Plotinus

“… Plotinus, was a divinely inspired philosopher and mystic. He was most certainly a highly advanced soul, possessing the rare gift of divine grace coupled with a fierce determination to give all his attention exclusively to its call. Late in his life, in order to share his revealed knowledge with future generations, he wrote fifty-four treatises of various length expounding diverse elements of his mystical vision. These were then edited and presented by his disciple, Porphyry, in a series of six books, each containing nine treatises, which he called Enneads ("Nines")…


As everyone knows, mysticism was born in the East. The mystical philosophy which first entered the “Western world” from “the East” was primarily in the form of the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and, later, the teachings of the early representatives of Buddhism. From the earliest of times, Greek citizens, entering into Persia and India, had interacted with residents of those lands, and no doubt brought back something of that foreign metaphysics. Also, Brahmins and Buddhists from India had moved into Greece, bringing their mysticism with them, and had doubtlessly shared their teachings with at least some residents of their adopted land. Socrates was said to frequent gatherings of such Brahmins…


Amidst the dark and unhappy period of political transition and religious tumult in Rome, Plotinus (205-270) stands out as a singular guiding light—the first great Western representative of mystical knowledge. There is no doubt that he must be regarded as the Father of Western mysticism, and counted as one of the most influential mystical philosophers who ever lived. He was, indeed, a great Sage, a World-Teacher, whose fame, reputation and influence grows brighter with every passing age.
According to tradition, Plotinus was born at Lycopolis (the modern city of Asyut) in Upper Egypt, and lived much of his early life at Alexandria. We are told by his biographer, Porphyry (237-304), that at the age of twenty-eight, Plotinus made a decision to follow the life of philosophy. He no doubt had some kind of spiritual awakening at this time—a not uncommon age for this to occur if we think of the Buddha, Jesus, and other major religious figures. At this time, Plotinus read and heard the teachings of many philosophers, but found no one he wished to take as his mentor until he heard the teachings of Ammonias Saccus, who was known as “the Godtaught.” After hearing one of Ammonias’ lectures, Plotinus said to a friend, “This is the man I’ve been looking for.”


Ammonias was well learned in the Persian and Indian philosophical traditions, and his philosophy was highly compatible with the mystical philosophy taught in those lands. After studying for eleven years with Ammonias, Plotinus, having heard so much of the philosophy of Persia and India, decided he would like to learn more of the thought of those peoples first-hand. With this object in mind, he joined up with the invading forces of Emperor Gordian which were enroute to Persia. He got as far as Mesopotamia, when the Emperor was assassinated, and the expedition was halted. Plotinus managed to escape to Antioch and then to Rome, where he arrived in the year 245 of the Current Era, at which time he was forty years of age.


For the next twenty-five years, Plotinus seems to have remained in Rome, teaching his mystical philosophy. His lectures were free and open to the public, and he apparently lived solely on the favors of his wealthy students and patrons. He taught from his own mystical experience, but he usually framed his thoughts in terms familiar to students of Plato; and for that reason he became labeled in much later times as “the founder of Neoplatonism (the new Platonism)”. This is a misleading title, however, for it tends to detract from the fact that, though Plotinus regarded Plato’s philosophy as the foundation of his own, his message was ultimately founded on his own personal realizations.
In the first ten years of his life in Rome, Plotinus wrote nothing, but by the time Porphyry had become his follower in the year 263, he had completed twenty-one treatises. In answer to the questions of his later students, he wrote thirty-three more, which were circulated without titles among his closest followers. And, after Plotinus’ death, Porphyry gathered these fifty-four treatises together into a book of six sections, containing nine treatises each; hence the title, Enneads (“Nines”), by which Plotinus’ book is known.





In his meetings with his friends and students, Plotinus would explain in an imaginative and compelling manner the truths of the spiritual life. Says Porphyry: “When he was speaking, the light of his intellect visibly illuminated his face; always of winning presence, he became at these times still more engaging: a slight moisture gathered on his forehead; he radiated benignity.” “Plotinus,” said Porphyry, “lived at once within himself and for others; he never relaxed from his interior attention unless in sleep; and even his sleep he kept light by an abstemiousness that often prevented him taking as much as a piece of bread, and by constantly concentrating on his own highest nature... He was gentle, and always at the call of those having the slightest acquaintance with him. After spending twenty-six years in Rome, acting, too, as arbiter in many differences, he had never made an enemy of any citizen.”


Plotinus taught and wrote and discussed questions with his devoted students, but much of his time was spent in solitary contemplation, leading his soul to union with its divine Source. Porphyry states that, during the time he knew him, Plotinus attained that exalted state of awareness four times. When, in his later years, he became gravely ill, suffering from malign diphtheria, Plotinus retired to the estate of a nobleman disciple in Campania. A friend who visited him there, reports that Plotinus, weak and scarcely able to speak, whispered, “I am striving to give back the divine in me to the divine in all.” He died soon thereafter at the age of sixty-six.


All Western mystical philosophy after Plotinus bears the stamp of his vision. His was the model on which Jewish, Moslem, and Christian theology in the Middle Ages was founded. The great Christian theologian, St. Augustine (354-430) was greatly influenced by Plotinus, as were the Spanish Moslem philosophers Al-Farabi (870-950), Avicenna (980-1037), and Averroes (1126-1198); and the Jewish philosopher, Ibn Gabirol (1021-1070), as well as Meister Eckhart (1260-1328), Thomas Aquinus (1225-1274), and the Christian Scholastics of the 13th century. In 1492 Marcilio Ficino resurrected the metaphysics of Plotinus by translating him into the Latin of his day, thereby greatly shaping the philosophical milieu of the Renaissance. Thus, his influence through the centuries has been, and continues to be, immense.”


~ Plotinus: The Origin of Western Mysticism by S. Abhayananda (Stan Trout)

Images ~ Head in white marble. Ostia Antica, Museo, inv. 436. Neck broken through diagonally, head broken into two halves and reconstructed. Lower half of nose is missing. One of four replicas which were all discovered in Ostia. The identification as Plotinus is plausible but not proven.

               ~ Swami Abhayananda (Stan Trout)