Return to the One (7 page)
Authors: Brian Hines
How I wrote what you re reading
O
NE OF MY PURPOSES
in writing
Return to the One
was to relieve non-scholars of having to read the
Enneads
directly. I put considerable effort into finding quotations that contain the clearest and most definitive descriptions of Plotinus’s teachings. These quotations frequently are brief, because less tends to be more with Plotinus. If lengthier quotations from the
Enneads
had been cited, in most cases it would have diminished the meaning of a passage, since what precedes or follows a quotation included in
Return to the One
often is barely comprehensible.
I used two approaches for selecting quotations. First, I read almost all of the scholarly books in English about Plotinus’s teachings. These are cited in the “Bibliography” and “Suggestions for Further Reading” sections at the end of this book. In the course of taking copious notes, I became aware of the passages in the
Enneads
repeatedly cited by scholars as being representative of some aspect of Plotinus’s philosophy. These constituted my initial set of “must quote” passages.
Second, in reading Armstrong’s translation of the
Enneads
I found some quotations that appeared significant or simply appealed to me, but hadn’t been cited by anyone else I had read. It’s interesting to ask why. I’m not sure, but often it seems that these passages relate more to the mystical side of Plotinus than to his rational side.
Because Plotinian scholars, not surprisingly, are inclined more to scholarship than to mysticism, some of the mystic musings of Plotinus are given short shrift in comparison to his overtly philosophical proclamations. For example, unless someone is open to the possibility of reincarnation, Plotinus’s comment about vegetative people “taking care to turn themselves into trees” isn’t going to be taken as seriously as his more elevated statements about the One, spirit, and soul.
Seek the tabletop, not the puzzle
H
ERE IS SOME ADVICE
about how to approach the rest of this book. If something doesn’t make sense, just keep reading. It may come clear in the end. Be more concerned with grasping the broad outlines of Plotinus’s philosophy than the specifics. It is better to comprehend the treatises in the
Enneads
as a whole, in an almost intuitive fashion, than to try to assemble a logical understanding bit by bit.
Stephen MacKenna, the aforementioned translator of the
Enneads
, says that “Plotinus is often to be understood rather by swift and broad rushes of the mind—the mind trained to his methods—than by laborious word-racking investigation.”
6
Plotinus himself tells us that the valuable part of philosophy “perceives by directing intuition, as sense-perception also does, but it hands over petty precisions of speech to another discipline which finds satisfaction in them.” [I-3-5]
Reason (discursive thought) is akin to the piecing together of a jigsaw puzzle. It is satisfying when our logic succeeds in forming a coherent picture of reality, and this indeed is part of what Plotinus sought to accomplish by writing the
Enneads
—but, I believe, it was just a small part. His greater goal was to turn our attention to what supports the multitudinous pieces of creation, the omnipresent ineffable foundation of the One.
Just as a tabletop lies under each piece of a jigsaw puzzle, so is the One beneath every separate sensory perception and mental thought. Neither the tabletop nor the One is far away from what is supported. Delve only a tiny distance, a fraction of an inch for a puzzle, a dimensionless shift in consciousness for the One, and the simple substance of the foundation is reached.
So you and I shouldn’t worry if there is a gap in our understanding of Plotinus because this emptiness can serve as the opening that enables us to realize the One lying beneath appearances.
T
OO OFTEN
, our lot in life’s journey is just to travel around in small circles because most of our goals are trivial or futile. Plotinus urges us to carefully consider what we are seeking and avoid useless wheel-spinning, false starts, and blind alleys. Everyone is looking for something so our problem isn’t lack of desire. It is how to direct that desire to assure that what we end up with is truly and permanently fulfilling.
And we must consider that men have forgotten that which from the beginning until now they want and long for. For all things reach out to that and long for it by necessity of nature, as if divining by instinct that they cannot exist without it.
[V-5-12]
Plotinus isn’t a world-denying ascetic determined to take all the juicy fun out of life, leaving only a dry rind of abstract thought and spiritual discipline. He can sound that way at times but his asceticism is always a means, not an end. He urges us to turn away from our concern with lesser goods and attain
the
Good. Plotinus is not content with enjoying partial and ephemeral pleasures. His goal is the complete and permanent pleasure that comes through union with the One, also known as the Good, or what many call God.
So the good life will not belong to those who feel pleasure but to the man who is able to know that pleasure is the good…. The Good, therefore, must be desirable, but must not become good by being desirable, but become desirable by being good.
[I-4-2, VI-7-25]
Animals are fully capable of feeling pleasure. Observe a cat playing with catnip or a dog savoring a bone. If this is all we aspire to we are missing the point of being human.
All souls—celestial, human, animal, insect, plant—desire the One. For the One, or God, is the goal to which all animate beings aspire. This yearning is built into the structure of creation, since the Good is desired because it is the ultimate reality, whereas other things become good for us because we desire them. Hence, there is one objective highest Good and a multitude of subjective lesser goods. As humans we are capable of recognizing the difference between what is merely pleasurable and what is truly good for us. Other living beings lack this ability.
Because humans have the ability to play such an exalted role in the cosmos, we cannot be truly happy if we merely act out the parts of beings with a much lesser capacity. As a military recruiting slogan put it: “Be all that you can be.” A good life is a full life, which means expressing all of our innate capabilities. Unfulfilled potential, like a half-empty balloon, does not allow us to soar to the heights of happiness.
Could one say that the good for a thing was anything else than the full natural activity of its life?
[I-7-1]
It is understandable if we fail to realize that the One is our good, since our “full natural activity” seems to be firmly rooted in the familiar pursuits of everyday life: working, raising children, learning new things, enjoying nature, helping others, praying, exercising, relaxing, making love, eating and drinking. Where in all of this activity is there any sign of an urge toward a divine reality that transcends sensation, emotion, and reason?
“Everywhere,” we can imagine Plotinus answering. “You are not looking deeply enough. Ignore outward appearances. What common desire lies behind the actions of all living beings and even inanimate objects? To be one.”
Consider a large rock. Lodged firmly in the middle of my garden plot, it tries with all its might to remain a rock, notwithstanding the sledgehammer blows with which I attempt to convert it to an unrock. Even if I am able to break the rock into pieces, each piece retains its rockness. Similarly, everything alive strives more actively to maintain its oneness. An ant flees the beetle that wants to destroy its antness. A chicken races to avoid the fox bent on annihilating its chickenness. A soldier fights against the enemy set on obliterating his humanness.
For each thing wishes not just for being, but for being together with the good…. For all individual things do not strive to get away from each other, but towards each other and towards themselves; and all souls would like to come to unity, following their own nature.
[VI-2-11]
Even suicide, it may be argued, reflects a desire for unity, a hoped-for final rest that seems preferable to a shattered life. And self-sacrifice aims to preserve the unity of the larger family, species, culture, nation, or ideal that is more important to the altruistic individual than his or her personal needs. So Plotinus seems to have it right that people seek both to be one with themselves, by preserving their existence and sense of selfhood, and to be one with others, through all the things they do to feel close to their fellow humans.
Possessions, of course, are another reflection of this innate urge for the One. We are not satisfied with having just the idea of a big-screen television, slinky black dress, umpteen megahertz computer, or turbo-charged sports car. We want to make that idea a reality, to bring the object of our desire right into our living rooms, closets, offices, or garages, and then to make it as much a part of our lives as possible. Until, at least, an even better thing comes along.
Our aspiration is fine, to unite as closely as possible with what is good for us. The problem lies with our understanding of what the ultimate good is, and how it can be possessed.
What is really worth aspiring to for us is our selves, bringing themselves back for themselves to the best of themselves.
[VI-7-30]
Plotinus teaches that the best in us is essentially identical with the highest reality of the One. Thus we can never have what we are looking for, happiness and well-being, through becoming one with anything or anyone outside of ourselves. In fact, that is impossible, since there always is a gap between us and what we seek to possess. I watch my television and drive my car; I can’t
become
these things. Nor, indeed, would I want to, which makes me wonder why they hold such an attraction.
Could it be that what I am looking for is actually within me, not outside? Is it possible that all the people and objects that hold such a fascination for me are crude, material reflections of a refined, spiritual reality and it is the latter I really long for?
Imagine, says Plotinus, that what you have desired most passionately your whole life finally is within your grasp. The fervently desired object of your secret dreams, your intimate longings, your heartfelt prayers—now it stands before you, fully yours now and forever. Imagine this, and you will have an idea of what it means to return to the One.
As for those unfamiliar with this state, let him imagine after the model of the loves of this world what it must be like to encounter what one loves most of all. Besides, these objects which we love are mortal, harmful images; they are changing, for they are not the true Beloved: they are not our Good, not what we are searching for.
The true Beloved is in that other world, and it is possible to be united with him, if we participate in him and thus possess him truly, and not only from the outside, as would be the case if we only embraced him with our arms of flesh and blood.
[VI-9-9]
1
Plotinus does not espouse the extinction of desire, but the channeling of desire. Within us is a spiritual engine, longing, that is always running strong. We lack steering, not power; it is easy to be thrown off course by lower desires and inclinations, wrongly believing that things of this world can fill the emptiness within us. In truth, that hunger can only be satisfied by the One.
Hence, Plotinus advocates what might be called a one-stop shopping approach to finding satisfaction in life. Rather than picking up bits and pieces of well-being here and there, hoping that they will somehow mesh into a satisfying whole, we should concentrate on obtaining from one source that single thing which will satisfy completely.
The One is both the object and the cause of desire, as it is both the origin and the reason for being.
It is the source therefore of being and the why of being, giving both at once.
[VI-8-14]
Plotinus asks: Do desire and longing go on forever, always seeking a greater good beyond what already has been attained? If so, life seemingly would be insufferable, a never-ending cycle of “I want, I get; I want more, I get more.” Thankfully, he says, wanting will end if we are able to reach the summit of reality beyond which there is nothing more to be desired.
But it will come to a stop at the ultimate, at that after which one cannot grasp anything higher, and this is the First and the really good and the Good in the strictest sense, and the cause also of the other goods.
[VI-7-25]
Thus we have in the One what Lloyd Gerson calls the “way to measure achievement, that is, the coincidence of desire and result.”
2
“All striving or desire,” says Gerson, “aims at achieving an intrinsically satisfying condition not already present or the continuation of such a condition.”
3
The One is the ultimate measure of goodness because only in the One is there complete simplicity and unity. Here, and nowhere else, is the absolute confluence of wanting and getting, the final end of desire.
The endpoint of the journey of the soul is not, however, to be entirely absorbed into the One like an ice cube thrown into a warm ocean. Rather, it is to be united as closely as two entities can be while still remaining distinct. Speaking of this blissful condition, Plotinus says:
Everything longs for its parent and loves it, especially when parent and offspring are alone; but when the parent is the highest good, the offspring is necessarily with him and separate from him only in otherness.
[V-l-6]
Life sets before us many challenges. It is difficult enough for a person to simply maintain his or her bodily existence by finding food, shelter, and clothing. To also nurture a family, succeed in a profession, gain worldly knowledge, help solve social problems, remain devoted to a marriage partner, and pursue any of the other myriad activities to which we are drawn seems to make us stretched, and often stressed, as much as can be imagined.
Plotinus is not asking us to add one more to-do to our ever expanding list of aspirations: (1) learn to play piano, (2) lose fifteen pounds, (3) smooth out golf swing, (4) return to the One. No, the message of the
Enneads
is much more radical: to look upon everything other than spiritual uplift as a mere pastime unworthy of being taken seriously. If we must shed tears or smile with joy, it should be for the One, not anything else, no matter how important it may appear to worldly eyes.
The man who attains this is blessed in seeing that “blessed sight,” and he who fails to attain it has failed utterly…. For this he should give up the attainment of kingship and of rule over all earth and sea and sky, if only by leaving and overlooking them he can turn to That and see.
[I-6-7]