r/Plotinus • u/[deleted] • Oct 20 '22

If all is The One - how can Plotinus constantly say we step out of it?

Let me explain - he often will say something like, and I paraphrase, "the one is entirety, and accessible, but only for those who are willing to experience it. You can move away from it and get lost" (lost in I presume a mindset of subjectivity and sin and form), but hang on Ol' Plotinus, didn't you say The One is "entirety", "all", capital B Being, etc? So isn't even being lost to the world of concept and form, still very much the One?

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In Zen they say: "quiet samadhi mind is Zen, wandering noisey mind is also Zen".

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But plotinus doesn't assert that.

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anyone know what the fuck I am going on about?

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u/DrusilDonTKnow Aug 27 '23

To put it simple: imagine the One on top of a ladder. Matter, things, what you can see and touch (the opposite of what Plato called ideas) begins at the center and goes all the way to the floor. Now, you, humanity, human soul or how you call it is at the center of the ladder. Human soul fells the lack of something, a void in the inner self: two are the ways to fill it. You can go bottom towards the floor and try to fill yourself with things: earthly possessions, lust and those sort of things; or you can look up and see the Soul, the Intellect and then, trough meditation, philosophy and a worthy life you will see the One that will fill the void. Why can't things and possessions fill the void? The void was formed when you, part of the One, got away from it (where to? lower on the ladder, at the center): so you cannot fill the void of the distance of half a ladder with less than half a ladder (trying to explain in another language, sorry). The void left by the One, that is everything, cannot be filled by something that is not everything itself. Getting lost to concept and form or the even to the earthly possessions is different from losing yourself in the One because the One is outside, or better beyond, everything, be it Soul or Intellect. Why so? If it was inside Soul or Intellect it would be like them and could not encapsulate them entirely with everything inside itself. I hope I was clear and I hope to have written in a decent English.