Mindful Philosophy

The book invites the reader to see if it is possible to discern a common thread, or unity, across and throughout all human beings in terms of their basic composition, and the wisdom traditions or civilisations that are evolved. This is despite today’s uncertain and fear—driven world. We live in a fractious, disjointed, dysfunctional and seemingly entrenched materialist world today. No matter how much improved is our technological know—how, our information based methodology, or our results—driven culture, we seem to be behaving more and more like hamsters running on a wheel in a cage—running ever faster and faster, getting nowhere, and caged and bound. So the thinking was to provide something of an antidote, not by way of a quick fix, nor as a glib or facile endeavour to force something because it sounds as if it ought to be like that. No, it’s more about discarding from our philosophical or mental wardrobe the musty clothes of the ephemeral, the habit—driven, the pretentious and the superficial. If we do that, what then? Well—nothing! At least initially. I do not believe one needs immediately to don another set of philosophical clothing and risk returning to base. No, the recommendation is just to take a step back and look. Watch. Notice, when the mind is quiet, how you feel. Just observe. Let the senses play as they will, but without interference from the mind. And in the noticing and the observation maybe there will be a quiet depth of awareness, well removed from the flotsam and jetsam of everyday living and the life stuff that formerly seemed so all-consuming. I would wish that whatever the belief system, creed, cultural, religious or educational background of the reader, that this book will encourage a genuine and heartfelt enquiry into what, really and truly, makes us humans human. If there is a depth, or awareness behind the obvious and the “life stuff” then what is it? Is it important and can it be accessed at will? Does it have any significance? What are the implications? What have the great teachers—the Socrates’s, Jesus’s, Buddha’s of the world had to say about it? And how does modern science fit in, if at all? The title of the book implies the need to investigate two things—philosophy and mindfulness. I am suggesting that by doing so we can enter a wholly different, deeper and somehow more “real” world than that which seems to be the lot for most of us most of the time. In fact, I would go so far as to say that coming to a proper comprehension of the true composition of oneself, that it is actually impossible not to gain admittance to a peaceful, fulfilled and contented state of being. In that state one is ready willing and able to offer service to one’s fellow beings to a degree quite unimaginable to that available in “routine” mode, thus generating joy, unity and manifesting love (“Love makes the world go round—literally!”)