Return to the One (19 page)
Authors: Brian Hines
This means that it is impossible to evade the lawful consequences of our willful thoughts and actions. Yet the connection between what we do and what happens to us isn’t always obvious because of the frequent time lag between a cause and an observable effect. For example, a sudden city-shattering earthquake is the result of slight slippages in the earth’s crust that build up unnoticeably over many years.
So life often appears unfair to us since we lack the intelligent vision of providence that sees the complete picture, all the cause and effect linkages that combine to produce the show of “Our Life.” But the universal law knows my just deserts and implants within me the desire for whatever tasty thought or action will lead me to my proper place at the table of providence.
Along these lines, most of us have had the disconcerting experience of setting out to avoid some problem and finding that our intentions led us right into the maw of what we were trying to escape. I’m stuck in traffic, worried that I will be fifteen minutes late to an important meeting, and impulsively take a shortcut that I think will save me time. Then I end up driving around lost for an hour.
He too who is to suffer punishment is carried unknowing to what he has to suffer; on his unsteady course he is tossed about everywhere in his wanderings, and in the end, as if utterly weary, by his very efforts at resistance he falls into the place which suits him, having that which he did not will for his punishment as a result of the course which he willed.
[IV-3-24]
So, says Plotinus, providence returns to us the unwilled effects of freely-willed (or quasi-freely-willed) actions. This makes life interesting, to say the least, and unpredictable. We never know for sure what is going to happen to us next because we are not improvisational actors each in our own one-man shows. Rather, each of us is but a single player in a cast of billions that is putting on a well-scripted production. My freely-spoken lines may begin a scene: “You are a dastardly demon, Dudley!” Yet the fistfight that ensues was not part of my original creative vision, and sets me off on a different dramatic course.
What we really want is more than a providence that simply keeps on providing, for this takes us nowhere but around in circles: actions and consequences forever following one upon the other. Plotinus teaches that, fortunately, providence provides not only rewards and punishments but also a means of escaping from the rule of justice that prevails in the physical universe. In the spiritual world there is no such law because all is bound by a higher unity than cause and effect. The quotation above ends with this promise of liberation, return to the One:
But it is stated in the law how much and how long he must suffer, and again there come together the release from punishment and the ability to escape up from these regions by the power of the harmony which holds the universe together.
[IV-3-24]
However, we have not yet reached that point in these pages. Before a return, a departure. A descent precedes the climb back up.
O
UR SOUL
, or
psyche,
has been called “the wanderer of the metaphysical world.”
1
Recall the central elements in Plato’s parable of the cave. There is the light of the One shining eternally beyond the cave opening. There are the forms of spirit moving back and forth along a platform within the cave, casting shadows onto the cavern wall. There are the prisoners, chained so that they cannot escape from the cave. Each of these elements is unchanging, or nearly so.
And then there is the escaping prisoner, the human soul who is capable of existing on different levels of reality: imprisoned within the darkness of materiality, moving toward spiritual illumination, or fully enlightened in the radiance of the One. Spirit and the Soul of the All are essentially fixed in place, unceasingly contemplating what lies above them and forever bringing into being what lies below.
The individual soul is the only entity in Plotinus’s cosmos that is capable of spanning all domains, akin to an elevator that has access to everything from the lowest level of creation all the way to the highest. A person can go to any floor if he or she learns how to push the right buttons, so to speak, to take the soul’s attention from the physical universe to spiritual worlds.
It
[soul]
is said to be buried and in a cave, but, when it turns to intelligence, to be freed from its fetters and to ascend, when it is started on the contemplation of reality by recollection…. Souls then become, one might say, amphibious, compelled to live by turns the life There and the life here.
[IV-8-4]
Some aspect of the soul, says Plotinus, always is there in the realm of spirit. Currently most of us are conscious only of the aspect that is here in the material world. So to realize one’s spiritual nature all that is required is to recollect that forgotten part of one’s self. The pilgrims who traveled from England to America in the 1600’s necessarily traveled by ship, but the conscious soul traverses an ocean of consciousness and requires no means other than what it already possesses to make its journey.
However, this ease of transport is a two-edged sword. The soul can easily descend, and not-quite-so-easily ascend. While the English pilgrims got off the
Mayflower
and stayed in the New World (most of them, at least), the pilgrimage of the soul has an amphibious nature: here, there, here, there. It is as if the pilgrims went back and forth across the Atlantic, not content to remain in either land.
Until the soul enjoys complete fulfillment by returning to the One it is prone to bounce back and forth between the physical and spiritual worlds. As Pierre Hadot puts it, “If we fall back down, it must be because we could not stand being up above any longer. From now on, however, we won’t be able to stand being down here. Henceforth, we don’t belong anywhere: we are too terrestrial to be able to keep the divine gift, but have now become too divine to forget it.”
2
Just as amphibians are able to live either on land or in water, so is the soul well-adapted for life on both higher and lower planes of reality. For while spirit is always spiritual, and matter is always material, Plotinus teaches that the soul has a wide-ranging capacity.
This accounts for the amazing variety of human pursuits, interests, inclinations and preoccupations. Some are angelic, some beastly. Some are refined, some crude. Some are uplifting, some degrading. There is nothing we cannot be because the soul is both all that is heavenly and all that is earthly.
For the soul is many things, and all things, both the things above and the things below down to the limits of all life, and we are each one of us an intelligible universe…. And since it is a thing belonging to the frontier between the worlds, and occupies a corresponding position, it moves in both directions.
[III-4-3, IV-4-3]
The soul is, we might say, footloose and fancy free. Like someone who has dual citizenship in two countries, nothing prevents us from crossing and re-crossing the border that separates the spiritual and material realms.
Soul is something separable.
[IV-3-20]
However, this freedom of movement carries with it the danger that we may leave a better place for a worse. From spiritual oneness we descend to physical manyness. Why would we want to do this? Because, says Plotinus, we can.
As if it
[soul]
cannot bear its being to be one when it is capable of being all the things that it is.
[VI-2-6]
The soul is pulled in two directions, toward unity, and toward multiplicity. One way takes us closer to the creator, the other closer to creation.
The individual souls, certainly, have an intelligent desire consisting in the impulse to return to itself springing from the principle from which they came into being, but they also possess a power directed to the world here below.
[IV-8-4]
Our intelligent desire is to return to spirit and the One. But if a soul is unintelligent, having lost sight of where genuine truth, goodness, and beauty reside, then it will seek what is lesser than itself, materiality, rather than what is greater, spirit and the One. If a soul desires to express its creative capacities and become involved with what has been created, inevitably it will be drawn downward to the physical creation.
And we remain with all the rest of our intelligible part above, but by its ultimate fringe we are tied to the world below.
[III-4-3]
Our involvement with worldly affairs has no effect on the part of soul that always remains in touch with the spiritual realm. It is possible, then, to straddle the two worlds, enjoying the lower without totally leaving the higher. In an ideal situation we wouldn’t forget that we are permanent denizens of Spirit paying a visit to Matter. The reality, however, generally is quite different.
For most of us consider Earth to be our home. Even though death is inevitable, we still view this universe as a lasting habitation rather than as a place to visit temporarily. This is evidenced by the fact that people generally are much more concerned about the health of their bodies than the well-being of their souls, notwithstanding the lip service that may be paid to religions or spiritual paths. To understand how immersed we are in matter rather than spirit, just consider: What mostly occupies our attention each day?
Recall that creation is contemplation. Whatever soul or spirit pays attention to, that comes into being. The Soul of the All contemplates the forms of the spiritual world and brings the physical universe into existence. But the contemplation of this universal soul leaves it unmoved (which explains why the laws of nature are so dependable and immutable) while the contemplation of lesser souls generally draws them to what has been created.
Plotinus teaches that every soul has a power of illumination. This is what brings life to materiality, for matter is inert, formless, and dead without the energizing intelligence of soul. Because part of the soul always remains in touch with the spiritual world some of this illuminating power brightens “heaven.” The rest is directed downward, just as a lantern perched on a ladder casts some of its light upon the ceiling and some upon the floor: the higher the ladder, the lesser the amount of light that reaches ground level.
All souls then illuminate the heaven and give it the greatest and first part of themselves, but illuminate the rest of the world with their secondary parts.
[IV-3-17]
The problem is not so much with the illumination itself but with the movement of the soul that is doing the illuminating. Everything would be fine if we would just stay put, high up on the ladder, as the Soul of the All does. Then we could enjoy the spectacle of this physical creation from an elevated state of consciousness. We’d have a better and broader view of things and would remain detached from the messy side of life: all the death, disease, distress, delusion and dissatisfaction that comes from mistaking shadows for substance.
Unfortunately, our presence on Earth is evidence that we have become enthralled by what soul has illumined. We’re casting much of our light on the bottom level of the cosmos because we want to be as close as possible to physical creation.
Instead of wisely choosing to return to the One we’ve made a pilgrimage in the opposite direction to worship at the Shrine of Materiality. The creation, rather than the creator, has captured our love and attention. It’s as if a father took his son down into the basement and presented him with a wonderful surprise: a train set that fills the whole room! The boy is overjoyed and exceedingly grateful. He will have so much fun playing with what he’s been given. And he does for a while. But then the boy becomes so absorbed in operating the locomotive, switching tracks, coupling and uncoupling train cars, and all the other activities involved in managing his own little rail line that he forgets
this is just a game.
What was at first carefree fun gradually becomes more and more worrisome. There are mechanical breakdowns. Parts fall off and the child doesn’t know where they’re supposed to go. His father could get him, let’s say, back on track, but the boy is too absorbed in dealing with the trials and tribulations of his make-believe world to call out for help. Besides, it’s kind of satisfying to cope with all these problems. He feels important; he’s in charge of things, just like Dad.
The vicissitudes of a child’s obsessive play are easily rectified. All it takes to break the spell is a parent entering the room: “Johnny, stop playing and wash your hands for dinner.” “Okay, Mom. I forgot what time it was.” However, most of us human souls have gotten ourselves into more of a morass because we’ve entered so deeply into creation’s play. We’ve lost sight of what is real and truly worthy of concern, and what isn’t.
Then as the things which are illuminated
[by souls]
need more care, just as the steersmen of ships in a storm concentrate more and more on the care of their ships and are unaware that they are forgetting themselves, that they are in danger of being dragged down with the wreck of their ships, these souls incline downwards more with what is theirs.
[IV-3-17]
How strange, says Plotinus, that life has been hijacked by what is lifeless. The soul freely creates and then is held hostage by what it has created. Fortunately, those who are dissatisfied with their current dwelling place are not bound to remain where they are.
But if you have come by now to dislike the world, you are not compelled to remain a citizen of it.
[II-9-9]
