The Pillars of Deep Philosophy are the essential ideas on which Deep Philosophy is based. Essential – because if any of them is missing, the practice is longer Deep Philosophy. You may formulate these essential pillars in different ways, but it is best to see them as made of five concepts: yearning for realness, depth, giving voice, philosophy, and togetherness.
1. YEARNING FOR REALNESS: I encounter the first pillar when I yearn for truth, for authenticity, for ultimate reality, for the foundation or the heights, or (since these words have been over-used) for what we call “realness.” When I yearn for realness I do not seek pleasurable experiences or happiness for myself, I do not try to satisfy my curiosity or interests. A yearning has little to do with satisfying desires or needs. It is more like love than desire: Like a lover who adores his beloved (not his own experiences!) so that his heart “goes out” to her, likewise when I yearn for realness I move beyond myself and my self-interest, towards what is precious, real, true, fundamental. A yearning, like love, is an act of devotion, going-beyond oneself, and self-giving.
Deep Philosophy is born out of this yearning. Without this yearning, with only a desire for satisfactory experiences, there can be no Deep Philosophy.
2. INNER DEPTH: I sense realness in certain special states of mind, which are fundamentally different from my ordinary everyday moments (although the distinction is not sharp, and is sometimes a matter of degree and mixture). These special states have a special quality of inner unity, intense presence, fullness. They involve my whole being and not just an isolated thought or feeling, and I experience them as originating from an unfamiliar source within me, or even from outside my usual self. They are often accompanied by a sense of preciousness, of plenitude, of realness. In comparison, ordinary moments are fragmented, half-conscious, dull.
In this sense, those experiences are special not just in WHAT I experience but in HOW I experience, in other words “where” within me I experience them, or which “dimension” of my being is activated. We call this inner dimension, which is usually dormant, and which is awakened only in those special moments, “inner depth.”
This distinction between the deep and the superficial is crucial for Deep Philosophy, because it means that we must change our normal states of mind. Our usual mental states are not enough, and to do Deep Philosophy we must use methods – contemplative, poetic, etc. – to change them.
3. THINKING-FROM (GIVING VOICE): When we seek realness, our aim is not just to feel and experience, but also to think and understand. Our path is philosophical, which means that it is based on understanding ideas. There is nothing wrong with deep experiences without understanding, as in meditation or spiritual music, but this is not Deep Philosophy.
However, our normal discursive thinking – theorizing, analyzing, opinionating, discussing – is not appropriate. It activates only a specific intellectual function of our mind, and not our inner depth. Discursive thinking has the structure of thinking-about: I think “about” some object of thought (real or imaginary, material or abstract, present or past). Metaphorically, I place before my mind an object of thought, and I inspect it as if I was an external observer. This “aboutness” relationship means that I am separate from the reality which I inspect, so that I am remote and uninvolved. It cannot bring me in touch with realness, which is the goal Deep Philosophy, but only allow me to think “about” it from a distance, from the outside. Thus, as long as I think and speak in the “aboutness” (discursive) mode, I cannot think from my inner depth and do Deep Philosophy.
The alternative is to think “from” the reality of our inner depth instead of about it, which is a very different kind of thinking. Metaphorically, I do not “inspect” reality in my mind, but rather “listen” inwardly to the way reality resonates within me, to the way it expresses itself in me. I think and speak FROM my reality and give voice to its realness, letting it manifest itself within me.
4. PHILOSOPHY: There are different ways to use words to get in touch with the realness of reality, among them poetry and myth. But our way is philosophical, which means that our goal is not just to experience reality but to understand it. Therefore, we work with philosophical ideas and understanding, which are powerful way to explore fundamental reality. Without the attempt to understand reality philosophically, a practice is not Deep Philosophy, as valuable as it might be.
For a philosophical understanding of reality and its realness, we must speak and think in the language of fundamental reality. Such a language cannot be limited to specific things, specific people, specific facts or events, because these are objects of thinking-about. The language of fundamental reality is fundamental ideas before they have been objectified into specific objects, which is precisely the language of philosophy. Deep Philosophy is, therefore, a philosophical exploration or discourse that uses thinking-from our inner depth.
In this exploration, I involve my own deep understandings or “voice,” as well as the voices of my companions and of past philosophers. I do not limit myself to the way reality resonates in me personally, but include the way it resonates in human reality in general.
5. TOGETHERNESS: It is possible to practice Deep Philosophy individually, through individual contemplation, but this practice has its limitation. As long as I remain within myself and my world, as long as I limit myself to my own ideas, I do not step outside myself to take part in the broader horizons of understanding reality. In Deep Philosophy I therefore put myself in a togetherness of thinking, so that I am no longer the only creator and owner of my thinking. I now resonate with my companions and with a philosophical writer, so that my thinking is part of a larger horizon of thinking, part of a richer polyphony of a fuller reality.