The Wisdom of Hypatia: Ancient Spiritual Practices for a More Meaningful Life (47 page)

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moral virtues) results in the warmth of the heart, so Wisdom (the reflective virtues) leads to clarity of the intellect (nous). In this way we progress from Purification to Illumination.

Plotinus reminds us:

We’re beautiful when we’re truly ourselves;

we’re beautiful when we know ourselves.262

Beauty in the Soul:
Developing the beauty in your soul is not a practice you do at special times, but an activity for all your waking hours. The primary part of

this is to practice the first two degrees of wisdom in your everyday life, but you

can take it to a higher level by imagining, in all your thoughts and actions, how

your perfect beloved would react to them. None of us is perfect, but you can

beautify your soul by striving to make yourself attractive to your ideal beloved.

In all your actions, ask yourself, “What would my beloved think?” You may

want to reflect on your progress in your journal, or discuss it with your teacher

or others on the path.

Illumination—The Nous

Our imaginary lesson continues as Hypatia moves on to the World Nous. “The next

stage in the ascent to The One is usually called Illumination, since it involves contact with Ideas in the Cosmic Mind, which illuminates the soul with its ideal Form. There are two steps in Illumination, which correspond to Ideal Beauty and the Good, symbolized by the row of two in the Tetractys; they also correspond to the determinate Mind and the indeterminate Mind, which I’ve explained in my public lectures (chapter 8). Ideal Beauty depends on determinate Forms, but the Good is an all-pervasive indefinite

continuum of well-being.

“To understand the illumination by Ideal Beauty it is necessary to recall the characteristics of the Noetic principle, which is both the divine Nous and the world of Forms as Ideas in the Cosmic Nous. The Forms are living, conscious Ideas in a state of mutual contemplation, which constitutes a living, conscious whole. The whole implies all its parts, and each part implies the whole; the Forms are transparent and interpenetrat-ing. Among the Forms are all the immortal, divine nouses, including the gods (or an-

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gels) and the noetic souls of people. The noetic relation is more like intuitive contemplation than logical, reflective thought.

“As pure form devoid of matter, the Forms achieve perfection and hence consti-

tute the perfect Beauty of the All moving in its intuitive necessity. The beauty of nature is, of course, a reflection of this Ideal Beauty.

“In the preceding stages of the ascent your soul has retained its individual identity, but in this stage its noetic part experiences itself as an integral part of the All. Therefore your soul must set aside the non-being that makes it an individual (by imposing finiteness and separation on it). In this way your soul abandons the individual, particular, and contingent, and ascends to the universal and eternal.”

Aedesia raises her hand and says, “I don’t understand why non-being makes a soul

individual.”

“To be an individual,” the teacher replies, “it must be connected in itself, which

gives it unity, but it must also be separate from other things, which differentiates it from the others. So there must be a sort of gap or break in existence, non-existence to separate the existence of the one from the existence of the other. In other words, non-being is what separates one being one thing from being another. Do you understand?”

“I think so. We are supposed to ascend from the level of individual existence, which depends on non-being, to the level of universal being, where everything is unified.”

Hypatia nods approvingly. “That’s correct. To reach this level, your soul must not

think
about the Forms, or even contemplate them as other, but must
become
them and experience their organic, fluent mutual contemplation. In this intuitive flow, your soul is unselfconscious and loses its awareness (as in our everyday experiences of

completely absorbed, competent activity). However, we cannot maintain this state for long, for the human soul is inherently conscious, so we soon fall back to a lower level.

Let’s give it a try with an exercise.”

230 the path of love

Contemplation of Ideal Beauty:
The remaining stages of the Ascent by Love are more difficult than the preceding, since they are at the level of the nous, and you cannot strive to bring them about, for sequential mental activity—thinking—will

drop you back to the level of the soul, where thinking takes place. Begin by

making yourself comfortable and then ascending to the level of the Soul, as

described in
The Ideal Beloved
. When you have established the image of your

Ideal Beloved’s body and soul in your mind, and you are feeling love for it (for

this is the origin of the beauty of your real beloved), try to maintain this image

and love in your mind. You are attempting to rise above the level of time, so

this should not be a moving image, but a stable thought (an Idea). Your mind

will wander from time to time, and when it does, reestablish your contempla-

tion at the level of the soul, and then return to the noetic level. The goal is to

remain as long as possible in a state of stable contemplation, devotion, and

love for your Ideal Beloved.

After the students have been allowed some time for contemplation, Hypatia re-

sumes her teaching. “The object of the second stage of illumination is to turn away

from the nous’s contemplation of itself and to direct its attention upward, toward the Good. To accomplish this it must eliminate form so that it may rise above the multiplicity of the world of Forms and approach the One. That is, it must transcend the duality inherent in the world of Forms. For aid, we may pray as Proclus prays to a goddess:

Breathe into my love

a power great and capable

to raise me up again

from Matter’s bosom to Olympus.263

“In this stage Eros reaches out to your soul from beyond Nous and draws your

nous toward the Good, which has awakened desire, as the lover is drawn to the be-

loved. Thus your nous orbits The One. This love is superior to the Beauty in the world of Forms, for it is luminous and alive, moving with grace; it is an (unwilled) act of grace by The One. Your soul must ignore everything but the luminous energy of this love.