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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.
The vehicles of realization
are individual and group—
Being and civilization.
…
Ideas may be experienced as if possessed of
Independent flow and necessity—as if revealed.
What follows emphasizes experience of original flow
Which is the source of the label ‘received’ for this text.
…
When words with more than
one common meaning
Are employed, it is essential to know which meaning
is used.
I have attempted care in showing which 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 have unfamiliarity 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 and discrete text, however, has a beginning.
It is effective to begin this account with experience
Which is the place of our relation to the Universe.
…
Experience—awareness—is 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 exists (‘is there’),
For even if all is illusion, there is illusion
Which is experience.
…
The word ‘exists’ means what is there.
Here, ‘exists’ is used in the sense of ‘existed’,
‘exists’,
Andor ‘will exist’ and even more generally according
as
Time and space are but two local coordinates of
distinction.
The considerations on experience show the fact of
existence.
(That experience is a robust foundation for
existence is
Shown in narratives linked at the head of this edition.
These narratives also address a variety of fine points—
Particularly concerns about experience and existence.)
Being is that which exists.
The power of ‘Being’, the concept, 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.
…
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 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.)
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 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.
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.
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.
Consider concepts that purport to have objects.
The only constraint on such concepts to have objects
Is that they are consistent with fact and one
another.
This minimal Realism brings constitutes
An explicit meaning of the metaphysics.
Another term for this Realism is Logic (‘Logos’)
Which in this form includes agreement with fact.
This liberal meaning of Logic is not a limit on the
Universe
But a constraint on the useful free play of concept
formation.
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 (must have) manifestation and
Identity
In acute, diffuse and absent (non-manifest) phases.
That something must come from nothing is a trivial
corollary.
Every state or element of Being is equivalent to
every other.
At the deepest and most general level
The question of foundation is forever closed and
resolved.
The extension, duration, variety, summit, and
dissolution
Of manifest phases of Being in the Universe
Are without limit.
The Universe confers these powers 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.
Power is conceived as degree of limitlessness.
The Universe is ultimate power;
The individual realizes this power.
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 remove
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 closes the issue of foundation
But, for finite forms, it opens up
The variety of experience and Being for eternity.
…
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 in limited form realization is endless
process—
And ever freshness in variety—A Journey in Being.)
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.
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 thoughts that now follow make explicit a
Basis for a program for realization.
A program is developed and 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 shared front the final
resource
Is to always take the next step as if it were the
first step.
Experience is shared at a front but there are no
masters.)
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, reflection, and recollection.
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.
…
On ‘the way’—living in transience is on the way to
realization.
Realization may begin with disciplines of
civilization
But requires risk of splitting and rebuilding Being
And increment is secured in reason, flow, and
recollection.
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