We will find there to be one realm—no highest opposed to the immediate, no spiritual versus mundane. There are distinctions and phases but these are ultimately bound together within the real.

We begin informally with Being (capitalized) as straddling all distinctions, and the universe as all there is. Later, formal use will inherit from this use of Being that ‘existence’ is the one fundamental kind; and from this use of universe, that there is precisely one universe. A being (lower case) is an instance of existence.

The aim of the Way of Being

The aim and endeavor of the Way of Being is the highest discovery and realization in immediate-ultimate worlds for Being with emphasis on human individuals and civilizations.

In the endeavor it will be useful to begin with a metaphysics to conceive the ultimate. The prologue this metaphysics. The narrative develops and fills out the metaphysics; and shows paths to realization.

The greatest possible universe or being as a framework for the Way

The sketch of the metaphysics begins with a framework. This section shows that the GREATEST POSSIBLE UNIVERSE (GPU) is a rational framework for the aim of the Way.

Significance of being

The significance of ‘being’ above is to allow that the universe is not necessarily inert or non-sentient—and may turn out to have active sentience and phases of unitary and sentient being-hood.

The meaning of greatest possible universe in the narrative

Greatest will not mean not best or most ethical but most inclusive of kind and variety of being, regarded as including extension in space and time. It is implicit in ‘greatest’ that possibility shall be most liberal.

What is the manifest form of the greatest possible universe? Even if the actual universe follows physical law, the only restriction for a concept to be realized in the greatest possible universe is to satisfy logic. If logic is satisfied, a concept is realizable in some world; on the other hand if logic is not satisfied, realization is not possible at all.

Thus the greatest possible universe is the universe of Logic. ‘Logic’ (capitalization, signifies a use that is explained later). A concern will be to avoid paradox potentially inherent in the idea of ‘all possibility’. One approach to this concern is to specify what is allowed—and so to approach the greatest possible while avoiding paradox.

The universe is the greatest possible

It will be shown that the universe is the greatest possible; this is one form of what will be named the FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF METAPHYSICS or just FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE, abbreviated FP.

The form of the greatest possible universe

If the universe is the greatest possible, it must have has identity. The universe as greatest possible and its identities have no limit to variety of kind or peak of being, extension, or duration. A material example is that there are cosmoses limitlessly arrayed in space and time. The ultimate possibility of any being—individual or civilization—is that of the universe itself. Within that range, be-ing and relating and becoming, immediate and ultimate, home and abroad are ever interwoven.

Given sufficient security, a choice between the immediate and the ultimate is neither necessary nor appropriate.

Consider a given being. Then, there is always (1) a greater being, (2) a greater sentience or sentient being, (3) realizations of the being and 1-2 from the void (absence of Being), and (4) a sentient being capable of engineering realizations the being and 1-3. Description of this kind avoids paradox.

The universe is the greatest possible universe or being.

On realization

Individual and civilization already partake of the immediate and the ultimate. Though often obscured in ‘this’ life vision of the ultimate can be approximated. Questions arise. (1) Is full vision possible? (2) What is the form of realization? (3) What means are there for realization?

That an individual and civilization are centers of emergent-quiescent awareness follows from FP; it explains partial knowledge-realization of the ultimate; it explains the connection with other beings on the way to the ultimate and connections with ultimates. Rational karma would not be the individual reaping future cycles benefit or loss; but of being part of general process toward the ultimate.

The classic means are laid out in various traditions. To lay them out would be a map of human culture and process, supplemented by experiment and reflection; some elements are provided later. The means must be a weaving of be-ing in the present and process toward the ultimate.

A rational and universal metaphysics for realization

The greatest possible universe provides a framework. But how can the ultimate be known-realized at all; and how can this go beyond a framework?

The FRAMEWORK will begin with ideas of EXPERIENCE, SAMENESS, DIFFERENCE, UNIVERSE, BEINGS, BEING and EXISTENCE, POSSIBILITY, REASON, and THE VOID conceived in sufficient abstraction that empirical knowledge is precise. This will be sufficient to derive the fundamental principle (these are the special terms of the metaphysics; the system evolves; but at any point they are described in ORDINARY LANGUAGE which whose status is secondary to and not as critical as the metaphysical terms).

Within this framework we locate what is valid in human cultures—knowledge, its processes including reason-experiment-action (but note that an image of action is captured in reason and that in the universal metaphysics it is a perfect image), and practice; this is TRADITION. Its criterion is pragmatic, i.e. perhaps sufficient to the purpose. However, the GPU framework implies that no better instrument than tradition is possible or needed in ultimate realization—e.g., in moving from being to being, level to level, cosmos to cosmos, to the universal. Though pragmatic it is thus seen as perfect in that, under FP, no better is possible or needed (this does not negate the local value of precise science). Thus enhanced by tradition, the system is the PERFECT universal metaphysics to be derived; it is a join of a PURE metaphysics—the precise abstract framework—based on the fundamental principle and tradition. We are almost ever in process; we almost never know the ultimate detail.

The means of the Way of Being are ideas and action.

Reason as fabric for knowing and realizing

Reason is the means of reliable knowledge and action.

On reason and meaning

Here REASON is the establishment of truth. Its elements are to establish fact directly and to infer other facts, simple and compound. The directly established facts are preferably atomic and so precise; we have seen examples of atomic facts via abstraction for the pure metaphysics but atomic facts and language are not generally possible (or needed for the perfect metaphysics). Facts and inference may be necessary or probable. An alternate term in current use is ‘argument’ but I shall prefer reason. Related terms are rationality, logic, and science.

In this essay, reason is not to be confused with other connotations in common use.

In general use, many terms used in the narrative have no final meaning or object; but the approach to meaning in a given system should be to choose a sufficient system of concepts and to define them precisely so that the system achieves function and communicability with precision. It is sufficient that the meanings in this narrative are definite and sufficiently precise. Criticism may of course be based on the worth of the system and whether it reaches its goal.

Reason or argument as a narrative thread; and weaving together all knowing, all action and their interaction

Reason does not stand above knowing or acting or content. The following reflect the weave of reason and knowledge or method and content:

1. Reason is both means and an important case of content—for the means are in the world just as ‘mind-as-real’ is in the world.

2. Neither absolute a priori nor final reason are assumed, except where shown. Reason remains a fluid center in communication with all content,

3. REASON is not merely formal and cognitive, e.g. logic and perhaps science, but also involves appropriate and necessary use of heuristics, emotion, value, intuition, imagination, and experiment-action (but note that an image of action is captured in reason and that in the universal metaphysics it is a perfect image); all in reflexive interaction. That is in an ideal and active sense, metaphysics, reason, argument, and Logic are identical.

Reason is a main thread weaving the Way together. It is so, not because reason or reasoning generate all things but because it is in efficient communication with all things.

Narrative

The section on experience is preliminary.

Ideas

Experience

Abstraction

Meaning

Reason I: The elements of reason

Fact; establishing fact

Facts are primarily data that are atomic for a given purpose.

Facts are established by observation, measurement, corroboration, and reason (argument).

When discrimination is imperfect, facts are uncertain or imprecise.

But ‘pure’ facts are possible, e.g. that there is a universe, which from abstraction is perfect and atomic. Though tautological in following from definition and the given, such perfect facts in combination will be found immense in consequence

Necessary vs. hypothetical inference

A compound fact is also a fact; but as projection it may be hypothesis or theory.

Inference is to arrive at a conclusion with a certain confidence from premises of a certain confidence. ‘If the premises are true, the conclusions are true’.

Necessary inference is possible only when the conclusions are essentially contained in the premises (by tautology) or independently true, e.g. as fact. The main means of necessary inference is deduction. If the conclusion follows from the premise, the inference is ‘valid’.

If the facts or premises are true and the inference valid, then the conclusions are true and the reason or argument is ‘sound’.

When the conclusion is not contained in the premise, it is at most probable. In science, the projected conclusions begin as premises and via repeated and widespread success achieve theory status. Unless the ‘universe’ of potential data has been exhausted, the theory is never finally confirmed.

‘Reason is everything’

Method is content; in reason, ideation and action are continuous.

First foundation—begin in the present; no a priori

Begin where we are, in the present

There is no absolute a priori

Not seeking immediate perfection empowers foundation

Being

The concepts—their choice, the givens, the fundamental concepts

Possibility, natural law, and logic

Reason II: reason and the fundamental concepts

Metaphysics

Fundamental principle—proof and heuristics; on the nature of the void; metaphysics is possible

The universal metaphysics; formulations, consistency, consequences, and significance; criticisms and perspectives

Reason III

Metaphysics is Logic interpreted as reason

As reason, Logic has the following extensions to logic-as-necessary-inference:

1. Inclusion of hypothetical or inductive as inference that is less or other than necessary,

2. Inclusion of fact or premise and determination of fact,

3. Extension of necessary inference and definite fact to the pure metaphysics.

A final extension is to the perfect metaphysics of the world:

4. Extension of the foregoing to the perfect metaphysics which though unitary, is dual—the pure and the pragmatic—with regard to function and criteria.

The full metaphysics and its rationale

Under the universal metaphysics, there is no essential distinction between the concrete and the abstract; they form a continuum; and ‘all objects’ exist is the fundamental principle. The abstract and the concrete exist in the one universe; in the abstract the concrete is suppressed rather than essentially absent.

Here, ‘science’ is interpreted broadly to include the concrete and the abstract; and non-dogmatic religion as addressing inner being in light of both truth and rational imagination beyond the empirical.

Metaphysics and Logic

In this and the next sections on logic, mathematics, science, and religion, each topic establishes the general case and then its enhancement or restriction under FP; this practice is continued in discussing cosmology and agency.

Logic, mathematics and science

The valid comparison of logic, mathematics and science, is (a) discovery and creation of the systems which is not intrinsically necessary and (b) inference under those systems which is frequently necessary inference.

Regarding religion

Existential and optimal stance

Cosmology

Aim and principles

General cosmology

Identity, relation, and process; quality; being, space, and time

Experience and the real world—mind and matter

Levels of Being

General…

Receptacle and disposition

Atman and Brahman

Origins of form and of physical cosmology

Agency

Identity, psyche, dynamics, and agency

Wholeness of Being

Citta

Practical agency

Becoming

The Aim of Being

The aim and its derivation

Ethics of the aim

The Way of Being

Attitude

Ways, catalysts and paths

Living The Way

Wholeness of being

Sangha and practice

Practice, action; and balance

Templates

Everyday process

Universal process

The Path

Past and present

Future

Epilogue—The way forward

The epilogue looks forward to realization and its ways based in the knowledge and practice of The Way of Being.

An existential endeavor

What if we doubt the proof of the universal metaphysics? Because the metaphysics is self- and externally consistent, and frames all possible experience, to live under it is existentially optimal.

Immediate and ultimate

The immediate and ultimate are interwoven. A derived ethic is that living well is living for this world and the ultimate.

Intrinsic and instrumental

The intrinsic-experiential—the true nature of being—includes the instrumental. It is the way to the ultimate.