When Plotinus speaks of “vision,” he is pointing to inner sight, not to eyeballs. I find these philosophers’ reflections project current cultural modes and tendencies and their own philosophical biases, not an accurate discussion of Plotinus. It sure isn’t the Plotinus I have read and appreciated as a fairly accurate descriptor of the inner ascent of consciousness, which then descends to embrace reality and morality. Plotinus was very critical of the Gnostics, who saw the body as a fall. What I hear here is these philosophers’ tendency to elevate their thoughts and preferences, not reflect what the great sage Plotinus was teaching.
I have long had the same sense as Brad, particularly regarding the "Nous." Whereas "intuition" for Bergson (and to some extent even Whitehead) sounds like the mind's nostalgia for a purer 'instinctive" life, the Nous (or Vijnana in Sri Aurobindo's terms) always conveyed - at least for me - a substantial (not in Whitehead's sense; I mean palpable) Chit Shakti, Conscious Energy; pulsing, animating every form in this and all the subtle universes (far beyond anything I've ever seen Steiner hint at)>
Sorry, in a bit of a rebellious mood tonight. Maybe I've just got it all muddled:>)) A riff for your jamming.
I’m not anti-Nous, just anti-anti-matter. I realize as Brad reminds us that Plotinus was a critic of the gnostic view of the material world. But I’m also not satisfied with the dismissal of matter as a pure privation.
Conceptually, the term "pure privation" sounds like some sort of denial, or 'anti-matter."
Krishnaprem, in an essay on symbols, pointed to a paradox in this not quite so simple phrase. He spoke of the idea that the old symbols, like ""Apollo," were just images of the true "reality," the physical sun we can see (and I guess, potentially, "touch"
But in fact, it is more accurate, Krishnaprem told us, to consider the Sun to be a symbol of Apollo.
William Blake expressed it more humorously. When he spoke to the conventional phlegmatic Englishman about his glorious vision of the sun, the man protested, "But surely, Mr Blake, when you look up at the sky, you see a round disc about the size of a guinea."
"No, no," Blake responded, "I see a host of heavenly angels singing 'Glory glory hallelujah, praise to to the Lord God.'"
And Sri Aurobindo, whose whole life work has been summed up as the fullest possible integration of matter and spirit, once wrote:
"The world is real precisely because it exists only in consciousness; for it is a Conscious Energy one with Being that creates it. It is the existence of material form in its own right apart from the self-illumined energy which assumes the form, that would be a contradiction of the truth of things, a phantasmagoria, a nightmare, an impossible falsehood."
It is "matter" as something existing in its own right, that is pure privation, not the matter which houses the beauty and Divinity of the infinite Personal/Impersonal Spirit.
Apologies for the few seconds of silence at the start, not sure what that is about!
Does light create space or exist in space? If light has “frequency” then it presupposes time, no?
“Relegation of the body.” Been there. Felt it was an escape from responsibility for relation to others. So not morally right.
When Plotinus speaks of “vision,” he is pointing to inner sight, not to eyeballs. I find these philosophers’ reflections project current cultural modes and tendencies and their own philosophical biases, not an accurate discussion of Plotinus. It sure isn’t the Plotinus I have read and appreciated as a fairly accurate descriptor of the inner ascent of consciousness, which then descends to embrace reality and morality. Plotinus was very critical of the Gnostics, who saw the body as a fall. What I hear here is these philosophers’ tendency to elevate their thoughts and preferences, not reflect what the great sage Plotinus was teaching.
We are just jamming about our readings of Bergson’s reading of Plotinus. Folks who want to ascent to the One should read the Enneads, of course!
I have long had the same sense as Brad, particularly regarding the "Nous." Whereas "intuition" for Bergson (and to some extent even Whitehead) sounds like the mind's nostalgia for a purer 'instinctive" life, the Nous (or Vijnana in Sri Aurobindo's terms) always conveyed - at least for me - a substantial (not in Whitehead's sense; I mean palpable) Chit Shakti, Conscious Energy; pulsing, animating every form in this and all the subtle universes (far beyond anything I've ever seen Steiner hint at)>
Sorry, in a bit of a rebellious mood tonight. Maybe I've just got it all muddled:>)) A riff for your jamming.
I’m not anti-Nous, just anti-anti-matter. I realize as Brad reminds us that Plotinus was a critic of the gnostic view of the material world. But I’m also not satisfied with the dismissal of matter as a pure privation.
Conceptually, the term "pure privation" sounds like some sort of denial, or 'anti-matter."
Krishnaprem, in an essay on symbols, pointed to a paradox in this not quite so simple phrase. He spoke of the idea that the old symbols, like ""Apollo," were just images of the true "reality," the physical sun we can see (and I guess, potentially, "touch"
But in fact, it is more accurate, Krishnaprem told us, to consider the Sun to be a symbol of Apollo.
William Blake expressed it more humorously. When he spoke to the conventional phlegmatic Englishman about his glorious vision of the sun, the man protested, "But surely, Mr Blake, when you look up at the sky, you see a round disc about the size of a guinea."
"No, no," Blake responded, "I see a host of heavenly angels singing 'Glory glory hallelujah, praise to to the Lord God.'"
And Sri Aurobindo, whose whole life work has been summed up as the fullest possible integration of matter and spirit, once wrote:
"The world is real precisely because it exists only in consciousness; for it is a Conscious Energy one with Being that creates it. It is the existence of material form in its own right apart from the self-illumined energy which assumes the form, that would be a contradiction of the truth of things, a phantasmagoria, a nightmare, an impossible falsehood."
It is "matter" as something existing in its own right, that is pure privation, not the matter which houses the beauty and Divinity of the infinite Personal/Impersonal Spirit.
No disagreement from me on any of that!
Fun:>)))).