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Authors: Brian Hines
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rational side.
Because Plotinian scholars, not surprisingly, are inclined more to scholarship than to mysticism, some of the mystic musings of Plotinus are given short shrift in comparison to his overtly philosophical proclamations. For example, unless someone is open to the possibility of reincarnation, Plotinus’s comment about vegetative people “taking care to turn themselves into trees” isn’t going to be taken as seriously as his more elevated statements about the One, spirit, and soul.
Seek the tabletop, not the puzzle
H ERE IS SOME ADVICE about how to approach the rest of this book. If something doesn’t make sense, just keep reading. It may come clear in the end. Be more concerned with grasping the broad outlines of Plotinus’s philosophy than the specifics. It is better to comprehend the treatises in the Enneads as a whole, in an almost intuitive fashion, than to try to assemble a logical understanding bit by bit.
Stephen MacKenna, the aforementioned translator of the Enneads , says that “Plotinus is often to be understood rather by swift and broad rushes of the mind—the mind trained to his methods—than by laborious word-racking investigation.” 6 Plotinus himself tells us that the valuable part of philosophy “perceives by directing intuition, as sense-perception also does, but it hands over petty precisions of speech to another discipline which finds satisfaction in them.” [I-3-5]
Reason (discursive thought) is akin to the piecing together of a jigsaw puzzle. It is satisfying when our logic succeeds in forming a coherent picture of reality, and this indeed is part of what Plotinus sought to accomplish by writing the Enneads —but, I believe, it was just a small part. His greater goal was to turn our attention to what supports the multitudinous pieces of creation, the omnipresent ineffable foundation of the One.
Just as a tabletop lies under each piece of a jigsaw puzzle, so is the One beneath every separate sensory perception and mental thought. Neither the tabletop nor the One is far away from what is supported. Delve only a tiny distance, a fraction of an inch for a puzzle, a dimensionless shift in consciousness for the One, and the simple substance of the foundation is reached.
So you and I shouldn’t worry if there is a gap in our understanding of Plotinus because this emptiness can serve as the opening that enables us to realize the One lying beneath appearances.
God Is the Goal
T OO OFTEN , our lot in life’s journey is just to travel around in small circles because most of our goals are trivial or futile. Plotinus urges us to carefully consider what we are seeking and avoid useless wheel-spinning, false starts, and blind alleys. Everyone is looking for something so our problem isn’t lack of desire. It is how to direct that desire to assure that what we end up with is truly and permanently fulfilling.
And we must consider that men have forgotten that which from the beginning until now they want and long for. For all things reach out to that and long for it by necessity of nature, as if divining by instinct that they cannot exist without it. [V-5-12]
Plotinus isn’t a world-denying ascetic determined to take all the juicy fun out of life, leaving only a dry rind of abstract thought and spiritual discipline. He can sound that way at times but his asceticism is always a means, not an end. He urges us to turn away from our concern with lesser goods and attain the Good. Plotinus is not content with enjoying partial and ephemeral pleasures. His goal is the complete and permanent pleasure that comes through union with the One, also known as the Good, or what many call God.
So the good life will not belong to those who feel pleasure but to the man who is able to know that pleasure is the good…. The Good, therefore, must be desirable, but must not become good by being desirable, but become desirable by being good. [I-4-2, VI-7-25]
Animals are fully capable of feeling
Because Plotinian scholars, not surprisingly, are inclined more to scholarship than to mysticism, some of the mystic musings of Plotinus are given short shrift in comparison to his overtly philosophical proclamations. For example, unless someone is open to the possibility of reincarnation, Plotinus’s comment about vegetative people “taking care to turn themselves into trees” isn’t going to be taken as seriously as his more elevated statements about the One, spirit, and soul.
Seek the tabletop, not the puzzle
H ERE IS SOME ADVICE about how to approach the rest of this book. If something doesn’t make sense, just keep reading. It may come clear in the end. Be more concerned with grasping the broad outlines of Plotinus’s philosophy than the specifics. It is better to comprehend the treatises in the Enneads as a whole, in an almost intuitive fashion, than to try to assemble a logical understanding bit by bit.
Stephen MacKenna, the aforementioned translator of the Enneads , says that “Plotinus is often to be understood rather by swift and broad rushes of the mind—the mind trained to his methods—than by laborious word-racking investigation.” 6 Plotinus himself tells us that the valuable part of philosophy “perceives by directing intuition, as sense-perception also does, but it hands over petty precisions of speech to another discipline which finds satisfaction in them.” [I-3-5]
Reason (discursive thought) is akin to the piecing together of a jigsaw puzzle. It is satisfying when our logic succeeds in forming a coherent picture of reality, and this indeed is part of what Plotinus sought to accomplish by writing the Enneads —but, I believe, it was just a small part. His greater goal was to turn our attention to what supports the multitudinous pieces of creation, the omnipresent ineffable foundation of the One.
Just as a tabletop lies under each piece of a jigsaw puzzle, so is the One beneath every separate sensory perception and mental thought. Neither the tabletop nor the One is far away from what is supported. Delve only a tiny distance, a fraction of an inch for a puzzle, a dimensionless shift in consciousness for the One, and the simple substance of the foundation is reached.
So you and I shouldn’t worry if there is a gap in our understanding of Plotinus because this emptiness can serve as the opening that enables us to realize the One lying beneath appearances.
God Is the Goal
T OO OFTEN , our lot in life’s journey is just to travel around in small circles because most of our goals are trivial or futile. Plotinus urges us to carefully consider what we are seeking and avoid useless wheel-spinning, false starts, and blind alleys. Everyone is looking for something so our problem isn’t lack of desire. It is how to direct that desire to assure that what we end up with is truly and permanently fulfilling.
And we must consider that men have forgotten that which from the beginning until now they want and long for. For all things reach out to that and long for it by necessity of nature, as if divining by instinct that they cannot exist without it. [V-5-12]
Plotinus isn’t a world-denying ascetic determined to take all the juicy fun out of life, leaving only a dry rind of abstract thought and spiritual discipline. He can sound that way at times but his asceticism is always a means, not an end. He urges us to turn away from our concern with lesser goods and attain the Good. Plotinus is not content with enjoying partial and ephemeral pleasures. His goal is the complete and permanent pleasure that comes through union with the One, also known as the Good, or what many call God.
So the good life will not belong to those who feel pleasure but to the man who is able to know that pleasure is the good…. The Good, therefore, must be desirable, but must not become good by being desirable, but become desirable by being good. [I-4-2, VI-7-25]
Animals are fully capable of feeling
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