PHILOSOPHY, when honestly pursued beyond preconceptions and outside the bounds of ego-gratification and vested interests, is man's effort to rise above a crude, animal-level existence and know the mind and design of the Infinite.
PHILOSOPHY could be seen as an attempt to understand the BE, DO and HAVE of EXISTENCE. When it studies WHAT IS, and how 'WHAT IS' is structured, this is referred to as "Ontology" or, especially when it seeks to describe the invisible, it could also be called "Metaphysics."
Since language is the primary tool we use to navigate and describe reality, here we're going to use the linguistic construction of the English language, drawing on the accumulated wisdom of ages, to take a penetrating look at the ordinarily invisible structure of Reality itself.
At its highest levels of pursuit, Philosophy attempts to connect to some degree, with what SHOULD BE.
What SHOULD BE drives the study in Philosophy of Ethics, Morality and Justice. What is "fair" and what is "right" fits here. (We do this as individuals when we perceive and exercise CONSCIENCE.)
Then, coming back down closer to the material plane of Existence - (what we call "Reality") - it contemplates what COULD BE.
The practice of envisioning that which COULD BE involves the area of Ideals, Creativity and Imagination. We do this as individual artists - even when that "art" is as simple and personal as choosing the way we live and create our own lives - pursuing our dreams and goals.
Then comes the real work - including effectively communicating those ideals to others, such that others are inspired to pursue these or similar attainments. This - the alchemical "Great Work" - in order to remain truly free and thus maximally effective, must work with the self-determined power of choice of the individual spiritual being. And in leading by example, reason and inspiration, awaken the WILL to action - what WOULD BE.
Before we say more about that most important of activities, let's step back and take a look at what we have in our study of Existence. We have Existence as its Passive (Yin) component parts BE, DO and HAVE. But here we have further introduced the Active (Yang) - Creation components of Existence. These reveal how things are changed and moved along these routes of development of BE, DO, and HAVE (Becoming, Doing and Having). They work by evaluating, correcting and changing these factors through use of WILL (Intention), creative and practical ABILITY (starting with Imagination) and JUDGMENT (Evaluation - future and past).
We can also note that the above factors are embedded in the English language as the primary auxiliary verbs, BE, DO, and HAVE, plus WOULD, COULD and SHOULD. We draw from a long-established accumulated wisdom of Language ("Grammar" in the Trivium) to get an objective view of the fundamentals of Existence, uncolored by the latest fads, trends and commercialism that often plague the pure pursuit of science and the social sciences.
Okay, so as in any discussion of the meaning of life, it isn't worth very much if it is not useful in everyday life.
How do we lead others into sharing our vision of a universally better existence that does not benefit only the very few at the expense of others? How do we communicate the value of Philosophy and wisdom for life improvement at the very many different levels of consciousness and states of existence that we find our fellow beings in?
The answer is not a simple one, but it lies somewhere in the area of the above outline around its points of determining what SHOULD BE and what COULD BE, based on a practical and honest assessment of where we are at and to where we can reasonably expect to get.
If necessary, we might need to build a bridge, a stairway or a ladder - putting it there for a person step-by-step - to help the person get from where they are in consciousness, into a more informed range of choices. This is not as difficult or complicated as it sounds. It involves breaking things down for the learner into their simpler components, establishing a sequence and explaining it all in simple enough terms as to make it easy to understand or achieve.
An example of teaching the "simpler components" would be teaching a child addition before getting into multiplying numbers. Addition is the component concept that gets automatically repeated in the process of multiplication.
In another example, when you are teaching someone how to cook, you emphasize "correct sequence" - not obsessively - but especially where it makes sense. You teach them to light the match before they turn on the stove to light it. Why? Well, an unlit stream of gas is toxic and dangerous, that's why. And a match will give you at least a few seconds of burn before endangering your finger, thus giving you time to light the stove while you turn on the gas.
These examples remind us that although these things are dealt with as a matter of course in education and business, if we are going to be practical as spiritual or philosophical teachers in the Truth and Freedom movements, we'd better keep it simple and logical - no matter what it is that we are presenting. And even if that slows things down a bit, we'll lose less people and even more importantly, we'll be building our towers of knowledge on the solid ground of correct understanding, from which to be able to view greater distances and to obtain a perspective covering even more terrain.
In the fields of trauma counseling and/or life coaching, we might need to program out some logical steps on a careful gradient approach, that get people to comfortably confront more and more of their past traumas, or in the case of life coaching - their future goals. (Both types of issues are to some degree uncomfortable and overwhelming to the person, or else they would already be dealing with it just fine on their own.)
These fields of Truth, Freedom and Philosophy are arguably more important to mankind than further advancement in physical science and technology in this day and age since we have, as a species, outstripped our collective level of spiritual maturity with the power to destroy cultures, civilizations and even the entire planet with technologies concentrated in the hands of the few - whose members at times, disturbingly exhibit destructive, psychopathic conduct.
So if you agree that the "Great Work" before us is for everyone to do our part to bring all that under our own sane and responsible management, then you (and I) can continue working on it having your own unique angle on it and your own unique contributions to make.
And that is an important aspect to all this. We're not going to get very far if you all join me or someone else to start the next big cult. We need to network and share ideas for sure, but each and every one of us needs to take leadership in our own fields. For one thing, it is probably impossible to truly, completely and consistently separate our egos from interpreting what SHOULD BE. For another, is an observation that when you team up around a guru, authority figure or cult leader, the individual members who should know better, relax on the "what COULD BE" aspect of life and the group at large suffers stifled initiative and lack of creativity.
So I offer you the above insights but with the following piece of advice. Go as deep as you can, as simple as you can, and as accurate as you can, as you develop your own models of reality which fit your own vision for what SHOULD BE, what COULD BE and what WOULD BE - should you choose to accept that mission of your own that you've decided is worth pursuing.
I'm a counselor with experience in a somewhat failed experiment in applying philosophy to life improvement - called "Scientology." This movement "failed" largely for having constructed itself as a "religion" and like any other religion humanity has ever experienced, any religious cult quickly becomes about conformity, authority and control. I say "somewhat failed" because its internal engine - PROCESS-ing - applies philosophy to the counseling experience itself, and life improvement often results.
As I've already announced in my introduction article, my mission has been to extract the sound philosophical principles and the ethical, non-controlling aspects of therapeutic technique from the repository of Scientology knowledge (philosophical counseling) and Dianetics research and experience (trauma counseling), and release these techniques for use, to people who need and want to do the "inner work" (such as is described by Truth and Freedom leaders like Mark Passio and Michael Tsarion).
This "inner work" relates back to the simplified and modernized concept of the ancient Trivium (as presented by Mark Passio). INPUT (Environment, Education, Sensory Experience) - PROCESS (Examination, Evaluation, Learning) - OUTPUT (Communication, Actions, Presentation).
Why? Because aside from the fact that these leaders have openly and specifically called for this kind of thing ("inner work") to be developed and implemented, I personally feel that the Truth and Freedom movements will do better - grow, stabilize and be far less subject to disruption - if its leaders have the best known tools for realizing that important state of "Know Thyself" and, with that improved self-knowledge come into an even better understanding of the next level of knowledge - managing groups and movements in such a way that the individual does not get lost.
These "discoveries" in the end, simply boil down to unveiling those clues offered in the English language - in its auxiliary verbs - as to the "invisible" constructs that we as a people perceive consistently enough to have made the linguistic support structure for describing active Reality. (And note that if you want to study these constructs in other languages you will get similar models and additional insights into them.)
Language and linguistics (see also "Neuro-Linguistic Programming" - NLP) can be used to persuade, fool or manipulate. But just as one would use anchors to hold a ship in position during a storm, one can dig deeper into language for stable constructs that resist such manipulation and deception.
This would be most important for creating a correctly-formulated, basic philosophical model of Existence - accurately mapping those things underpinning "core" Reality (that natural "reality" if you will, which lies beneath any matrix overlays of cultural and otherwise-manufactured grid systems artificially imposed over the top, all of which can construct many an illusory version, obscuring "core" Reality).
Having a correct model can act as a kind of "reset button" to get one back to that "core Reality" which might prove helpful in this process and practice of elevating the one and the whole. Through increasing understanding, followed by real-world actions that change self and change conditions, this process should also expand outward in its influence, encouraging others to freely choose to modify their vision of what is possible and to take similarly effective actions.
NOT... Religion!
So, rather than jumping into any of those New Age cults or old-world religions that continue to promise this world "tomorrow" - may I invite you to work in Reality - with Responsibility - and do something effective in your room, your house, your neighborhood, your on-line circle, your area - to share your wisdom, knowledge and ability with those who would (by act of freewill) become our traveling companions on this long, lonely road to Truth.
Not for the faint of heart...
PHILOSOPHY