Homer on the Three Platonic Hypostases:
The Proteus episode of the Odyssey
by Eric S. Fallick
The Odyssey of Homer is a most marvelous transhistorical transmigratory allegorical guidebook to contemplative ascetic, renunciant spiritual practice detailing the soul's journey in successive rebirths to return to its true home in the noetic realm and the Absolute. All spiritual and religious systems and systems of practice take as their basis and presuppose a metaphysics or ontological (and axiological) understanding of the nature of reality, whether they explicitly recognize it or not. The metaphysics underlying the Odyssey is exactly the same as that presented by Plato and Plotinus—the system of the three Platonic hypostases. (Plato and Plotinus both teach precisely the same metaphysical, spiritual and soteriological system, even though many spiritually imperceptive modern scholars here in the dark ages are unable or unwilling to see this. In the much more illumined pre-modern world, this was more obvious to many.) The three hypostases or levels of existence or reality are the One or the Good, the Absolute, the Source and Ground of everything, from which everything comes and to which everything returns and which encompasses everything; Nous or the Divine Mind-thought, the noetic realm of the Ideas or Forms, eternal and unchanging; and the level of Soul, of space and time and individuation. Only the One or the Good is wholly real and perfect and knowing. The other two hypostases or levels are descending levels of increased darkness and unreality and nescience within, so to speak, the One. The level of soul includes various aspects such as the nature and faculties and function of both our souls and the World Soul, the production of space and time, the workings of Dike (justice) or Adastreia (necessity) or karma or providence, the struggles of the soul on the Path, and so forth. The Odyssey is particularly concerned, by its nature, with detailing the processes of this level, although the higher realities are always, of course, presumed in the background. It is not, therefore, especially concerned with giving systematic metaphysical expositions. The most explicit and systematic exposition of the three Platonic hypostases, combined, of course, with instructions for the Path, occurs in the Proteus episode related by Menelaus to Telemachus in Book 4. In this essay I will attempt to briefly explicate the undermeaning of this part of the text.
Telemachus represents the conceptual or discriminating understanding and discernment of the practitioner's soul. This understanding is born of the combination of the true, higher soul, Odysseus, and the lower, embodied soul, Penelope. Penelope, the lower soul, dwells in Odysseus' house, the body, the embodied state of individuated sensate existence in space-time, harassed by and barely fending off the evil suitors, the passions and defilements and worldly emotions and desires, who unlawfully and against her will and that of Telemachus, the understanding, occupy the domain/house of the lower soul. They unlawfully consume their livelihood, that is, they use up the lower soul's physical, emotional and mental energies to feed themselves instead of conserving and allowing these energies to be used, having been turned by the higher soul, to proper divine and holy and ascetic purposes of contemplation and striving towards liberation from becoming, genesis. Throughout the Odyssey, the disturbing image of the sacrificing and eating of animals (the faculties and energies of the lower, animal soul) and the libation and drinking of wine (the unavoidable pleasant or painful experiences of the senses) represent the maintenance and use of the physical and emotional and lower mental faculties of the soul and the senses that unfortunately have to be constantly attended to as long as we are still in becoming, in embodied sensate existence, but should be always only used as necessary for and totally dedicated to divine ascetic contemplative purposes, sacrificed to the gods before being consumed, and are by divine and holy higher souls committed to the Path, but are misused by the defilements and worldly deluded souls only for worldly purposes and pleasures, sacrificed to the gods in name only in the misguided attempt to obtain worldly advantages. The reason for the choice of the grotesque and horrific symbols and images of killing and eating of animals and consuming of alcohol, so revolting to the true contemplative ascetic and renunciant, is to serve as a continual reminder of how gross and painful and horrible and contemptible and miserable and burdensome and dark sensate existence and continued rebirth and physical and embodied life really is compared to the inconceivable bliss and brightness and knowing of the Absolute and re-union with and re-absorption therein, and to constantly inspire the renunciant with revulsion from this world and life and with desire for liberation and the Good and impel him to constantly strive for release and re-union, for the Absolute only. Penelope, the lower soul, and Telemachus, the conceptual understanding, long for the return of Odysseus, the true higher divine soul and the true contemplative ascetic practitioner, who, fully purified and developed and divininized by his long trials and adventures, will destroy the defilements, etc., the suitors, and be reunited with the lower embodied existence and take proper care of it and eventually get rid of it by drawing it up fully into the higher levels. (Of course, they can never actually be separate during the course of the Path, and Odysseus, the higher soul and contemplative ascetic, is always really present there, but for much of the Path the two seem to be separate in that the constant need to maintain the psycho-physical organism and deal with its attendant passions, etc. seems to be separate from and always cause problems for and drag one away from contemplation and holy practice. Note that in the Odyssey the trials of Odysseus, Penelope and Telemachus are all actually going on at the same time.)
At the beginning of the Odyssey, as the conditions are becoming ripe for Odysseus' return, Telemachus, the cognitive understanding, has now developed to the point that it understands more what is actually going on and that the suitors, the defilements, have to be ejected and destroyed, the world needs to be renounced, the higher soul needs to return, and liberation only needs to be striven for. Athena, divine wisdom, in the guise of Mentes and Mentor (both meaning “Reminder”) sends the understanding, Telemachus, on a journey of learning. First, he learns piety and asceticism, but without philosophia, from Nestor. Then he travels to see Menelaus. Here he sees noetical beauty, Helen, and, eventually, in response to his inquiring about Odysseus, Menelaus relates the Proteus episode that forms the main subject of this essay and provides a more structured exposition of the three hypostases. Even if I won't be able to explicate the undermeaning of every detail, the main features are clear.
Menelaus represents a soul that has made quite significant progress on the Path, but is still far from the end and will be detained for a while. He has firmly regained the vision of intelligible beauty, he has regained Helen, and has had a glimpse, however brief, of the One, he has had an encounter with Proteus, “the First”, and has learned a great deal from these and his practice so far. He has, however, not gone through all the necessary trials and practice for ultimately attaining the telos and destroying the defilements that Odysseus has. He still has many of his ships and his men, which, unlike Odysseus, he brought back with him, the various aspects and views and burdens of the lower self that need to be destroyed, however painfully, on the Path. He has not learned all the things that Odysseus has learned in the various episodes that occur later in the Odyssey. He has, however, progressed and learned enough and has a good enough lower self, also represented by Helen, that he was not destroyed by a bad lower self and the defilements and passions and wrong views upon prematurely returning like Agamemnon, he has avoided 'the fate of Agamemnon', referred to repeatedly in the text and related by Proteus, as mentioned below. At the end of their discussion, Proteus assures him, he knows from his vision of the Absolute, that he won't fall totally back into genesis, becoming, won't die and meet his fate in horse-grazing Argos, but will go to the Elysian plane of unchanging, pleasant and easy life and weather, will remain in contact with the noetical realm, the second hypostasis, since he has the vision of noetical beauty, Helen, daughter of the divine order of things, Zeus. He is, therefore, still around in the sensate lower level of soul and individuated phenomena in space-time to be able to give instruction to the understanding, Telemachus (sort of like the writers of essays?), unlike the fully completed soul that has fully attained the telos and no longer perceives this world at all but has become only the Absolute. Thus, in Menelaus and his situation, details, activities, etc. we have expounded, illustrated and disclosed the third hypostasis, the level of soul, both ours and the World Soul.
Menelaus' relation of the Proteus episode begins with him and his ships and men stuck on a desert island not too long after beginning his journey from the lower this-world of Egypt to his return to Lacedaemon, stuck at a single and difficult and unpleasant place in his practice, because he did not offer sufficient complete hecatombs, sacrifices, to the gods before departing, he did not sufficiently practice asceticism, piety, holiness and total devotion to the divine, he did not adequately dedicate all his physical, emotional, and mental existence, all the powers and faculties of the lower animal soul to the Divine and the attaining thereof. Thus, his lower faculties are perishing and are hungry, having been deprived of their true use and good. At this point, though, he is able to enter into contemplation of and contact with in contemplation of the Divine Mind-Thought, the noetic realm, the second hypostasis, which is expounded and represented here by the goddess Eidothea, “Contemplation of Form” and the seals and their counting. (So two of the three hypostases have been accounted for.) He meets Eidothea, significantly while wandering alone, in contemplation without the burden of his lower self, his men and ships, and enters into interaction with her, with the noetic realm, the Divine Mind-Thought. From this he learns that to find out what is going on, why he is stuck in his practice, he will have to at least briefly ascend to the One in contemplation and that the Divine Mind-Thought itself will facilitate this.
Proteus, “the First”, represents the One, the Absolute, Itself, the first Platonic hypostasis (so we now have all three hypostases revealed and presented in orderly fashion). Proteus, the One, is here presented in reverse fashion to emphasize His being the underlying source and ground of all phenomena, even the lowest. Thus, he is described, backwards, as of and under Egypt, the sea and Poseidon, all of which represent hyle, the body and bodily and sensate existence. Eidothea's instructions on how to 'catch' her Father Proteus, the approach to the Good revealed through contact with the Divine Mind-Thought, and the events as they actually unfold largely coincide and so will be explicated together without distinction here.
Proteus emerges from the sea at high noon. The One is seen during and as and is the greatest illumination. Along with Him emerge and He is seen among, at the head of and beyond the Ideas or Forms, the seals. He counts the seals by fives showing the rational order of the Ideas and the beginning approach to the noetic through number and mathematics (shades of the Politea!). Menelaus and his few compatriots (this practicing soul is not yet to the point where he can enter this contemplation without any of the faculties of the lower soul remaining with him) are disguised by the Divine Mind-Thought as seals, as Ideas; that is, it is through entrance into and identification with the noetic realm, Nous, that the ascent can be made to seeing the Good. For this soul as yet still burdened from behind, the entrance into and abiding in Nous would be more than he could bear, the smell of the seals would be terrible, were it not for the pleasure of the noetic beauty, the ambrosia that Eidothea places under their noses (compare Phaedo 109 e6 where the nature must be sufficient to bear the contemplating). When they grab Proteus, when they make the approach to the One, He turns into all manner of forms of animals and plants and physical elements, but they have to hang on and not let go until He returns to His actual form. The Absolute has to be discerned and kept in sight as beyond and throughout the experience of all the diversified phenomena (compare Politea 534 b8-d1 where the one who knows the Idea of the Good has to be able to abstract It from all things as in battle and know it truly in reality, not just in opinion).
The first thing, and that for which this has all been undertaken, that Menelaus learns from Proteus is that he is stuck on the island because he did not perform satisfactory sacrificial offerings to Zeus and the gods before leaving Egypt and that he has to return to Egypt and do it before the gods will allow him to proceed safely and successfully on his way. This is highly significant. The first thing that the practitioner, that the soul, learns in having a true vision or contemplation of the Absolute, however brief, is the absolute necessity of full-blown, pure renunciation and asceticism and piety and holiness and total, single-minded devotion to the Divine in order to proceed truly and successfully on the Path of contemplation and return home. Returning to the bodily, sensate realm, he must uncompromisingly sacrifice and dedicate all the powers, maintenance and faculties of the lower self, of the animal soul, of bodily life to the single divine and holy purpose of attaining re-union with the Absolute, of attaining liberation. The stream of all his energies must be wholly and holy-ly directed to the Divine without any diversion into the channels of worldly desires and the pursuit of sensual pleasures and the things of this world. His maintenance of the psycho-physical organism, however greatly this occupies so much of our time and energy and attention in this world, must be solely for the purpose of, be dedicated to, the Divine Path and aspiration. This, as discussed above, is the undermeaning of the symbol of offering satisfactory hectacombs, sacrifices or offerings. This is most important to understand, especially now in these dark times in the modern secular world where there are many who claim to have known the Absolute, God, Enlightenment, etc. and to teach others to attain this in 'meditation' but display understanding, teaching and behavior that indicate that they couldn't possibly have true accomplishment. Anyone who has truly had even a little contact with the One in contemplation and in reality knows the absolute necessity of renunciation, purity, holiness and asceticism for and as the Path. Contemplative asceticism is the very manifestation and reflection of the Absolute, of God, etc. in this world. Anyone who claims to have contemplative attainment, to have attained Union, Realization, Enlightenment, etc. and is not a pure contemplative ascetic, is not celibate, vegetarian, teetotaling, poor, abstaining from sensual and social pleasures, etc., and does not understand or teach this, or teaches people that they can attain this without being renunciants and without giving up this world can, ipso facto, be dismissed as a fraud. Again, Homer, along with Plato and Plotinus, continually teaches true contemplative asceticism of the purest and most abstract and austere sort as the only and only possible Path to liberation and realization of the Absolute, as integral with and the flip side, as it were, in this world of the Absolute Divine Reality Itself. To become God, the soul must become godlike.
This theme is further reinforced by the remaining subsidiary part of Proteus' revelation in which He relates the fate or status of three of the chiefs of the Achaeans who made it out of Troy. Aias perished in the sea of hyle, of bodily sensate existence, on the Path home, because he departed from and closed himself to divine wisdom, he was hated by Athena, and because he fell from holiness and a proper supernatural understanding of the Path and into a naturalist, humanist understanding of reality and the Path arrogating to himself the ability to accomplish a telos without the Divine, he boasted, in his blindness, that he had been saved from the sea against the will of rather than because of the gods. Thus, he was re-engulfed by hyle and material bodily existence, believing this and purely human action to be real, and fell back into the ocean of birth and death, falling completely from the Path (at least for the time being). Next, He relates the 'fate of Agamemnon', the destruction or loss or falling from the Path (for the time being, at least) of the soul that returns home, that attempts to ascend to the higher hypostases and thinks that it has, without at all adequate preparation, understanding, practice or condition. He returns with all his ships and men, without at all having freed himself from the burden of the lower soul by going through the painful trials, purifications and learnings of Odysseus, and with a bad lower self overcome by the passions and delusions and defilements, his wife overcome and surrendered to Aegisthus, not at all practicing holiness, morality, humility, asceticism and renunciation, that puts an end to the higher soul's attempts at liberation and plunges it back into the lower areas of rebirth. (One need only look around, both in the past and especially in the present, to see examples of these two lamentable fates.) Finally, He relates that Odysseus, the true ascetic practitioner and higher soul, is still alive, is still on the Path, has lost all his ships and men, has been purified of the burden of the lower soul and the things of this world, as is necessary, but is temporarily stuck on the island of and is detained by Calypso, “the Concealer”, sensate life and sensory existence, but is longing and ready to return, the telos is getting nearer, though there is still a long way to go. (The Path, viewed from the temporal side of things, is a very long, difficult and tricky journey—very few are they who make it all the way through to the end and liberation.)
Thus, it is clear that the Odyssey clearly and explicitly presents and presupposes the Platonic metaphysics of the three hypostases and their concomitant contemplative ascetic, renunciant practice, the exposition being interleaved with instructions on the Path. Homer (or, rather, the Muse) and Plato and Plotinus all teach the same Platonic Idealist metaphysic or structure and understanding of the nature of Reality and teach it as inseparable from the contemplative ascetic, renunciant spiritual Path and soteriology of re-union with the One or the Good and liberation thereby from the cycle of repeated birth and death or becoming of genesis. This is a most important lesson to learn. Idealist metaphysics and ontology of the Absolute and the lower manifestations contained in It and the contemplative ascetic and mystic spiritual practice and Path intrinsically go together and are inseparable. They are two sides of the same coin, the reflections of each other in the nontemporal, transcendent and temporal, immanent spheres. We may be grateful for the manifestation of the Absolute in our present experiential fields as the Homeric Muse for teaching us this.
© 2015 Eric S. Fallick platonicascetic (at) (Gee) mail (period) com
Showing posts with label Three Hypostases. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Three Hypostases. Show all posts
Friday, April 20, 2018
Sunday, April 1, 2018
Some Thoughts on the Great Problems of Manyness and Evil
Some Thoughts on the Great Problems of Manyness and Evil
by Eric S. Fallick
The One, the Good, the Absolute is completely perfect, changeless, whole, and one. Hyper-good, hyper-beautiful, hyper-existent, hyper-conscious, ultimately the only thing that really is—it is the Source of everything, by the support of which everything that has any kind of existence at all remains in whatever kind of existence it has. It is that to which everything looks and to which everything looks to return, whether aware of it or not. It is our source too. We seek to be re-united with It, love It more, or really only, than anything, and seek in It our only freedom. Yet, we find ourselves in a world of apparently many individuated, separate objects in space-time with much horror and suffering. We find ourselves as separate, individuated souls in space-time undergoing repeated cycles of birth and death as humans and non-humans, transmigrating and reincarnating since beginningless time, suffering endless misery and pain, seeing and experiencing all manner of evil, unless or until with tremendous effort over a very long time we free ourselves to re-become the changeless One. Even in the Nous, the Divine Mind-Thought, the noetic realm of the Platonic Ideas, which lies intermediate between the One and our present realm of Soul, though there is no evil per se except in so far as it falls short of the One and Its perfection, there is still a multiplicity of different things, the archetypal Forms, and the Divine Mind that thinks them without being separate from them, and subject and object, while not separated, are at least distinguished. How can this be? How and why can there be more than the One, especially when everything else is a descent from Its perfection? How and why do many things come from the One? Even more incomprehensible, how can evil, which is so evident and undeniable, arise from the Good Itself, and why should this be so? Indeed, compared to the One Itself, just the existence of anything else, even of those things we ordinarily describe as good, is evil in itself just as those things being other than the Good! Why are they then, and how can this be so? Why did our souls descend in the first place and the beginningless cycles of birth and death, genesis, samsara begin? These sorts of questions, and related variants according to different systems, have been considered and answered by many different people in many different systems of many varieties. No answer has satisfied everyone and perhaps there is no answer but to realize union with the Absolute through diligent contemplative ascetic practice, at which point both the question and the questioner cease or, to put it another way, the answer is obvious. Nevertheless, it may be worth expressing some thoughts on the matter from a thoroughgoing idealist and Platonist standpoint considering the vital notion of degrees of being and reality and pointing out a few erroneous thought/being patterns and habits that seem to me to impede our consideration of the issue and make it more of a problem than it actually is.
It must be recognized that we are thinking about this matter in our state as individuated souls at the lowest level of reality, which is what the world of soul and space-time and separate, individual subjects and objects is, and so our thinking and being is infested with erroneous habits and patterns concomitant with this world and, in some sense, creative of it. These patterns inhibit our thinking correctly about the great matters we are considering. The first of these habit patterns that I would like to point out is the very fact that we are wondering why there are many and evil things and events. There are no things and events. There is no physical world or world of objects and events that exists apart from subjects experiencing it. The subjects themselves are not something like object substances. There is only experience without referent, only spirit, only contemplation, only thought or knowing or knowledge or mind in the broadest and deepest senses of these words. This is all the more obvious at the higher two levels of reality or being. In Nous, though subject and object are distinguished, they are not separated, the Divine Mind cannot be separated from its Thoughts, the Forms, and there is no mistaking the Ideas for things, for realist objects. In the One, though ineffable, we may consider that subject and object are not distinguished at all, and that there is only pure knowing or knowledge or thought and nothing else. Again, all of Reality from top to bottom and beginning to end is experience, contemplation only. There is no realist's world or reality of things, physicality, objects, events, etc. Thus, the question we have been pondering has been incorrectly formulated from the beginning. It is unmeaning to ask why are there many things and souls and events and why is there evil. The question must be asked as why is there experience or contemplation or thought of multiplicity, of more or other than the One, and why is there experience or contemplation or thought of evil, of pain.
The second erroneous, upside down habit pattern that impedes our answering our question is thinking that the existence, which we now know means experience, of more than or other than the One and of evil is an addition to the One, that when there are many besides the One and evil besides the Good we now have a sum, have more than when there is just the One or the Good alone. Quite the contrary, it is a subtraction, many and the One are less than the One alone, evil and the Good are less than the Good alone. As we descend the scale from the One to the many, from the Good to evil, we descend from most real to least real. The experience of many and evil is a matter of not knowing, of knowing less, of increased nescience, of less clear thought, of a lack of knowledge, of clouded, dim, dreamy (or nightmarish) contemplation. Ignorance plus perfect Knowledge equals less knowledge, not more. Imperfect, multiple or evil experience plus perfect Experience equals lesser experience, not greater or additional. Dim contemplation plus perfect Contemplation equals dimmer contemplation, not clearer or added. So again our question has been incorrectly formulated. It is unmeaning to ask why there is experience of many and evil besides the experience of the One or the Good, why there is knowledge or contemplation of many and evil besides the knowledge and contemplation of the One or the Good. Rather, we must ask why is there less than whole or complete or perfect experience or knowledge within the perfect Experience or Knowledge, why is there ignorance within perfect Knowing, why is there unclear contemplation within perfect Contemplation.
The third erroneous habit pattern is our inveterate tendency to think in spatial and temporal terms when time and space appear at all only at this lowest least real level, and are only creations of the soul level nescient experience pattern. Indeed, even the very language we use, including the language used in this essay, speaking of “descent”, “higher”, “lower”, “coming from”, etc., reflects this limitation. But it is possible, especially at a higher level of contemplation, to exercise pure thought independent of spatio-temporal and picture and analogy and even linguistic thinking. The many of multiplex experience, the many “objects”, “events”, and souls that we experience at this level, the evil and pain that we observe and experience, and also the degree of multiplicity and distinguished items at the level of Nous, do not exist in space and time, they are not separated in space and time, but are only separated or distinguished by difference, or, more accurately, by awareness of difference. The different levels of reality that we have noted are not in any way spatially or temporally separated, but, again, are only distinguished by difference or awareness of difference, and by being more or less real. The difference between levels, which is only experience of levels, is only that of difference of degree or clarity or dimness of awareness, knowing, thought, or contemplation. The lower levels are less real because contemplation or thought of them is dimmer and weaker, they are weaker and foggier experience. Thus, when we think of the realities of the One, Nous, and soul and manyness and evil, we should not imagine that these exist in some sort of spatial relation with the One here, Nous there, and soul over there, or Nous and soul spreading out in space from the One or proceeding in time with the One being there first and then Nous coming from it and soul coming from that or the subtractions that make Nous and soul occurring in temporal and spatial sequence one after another. They are all actually simultaneously (unable to avoid using a temporal word!) present at the same point (unable to avoid using a spatial word!), as it were. Although we are unable to avoid speaking of our own spiritual and contemplative practice and either bondage or liberation in terms of movement and transition from one state to another, it is really a transition (again, unable to avoid using a spatio-temporal word!) from one state of knowing or contemplation or experience to another, not from one “place” to another, and does not actually occur in time, as much as it seems to to us.
Now we can formulate our question more correctly and attempt an answer. Why is there experience or contemplation or awareness or knowledge of many besides or actually less than the One and worse or evil rather than just the Good? Because complete and perfect Thought contains the thought within the laws of thought of thought that is less and worse than it. Complete and perfect Contemplation covers the contemplation within the possible realities of contemplation of lesser and worse and bad contemplation. Complete and perfect Experience comprehends that incomplete and unpleasant experience that is possible. Complete and perfect Knowledge knows also that knowledge that is lesser and worse and painful that is possible within the structural limits of knowledge, that is of knowledge that can in some sense be true even if far less and worse and less real than real ultimate Knowledge. This is so even though all this lesser and worse thought, contemplation, experience, and knowledge doesn't appear as such in the Absolute Thought, Contemplation, Experience, and Knowledge as such. The thought of calculus includes the thought of analytic geometry, trigonometry, arithmetic, and all lesser mathematics even though they don't appear in the thought of calculus as such, but it does not include the thought of invalid mathematics. The thought of a solid sphere necessarily includes the thought of two-dimensional circles, one-dimensional radii, and zero-dimensional points, without the sphere itself being anything other than just a sphere, but it does not include the thought of such figures as could not properly fit within a sphere. Thus, since the lesser levels of reality including manyness and evil are just subtractions from, limitations of, dimmings and incompletions of the Absolute, they necessarily are to a certain degree since the more comprehends the less, but they are limited by the overall structure, so to speak, or nature, so to speak, of the One or the Good, and fit, in a sense (non-spatially!), within in it and are determined by it. So, for example, this lowest realm of the many is still in a more limited way one since it comes from and is within the One, and the alleged realm of truly, really, absolutely separate objects, persons, and events of the pluralist, realist, or materialist is impossible. For example, evil in this lowest realm is still governed by the law of dike or karma since it is a subtraction from and within the Good, and the ungoverned evil of, for example, the eternal damnation of the Christians and others is not possible.
Will this simple solution to the great insoluble problem satisfy everyone or anyone? Probably not, but attempting to understand even conceptually is part of our path of spiritual and ascetic contemplation. The ascent includes intellect even in the lowest sense though ultimately transcending it. It will all be clearer if we keep in mind that this realm of manyness and evil is actually only the least, smallest, and least real level of reality. The One and, next, Nous are really much more real and constitute most of what is and always have and will. It is only because we are presently stuck here at the level of individuated souls and alleged objects and of evil and pain in space-time and have to exert such tremendous efforts to transcend it and return and have to deal with it all the time until we do get free that it looms of such importance and significance and difficulty and suffering to us. The main point is that this may help us and spur us on in our work towards freedom and re-union with the One or the Good which is ever drawing our souls back if we will only renounce this world in all its breadth and depth and devote ourselves as best as possible to contemplation and otherworldliness. The higher realities beckon. Hasten onward!
©2013 Eric S. Fallick platonicascetic (at) (Gee) mail (period) com
by Eric S. Fallick
The One, the Good, the Absolute is completely perfect, changeless, whole, and one. Hyper-good, hyper-beautiful, hyper-existent, hyper-conscious, ultimately the only thing that really is—it is the Source of everything, by the support of which everything that has any kind of existence at all remains in whatever kind of existence it has. It is that to which everything looks and to which everything looks to return, whether aware of it or not. It is our source too. We seek to be re-united with It, love It more, or really only, than anything, and seek in It our only freedom. Yet, we find ourselves in a world of apparently many individuated, separate objects in space-time with much horror and suffering. We find ourselves as separate, individuated souls in space-time undergoing repeated cycles of birth and death as humans and non-humans, transmigrating and reincarnating since beginningless time, suffering endless misery and pain, seeing and experiencing all manner of evil, unless or until with tremendous effort over a very long time we free ourselves to re-become the changeless One. Even in the Nous, the Divine Mind-Thought, the noetic realm of the Platonic Ideas, which lies intermediate between the One and our present realm of Soul, though there is no evil per se except in so far as it falls short of the One and Its perfection, there is still a multiplicity of different things, the archetypal Forms, and the Divine Mind that thinks them without being separate from them, and subject and object, while not separated, are at least distinguished. How can this be? How and why can there be more than the One, especially when everything else is a descent from Its perfection? How and why do many things come from the One? Even more incomprehensible, how can evil, which is so evident and undeniable, arise from the Good Itself, and why should this be so? Indeed, compared to the One Itself, just the existence of anything else, even of those things we ordinarily describe as good, is evil in itself just as those things being other than the Good! Why are they then, and how can this be so? Why did our souls descend in the first place and the beginningless cycles of birth and death, genesis, samsara begin? These sorts of questions, and related variants according to different systems, have been considered and answered by many different people in many different systems of many varieties. No answer has satisfied everyone and perhaps there is no answer but to realize union with the Absolute through diligent contemplative ascetic practice, at which point both the question and the questioner cease or, to put it another way, the answer is obvious. Nevertheless, it may be worth expressing some thoughts on the matter from a thoroughgoing idealist and Platonist standpoint considering the vital notion of degrees of being and reality and pointing out a few erroneous thought/being patterns and habits that seem to me to impede our consideration of the issue and make it more of a problem than it actually is.
It must be recognized that we are thinking about this matter in our state as individuated souls at the lowest level of reality, which is what the world of soul and space-time and separate, individual subjects and objects is, and so our thinking and being is infested with erroneous habits and patterns concomitant with this world and, in some sense, creative of it. These patterns inhibit our thinking correctly about the great matters we are considering. The first of these habit patterns that I would like to point out is the very fact that we are wondering why there are many and evil things and events. There are no things and events. There is no physical world or world of objects and events that exists apart from subjects experiencing it. The subjects themselves are not something like object substances. There is only experience without referent, only spirit, only contemplation, only thought or knowing or knowledge or mind in the broadest and deepest senses of these words. This is all the more obvious at the higher two levels of reality or being. In Nous, though subject and object are distinguished, they are not separated, the Divine Mind cannot be separated from its Thoughts, the Forms, and there is no mistaking the Ideas for things, for realist objects. In the One, though ineffable, we may consider that subject and object are not distinguished at all, and that there is only pure knowing or knowledge or thought and nothing else. Again, all of Reality from top to bottom and beginning to end is experience, contemplation only. There is no realist's world or reality of things, physicality, objects, events, etc. Thus, the question we have been pondering has been incorrectly formulated from the beginning. It is unmeaning to ask why are there many things and souls and events and why is there evil. The question must be asked as why is there experience or contemplation or thought of multiplicity, of more or other than the One, and why is there experience or contemplation or thought of evil, of pain.
The second erroneous, upside down habit pattern that impedes our answering our question is thinking that the existence, which we now know means experience, of more than or other than the One and of evil is an addition to the One, that when there are many besides the One and evil besides the Good we now have a sum, have more than when there is just the One or the Good alone. Quite the contrary, it is a subtraction, many and the One are less than the One alone, evil and the Good are less than the Good alone. As we descend the scale from the One to the many, from the Good to evil, we descend from most real to least real. The experience of many and evil is a matter of not knowing, of knowing less, of increased nescience, of less clear thought, of a lack of knowledge, of clouded, dim, dreamy (or nightmarish) contemplation. Ignorance plus perfect Knowledge equals less knowledge, not more. Imperfect, multiple or evil experience plus perfect Experience equals lesser experience, not greater or additional. Dim contemplation plus perfect Contemplation equals dimmer contemplation, not clearer or added. So again our question has been incorrectly formulated. It is unmeaning to ask why there is experience of many and evil besides the experience of the One or the Good, why there is knowledge or contemplation of many and evil besides the knowledge and contemplation of the One or the Good. Rather, we must ask why is there less than whole or complete or perfect experience or knowledge within the perfect Experience or Knowledge, why is there ignorance within perfect Knowing, why is there unclear contemplation within perfect Contemplation.
The third erroneous habit pattern is our inveterate tendency to think in spatial and temporal terms when time and space appear at all only at this lowest least real level, and are only creations of the soul level nescient experience pattern. Indeed, even the very language we use, including the language used in this essay, speaking of “descent”, “higher”, “lower”, “coming from”, etc., reflects this limitation. But it is possible, especially at a higher level of contemplation, to exercise pure thought independent of spatio-temporal and picture and analogy and even linguistic thinking. The many of multiplex experience, the many “objects”, “events”, and souls that we experience at this level, the evil and pain that we observe and experience, and also the degree of multiplicity and distinguished items at the level of Nous, do not exist in space and time, they are not separated in space and time, but are only separated or distinguished by difference, or, more accurately, by awareness of difference. The different levels of reality that we have noted are not in any way spatially or temporally separated, but, again, are only distinguished by difference or awareness of difference, and by being more or less real. The difference between levels, which is only experience of levels, is only that of difference of degree or clarity or dimness of awareness, knowing, thought, or contemplation. The lower levels are less real because contemplation or thought of them is dimmer and weaker, they are weaker and foggier experience. Thus, when we think of the realities of the One, Nous, and soul and manyness and evil, we should not imagine that these exist in some sort of spatial relation with the One here, Nous there, and soul over there, or Nous and soul spreading out in space from the One or proceeding in time with the One being there first and then Nous coming from it and soul coming from that or the subtractions that make Nous and soul occurring in temporal and spatial sequence one after another. They are all actually simultaneously (unable to avoid using a temporal word!) present at the same point (unable to avoid using a spatial word!), as it were. Although we are unable to avoid speaking of our own spiritual and contemplative practice and either bondage or liberation in terms of movement and transition from one state to another, it is really a transition (again, unable to avoid using a spatio-temporal word!) from one state of knowing or contemplation or experience to another, not from one “place” to another, and does not actually occur in time, as much as it seems to to us.
Now we can formulate our question more correctly and attempt an answer. Why is there experience or contemplation or awareness or knowledge of many besides or actually less than the One and worse or evil rather than just the Good? Because complete and perfect Thought contains the thought within the laws of thought of thought that is less and worse than it. Complete and perfect Contemplation covers the contemplation within the possible realities of contemplation of lesser and worse and bad contemplation. Complete and perfect Experience comprehends that incomplete and unpleasant experience that is possible. Complete and perfect Knowledge knows also that knowledge that is lesser and worse and painful that is possible within the structural limits of knowledge, that is of knowledge that can in some sense be true even if far less and worse and less real than real ultimate Knowledge. This is so even though all this lesser and worse thought, contemplation, experience, and knowledge doesn't appear as such in the Absolute Thought, Contemplation, Experience, and Knowledge as such. The thought of calculus includes the thought of analytic geometry, trigonometry, arithmetic, and all lesser mathematics even though they don't appear in the thought of calculus as such, but it does not include the thought of invalid mathematics. The thought of a solid sphere necessarily includes the thought of two-dimensional circles, one-dimensional radii, and zero-dimensional points, without the sphere itself being anything other than just a sphere, but it does not include the thought of such figures as could not properly fit within a sphere. Thus, since the lesser levels of reality including manyness and evil are just subtractions from, limitations of, dimmings and incompletions of the Absolute, they necessarily are to a certain degree since the more comprehends the less, but they are limited by the overall structure, so to speak, or nature, so to speak, of the One or the Good, and fit, in a sense (non-spatially!), within in it and are determined by it. So, for example, this lowest realm of the many is still in a more limited way one since it comes from and is within the One, and the alleged realm of truly, really, absolutely separate objects, persons, and events of the pluralist, realist, or materialist is impossible. For example, evil in this lowest realm is still governed by the law of dike or karma since it is a subtraction from and within the Good, and the ungoverned evil of, for example, the eternal damnation of the Christians and others is not possible.
Will this simple solution to the great insoluble problem satisfy everyone or anyone? Probably not, but attempting to understand even conceptually is part of our path of spiritual and ascetic contemplation. The ascent includes intellect even in the lowest sense though ultimately transcending it. It will all be clearer if we keep in mind that this realm of manyness and evil is actually only the least, smallest, and least real level of reality. The One and, next, Nous are really much more real and constitute most of what is and always have and will. It is only because we are presently stuck here at the level of individuated souls and alleged objects and of evil and pain in space-time and have to exert such tremendous efforts to transcend it and return and have to deal with it all the time until we do get free that it looms of such importance and significance and difficulty and suffering to us. The main point is that this may help us and spur us on in our work towards freedom and re-union with the One or the Good which is ever drawing our souls back if we will only renounce this world in all its breadth and depth and devote ourselves as best as possible to contemplation and otherworldliness. The higher realities beckon. Hasten onward!
©2013 Eric S. Fallick platonicascetic (at) (Gee) mail (period) com
Saturday, February 24, 2018
Images of Emanation and Renunciation
Images of Emanation and Renunciation
by Eric S. Fallick
In these very dark ages and most benighted times of the modern world hardly anyone understands the necessity and desirability and value and real and proper practice of renunciation, asceticism, otherworldliness and world-denyingness. Yet, there is no true spiritual and contemplative life and practice and no possibility of actual liberation without these. Most of the contemporary alleged followers of the contemplative systems that have, and always have had, renunciation and celibate contemplative asceticism as their very core conveniently ignore this fact or explain it away or as unnecessary and only belonging to the past. They even take pride in rejecting the otherworldly and world-denying and renunciant essence of their systems and claim that their worldliness and delusions and worldly desires and activities and attempts to make these compatible with contemplative practice mark an advance over the renunciant sages and systems of the past. They, further, invert and twist the metaphysics or descriptions of reality of these systems to justify their delusion and worldly desire and inability to see past the sense world (a general symptom of the problems with the modern age) invoking such things as 'creation spirituality', their ideas of huayen, 'zen', tantra and theurgy, an upside down understanding of 'non-dualism', the 'identity of samsara and nirvana', etc. Some have even invoked the Platonic teaching of the three hypostases and the emanation of the lower realities from the One to rationalize worldly indulgence and desire in the context of theurgic practice. The general idea seems to be something like that since this world of individuated sensate existence in space-time is in some sense an emanation of the One, the creation of God, a product of the Absolute, at some level part of the Absolute, etc., it must somehow be an ultimate good and desirable in itself, an augment of or addition to or improvement of the Absolute Itself (!)--rather than a diminution or darkening of the Absolute—and that we should, therefore, wallow in it forever and that the purpose of contemplative spiritual practice and even contemplative union is to allow us to wallow in it more effectively and help others to wallow in it more effectively. They ignore the teaching throughout all the systems that our presence here in this world is the result of a fall, of avidya or maya or desire, of audacity and wanting to be our own separated from the One, etc. and that our sole goal is escape from this world and restoration to our original condition as in union with or at least part of the Absolute or God. When they wish to cite past 'authorities' in this regard, they fix on the few most anomalous and dubious figures of their traditions or most dubious schools or aspects of their traditions, or take a few limited citations out of context of respected figures in their schools. While the modern world is indeed the most deluded of any in history and current circumstances are most unconducive to any true wisdom and understanding and renunciation and spiritual and contemplative practice, still this is ultimately due to their own delusion and heavy karma. In this essay, I would like to present some images for helping to understand the idea of emanation and the existence of the lower realities of the three Platonic hypostases and suggest how a proper understanding of these leads of necessity to full renunciation of the world as the only mode of true spiritual and contemplative practice.
The three Platonic hypostases are the One or the Good, Nous, which I will render as the Divine Mind-Thought, and Soul. These describe and encompass the actual structure of Reality. The One is the Absolute Itself, the only thing that really is, the Source and Origin of all else, totally independent and self-sufficient, completely without time and space, remaining completely unchanged and perfect as the lower realities emanate from or are included within it. Nous or the Divine Mind-Thought is the first level of multiplicity, but multiplicity in unity, the level of the Platonic Forms or Ideas, existing in eternity and infinity, one whole at the same time differentiated, thought and thinker the same but distinct, also remaining unchanged as Soul comes to be from or within it. Soul is the lowest level, that of individuated sensate existence in space-time, both of the Soul of the All and each individual soul, the limit of multiplicity and differentiation, being changed all the time as it produces its own objects in space and time. Only the One is truly real and really is and includes all else. Nous is less real and is less than the One, and Soul and souls are less real and are less than Nous. These are existential levels at which consciousness as a unitary whole can exist, but as we descend the levels we exist less, we are less, have less actual being. Unity is more real, exists more than multiplicity. We must resist thinking of this as a temporal and spatial process and of the hypostases as having separate existences in space and time. Space and time only come to be at the lowest and least real level of soul and have no ultimate reality. The three hypostases are always present everywhere, so to speak, but consciousness at one level, particularly the level of soul, isn't always aware of the presence of the other levels as such. We also must resist considering the lower emanations as being additions to or more than or additional than or outside the One. They are, rather, subtractions from, lessenings of, negations from within of the One.
It is hard to do better than Plotinus' explanation of all reality as contemplation and the descending levels as being stronger and weaker contemplation. The One is complete, perfect, total strongest contemplation without multiplicity. The Divine Mind-Thought is weaker and less real, but still strong and, though not completely timeless and spaceless, at least eternal and infinite contemplation. Soul is the weakest, least real, most incomplete, most multiple, most untrue spatial and temporal contemplation.
In the One, subject and object are completely one without distinction, just a single unitary contemplation. In the Divine Mind-Thought, subject and object have become distinguished but not actually separated. The Divine Mind contemplates the Divine Ideas as itself, not truly separated. At the level of soul, subject and object have separated and broken up completely, at least in appearance and how they are experienced, and each soul considers itself as an independent subject viewing independent spatial-temporal objects.
The One may be viewed as complete, pure, perfect knowing with nothing else—the highest, purest, independent unified knowing with no admixture of anything else. Nous is a lower, lesser, more impure knowing—not complete knowing, but knowing mixed with some not-knowing or nescience. Soul is a still lower, lesser and more impure knowing mixed with a great deal of not-knowing or nescience—as much not-knowing as knowing. These lesser levels of knowing are not additional knowings or knowing more than the pure knowing, but rather greater levels of ignorance or nescience, knowings of less. They are not elsewhere but within the perfect knowing. The perfect knowing includes the possibility of its own negation as not-knowing without Itself lacking any knowing or having any not-knowing or knowing in the same incomplete and imperfect way as the lower knowings mixed with nescience. The One is perfect, complete unitary Thought. As such, it contains or includes, without being, all possible incomplete, impure, divided thought—It's own partial negations.
Imagine a mass of complete, pure brilliant light—nothing at all but light. This is the One. Although the mass is just pure inconceivably complete and full light, it includes or contains within Itself, again without being, the idea of darkness, of lack of or negation of light, which is not actually something in itself, just the absence of light. The first diminution of the Light is Nous—still much very bright light, but not all the Light, but mixed with darkness, having the absence of some light. Soul is a further diminution or dimming of the Light—as much darkness or absence of light as light. The two lower levels are not something more than or added to the great pure Light, but removals from or negations or dimmings of It. They exist less than It.
Imagine a great ball of pure white light. This is the One. It has within Itself a lens or filter that is actually nothing in itself but only a negation or absence or potentiality for negation or absence of the Light Itself. This is Nous. The pure white light passes through this lens or filter producing a still dimmer projection of Itself within Itself as supposed individuated souls and their objects in space-time that is soul. But this projection is just a dull image or darkness within the Light, a negation of the Light Itself, not actually additional content to the Light. The original Light has both the lens or filter and the projection in Itself without being them or as them. They are just potential configurations of the inherent possible idea of darkness within light.
All these images and attempted descriptions are imperfect attempts to explain and understand a state of affairs that cannot really be fully grasped at the level of discursive thought at the lowest level of soul per se, that can only really be known at the level of the One or the Good Itself, but can be more intuitively and intellectually, in the truer sense of the word, or noetically apprehended, with much difficulty and long effort, in ascetic contemplation. It is important to understand, however, as emphasized above, that only the One or the Good is fully and truly real and fully and truly perfect and good and that the lower hypostases are not ultimate goods, not goods in themselves, but only good in so far as they participate in the Good and that the lower hypostases are not additions to or augmentations of the One, but subtractions and declinations from, poor and faint and less real reflections of the One. The existence or emanation of the lower hypostases doesn't affect the Good in any way and it is neither more nor less for their being. The lower hypostases don't exist or emanate as the result of any sort desire or inclination or need or intention of the One. They are the result of the metaphysical necessity of the perfect complete Good or Knowing or Thought or Being containing the Idea of the possibility of Its own partial negation. Our existence here as individuated souls in sensate existence in space-time undergoing the endless cycle of reincarnation is not a good resulting from an intentional production or need or desire of the Absolute, and is not at all identical with the Absolute as such, but rather a fall or declination or diminution resulting from metaphysical necessity of its possibility manifesting as our own audacity and wanting to be our own independently of the One. It is wholly an unfortunate and miserable, though ultimately less or unreal, thing. Our innate love of the Good and desire to return to It and to turn to It and away from this world and our individuated sensate existence is what is real and true in us and is a reflection of the unity and true nature of the One. Our pursuing the things of this world and the senses and thinking that it is real and good and important, our wanting to be our individual selves and turn away from the One is simply being less real and turning further into darkness and nescience and unreality and represents the further negation of the Good.
We may now consider the above understanding and images in relation to individual spiritual and contemplative practice, renunciation and asceticism, and the deluded modern worldly views and practices referred to at the beginning. Again, we find ourselves in this world in a state of individuated sensate existence in space-time as individual souls reincarnating endlessly in different forms. We are in a state of lesser or unreality, at the lowest existential level of separated subject and object, in the lowest level of not-knowing, nescience and ignorance, barely existing at the level of least being and least good, in darkness mixed with only a little light, in greatest multiplicity. We want to move back to, return to union with the One or the Good, to shift our existential state back to the complete non-difference of subject and object, to become real and really be again, to return to full and true knowing again, to return to and become again pure light and unity. It is only obvious, clear and logical that to do this we have to renounce this world and our existence and pursuits in it as much as possible in our present condition of embodiment and needing to maintain our present pyscho-physical organism so that we can continue to practice in order to eventually transcend this world entirely. To say otherwise, to think, as the foolish deluded moderns do, that we can pursue both this world and the things of this world and sensual pleasures and desires and worldly activities and pursuits and also the contemplative spiritual life and practice to escape from and transcend this world and return to the One, is to say and think that one being can go in two completely opposite directions at the same time. It is to say that one can simultaneously go both further into multiplicity and towards greater unity. It is to say that darkness and pure light can both be there together at the same time for the same soul, that we can both know and not-know at the same time, pursue both knowledge and ignorance, pursue both death and life, being and non-being, unreal and real existence at the same time, that subject and object can be both broken up and unified at the same time in the same consciousness. It is to think that we can contemplate both weakly and strongly at the same time. True renunciation, both inner and outer, as much as possible is spiritual and contemplative practice. Obviously, as unclear as it is to so many moderns, there can be no real contemplative and spiritual practice and life without true celibate asceticism. As best as we can, we have to and can only go in one direction or the other—we can't have both. As best as we can, we either love the Good or this world—the first is our true innate love and results in renunciation and asceticism and turning all our attention and desire and love and aspiration to the Good; the second is the false love of marginally existent worldlings and leads to worldliness and continued minimal and miserable existence.
Truly, those who deny the absolute and unquestionable necessity and value and beauty of full world renunciation and celibate, vegetarian, teetotaling, etc. contemplative asceticism can never have really touched and known at all in contemplation the One or Good or God or Absolute they claim to be seeking or following. If they had, they would have been overwhelmed by Its indescribable and inconceivable perfection, wonderfulness, luminosity, knowing, unity, fullness and goodness and realized that this world and the things of this world and the senses are just nothing in comparison and are only to be renounced and forsaken. Renunciation and contemplative asceticism would have appeared as obviously the only possible way of real spiritual and contemplative practice. Even the thought of any other way and greater separation from the One would be unbearable to them. Their love for the Good would be too intense to allow them to think that any other love is allowable or desirable. Real, full and true renunciation and celibate contemplative asceticism is, logically, rationally, metaphysically, mystically and spiritually, the true reflection or representation of the Absolute in this world.
©2016 Eric S. Fallick platonicascetic (with) (Gee)mail (period) com
by Eric S. Fallick
In these very dark ages and most benighted times of the modern world hardly anyone understands the necessity and desirability and value and real and proper practice of renunciation, asceticism, otherworldliness and world-denyingness. Yet, there is no true spiritual and contemplative life and practice and no possibility of actual liberation without these. Most of the contemporary alleged followers of the contemplative systems that have, and always have had, renunciation and celibate contemplative asceticism as their very core conveniently ignore this fact or explain it away or as unnecessary and only belonging to the past. They even take pride in rejecting the otherworldly and world-denying and renunciant essence of their systems and claim that their worldliness and delusions and worldly desires and activities and attempts to make these compatible with contemplative practice mark an advance over the renunciant sages and systems of the past. They, further, invert and twist the metaphysics or descriptions of reality of these systems to justify their delusion and worldly desire and inability to see past the sense world (a general symptom of the problems with the modern age) invoking such things as 'creation spirituality', their ideas of huayen, 'zen', tantra and theurgy, an upside down understanding of 'non-dualism', the 'identity of samsara and nirvana', etc. Some have even invoked the Platonic teaching of the three hypostases and the emanation of the lower realities from the One to rationalize worldly indulgence and desire in the context of theurgic practice. The general idea seems to be something like that since this world of individuated sensate existence in space-time is in some sense an emanation of the One, the creation of God, a product of the Absolute, at some level part of the Absolute, etc., it must somehow be an ultimate good and desirable in itself, an augment of or addition to or improvement of the Absolute Itself (!)--rather than a diminution or darkening of the Absolute—and that we should, therefore, wallow in it forever and that the purpose of contemplative spiritual practice and even contemplative union is to allow us to wallow in it more effectively and help others to wallow in it more effectively. They ignore the teaching throughout all the systems that our presence here in this world is the result of a fall, of avidya or maya or desire, of audacity and wanting to be our own separated from the One, etc. and that our sole goal is escape from this world and restoration to our original condition as in union with or at least part of the Absolute or God. When they wish to cite past 'authorities' in this regard, they fix on the few most anomalous and dubious figures of their traditions or most dubious schools or aspects of their traditions, or take a few limited citations out of context of respected figures in their schools. While the modern world is indeed the most deluded of any in history and current circumstances are most unconducive to any true wisdom and understanding and renunciation and spiritual and contemplative practice, still this is ultimately due to their own delusion and heavy karma. In this essay, I would like to present some images for helping to understand the idea of emanation and the existence of the lower realities of the three Platonic hypostases and suggest how a proper understanding of these leads of necessity to full renunciation of the world as the only mode of true spiritual and contemplative practice.
The three Platonic hypostases are the One or the Good, Nous, which I will render as the Divine Mind-Thought, and Soul. These describe and encompass the actual structure of Reality. The One is the Absolute Itself, the only thing that really is, the Source and Origin of all else, totally independent and self-sufficient, completely without time and space, remaining completely unchanged and perfect as the lower realities emanate from or are included within it. Nous or the Divine Mind-Thought is the first level of multiplicity, but multiplicity in unity, the level of the Platonic Forms or Ideas, existing in eternity and infinity, one whole at the same time differentiated, thought and thinker the same but distinct, also remaining unchanged as Soul comes to be from or within it. Soul is the lowest level, that of individuated sensate existence in space-time, both of the Soul of the All and each individual soul, the limit of multiplicity and differentiation, being changed all the time as it produces its own objects in space and time. Only the One is truly real and really is and includes all else. Nous is less real and is less than the One, and Soul and souls are less real and are less than Nous. These are existential levels at which consciousness as a unitary whole can exist, but as we descend the levels we exist less, we are less, have less actual being. Unity is more real, exists more than multiplicity. We must resist thinking of this as a temporal and spatial process and of the hypostases as having separate existences in space and time. Space and time only come to be at the lowest and least real level of soul and have no ultimate reality. The three hypostases are always present everywhere, so to speak, but consciousness at one level, particularly the level of soul, isn't always aware of the presence of the other levels as such. We also must resist considering the lower emanations as being additions to or more than or additional than or outside the One. They are, rather, subtractions from, lessenings of, negations from within of the One.
It is hard to do better than Plotinus' explanation of all reality as contemplation and the descending levels as being stronger and weaker contemplation. The One is complete, perfect, total strongest contemplation without multiplicity. The Divine Mind-Thought is weaker and less real, but still strong and, though not completely timeless and spaceless, at least eternal and infinite contemplation. Soul is the weakest, least real, most incomplete, most multiple, most untrue spatial and temporal contemplation.
In the One, subject and object are completely one without distinction, just a single unitary contemplation. In the Divine Mind-Thought, subject and object have become distinguished but not actually separated. The Divine Mind contemplates the Divine Ideas as itself, not truly separated. At the level of soul, subject and object have separated and broken up completely, at least in appearance and how they are experienced, and each soul considers itself as an independent subject viewing independent spatial-temporal objects.
The One may be viewed as complete, pure, perfect knowing with nothing else—the highest, purest, independent unified knowing with no admixture of anything else. Nous is a lower, lesser, more impure knowing—not complete knowing, but knowing mixed with some not-knowing or nescience. Soul is a still lower, lesser and more impure knowing mixed with a great deal of not-knowing or nescience—as much not-knowing as knowing. These lesser levels of knowing are not additional knowings or knowing more than the pure knowing, but rather greater levels of ignorance or nescience, knowings of less. They are not elsewhere but within the perfect knowing. The perfect knowing includes the possibility of its own negation as not-knowing without Itself lacking any knowing or having any not-knowing or knowing in the same incomplete and imperfect way as the lower knowings mixed with nescience. The One is perfect, complete unitary Thought. As such, it contains or includes, without being, all possible incomplete, impure, divided thought—It's own partial negations.
Imagine a mass of complete, pure brilliant light—nothing at all but light. This is the One. Although the mass is just pure inconceivably complete and full light, it includes or contains within Itself, again without being, the idea of darkness, of lack of or negation of light, which is not actually something in itself, just the absence of light. The first diminution of the Light is Nous—still much very bright light, but not all the Light, but mixed with darkness, having the absence of some light. Soul is a further diminution or dimming of the Light—as much darkness or absence of light as light. The two lower levels are not something more than or added to the great pure Light, but removals from or negations or dimmings of It. They exist less than It.
Imagine a great ball of pure white light. This is the One. It has within Itself a lens or filter that is actually nothing in itself but only a negation or absence or potentiality for negation or absence of the Light Itself. This is Nous. The pure white light passes through this lens or filter producing a still dimmer projection of Itself within Itself as supposed individuated souls and their objects in space-time that is soul. But this projection is just a dull image or darkness within the Light, a negation of the Light Itself, not actually additional content to the Light. The original Light has both the lens or filter and the projection in Itself without being them or as them. They are just potential configurations of the inherent possible idea of darkness within light.
All these images and attempted descriptions are imperfect attempts to explain and understand a state of affairs that cannot really be fully grasped at the level of discursive thought at the lowest level of soul per se, that can only really be known at the level of the One or the Good Itself, but can be more intuitively and intellectually, in the truer sense of the word, or noetically apprehended, with much difficulty and long effort, in ascetic contemplation. It is important to understand, however, as emphasized above, that only the One or the Good is fully and truly real and fully and truly perfect and good and that the lower hypostases are not ultimate goods, not goods in themselves, but only good in so far as they participate in the Good and that the lower hypostases are not additions to or augmentations of the One, but subtractions and declinations from, poor and faint and less real reflections of the One. The existence or emanation of the lower hypostases doesn't affect the Good in any way and it is neither more nor less for their being. The lower hypostases don't exist or emanate as the result of any sort desire or inclination or need or intention of the One. They are the result of the metaphysical necessity of the perfect complete Good or Knowing or Thought or Being containing the Idea of the possibility of Its own partial negation. Our existence here as individuated souls in sensate existence in space-time undergoing the endless cycle of reincarnation is not a good resulting from an intentional production or need or desire of the Absolute, and is not at all identical with the Absolute as such, but rather a fall or declination or diminution resulting from metaphysical necessity of its possibility manifesting as our own audacity and wanting to be our own independently of the One. It is wholly an unfortunate and miserable, though ultimately less or unreal, thing. Our innate love of the Good and desire to return to It and to turn to It and away from this world and our individuated sensate existence is what is real and true in us and is a reflection of the unity and true nature of the One. Our pursuing the things of this world and the senses and thinking that it is real and good and important, our wanting to be our individual selves and turn away from the One is simply being less real and turning further into darkness and nescience and unreality and represents the further negation of the Good.
We may now consider the above understanding and images in relation to individual spiritual and contemplative practice, renunciation and asceticism, and the deluded modern worldly views and practices referred to at the beginning. Again, we find ourselves in this world in a state of individuated sensate existence in space-time as individual souls reincarnating endlessly in different forms. We are in a state of lesser or unreality, at the lowest existential level of separated subject and object, in the lowest level of not-knowing, nescience and ignorance, barely existing at the level of least being and least good, in darkness mixed with only a little light, in greatest multiplicity. We want to move back to, return to union with the One or the Good, to shift our existential state back to the complete non-difference of subject and object, to become real and really be again, to return to full and true knowing again, to return to and become again pure light and unity. It is only obvious, clear and logical that to do this we have to renounce this world and our existence and pursuits in it as much as possible in our present condition of embodiment and needing to maintain our present pyscho-physical organism so that we can continue to practice in order to eventually transcend this world entirely. To say otherwise, to think, as the foolish deluded moderns do, that we can pursue both this world and the things of this world and sensual pleasures and desires and worldly activities and pursuits and also the contemplative spiritual life and practice to escape from and transcend this world and return to the One, is to say and think that one being can go in two completely opposite directions at the same time. It is to say that one can simultaneously go both further into multiplicity and towards greater unity. It is to say that darkness and pure light can both be there together at the same time for the same soul, that we can both know and not-know at the same time, pursue both knowledge and ignorance, pursue both death and life, being and non-being, unreal and real existence at the same time, that subject and object can be both broken up and unified at the same time in the same consciousness. It is to think that we can contemplate both weakly and strongly at the same time. True renunciation, both inner and outer, as much as possible is spiritual and contemplative practice. Obviously, as unclear as it is to so many moderns, there can be no real contemplative and spiritual practice and life without true celibate asceticism. As best as we can, we have to and can only go in one direction or the other—we can't have both. As best as we can, we either love the Good or this world—the first is our true innate love and results in renunciation and asceticism and turning all our attention and desire and love and aspiration to the Good; the second is the false love of marginally existent worldlings and leads to worldliness and continued minimal and miserable existence.
Truly, those who deny the absolute and unquestionable necessity and value and beauty of full world renunciation and celibate, vegetarian, teetotaling, etc. contemplative asceticism can never have really touched and known at all in contemplation the One or Good or God or Absolute they claim to be seeking or following. If they had, they would have been overwhelmed by Its indescribable and inconceivable perfection, wonderfulness, luminosity, knowing, unity, fullness and goodness and realized that this world and the things of this world and the senses are just nothing in comparison and are only to be renounced and forsaken. Renunciation and contemplative asceticism would have appeared as obviously the only possible way of real spiritual and contemplative practice. Even the thought of any other way and greater separation from the One would be unbearable to them. Their love for the Good would be too intense to allow them to think that any other love is allowable or desirable. Real, full and true renunciation and celibate contemplative asceticism is, logically, rationally, metaphysically, mystically and spiritually, the true reflection or representation of the Absolute in this world.
©2016 Eric S. Fallick platonicascetic (with) (Gee)mail (period) com
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