The flight of

PLOTINUS the alone to

(204-269 PO CHR.) the Alone
 TRUE MYSTICAL PHILOSOPHER

Platonic philosophy in Plotinus thought found its true

mystical dimension
Neoplatonism created by Plotinus covered almost all of main
currents of earlier ancient philosophy and they all are unified
around mystical core of his philosophy.
He and his followers called themselves simply Platonists
All they wanted to do is to understand and give a good
commentary to all dialogues of Plato

These doctrines are no novelties, no inventions of today; they

were stated, though not elaborated, long ago. Our present
teaching is simply an exposition of them we can prove the
antiquity of these opinions by Platos own testimony (V.1.8).
 NEW ISSUES IN NEOPLATONISM

Plotinus is deeply original (depending of how much he owes to

Ammonius Sakkas)
Most of all he is interested in understanding spiritual reality
as a true reality of the soul
He sees this world in the new way it exists as three main
principles who process from each other
These principles are spiritual beings persons (hypostases),
or gods
Their procession is a mode of existence of spiritual reality
(not the explanation of becoming into being)
They are The One or Good, Intellect and Soul.
UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES DONT:

- call this process:

this is: procession

(proeimi, proodos)

- call second hypostasis:

this is: intellect (nous)

 PROODOS AND EPISTROPHE

The One ( )
proceesion
prodoj return
kpreusij (epistrophe)
preimi
Intelect ( )

Soul of Unity
Soul ( ) Soul of the World
Human souls

Sensual world
 Soul

Intelect

The One
 RETURN AS CONTEMPLATION

The process of return is a movement of desire, desire

nourished by and expressed in contemplation.
Two kinds of contemplation
week: contemplation which is pointed outside it is some kind of
action
genuine: contemplation pointed inside cause and process of return
For Plotinus, the higher is not the more remote; the higher is
the more inward: one climbs up by climbing in, as it were.
Ascent to the One is a process of withdrawal into oneself.
 REASON OF SOULS ASCENTION

Soul never ascends fully in the world of matter. It is always a

linked with intelectucal reality, and never be fully corupted by
becoming form of material body.
The soul is to seek for itself, for its true self, and in doing that
it is seeking for the divine, for the soul belongs to the divine,
it has kinship with the divine. But soul can always fall in its
conviction of being material
The fallen souls becoming dwellers in the Place of
Unlikeness, where, fallen from all resemblance to the Divine,
we lie in gloom and mud (I.8.13).
It is because of this kinship that the quest is worth pursuing,
and similarly because of this kinship that it will be successful
(see V.1 .1 .).
 KINDS OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS

Plotinus was, perhaps, the first to see that self -

consciousness, self-awareness, can be a hindrance to the
souls progress.
The Soul can think that it is at the centre of its being, but it is
not the true centre at all: there is then what might be called a
certain ec-centricity (out-of- centredness) in the fallen soul.
And this ec-centricity engenders tension in the soul, a tension
that it feels as self -consciousness.
True self-consciousness is a knowledge of duality, of
unlikeness, in the soul: as the soul returns into itself,
becoming more truly what it is.
 KTHARSIS - PURIFICATION

The pursuit of morality is not necessary good, because it can

bind the soul to sensual world.
There are two kinds of virtues:
civic virtues concerning of how to achieve a good behavior in
sensual world.
temperance how to control desires
courage how to control anger
justice how to give what should be given in the sensual etc.
purificatory virtues they are helping the soul to detach from
sensual world
temperance get rid of desires
courage get rid of anger
justice my proper place is in upper reality
Intellectual purification teaches us of how to pass from plural
to singular and simple source of all.
 BEYOND THE WORLD OF FORMS

Purification restores the soul to itself, restores it to the realm

of the Forms, the realm of nous, Intelligence.
And yet this realm is not the ultimate; here is not the end of
the souls quest. For, here, there is still duality: beyond, there
is the One.
This realm does not explains itself, but testifies of the higher
reality of the One.
Soul can do nothing more, beasides its own purification.
Only by a leap can we reach to this One . . . (V.5.8). But it is
not a leap the soul makes; rather it is something done to
the soul.
 HENOSIS AND ESCTASY

Here, we must put aside all the learning; disciplined to

this pitch, established in beauty, the quester holds all
knowledge still of the ground he rests on, but, suddenly
(exaiphnes), swept beyond it all by the very crest of the wave of
Intellect surging beneath, he is lifted and sees, never knowing
how; the vision floods the eyes with light , but it is not a light
showing some other object, the light itself is the vision. No
longer is there thing seen and light to show it, no longer
Intellect and object of Intellection; this is the very radiance that
brought both Intellect and Intellectual object into being for the
later use and allowed them to occupy the questers mind. With
This he himself becomes identical, with that radiance whose Act
is to engender Intellectual -Principle . . . (VI.7.36)
 STATE OF UNION

Since the soul passes beyond self -consciousness, it cannot

say that when the experience has passed the state of union
with the divine has vanished.
Plotinus is describing it in such way that we should rather
speak of a state of union with the One .
the main source of the dif ficulty is that awareness of this
Principle comes neither by knowing nor by the Intellection
that discovers the Intellectual beings, but by a presence
overpassing all knowledge (VI.9.4).
Plotinus speaks of awareness of the One in union by using
terms:
parousia presence
synaphe touching.
 THE FLIGHT OF THE ALONE TO THE
ALONE
He is become the Unity, nothing within him or without
inducing any diversity; no movement now, no passion, no
outlooking desire, once this ascent is achieved; reasoning is
in abeyance and all Intellection and even, to dare the word,
the very self: caught away, filled with God, he has in perfect
stillness attained isolation; all the being calmed, he turns
neither to this side nor to that, not even inwards to himself;
utterly resting he has become very rest. (A . Louth)

This is no personal union

The One has no concern for the soul that seeks him
This union is apart of any comunity with others. The soul has
no concern for others engaged on the same quest
Solitariness, isolation; the implications of this undermine any
possibility of a doctrine of grace. (A . Louth)