Return to the One (15 page)

He thought up the animals next, I suppose, and assigned specific forms to each one of them, just as they have today, and for each of them he thought up their guts on the inside and their limbs on the outside? And then, once each thing had been properly arranged within his mind, only then did he set about his task?

Nonsense; in the first place, such a conception is impossible—whence would it have come to him, when he had not yet seen anything? Secondly, even if he had received it from someone else, he could not have put it into action, like craftsmen do now by using their hands or their instruments: hands and feet did not come into being until later!

The only alternative is that everything existed elsewhere [in the spiritual world], but since there was nothing in between them, there suddenly appeared, as it were, by virtue of their proximity to each other within Being, an image and icon of the spiritual world.
[V-8-7]
⁵

Creation thus is continuous contemplation in much the same way that a mirror continuously contemplates the image of that which stands before it. Instantly and naturally, without effort, a reflection appears. This physical universe, says Plotinus, is the reflection of forms within spirit. Matter is the mirror that permits such materialization of spiritual realities to occur.

John Deck explains, “If a mirror is within range of a man, a reflection of the man simply appears in the mirror. There is nothing apparent leaving the man to go to the mirror. He seems to lose nothing, yet he
causes
his reflection. No man—no reflection of a man. The reflection is ‘real’ because of the man…. For Plotinus, the case a step higher is parallel to this…. If there were no true beings there would be no sensible things.”
⁶

The mystic philosopher seeks reality rather than reflection. So he or she aims to contemplate the original forms of creation, not their copies evident in the physical world. The Platonic and Plotinian view is that there is a Flower in the spiritual world which isn’t a particular flower such as the rose or buttercup we see in nature. Rather, it is the immaterial essence of flowerness itself, the Flower from which all other flowers flow, we might say. And the same goes for every other form in creation.

Thus someone who longs for beauty, truth, love, power, or anything else he might desire, will not find it in this world as it truly is. What he will attain, at best, is a relatively crude material image of that spiritual form. The form itself cannot and does not reside anywhere but in the spiritual realm. Only the spiritualized soul is able to contact the forms directly, which is the sole way a longing for reality, true and simple, can be satisfied.

This leads Plotinus to present us with an astounding conclusion. In a single sweeping generalization, he turns upside-down one of the most widely accepted tenets of modern culture: that action is the key to success in life. Often we are told by advice columnists, personal development speakers, business school professors, psychotherapists, and a host of others, that unless we follow our dreams we will never be able to live life to the fullest. An athletic shoe company summed up this pop philosophy in a pithy slogan known around the world: “Just Do It.”

Plotinus might well answer: “Do it if you can’t contemplate it.” Consider: Isn’t it true that we do whatever we do because we believe it will bring us something we lack? Why else would we do anything at all?

Stress leads us to go on vacation and get relaxed. Romantic or sexual deprivation causes us to look for a man or woman who will satisfy our needs. Ignorance of something causes us to go to the library or connect to the Internet, seeking information that will fill the void in our knowledge. A yearning to display musical talent impels us to pick up an instrument and play some tunes.

But what if we weren’t desirous of anything? What if we possessed within us much or all that we currently seek without? Would we then need to keep acting as we do now?

When people are too weak for contemplation, they switch to action, which is a mere shadow of contemplation and of reason. Since, owing to the weakness of their souls, their faculty of contemplation is insufficient, they cannot grasp the object of their contemplation and be fulfilled by it.

Yet they still want to see it; and so they switch to action, in order to see with their eyes what they could not see with their spirit. In any case, when they create something, it is because they themselves want to see it and to contemplate it; and when they propose to act, insofar as they are able, it is because they want their act to be perceived by others.
[III-8-4]
⁷

It certainly is true that much of what I do is intended to fill a spiritual void rather than a material void. I like cars with lots of horsepower—yet if I felt genuinely powerful myself, would I have the same desire? I enjoy going to movies and being entertained—yet if I was really comfortable with myself, would I need to sit in a dark theater and become absorbed in an imaginary depiction of someone else’s life?

Plotinus is suggesting that perhaps we already have the ability to possess directly through contemplation what we so assiduously attempt to create in a circuitous way through action.

Action, then, is for the sake of contemplation and vision, so that for men of action, too, contemplation is the goal, and what they cannot get by going straight to it, so to speak, they seek to obtain by going round about…. For who, if he is able to contemplate what is truly real will deliberately go after its image?
[III-8-6, III-8-4]

Truth Is Transparent

M
OST OF US
have mixed feelings about truth. On the one hand, we value truth highly. We want true friends, reliable companions who stick with us through thick and thin. We respect truth-tellers whose words are commensurate with the way things are. We strive to be true to ourselves by linking inner being with outer action. We puncture pretenses with a pithy, “Get real.”

At the same time, the pursuit of truth can be exhausting. A never-ending existential battle continually rages between what is and what seems to be. Just as true-or-false questions bedevil test-taking students, every person alive is confronted with a constant and ever-changing stream of problems that demand correct answers. What sort of food is best for my health? Which investment strategy is going to make me financially secure? Where did I put my car keys? When is the proper time to plant my vegetable garden?

If there were no right answer to such questions we wouldn’t worry about being wrong. So the very existence of truth (or at least its assumed existence) creates a continual tension between what I know and what can be known. It’s difficult to ever completely relax. Doubts never disappear completely. Can I truly trust my spouse, my accountant, my spiritual advisor, my lawmakers? Can I really be secure in my philosophy of life, my religion, my code of ethics, my accumulated store of knowledge?

In this world, truth always seems to be concealed under some sort of cover, like a giggling child hiding under a bedspread: we’re sure it’s there, but we can’t see it directly. We do our best to rip off the coverings of ignorance and misunderstanding, yet somehow the fullness of reality always manages to wriggle away and stay just out of reach. Actually, we can’t say about anything, “Concerning this, I know all there is to be known.”

What about the higher world, the spiritual realm? There, says Plotinus, we can be absolutely certain of what is true because falsehood is an impossibility. In the unitary domain of spirit, there is no other to obscure the truth.

All things are transparent, and there is nothing dark or resistant, but each Form is clear for all others right down to its innermost parts, for light is clear to light.
[V-8-4]
¹

Philosophers have argued interminably about whether truth is objective or subjective and, if objective truth exists, whether it ever can be known completely. Plotinus’s position is wonderfully simple: “Yes, there is objective truth. And yes, it can be known.” Yet this answer applies only to spiritual reality. Here in the physical universe, our capacity to experience things as they are is limited by inescapable gaps between the senses and what is sensed, knowing and what is known, reality and what is realized.

But when contemplation is complete and our souls are attuned to the oneness of the spiritual world, we are able to experience reality as it is—with no covers of conceptions, thoughts, emotions, or physical sensations.

So that the real truth is also there, which does not agree with something else, but with itself, and says nothing other than itself, but it is what it says and it says what it is…. For you could not find anything truer than the truth.
[V-5-2]

Here on earth, our attempts at understanding something tend to be circular, fingers pointing at other fingers pointing. But where and what is the thing itself? For example, Arthur Eddington, a pioneering twentieth-century physicist, noted: “Electric force is defined as something which causes motion of an electric charge; an electric charge is something which exerts electric force. So that an electric charge is something that exerts something that produces motion of something that exerts something that produces …
ad infinitum
.”
²

Whether we study the world inside or outside of ourselves, we end up with precise descriptions of how things are constructed, interrelate, and function, but precious little understanding of what anything is all by itself. Consider yourself. String together as many truthful statements as you like: “I’m a man (or woman); I’m old (or young); I’m tall (or short); I’m a believer in God (or a non-believer).” No matter how many words, pictures, or mathematical equations you use to describe yourself, can these ever manage to encompass you as you truly are?

Through a variety of powerful arguments, the Greek philosophers known as Skeptics asserted that it is impossible to possess true knowledge. Since what we seek to know is always separate from ourselves, in our quest for truth we either have to trust our sense perceptions, which are subjective and unreliable, or our thoughts, which are necessarily founded on premises that are themselves based on other thoughts or sense perceptions.

Like Eddington, the Skeptic finds a world where hunters of truth are doomed, like hyperactive falcons, to forever circle around their prey and never grasp it firmly in the talons of their consciousness.

Plotinus, however, teaches that there is a way for the mystic philosopher to swoop right in and realize truth fully and completely. He agrees with the Skeptics that perceptions and thoughts are inadequate means of bagging reality. Bits and pieces of truth, some large and some small, always end up escaping. But Dominic O’Meara says, “The possibility of true knowledge can be realized if the object known is the same as the subject that knows.”
³

It is a kind of understanding and perception of our Self in which we must be very careful lest, wishing to perceive more, we do not stray away from our Self.
[V-8-11]
⁴

A spiritual seeker thus is advised to cultivate an inner attitude of not-knowing that is at odds with our habitual way of gaining knowledge of the physical world. Since truth is transparent in the realm of spirit, to have a vision of it takes no special effort of thought or perception. All one has to do is be fully there, as soul conformed to spirit, and wisdom will flow into his or her consciousness as sunlight streams through a clean windowpane. Our goal is to be nothing other than what we truly are; only then will we know everything that truly is.

In the higher spiritual realms, all is effortless. This includes gaining knowledge of truth, real reality. One simply sees. And what is seen is true.

Even in this world, we know a great deal about people even when they are silent, through their eyes. There [i.e. in the intelligible world], however, the whole body is pure, and each person is like an eye; there is nothing hidden or fabricated, but before one person speaks to another, the latter has already understood just by looking at him.
[IV-3-18]
⁵

Not only does communication of spiritual verities take place wordlessly and instantly, it is so natural as to be unnoticed. Here, we rejoice (“Eureka!”) when we learn something significant because truth is so elusive and falsehood so evident. On the physical plane, it takes a lot of effort to overcome the barriers to knowledge. The crudity of matter serves as a heavy lid on the strongbox of reality; rational thought, expressive emotion, and sensible perception are not strong enough to toss aside that cover.

What Plotinus advises is to use the right tool for the job. So long as we reside in materiality, truth is never going to be found lying around in the open, begging to be picked up by us. It is going to dart and hide, play peek-a-boo, taunt us with cries of “Thought you had me? Now you don’t!” We can choose to continue playing these endless earthly games of maybe-it-is-maybe-it-isn’t or we can form consciousness into a means of knowing reality in its fullness.

This is accomplished not by poking and prodding the outer skin of reality, cajoling truth to reveal its secrets from without, but rather by ourselves becoming the very essence of reality, spirit. Since spirit contains the forms of everything in existence, we come to realize truth from the inside, not the outside. Truth becomes not just a familiar companion—a friend who never lets us down—it becomes even more: our very being.

Then, who is there to know? What is there to be known?

For truth ought not to be the truth of something else, but to be what it says…. The quiet companionship of health gives us a better understanding of it; for it comes and sits by us as something which belongs to us, and is united to us. Illness is alien and not our own, and therefore particularly obvious because it appears so very different from us.
[V-3-5, V-8-11]

When we know something intimately, there is no space between ourselves and our knowing that thoughts or perceptions can creep into. Thus, says Plotinus, we understand the most when we aren’t consciously aware of our understanding. Our health usually is so much a part of us that we don’t give it a second thought and usually not even a first thought. It is only when someone asks “How are you?” that we engage in some self-examination and say, “Fine.”

The most transparent truth is the least recognizable because there is no contrast to make it stand out. It is sickness that makes us notice health, just as pollution draws our attention to normally clear air. So the highest spiritual wisdom isn’t a matter of conscious perception (“Now I know the One!”) but of a divine union that is so complete there is no discernible difference between the knower, the knowing, and the known.