A Philosophy
A Way of Being A Practice
Remember this is just a model. The universe may ultimately be beyond our understanding, and it is surely more vast and intricate than this model. If this model is useful in empowering our intentions, then that is the measure of its value, and that only.
A useful cosmology, in this context, consists of three parts:
1. An operational model for reality
2. A stance, or proper relationship, for humans relative to that model's operating principles
3. A set of practices and tactics the enable a person to maintain the stance, that is, become coherent with the creative force of the universe and congruent in their actions and therefore effective in creating new realities.
(Does everyone need to experience the level of detail we will discuss here? No, most practitioners would not need to be exposed to the actual model to be able to leverage the practice and the stance in their lives.)
There are two key reasons why a new way of thinking may be useful.
First, we need a model that bridges the culturally-generated gap of understanding between the material and non-material parts of our universe, and that is, at its core, non-dual though recognizing the natural semblance of duality in the experienced world. And it must be explainable to people whose worldview (logical thinking patterns) are based in the scientific/material world model.
Second, most of us need a new model because we think that the world is just happening to us, that we are victims of everything and everyone else. In thinking this, we also believe that what we do doesn't matter much in the big scheme of things. What this model helps to visualize is that nothing just happens to you and that you are responsible for everything you do, everything you think, and everything you believe. And that you make a difference in what you experience in your life. And you make a difference in what everyone else experiences in their life.
We need to get over the belief that we can be ambiguous, half-hearted, or incongruous about our actions, thoughts, and beliefs. We need to become whole-hearted about everything we do if we want to leverage the true power of our creative ability in the universe. And this power will come from two aspects of the human experience: the state of our awareness and the nature of our actions.
This model, for both key reasons stated above, is focused on the nature of actions and, through the expansion of the definition of right action, the state of awareness of the actor. It attempts to maintain a skillful means focus.
The cosmos is one conscious whole which has sprung into being with the intent to explore the facets of creativity using differentiation, movement, and a process of becoming creating each new thing through incremental change. The structure of the world arises in consciousness which permeates all of existence. The universe is running on an energetic vibration that powers the becoming. Everything is part of this arising into being of the world.
There is a conscious substrate that lives on the edge of becoming between the potential of the world and the actual manifestation. Humans are a highly focused array, an intricate density, of consciousness and can experience the arising of the world as themselves when they live on the edge of the moment of becoming. Humans are participating in the design and creative work of the universe. They choose new design goals and they generate potential for creative results. They are more or less effective at choosing goals, and more or less effective at generating potential for chosen goals. Humans are still evolving their participation in the process.
Humans are not in "control" the way we believe but are surfing the waves of the potential of the world as it arises and through choice and action contributing to its future realization.
The model helps us internalize and embody some key and potentially powerful understandings about how the world actually works:
The model has arisen from a compulsion to find a logical model (in the scientific, material manner) for action in the world which can be applied to any and all human engagements whether personal or organizational. And, through a discourse on action, which is generally of interest to people at all levels, bring them to an understanding of the importance of their evolving state of awareness as a source of power in the world.
This model describes a functional structure with a set of axioms and relationships between those axioms. Some of them represent things (state, beings, objects); some of them represent movement (becoming, action, choice). To make the basic axioms more easily applicable to real life, we have developed derivative axioms from the synthesis of the existential and operational axioms which creates a real-world orientation to the underlying definitions.
The nomenclature used for the axioms can be flexible and holds the potential for reforming the model for any given audience or application. Here is a list of the axioms currently in use:
In reality there are only four things in the cosmos, its existence, its process, its underlying energy mode or purpose, and its intent. These four aspects are the core of the functional structure which is arising in consciousness. We call these State, Becoming, Energetic Mode, and Purpose, one noun, one verb, one vibration, and one meaning. Everything else is derived from these.
State is the condition of the universe at any given moment or instantiation. That is, of all the possible conditions for each large and minute object in the universe, at one moment, there is one state. (This, of course, would include any multi-state universes as extensions of the state of the whole universe. If you care.) Here is our definition of State.
1. State is described by an arbitrary large number of elements or dimensions, which can be predicated, or described, for the cosmos in the moment.
2. The cosmos has State, which encompasses every element or dimension of its actuality.
3. An entity has State which is a predicated (voluntarily defined) subset of the cosmic State.
4. State includes Actualities (physically extant) and Potentials (not physically extant.)
An outcome of this understanding is that the cosmos has one state, which includes everything, and that, in reality, we are altogether one thing, one being.
The cosmos has an inherent process of Becoming, that is, moving into the next state of being based on its current state and some rules of Becoming that we have some inkling of in some modalities. For example, we understanding the "becoming rules" of baseballs flying through the air, for the most part. Alternately, we do not fully understand the large scale complexities of, for example, the drives and intentions that have caused the earth to come into being. But the moment by moment transition into the next state is always ongoing according the rules of the cosmos. At the precise edge where (or when)* potential becomes actual is the moment (or place) of reckoning where what has been created unfurls into being before us---the razor's edge on which we can learn to live. (*Note it is not a time or a place; these are only analogies.)
1. The cosmos, and all sub-entities, are Becoming, that is, changing inexorably into the next State of being.
2. The next state of being is the expression of "what happens next" according to the "becoming rules" of the cosmos.
The universe, as experienced by humans, is creating on an energetic vibration that to humans feels like joy, love, or compassion. When humans are experiencing these energetic states, which we sometimes call emotions, we are coherent with the creational vibration of the world. As humans experience the edge of the moment of becoming, or the creative impulse arising from the potential, they are in their most powerful stance, aware of and in the midst of their arising potential as it actualizes. This is the truly generative position of the human being.
1. The vibrational energy, or state, of the universe is an energy that feels to humans like joy, love, and compassion.
2. To most effectively leverage the creative force of the universe, creators should be coherent with this energy, residing in the creative impulse.
3. Residing in the emotional states of joy, love, and compassion is one way to begin to embody this coherence.
4. Many personal practices promoted by religions, psychology, and management training are focused on creating this coherence.
The cosmos has an intention, a purpose. This purpose is to experience itself as a creative force, to see what it can do, and to experience what happens next. The complexity of the cosmos and the differentiation of parts arise from this creative intent. One might call it evolution as it is the nature of the state to evolve. The multiplicity of types, constructs, and entities is what enables complex expressions and creations. (This is, of course, an ascribed purpose, part of the model which is useful for understanding our possibilities. The ultimate purpose of the universe may be inscrutable to us.)
1. The cosmos has the intent to explore the act of creation.
2. The cosmos uses differentiation to enable the creative process.
3. Differentiated entities play a role in the creation and humans have the ability to participate in the execution of purpose and action.
(Note: Detailed discussions of the rest of the axioms has not yet been published here, but is available on request.)
Existential Axioms
The existential axioms describe elements of being, things that are. Two of them we have already discussed.
The operational axioms describe processes that change the state of the cosmos, or of individual entities. (Two of which are covered above.)
The derivative axioms combine the existential and operational axioms to create nouns and verbs that we can use to describe and proscribe human action. They provide us a way to describe the world and our relationship to it. The language of the derivative axioms can be customized to meet the need of any given audience or purpose.
To engaged with the world, we have need for three core components of the model. The first is what we have covered here, a model for what exists. Second we need to discuss a stance relative to that model; and third we need to understand effective practices and tactics (ways of living) that will leverage the model. In the end, the entire discussion is only useful if it enables a person to become coherent with the creative force of the universe and congruent in their actions--- living an effective and creative life.