Tuesday, July 5th, 1983

Time and Eternity

by Avery Solomon

Paper V09M

3-LETTER CODE: PLO

TOPIC: Plotinus

SUBJECT: Soul

SUBSUBJECTS: Time and Eternity, Cosmic Soul, Solar Logos, World-Idea

ORIGINAL LOCATION & FILE NAME (of PDF used for typing): 1983 0705a V12ap. SEMINAR. Plotinus - Soul.DOC & PDF

CONTENTS:

Plotinus, III.7.11, VI.2.6

Twofold nature of cosmic soul

Time and Eternity

Interpenetration of Solar Logoi

Star's intellective act represented by rotation about its axis (Pole of Vesta)

Star's understanding faculty receiving impressions of the intellectual represented by motion of star through the cosmos

Star's rational unfoldment of cosmos instant-to instant represented by planetary motion

Individual human souls inhabit sheaths within the cosmos; inerratic, planetary, sublunary spheres which they see are a symbol of the prior cosmic activity

BOOKS QUOTED FROM OR REFERENCED:

• Plotinus, The Enneads (MacKenna translation, 4th ed.)

PLOTINUS QUOTES REFERENCED: III.2, III.3, III.7.11, VI.2.6

AD HANDWRITING: This paper exists only as embedded in the verbatim class transcript.

COMPLETENESS: Full Paper

PUBLISHABILITY: No, by a student

DATE ASSOCIATED WITH THIS PAPER: 1983 0705

RETYPED AND REFORMATTED by IT 2024

NOTES:

• RETYPED STUDENT PAPER presented in class (V09M).

• This is 1983 07/05b, Time and Eternity Paper, and the second entry associated with this date. 1983 07/05a = Plotinus; Soul Seminar.

• This paper is read and discussed in WG Seminar 1983 0705a Plotinus; Soul. Some similarity to Astronoesis, "Nature: House 12," p. 245 ff.

Time and Eternity

[Paper as read by Avery Solomon in WG Class 1983 0705a Begins]

In III.7.11, the cosmos and time he says lay in the Intellectual Cosmos together with Soul. "But Souls contained an unquiet faculty, always desirous of translating elsewhere what it saw in the Authentic Realm, and it could not bear to retain within itself all the dense fullness of its possession."

In a similar vein, in VI.2.6, he also refers to the essence of Soul as a one and many, and he says that through striving to contemplate itself the Soul is a many, and that the purpose is "the Act of the Intellect."

The many unit souls are expressions of soul's "unquiet faculty," having a desire of realizing the Ideas and themselves distinctively. Each cosmic soul will be such an intimate emanation of its intellective origin, which is Absolute Soul, and is also a principle of rational unfoldment.

In the striving to actualize their inner vision, these unit consciousnesses or cosmic souls become the Logoi or expressing principles of the Intellectual-Principle. The cosmic soul's quiescent inner essence, or its intellectuality, is in eternity. It is a participant with the Absolute Soul. It holds the idea of the world in an eternal vision, and this vision is an eternal wisdom guiding the soul's activity.

The cosmic soul's outward energy is the manifesting of the World-Idea in perpetuity. Each soul will know itself more fully through its awareness or witnessing of the world which it unfolds within its own I AM. It thus fulfills its double purpose: through the Act of Intellect, knowing itself as the Act of Intellect.

For the Intellectual-Principle, contemplation and contemplated are identical--no movement ensues. Soul contemplates Intellect as well, but it is a principle of motion, putting what it sees into living activity. In order to do this, the soul emanates a secondary phase or I AM, which has the rational activity of bringing a cosmos into being. He says it clothes itself in Time.

The cosmic souls emanate as productive principles, whose life-motion is time. The cosmic soul thus translates what it sees or contemplates into a cosmos, and so it has the power of unfolding the World-Idea as the perpetual spiraling sequence of the cosmos.

Each cosmic soul is an Absolute Individual. Insofar as its vision is occupied eternally on the Ideas, it is not outside of the Nous, for it is where it knows. The cosmic soul has eternally this inner awareness of the intellectuality which is its intimate prior. But it has also an awareness of that which it manifests in time, that is, the cosmos. In the awareness of the cosmic soul these two phases are not separate. Even amidst its rational activity, its eternal seeing keeps it in eternity, in what he calls the more veritable life of Soul.

So again, this cosmic I AM or cosmic soul's rational energy, (clothed) in time, is manifesting its World-Idea in perpetuity as its cosmos. Each cosmic soul has a unique version of the Ideas, or the World-Idea, which yet includes the others. The one World-Idea which is in eternity is held in the knowledge of each Solar Logos, and also includes a knowledge of the other Logoi, while yet it is manifested distinctively by each. The totality of the cosmic souls are expressing as much of the Intellectual Cosmos as available for manifestation, and this again is equivalent to the World-Idea. The one World-Idea, or universal reason-principle as Plotinus calls it [cf. III.2, III.3], thus includes the interpenetrating World-Ideas or Logoi of all cosmic souls. And included in these will be the Logoi of the individual souls, which are lower in order.

The sensible cosmos provides us with a symbol of the relation of the cosmic souls to each other and to the cosmos. The Intellect of each cosmic soul is in an omnipresent interpenetration with the others. The stable inner essence of the star soul's Intellect is sensibly symbolized by its rotation about its axis, which is called the Pole of Vesta. This represents the intellective act wherein the star is eternally established in its own essence.

In its reasoning or understanding activity which is unfolding the cosmos, the cosmic soul is in perpetual changing relation with the other cosmic souls and their intellectual expressions. The rational energy of the star soul, which receives the Ideas, is symbolized by the motion of the star transiting through the heavens. So the Intellect of a cosmic soul grasps the Idea, but has also an accompanying rational activity.

Receiving the World-Idea into its understanding, the cosmic soul is expressing it through its rational powers, which are themselves the activities of distinct planetary souls. The planetary motion around the Sun represents for us this act of understanding of the Sun soul, clothing the World-Idea in Time, or in other words, generating the cosmos instant-by-instant.

The result of this activity is the organization of the body of this cosmos, the body of the cosmic soul, and this includes all the vehicles of the individual souls that will inhabit this vast cosmos. These individuals then view the result of this cosmic activity sensibly through their own associated bodies within it. The inerratic, planetary, and sublunary spheres which they see are the symbol then of the prior cosmic activity.

[Paper as read by Avery Solomon in WG Class 1983 0705a Ends]