Light, Grace, and the Ascetic Ideal

7 January 2023

Light, Grace, and The Ascetic Ideal -- 4

“But there comes to be the intense kind of love for them [the forms in the second hypostasis: Intellect, Spirit, Mind, or Nous] not when they are what they are but when, being already what they are, they receive something else from there beyond.   For just as with bodies, though light is mixed into them, all the same there is need of another light for the light, the colour, in them to appear, so with the things there in the intelligible, though they possess much light, there is need of another greater light that they may be seen both by themselves and by another.

“When anyone, therefore, sees this light, then truly he is also moved to the Forms, and longs for the light which plays upon them and delights in it, just as with the bodies here below our desire is not for the underlying material things but for the beauty imaged upon them.  For each is what it is by itself; but it becomes desirable when the Good colours it, giving a kind of grace to them and passionate love to the desirers.  Then the soul, receiving into itself an outflow from thence, is moved and dances wildly and is all stung with longing and becomes love.  Before this it is not moved even towards Intellect, for all its beauty; the beauty of Intellect is inactive till it catches a light from the Good, and the soul by itself ‘falls flat on its back’ and is completely inactive and, though Intellect is present, is unenthusiastic about it.  But when a kind of warmth from thence comes upon it, it gains strength and wakes and is truly winged; and though it is moved with passion for that which lies close by it, yet all the same it rises higher, to something greater which it seems to remember.  And as long as there is anything higher than that which is present to it, it naturally goes on upwards, lifted by the giver of its love.  It rises above Intellect, but cannot run on above the Good, for there is nothing above.”

(Plotinus, Ennead VI.7.21 and 22, Plotinus: Ennead VI6.9, translated by A. H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1988, pages 155-157, ISBN: 9780674995154)

 

“The intense love called forth by Life and Intellectual-Principle is due not to what they are but to the consideration of their nature as something apart, received from above themselves.

“Material forms, containing light incorporated in them, need still a light apart from them that their own light may be manifest; just so the Beings of that sphere, all lightsome, need another and lordlier light or even they would not be visible to themselves and beyond.

“That light known, then indeed we are stirred towards those beings in longing and rejoicing over the radiance about them, just as earthly love is not for the material form but for the Beauty manifested upon it.  Every one of those Beings exists for itself but becomes an object of desire by the colour cast upon it from the Good, source of those graces and of the love they evoke.  The soul taking the outflow from the divine is stirred; seized with a Bacchic passion, goaded by these goads, it becomes Love.  Before that, even Intellectual-Principle with all its loveliness did not stir the soul; for that beauty is dead until it take the light of The Good, and the soul lies supine, cold to all, unquickened even to Intellectual-Principle there before it.  But when there enters into it a glow from the divine, it gathers strength, awakens, spreads true wings, and however urged by its nearer environing, speeds its buoyant way elsewhere, to something greater to its memory: so long as there remains anything loftier than the near, its very nature bears it upwards, lifted by the giver of that love.  Beyond Intellectual-Principal it passes but beyond The Good it cannot, for nothing stands above That.”

(Stephen MacKenna and B. S. Page, various editions 1917 – 1930, online edition at sacred-texts.com)

 

Brian Hines, in his book Return to the One, comments on a portion of the quote above (Hines uses the Armstrong translation but slightly modifies it):

“Once, however, a ‘warmth’ from the Good has reached her, she [the soul – Hine’s insertion] is strengthened and awakened, she becomes truly ‘winged,’ and although she is seized with passion for what is close to her, nevertheless she is lifted up, as if by memory, towards another, better object.

“As long as there is an object higher up than the current one, she keeps rising, by a natural movement, raised up the giver of love.  She rises up beyond the Spirit, ye she cannot run beyond the Good, since there is nothing lying above it.”

Brian Hines comment on this quote: “The soul’s memory (albeit largely unconscious) of her long-lost love, the One, keeps her soaring upward through the spiritual planes of consciousness even though the wonders within the World of Forms are more glorious than anything she has experienced in the physical world.  Discarding all that can be discarded, including the beauty of spiritual sights and sounds, she reaches the source from which all else has emanated, the Good.

“And there, she is satisfied.  Fully.  Indescribably.  Eternally.  Pierre Hadot says, ‘Once the soul has no more possessions, and has stripped herself of all form, she is at one with the object of her love, and becomes the Good.  She is the Good.’”

(Brian Hines, Return to the One: Plotinus’s Guide to God-Realization, Adrasteia Publishing, Salem, Oregon, 2004, page 187, ISBN: 9780977735211)

 

1.  I find that this passage transmits to me an exalted feeling.  Plotinus, who is perhaps the clearest writer and guide on the divine assent to the formless foundation of all existing things, points to how the soul, by turning away from the radiant, and sublime, beauty of the forms, finally merges with, ascends to, the One, the beyond beyond. 

2.  One of the reasons I am so attracted to this passage is that it is one of the few that directly touches on the nature of Platonic grace.  As I understand it, the grace of the One is that the beauty which is the inherent signal of the presence of the One, beckons those on the path and at the same time this beauty of the One is the path itself; I mean it is the beauty of the light shining on the path and the light of beauty the is the path.  Follow the beauty and you will arrive at the One.  Become attached to beauty, sensory beauty or the transcendent beauty of the forms, and the practitioner will, through this attachment, miss the opportunity to ascend to the One itself. 

This beauty is freely given by the One; but ‘given’ isn’t exactly right.  It is ‘given’ in the sense that the sun gives us light.  The sun’s light shines on all and nourishes all.  And the light and beauty of the One shines on all, and unceasingly guides all.  It is not a transaction.  It is the grace of the One without which the mystical assent would not be possible.

3.  I see this section as a kind of extended gloss on Ennead V.3 which ends, ‘Take away everything!”  (Armstrong translation of Ennead V.3, page 135)  In this passage Plotinus unpacks the meaning of ‘everything’.

4.  Pierre Hadot writes, “In mystical ecstasy, the soul leaves behind all forms, including her own, and becomes this formless reality, this pure presence which is the center of the soul, as it is of everything else.”

(Pierre Hadot, Plotinus: The Simplicity of Vision, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1989, page 58, ISBN: 9780226311945)

5.  In some ways this is a difficult teaching to act on.  In many spiritual practices the basic idea is to reject that which is negative, destructive, etc., and to cultivate that which is positive and helpful.  The forms are radiantly beautiful and are filled with the light of the Good.  But they are not the Good itself.  What Plotinus wants us to do is to remove ourselves from transcendental visions such as that of the forms, and through transcending these transcendental visions enter into the ultimate, the Good which is essentially good, the One which is inherently unity, the Beautiful which is by its nature inseparable from beauty, the Eternal which is beyond time and timelessness, beyond the ephemeral and the everlasting.

6.  The way to do this is through the practice of the Ascetic Ideal.  The Ascetic Ideal refers to a life that is not based on seeking sensory stimulation whether it is gross or subtle.  The process of transcending forms is the same as the process of transcending the seductions of sensations in the material realm.  That is why it is important to stabilize the Ascetic Ideal by cultivating this mental and spiritual attitude early.  It is not easy to do.  It takes a long time for the Ascetic Ideal to become a regular companion in one’s life; but eventually that is what happens.  And when that happens one is on the path that culminates in the One.