The following is being posted according to Ken's generous offer. The posting of a submission doesn't imply that Ken or the editors of this site necessarily agree with any or all of it. Thanks, -Eds 

I am a 28 years old scholar, working on the contemplative tradition of both Pagan and Christian Neoplatonism, especially Plotinus and Augustine. I have written a book on Plotinus, which is going to be published under the title: "Mystical Experience and Philosophical Discourse in Plotinus". 

Plotinus: An Integral Thinker For His Time
by Mateusz Strozynski 

When I started to study Plotinus' writings, at some point I was amazed that he is sometimes more recognized by spiritual seekers (and Ken Wilber's fans) than by most graduates of humanities. Although he is widely recognized by scholars as one of the three greatest Greek thinkers, next to Plato and Aristotle, most of people know about the existence of Plato and Aristotle, but many have not heard about Plotinus. The irony is that Plato's and Aristotle's teaching have nourished Western culture for ages not directly (their texts were mostly unavailable) but via Plotinus' teachings. It was Plotinus who gave conceptual language to Christian, Jewish and Muslim theologians and interpreters of sacred scriptures.

Plotinus, known as "the Father of Western mysticism", remains, unfortunately, a rather unknown father (although some simple genetic examination proves his parentship in most cases). I feel grateful to Ken that he always mentions Plotinus with such a respect and emphasizes his importance, even though I do not always agree with Ken's interpretations. I would like to show in this essay how I understand Plotinus in the context of integral understanding and practice. I will do this on the basis of the research I have done on Plotinus for four years, which resulted in my doctorate: "Mystical experience and philosophical discourse in Plotinus".

The word "integral" comes to my mind rather easily, when I think about Plotinus, because his philosophy and the whole Neoplatonic spirituality that was initiated by him are essentially an attempt to integrate the whole of ancient Greek philosophy and wisdom. In Plotinus' opus magnum, the Enneads, we can find many opinions of Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, Plato, Aristotle and Stoics, even if their names are rarely mentioned. Whenever Plotinus disagreed with someone (and he certainly did with Epicureans, Sceptics and Gnostics among others), he did not only show what the misapprehension in their view was, but also suggested how to overcome it and put it into a larger view of reality. For example, he critisized the Epicureans, because they thought the bodymind to be an ultimate self, the Scepticist, because they disregarded any valid knowledge or experience, while Plotinus was sure that the objects of the mind can be directly known as identical to it and he attacked the contemporary Gnostics, because they taught that the material world was evil and despicable, while for him it was a beautiful reflection of God's beauty.

Not only was Plotinus one of the few thinkers that were able to see and show how different philosophical theories fit together in various ways, but he also explored many dimensions of the AQAL model, as far as the spirit of his time allowed. Since the process of differentiation of the four quadrants in the 3rd century A.D. hardly began, Plotinus did not recognize clearly differences between the I, We and It perspectives, but I am sure that there are at least some seeds of this recognition. On the other hand, Plotinus deeply penetrated various levels of being and awareness, leaving one of the most comprehensive and understandable maps of subjectivity and consciousness, based, of course, on his own contemplative experience.

We can trace many levels and sub-levels of being and awareness that distinguished in the Enneads, but he still comes back to the great three realms of existence, which are called hypostases in Greek. Hypostasis means "that which exists (by itself)". The highest hypostasis the ground and source of all existence Plotinus called "the One", "the Good", "God" or just "he" or "that", depending on a context. He emphasized that these terms do not express this Reality, since It has no qualities and no name, and nothing whatsoever can be told about it. Intellectually, we can approach It best by saying what It is not. And whenever we speak in positive terms about It, we can say that It is the beginning and the end of all things, that It is the One, the highest God.

When Plotinus, as if in the precious moments of weakness and self-indulgence, makes positive statements about the nature of the One, he says that God is pure "light", which means awareness or cognition without an object, intelligent activity without a direction. The One is also a sort of awakening or wakefulness, as this difficult to translate Greek expression means, an awakening to himself. He is also love loving itself. He is said to be above being and above cognition. Plotinus calls him also the Formless and says that because he is without form, he cannot be known or experienced as an object, so the more we want to grasp him, the farther we are from him. One of the most important and ignored fragments of his work states that should the One was to say something about himself (which is a merely theoretical situation), he would say either "I I" or "am am". Thus we know that the One is also the ground of subjectivity and the supreme Self, even though in the time of Plotinus the Greeks did not have any concept of "the self" nor any word for it.

The great unsolved aenigma for Plotinus was why the One does not stay this pure, simple and solitary light, but something else begins to originate from him. He considered many answers, neither probably satisfactory enough, and among them was an explanation based on the observable fact that everything that is perfect naturally gives birth to something less perfect than itself, by virtue of some natural tendency to spread its own fullness. What is born out of the One in this process Plotinus calls nous in Greek, which is difficult to translate, but it means something like "the mind", "awareness", "cognition" or "spirit" rolled into one word. In some places Plotinus says that this divine Mind would not really become something other than the One, were it not for its "pride" or "egoism". The Mind wants to be separate, however subtly, from its Source, and thus becomes a second hypostasis in the hierarchy. So, on the one hand, the fact that the many arises from the One is good, because there is some natural overflowing of fullness, but, on the other hand, it is not so good, since there is this tendency to separate from the One.

What is the difference between the One and the Mind, if both are some forms of being and awareness? The One is objectless awareness, simple and non-dual, while the Mind is an awareness which creates objects and knows them. Using Plotinus' symbol of light, we could say that the Mind is a beam of light that can illuminate this or that, while the One is infinite light without any direction and without any objects to be illuminated. Thus the Mind has more cognitive character than the One. But still the Mind does not perceive objects as different from it, rather as identical to it. It is not what we usually call "our mind". This divine Mind sees only itself, but in many aspects or forms that Plotinus identifies with Plato's eternal Forms, paradigmatic essences of existence.

These are, for example, Being, Truth, Life, Love, Unity, Diversity, Wisdom, Eternity and so on. For Plotinus, as for Plato, they are actually existing beings, not so much "things" but living, conscious "minds" that are aspects of the divine Mind. Why these Forms come to being? The Mind looks into the One and tries to see him, but it cannot, since the One is formless. The variety of the Forms is how the One is seen by the Mind. The Mind has also a higher dimension, which is "seeing that does not see anything" and it is by this dimension that the Mind can achieve the union with the One. In its lower mode it sees divine Forms of Life, Truth, Being, Wisdom, Justice, Temperance etc.

The Mind also gives birth to something less perfect than itself and this is what Plotinus calls "Psyche", which in Greek means something like "conscious life" and we usually render is at "the Soul". The Soul is also a type of awareness, maybe more of life than cognition. She also tries to see the Mind, just as the Mind tries to see the One, but fails to do this in the same way. She lacks power to hold the enormous energy of the Mind, so she gives birth to the material, sensible world. The Mind is timeless and spaceless unity, but the material world is a multiplicity that moves in time and space, because the Soul has no power to present everything at once and extends it as if it were a movie. Plotinus in one place calls the world "a dream of the Soul". She just watches all these shapes and forms of this world arising before her eyes and what arises has very little reality. Plotinus says that it cannot be properly said to exist, because only the Mind exists and the world only appears and disappears in a constant flow.

In another place Plotinus says that the Soul is trying to see her own face, but she manages only to see a reflection as if in a mirror. Therefore, it seems that the world is how the Soul is seeing herself. A reflection in a mirror is like our face, but it is not our face. In the same way the material world is like the Mind or the Soul, but it is not those, since it is not eternal, not infinite, it is imperfect. The Soul, just as the Mind, wants to remain separate, which is not very good in the first place, but a true catastrophy in this drama of creation begins when the Soul ceases to be a free watcher of the world and gets attached to it. Plotinus refers here to the famous myth of Narcissus who, cursed by Afrodite, saw his own reflection in water and fell in love with this reflection, finally dying with this impossible desire.

The same takes place when the Soul falls in love with the world. She becomes fascinated and enthralled by the beauty of her own reflection. Since she operates in many human beings, she appears in a sense as "individual" minds (although they are ultimate one). Each one of these individual minds becomes more and more interested in the body and its dealings. This is not a process that takes place during our lifetime, but it is everlasting, according to Plotinus. Individual soul starts to imagine that she is bound to the body, limited to the body and finally identifies herself with the body. Because of that arises what Plotinus calls a phantom or a shade, which is an identification with the particular body. It is an illusion, since the soul never became the body, she only believed that she is the body. This phantom is a source of suffering, because the soul believes that she is affected by the things affect the body: pain, pleasure, emotions, desires, sense-perceptions etc. She ceases to freely watch the dream of the world, but believes that she is actually a part of this dream. She is like an actor who believed he was the role played on the stage. This is the fall of soul, which makes suffering and evil arise in the world. The problem is that we never really cease to be who we truly are. The Soul is not the body, no matter how hard she tries, she was never separated from the Mind and the One, which are her home and fatherland. Plotinus was himself puzzled and amazed by this paradox.

Plotinus prescribes many practices leading us back to the realization of the Soul, the Mind and the One. Scholars almost never write about them, because Plotinus only makes hints about these practices, but I reconstructed them in my doctorate, dividing them into four categories: discursive meditation, visualization, meditation of pure attention and constant awareness. Plotinus insists that we have to master fully the level of conceptual understanding before we can try to transcend it in contemplation, so a lot of time is devoted to an intense training in rational thinking. It was usually done in a dialogue and discussion in Plotinus' school or possibly in solitude, often with the text as an anchor for meditation.

The second group of practices are visualizations. We are unable to reconstruct them in detail, but they seem to be something like creating images of luminous spheres in the mind and then trying to pass from merely imagining a sphere of light (which usually symbolized one of three hypostases that was the object of visualization) to actually experiencing the self as luminous awareness containg everything in itself.

Meditation of pure attention began with turning attention within and then letting go of all perceptions, emotions, images and thoughts that arise in the mind. Plotinus used such words as "letting go", "removing", "putting aside" or "forgetting" to describe the process of emptying consciousness of all content. First, meditator needed to empty it of material and sensible objects and thoughts, in order to become the Mind. Second, he or she should have put away also these these beautiful and blissful Forms to enter the pure light by "seeing that does not see anything". The most favourite and complex notions of Plotinus spirituality is a Greek word monos, which "alone", "united" and "free". He was often saying that we should become absolutely "alone", in the sense that we should disidentify with everything and become pure awareness. The One is ultimately alone or free, so the way to the union with him is to become like him.

I also found an allusion to constant awareness. There is an interesting fragment in his biography and some references in his late treatise "On happiness". Plotinus' biographer and disciple, Porphyry, writes that Plotinus was able to perform his duties or talk to people while being entirely present to his own divine mind. It is a clear indication that Plotinus was at least able to maintain some kind of constant awareness. He writes himself that a true sage, even if he got insane or lost his mind, he still would be wise and happy, because wisdom is not something external to the sage, but the sage, at a deep level, is Wisdom. Then Plotinus says that even in his sleep the sage is still wise and wakeful, because there is a "sleepless light" in him, which he identifies with the divine Mind.

When I was trying to place Plotinus' hierarchy of being and awareness in the context of the integral model, it was easy to link the One to the causal, the Mind to the subtle and the Soul to the gross, and in fact there is a great similarity between those three hypostases and the three kayas known in the Mahayana tradition. Tibetan teachers employ even the same image that is often used by Plotinus: the One as the sun, the Mind as the radiance of it and the Soul as rays coming out of the radiance. And yet I think it is not that simple, since sometimes Plotinus writes about the Mind in clearly causal language. He also distinguishes between the higher Mind that is "seeing that does not see anything" and the lower Mind which sees the divine Forms. The third hypostasis seems to be the World-Soul, but, in fact, Plotinus speaks about several dimensions of the soul, some of which would be at the subtle level, while the others are just the life energy similar to the pranamayakosha in Indian philosophy. Then, I think, the identification of the three hypostasis with the three great states or bodies should be done careful and considered a mere generalization.

Another problem is a distinction between transient states and permanent traits. We have to little evidence to say what exactly was his experience. Personally, I suppose that Plotinus realized towards the end of his life a stable and permanent union with the Mind, but this is mentioned only in one of his late treatises. In the early ones he describes with great detail transient, meditative state of access to the Mind and the One. He nowhere writes about the union with the One as some permanent state and his biographer makes a strange point that Plotinus achieved the superior union (which I think was in this case a type of nirvikalpa samadhi) four times in the period of few years. I would be careful to believe this information to be absolutely true, but at least Plotinus' disciple could think of this state as an extremely rare one. There is a kind of sahaj samadhi or one taste experience mentioned by Plotinus few times, where he speaks about touching the One by a "presence higher than any knowledge" and about seeing God wherever he turned his eyes. He describes this experience as coming and going without him being able to control it. Plotinus says we have to prepare and wait for it as the eye awaits the sun to rise on the horizon.

There are lots of meditative states of seeing the Mind, that have qualities of savikalpa samadhi experiences of the luminous Forms, divine beings, light, love and bliss. There is also an experience of the Mind which is seeing the material world, not in his appearence, but in his eternal essence, which may be harmonized with daily life and made permanent. When Plotinus declares that the union with the Mind happens to us only "sometimes", I just do not know whether he speaks about meditative states or the witness-like states. We cannot know how Plotinus' experience and understanding developped in time, since he started to write in his forties, as a mature philosopher, beginning with beautiful poetic descriptions of divine reality and the union with it, but ending with moral treatises that are concerned with the way of good life.

What I find very integral in Plotinus is that he emphasized so much the balance that has to be maintained between various levels of awareness. He insisted on moral life as a beginning of spiritual journey and the end of it. He devoted most of his work to exercising discursive reason and conceptual understanding. Obviously, the Mind was a "silent thinking" or "resting in peace" and the reason is at best somewhere in the middle of the whole hierarchy, but he put a lot of stress on a rational interpretatin of mystical experience in the conceptual context of his philosophical tradition.

Now I would like to take a look at the Left Hand of the integral model. Porphyry, Plotinus' disciple, editor of his treatises and biographer gives us a picture that puzzles many scholars. Plotinus' spiritual teaching seems, at a first glance, to be focused on individual salvation found in the union with the One. On the contrary, Plotinus' life seems to have been entirely devoted to the service for others. Not only did he found a philosophical school in Rome, where intellectuals came to participate in his lectures and talks as well as ordinary people desiring to live a good life. There were also Roman aristocrats and among them many women, who attended his school. A noble woman named Gemina gave Plotinus her house, so that he had a place to live and teach.

The closest students lived together with him, at least for certain periods of time, but he also made this house a sort of an orphanage for children whose parents died and asked Plotinus to take care of their offspring. He is said not only to have taken care of the children's upbringing and education, but to have been managing their money with great skill. Scholars cannot imagine this contemplative sage dealing with financial issues, arguing with managers and accountances for the sake of his proteges. Plotinus-the-ascetic seemed to have lived fully active life, and have dealt with the full range of trials and tribulations, the real daily grind. At the same time, his biographer Porphyry says, he was amazingly able to keep his attention turned to the Mind within.

The "We" dimension of Reality was extremely important in Plotinus' life, event though he did not write that much about it. He focused on the first person perspective in his contemplative teaching, but he also stated firmly that the union with the Mind makes one able to love others truly, since in the Mind we are all united and transparent to each other in the communion of love, awareness and bliss. The community of friends, who discussed the traditional texts and practiced together was also important in his life. He also spread naturally his wisdom and compassion to other people, being always ready to help, whenever there was such a need. It was truly contemplation in action, solitude embracing others, the One flowing into the Many. Plotinus' love for others puzzles many scholars, but for many spiritual practicioners would seem a very natural and healthy fruit of his contemplative wisdom.

The "It" perspective seems to be least developped in Plotinus writings as well as in the whole ancient philosophy. The intellectual training of his tradition included a great deal of mathematics, astronomy and perhaps some of Aristotle's physical and biological texts could have been written. The objective knowledge was not disregarded by Neoplatonists, but since it was the world of appearences that was known by what we today call "science" (and which was no different from "philosophy" back then), it had to be transcended in the direct knowledge of spiritual realm. We know that there were certainly some practices specifically for the body, such as vegan diet, fasting and other ascetic exercises that was considered to bring health and stamina to the body as well as emotional self-control. At the same time, Plotinus did not want anyone to make any picture or sculpture of him, which his biographer understood as his "being ashamed that he was in the body". I think this was generally misunderstood by scholars, who made some kind of schizoid ascetic out of Plotinus and tried to prove that his illness that finally brought him to death was caused by his mistreatment of the body. I am sure it was not so, but I am also aware that for Neoplatonists the body was the lowest level of the great hierarchy and they never appreciated it as we do now.

Plotinus did not hate his body and there is even an interesting remark of his biographer, that when he was giving a talk, his face used to shine with the inner light of the Mind, which was physically visible. He adds that Plotinus was not a beautiful man, but this inner light made him most attractive, sweet and gentle. It is a sign of some kind of bodily transformation that occured in Plotinus thanks to his practice. He was truly an exceptional sage, philosopher and man. His writings are not easy to read as a whole, his Greek is not easy to translate, but the Enneads deserve our effort, which is finally greatly rewarded. Working on Plotinus was a great spiritual practice for myself and it still gives me very much. Some of Plotinus texts are beautiful and fascinating written meditations or pointing out instructions, which awake the reader to the ever-present light of the One. I hope that interest in Plotinus will grow in time, especially, as the integral perspective is more and more able to recognize the true value of this astonishing mystic and philosopher.

Mateusz Strozynski, Poland