What Is To Be Done

                                                What Is To Be Done

by Eric S. Fallick

“So that for him some acts will be contributing towards blessedness (eudaimonia), but some will not be for the sake of the goal (telos) and won’t be of him at all, but for the thing being yoked together (with him), which he will take thought for and bear, while it is possible…”

[Ennead 1.4, 16.21-24]

For many thousands of lifetimes, over countless eons, throughout the long dark night of time, we have been undergoing repeated rebirths in all sorts of forms, human and non-human, in the beginningless and endless cycle of genesis, becoming, samsara, birth and death, individuated sensate existence in space-time.  This is nothing but darkness and non-being, pure and constant misery and unsatisfactoriness and impermanence.  It is nothing but separation from the Good, the experience of multiplicity and individuality instead of the experience of the One–this in itself is the most horrible intrinsic suffering and fallen and undesirable state.  Now, we have the extremely rare and precious opportunity to implement and follow the Path to liberation, to re-union with the One, to release forever from the cycle of rebirth and all the attendant inherent pain of individuated spatio-temporal sensate existence.  To not make the most of this opportunity, to be concerned about and devoted to the ephemeral and momentary and worthless things of this world instead, is the most foolish and tragic thing possible.  Nothing else at all matters in this world and this brief life.  Our only concern is striving towards the goal of release and return.  In this world, the only thing that actually determines whether someone is blessed, well off, in a good condition, happy or not is the distance or closeness of the soul to or from the One/the Good, and with it the progress towards or regression from release from becoming.  Everything else that goes on in the world or that people experience is really and ultimately trivial and unimportant.  The only real distinction to view among people is between those aspiring for and working towards re-union with the One and release from samsara and those who are not, between those who have renounced this world for the Absolute and those who have not.  So, apart from this, all the goings on and 'news' and problems and sufferings and so forth that we see and hear about in the world are really meaningless and indistinct--just more and more endless samsara and just another unvarying drop in the bucket of becoming.  The specific details don't really mean anything from this broader and more general and truer perspective.  Of course, some people are creating better mundanely good karma and some, most perhaps, are creating bad, and the good will be happier than the bad in a mundane sense, but it is all still just endless turning of the wheel--only someone aspiring for the Path in some way is really significant.  The only thing worth doing in this world is turning from it and working on the Way.  However, alas, we also have to maintain this skin bag (body) and psycho-physical organism and mind to the minimum extent necessary so that we can continue in the askesis.

Given this state of affairs, the way things are, there are only two legitimate, acceptable, real reasons for doing anything, for any act or action or thought or word:  Either it is part of contemplative ascetic practice, is part of traveling on the Path, leads to and makes progress towards liberation from birth and death, to return to the Good, to the end of individuation, to the telos; or it is necessary, really necessary, to maintain one’s existence, to maintain body and mind, to maintain the psycho-physical organism, to continue to live in the mundane sense in a reasonable manner so that we can continue the askesis.  Everything else, every and any other motivation, every other act is proscribed, illegitimate, and deadly foolishness.

Of course, this is not easy to implement.  It is probably especially difficult in the beginning and early stages of the practice when withdrawal from sensual pleasures and worldly activities and interests is new and still ongoing and capability for and power of practice is still undeveloped.  Also, some people may have various worldly obligations, duties, commitments, and burdens that they took on before they raised the aspiration for the Way in this birth and which have, of course, to be discharged properly with due righteousness and dutifulness.  It is fairly clear what acts constitute the contemplative ascetic practice and fall under the first criterion; but the difficulty lies in accurately and honestly discerning what are the really necessary actions under the second criterion of mere survival in accordance with one’s individual capacities and abilities and circumstances and having the awareness and presence of mind and discipline and determination to act according to such correct discernment of what is minimally necessary for psycho-physical survival and adequate functioning to optimally maintain the askesis.

The activities that constitute the actual contemplative ascetic practice, that fall under the first criterion, that belong to the true higher soul, that lead to the goal and release and re-union, that are real, include all aspects of ascetic withdrawal and practice, the actual practice of formal sitting in contemplation, spiritual reading and study (and, as ancillary, for those capable of it, language study to learn Ancient Greek to be able to actually read the primary spiritual texts, such as the Dialogs and Enneads, the reading of which constitutes a form of auxiliary contemplation and for which translations are inadequate), and, possibly, sharing and discussion with true spiritual friends (if you can find any here in the depths of the modern Kali Yuga!).  That’s it!

The minimum actions that are merely necessary for psycho-physical survival, for maintaining mind and body in good condition to serve for the contemplative ascetic practice proper, that don’t really belong to the higher self or soul and the sage, that don’t directly conduce to liberation, are not always quite so clear, especially in the circumstances of the present day.  Obviously, what ones are really necessary include eating/food and water (and, of course, subsequent excretion!), sleeping, clothing, housing, some exercise, healthcare (including dental care and vision care), bathing and washing and other forms of hygiene, and so forth.  These generally require some money and so working is generally required to earn it and is included here.  The rub here is that exactly how much and what form of each of these things is required and how they are best obtained and done varies and depends on the individual’s capability and capacity and ability and given physical and mental and emotional karmic factory equipment and individual situation and circumstances.  Always, though, of course, we are talking about only the minimum necessary of such things, with no luxury and no regard for sensual pleasure or enjoyment or the opinion of worldlings or social expectations or etc.  Thus, each individual has to discern and decide these for themselves and their circumstances, based on a sound understanding of ascetic and spiritual and contemplative principles and consultation with the spiritual texts and, if and when possible, with true ascetic spiritual friends.  This can often be unclear and difficult to ascertain and an ongoing process of discernment and adjustment.  Nonetheless, these basic items needed for minimal physical survival in consonance with proper ascetic poverty and conduct are comparatively clear.  One thing that is obviously and most uncompromisingly clear is that the discharging and obtaining of these physical necessities must always be done in the most scrupulously righteous, honest, and non-harming (and, of course, this means vegan in food, clothing, shoes, accessories, medicines, personal care products, etc.!) manner no matter what–this can’t be compromised even if it were to mean not having necessities and dying!

What is even more difficult to discern and understand, however, is what activities and to what extent are permissible for maintaining one’s mental and emotional state in a condition suitable for the contemplative ascetic practice, including how much and in what manner it is necessary to refresh and rest the mind and emotions and have something resembling ‘recreation’ and how much and what sort of people contact is necessary to avoid excessive depression and anxiety and mental distortion.  It is, of course, being assumed here that fully committed and devoted celibate, solitary, vegan, teetotalling, contemplative, etc. renunciants and ascetics are being addressed.  The practitioner has to discern, at any given stage of practice, just how hard they can practice in a sustained manner without undue emotional and mental disruption, how much social isolation they can handle, and how much time they have to devote, however unwillingly, to a little mental, emotional, and human rest and refreshment and by what means they can properly fulfill this reluctant need.  Some means are obviously proscribed and not acceptable:  movies, television, fiction, popular music, worldly social events, excessive reading or viewing or hearing of the news, social action, political activities, premeditated socializing with worldlings, etc.  (Those who still have family obligations and commitments may not be able to avoid all family functions and gatherings and so forth.  They will have to decide and discern about this on a case by case basis.)  Acceptable forms of ‘recreation’ may be such as reading various works of and about ascetics and spiritual understandings and practices in different systems, which can be helpful for company and encouragement as well as relaxation and can also sometimes provide helpful ancillary knowledge and background, discussing such, if you can somehow find anybody now with whom to do so or who at least likes to hear about it, walking outdoors, which also provides the needed exercise to maintain the physical body, watching videos about ascetics in different systems on the internet, looking for and researching books and works on asceticism and the like, reading outside, weather permitting, researching about veganism and acceptable products and how to manage doing least harm, such as also to the environment, and learning about the intelligence and sensitivity of animals, and so forth.  The hardest thing, probably, is the problem of social isolation in the circumstances of the present day in which we find ourselves.  Ideally, all ordinary human social contact that is necessary to keep from going crazy and being over-tense at any given stage and progress on the Path would be provided by interaction with true ascetic spiritual friends–the only other people truly and really worth having anything to do with.  These are hard to find even in the best of times and circumstances, but now are especially rare and one can hardly count on this being available at present.  So what to do?  Of course, premeditated socializing and attending social events with ordinary worldlings is out of the question.  In the absence of spiritual friends or enough spiritual friends, probably about the best one can do for a little human contact is to get by with just brief unplanned casual encounters with people one meets or has to meet with in the course of discharging the other necessary actions: neighbors, coworkers, housemates, passersby, fellow passengers on public transportation, etc. (those still with family relationships they can’t get out of too much can include interaction with family–which may be more than too much for this purpose!).  One has to be careful, especially early on in the askesis, not to be sucked into and influenced by their worldly views, attitudes, understandings, opinions, advice, and acts, but, hopefully, this can be done, one can get a little human contact of however an undesirable sort without too much harm, and come out largely unscathed.  One can try to talk to them about what one actually does and is as an ascetic, however uncomprehending they may be.  Not ideal, but maybe the only option possible.  It is important to note that interaction with bad, false alleged spiritual friends is actually an even worse option.  Casually talking and interacting with chance worldlings one can more easily distance oneself from them, recognize their foolishness and evil, admonish oneself not to be like them, protect oneself by talking about such things as veganism, and turn to the writings and records of the ancient true practitioners for inspiration and guidance, to the “community of saints”, as it were.  But with bad supposed spiritual friends and false ascetics or non-ascetics, “wolves in sheep’s clothing”, (and such are mostly all there are these days!) one is liable to be subtly drawn in and mislead by their sophistries and fall from the Way!

The key in this matter is:  First, to understand and accept and commit and be devoted to the principle outlined here that there are only two acceptable and legitimate and justifiable reasons for doing anything–either because it is part of contemplative ascetic practice and leads to re-union with the Good and liberation from birth and death, or because it is indispensably necessary to maintain psycho-physical survival in this birth.  Next, with understanding and discernment of what is necessary, to honestly assess one’s own motivations in performing any act or doing anything.  Is it really necessary, if it is not part of the askesis, or is it really because of remaining worldly desire and interest?  Lastly, to discern as best as possible what really is absolutely necessary in any doing in this world, apart from the contemplative ascetic practice, and to do only that regardless of the latent habits and desires of the lower defiled worldly self.  Every act we do either moves us further on the Path to the telos, if we choose wisely, or binds us further to the wheel of birth and death and creates more suffering samsaric karma.  In everything we do, we must try to discern as best as we can which this action is and be honest as to our motivation and what we are doing, and with great discipline, enthusiasm, love, effort, and joy try to always take the upward Path!

Why was this essay written?  “...but the gardens in writings, as it seems, he will both sow and will write for the sake of play, whenever he would write, storing up reminders both for himself, if he should come to the “forgetting of old age”, and for everyone following the same track…”  [Phaedrus 276 d1-4]

© 2024 Eric S. Fallick

Q. and A. on Nagarjuna and the MMK

 Q.  Nagarjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā contains various refutations of causation, change, "self-existence"/essence/svabh̄ava, and that perceptions and conceptions thereof are illusory and there is only "thusness"/tathata. For example, his tetralemma about causation comes to the conclusion that a thing could neither arise from something identical nor from something different, nor from both or neither (I will ignore the last one as I'm not sure anyone actually believes something can be derived from nothing). Therefore causation cannot actually take place. This is not only an attack on causation but also essence. The Platonist position in this framework, I suppose, would be closest to 3): the effect of a cause is both identical and different from that which is caused yet still possesses a certain self-existence/essence (we do not claim that it possesses independent existence other than the One who is beyond existence, nor do I think any spiritual system does). To Nagarjuna this position is absurd - how could an essence that belongs wholly to itself and is by nature eternal be caused and cause something posterior to it in turn, and, in the case of the eternal soul, undergo any sort of change? How do we square away the ascent of the soul from bodily existence to the Absolute if it is by nature unchangeable, especially since the intermediate - nous, the Divine Mind - is itself atemporal and the soul would have to reside there before finally rejoining the One? On a related note, if the soul once fully identified with the One then how could re-joining the One be permanent? This implies the state it had before its "fall" from the One was in some ways imperfect but the state it acquired after rejoining the One permanently is more perfect or absolutely hyper-perfect. All of these issues can be extrapolated I think from Nagarjuna's MMK, and that, given all these contradictions, it seems erroneous to think in terms of essence, change and causation as Nagarjuna claims.

Now, let me state that I don't believe Mahayana Buddhism actually escapes these conundrums. There's a not-so-subtle sophistry in their claim that while conventional reality is illusory we can still use it to arrive at "thusness", as this implies that the illusion somehow participates in "ultimate reality", meaning instead of being totally and fully illusory there are degrees of reality - this is no different from what we call ontology, in fact it mirrors the Plotinian model of reality. The conventional reality we perceive, instead of being totally illusory, is therefore but a mirror image of actual reality. Of course, at the level of the Absolute there is no causation, change, movement, difference, etc. However, if we follow Nagarjuna's logic to its actual conclusion (instead of the sophistic escape of the two truths doctrine) there would actually be no way for anything to arrive anywhere meaningful. In short, Nagarjuna's conclusions are as absurd, if not moreso, then that which he refutes. 

All this infers that Nagarjuna's conclusions must in some important ways be erroneous and that, at the very least, Mahayana Buddhists do not truly believe what the MMK states and escape from their own philosophical foundations by means of sophistry and rhetorical sleights of hand. However, it is just that: inference and not a direct confrontation with Nagarjuna's claims. The actual truth behind the MMK, contra to what Nagarjuna himself claims, would be a sort of staticness and an "absolute un-truth" that we could never hope to escape. The only other option would be a sort of ontology and it is telling Mahayana Buddhism sneakily opted for the latter. However, I find myself unsatisfied by this indirect refutation and at unease. I believe there must be some way to directly confront Nagarjuna's reasoning instead of merely pointing out the absurdity of its consequences.

(Original question abbreviated and edited.)

A.  I wouldn't worry about all this stuff.  These concerns are not necessary and are not based on valid assumptions.  Nagarjuna's/the MMK's analysis or 'logic', along with the doubts that it makes you give rise to, is based on invalid, realist/nominalist, non-idealist, and unexamined premises that limit reality and the possibilities and explanations just to the lowest phenomenal level, which has minimal reality.  These questions and supposed contradictions about causation, change, etc. could only arise if the attempt to explain causation, etc. is limited to just the lowest plane of phenomenal and supposedly material things.  Causation and phenomenal spatial and temporal change are readily understood without contradiction as the projection of the order and structure of nous onto or into the lower level of non-being, as the life of soul in time and space unwilling to take the whole of nous all at once.  There is only, as Plotinus puts it in Ennead 3.8, contemplation--stronger and weaker, fuller and less full, complete and incomplete, clearer and more obscure, but still only contemplation. The One/Good is the completely full clear contemplation; the life of the most degraded souls is the weakest most incomplete and dark contemplation.  The ascent, and also the descent, of the soul is just a change in the state of contemplation, so there is no problem of an eternal essence undergoing some sort of change analogous to a sort of physical change.  Also, it is not like the soul was a physical part of the One before its fall and then physically rejoins the One, as the language of your doubt seems to tacitly suppose.  The potential for not knowing is present within knowing, the potential for darkness is present within light, for non-being within being.  When the soul completes contemplation and fully knows and becomes the light, the not knowing and darkness and non-being is gone.  You don't have to worry about it recurring.  All this is actually kind of ineffable and only really known in contemplative ascetic experience, since all this discussion and questions and process only occurs at the lowest least real level.

Nagarjuna/the MMK is maybe just being what the Platonic dialogs call an "antilogikos" or a "sophist taking refuge in the darkness of non-being".  Perhaps, you might want to review the discussion about not becoming "misologikos" that refers to "antilogikos" people that are pleased within themselves when they turn everything up and down to make it seem that no definite conclusions are possible in the Phaedo at 89b-90d.  (Actually, it wouldn't be a bad idea to read the whole Phaedo carefully say 50 or 100 times!).  Other dialogs also deal with this problem and the kind of difficulties that the antilogikoi and sophists of the world cause.  You also may want to eventually read through all of the Enneads, even though this is a big project and you won't likely understand much of what you read for a long time, as Plotinus deals with the kinds of concerns you have.  You don't have to be able to understand everything at the discursive level before proceeding with the ascesis.  Indeed, it is impossible to do so.  And being and working as a celibate, vegan, teetotalling, etc. ascetic practicing contemplation is as necessary for coming to even a discursive level understanding of these things as racking your brains over Nagarjuna's attempts at logical contortion.

I don't know if it will be of any help or interest, but here is a link with an added introduction of the original sort of non-sectarian version of one of my pieces that perhaps you have seen in the specific Platonist form that I was asked several years ago to write for an old English language Indian magazine:   https://www.csp.indica.in/an-indo-hellenistic-understanding-of-contemplative-asceticism-eric-s-fallick/

Perhaps, it will be some consolation to you to see that there is a great deal one can do to proceed on the Path and that the essentials of doing so are clear even before necessarily resolving all the possible conceptual doubts that may arise on reading the different texts of the different systems.

Plotinus regularly attained the unio mystica, not just "four times"

 Q. We had a conversation about the experiences that Plotinus had of ultimacy.  There is a passage in Porphyry's biography that suggests that Plotinus had such complete experiences four times, or roughly four times, in Plotinus's life.  As I recall you argued against that kind of reading and suggested a more steady and complete realization.  I hope I remember your views correctly.

 

Apropos this discussion, Ennead 4.8 begins with a rare autobiographical comment by Plotinus on just this topic (Gerson translation, page 512):

 

"Often, after waking up to myself from the body, that is, externalizing myself in relation to all other things, while entering into myself, I behold a beauty of wondrous quality, and believe then that I am most to be identified with my better part, that I enjoy the best quality of life, and have become united with the divine and situated within it, actualizing myself at that level, and situating myself above all else in the intelligible world.  Following on this repose within the divine, and descending from Intellect into acts of calculative reasoning, I ask myself in bewilderment, how on earth did I ever come down here, and how ever did my soul come to be enclosed in a body, being such as it has revealed itself to be, even while in a body?"

 

I looked up the MacKenna translation (page 410) and I think it brings out some points with different emphases:

 

"Many times it has happened: lifted out of the body into myself; becoming external to all other things and self-encentred; beholding a marvelous beauty; then, more than ever, assured of community with the loftiest order; enacting the noblest life, acquiring identity with the divine; stationing within It by having attained that activity; poised above whatsoever within the Intellectual is less than the Supreme: yet, there comes the moment of descent from intellection to reasoning, and after that sojourn in the divine, I ask myself how it happens that I can now be descending, and how did the soul ever enter into my body, the Soul which, even within the body, is the high thing it has shown itself to be."

 

I think this passage gives definitive evidence that, at the very least, Plotinus entered into supreme union 'many times' or 'often'.  And the implication is that Plotinus did this regularly, not haphazardly.  I would infer that contemplation was likely a daily practice for Plotinus.

 

The differences between MacKenna and Gerson are intriguing; particularly in the opening passage.  MacKenna speaks of a process of 'lifting up' 'out of the body', and this seems consistent with the path of 'ascent' to the divine.  In contrast, Gerson's translation speaks of 'externalizing myself' and 'waking up to myself'.  Gerson's translation is, I think, a little more opaque; but I would be interested in your own understanding of this opening passage -- perhaps it is difficult to interpret though the general gist seems clear.

 

 

A. Yes, I mentioned that the usual and oft repeated interpretation of Porphyry's statement in the Life is absurd from a practitioner's standpoint and simply reflects the ignorance of the usual translators and scholars.  I also cited that very opening passage of Ennead 4.8 as direct contrary evidence that the more common interpretation is incorrect.  I did also say that I had no doubt that Plotinus entered into union with the One, into the Good/One samadhi, so to speak, regularly and daily each time he sat down to his regular contemplation practice.

 

First of all, Porphyry's statement simply says (in my own rough, quick, off the cuff rendering):  "But he attained four times, I suppose, when I was with him, this goal in unspeakable actuality and not in potentiality."  There is nothing at all in it to suggest that Plotinus only attained it four times in his life--I don't know where the silly interpreters got that idea from.  Further, while it is possible to take the Greek as meaning 'with him' in the sense of the years in which Porphyry was with Plotinus in Rome, it certainly doesn't have to be, and can just mean while he was literally 'with him', i.e., happened to be in the same room with him when he was or went into contemplation.  So really all it tells us is that Porphyry observed his union four times--nothing more about Plotinus' number of times or frequency of union or his regular contemplation practice.  Besides, how would the unaccomplished and relatively unperceptive Porphyry know if Plotinus was in union or not?  It is hardly likely or even proper that Plotinus would tell him every time he entered into the divine union!

 

As regards the Ennead 4.8 passage itself, I'm afraid that neither the Gerson et al. nor the MacKenna translations that you cite are very good or faithful.  (Armstrong's is a bit better.)  I would give, again, a quick, rough, off the cuff rendering as follows:

"Often (/many times) waking to myself from the body and becoming outside of the other things, but inside of myself, seeing a beauty marvelous how great, and trusting then especially (myself) to be of the better part, and effecting the best life and having become the same thing with the Divine and being seated in it coming to that actuality beyond all the other noetical seating myself (therein), after this state in the Divine coming down to discursive reasoning from Nous, I am at a loss how I ever even came down now, and how ever for me the soul has become within the body being this, of such a sort as it has appeared in itself, even though being in a body."  I have rendered it as it is in the Greek, as one long sentence with lots of participles and clauses, and pretty literally, but hopefully it is clear enough.  I don't think the differences in the translations reflect difficulty in interpreting and rendering the Greek, but rather just the lack of skill of the translators and the usual refusal to literally and faithfully render what the original actually says.  In any case, I think it is completely clear, especially in the original, that Plotinus is stating clearly that he frequently and regularly attained the contemplative union with the One, and that this was his regular contemplation practice.  In fact, I would tend to read it as indicating that his attainment of the unio mystica, as it were, in contemplation was such a regular daily occurrence that he didn't even need to mention or specify it per se, but just say that often afterwards he would wonder what he was doing here having fallen into individuated sensate existence in space-time in the first place.  In other words, the "often/many times" might refer to the wondering, rather than to the contemplative union that was so regular and invariable an occurrence in his practice as to be taken for granted, that happened every day, every time he sat in contemplation, it just being that often he would later wonder or think about it, but not always, just practicing it and assuming it the other times.  Further, a statement of Porphyry's in the Life just before the "four times"sentence supports and, in fact, makes obvious my interpretation of the latter, contra the professors and as confirmed by the beginning of 4.8.  (I don’t know why this statement is usually ignored in the interpretation of the “four times” sentence.)  Here is a quick, rough, off the cuff rendering of my own:  

"And thus most of all to this godlike man many times/often bringing himself to the first and transcendent God in reflection and according to the ways having been expounded in the Symposium by Plato, that God appeared who has neither shape nor any aspect, but is seated above nous and all the noetical."

This seems to me at least to clearly say that Porphyry himself thought that Plotinus regularly realized the One/Good in contemplation and that this was a regular practice of his, not just something attained only "four times", and supports my interpretation of the Greek of the "four times" statement that Porphyry is only saying there that he happened to be physically in the same room, for whatever reason, with Plotinus four time when this happened, not at all that it was restricted to just those four times and was not a regular occurence and practice for Plotinus.  Presumably, Plotinus did his daily contemplation alone by himself, as is only to be expected and is only proper, but Porphyry happened to barge in on him in contemplation those four times.

 

An Extremely Brief Introduction to Platonism

Platonism is a spiritual or religious or soteriological system that offers a path to release from the endless cycle of reincarnation and its concomitant misery. It belongs to a family of such systems, comprising Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Orphism, Pythagoreanism, and Platonism, that all accept the facts of reincarnation, the cycle of repeated birth and death, that this works by karma, that this state is wretched and painful and unsatisfactory and a fallen and mistaken condition, and that it is possible through great and correctly directed effort to be released permanently from this state. All these systems consider that the path to this release consists of renunciation, asceticism, detachment, celibacy, vegetarianism and non-harming, abstinence from alcohol and intoxicants, study, and meditation or spiritual exercises. Platonism differs from the others, as they do from each other, in its metaphysics, its description of reality and how it relates to the spiritual path, the nature of release or the condition of having attained the freedom of the goal of the path, the texts that it takes for study, its exact method of implementing the required behavioral and ascetic practices, and its methods of meditation and spiritual exercises. It also differs from the other systems in never having been or become an organized institutional religion or church for the many, in never having had an institutionalized monastic order, in not having devotional or ritual or magical practices to accommodate the non-philosophical many, in not having costumes or ceremonies or holidays and so forth, and in never allowing its ascetic practitioners to become priests/mediators for the populace. In other words, Platonism has never developed a popular religion in addition to or as its central message. It always has been, and remains, a narrow way limited to a philosophical, intellectual, and spiritual elite, for those few who are able and willing to follow its highly morally, spiritually, ascetically, contemplatively, and mentally demanding path and practice.

The texts that Platonism studies, that form the Platonist ‘scriptures’, so to speak, are the Dialogues of Plato and the Enneads of Plotinus. It implements its most stringent moral and ascetic standards and practices purely, with discernment, and without legalism, extensive legal codes, extensive lists of rules devolving down to the level of manners and customs, and trying to exhaustively catalog specific regulations for every particular circumstance that could be encountered in a given relative environment, and, of course, without the extensive prescriptions for ritual and ceremonial practice that preoccupy many other systems. Its meditation and contemplation practices consist in coming to understand the workings of things at the level of soul, ascending to contemplation of the actual Platonic Forms and the Divine Mind, and finally ascending to contemplation of and union with the One or the Good, which is the final release and goal.

The Platonist system or description of reality consists of three existential or experiential levels or degrees of reality that are called the three hypostases. In descending order, from first to last, and from most real to least real, these are the One or the Good, the Divine Mind and the Platonic Forms, and Soul. The One or the Good is the Absolute, the utterly Transcendent, the Unity, the Source, the purest noumenon, “God”, the source and origin and fount of all things, from which all things come but which Itself comes from nothing else, and which remains always unchanged as all else emanates from It. The Divine Mind-Thought, Nous, emanates from the One and is the second most real and perfect thing. It is one unitary divine mind with its objects with which it is neither different nor identical. The objects or thoughts of the single divine mind are the Platonic Ideas or Forms or Archetypes or Things-in-themselves, which, again, are not different or outside the one Mind. This level is a one-many, not a pure unity like the One. Though dynamic and active, it is still unchanging and still transcends, is beyond, time and space. The third level of existence is that of soul, both the World Soul or Soul of the All and all the individual souls of individual sentient beings both human and non-human. This is the level of changing, impermanent, differentiated sensory experience, of space and time, of separate individuals, of cyclic individuated sensate spatio-temporal existence, of the cycle of reincarnation, and of karma. Though still divinely ordered by the World Soul, it is the level of suffering, misery, unsatisfactoriness, and endless rebirth in time and space and change for individual souls. This is the level at which we find ourselves now, and that we must transcend and escape from back to the higher hypostases from which we have fallen. To ordinary people and animals, this seems to be the only real and true level (especially now in the naturalist modern world where so many deny transcendence altogether or have never even heard or conceived of it and think that the sensory world is all that there is), but actually it is the least true and least real. It is the level of mere opinion, not of true knowledge, which is of the higher levels.

The Platonist practitioner and ascetic works to transcend this lowest level of individual soul and escape from it and the cycle of reincarnation dictated by karma and return to and re-become the higher hypostases. Since the soul is imprisoned in the body and sensory existence and takes these things as real, he or she renounces all sensory things and things and activities of this world as much as possible and devotes him- or herself solely to transcendent and divine things alone, to things of the soul, not things of the body and its desires and emotions. Thus, he is celibate and teetotaling (not deliberately dulling his divine soul with intoxicants) and abstains from worldly pleasures as much as possible, is a true ascetic and renunciant. He aims at conforming to the true paradigmatic virtues in the noetic realm (the second hypostasis) and so cultivates all moral virtue and non-harming. He is vegan, completely honest, doesn’t obtain the necessities of life in a way that harms any beings, is kind and gentle, etc. Through study of the Dialogues of Plato and the Enneads of Plotinus, and ancillary works, and reflection, he gains an understanding of the nature of things here at the level of soul and how they work, an idea of what the higher hypostases must be like and of their utter transcendence, of how to live virtuously and ascetically, and of the nature of the Path and what it entails and how to practice it. Then, with all this as a base, he devotes himself to contemplation practice to attain direct noetic apprehension of the Platonic Forms and transfer his soul to the level of and unity with the second hypostasis, the Divine Mind-Thought. Finally, established here at the second level, he devotes himself even further and vigorously to contemplation practice to directly touch and apprehend the One, the Good, and eventually attain complete and permanent re-union with and re-identification with It. This is the release from the cycle of birth and death and the final goal. All this is most difficult and is likely to take many lifetimes and rebirths, with many years of hard work to make some progress in any given birth.

Given the non-institutional, individual, transcendent, and transhistorical nature of the Platonist system and practice, and its lack of dependence on particular worldly structures, the Platonist ascetics, the philosophoi, are rather less likely to leave traces in the historical record. We are most fortunate that the Dialogues and Enneads have been preserved, but if many other Platonist ascetics left any written records, many things were lost or destroyed when Christianity and Islam came to power with their intolerance of anything else and their attempt to destroy all other writings. There has never been a time when the Dialogues and Enneads were not being read, even in the original Greek, from antiquity, through Byzantium, into the Renaissance and modernity, and there couldn’t have been actual Platonist contemplatives, but once Christianity and Islam took over, any such would have had to remain hidden at the cost of their lives. Nonetheless, Platonism has greatly influenced the Abrahamic systems, and the Jewish, Islamic, and, especially, Christian mystical systems owe a great deal to and and in some cases are even largely based on Platonism. After Plotinus, but before the final suppression of all non-Abrahamic practices, some teachers and people, such as Iamblichus and Proclus, who considered themselves Platonists, but departed thoroughly from the actual Platonic system, attempted to incorporate polytheistic, ritual, theurgic, and magical practices and thought into Platonism and make it more like the other popular religions. Unfortunately, most of the few modern people who have attempted to revive some sort of Platonist practice have fallen in with and follow these later ideas or those of the conscious incorporation of into or blending with Judaism, Christianity, or Islam.



Ⓒ 2020 Eric S. Fallick

The Reason for Asceticism

Q. I've read a few chapters of your book, and it has prompted me to think more about asceticism, attempting to answer the question: Why is asceticism important and even necessary for the moral and spiritual development of the person? In short, what is the reason for asceticism? 

At this stage, my understanding is that asceticism functions to counteract the cause of our corporeal existence. When the nous fell or broke from unity, there must have been some initial movement, creating the momentum to cause the nous to fall or precipitate from the Good to the lesser, temporal goods (and evils) of mortal and bodily existence. This initial movement was an act of carelessness or negligence with regard to the nous and its unity with the Good. The nous carelessly and negligently turned away from unity to multiplicity in order to pursue individuation, which divided the nous into nous, soul, and body. 

Asceticism is carefulness and thoughtfulness (the antithesis of negligence) functioning as a therapy or antidote or the application of justice to the careless and negligent movement of the nous away from the One, underpinning a process of purification via the instrument of the body that removes the passions from the soul, and allowing in turn for the recovery and return of the nous to unity. 

I was wondering if you could comment on this, confirm my understanding, or correct it in any way? 

A. Thank you for reading some of my book. I don't know if you have read or will get to some of the other essays that explain more of the reason for asceticism, though most of them do in one way or another, and also point out that asceticism is not just instrumental, but the very manifestation or reflection of the Good in this world. In the divine Plato, the Phaedo, especially, among the dialogs, gives extensively the rationale for asceticism, though parts of others do also, and much of the Enneads also explains this (in relation particularly to what you say, see, eg., the beginning of Ennead 5.1). 

I wouldn't say that what you say is incorrect, though I wouldn't say that it is the whole story. One thing I would 'correct', since you ask, is where you say "...purification via the instrument of the body...". I would say, rather, that asceticism is purification from the body, not using the body as an instrument, but rather having as little to do with it (and the sense world) as possible. As you indicate, the fall of the soul is from unity, the Good/One and Nous into cyclic individuated sensate existence in space-time, into the cycle of repeated reincarnation and sensory/bodily existence, and this we have to get free from and return to just being Nous and the One only. To do this, we have to turn the soul, and the whole soul, back around 180 degrees from looking and being in the direction of this lowest darkest least real level of multiplicity and individuated temporal-spatial quasi-existence to looking only at and being only in (and this is the only true being) Nous and the Good. Being involved with the body and the things of this world and pursuing the things of the senses and sensual pleasures and the things of this world of every kind and in every sense is exactly being in the fallen state and pursuing it further and running ever deeper into it and birth and death and looking towards and having the soul turned towards the darkness. Asceticism, having as little to do with the body and the sense world as possible, just doing the minimum necessary to keep the psycho-physical organism going until we can be rid of it, being unconcerned with sensual pleasures, dealing with and seeking only those things of this world minimally necessary for survival, and voluntarily being concerned only with the 

things of the soul and the divine, turning the whole soul as much as possible from the body and sense things to look at and strive for the higher hypostases, is this very process of turning from this fall into and state of becoming back to Nous and the One. This also points towards why I say that asceticism isn't just instrumental, isn't just a means that has to be justified. The highly accomplished contemplative, but who still is bearing his last body and not completely done yet until he is completely free from body, sensory experience, individuation, and being at all in this 'material' world and becoming, would be permanently turned back to Nous and the One except for such minimal attention as still being embodied for a while yet more requires for maintaining the remaining psychophysical existence, and couldn't give more attention to and be concerned with this world and especially sensual pleasures, possessions, etc., etc. than that even if he tried. Not being an ascetic would be not being a contemplative, would be being back in bondage, would be being back an ordinary worldling again. Contemplation and asceticism necessarily go together, are two aspects of the same process, two sides of one coin. Sensual and worldly indulgence and involvement is the exact opposite of contemplation and spiritual practice and moves the soul in the exact opposite direction. One, the soul, can only move in one direction at a time, so there is simply the choice of either pursuing sensual pleasures and worldly things and anti-contemplation and going deeper into bondage and binding oneself tighter to the wheel of birth and death, or renouncing this world and the things of this world and the senses and pursuing asceticism and contemplation hand in hand and going towards freedom from becoming and re-union with Nous and the One. 

I hope that this answers your request for comment a little. It could be a lot to go into in thorough detail and in all aspects. Incidentally, your question sort of reminded me a little of how completely different my way of looking at things, and that of true contemplative ascetics generally, if there are any now, is from that of the world and worldlings, especially now in this modern brave new world. Contemplative asceticism, renunciation, is the obvious necessity and fact and true way and only life that is really life--this seems so obvious and the reasons so clear that the rationale hardly needs to be rehearsed--the burden of proof would be on those who might claim that asceticism and renunciation isn't the way and for any worldlings who would attempt to justify their way, though it would, of course, be impossible for them to do so and they and their thoughts are not in any way in accord with Reality! 

These Writings Now Available in Book Form

The essays, pieces, and translations on this blogspot site up to this date are now available in printed book form from lulu.com and all the regular online retail booksellers.  The full information:  Eric Fallick, Platonist Contemplative Asceticism:  Practice and Principle, ISBN 978-0-359-77301-5.
http://www.lulu.com/shop/eric-fallick/platonist-contemplative-asceticism-practice-and-principle/paperback/product-24173074.html

A Note Regarding the 'Historical Socrates'

I personally have little interest in a supposed 'historical' Socrates, whatever meaning such an idea may even really have. The Socrates of the dialogs is just, to my mind, an allegorical symbol, in accordance with the overall nature of the dialogs as a whole. You will note that in the Enneads, although Plotinus quotes Plato a number of times, the only times he ever refers to Socrates is when he uses the name 'Socrates' as a generic example name for an arbitrary person, i.e., as "John Smith" or "John Doe"! I know that most people look to the dialogs as historical documents or records to whatever extent and, in accordance with their (exclusive) preoccupation with the sense world try to understand them as realist historical documents, but I take them just as spiritual documents. The purpose of great true spiritual texts like the dialogs and Enneads is not to provide sensory/sense world information relating to alleged past occurrences in some supposed realist past physical world, but to remind our souls of the spiritual truths they have forgotten (the Platonist teaching of learning as recollection solves a multitude of difficulties) and to practice them and leave and renounce this least real sense world and return to their true home. They are teaching us how to get out of the cave and reminding us what things look like in the light, not giving us information about shadows on the cave wall that are the exclusive concern of worldlings. Ultimately, all spiritual texts that we perceive are, like everything else, just experiences according to our karma with no philosophically realist referent--in this case, experiences of our karma lightening up so that the Absolute is beginning to shine through the sense world and leading us to remember and helping us to practice to get free. All that is real is the higher hypostases, their darkened trace manifesting as this world and the world soul, the underlying spiritual structure of Reality, and the movement of individual souls closer to or farther from the One in their long journey and revolution through countless births in samsara/genesis. Though we must, in our circumstances, of course, deal extensively and honestly with 'history', ultimately all so-called historical records and artifacts are just present manifestations and appearances and experiences in our sense fields with no actually realistic existing physical past referents. Almost no one seems to understand what I am talking about when I say such things, but perhaps even a little glimpse of the One Itself and regular contemplative experience of Nous may show one that this whole sense world of becoming is just a shadow or projection of the higher hypostases, with the least reality, and that all manner of possible combinations of projections or traces of the Forms form all sorts of different relative realities of experience of souls according to their karma.

The Ontological Status of Deities

Q. For some time I have been wanting to ask you your thoughts about the status of deities in Platonism. Because of my long history with Buddhism my tendency is to regard deities in the way traditional Buddhism does. That is to say that I think of deities as beings, subject to karma, and still trapped in genesis / samsara. Though deities are long-lived, they are not necessarily wise.

Platonism appears to take a different view. It seems that Platonism views deities as embodied emanations of a higher status than those beings in the material realm. And some passages suggest that they are immortal (rather like angels in monotheism). This comes in the dialogues when Plato argues against the accounts of the bad behavior of deities, saying that deities could not behave in such nefarious ways because they are close to the One and the Good. This seems to be the dominant view of deities in the dialogues.

It might be possible to integrate the two views: some deities are still in genesis while others are of a higher status. Although technically possible, such a solution strikes me as forced and ad hoc.

Any insights?


A. I also tend to think about deities in what you describe as the traditional Buddhist manner (of course, I have a similar long history with it as you do), and I think that Platonism, as I will further explain, has the same perspective, in fact, actually even more so, and there is actually no contradiction, unless in the opposite way that Platonism accords even less status and importance to deities than Buddhism does, particularly because of its situation as an institutionalized religion for the many, which Platonism happily avoids. There is only experience, mind, consciousness, as Plotinus says, all is contemplation, there is only contemplation. There is no physical, fixed, or enumerated particular structure or cosmology for the alleged universe 'out there', as in the six (or otherwise numbered) realms of Buddhism, for the range of possible relative individuated spatio-temporal phenomenal experiences at the lowest level of the third hypostasis of soul that individual souls may experience according to their karma and which together comprise 'the world' as experienced by the world soul. Individual souls may, for a time, experience rebirths in such conditions as we might describe as deities of various sorts, but they are no more than that and, as you say, still karmic beings, subject to karma, and still trapped in samsara/genesis, and not of importance or spiritual significance, unless, I suppose, they manage somehow to practice as philosophoi in that state. Not only would any deities be incapable of possessing and transmitting true wisdom, which comes only from the higher hypostases of Nous and the One, and the higher soul in direct contact with them, but it seems that we happen at the moment to live in a relative reality system where such deities are not likely to appear, which is not to say that they couldn't in other relative reality systems, and, in any case, even if they do, they are not important and are just to be ignored, while one just directs one's attention solely to transcendent spiritual practice aimed at the higher hypostases. (And I think that this is clearly Plato and Plotinus' view.)

In discussing the position of Platonism, note first that I am not at all talking about the silly theists and theurgists like Iamblichus, Proclus, Thomas Taylor, etc. and their followers both ancient and modern, whom I don't consider to even be real Platonists at all and don't need to be at all taken into account, anymore than, for example, Hindu tantric theists need to be. Rather, I am only referring to Plato/the dialogs and Plotinus/the Enneads (and any following them), whom I consider to be the only real Platonists. Remember that the dialogs are to a large extent and in many places and in their overall dramatic frame allegorical and symbolic and anagogical and expressed in a different language and vocabulary and terminology and mode of expression than we are usually accustomed to. When Plato refers to the gods throughout the dialogs, and in the sort of positive way that you mention, he is referring to/means, not individuated sensory (in the broadest sense that would include even the formless/without sensation deities of Buddhist cosmology) deities such as we are talking about, but the divine principles of, at the lowest level, divine necessity, karma, and providence as mediated by the world soul, and, at the higher levels, of Nous and the Good. One of the things that makes this clear is that he refers to gods plural and god singular alternatingly and indiscriminately, sometimes mixing them even in the same passage, if I recall correctly, indicating 'god(s)' and divinity as an abstract principle, and rarely by name as if he is concerned with the specific Greek pantheon. Even when he does give some by name, note that, for example, that in the Phaedo when Socrates, who symbolizes the higher divine soul and individual nous, not any actual individual named Socrates, says that he is consecrated like the swans to Apollo, that 'Apollo' in Greek is a pun on 'a-polla' meaning 'not-many', i.e., that Socrates as nous is consecrated to the One as non-multiplicity (nisprapanca in Sanskrit). Similarly, when he says that the accomplished philosphos when the soul is released from the body goes to be among the gods or his soul will go to the good and wise god (note again the indiscriminate use of singular and plural) he means that the individual nous and higher soul released from the lower soul and the experience of the body re-merges with Nous and the One. In the discussion of the fact that the gods can only do good and be good, such as in the earlier books of the Republic, which I gather you are referring to, he is not talking about the Homeric/Hesiodic, etc. 'gods', though they and quotations from the poets are used in the discussion, especially since he concerned to counter popular misconceptions of divinity, but showing that the three hypostases as divine principles are wholly good (evil coming from the darkness of non-being) and that the law of necessity/karma/justice operative inexorably throughout the level of soul and becoming/samsara/genesis is wholly just and righteous and divine and always works, so that good is always rewarded and evil always punished. It would be a big project to go through all the instances in the dialogs referring to god/gods and show their actual or undermeaning, but I hope this is enough to give you the idea for now. I want to at least add that in the Enneads Plotinus generally uses god or gods to refer to one or another of the three hypostases, usually the higher two, and even when he may refer to, for example, the sun as a deity is referring to the fact that all is only mind/contemplation/soul and the ordering of even lowest soul level reality is according to divine spiritual principles mediated through the world soul so that one needs to respect this higher spiritual reality and not disparage it or disregard the divine necessity and law. When he does mention conventional lower deities in the sense that you are asking about, just following along with the conventional phenomenal relative consensus reality that he happens to be functioning in in his time and place, and in regard to 'magic', physical cosmology, 'prayers', astrology, etc., he treats them all as unimportant and irrelevant to spirituality and spiritual and philosophic practice and as inferior or irrelevant to the true philosophos, the true renunciant contemplative ascetic.

I hope that this may be enough to resolve the 'aporia' that you raised about deities in Platonism and show that there is no contradiction with the Platonist view as expressed in the dialogs and Enneads and the Buddhist attaching no profundity to deities that we have both held to over the past years. In fact, as I pointed out, Buddhism is really much more concerned with deities, at the popular and institutionalized monastic level at least, with Dharma protector gods and etc., etc., even if they are irrelevant to attaining release from samsara and are inferior to the Buddhist ascetic yogin. Platonism of and in the dialogs and Enneads is, as I have attempted very briefly to show with I hope some success, actually much more purely concerned only with transcendence and dismissive of deities as unimportant, unwise, and irrelevant since it has no need of deities at all, even as protectors of the faith, but is content with the really divine principles of the actual divine underlying structure of reality and of the hypostases and the aspiration for genuine transcendence and release from all relative realities, including any which may include deities, and any seeming reference to a higher ontological status of deities is actually a reference to the higher ontological status of the higher hypostases.

Relative Realities, Spiritual Systems, Genuine Spiritual Practice and Renunciation

Relative Realities, Spiritual Systems, Genuine Spiritual Practice and Renunciation

by Eric S. Fallick


Platonism is very subtle because it requires transcending the sense-realm, and, finally, only Platonism is of ultimate soteriological value among the different systems. All the other systems, especially those involved with institutionalized religions for the many, really take place just within particular relative phenomenal realities, even when they think they are going beyond them, and are very much wrapped up and involved with particular relative consensus realities and confound actual spiritual contemplative ascetic practice aimed at the transcendent and phenomenal sensory experiences and occurrences. (That is not to say that they aren't of value to particular souls at a particular stage of their practice in a given birth, nor that we can't learn from them, but ultimately to get free one has to access the higher hypostases through Platonic contemplative asceticism.) Plotinus has expressed this well at the beginning of Ennead V.9. Renunciation and asceticism is an absolutely necessary corollary of this understanding. A somewhat hokey analogy is that when we look at a website all that is really being sent is the HTML code that the browser converts into the web page we see. All the different systems are really just moving within their given webpages, even when they think they are getting out of it, and so are concerned with the details and things going on within their webpage. Platonists, however, are concerned with how webpages in general are generated and how to get out of webpages of any sort altogether! (For example, the Mahayana/Bodhisattva ideal is all dependent on and wrapped up in a particular version of relative reality that is no more than just another phenomenal sensory experience set that is no more valid than any. Tibetan Buddhism is especially egregious in this regard. Similarly, and even more so, especially given their notion, of the essence of their systems, of a single linear geocentric historical progression, the Abrahamic systems are totally caught up in and involved with and dependent on one particular phenomenal sensory relative reality as being of spiritual significance. Such observations could me multiplied practically indefinitely. As just one of countless examples, some Catholics go on pilgrimage to pray at the relics of saints--just running around all the time chasing after phenomena instead of pursuing noumena through contemplative ascetic practice, which would be real actual spiritual practice! If one tries to explain a little that such phenomenal 'miraculous' experiences occur in all different religious traditions and have no bearing whatsoever on the metaphysical validity of their theological and soteriological systems and are just more phenomenal sensory karmic experiences--things to be ignored and transcended in pursuing the Absolute to really get free--of course, they don’t understand at all what one is talking about. The same quite and altogether applies to Iamblichus and Proclus and other post-Iamblichus so-called ‘Platonists’ or ‘Neoplatonists’ with their theurgy and etc. Most sadly, they have simply jettisoned the true transcendent Platonism of Plato and Plotinus and replaced it with what is really just another worldly, phenomenal, particular relative reality dependent ‘religious’ system.)

All sensory or 'physical' worlds are just shadow relative realities according to the karma of souls, of which there can be very many--the present world of modernity and science and scientism and naturalism, especially, just being one of many possibilities and not one of particular validity, except that it believes itself to be so--actually, it is one of the worst and least valid of many possibilities since it is most unconducive to and makes most inaccessible true spiritual knowledge and practice and renunciation and thus makes most remote the possibility of making progress towards getting out of relative realities and their misery altogether. The true underlying realities are transcendent and spiritual and suprasensory and are the objects of real knowledge--sensory knowledge being relatively unreal and unimportant and variable.

The real unchanging actual Realities are the higher Realities or hypostases of the One or the Good and then of Nous or the Divine Mind-Thought--the realm of the Divine Mind and the Platonic Forms. From the Divine Mind-Thought then further emanates or devolves or darkens the last and lowest and least real level or hypostasis of Soul and the "world" or "worlds" that Soul perceives and creates through projecting the Forms and Itself in the realm of individuated changing sensate existence in space-time. This includes both the Soul of the All or "World Soul" and all the individual souls, such as ourselves. There is only experience. There are no other separately existing objects or worlds or things apart from the experience of Soul or souls. This level of experience where there are different souls and their variety of experiences that change and present the image of worlds and changing worlds is, again, the lowest and least real level and the only one in which there is change and the possibility of a variety of different experiences and, therefore, "worlds". There are as many different sets of experiences or possibilities of experiences or "worlds" as the possible combinations of projection of souls and their projection of combinations of projections from/of the Forms as are possible--effectively, an infinite variety. All these are determined by what we call 'karma'--which is the experience of the individual souls and the World Soul modifying each other's experiential fields through their volitional workings. The relative realities are just all the different sets of experiences and experiential fields determined by karma of the different souls and the World Soul. These are all that there is at the level of soul--there is no other sort of objective world out there. These sets of experiences and experiential fields can take all sorts of forms according to karma. The underlying Reality is only the higher hypostases and the unchanging Law or Way in which these are projected down into the level of Soul. Thus, all phenomenal things, all the things in the supposed phenomenal sense world--so-called physical laws, gods or no gods, miracles or no miracles, etc., etc.--are just parts of different experience sets according to the karma of different souls as mediated through the World Soul. This is what is meant by relative realities and such applications of the idea as that some souls may experience or have experienced a relative world, for example, where 'miraculous' or 'supernatural' things are more likely to occur, but we don't, or we experience at the moment a world where things appear to operate according to the so-called laws of modern science, but others didn't, and etc., etc. These hypostases and these workings are all that there is. One shouldn’t be mislead by all the foolish people and society around one into thinking that there is some sort of objective material world out there and that its workings are real and that different appearances within it, including those that seem to violate its usual workings, are of significance or spiritual importance. One must just strive to transcend all these relative realities and worlds and existence as an individual soul to return to Nous and the One and to create karma only tending to aid in this direction.

It can readily be seen that this nature of Reality means that actual transcendent-oriented contemplative asceticism and renunciation is the very essence of, is, in fact, identical with, genuine spiritual practice of actual ultimate soteric value. The actual ultimately valid spiritual teaching is this of the higher realities and the generation and ultimately minimally valid nature of the many lower relative realities and possible worlds and experiences and how to understand this and to escape from and transcend the cycle of rebirth in these lower relative shadow realities that are miserable as a result of their minimal degree of being and to return to the real higher realities that are freedom as a result of their really being or being beyond being. To do this one must truly renounce all the relative lower realities and life in them and all that is entailed or contained in them and focus, as much as possible, solely on contemplation of the higher hypostases. One must shift one’s entire being from the lower relative realities of individuated sensate existence in space-time and repeated rebirth to the unchanging higher hypostases of Nous and the One. This means having as little to do with the sense world of the lower relative realities as possible while one is still in them (though, alas, maintaining the psycho-physical organism until one is free from it will constantly do more than plenty of pulling one’s attention back to the sense realm!). This, of course, means as much renunciation of the world and all worldly pursuits, desires, activities and possessions as possible and single-minded devotion to ascetic contemplation (and ancillary study, etc.). The very turning of the soul from the shadow worlds of relative realities and relative non-being back to the higher hypostases of true being and beyond being appears in these very shadow worlds of relative realities as the very fact of true transcendent-oriented otherworldly world-denying renunciation and ascetic contemplation.

Ⓒ 2018 Eric S. Fallick platonicascetic (at) (Gee) mail (dot) com

Purification of the Unalterable Soul from "Matter"

The Platonic/Plotinian teaching is pure idealism, even if it is expressed in a vocabulary and language that we may not immediately understand as such. (Incidentally, 'matter' is a very misleading translation for the Greek hule in Plotinus. In Plotinus, it carries none of the connotations of 'matter' in the modern physical sense, but is rather the extremity or principle, so to speak, of non-being, of darkness, of nescience. I have toyed with the idea of using 'anti-stuff' as a translation for hule.) There is only knowing, experience, 'mind', 'consciousness' or, as Plotinus puts it, contemplation. All is, as Plotinus says (Ennead 3.8), contemplation. The One is complete pure knowing or contemplation beyond knowing/contemplation. Nous is already lesser, incomplete, impure, adulterated to some extent but still unified knowing/contemplation having already been mixed, so to speak, to a certain extent with nescience/darkness/non-being, which Plotinus sometimes refers to as noetic hule/'matter'. Soul is knowing/contemplation mixed to the greatest extent with nescience/darkness/non-being to the point that it appears as individuated as our souls and in space-time and sense-perception, etc. It is still, though, the same knowing/contemplation, in its reality unchanged and unalterable and indestructible, as knowing/contemplation is still only in itself purely knowing/contemplation as such and can't be anything else, but is now turned or looking in the direction of the extremity of nescience/darkness/non-being and thus no longer knows itself or complete pure knowing/contemplation. The soul, thus, needs to turn around back to, to redirect back its attention to, to regain the complete pure knowing/contemplation of and that is the One, to re-become that complete pure knowing/contemplation without any admixture of nescience/darkness/non-being. Thus, renunciation and asceticism is of the very essence of the purification process, and also is not just of instrumental value but remains of the very essence of the fuller knowing/contemplation state(s), since involvement in and pursuit of the world of diversified individuated sense data in space-time more than is absolutely necessary, which is what worldly life is, is the very fact of looking in the direction of darkness, of only knowing/contemplating in a very darkened, impure, incomplete, ignorant way--being in worldly life is by definition knowing/contemplating/seeing the darkness and non-being of sense perception. The practice of purification, on the other hand, is more and more only seeing/knowing/contemplating the Forms and Nous and then the One/Good, and thus being in the very state of Nous and eventually the One Themselves, and thus obviously involves knowing/contemplating/seeing worldly life and its things of the senses less and less. The One is, of course, always there and unchanged, but we don't know it without turning away from the sense world, which is really non-being, in both life and mind, and turning the imperishable knowing of the soul back to the One.