What is Practical Philosophy?

1
What is Practical Philosophy?

• Dennis Blejer
• School of Practical Philosophy, Boston
• 5 April 2008

2
The School of Practical Philosophy

• Non-profit, educational organization dedicated to
  the study and practice of philosophy as it
  applies to living a truly happy and harmonious
  life.
• Affiliated with a world wide network of schools
  that began in London, circa, 1940s.

3
SPP Boston

• Offer an introductory course in practical
  philosophy at the Boston Center for Adult
  Education, Boston, and the Theosophical Society,
  Arlington
• www.PhilosophyWorks.org

4
Outline

• The three aspects of man (male and female)
• Body, mind, and consciousness (spirit)
• Identification
• A false belief in who or what one is
• Liberation
• Becoming free of identification and being oneself

5
The Body

• Physical or gross
• Includes the brain
• Has size, weight, color, texture, odor, etc
• Appears to be alive and animated
• Speaks, moves, breathes, eats, excretes, and
  procreates

6
Body - continued

• Requires earth (food), water, fire (heat), air,
  and space
• Includes the organs of sense smell, taste,
  sight, touch, and hearing
• Instrument by which we experience sensation and
  perception, which are interpreted as pleasurable
  and painful by the mind

7
Mind

• Mental or subtle
• Thinks, reasons, decides, wills, feels, dreams,
  and desires
• Includes the emotions
• Brain
• Transducer between the mental and physical links
  the body and mind
• Example a radio as a transducer

8
Mind - Thought

• The most obvious feature of mind
• Thought is not physical
• Does not have size, shape, weight, or location
• How does thought arise?
• Strongly connected to language as we generally
  think in words

9
Thought - continued

• Thoughts can be coherent or incoherent, relevant
  or irrelevant (distracting) to the needs of the
  present moment
• Example If I am thinking about what I want for
  dinner instead of attending to what is going on
  in this meeting

10
Mind - Reason

• Defined philosophically as discrimination
  between the true and the untrue
• The aha experience
• At some point in the thinking process the
  rightness of the solution is recognized
• Proof in mathematics
• Often the truth of the theorem is known before
  the proof is made
• The proof serves to confirm what was known
• The proof can lead one to truth if not known
  beforehand

11
Mind - Dreaming

• Occurs during sleeping and waking states
• During the waking state it is known as
  daydreaming
• Daydreaming is considered a state of absent
  mindedness
• Can be very dangerous, as for example, during
  driving

12
Consciousness

• Attention is closely connected to consciousness
• You must pay attention to be conscious of the
  present moment
• One pays to get something in return
• Knowledge of what is happening and what needs to
  be done
• Peace of mind
• Allows reason and memory to function

13
Consciousness - continued

• How do we know what we think, feel, dream, etc?
• Observation by consciousness
• As God is my witness
• We refer to ourselves as human beings
• Being means conscious existence
• The most basic aspect of ourselves is that we are
  conscious we are conscious all of the time

14
Consciousness - continued

• Is the observer of mind, so lies beyond it
• As mind is to body, consciousness is to mind
• Consciousness does not move or change
• When mind is still the unmoving, unchanging
  nature of consciousness is known
• Be still and know that I am God
• Meditation

15
Identification

• The false belief in who or what one truly is
• You cannot be that which you observe
• Not anything smelled, tasted, seen, touched,
  heard, thought, felt, or known
• The five sheaths of Vedanta that conceal the Self
• (1) I am the physical body, (2) I am alive, (3) I
  think, (4) I know, and (5) I am happy

16
Liberation

• Being free of identification
• Self-realization
• The thing that you seek is that which is
  looking, St Francis
• What is looking is referred to as the witness

17
Liberation - Witness

• Witness is from wit, which is from the Sanskrit
  root vid, meaning knowledge
• A witness is full of wit, meaning funny and
  smart, or happy and intelligent
• A witness in a court of law is someone who has
  observed something and can speak about it
  truthfully

18
Witness - continued

• A witness has the following qualities
• Observant
• Knowledgeable
• Happy
• Truthful

19
All the Worlds a Stage

• The world is a stage where we are actors
• An actor knows
• Who he is and is not deluded by his role
• He knows that the play is just a play and isnt
  real
• He knows what is real

20
How Do We Wake Up?

• Let the mind acknowledge consciousness
• Do not believe in any limited identity
• Not this, not this
• Stillness Be still and know that I am God
• Meditation

21
To Be or Not to Be, That is the Question

• Satchitaanada
• Knowledge, consciousness, and happiness
• There is only one Self
• Practice, practice, practice