JOURNEY IN BEING
DISCOVERY, REVELATION, AND REALIZATION OF GREATEST BEING

RECEIVED EDITION

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The received version narrates what is essential to the journey.

JOURNEY IN BEING

Introduction

Journey in Being is a quest for discovery, revelation,
And realization of the greatest destiny of Being
And the place of human being in this process.

This narrative focuses on the universal and the ultimate.
Elaboration and interaction with the range of human
Endeavor is found in essays linked at the head of
This version of ‘Journey in Being’.

…

Some insights of this text have occurred as though possessed
Of independent necessity—as though I happened upon them—
And so it is that I sometimes think of the narrative
Core as received rather than created.

…

When words with more than one common meaning
Are employed, it is essential to know which meaning is used.
I have attempted care in specifying the meanings I use.

(We may tend to think of meaning as determined
But there can be final determination external to process.
The only final ‘authorities’ are experience and use.
Thus meaning balances fixity and fluidity.)

Some ideas and ways of this ‘journey’ are new.
The new builds on and subsumes what is valid in the old—
The narrative will have familiar elements. However, readers
Are likely to be unfamiliar with the new elements.

Understanding the narrative will be enhanced
By appreciating that familiar terms may have new meaning
And that the ideas form a connected system with meaning
That is greater than the collection of individual meanings.

The narrative endeavors to show in simple form
What is essential to discovery and realization
But not to suppress essential challenge.

…

To know ‘greatest being’ requires depiction of
The Universe and our relations to it.
Metaphysics, cosmology, and worldview
Are common terms for such depictions.

We will find the Universe to have no beginning or end.
A finite, discrete text, however, has a nominal beginning.
It is effective to begin this account with experience
Which is the place of our relation to the Universe.

Experience

Experience—awareness—is the place of knowledge of
Things—the core and theater of our being.
Its forms are pure, receptive, and active. These combine
As ideas—pure and creative—and action.

Experience is the rock of knowledge of things—
Knowledge that something ‘is there’,
For even if all is illusion, there is illusion
Which is experience.

Existence

The word ‘exists’ means ‘what is there’.
The considerations on experience above show that
Existence is not an empty or vacuous concept.

(That experience is a robust and discriminating foundation
For existence is shown in essays linked at the head
Of this narrative.)

Here, ‘exists’ is any mix of ‘existed’, ‘exists’, and ‘will
Exist’ and more according as time and space are but two
Local measures or coordinates of difference (associated,
Respectively, with same and distinct identity).

Being

Being is that which exists.
The power of (the idea of) Being is its neutrality to real
And hypothetical ‘kinds’—e.g., space, time, matter, mind,
Spirit, soul, or word-as-world.

Mention of these special kinds is not essential
To the present development. Whatever is real—named
And unnamed—is already and always in Being.

Universe

The Universe is All Being.
There is one and only one Universe.

Whatever has Being is in the Universe.
The hypothetical being that is not in the Universe
Does not exist—it is no more than a hypothesis.

‘Being’ discriminates only existence from non-existence.
It does not distinguish kinds of Being.
Whatever is real exists in the one Universe. There is no other
Universe (e.g. of fact or kind or of Being such as idea or form).

The Universe contains all creation
But is not created.
Any creator is part of the Universe—
The Universe has and can have no external creator.

(It will be seen that the Universe has neither beginning nor end.
The Universe is.)

Laws

Knowledge of the natural world is
Coded in ‘laws’ and natural histories.
Natural history may be coded as law,
Legend, myth, or ancient cosmology.

The laws of natural science are
Familiar examples of laws.

A law is a reading of a pattern;
The pattern itself is the immanent Law.
All Laws have Being.
The Universe contains all Laws.

The Void

The Void is the absence of Being.
Therefore the Void contains no Law.
As complement to the Universe
The Void exists.

The Void which is the absence of Being
Exists and contains no Law.

The Universal Metaphysics

All states emerge from the Void
For the contrary would be a Law of the Void.
It is thus shown that the Void—and, so,
Being and the Universe—have no limits.

If power is degree of limitlessness, the Universe is ultimate
Power. Every state of being, including the Void has this power.
Ultimate power is immanent in the present. Those forms are
limited for which ultimate realization is only in endless process.

The Universe has no limits.
This demonstrated assertion
Is named the ‘fundamental principle of metaphysics’.

The worldview that results is called
The universal metaphysics
Or, simply, the metaphysics.

It is crucial to use of the metaphysics (fundamental principle)
That its meaning should be understood.
Let us now elaborate on its meaning, first taking up
‘Explicit meaning’.

Meaning of the Metaphysics

Consider concepts that purport to have objects; such concepts
Are said to be referential (in form). In this section on explicit
Meaning the term ‘concepts’ will refer only to such concepts.

Freedom in thought allows formation of concepts that are
Inconsistent with fact or with one another—that is, it
Allows concepts that are impossible to realize.

From the limitlessness of the universe the only concepts
That do not have objects are the impossible concepts.
This constraint on concepts for realism is
Not a limit on the Universe.

This minimal Realism constitutes
An explicit meaning of the metaphysics:
Given Realism, concepts have objects.

Another term for this Realism is Logic (‘Logos’)
Which in this form includes agreement with fact.
In this most liberal meaning, Logic is not a limit
But a constraint on the useful free play of concept formation.

The vastness and Forms of Logic await discovery
(The known logics are but forms of and within Logic).
And while the forms may be rough and constraining
Logic itself is the true and most liberal realism.

Agreement with fact includes agreement with knowledge
Claims of human culture, e.g. science, religion, and lore in their
Valid domains. Consistency among concepts includes agreement
With systems of logic where they are valid.

Cosmology

The metaphysics (fundamental principle) implies
What follows and it is especially the implications
That bring out meaning implicit in the metaphysics.

Natural science and experience have domains of validity
But the Universe—the object of the metaphysics—is
Greater without limit than those domains.
The Universe is limitlessly greater than our cosmos.

The Universe has neither beginning nor end.
The Universe is.

The Universe has and must have manifestation and Identity
In acute, diffuse and absent (non-manifest) phases.

Every state or element of Being is equivalent to every other.
(That something must come from nothing is a trivial corollary.)
At the deepest and most general level
The question of foundation is forever resolved and closed.

The extension, duration, variety, summit, and dissolution
Of manifest phases of Being in the Universe
Are without limit.

Individual and Identity

These powers of the Universe are conferred on individuals
For the contrary would entail a limit on the Universe.
Individuals realize the Universe—i.e., All Being:
Its extension, duration, variety, summits, Identity.

Though individual identity may seem a concrete unity
‘Individual’ and ‘group’ are relative terms.
(Every atom is a cosmos, every cosmos an atom.)
However, the individual-group distinction is not relative.

The ‘vehicles’ of realization are individual and civilization.

Apparent limits are part of the constitution
Of the forms of Being—
Though temporary, limits are—part of—the form of beings.
Limits are normally a result of origins.

Such, too, is the nature of human limits.

The givenness of realization does not negate
The value and challenge of endeavor
Or the facts of pain and death
But gives meaning to pain, death, and challenge.

While in limited form realization is endless process—
And ever freshness in variety—A Journey in Being.
For limited Being the forms of knowledge and Being
Are ever open—an eternal challenge.

The oneness, connection, and continuity
Of these forms lie in Identity—
In experience, idea and action.

In unlimited form realization is Aeternitas—
Eternity in a moment—
To which life and death—and pain and joy—are gateways.

That realization for limited form is endless
Requires that the empirical and symbolic sciences
For such forms remain ever in process and
Be complemented by immersion for their full expression.

The metaphysics has resolved the issue of foundation but
Shown variety of experience and Being to be open:
For limited forms the variety of experience and
Being is limitless, eternal, and unbounded.

Civilization

Our civilization is the web of human culture
Across time and continents.
Greater Civilization is the matrix of civilizations
Across the Universe.

Individuals foster Civilization;
Civilization nurtures the individual.
Civilization is the hearth of realization;
The individual is the manifestation of realization.

While individual and Civilization are vehicles,
Ideas and action are modes of transformation and realization.

Civilization provides ways of ideation and action—
Disciplines of thought, discovery, and transformation.

The standard forms of the disciplines—
Secular and trans-secular—
Are marked by incompleteness and error
But their core constitutes ground on which to build.

Our apparent limits are Laws or
Expressions of Law
Which also constitute initial ground on which to
Transcend limits on the way to universal realization.

The apparently stable initial ground
Is transient and incomplete,
But knowing and living its transient incompleteness
Is on the way to the ultimate.

Ultimate realization for all beings is given
By the metaphysics. However, efficiency and enjoyment
Are diminished immensely in quality and frequency
In absence of commitment and engagement.

Sacred scriptures talk of divine magnificence. An example:
The Bhagavad-Gita compares the splendor of Being
To the brilliance of a thousand suns. Yet the means of
Realization of the Gita are squarely in the present.

The Universe and the place of individuals in it are limitlessly
Greater than in common secular and trans-secular cosmologies.
Especially on this knowledge, realization for limited forms
Begins in the present (touched and illuminated by the ultimate).

A Way of Realization

The thoughts that now follow make explicit a
Basis for a program for realization.
A program is outlined in the Précis Edition
And detailed in the Complete Edition.

The places of realization are
Nature—the ground of civilization—
And society, which link the present
To the ultimate.

The way of realization lies
In break down and experiential rebuilding of ideas and Being,
Which includes thought, experiment, and correction.

(This break down-rebuilding is Analysis and Synthesis of ideas
And Being. At a front the final resource is to take the next
Step of action. To share experience is effective: there are
Teachers but no perfect masters of realization.)

Realization derives inspiration from the disciplines
And the powers of Being and thought
Revealed above. It derives effectuality
From their interaction.

Realization begins with ideas; transformation requires action.

(While in limited form realization is endless process—
And ever freshness in variety—A Journey in Being.)

The disciplines suggest catalysts of transient change—
Of mind and body (e.g. meditation and yogas)
Incremental change in being and disciplines (ways)
Is secured in experience, reason, and recollection (memory).

The dimensions of realization are
Transformation of Being—Ideas and Action and
Transformation of Civilization—inhabiting the Universe via
Intrinsic transformation of Being and instrument or technology.

Transience

Realization begins in the present, perhaps with the disciplines
But requires risk—experiment, splitting, and rebuilding—and
Increment may be secured in experience, reason, and recollection.

Living in transience is on the way. It is essential to realization.
Realization is ever a flux of transience and arrival.