Authors: Brian Hines
M
OST SPIRITUAL SEEKERS
, and the author includes himself in this group, are akin to campers at Lake Partway. We’re pleased that we have escaped the dirty and crowded city of Godless Materialism. We’ve piled what we consider to be the basic necessities of life into our present vehicles of spirituality, and have driven with considerable ease to the lakeshore campground, nestled at the base of Mount Spirit, where now we are comfortably settled in.
Ah, how pleasant it is to be among like-minded people. Here we are, the spiritually blessed, enjoying the refreshing breezes that blow down from the mountain while so many other poor souls suffer through an endless hot summer in the miasmic streets of Godless Materialism.
We sing devotional songs around the campfire at night. We read holy books during the day. Brief explorations of the surrounding territory give us a little exercise without wearing us out. The food is tasty, there are just a few mosquitoes, and a battery-powered TV can pick up stations from the city (we sure don’t want to miss out on news and entertainment while camping).
Still, things could be better. Lake Partway is shallow and clogged with weeds. The many vehicles going in and out of the campground are noisy and stir up clouds of dust. Often there are arguments over who gets an appealing campsite. The air is smoggy, though not as bad as in the valley below. And after we’ve sung all the songs, read all the books, and hiked all the nearby trails, there isn’t that much new to do.
Childish voices keep echoing in our brains: “We’re bored! There’s nothing to do here! When are we going back to the city?” And though we’ve been able to put them off one way or another—“Don’t you just
love
camping at Lake Partway, kids? Maybe we’ll roast marshmallows tonight!”—a hidden concern lurks beneath the surface of our outward enthusiasm: maybe trading the excitement of Godless Materialism for the blandness of Lake Partway wasn’t such a good idea.
Then a stranger appears. Tall, exceedingly fit, bronzed by the sun, eyes with a depth that comes only from gazing on the unimaginable. He is spotted striding boldly down the mountain path that no one ever takes because it is too steep and rocky. Where did he come from? Someone invites him to stay for dinner, and afterward, over coffee, he is asked where he’s been camping.
“Nowhere. I live here. Well, not right here, up
there
.” He gestures over his shoulder into the darkness. “It’s a pleasant place. It fits me.”
“Tell us about it. Is it better than Lake Partway?”
“Oh, yes. It’s better than every place. There’s nothing like it. That’s why I stopped camping here like you, and settled into One.”
“One what?”
“Just One. If it was anything else, any thing at all, it wouldn’t be One. Don’t you see?”
Actually, we don’t. But this conversation is a stimulating change of pace, since the stranger, who just wants to be called “Guide” (he’s forgotten his old name, he says with a wink), has an engaging, if decidedly eccentric, manner about him.
“Guide, can you tell us more about this wonderful place you call One?”
“Sorry, I can’t. Really, it’s indescribable,” says Guide. “All I can say is that if you saw it, you’d like it so much better than Lake Partway. It’s the place you were wanting to find when you left that terrible city, Godless Materialism. You just stopped too soon once you got a little way up the slope of Mount Spirit. This campground is all right, compared to what you left behind, but nothing like what lies at the top of the mountain. I can show you how to get to One, if you like.”
“What road do we take? And how long a journey is it?”
“There isn’t any road. The vehicles that got you here can’t take you any farther. From here on the path is narrow and not clearly marked. As to how long you’ll be walking, well, it depends. Some people make it a quick trip. Others meander more. This mountain is much vaster than you can begin to imagine. There are folks who have been wandering around up there for an awfully long time. That’s why you’d be smart to let me show you the way.”
As captivating as Guide is, he’s starting to lose some of his audience. A fair number of campers left when they heard they couldn’t take their vehicles to One. “I’d like to see this place,” they explain, “It sounds wonderful, but no way am I going to walk there. I’ll wait until they put in a road.”
A few of us, however, have grown so tired of Lake Partway, and so enthralled by Guide’s cryptic praise of One, that we take him up on his offer. We’re told, “Meet me at the bottom of the path at dawn. And come prepared for a tough hike.”
We do just that. There we are, right on time, the first rays of the sun hitting our expectant faces, everyone carrying large knapsacks filled with water bottles, peanut butter sandwiches, cameras, toilet paper, sunscreen, extra clothes, first aid kits. We’re ready to go, Guide!
He takes a quick glance at us and says, gruffly, “Leave all of that here.”
“Are you kidding?”
“I said, leave it here. You won’t need any of that stuff where we’re heading. It’ll just slow you down. Anything we have to have, we’ll find along the way.”
Guide didn’t have many aspiring travelers to One to begin with, and he just lost a good share of the group that had gathered at the trailhead. The malcontents shake their heads and return to their campsites, talking among themselves: “That guy is crazy. We were smart not to follow him. You can’t climb a high mountain without supplies, especially food and water.”
A small band, though, follows Guide’s orders and we take off our knapsacks.
“All right, then, here we go,” he says. “Straight up!”
It’s a hard climb. The path is amazingly steep, and doesn’t have any switchbacks. We just put one foot in front of another and slog our way up the side of Mount Spirit the best we can. Soon we’ve stopped talking among ourselves, saving our breath for climbing.
But when Guide calls for a stop and we turn around, the view makes us forget how tired we are. Lake Partway now looks like a pond, we’ve climbed so high. The air is much cleaner. Just as Guide promised, without moving far from the trail we drink from a creek flowing with crystal-clear water and feast on delicious berries. Our exhaustion gives way to a second wind. We jump up eagerly when told it’s time to move on.
Guide points out sights along the way. There are lots of side trails where, he says, explorers of Mount Spirit have gone off and never bothered to return to the main path. “They like where they are,” Guide adds, “but I wish they had kept climbing. It’s so beautiful at the very top.”
Those words bring a little more spring to our legs, which now are back to being wearied, matching the condition of our spirit. Our enthusiasm is starting to fade along with the scenery. Once we passed timberline, the terrain turned barren. No more creeks and berry bushes, just craggy rocks and tufts of hardy vegetation. The food and water we enjoyed at the overlook are a distant memory. Now we’re darn hungry and thirsty.
Some people turn back, notwithstanding Guide’s attempts to encourage them: “It’s just a bit farther, don’t give up.”
“Yeah, that’s what you’ve been telling us since we started,” they say disgustedly, setting off at a lope down the mountain, eager to get back to the comparative comforts of Lake Partway.
The handful of us who are left have a strong urge to follow in their footsteps, but something keeps us moving uphill, struggling to keep pace with our indefatigable companion, who isn’t even breathing hard. He seems very much at home on Mount Spirit. Part of the reason, we note enviously, is that Guide isn’t carrying an extra ounce anywhere on his lean and muscular form. The same definitely can’t be said for us, over-fed and under-exercised as we had become at Lake Partway.
“Well, here we are,” Guide finally says to his bedraggled party. We look up, mouths devilishly dry, sweat pouring from our foreheads, feet blistered, stomachs growling from hunger.
A cry goes out in unison. “What?!” All this, for
that
? A sheer cliffrises before us, the height of which can’t be measured, as the top is hidden in clouds. There’s no way around the cliff, for deep chasms fall off on each side of the narrow ridge on which we’re standing. There doesn’t seem to be any way up, either. The rock wall is almost perfectly smooth, and we don’t have either the energy or the skill to even hazard an attempt to climb it.
“Is this the One?” we ask, not sure what answer we want to hear. For even though it would be dismaying if this was what we’d been working so hard to reach, being told that this was the end of the path would mean that the rough climb was over.
“No,” says Guide with a grin, “but we’re close. The way is through here.” He points to a small hole in the cliff that we had failed to notice before. “Let’s get moving. Don’t want to dawdle now.”
“You want us to go in there? You can’t be serious.” It’s a narrow, pitch-black tunnel. We can’t see more than a few feet inside. There doesn’t seem to be any room to turn around if you got stuck. And then there is a final blow to our already shaky confidence. Guide tells us: “Oh, I forgot to mention that you need to take off all your clothes. It’s a tight fit, and even a small button or zipper could be enough to hang you up.”
Well, that does it. We followed Guide this far because he spoke so enthusiastically to us about the wonders of One. And even though the path up Mount Spirit was more challenging than any of us had imagined, at least we could always see where our next step was taking us. Up to this point we also had the option of turning back, which made it easier to move forward.
Now Guide is asking us to embrace an act of reckless abandon: crawl into a lightless tunnel that leads god-knows-where, with no food, no water, no clothes, no illumination, nothing at all.
Still, we’ve come this far. And if Guide made it in and out, safe and sound, we should be able to do the same. Yet again, why take a chance? Maybe Guide is a beguiling psychopath who lures trusting victims into a deathtrap. But Lake Partway has lost its appeal and we certainly don’t want to go all the way back to Godless Materialism. Who knows, though, whether the uncertain promise of what the One offers warrants risking all that we have in hand now?
So we stand in front of the mysterious passageway, unable to decide whether we are on the brink of making the most marvelous discovery imaginable or if we are about to lose our lives in addition to everything that Guide had made us discard already.
We gaze at Guide, trying to decide. Is he a saint? Or is he insane?
“It’s up to you,” he says, as if he knows what we are thinking. “Alone to the alone, that’s the way to the One. Each must decide for himself. I’ll see you on the other side, or maybe not.”
Then, we glimpse a gentler side of Guide that hadn’t been much in evidence before. With a smile he comes up to each of us in turn, holding our hands in his, looking into our eyes. No words are exchanged but we understand Guide’s silent message: I once stood where you are standing; I once questioned as you are questioning; I once hesitated as you are hesitating; we are the same, One.
Guide’s final words mirror his unspoken sentiments. “You can know what I know if you do what I do.” With incredible alacrity he turns on his heel, tearing off his clothes in a single motion, and dives headfirst into the tunnel. He’s gone.
We’re alone. It’s unbearable. Tearfully, we turn to each other. What do we do now? The full course of our lives has brought us to this question, this cliff, this passageway, this choice. To move any closer to the One means stripping ourselves naked, maybe even abandoning our very existence. To return to the shores of Lake Partway means never knowing what wonders, or perhaps terrors, are at the pinnacle of Mount Spirit.
Tearfully, we turn away from each other, realizing that Guide was right: it is up to each of us alone to decide what path to take. Indeed, I already know what I must do. It just will take some time—an instant, or an eternity—to tell myself.
And the attainment of it
[the One]
is for those who go up to the higher world and are converted and strip off what we put on in our descent…. until, passing in the ascent all that is alien to the God, one sees with one’s self alone That alone, simple, single and pure, from which all depends and to which all look and are and live and think: for it is cause of life and mind and being.
[I-6-7]
Suggestions for Further Reading
Listed below are books recommended to readers who desire to explore Plotinus’s teachings in greater depth. They are organized into five categories: (1)
Translations,
(2)
Non-scholarly overviews,
(3)
Scholarly yet accessible books,
(4)
Seriously scholarly treatises,
and (5)
Related works.
1
. T
RANSLATIONS
Those who want to read the
Enneads
in English have a choice of translations by Stephen MacKenna and A.H. Armstrong. Each is, to put it frankly pretty heavy-going. Only the most dedicated scholar, or student of philosophy, will delight in reading Plotinus’s writings cover to cover. But it’s unarguable: there is no substitute for the source.
Plotinus: In Seven Volumes
,
translated by A.H. Armstrong, Harvard University Press (Loeb Classical Library), 1966-88. This is the clearest and most reliable translation of the
Enneads.
Armstrong’s translation faces the authoritative critical edition of the Greek text published by Henry and Schwyzer so it is the translation to use if you know Greek, or want to locate a quotation by line number (i.e. IV-3-9, 36-44, where 36-44 refers to lines in the critical edition). Helpful “Introductory Notes” precede each main section of
the Enneads,
and Armstrong elucidates many passages with footnotes.
Plotinus: The Enneads
,
translated by Stephen MacKenna, Penguin Books, 1991. Whereas Armstrong’s translation includes all fifty-four chapters in the
Enneads,
this publication abridges MacKenna’s circa 1921 translation to only thirty-three chapters. However, for most readers this is a plus, since they won’t have to wade through the densest examples of Plotinus’s abstruse prose. Further, MacKenna is more literary, though less literal, in his translation, making for easier reading. Prefatory writings by Paul Henry and John Dillon add to the value of this book. An unabridged edition of MacKenna’s translation is available from Larson Publications.
2
. N
ON-SCHOLARLY OVERVIEWS
There aren’t many books in this category, which naturally includes the work in hand,
Return to the One.
However, several titles can be recommended to those who want to learn more about Plotinus’s philosophy, but aren’t interested in wading through scholarly dissertations. Each of these books is clear and well-written.
Plotinus: An Introduction to the Enneads
,
by Dominic J. O’Meara, Clarendon Press, 1995. Seemingly aimed at undergraduate students, this book pithily describes the essence of
the Enneads
in just 119 pages. The back cover correctly observes that “no knowledge of Greek is needed, nor is expertise in ancient or modern philosophy presupposed.” This is a good place to start a further exploration of Plotinus.
Plotinus or The Simplicity of Vision
,
by Pierre Hadot, translated by Michael Chase, The University of Chicago Press, 1993. Better than anyone else, Hadot captures the spirit as well as the substance of Plotinus’s philosophy. After painting a word-portrait of Plotinus, the author organizes his chapters in a refreshingly non-scholarly manner: “Presence,” “Love,” “Virtues,” “Gentleness,” “Solitude.” Chase’s original translations of passages from the
Enneads
(many of which have been included in this book) complement Hadot’s equally sensitive prose.
The Philosophy of Plotinus
,
by Émile Bréhier, translated by Joseph Thomas, University of Chicago Press, 1971. Since this book is composed of lectures given by Bréhier at the Sorbonne in 1921-22, it reflects both the vitality of speech and the clarity that one would expect from a noted French translator of the
Enneads.
The author has limited his study of Plotinus to the “intelligible,” the realms of soul, intellect (spirit), and the One, omitting discussion of the sensible world, nature, matter, and evil in relation to matter. Still, this is a fine introduction to Plotinus’s philosophy.
The Passion of the Western Mind
,
by Richard Tarnas, Ballantine Books, 1993. This marvelous book is an overview of the entire history of Western thought, so Plotinus and Neoplatonism necessarily occupy only a few pages. Nevertheless, it is highly recommended because Tarnas not only cogently explains classical Greek philosophy, but also (in the words of reviewers) “allows readers to grasp the big picture of Western culture as if for the first time … unfolding the great drama of the evolution of the Western mind act by act, scene by scene in precise and scholarly detail … a work of genius.” High praise, but richly deserved.
3
. S
CHOLARLY YET ACCESSIBLE BOOKS
In this category are books that are more scholarly than the preceding, yet are, by and large, accessible to the general reader who is motivated to delve more deeply into the philosophy of Plotinus.
Nature, Contemplation, and the One
,
by John N. Deck, Larson Publications, 1991. Deck focuses on only one of the fifty-four enneads, Ennead III-8, which is titled “On Nature and Contemplation.” Yet because Plotinus’s entire philosophy generally is reflected in every part of his writings, the central chapters of this book cover the gamut of his thought: “The One,” “The Nous,” “Soul,” “Logos,” “Nature,” “Matter.” This is a valuable resource for those who want to more clearly understand what Plotinus means by contemplation.
The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus
,
edited by Lloyd P. Gerson, Cambridge University Press, 1996. These sixteen essays on various aspects of Plotinus’s philosophy will serve to flesh out the
Enneads
for those who have already grasped the skeleton of his thought. The essays by Dillon and Rist, “An ethic for the late antique sage” and “Plotinus and Christian philosophy,” are particularly recommended, along with the introductory “Plotinus: The Platonic tradition and the foundation of Neoplatonism.”
Classical Mediterranean Spirituality: Egyptian, Greek, Roman
,
edited by A.H. Armstrong, Crossroad Publishing Company, 1986. Even though only two of the twenty-one essays in this book focus on Neoplatonist spirituality, there are broader insights to be had into the spiritual tenor of the times in classical Mediterranean culture. In “The Spiritual Guide,” Ilsetraut Hadot describes the role of mystic philosophers such as Plotinus in the Hellenistic period. In “The Spiritual Importance of not Knowing,” R.T. Wallis takes up the subject of how one experiences a divinity that is beyond the reach of knowledge.
Philosophy as a Way of Life
,
by Pierre Hadot, edited by Arnold Davidson, translated by Michael Chase, Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1995. This collection of essays by Hadot is subtitled “Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault,” indicating the breadth of the author’s philosophical vision. A central theme is that philosophy in antiquity was a spiritual exercise, and not merely intellectual speculation. But, says Hadot, “in modern university philosophy, philosophy is obviously no longer a way of life, a kind of life, unless it is the kind of life of the professor of philosophy.” Nicely put.
Porphyry’s Against the Christians: The Literary Remains
,
edited and translated by R. Joseph Hoffman, Prometheus Books, 1994. No copies of Porphyry’s scathing attack on Christianity have survived to the present time, but Hoffman is among those scholars who believe that the “pagan critic” cited in the Apocriticus of Macarius Magnes is actually Porphyry (Plotinus’s most noted student). Hoffman extracts these pagan criticisms and organizes them into categories, such as “The Attack on Paul the Apostle,” “The Christian Doctrine of God,” and “Critique of the Resurrection of the Flesh.” He also contributes his own commentary on Porphyry’s arguments, and provides a historical overview of the tension between Greek thought and early Christianity.
Porphyry: On Abstinence from Animal Food
,
translated by Thomas Taylor, edited and introduced by Esme Wynne-Tyson, Centaur Press Ltd., 1965. This apparently is the most extensive of Porphyry’s surviving writings, and indicates the importance he and Plotinus placed on adhering to a vegetarian diet, even though the subject is never mentioned explicitly in the
Enneads.
Porphyry’s arguments against killing animals for food are cogent, convincing, and almost as relevant today as two thousand years ago. A newer translation
(Porphyry: On Abstinence from Killing Animals)
by Gillian Clark is available through Cornell University Press.
Reading Neoplatonism: Non-discursive Thinking in the Texts of Plotinus, Proclus, and Damascius
,
by Sara Rappe, Cambridge University Press, 2000. A fascinating discussion of how one goes about reading a philosophy, Neoplatonism, which “insisted that wisdom could be located only outside all texts and outside all language.” Rappe examines various Plotinian thought exercises from this perspective, arguing that Plotinus aims to transform the reader’s entire manner of perceiving reality, as contrasted to merely affecting his or her rational understanding.
Mystical Languages of Unsaying
,
Michael Sells, The University of Chicago Press, 1994. If mystics want to tell us that the divine is beyond words, how do they say this in words? Such is the subject of Sells’s intriguing book, which has chapters on Plotinus, Eriugena, Ibn ‘Arabi, Marguerite Porete, and Meister Eckhart. It turns out that the manner in which mystics speak conveys a large part of their message. That is, Sells’s thesis is that when a mystic speaks apophatically—unsaying what has been said to affirm the ultimate ineffability of the transcendent—he or she aims to produce a “meaning event” in the reader or listener which is the semantic analogue of mystical union. More simply put, if your mind is blown by a mystic’s words, that’s the point.
4
. S
ERIOUSLY SCHOLARLY TREATISES
Don’t be scared away from the books in this category. Even though they are not light reading and some presume that the reader has a fairly extensive knowledge of the Greek language or Greek philosophy, the serious student of Plotinus’s teachings will find insights in these volumes that can’t be discovered elsewhere.
Neoplatonism and Christian Thought
,
edited by Dominic J. O’Meara, State University of New York Press, 1982.
Neoplatonism and Indian Thought
,
edited by R. Baine Harris, State University of New York Press, 1982.
Neoplatonism and Islamic Thought
,
edited by Parviz Morewedge, State University of New York Press, 1992.
Neoplatonism and Jewish Thought
,
edited by Lenn E. Goodman, State University of New York Press, 1992.
Each of these books contains essays in which some aspect of Neoplatonism is compared to some aspect of a traditional religion: Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, or Judaism. Samples: “The Neoplatonism of Saint Augustine,” “Plotinus and the Upanisads,” “The Neoplatonic Structure of Some Islamic Mystical Doctrines,” and “Utterance and Ineffability in Jewish Neoplatonism.” It is striking that Neoplatonism in general, and Plotinus’s teachings in particular, are found to lie so close to the core of the world’s enduring religious traditions. If there is such a thing as a universal metaphysics, it way well be Neoplatonism.
Neoplatonism
,
by R.T. Wallis, Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd., 1995. Lauded in a foreword as the “most comprehensive and reliable introduction to the subject in English,” this book indeed covers all the bases. Beginning with a discussion of the aims and sources of Neoplatonism, Wallis turns successively to Plotinus, then to Porphyry and Iamblichus, then to the Athenian School, and finally to the influence of Neoplatonism. Clearly written and well-referenced.
Plotinus: The Road to Reality
,
by J.M. Rist, Cambridge at the University Press, 1967. The author notes that his book isn’t meant to be an overview of Plotinus’s philosophy, but rather is intended “for those who are interested in a more detailed discussion of certain problems in Plotinus’s thought which have not always received the attention they deserve at the hands of either classicists or philosophers.” Rist presumes a knowledge of Greek, but the book still can be read and enjoyed by skipping the foreign terms.
Plotinus
,
by Lloyd P. Gerson, Routledge, 1994. This is a serious and comprehensive analysis of the
Enneads
which examines Plotinus’s teachings from a somewhat broader perspective than other scholarly books, as evidenced by some of the chapter titles: “An Argument for the Existence of a First Principle of All,” “Truth and the Forms,” “Human Psychology,” “Some Epistemological Questions,” “Conquering Virtue,” “Philosophy of Religion.” The author admits in a conclusion, “This is a difficult book.” True, yet still well worth studying.
From Word to Silence: The Rise and Fall of Logos
,
by Raoul Mortley Hanstein, 1986. The author says that this two-volume work “seeks to situate the development of negative theology within the context of the whole Greek concept of thought…. We know the Greeks as rationalists: others have noted their irrationalism; it also seems worthwhile to investigate their developing opposition to reason and language.” Even though only a single chapter of Vol. 2 focuses on Plotinus (“Plotinus and abstraction”), it is fascinating to trace the history of the
via negativa,
or negative way from the earliest days of Greek thought through medieval times. Highly recommended for serious students of mystical philosophy.