Beyond Space and Place

15 June 2024

 “But what is this which did not come to existence?  We must go away in silence and enquire no longer, aware in our minds that there is no way out.  For why should one even enquire when one has nothing to go on to, since every enquiry goes to a principle and stands still in it?  And besides, one must consider that every enquiry is about either what something is, or of what kind it is, or why it is or if it is.  Now being, in the sense in which we say that that is, [is known – translator’s addition] from what comes after it.  And the question ‘why?’ seeks another principle; but there is no principle of the universal principle.  And to enquire into what kind of thing it is is to enquire what attributes it has, which has no attributes.  And the question ‘what is it?’ rather makes clear that we must make no enquiry about it, grasping it, if possible, in our minds by learning that it is not right to add anything to it.  But in general we probably think of this difficulty, those of us who think about this nature at all, because we first assume a space and place, a kind of vast emptiness, and then, when the space is already there, we bring this nature into the place which come to be or is in our imagination, and bringing it into this kind of place we enquire in this way as if into whence and how it came here, and as if it was a stranger we have asked about its presence and, in a way, its substance, really just as if we thought that it had been thrown up from some depth or down from some height.  Therefore one must remove the cause of the difficulty by excluding from our concentrated gaze upon it all place, and not put it in any place either as resting and settled in it or as having come to it, but [think of it – translator’s addition] as being what it is (this said by the necessity of speech), but that place, like everything else, is afterwards, and last of all afterwards.  When therefore we think, as we do think, of this being out of place, and put nothing round it in a kind of circle, and are unable to encompass its extent, we shall not attribute extension to it; and certainly not quality either; for there could not be any shape about it, even intelligible; and not relation to something else; for it existed by itself before there was anything else.  What then could the ‘it happened to be like this’ still mean?  And how shall we be able to say this, because everything else about it is said negatively?  So that not ‘it happened to be like this’ but ‘not even like this did it happen to be’ is truer, where it is true that it did not happen to be at all.”

(Plotinus, Ennead VI.8.11, Free Will and the Will of the One, translated by A. H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1988, pages 261-265, ISBN: 9780674995154)

“But this Unoriginating, what is it?

“We can but withdraw, silent, hopeless, and search no further.  What can we look for when we have reached the furthest?  Every inquiry aims at a first and, that attained, rests.

“Besides, we must remember that all questioning deals with the nature of a thing, its quality, it cause or its essential being.  In this case the being – in so far as we can use the word – is knowable only by its sequents: the question as to cause asks for a principle beyond, but the principle of all has no principle; the question as to quality would be looking for an attribute in that which has none: the question as to nature shows only that we must ask nothing about it but merely take it into the mind if we may, with the knowledge gained that nothing can be permissibly connected with it.

“The difficulty this Principle presents to our mind in so far as we can approach to conception of it may be exhibited thus:

“We begin by posing space, a place, a Chaos; into this container, whether conceived in our imagination as created or pre-existent, we introduce God and proceed to inquire: we ask, for example, whence and how He comes to be there: we investigate the presence and quality of this new-comer projected into the midst of things here from some height or depth.  But the difficulty disappears if we eliminate all space before we attempt to conceive of God: He must not be set in anything either as enthroned in eternal immanence or as having made some entry into things: He is to be conceived as existing alone, in that existence which the necessity of discussion forces us to attribute to Him, with space and all the rest as later than Him – space latest of all.  Thus we conceive, as far as we may, the spaceless; we abolish the notion of any environment: we circumscribe Him within no limit; we attribute no extension to Him; He has no quality since no shape, even shape Intellectual; He holds no relationship but exists in and for Himself before anything is.

“How can we think any longer of that ‘Thus He happened to be’?  How make this one assertion of Him of whom all other assertion can be no more than negation?  It is on the contrary nearer the truth to say ‘Thus He has happened not to be’: that contains at least the utter denial of his happening.”

(Plotinus, Ennead VI.8.11, translated by Stephen MacKenna, Larson Publications, Burdett, New York, 1992, pages 686-687, ISBN: 9780943914558)

1.  In this passage Plotinus is approaching the One through the understanding of that which never came into existence, what MacKenna calls the ‘unoriginated.’  This is a way of approaching ultimacy that one can find in a number of spiritual teachers; I am reminded, for example, of passages in the Buddhist Suttas that read, ‘there is that which is uncaused, unconditioned, deathless, unborn, . . . ‘ 

I tend to use the term ‘the eternal’ in this kind of context because that which is eternal does not have an origin and will never enter into cessation; the eternal is beyond becoming and begoning.

2.  I sometimes refer to the experience that Plotinus points to in this passage as ‘spacious awareness.’  There are a number of traditions that teach a practice that either leads to spacious awareness or is rooted in spacious awareness.  In a way ‘spacious awareness’ has its own problems because when we use the word ‘awareness’ we think of it as meaning awareness of something.  And spacious awareness does not have an object of focus. 

Meditation practices are numerous.  But I tend to think of them as divided into two major types: concentration practices and spacious awareness.  Concentration practices cultivate attention and focused awareness.  A common example is focusing on the breath, but there are other numerous practices.  In Christianity concentrating on the life of Jesus is another example.  But spacious awareness has no object of concentration so that the awareness of spacious awareness is not focused.  In a Platonist context it is the experience of the One which, as this passage points out, has no quality or quantity or distinguishing features.  It is before distinguishing features arise.

3.  In the ascent to the One we put aside mind (small ‘m’ mind), meaning all categorization and analysis.  As Plotinus says in another Ennead, “Take away everything.”  In this Ennead Plotinus says we must go away in silence and inquire no longer.  This silence is an internal silence; it is the practice of interior silence.  The practice of interior silence is the same as the practice of exterior silence.  Practicing exterior silence means not being distracted when sounds appear in space.  Practicing interior silence means not being distracted when thoughts, feelings, emotions, and other mental things appear in interior space.  That is why Plotinus speaks about removing all sense of place because place as such is something that arises after the One.  To return to the One we must transcend place as such, including the place that is Noetic.

4.  “. . . it is not right to add anything to it.  But in general we probably think of this difficulty, those of us who think about this nature at all, because we first assume a space and place . . . “  That is to say our tendency, or habit of mind, is to construe the One as a location, or more accurately, as inhabiting a location.  But the One is experienced by transcending place and space (and also time).

5.  “Therefore one must remove the cause of the difficulty by excluding from our concentrated gaze upon it all place . . . “ (Armstrong)  “But the difficulty disappears if we eliminate all space before we attempt to conceive of God.” (MacKenna) 

How do we do this?  We can do this because we have been practicing smaller, more ordinary, versions of this practice from the beginning of our engagement with the Platonic Path.  When we cultivate virtues and put aside things like deceit we are starting to cultivate a mind that puts things aside.  When we practice the Platonic asceses, as outlined in places like Phaedo, we cultivate a mind that overcomes attractions to different kinds of desires, leaving them behind.  When we practice dietary restrictions leading to vegetarian or vegan lifestyle, we learn to overcome the attractions of stimulating food, and so forth.

It seems that Plotinus is asking a lot of us in passages like this; and in a sense he is.  But because Platonism is a gradual path, the skill that allows for leaving behind place and space as such, has already been honed over years, and probably lifetimes, of practice.  Because of this, when we have reached a certain point where the light of the One is shining forth, we can take the step that leads to becoming that light itself.

6.  The closing sentences tie this paragraph back to earlier paragraphs in the Ennead where Plotinus frames the discussion of free will as the question about whether things ‘happen to be this way’ or ‘happen to be like this’ but could have been otherwise.  Plotinus is saying that the One is not like things that have a causal basis, the One does not become or emerge into existence.  The One is eternity as such; not the eternity of Noetic realities which is a derived eternity that comes from Noetic realities being metaphysically close to the One.  But the One is eternity as such; as I like to say it is beyond becoming and begoning.

7.  It is passages like this that confirm the understanding of Plotinus as a mystic. 

8.  “ . . . every inquiry is about either what something is, or of what kind it is, or why it is, or if it is.”  This in itself is an interesting analysis regarding the nature of inquiry and, more broadly, the range of epistemology.  It is used to distinguish the process of inquiry with the process of contemplation that leads to the One.  Inquiry is focused on things; contemplation is for the purpose of transcending things.  Inquiry is focused; contemplation is spacious awareness.  Inquiry is of the world; contemplation transcends the world through experiencing the Good, the One, the Beautiful, that which is Eternal.

9.  Here is the translation by Guthrie:

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO TRANSCEND THE FIRST

“What then is the Principle which one cannot even say that it is (hypostatically) existent?  This point will have to be conceded without discussion, however, for we cannot prosecute this inquiry.  What indeed would we be seeking, when it is impossible to go beyond, every inquiry leading to some one principle, and ceasing there?  Besides, all questions refer to one of four things: existence, quality, cause, and essence.  From the beings that follow Him, we conclude to the essence of the First, in that sense in which we say He exists.  Seeking the cause of His existence, however, would amount to seeking an (ulterior) principle, and the Principle of all things cannot Himself have a principle.  An effort to determine His quality would amount to seeking what accident inheres in Him in whom is nothing contingent; and there is still more clearly no possible inquiry as to His existence, as we have to grasp it the best we know how, striving not to attribute anything to Him.

THE ORIGIN OF GOD PUZZLES US ONLY BECAUSE WE HABITUALLY START FROM SOME PRE-EXISTENT CHAOS.

“(Habitually) we are led to ask these questions about the nature (of the divinity) chiefly because we conceive of space and location as a chaos, into which space and location, that is either presented to us by your imagination, or that really exists, we later introduce the first Principle.  This introduction amounts to a question whence and how He came.  We then treat Him as a stranger, and we wonder why He is present there, and what is His being; we usually assume He came up out of an abyss, or that He fell from above.  In order to evade these questions, therefore, we shall have to remove from our conception (of the divinity) all notion of locality, and not posit Him within anything, neither conceiving of Him as eternally resting, and founded within Himself, nor as if come from somewhere.  We shall have to content ourselves with thinking that He exists in the sense in which reasoning forces us to admit His existence, or with persuading ourselves that location, like everything else, is posterior to the Divinity, and that it is even posterior to all things.  Thus conceiving (of the Divinity) as outside of all place, so far as we can conceive of Him, we are not surrounding Him as it were within a circle, nor are we undertaking to measure His greatness, nor are we attributing to Him either quantity or quality; for He has no shape, not even an intelligible one; He is not relative to anything, since His hypostatic form of existence is contained within Himself, and before all else.

THE SUPREME, BEING WHAT HE IS, IS NOT PRODUCED BY CHANCE

“Since (the Divinity) is such, we certainly could not say that He is what He is by chance.  Such an assertion about Him is impossible, inasmuch as we can speak of Him only by negations.  We shall therefore have to say, not that He is what He is by chance; but that, being what He is, He is not that by chance, since there is within Him absolutely nothing contingent.”

(Plotinus, Ennead VI.8, Of the Will of the One, translated by Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie, Kshetra Books, www (dot) kshetrabooks (dot) com, 2017 reprint of the 1918 edition, pages 414-415, ISBN: 97819745189668)

10.  I think this passage contains aspects that are explanatory in the context of the Ennead as a whole, but it also contains guidance for those of us on the Platonic path today.  In other words, it is not simply theoretical, but also contains information as to how to arrive at the same ‘experience’ that gave rise to Plotinus’s understanding.  In this way we can meet Plotinus where he dwells with the Good and the One.