Practical Metaphysics — the principles

1.     Having a practical philosophy is having a practical view of living that directs us to increased wisdom — itself derived from increased association with reality.

2.     A truly practical philosophy may have little to do with what we commonly think of as ‘philosophy’, though it may be drawn from philosophy or use some of its method.

3.     A truly practical philosophy means nothing without an underlying metaphysics — a foundation built on the belief that reality is more than the world as it appears to us. Without an underlying metaphysics practical philosophy is trapped in the world of error and cannot reveal the route to reality and wisdom.

4.     Belief in reality beyond our current experience provides us with a motivation to practical philosophy — in the sense of doing practical philosophy and in the sense of practicing to comprehend something more real.

5.     In the sense of ‘doing’ practical philosophy, we must apply ourselves for it is not easy. We must look outwards from ourselves in order to see anything of reality. Although any knowledge of reality becomes within us if we perceive anything of it, it is, for most of our time, beyond us.

6.     In the sense of ‘practicing’ to comprehend something more real, we must attune ourselves to the nature of what reality may be by concentrating on the detail of the world. We must learn to see in that detail the fragmentary parts of the truth that lie beyond the world of error.

7.     Reality is beyond the world of error.

8.      Because we live in the world of error any hints of reality will be shaped within the world of error. These will necessarily be misshapen caricatures of reality but they will nevertheless be so different from the world of error that we will be able to recognise them as hinting at something of reality.

9.     We will find these hints bound up in the detail of the world of error.

10.  The detail lies with others and it is others who should be our focus.

11.  Reality is not in the structure of the world as we generally know it — which is erroneous and misleading — it is in the conscious perceptions we have of others and the relational correspondence we can have with this manifold of perception.

12.  Error is the dominating framework of the world.

13.  Consciousness is an aberration of reality in the field of error which besets the world. Concentration on the mental world of others is the only key we have to unlocking any glimmer of reality.

14.  The structure of the world is particularly misleading because we, as part of it, feel a natural inclination towards it.

15.  Concentration on the structure — on form, or nature, or silence — only leads us further astray into the confusing domain of error. Though this can be confusing as sometimes the natural world of error produces very strong sensations of what seems like reality.

16.  Concentrating on others — being closely focused and intimately engaged with others — allows us sight of something of reality. Sometimes this is the merest hint but, because it is something of reality, the world of error is shown up readily as the fake it truly is.

17.  Any hint of reality will become part of us when we know it, but it will not be discovered within us before it is first found in our intimate focus on another.

18.  Looking within for reality is mistaken.

19.  Love allows us to be intimately close to another.

20.  Focus on a beloved can produce the strongest hints of reality.

21.  We must learn to see the other as our beloved.

22.  The continued existence of our beloved is our highest aim.

23.  Continuance is the route to reality which exists outside the world of error in time. It is known when our focus on others leads us to knowing all others and them each knowing us and all others.

24.  Even existing, as we do, within the world of error, there is no mistaking anything which is part of reality.

25.  Reality, and any part we can have of it, persists outside time.