos. Of course, at a primitive level, that experience would not be rich like ours; it would be primitive, but still of the same kind as ours. And our cosmos, as far as it is built or constituted of a kind, as it may seem to be, would be constituted of the primitive kind.

But the universe, being limitless, is not of a fixed kind. Therefore, it is not essentially experiential in kind, for it has no fixed kind. However, as it is limitless, experience—the kind—must be capable of extension to primitive being, which may have little, even zero, level of experience, but not be null in nature with regard to experience. The distinction is that ‘zero’ means not experiencing and ‘null’ means incapable of experiencing.

The universe as experiential

Thus, the universe is experiential in nature in a second meaning of experience which is of the same kind as our experience but primitive. Our experiential nature is the same in kind as primitive experience; its richness results from combination of the primitive kind in form and process.

To say that the universe is experiential is not to deny matter or mind, for the experience of side is mind-like, and the experienced side is matter-like (and experience itself is the two sides in relation). Note that we know we have experience (if we did not experience our experience, we would not be talking of it), which shows that experience is both mind and matter like. More precisely, experience has both subject and object sides (as already seen). And as experience is relational and relation-of-relation is relation, there can be no further kind in the experience – experienced polar continuum.

The universe is experiential in nature, and we are essentially experiential beings. Spirit, as far as we wish to see it as real, is not something beyond the experiential; it is experiential in nature but as yet not apprehended, dimly apprehended, or non-cognitively apprehended (but inspiring).

We have seen that pragmatically improbable cosmoses are rare. Observation of such cosmoses is even rarer, because it requires two improbabilities—the existence of the cosmos and the existence of beings with high level sentience in the cosmos.

Means of realization

Since we are experiential in nature, living and realizing ought to attend to both sides—the as if mental or ‘subject-ive’ and the as if material or ‘object-ive’.

These ‘sides’ can be elaborated (i) inner – of the mind or consciousness, subjective, ‘experience of’, intrinsic, self-change, immersive change (ii) outer – of matter (perhaps as if) or the world, objective, ‘the experienced’, instrumental, other-change, instrumental change (iii) overlap, as the sides are not distinct, e.g., as in experience of experience or consciousness of consciousness and in their interaction and synthesis (and their ultimate oneness).

Objective—nature and society as objects and their sciences, both concrete and abstract; technology; history; study of religion; philosophy. Especially, these as pertaining to the world and as instruments of travel beyond, e.g., space travel, synthesis of human and machine biology and intelligence (e.g., ‘downloading’ human selves to machines so as to effectively extend our lives—see, e.g., rethinking our consciousness).

Subjective—meditation as apprehension of the real and transformation of self; immersive rather than instrumental approach to the objective, above.

Interactive – examples—the synthesis of the two sides in change and realization; immersive approach in politics and economics as in aware and influencing behavior joined to an instrumental approach of taking on roles (the economist, the politician) – engaging in ideas, theories, and controls (which does not mean ‘being controlling’).

Universal—the real metaphysics which frames subjective and objective; see human knowledge.

Doubt

The doubts

You ought to have doubt about the development so far, for its demonstration (proof from existence of the void, that laws have being, and so on) seems rather unusual in nature (particularly it is what philosophers call ‘ontological’—based in the nature of being—and does not seem empirical), and its implications do not fit so many of our modern paradigms of what is there in the universe.

However, the proof is not non-empirical for there is a universe (the one universe), and the void may be seen as part of the universe. The usual objection to an ontological proof is that the most famous such proof (due to St. Anselm) is both obscure and non-empirical and thus the objection is not to its being ontological as such.

Some writers assert that an ontological argument is one that concludes the existence of God (as did St. Anselm’s argument). However, the meaning of ‘ontological’ is ‘having to do with being’ as ontology is the study of the nature of being and there is precedent in Kant’s writing for ‘ontological proof’ meaning ‘proof based in the nature of being’. These thoughts, of course, do not exhaust considerations on the nature of ontological proof (see ontological argument).

However, you may doubt the existence of the void, which is foundational to the real metaphysics, and, so, here is another proof—The manifest universe either enters a void state or not. If it does, the void exists. If it does not, the manifest universe is eternal. But an eternal being does not and cannot not exist and so its existence is necessary. However, the manifest is particular (it excludes the void), and therefore cannot be necessary. Thus, the universe must include the void state.

Now, I do not think I have removed all doubt. The earlier objections arise again. However, even though the proof may be doubted, the existence of the void and, so the truth of the real metaphysics and its implications are empirical and rational evidence.

Thus, I find myself in a dual state of doubting and non-doubt and perhaps you will have sympathy with this state and adopt it for yourself.

Response to doubt

Regardless, from consistency, responses may be—

1. Existential—it may be energizing to live with absence of certainty or in absence of guaranteed eternity of pleasure—there is meaning in moments of pleasure and pain. The fundamental principle (all possibility is realized) may be regarded as an existential action principle.

2. Scientific—the fundamental principle may be regarded as a postulate rather than demonstrated.

3. Practical—the structure of the universe may be developed further, to see how paths may be forged and negotiated. In the section on the nature of individuals, human awareness is seen to have an intrinsic side and an instrumental side; the intrinsic is the selfhood of the person, the instrumental operates on the world. The nature of these two sides is further developed in the resources. General templates for paths are suggested in the section pathways and programs.

Ways

This section develops and presents pathways of realization.

Though principles of realization and means have been spelled out, they are supplemented by the design of the pathways, which may be passed over by readers who do not wish to read the process of development.

Ways and pathways

The pathways have sources in the ideas, above, and received knowledge, e.g., science and philosophy, and received ways of living, e.g., secular humanism, the religions, and related endeavors.

These sources are regarded critically; we distance the way from their dogma; we may find their symbolic meaning and behavioral elements useful and inspiring.

Aim

The aim of pathways is (i) to live well in the world, (ii) to work toward realization of the ultimate, in such a way that (iii) #i and #ii are mutually reinforcing.

Design

This section is about coming up with pathways. It may be omitted by readers whose main interest is in the pathways.

The problem

Given that the ultimate will be achieved, to make the process effective—i.e., (i) to increase the likelihood of early realization for beings (as far as reasonably optimal) (ii) to make the process itself enjoyable, lived in the light of the ultimate (iii) to effectively address the problem of pain.

Meta-design

Elements—principles interact with elements (what we know, issues to address).

Design—formulation and address of elements, organizing, integrating, writing, and editing path programs or templates (‘program’ and ‘template’ are used as equivalent).

Design and planning of design and planning—a reflexive process as is all fundamental reflection and agency.

Approach

The approach to this aim shall be to—

1. Review the real metaphysics and its consequences are pertinent.

2. Review opportunities and obligations in living in the world (the obligations emphasize what is necessary, e.g., work as a way of giving and receiving), cast in terms of normal phases of life.

3. Synthesize these considerations in two templates, an everyday and a universal template.

Principles

The real metaphysics.

Balance and integrate the activities (i) immediate (daily) – ultimate (long) (ii) individual – shared (iii) intrinsic (psyche, spirit, immersive) instrumental (agency, material, world).

Simplicity and flexibility.

Elements

From the real metaphysics

The ultimate—all beings achieve the limitless ultimate. Detail—(i) grounded and open (ii) limited vs limitless (iii) experiential with intrinsic and instrumental sides (iii) individuals inherit this ultimate character and identity, merge in the peaks (iv) traditional perfection (nirvana, heaven…) vs process imperfection (uncertainty with certainty, pleasure with pain) (v) a project—what the ultimate is like, especially the limitless variety of being.

Pathways—intelligent, shared negotiation of the way to the ultimate in, for, and from the world is effective in realization and address of pleasure and pain (prescription alone is insufficient even if well founded). The way is intrinsically healing but should be supplemented by physical and psychological therapies.

Process—(i) commonly, incremental with agency and learning (ii) less commonly, saltation (iii) living with doubt and existential affirmation.

Knowledge—the ideal side of the real metaphysics is to be supplemented by human knowledge (from earlier, “…our knowledge of our immediate world … our cosmos … various aspects of the knowledge … sciences (natural, social, and abstract), art, technology, history, religion, and the humanities”).

Path issues

Short- and long-term design with options, routine, and plan; retreat and review-redesign (of issues); balance agency-initiative vs prescription and accumulated ‘wisdom’; inner (intrinsic) – outer (instrumental) and their dimensions (see dimensions of being, next); individual – community – sharing.

Note—the notions of inner-intrinsic-immersive and outer-instrumental-active, are explained earlier.

Resources—dimensions of being

The following are paradigmatic dimensions of being, which are natural to our world.

Nature—material, living, experiential.

Society—group structure and hierarchy with dynamics, political economy, culture – secular and transsecular (with culture – knowledge, pros vs limits of received ways – secular and transsecular), and universal (trans-limit, as in the real metaphysics).

Universal—defined by the greatest possibility.

Tradition

What we can learn, symbolic and real, from given ways—secular, transsecular, e.g., eightfold way, Christianity.

Phase of life—obligations and options

About the phases (i) they are ideal in that problems of illness, poverty and limited material resources are not explicitly accounted for (ii) not all phases or their aspects are obligatory or necessary, some are options that may be chosen according to preference and situation (iii) they are presented with minimal detail (iv) the phase boundaries are not sharp (there may be phase diffusion) (v) a source for the phases is the asrama system.

Maturation—preparation for independent living—play, discipline, learning (worldly, wisdom, the ultimate, practice), exposure to the world (problems, opportunities, suffering, death), service, retreat.

Maturity—adulthood—phase of relationships, parenthood, work (giving to society)—and play, knowledge, authenticity, retreat, realization (practice and path), giving (to those less spiritually and materially fortunate); ethics and power in genuine living.

Retirement—freedom from the obligations of adulthood, of which some may be chosen for meaning; continued cultivation of play, knowledge, authenticity, retreat, and realization (practice and path); sharing.

Late retirement through death—options are (i) retirement continued according to capacity (ii) special support regarding lesser physical capacity (iii) retreat.

Template and program design

What format should prescription take – list, table, collapsible? The format of the templates, below, is that of a simple list with options; the format in the resources is currently tabular and may be enhanced as in universal template planning.

Pathways

As the principles of realization and means have been spelled out, taking design considerations into account, we present two path templates—programs—below.

The programs are every-day and universal, which, together, attend to the aspects of the means of realization.

The templates here are generic (i) based on the design considerations (ii) adapted from experience. The resources link to adaptations to specific situations with greater detail.

The templates are designed to be adaptable to a range of life circumstances and preferences. The everyday template is adaptable to individuals and relationships, the universal template to individuals and groups. Some personal elements have been included where they might be useful, but the personal aspect is not emphasized.

Though “life is what happens when you are busy making other plans”, adaptable planning accepts this and builds on it; it is a compromise between agency and necessity; it allows that aims and values shall change and emerge naturally.

Outline for the templates

Printable versions

For download

Everyday template

About the everyday template

Other activities of the day

Becoming—immersive and instrumental

Being in the universe

Planning

Printable versions

For download

A download is available—templates and dedication.docm (currently in-process).

Everyday template

About the everyday template

The box below shows the structure of the template items.

Main activities

1. Numbered main options

Details of the options

The template is designed to be adaptable to life situation, interest, being at home vs away, and choice of activities.

First things

(preparing for the day)

On waking

Set attitude for the day⁺—limitlessness, dedication (below) and affirmation, relationships

Review the day, life, path of realization

Rise before the sun

Greet others

Coffee in nature

Set times for optional activities

Breakfast

Short walk

Affirmation

The view of the immediate world as being
of particular kinds, with many beings, has truth but is
not absolute; in the ultimate there is one peak being,
which we all are, and which has no kind except that
it is that which is, and has experience and agency.

Dedication

“We dedicate our lives to (the way of) being,

To living in the immediate and ultimate as one;

To its shared discovery and realization,

Under the pure and pragmatic dimensions of being;

To shedding the bonds of limited self,

So that so the path is flow, relative to force;

To realizing the ultimate in this life and beyond.”

Realization

(activities especially for the way of being)

Foundation

For realization—study, experience, reflect, critique, synthesize, write, publish, advertise

For living—ground, below

Ground

Material—finance, place to live, place to retreat

Discipline—balance moving forward with waiting for aware readiness, flexible routine, minimize diversion

Relationships—attention to others, shared attention to all activities of mutual need and interest

Empowerment—self (attitude, meditation), engage with the world, consultation on needs

School—school is a focus, yet energy of youth through early retirement may make it possible to include other activities

Work—see comments in the previous item

Retirement—an opportunity to focus on relationships with persons, nature, society, and the universe

Late retirement through death—continuation of retirement activities at a level that matches lesser capacity balanced with an awareness of the magic of being, awareness and acceptance of death as real but not necessarily as absolute (for those—but not only those—who regard death as absolute, an existential attitude may be adopted)

Adaptability—adapting and learning how to adapt to changing circumstance of self and world, e.g., in relationships, school to work to retirement to late retirement through death, and the losses and gains involved

Note—of course existential and learning-from attitudes to death are appropriate at all aware phases of life

Directed realization (transformation)

The day—physical yoga; meditation – emptying; mindful – on awareness, living, the real, realization

Immersion, home—nature, societies with culture (languages), meditation as portals to the universal

Immersion, away—items above – travel, journey, exploration; solo and shared

Instrumental—science, technology (AI), politics, economics, communal spirituality as universal portals

Other activities of the day

(though labeled ‘other activities’ these, too, are elements of realization)

Tasks

Daily—check and resolve needs, cleanliness, lunch

Weekly (plus)—shop, clean, prepare food, appearance

Exercise

Excursion, 2 hours—for exercise, exploration, and photography

Evening

Review—the day, plan next day next day – items, times, exercise route, review the way, meditate

Network—friends, relationships, share the way; create opportunities for publication, publicity, and funding

Last things—relaxation, snack, entertainment, music, and simple enjoyment

Sleep early

Planning

4. Select activities,

5. Set up a daily schedule, perhaps in a table,

6. Enhance the schedule by introducing flexibility.
Given access to software with programming
capabilities, automation of the schedule may
be introduced (e.g., with Microsoft Word).

Sample schedule

FIRST THINGS 2:00 AM

Awake early—review-plan life, TWB, the day
affirm-dedicate.
Set attitude—focus self = Brahman; relate positively
if blocked, feel, accept, relax, accept, meditate, move on.

Rise 2:00 am—treatments, nature, breakfast, short walk, alarms.

REALIZATION 4:00 AM (+2)

Foundation – develop the way, edit (find an editor), publish.

Ground (life essentials—finance, place
work / school), discipline.

Transformation immerse-act (nature, society, universe),
yoga, share.

ACTIVITIES OF THE DAY 11:00 AM (+9)

Tasks 11:00 am (+9)—daily, as needed:
weekly plus (Thursdays); lunch.

Exercise 01:00 pm (+11)—two hours+;
excursions – photo essays.

Evening 3:00 pm (+13)—rest review life,
the next day (set focus);
the way, network, relations, entertainment,
meditate, sleep early (5:00 pm, +15).

Universal template

About the template

The box below shows the structure of the template items.

Dimension of being

Dimension or main aspect—activity.

Other related activity.

The template is designed to be adaptable to life situation, interest, being at home vs away, and choice of activities.

Kinds of activity have a basis in the dimensions of being in the way of being.

Being in the world

Pure being—yoga, meditation, immersion , ideas to action.

Community—education (general, paradigm, ways of life), retreat to the real, renewal, development-reemphasis of paradigm.

Ideas

Relation—knowing as relation to the world, reason, art; acting—effective creation of the real.

Means—reason, imagination, meditation and yoga, and the real metaphysics.

Becoming—immersive and instrumental

Nature as catalyst to the real.

Animal being and devolution—observation, situational empathy, defocus, reason.

Society—civilization as vehicle and path to the real.

Transformation via psyche—by immersion in social groups as place of being and catalyst to the real.

Artifact—civilizing the universe (especially technology as enhancing being in the universe).

Universe as peak consciousness via spread of sapient being with agency.

Universal, incompletely known.

The common way from self to Being (Atman to Brahman), via the block universe and extended secular worlds consistent with experience of and in the world.

Being in the universe

Universal—realizing Peak Being (Brahman) in the present.

Said to be rarely achieved in ‘this life’ which is a beginning that is continued beyond death.

Outcome of previous items, being in the world, ideas, and becoming—immersive and instrumental.

The means are in the previous dimensions, the everyday templates above, and are further open to discovery.

The open life may be chosen (or natural to the person) at any phase of life but may be most natural to the phases of ‘retirement’ and ‘late retirement through death’.

Planning

1. Review phases of life, reflect on possible
emphases for life and the phases.

2. Asses current phase and select activities of focus.

3. Review and plan daily, short, and long term aims
and possible activities.

4. Include time-frame to execute and then review,
assess, renew, and alter plans.

5. Build these elements into everyday planning.

Sample plan

Life and beyond—foundation, awareness of death as
real but not absolute, realization (dimensions of being);
yoga; minimize.

Then—continue; select emphasis and activity
from dimensions of being and work.

Resources for the way of being

External

Ways—from tradition.

Pathways—derived from the means of realization; see pathways (web version).

See the detailed resources.

The concepts

Concepts from the preview are—the way of being, sources, aim, thing, existence, object, possibility, coherence, coherent possibility, logic, logical possibility, real, real possibility, greatest possibility, experience, moksha, a being, being, universe, void, law, fundamental principle of metaphysics, middle way, ideal metaphysics, doubt, means, enjoyment, real metaphysics, dimensions of being, pure dimension, pragmatic dimension, nature, society, universal, project of realization, everyday program, universal program, affirmation, dedication, return.

The main concepts of the essay are—philosophy, doubt, creativity, meaning, a being, being, abstraction, universe, pattern, laws, limit, constraint, cosmos, individual, person, void, peak being, possibility, coherence, greatest, real, agency, metaphysics, epistemology, metanalysis, reflexivity, real metaphysics, experience, pathway, ab initio.

For more on concepts for the way, see metaphysics and vocabulary for the way.

Design and planning for this document

Though fundamental works are often presented as complete and may seem complete regarding their subject, the history of thought shows otherwise.

Therefore, it is desirable for writers to criticize their thought for incompleteness and improvement. This will go toward making the works explicit historical events rather than being presented as facades for finality (of course, it is conceivable that the works may have completeness as, in the present narrative, the ideas are complete with regard to depth but, as shown, as long as beings are limited, ideas must be ever open with regard to breadth).

This section has two main parts—‘The ideas’, which is permanent (though revisable), and ‘This work’, which is temporary.

The ideas

When a work seeks to underly fundamental understanding of the universe, our place in it, and their interacting trajectories, until the work and its aspects are shown complete, its ideas ought always to be open to critical review with imaginative (re-) construction. When one has put much energy and self into such a work, it may be difficult to implement a reconstructive attitude but, if one wants to be true, one ought to be willing to reduce ones thought to zero—again, to begin from scratch, i.e., to begin ab initio.

But there needs to be more than reconstruction of the ideas. The following are important—

1. The ideas.

2. The structure of the main narrative.

3. The way in—an informal introduction that will inform the reader of what the text is about and preliminary elements that will arouse interest and make reading easier than if they were to the main narrative. Though not part of the main narrative, this part is critically important to (i) understanding and motivation for readers (ii) reception of the work.

4. The world revisited—a view of the world, the individual, and their trajectories from the perspectives that have emerged in the narrative. This final part of the narrative may have both formal and informal elements.

5. Supplements—e.g., concepts and vocabulary, index, bibliography, and other resources.

This work

1. Identify main and secondary material.

2. Write the main material in conversational style. As far as consistent with validity of content, use simpler language, divide sentences into shorter ones. Write for understandability of the ideas and for clarity.

3. Make the secondary material identifiable by using indents, smaller font, or footnotes.

4. Perhaps incorporate the main material as part of the table of contents.

5. Regarding the section, ‘Is philosophy something?’, carefully think through the content of the section; shall it be named just, ‘Is philosophy?’

6. The templates, so far, are really templates for the templates and should be firmed up here or in templates and dedication as true templates, possibly with automation. There should be only one version of the ‘template of templates’.

Earlier versions of the work

The present version is modified from the earlier March 14, 2024 version.

The early differences from the previous version are (i) the introductory summary has been replaced by a preview and (ii) the section ‘Is philosophy something?’ from the summary has been moved to the introduction.

Return

Preliminary

The trajectory of (human) endeavor has interaction among being and knowing.

There are times to emphasize knowing, as in the preliminary section, into the way.

In return, the focus is being-in-the-world with our now renewed vision.

The return

Life is reflection and action. A phase of reflection, though not of inaction, comes to fulfilment; it is now time to RETURN to an emphasis on action—a phase emphasizing immersive action and commitment, though not of unreflective life. Narration will continue in-the-world and its foci shall be improvement of the way via imagination and criticism, an issue of what I have not seen due to focused seeing in some regions of the real, and universal narrative—i.e., collapsing the essential history of narrative and thought so as to extract what is essential and to have balance against tendencies to infinite detail and the sheer weight of the cumulative record. Death will be unremarkable in itself, but, if, at death, one is incompletely realized, it will be a gateway to the ultimate.

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