Class
Friday, July 22nd, 1983
Edited transcriptClick the series name to view more
CLASS at Wisdom's Goldenrod, Hector, NY
with Anthony Damiani (AD)
July 22, 1983
PLOTINUS; SOUL; OMNIPRESENCE
TOPIC: Plotinus
SUBJECT: Soul
SUBSUBJECTS: Omnipresence, Participation, VI.4
CONTENTS:
Overview of VI.4, authentic & visible universe
Two notions of omnipresence
More or less
Why multiplicity of Souls/beings?
Beings by the side of Being
Soul one & many
Unity & multiplicity: Soul per se & Unit Souls
Self-abiding & universe
Don't need to go outside of Unit Soul
Multiplicity participating in Sun Soul
Hologram analogy
Sun analogy
Insight
Image & principle
More possible examples
Participation & participants
Soul powers
And egos
Unit Soul as authentic existent
Whole of your mind in perceiving Tower of London
Participation
Mind & its function is total Mind
Many & Unity
Participation: Insight & Reality
Universal consciousness & Individual participant
Absolute Selves, Unity of Soul
Absolute Soul not a content
Qualities
Differences in Souls because Difference in Soul
VI.4.14 on Souls & Intelligence
Powers
Soul as Unity and Soul & what's manifested within it
Multiplicity of the World-Idea not multiplicity of Soul
Each Unit Soul is Soul essence entire
Omnipresence & participation
Vedanta doesn't use omnipresence
Stick to Plotinus' text
Soul as immaterial principle
Reading & student commentary on VI.4.1
Whiteness example
Soul in hand or foot
Where does knowing take place?
Interrelation between immaterial & material
Side by side…
AD reworking using 'mind' instead of 'Soul'
AS ditto on VI.4.3
Outward-facing
Theory of powers doesn't explain omnipresence
Presence of Soul, authentic & vehicle
Beings like a human being
AD gloss on VI.4.3
Apply omnipresence to Parmenides, 8 Hypotheses
Hypothesis 2A
Apply 8 Hypotheses to Soul
Sunset meditation
BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED:
Plotinus, The Enneads (MacKenna translation, 4th ed.)
Plato, Parmenides
Paul Brunton, Notebooks
PLOTINUS QUOTES READ OR REFERENCED: III.2.18, V.1.3, V.1.8, V.9.8, VI.4.1, VI.4.2, VI.4.3, VI.4.4, VI.4.5, VI.4.6, VI.4.8, VI.4.14, VI.4.15, VI.5
DIAGRAMS referred to are not with this transcript version.
NOTES:
Even though the tapes/and database indicate 7/21/83 (a Thursday), according to JF's notes this is really 7/22/83 (a regular Friday class) & there are MP3 & tape audios for this; 7/21/83 (Thursday) = Plotinus; Soul seminar.
Previously printed, distributed 2007 as part of a set.
Summer 1983 Plotinus; Soul classes/seminars thematically related.
Transcript related to Editors' Extension in Astronoesis, "Unit Soul as Absolute Individual" (p. 211 ff.); also AD's Venerable Guide paper (cf. Astronoesis p. 172 ff.), a version of which is retyped as 1984 0127b V09MP. Astronoesis - Soul.
TRANSCRIBED by jf 2006 from Audio Cassette tapes; reformatted by jf 2018. In 2024, IT updates prefatory matter and footer, replaces tape markers with audio file markers, expands Subsubjects, completes Book List, adds Plotinus quotes section, corrects typos and some listening errors, adds new notes within transcript, reformats to accord with new conventions. Readable edited transcript – V11r.
AUDIO FILES: 1983 0722a, 1983 0722b. [Note: "Tape" and "Side" refer to original audio cassette tapes that were later digitized into .MP3 Audio Files.]
1983 07/22 at Wisdom's Goldenrod
Plotinus; Soul; Omnipresence
[Audio File 1983 0722a Begins]
[Note: AD doesn't really speak until halfway through Side 1, but AS exposition and Plotinus quotes are excellent background & summary of previous classes on Omnipresence, for which tapes no longer exist.]
AS: --"The Integral Omnipresence of the Authentic Resistance". (some chuckles, should be 'Authentic Existent,' people milling around, talking at beginning of class) And it's all-pervasive so, no problem. I think that would furnish the best example actually. And, I'm going to try in a spontaneous way to review or summarize, going through about the first seven or so tractates. See except 6 was a little bit of a difficulty, there's some obscurity there, so-- There's (inaudible). (AD inaudible) Oh absolutely crisp. So there were a couple of lines that (we better) make sense that maybe-- we thought maybe to come back to those after going over the rest. So, I'll just give-- just go over some of the main ideas from 1 to 7. And then I guess we could start in the middle of [VI.4]8 there (inaudible) (S: Oh yeah.) just to start it, you know. And, it's kind of basically (to) start. He's asking the question then how do we explain the omnipresence of the Soul. And that's the question, the omnipresence of Authentic Existents. (LR inaudible) We're taking this authentic interpretation, the Authentic All to be the Absolute itself, the Overself, the I AM, the human Soul, principle of consciousness or mind. And he's going to understand in what way we speak of this authentic principle as omnipresent. And in the first tractate [VI.4.1] he basically says it's not just omnipresence. The Soul is immaterial, how is it to be omnipresent to the totality of that which is material. In other words, this omnipresent Soul envelops through its presence the entirety of the mass, the entirety the universe. And, he tries to explain and in the second [VI.4.2] that this omnipresence is not like space or some container, in the sense that Soul is spread out somehow over all of space, but that rather the Soul is to be thought of as completely outside of space or time. And that the existence or non-existence of the universe or the manifestation of it within the Soul does not affect the Soul at all. Says:
[Note: In the reading of Plotinus quotes throughout this class, [added phrases], <omitted phrases>.]
Plotinus VI.4.2 (AS reading): "Side by side exist the Authentic All and its counterpart, the visible universe. The Authentic is contained in nothing, since nothing existed before it; . . ."
AS: And so the Authentic All, again, we're taking that to be the Absolute Soul, the Absolute Self, the undivided, the Overself, the Unit Soul, your Soul. And the visible universe is the sensible All, or the appearance. And he goes on to say that the universe can't be contained in the Soul as in a place, as if thinking of some kind of sensible place. And he goes on and says that, we can't conceive of Soul within body but rather the proper way to conceive it is that body is within Soul, the entirety of manifest body is within the Soul. And there he says it's not that [Plotinus VI.4.2] Being lodges "in non-Being, but, if anything, non-Being within Being." Where Being would be the authenticity of Soul, and non-Being would be appearance. That which is authentic is that which never becomes other or never appears. If it becomes other then it's not authentic because it goes outside of itself (inaudible) itself. So, something is authentic, it can't appear as other. So in that sense the appearance is called non-Being or becoming (inaudible). And again, "Being . . . is present to all Being[s]."
Okay so now, he seems to be bringing in then (inaudible) near the end of [VI.4.]2, these two notions of Omnipresence. On the one hand, this pure principle of Soul, or the I AM, is omnipresent to the entirety of the World-Idea which it's manifest(ing), and it's spoken of as omnipresent in that way. But also the other sense of Omnipresence, is that all Souls, all Unit Souls, are omnipresent with the Principle of Soul, or Absolute Soul. So you have this integral omnipresence of Being, both in terms of all the Unit Souls who are identically Souls, they're all universal, they're all of the essence of Soul (inaudible). And on the other hand, there's omnipresence the other way, each of these Unit Souls or Absolute Selfs are integrally omnipresent to the entire universe which it manifests. But anyway, then, "Being, then, is present to all Being." In other words, each Unit Soul is Soul entire. It doesn't mean it becomes more of Soul or more Being, it is Real-Being. And the other sense of omnipresence is the one he discussed that the Soul as a Real-Being is omnipresent or present entire to the entirety of the World-Idea that is manifested.
So anyway, explaining omnipresence in this text. And then explaining further that wherever the Soul is, it is present entire or not at all. Even if we speak about a power of Soul, and then we come to this funny thing then-- In that case, how do we speak about the presence of the Soul being more or less -- for example, you might say that somebody has more life or less intelligence or more intelligence-- and he says: No, the more or less is just a vehicle which is able to receive more or less of the Soul, but the Soul itself remains entire and wherever it's present.
And he makes the point further that we include within the authenticity of Soul life-being-and-intelligence all of these are similarly, integrally omnipresent.
So-- now after that-- after we can understand something, whatever we can, of how the Soul is omnipresent, now the question becomes well, if it's omnipresent and each unit Soul is identical with every other, then how do we explain the diversity of Souls? Now how can we explain to ourselves that there is a multiplicity of beings. And there he says begins [VI.4]4. " how explain beings by the side of Being, and the variety of intelligences." Okay. Well, okay, omnipresence is fine, and each Unit Soul is identical in essence with every other, then the principle of life is not more or less present with one or the other, then how can we speak of a multiplicity of them, if they're all Souls, if they're all of the essence of Soul? Okay. And we have to be forced to conclude, that just as within the Intellectual-Principle, Intellectual-Principle is not just a unity, but is also a multiplicity, so with the principle of Soul itself, that the authenticity of Soul doesn't mean that it's only a homogeneous block, that that authentic nature of Soul includes intrinsically a multiplicity, that Soul is a one-and-many. And that each of the multiplicities, if you can conceive it that way, is in some way the whole of Soul-essence, it doesn't need to become more Soul. And it isn't a PART of Soul, because there are many Souls. If we take for example, when he says the Intellectual-Principle each idea is the Intellectual-Principle entire in a unique form [cf. V.9.8], it's not a part of Intellectual-Principle in the sense that Intellectual-Principle is partitioned by the Ideas, or cut off by the Ideas, or that each Idea only gets a piece of it as in material masses. Similarly with Souls, each-- there could be a multiplicity of Souls, and yet each Soul can be absolute, in the sense it doesn't need anything outside of itself; it is the whole of Soul, or is Soul essence. It doesn't need to become more of Soul. So this is a funny kind of logic, the logic of multiplicity and unity. He says, at the end of [VI.4]4:
Plotinus VI.4.4 (AS reading): "Now as in Soul unity does not debar variety, so with Being and the Beings; in that order multiplicity does not conflict with unity. [AS: He says: ] . . . For Soul is not articulated, section of Soul to section of body, . . ."
Plotinus VI.4.5 (AS reading): "Herein lies its greatness, . . ."
AS: And so on. Now again, this could be interpreted in two respects. First of all if you take the absolute principle of Soul or Soul essence, it's a unity, the essence of Soul is a unity, and also includes multiplicity, the multiplicity would be the multiplicity of Unit Souls. Each Unit Soul is itself an Absolute Individual. So it works There, that the unity includes multiplicity. Now if we then consider each Unit Soul, it itself is a unity and a multiplicity. It's a unity because it's all of Soul essence, indivisible; and also it has a multiplicity of powers or it manifests the multiplicity of the universe, and (in) whatever it manifests it's present entire, the multiplicity, that it manifests. Or it it's present entire to each of its multiple powers. So again we can use the unity and multiplicity in either way: unity in multiplicity or it's divisible and indivisible.
VM: Avery, where in this one does he talk about the divisibility or the multiplicity of the individual Unit Souls?
AS: Um, we have to go back. Well when he says that-- (pause talking to himself) (VM: Like for example --) Well the whole thing-- (VM: Where the Soul was one and many.) We're interpreting the whole thing as applying to a Unit Soul or the Overself. Here like for example, in the middle of [VI.4] 3, um--
Plotinus VI.4.3 (AS reading): ". . . in beings whose unity does not reproduce the entire ..., any presence ... of an emanant power: . . ."
AS: Okay, now that's for example in terms of the vehicles, it seems that the power is not present entirely, but--
Plotinus VI.4.3 (AS reading): ". . . this, however, does not mean that the principle is less than integrally present; it is not sundered from the power [AS emphasizes power] which it has uttered; all is offered, but the recipient is able to take only so much. But in Beings in which the plenitude of these powers is manifested, there clearly the Authentic itself is present, though still as remaining distinct; . . ."
AS: Now I would say there again, when we speak of this multiplicity of powers that this Overself has, he's saying there that it is present entire in each of those powers. That the power is really present when you speak of the power of motion, or the power of life, or whatever one you want to (inaudible), there it's present entire. So in that sense the very essence of Soul is to be a unity and also a multiplicity. Okay, so that's on the one level. But also, he also uses the same example if we talk of the multiplicity as being the multiplicity's of unit Souls.
VM: (inaudible) That would be easier to get from here.
AS: Yes. Well-- I think that also, that any place where he says the 'authentic existence', also when he speaks of it in relation to what's within it, the cosmos, and he says it's entire at any part. He says the cosmos draws near it, but wherever it draws near it, it's not fragmented, it draws near to the total. For example in the second to the last paragraph in [VI.4]3:
Plotinus VI.4.3 (AS reading): "But set it outside of place, and reason tells us that it will be present entire where it is present at all and that, present to the total, it must be present in the same completeness to every several unity; otherwise something of it is here and something there and at once it is fragmentary, it is body."
AS: So there we could take the either one authentic Overself or a Unit Overself or a Unit Soul is present entire to the whole, but also present where it's participated at all. (VM assents) And then-- along with that, there was this other, this logic, that it must remain--
S: There were two other points in (inaudible).
AS: Okay-- First of all he has this phrase where he says:
Plotinus VI.4.2: "And it is in no way strange that the omnipresence should be at once self-abiding and universal; . . ."
AS: So I took this to say-- this says two things. First, this allows us to talk about an Absolute Individual: It's self-abiding, and yet it's universal. So the Overself is self-abiding, the I AM is self-abiding, it is itself, and yet even in being itself, it's universal. It doesn't need to become more of Soul, it already is (Soul-essence). Or we could take it that it's universal in the sense that it's pervasive of the entire universe even while remaining intact and self-abiding. And then--
LC: Can you do that again? Universal and self-abiding? (inaudible)
AS: Well, he says it's "at once self-abiding and universal." I'm sorry-- that's in the middle of [VI.4]2, the 'being' the paragraph that begins "being is present to all beings" Now again, same, we're trying to get at the essence of this authentic Overself, this authentic (essence) of the Overself. Okay, the I AM principle.
Plotinus VI.4.2: ". . . [this] is in no way strange that the omnipresence should be at once self-abiding and universal; . . ."
AS: And again I think these each of these, there are two ways to face it-- On the one hand, the Overself or the I AM is self-abiding and indivisible, unbroken, and so on. And yet at the same time, it's universal, in the sense that it is present to the entire universe that it manifests. And in no way broken up by it. And the other way to think of it, is that, again, each Unit Soul or Overself or I AM is self-abiding, and yet is universal in the sense that it is the universal Soul-principle. Universal in that sense. But it's all of Soul, it doesn't need to become more of Soul. So in other words, you don't need to go outside of your own Unit Soul, or your Overself, to become more of Being. That's it, if you've found that, you would find universal Being. So that's the other way you could interpret self-abiding and universal. But-- okay-- there's one-- along with that first interpretation there's this one other thing about self-abiding. A funny logic of participation comes in here. Where he says that it's because it remains intact that's it's able to be participated. I'm trying to find that-- (JA: I thought it's the end of 8.) The end of [VI.4]8? That's about where we were up to. (shuffling of papers, turning pages) Well, that's where we finished off reading. Well, maybe we should read it again. The funny thing he says there at the end of 8:
Plotinus VI.4.8 (AS reading): "And if it did not remain thus intact, it would cease to be itself; any participation, then, would not be in the object of quest but in something never quested."
AS: Or in any other thing. Or in the previous line.
Plotinus VI.4.8 (AS reading): "Its participants, then, link with it as with something unparticipated, something never appropriated: thus only can it remain intact within itself and within the multiples in which it is manifested. [AS emphasizes"only" and "and" ] And if it did not remain thus intact, it would cease to be itself; any participation, then, would not be in the object of quest but in something never quested."
AS: Now this funny logic goes like this: How can the multiplicity participate in this Overself? Well if the Overself doesn't remain intact when it gets participated by something, then when you participate in it, since it doesn't remain intact, it's no longer what it is, and you end up not participating in it. But if the real meaning of participation (is that) it MUST remain intact, therefore anything that participates in it must participate entire and in its intact nature. You would think that the only way it could be participated is if it allowed itself to be drawn out from itself, that would be the normal way you'd think about material (inaudible)-- you know, like the only way I take a piece of cake is that if I cut a piece off and I eat it or something, and I got some of the cake. But he's saying here, no, the only way to really participate in an authentic principle is that the thing must remain intact. And if it doesn't remain intact, (inaudible) you're not participating in it. As soon as I participate in it, it's not itself anymore, I haven't got it, I haven't got what is "quested" as he says. Right?
Plotinus VI.4.8 reread: ". . . any participation, then, would not be in the object of quest but in something never quested."
AS: I wouldn't get it, I'd keep grasping it, but I wouldn't get anything because as soon as I grasp it, it ceased to be itself.
JfL: Could you see it another way, Avery, that the point of view of the Soul, that anything that it is going to perceive or experience, will have to be from within it, that it couldn't be outside, otherwise it couldn't experience it.
AS: That would be the obverse side, perhaps. But um, participated, he's not talking about the Soul participating in what it manifests, but he's talking about what is manifested within it, participating in Soul. It's-- I think the "its" is Soul, the authentic, its participants--
Plotinus VI.4.8 (AS reading): "Its participants, then, link with it as with something unparticipated, something never appropriated: thus only can it remain intact within itself and within the multiples in which it is manifested. [AS here emphasizes"within" ] And if it did not remain thus intact, it would cease to be itself; . . ."
VM: So the participants get everything; on the other hand, they are less than that which they participate of.
AS: They are less than that in which they participate of.
VM: But nonetheless they get the whole-- (S: In a way--) --the whole intelligence of it--
AS: Or the life of it. We gave some examples-- Anthony gave a good example with music -- the (musical) scale, you know, if you put a scale-- (VM: (inaudible) whole melody.) like you take like a chromatic scale, each sequence or combination of notes that form a chord, say, would have to participate in the entirety of that scale. If it were a different scale you would lose the integrity of that chord.
VM: (inaudible) I think Jon(athan Back) reads about holograms more than I have lately-- Jonathan? (JB: I'm here.) Jon maybe should talk about this because it's a long time since I've even thought about them-- basically you can make a hologram, which is sort like a three-dimensional photograph in simpler terms. And you cut a piece of the photograph off and you still have the entire image, even in that fragment, although diminished in clarity and resolution and so on. But you still have the whole image, even though you cut a corner of it off.
AS: You can reproduce the entire from just one little piece--
VM: Yes. I don't know if you'd want to expand on that.
JB: Well, there are so many directions to expand on, how it's done technically and what they want to do with it, I don't know how to try to fit it in here, I don't know what more to say.
VM: But, if we just leave it at that level, it's a nice physical example. Like a starfish.
LC: Well wait, you're saying though you cut it off and then you can reproduce the thing entire again-- what this quote is saying is that you can't cut it off because it can be participated in but it can't be divided.
VM: Well I guess what I'm saying is the same thing. -- You can't cut off the total image, but you can take a fragment of the picture, but you still have the whole -- let's say you have a holograph, hologram fragment (LC: Right.) and it's so big, (LC: Yes.) and it's a picture of Leslie smiling, and it appears to be a very three dimensional, you could walk around it like this (inaudible), and there she is in 3-D reality. Now we take this picture, and remove a section of this picture, now I clip a piece off and I stick it back in the hologram projector and there Leslie is there again in her entirety.
LC: Are you're saying they're both the same? (VM: Maybe it's (inaudible).) I understand what you're saying and I think it's very far out, (student laughter) but I don't think that's what--
JB: Well the parallel would be that no matter how small a piece (several people talking at once) you'd still have the whole.
VM: The parallel of the image is that is that the image is participated in, and the image in its entirety is still there, though you only have a fragment of the picture-- I'm not saying it right-- a fragment of the material representation.
MW: You're changing the participants and not what it's participating in. (VM: Yes.) The participant is the (inaudible).
VM: Let's drop the example but (inaudible) (inaudible student comments, then laughter) But the point is that you take a piece, but you get the whole. You get the whole picture.
LC: The point is that you CAN'T take a piece, a piece can't be taken off.
AD: That's it, Leslie, you'd get the whole of nothing.
VM: Well, that's exactly what I'm saying, except I'm saying it badly.
AD: No, you're going to end up with endless duplication.
S: I think we're using (inaudible)-- You've got an individual thing, but in fact you've got the whole thing, and I think what he's saying is an Individual Soul feels individuated. But in fact at some level finds that he is in fact the whole thing. That holds both of those feelings simultaneously (inaudible).
AS: Well I think that would be--
S: This feels the same way, even though it's not quite my point. You know what I mean-- (S2: Except there's no merging either.) You got the idea.
AS: You know, we use -- we better not use it-- the astrological example--
RG: Well I think sunlight's a good example. I mean if you use a physical example-- (S: Go ahead.)
AS: The reason I don't like the sunlight is because you actually do have -- the sun-rays are separated off from that Sun.
RG: They are?
AS: From the mass of the sun, I mean, unless you're thinking of it--
RG: Okay, well, take circles and radii. He uses that later on. I mean-- What do you mean, the rays are separated from the Sun? They're never separated from the Sun-- (S: (inaudible) separated . . . distinct.)
JA: Why don't you use (electricity)?
AS: That's too abstract. (student giggles, inaudible comments) Maybe we should start by reading the next paragraph in 8 and then discuss it some more and then go on. Anthony, unless you have some--
AD: No. I just thought Leslie's point was right to the head, you know. You can't duplicate that, you know, (insight). In other words, when you have the experience of Insight, you're not duplicating it, you don't have another version.
VM: You would say that you're experiencing the Soul in its entirety.
AD: Yes.
VM: Okay.
AD: You participate in Insight, alright, now you are Insight.
VM: Yes, but you're less than Soul.
RG: No, no. And in fact the immanence of the hologram in the image -- he's denying that. Actually, that the principle never enters the image, that the image only could participate and it's a completely non-spatial participation. So the omni-space of the hologram is almost diverse to his understanding of the omnipresence of the Existent. (S: Whew!)
VM: I didn't follow the distinction (student laughter, inaudible comments, more laughter)
RG: I'm intelligible but wrong. That his idea of this participation is not that the principle inheres in the thing or in the image, or that the archetype inheres in the image. But that the image participates in the principle, in this funny way that Avery was trying to describe, that the idea of omnipresence, that the principle is all-pervasive, is not a kind of spatial pervasion. Whereas in the hologram there is a spatial pervasion, it's a pervasion by principle. And that the participated thing ascends to the principle, but the principle never embodies itself in the thing.
VM: Okay. How about something like this, how about something like this, maybe this is a better example-- I'm trying to get a handle on this, a different way-- You say a stone drops. Inherent in that simple act of the stone dropping, is, let's say, the entire theory of general relativity. Although-- you could say there's much more to general relativity than one stone dropping. On the other hand, all the principles are inherent in that one simplest type of motion.
RG: (assents) So in that you're saying that the stone dropping participates in the principle of relativity, but the principle of relativity won't lose any of its own self-abidingness by the stone dropping.
VM: It's completely relevant as to whether that stone drops or not, and in no way affects the integrity and the-- (RG: That's a better--) and the completeness of the theory; that's just one expression of the infinity of possibilities, in that theory.
RG: There's a very nice example of circles where he says, think of radii going out from a center, and then trace back all the radii to the center, and you come up with one center. But there are all these radii. So there's both the multiple differentiation of Souls as well as the unity of Soul once you trace the radii back to the center. And yet you don't deny the differentia of the centers either.
VM: The centers or the rays?
RG: Both. Because tracing the radii back you understand that there is some differentiation even in the center, but you can't point to it. So it's like a spaceless differentiation in Real-Being.
VM: I don't see how (inaudible), I can't follow-
RG: No, because if you trace the radii back to the center, the radii are somehow, they're not unreal in fact. (VM inaudible) Right. So if you trace the different radii to their source, you could also look at them as each having their own center, each emanation, each radii.
VM: Oh, oh-- they're not the same?
RG: Those centers are the same but they're also different. (VM: Okay.) They are real distinct beings and yet they are one center.
JB: Each radii has its own center--
RG: Right. (JB inaudible) It happens that they're all coincident with the center. (JB: Okay; VM inaudible)
AH: Avery, this description of this funny kind of logic where the whole retains its status-- I think I understand something (inaudible) with that. But how would you speak of the participant retaining its status?
AS: It doesn't. You don't have to speak of the participant retaining its status. It's only what is participated that retains its status.
AH: So the participant then forfeits its status in order to participate?
RG: The participant, what do you mean?
AS: (Is changed in the result.)
VM: I don't see the other way around. The participant GETS its status through its participation. (AS: You could put it that way.) the Individual Soul gets its Soul nature because it's part of, let's say, the Universal Soul.
AS: Yes, you could say it that way. But you could say that it does give up, it does change in the sense that it uses up its false status. Like he says, like he says when anybody realized their Overself, has this Insight, it's the same whether you have it or I have it, it's the same experience. Now in that experience, it's the same because that Insight is the same, is unity, it never departs from what it is. But in that experience, let's say, the ego or the person that's having that experience, has to give up his false notion of what he is. And in that sense the participant, the participant is changed from what he was. But he's not really changed-- (S inaudible) he just gives us his falsity. (RG: Well Vic said it, (inaudible).) By adding Being to Being, you give up the non-Being. (RG: Right.) He puts it that way, he says that you become more of Being if you already are Being, you just have to give up the non-Being.
RG: Right. But the part of the Soul that's really participating is always participating-- that's the other corollary to this idea of participation. And what prevents the full realization of the participation is the non--- is the vehicles-- and not the participation of the Soul in Being, in which it always is participated.
AS: We could use that example either for all of the Unit Souls with respect to the Soul-principle or the Absolute Soul, or we could use it for the multiplicity of the appearance within A Unit Soul. I don't think-- I think you could use it both ways. (LC inaudible) That the multiplicity is already inherent-- (JA inaudible) Which one?
JA: The one that's (inaudible) within (inaudible).
AS: We're taking the Unit Soul as what is being participated. Well, that was the primary example, the 'it' --this 'it' means participated-- the 'it' we're taking to be the Unit Soul.
JA: Yes.
AS: The Absolute Self.
JA: Yes. So go through the logic--
AS: Okay. I think what you would be asking is: What would be the participants in that case?
JA: Yes.
AS: Well, for example, you could speak of Soul's powers as being the participants, and you could say these Soul powers carry with them the entirety of that Soul essence. And in that sense they participate in the unity of Soul, if we could speak of these Soul powers as the multiplicity. And they participate in the unific essence of Soul. Now again, this understanding of participation in this funny way: Soul remains intact.
CdA: But the powers aren't other than the Soul-- to begin with--
AS: That's right.
CdA: I don't understand participation in that sense--
AS: I know, that's the funny logic of it.
JA: Well, from the side of multiplicity, when you (inaudible) the paragraph, the multiple units, or the powers, don't attain to unity. Well, the power of the Soul doesn't become the powers, become the (inaudible). (AS: Um, yes.) So then what -- (AS: Try again.) So then what is participation in terms of the powers of the Soul and (inaudible)?
LR: Somehow I didn't think the point of participation is to talk about how the lesser principle becomes the higher principle -- Right?
AS: We're talking about how--
LR: We're talking about the relation (inaudible)
AS: How anything can be present to Soul-- it is not that Soul is present to the thing, but whatever participates is present to Soul, and it's not that it's present, that it takes part of it-- it tries to get some of Soul [cf. Plotinus on the alien, VI.4.14-15], it doesn't take a part of Soul it must be present to the entirety. And participation means that you participate in it entire, or not at all. So if you were to participate in-- and you do participate in-- the Soul, right now! I mean take the ego thing, or whatever, the life, the dependent life must participate in Life, it doesn't participate in a part of Life. Strangely enough, even now-- (inaudible) even right now you are participating in the entirety of that Soul. You must--
VM: What's the 'you' in reference to?
AS: The person now, the person, the ego, the person right here is participant in the entirety. (VM: I thought--) Even now we are not apart [cf. VI.4.14].
VM: Can you say that-- that this ego is so finite, and subject to mortality and so on--
AS: The vehicle part of it is-- (VM/AS inaudible)
VM: But isn't that the ego? (several people talking at once)
AS: (inaudible) combination. Maybe it's not the best example, but if we take this (in here) to be the authentic existent, the 'a' Unit-Soul.
HS: By 'A' Individual Soul do you mean an individual Overself. (AS: Okay--) I'm asking--
AS: Yes, your I AM principle, your unit consciousness.
HS: (inaudible) do you mean one point of view, or the point of view that we're going to follow through--
AS: Okay.
AD: Let's try this way, let's try this way. Jeanne, when you think about the London Tower, is it just with a little piece of your mind, is it the whole of the mind? Then what's your question.
JA: Well, it seems that you have to say that, if you're going to talk about unity and multiplicity in terms of the I AM, and what is manifest within it, then you're talking about anything that's manifested within it as also being-- it's going to participate in unity. (sounds of drawing on blackboard here and below) It's also being itself--
AD: When you think of the Tower of London, and your mind is brought, so to speak, forth, is it the whole of the mind that is operative in your imagining the Tower of London? Or is it a little piece? And if it is the whole of the mind, are you or are you not participating in the unity of mind?
JA: I am (inaudible).
AS: Well I think that was-- (inaudible) the normal view is, you would say that an image-- (S inaudible) That's supposed to be the Tower of London (referring to diagram; student laughter). You would normally say, the normal view of (partaking in Real-Being) is yes, you get part of it, he's just saying that the whole mind is present wherever it's manifesting something. And even in the smallest part (inaudible/you find it). And that's because, the original premise is because it isn't really-- it isn't present in the sense of 'in it' but rather the thing that's manifested is within Soul. And the Soul being non-spatial is actually present -- it's more like the background of all this stuff, and it's a non-spatial background, it's present entire. (JA: Well, yes.) Right now, here you are, you're participating in the entirety of life, you can't be participating in a part of it. Or less living than I am--
JA: But don't you see part of the problem there is that, when you bring in the ego, you're talking about it as a -- not a unity but a unit, instead of talking about it as something--
AD: You don't even have to use those words, Mind and its function. Is the total Mind present in all of its functioning, or is only a piece of it present?
AS: That's the best example.
JA: Okay, well then you're not really speaking about multiplicity, you're just speaking about unity.
AS: No, no. No, but the multiplicity is in what is manifested, by it. (JA: Yes.) The unity is in the presence, integrally, to each of the manifestations.
RG: Yes, but Avery the correlate-- but Avery, also the view that multiplicity is also present as part of a unity in the principle.
AS: Yes.
RG: Through all these examples. It's not just from the side of the appearance. But that--(AS is interrupting) that multiplicity appears, is because there is multiplicity in the principle itself, and it's the unity of that-- (AS: That's true but--)
AD: No, no, no, no. I don't understand now what you said. I don't understand it.
RG: At any level you were talking about he omnipresence of the Authentic Existents, whether it's from the Intellectual-Principle, Soul, or below.
AD: No, no, let's speak common talk, let's make up we're downtown, Main Street or State Street-- (student giggles) What would you say?
RG: That the reality, that there is a reality to the multiplicity -- to the appearance, and the multiple appearances are participating in the reality of the multiple differentiations of the ideas which-- (student giggles) They're complicated ideas! (student laughter)
AD: You gotta do it easy, you can do it easy. Come on.
RG: The many are in the unity.
AD: The many are in the unity. But they're many.
RG: Yes. And it's a one-many, it's never a unity, unless you're talking about--
AD: It's never a unity--
RG: It's never a unity independent of the--
AD: --of the many?
RG: Of the many that go to constitute that particular unity.
AD: Now when you say the 'many' you're referring to the appearances within it?
RG: Not necessarily. No, I think he's saying here that there are real differentiations in whatever principle you're talking about. There are real differentiations in Soul, which are not just appearances, but in fact they are part and parcel of this unity we're calling the All-Soul, say. It's (a) unity of multiples.
AD: If we use a diagram, like we make a circle alright, and inside of it we have A, B, C contents (RG assents) and you're saying that the unity is the unity of the circle, and the A, B, C.
RG: Both. It has a unity, as in a circle, but it's nature is--
AD: Would you read that sentence again, to us, Avery, about participation? (AS assents, then inaudible) I don't know that we were talking about that. (AS inaudible) What we're talking about is participation (inaudible).
RG: I know.
AS: The point about the multiplicity I don't --
RG: I think that was what Jeanne was getting at-- I was just trying speak to Jeanne's question , how do you account for the arisal of this multiplicity from this?
AD: But that's not the question! The difficulty here to understand is that when you have Insight or you experience yourself as pure consciousness, it isn't in pieces-- it's either the whole thing or none at all! That's what I think he's spoken about when he speaks about participation in the unity. (CdA: But--)
Plotinus VI.4.8 (AS reading): "And if it did not remain thus intact, it would cease to be itself; . . ."
AS: I should read the previous line:
Plotinus VI.4.8 (AS reading): "Its participants, then, link with it as with something unparticipated, something never appropriated: thus only can it remain intact within itself and within the multiples in which it is manifested. And if it did not remain thus intact, it would cease to be itself; . . ."
AS: I thought his point there was that, again, even if it ceased to remain itself, then when you had Insight, you wouldn't have Insight into reality because the very fact of having the Insight would destroy the reality of it. And then you'd be left outside of reality again.
AD: I think that was the point here. (RG: Yes, yes, ok.) That the substratum of Reality, our reality, what-- that we're speaking about(,) an Individual Soul, that substratum is consciousness, and we're going to participate in it, either totally or not at all, I mean we can't break it up no how. (RG assents) Yes, that's what I thought. (RG: Ok.) This is the strange notion of participation that they work with. I don't see that it's so strange, after all, if you think even in arithmetic, alright, you have participation. When you start speaking about numbers, 1, 2, or 3, you wouldn't say you got four 1's, alright, they're all participating in the notion of a unit 1. It doesn't exhaust the unit 1.
RG: Uh-hm. Yes.
(Side 1 of original cassette tape digitized as 1983 0722a Ends; Side 2 Begins)
S: --but could present it individually (AD/S?: Yes, yes.) wouldn't fly. Right?
AD: No, (AS: No.) no.
S: But--
AD: That's the point we're making here. We're making the point that pure consciousness is always pure consciousness, and it doesn't have grades within it.
S: I agree with you but, for example, none of us in this room present I think will agree-- (is experience) pure consciousness at this moment and yet we know it to be present.
AS: Okay but--
S: I was trying to get to something that would act as a paradigm for that situation.
AS: Okay. I think he's saying it slightly different, because the fact of our vehicle or whatever, the body is obscuring that participation. In other words, if participation is what it is, it gets obscured (S assents) That's again where later on, I think that's a good line where he says, that it's not by adding more Being, that you participate in Being, but by putting aside the non-Being, you know, whatever appearances covering it. In the actual participation, that participation is of the identical consciousness. It's a funny notion.
EW: The only part of that I was reflecting on is that he seems to be-- the implication seems to be that there's simultaneously a feeling of individuality that is present as a possibility. As well as the idea of a presence as a possibility, in fact going on all the time regardless of individuality or not. But absolute merger?
AS: I think I follow. I think that was earlier when he said it's self-abiding and universal.
Plotinus VI.4.2 (AS reading): "And it is in no way strange that the omnipresence should be at once self-abiding and universal; this is merely saying omnipresence within a unity."
AS: But I think this is a slightly different point but a true point, that that this notion is going to allow for you to say Absolute Individual. On the one hand, it's individual, but when you get to the essence of that individuality you find that the essence of this individuality is this universal consciousness.
EW: (inaudible) by using white light, complete light, right, which has within it all colors. (AS: Yes.) It can manifest them in different ways, and yet receive primarily (inaudible), they're all there, but what's happening is an emphasis on one part of the spectrum. But all of them are there, (inaudible) another perception, yet all are there. And you get this idea of individuality as more a emphasis of qualities-- yet in fact go back to the matrix, right, of everything that's there--
AD: (inaudible) (S: What are you thinking of?) He's going to work, (AS disagree) he's going to work differently than Plotinus. You're going to start out with the premises that there's this Absolute Individual which is consciousness-- and within it, the sensible All is going to arise within it. It isn't that you're going to differentiate pure consciousness and from that differentiation there will arise the sensible world. He's not working that way, he's working this way: There is first this Absolute Universal Self that you are, and my Absolute Self is not your Absolute Self. The substratum of what constitutes me, the reality that is me, is not you. Although there would be a recognition that you also are of the same nature. So we're not discussing that. Then-- and he's referring to this as the Unity of Soul-- this is what it always is, it will never be anything else. Then he speaks about it in-- Avery could pull out the quote-- about the sensible universe alongside of it, or coming into it. (AS inaudible) There's no differentiation of this principle. So the unique Soul receives this World-Idea. Now this becomes, let's say, it's content. You want to read that quote?
Plotinus VI.4.2 (AS reading): "Side by side exist the Authentic All and its counterpart, the visible universe. The Authentic is contained in nothing, since nothing existed before it; . . ."
AD: Notice he's saying here that "nothing existed before" your Individual Soul, before your Absolute Self. It cannot exist unless Soul is there. Because it's only through Soul that it can come into existence. So don't come on the premises, don't try to approach this tractate by thinking that within the Absolute Soul there will unfold a content which is the World-Idea, he's not working that way.
AS: That-- not under the premise that this Absolute Soul will become the content.
AD: Yes.
AS: It doesn't become it in that sense.
EW: In the beginning of that I was just trying to figure out how, some image, some idea, of how individuation can exist. Are we really talking about one essence alright, (AS: Yes that's what he--) and have this idea of colors and white light. (AS inaudible/S inaudible)
AD: What-- does this scare you?
EW: No--
AD: How there could be an indefinite and innumerable number of unique Souls--
EW: No, I was trying (inaudible). (other student comments)
AS: How explain "beings by the side of being"-- he's saying, how to explain a contiguity of all these Overselves-- and yet they're all Being. Each is a unique-- you're permanently this unique consciousness and it's distinct, and yet on the other hand they're not (distinct)--
EW: So we have to say that that distinction is because one or another quality is emphasized-- that's why if you take two cross sections of water, they're different. Not the water, but one is--
AS: Okay, that's good, I think that's why the example with the white light and the colors is not appropriate. Because in your example the colors are qualitatively different kind of colors. Even though they're all light but each one is a qualitative color. An example with the many Overselves is that each Overself is a white light, it's not even a qualitative business. He says somewhere (several people talking at once). So even the example of the white light and the colored ones would imply that my Overself is qualitatively different--
EW: He's saying that that is this white light, but (presented as a) different color, to emphasize the idea of individuation, a different color possibility out of the white light.
CdA: No, but the individual in this example is PRIOR to any of (inaudible)?
AS: Is prior to the what, Karey [sic]? (student comments; Karey is AS's wife)
CdA: Is prior--
AD: Is prior to all existence.
CdA: Yes!
AD: Because it will be the spectator of all existence. (RG assents)
AS: Okay he does use the word 'nowhere' --
LCG: But that like the only thing that you really use as an example (inaudible).
RG: There's also another quote somewhere that says Souls are unique because of an almost initial inequality. [Note: See Plotinus, III.2.18, first para.]
AS: Somewhere he says, even what makes them-- the only thing that separates them is the fact that they're not the same. [Note: Probably a misreference to V.1.3, fifth paragraph.] (lots of student laughter) (inaudible) the pure principle, not any qualification of difference, but their sheer difference at that level, which is that sheer category of Difference. But I think that's point of view of that you're bringing out, Richard, that that sheer category of Difference does inhere in the notion of Soul. (RG assents) It's not a Parmenidian homogeneous block. But I mean, that's a different point from the participation.
RG: That's right.
AS: But that it's not a block-- there is Difference, inherent in Soul. (RG: Right.) There are distinct, there is a multiplicity of Souls, and not added on either, but inherent. But the multiplicity is not a qualitative distinction. And another thing too, too-- although there may also be qualitative distinctions they're not intrinsic.
RG: Well, if you think of them as the difference between ideas, I mean, there could be qualitative distinctions and yet not-- they all are the Intellectual-Principle.
AS: Okay. In that sense they're qualitative.
RG: There's a 'quality'.
AS: But still that's a hard-- because if you really explain one idea (versus another)--
RG: So they're both there, the totality and the difference. But if you say that, then the Difference is not-- You can't think about it as Difference there, you always think about Difference, because isn't Difference apart from the Unity.
S: When you think about ones, those ones participating in One -- Anthony, really except for an idea, the fact that we think of individual marks, there isn't difference, there's only one. And yet we're still stuck with the same problem, there isn't any end yet, though, the end yet would be a verbal fabrication, so we can discuss it, a theoretic fabrication-- There's One, in the principle of One, there are no separate ones-- that's something we work with and we play with, with our minds. (several people talking at once)
AS: His view (inaudible) imagine white light within white light (S inaudible), white lights within white light--
S: I think that might be it-- (people talking at once, inaudible) the entirety is present--
AS: An objection to the way you say it, I would object and say that, you seem to be implying that this distinction is superimposed (inaudible, then S inaudible). I think the notion is that the distinction is INTRINSIC to the essence, (I don't think) it's-- as intrinsic, as the unity aspect.
RG: In [VI.4.]14 he really says it.
AS: Can you read?
RG: VI.4.14. (sound of pages turning)
Plotinus VI.4.14 (RG reading): "The one principle reaches to the individual but none the less contains all Souls and all intelligences; this, because it is at once a unity and an infinity; it holds all its content as one yet with each item distinct, though not to the point of separation. Except by thus holding all its content as one--life entire, Soul entire, all intelligence--it could not be infinite; since the individualities are not fenced off from each other, it remains still one thing."
AH: So, Richard, the point you want to emphasize, even to the point of You (inaudible), (if of) authentic participation , even from the point of conceptual understanding there's still the recognition--
RG: You mean his conceptual understanding is a recognition with? Or the understanding of it is of that when it happens, it is a direct connection. (AH inaudible) Not the conceptual understanding is of that--
AH: Like that the individual experientially speaking has to function in his own individual mind-stream. (RG assents) Are you suggesting for this quote, even that is authentic participation. In example of the Tower of London the whole mind functioning.
S: Are you still trying to find a suitable example? (noises on tape, shufflings, relative silence, no one speaks)
AS: Do you want to read through some more of Plotinus? (AD: Yes, I think so.) It might to work while we had to have different people reading.
S: Can I ask question? (AS: Yes.) When we speak of the unity of the Soul, Absolute Soul, are we speaking of the unity of its powers, is that one way to think of this here? And this makes a whole of parts, so to speak? Within itself, so that wherever it is, or wherever it appears, or in whatever it appears to be manifested, or through, all these powers appear as a unity? Entire?
RG: Powers don't appear as a unity; if the powers appeared as a unity, and they weren't a unity, then it would be a false appearance of unity.
S: No, I mean the powers are present as a unity, and that's what we mean by Soul entire, or Soul as a unity, the unity itself?
AS: I think I follow what you're saying.
S: Well I'm trying to separate Soul per se from its powers, can that be done?
AS: Well I think that both things are valid questions, right here I think he's referring to the intact unity of the Soul, (S: Yes.) rather than to its multiplicity. But we could also ask the question that if these powers are intrinsic or are inherent to the essence of Soul, are these powers also present entire, where the Soul is? And-- (inaudible) something like here, suppose you could talk about the appearance of one thing within the mind, wouldn't all of the various powers of the mind have to be operative right there? (S: It would seem so.) I mean the principle of Difference, of Motion, of all these different things, would have to be operative, all of them, wherever the Soul was. So in that way you could explain that the Soul was entire, or present entire in any of its manifestations, or had to be present entire to any of its manifestations. Even entire in the sense of all its powers would have to be available right there.
S3: They're not being operative, (inaudible) functioning.
AS: They might not be, but that would depend upon the thing that was manifested, whether it was capable of receiving all the powers.
S: It might not be available, you might have to remove that-- (several people talking at once, inaudible) -- certain qualities (inaudible).
AS: But-- qualities-- But all I meant was that in terms of powers, if you talk about the mind, say, manifesting an image, it has to use all of its powers of manifestation for any image, I mean all the principles that we would list would have to be available and operative there, so--
LDam: And insofar as you speak of any aspect of mind, the unity of that mind is within that aspect, so how you can totally separate the two, the aspects from the (inaudible).
RG: The unity of the mind, according to this view, is not in the aspect, the aspect is within the unity of the mind; you'd never say the unity of the mind per se is in the aspect, I don't know what that means. (JA inaudible)
LDam: Power aspect--
RG: Because I think that the way he's talking about participation is that it's the aspect that's participating in the unity, and the unity because it doesn't descend into a manifest condition, at any change of level you cannot speak of the unity of the mind as being fully present in the thought. (JA: I thought that was (inaudible).) So I'm saying something else, you can disagree with it if you want.
JA: Well, it's very confusing-- (more student comments; RG: State your point.) Well it wasn't my point. (RG: Well, the point.) This was something that was (inaudible) but I thought when you were reading the entirety of the mind (inaudible).
RG: You can think of it two ways, now which point does he emphasize? You can talk of it from the principle emanating the entire universe, and do it from that level. And then, yes, you would say yes, the unity of the mind is present. But from the point of view of the participant, participating in the unity, I think he wants to establish a very definite point that distinguishes this kind of omnipresence as something that never enters into its manifestation. Now in other places I think he emphasizes the other point.
CDA: But Dickie, I don't think see how 'enters into' is an appropriate-- (RG: That's what I mean.) --point of view. (inaudible RG/others) It's not that the distinction is present within the Soul, it's that Soul is present entire (RG: Right.) at every point of the manifestation.
MW: Without entering, which is--
AD: Now look--can you make a distinction what you're talking about? On the one hand you're talking about the Soul as being a unity and having many powers, alright, and that's one thing. And then you talk about the Soul and what's being manifested within it, the World-Idea or something else, that's another thing. (RG: Right.) Now which one are you talking about? If we speak about the Soul as being a one-and-many, alright, you're speaking about the way the mind functions, and in order to speak about functions, you've got to have a unity, and to speak about functions you've got a many, a one and many. (RG assents) Now when you're speaking about the mind, so to speak, as expressing something, it has a content within it, now what are we talking about? Are we talking about the same thing? (RG: No.) Or are we talking about something different? We're talking about something different, right-- I'd like you to keep this distinction around.
AS: That's important, because the multiplicity of that World-Idea is not the not the multiplicity of the Soul. When you say that Soul is a one and many, you mean the one and many as being--
RG: As Soul and its powers.
AS: --the one and many of the Soul. When you speak about the World-Idea of many, that's not the many of the line of Soul as one and many. (RG: Right.) I think that was clear from the discussion but--
AD: No, it wasn't clear, because I had found myself thinking two different things at one time. (several people talking, inaudible comments, laughter) I'm going to send some of you people to the Tower of London. (laughter)
RG: You mean the Tower of Babel.
AS: He means both towers. (more laughter)
HS: What's that, Avery?
AS: He makes both kinds of points in this tractate, and its very-- he's making these distinctions. Because sometimes he does speak about the powers of the Soul, sometimes he's speaking about the way that the World-Idea is present to the Soul, and I think as you go along you have to distinguish which one he's talking about.
JA: (If) he's talking about participants, can you speak about -- how do you speak of participants, if you're thinking about World-Idea--
MW: The body--how does the body participate in Soul? And that would be-- (JA inaudible)
AS: You can talk about how body or the World-Idea in manifestation participates in Soul, and you can talk about how one of the Soul's powers participates in Soul, or you can talk about how Soul itself participates in the essence of Soul, how a Unit Soul is a participant in the absolute essence of Soul.
JA: Right. Now those are three different things, three-- Just deal with one at a time, please.
AS: Well, he's only dealing with one at a time, but every time he brings up one, there's a lot of different, all the other ones come in.
JA: Alright, you mentioned, in the beginning, you're talking about Absolute Soul and Unit Soul, right? And in any event he talks about multiplicity and unity in terms of the Unit Soul itself (inaudible). And then you mentioned the manifestation (inaudible), how would you speak about the manifestation in Soul as sort of something like multiple (reals/views) (inaudible) in the way that you could speak of Absolute Soul and Unit Soul and as that kind of participation in the unit Soul, participant in unity without being part of that Absolute Soul. So I think thing got confused-- so why don't you just take one at a time? (silence)
AS: Well, do you want to go over those three, or do you want to just go on. Um, number 1: you tell me how these are different or the same. Number 1: number 1 is each Absolute Soul, each Unit Soul doesn't participate, isn't a part of the Absolute Soul, it is Soul-entire, it is Absolute.
AD: Before you go ahead, does she understand that? (S inaudible) Does she understand that?
AS: I don't know. (laughter)
AD: Because there's no sense going on if you don't understand that. And if you don't, then we have to start all over again, go back to the problems of the Soul.
AS: Case one, is that each Unit Soul is the Soul essence entire. An Absolute Individual or Mind, each one is Mind, it is an Authentic Existent.
JA: And (inaudible)--
AS: And in that sense, each Unit Soul, although there can be said to be many Unit Souls, each one participates--in a real sense of participation-- in the intact identity of Soul.
JA: By each being itself--
AS: Each is an Absolute Soul, not the Absolute--is an Absolute Self. Okay. So that's one sense of Omnipresence of the Authentic.
S: I don't see how you can understand that--
AS: Omnipresence and participation are obverse sides of the same coin. They're not two different things, I think that's an important point. The Omnipresence of the essence of Soul to the multiple Unit Souls is the obverse side of the Unit Soul's participating undividedly in the essence of Soul. Each is authentic Being, because each can participate in Soul essence, without breaking up the Soul essence, participation in Soul essence intact, each Unit Soul has insight, it's an Insight that is-- it's not less of reality, it is Reality.
DR: The conclusion (implies) that any kind of understanding (inaudible).
S: That individual we're discussing limiting something. (inaudible; JA inaudible)
AS: Instead of Individual, say Unit Soul, call it, he says that this level goes along with the statement, that Soul is a one-and-many. The very essence of Soul is one-and-many [cf. V.1.8]. Now what he's saying that's this logic, that what he's trying to understand here-- that's just one level, the highest level of it, of how that oneness is omnipresent, how the essence of Soul is omnipresent, and how the manyness, how each Soul can be a self-contained unit and yet be all of-- and be Reality. Reality is not cut off from reality, or mind isn't cut off from mind. And contiguous unit Souls which are distinct from each other, and yet are one identical essence. How can that be? Well however that is, that is the highest sense of the Omnipresence of Soul, and the participation entire of a Unit Soul in Soul essence. That's one-- (DR inaudible) Yes go on. "Beings by the side of Being."
DR: I think I see that there's another way that you can speak of a participation in Soul, without speaking this way. That the participation has to be in Soul entire, otherwise there'd be no participation at all. In other words, if I-- if in some sense the essence of a person is Soul, and Soul has to be self-contained, then nothing is going to be broken off, to make that person or that individual Unit Soul. But in the end if you say that each Unit Soul is this whole entire-- (RG: That's what he says.) --then you come up with some kind of formulation which you know to be true but which defies the imagination.
AD: It defies your logic. (DR: Your logic.) A logic which is based on space-time.
DR: Well, then how do you hold the content? (AD: How do you what?) How do you hold the content? (several people talking at once)
AS: Your thinking of the individual as the root in a space-time setting is part of the problem. See, every time you kept saying individual, and I was pretty sure you were thinking of -- this (inaudible) as that unit Soul, he's trying to get you to understand, I think, that YOU as a Unit Soul, you are not this body, but is an omnipresent reality.
DR: And you juxtapose that against another one.
AS: Yes, (inaudible) beings by the side of being, that's the funny thing-- You have to, because my Absolute Individuality or my Self is distinct from your Self. It's juxtaposed with -- juxtaposed is a good word, because you didn't say separated, you said, I think, just the right word. Can I juxtapose, yeah-- juxtapose is the word I think you would use, it can be juxta-posed. (laughter)
DR: I see that you have to have another Unit Soul, that you even have to have many-- but you can't hold that content.
AS: Yes you can. (several people talking at once, inaudible)
RG: You just told us. That's what this whole dialogue is (about).
DR: It's not just a matter of words, I mean-- (people arguing)
AD: Alright, let's start at the beginning. Let's start reading one, and we'll (work on their way through). (AS: Okay; shuffling of papers)
RG: In the Sun rays example, don't you hold it in your understanding that the rays are not other than the Sun, the rays are distinct, don't you hold those two ideas simultaneously?
DR: You're making a distinction--
RG: Well, I'm giving you a sensible example, but if you went to ideas it would be easier. (DR: Easier--) Are the ideas in your mind other than the mind, and yet aren't they distinct?
DR: But you're distinguishing one mind from another--
RG: No, ideas in a mind from--
DR: But the idea that you're distinguishing is the mind itself.
VM: (inaudible) said to go back to the beginning. (RG: Alright; AS: Back to the beginning.)
AD: Let's start again, let's read. (muttering in background) Avery, I know, let's do it-- let's start from the beginning, let's start to read--
AS: What do you want to work with? Have different people read, that worked well--
AD: Yes, that's a good idea, that's a very good idea, get different people to read. (interrupting student comments about reading and interpreting) You read and you gotta interpret. (student comments)
AS: Jon--
S: Jon will do it.
AD: Let me warn you, don't come from the point of view of Vedanta, you won't understand him.
S: Well I'm not trying to do that--
AD: Because basically Vedanta is misunderstood to begin with. (more student comments) Since basically Vedanta is misunderstood to begin with. You gonna start, Brombeck? (student laughter)
JB: Now I love to read and show off my loud voice. But I don't know that that-- that's a good place to--
AD: Well let's try, let's try.
JB: Is it 4.1?
S: It's 4.1.
AD: Let the intuition guide. (more student comments, laughter)
S: Come on, Jonathan.
Plotinus VI.4.1 (JB reading): "How are we to explain the omnipresence of the Soul? Does it depend upon the definite magnitude of the material universe coupled with some native tendency in Soul to distribute itself over material mass, or is it a characteristic of Soul apart from body?
"In the latter case, Soul will not appear just where body may bring it; body will meet Soul awaiting it everywhere; wheresoever body finds place, there Soul lay before ever body was; the entire material mass of the universe has been set into an existent Soul."
AD: Let's stop there, don't try too big a bite. (silence)
S: Soul is logically prior to anything else, right.
AD: What do you mean, logically prior?
S: Well I gather--
AD: If you had just said 'prior,' I would have liked that. (student laughter, inaudible comments)
S: It's being presented in a logical format, alright, a verbal formula.
AD: Yes. You're saying Soul is prior, sure.
VM: Isn't one of the main issues here the divisibility or the multiplicity coming from the side of body or matter or appearance, or is it actually intrinsic or inherent to Soul?
AD: No, no, no, Vic, I want you to stick to the-- I just want the things explained as we go along. In other words, let's follow HIM, because if we follow our anxieties, we'll be all over Valois (laughter) and probably end up in, you know, Ontario. (more laughter)
RG: Nobody disagrees that Soul is omnipresent but (inaudible). The question is in what manner. Is it spread out over all of space and covers the material universe, that way? Or is it a characteristic of Soul independent of manifestation, independent of the universe?
AD: Yes, so in other words he's asking you to conceive as an immaterial spiritual principle, prior to anything that exists, in order to grasp what he's going to talk about. Go ahead, Brombeck-- (more laughter)
Plotinus VI.4.1, cont. (JB reading): "But if Soul spread thus wide before material extension existed, then as covering all space it would seem to be of itself a thing of magnitude, and in what mode could it exist in the All before the All was in being, before there was any All?"
AD: I think we'll make you Reader.
JB: This suggests that if we take the second view, and Soul existed before ever material mass existed in the universe, then Soul must be seen as covering space, it gives an appearance of existing in space, but that's to be denied.
Plotinus VI.4.1, cont. (JB reading): "And who can accept a Soul described as partless and massless . . ."
AD: Everyone, hear!! (laughter)
Plotinus VI.4.1, cont. (JB reading): ". . . and yet, for all that absence of extension, extending over a universe?"
JB: So how can we explain that it covers the whole universe and yet has no part, no mass, and doesn't extend?
AD: That's not very logical, is it? What kind of logic are you talking about? A guy from the Belgian Congo? Whose logic are you talking about? The logic of a philosopher, a mystic, whose logic? Continue.
Plotinus VI.4.1, cont. (JB reading): "We may perhaps be told that, though extended over the corporeal, it does not itself become so: . . ."
AD: Okay--it extends over the corporeal, but it isn't corporeal! Sure.
Plotinus VI.4.1, cont. (JB reading): ". . . but thus to give it magnitude as an accidental attribute leaves the problem still unsolved: precisely the same question must in all reason arise: How can the Soul take magnitude even in the mode of accident?" [JB said 'move' instead of 'mode' above, some student comments correcting]
JB: So that is even if it appears to have magnitude by the accident of being extended over corporeality, we still can't understand how it can have none.
Plotinus VI.4.1 cont. (JB reading): "We cannot think of Soul being diffused as a quality is, say sweetness or colour, for while these are actual states of the masses affected so that they show that quality at every point, none of them has an independent existence; . . ."
JB: That is, if Soul were diffused like sweetness or color, the quality of sweetness and color would appear everywhere, but each instance would not exist. [S: Is that right--]
AH: But also those qualities have a lack of independent existence. (S: Right.) That comparison of Soul to the qualities of sweetness and others that you used is unlike that that because those qualities could not enjoy an independent existence.
JB: So it cannot be seen as a quality diffused over matter--
Plotinus VI.4.1, cont. (JB reading): ". . . [these] are attributes of body and known only as in [a] body; such quality is necessarily of a definite extension."
JB: So Soul would not apply to that nature--
Plotinus VI.4.1, cont. (JB reading): "Further, the colour at any point is independent of that at any other; no doubt the Form, White, is the same all over, but there is not arithmetical identity; in Soul there is; it is one Soul in foot and in hand, as the facts of perception show. To speak generally, [JB substitutes"And yet" for previous phrase] in the case of qualities the one is observably distributed part for part; in the Soul the identity is undistributed; what we sometimes call distribution is simply omnipresence."
AD: Let's try to understand that. "The identity is undistributed; what we sometimes call distribution is simply omnipresence."
JB: Well where whiteness is white everywhere, each element is also white and can be said to be white independent of its neighbor, but Soul isn't distributed like that, it is always all there.
AD: In other words, "the entirety of Soul is present in the finger and the foot."
JB: And it seems to be distributed but it is actually everything in every place. Now to understand Eric's example from this quote-- if whiteness were totally in every white thing, then perhaps that parallel applies.
EW: But he says that and it's fine.
JB: But it is interesting that white light came as this example because-- and yet we have to show where it's different because this is trying to show how the color white is different than the nature of Soul.
S: If white were all in one thing, then there wouldn't be any left over for the other things. I think that's what he's saying in that paragraph, it would be numerical, arithmetical identity.
AD: Nah--
JB: But whiteness can't be exhausted but-- Are you suggesting that Soul can be exhausted because it is all an image thing?
DH: Well it's whiteness has the same form in every part, and so it's broken up, it's distributed, it's not the same whiteness.
AH: I thought this passage compared the form of white, with the examples of things being white. And in that comparison, it shows how that's unlike Soul. B(ut) Soul if it remain abstract as the form of Soul, and then manifested in particular examples the way the white (inaudible)--
RG: I think the example is really abstruse here.
S: Perhaps you could do it again--
RG: No, I don't even know if we should think of other examples but--
JC: I think (he's) only referring to white as embodied, (several students agree) he's not referring to the abstract form-- (S: Capital W (inaudible); AS: (inaudible) form white.; S: Capital W, you know.) You know it's a way of saying the appearance of white-- you could point like on my white shirt, this is white and this is white, they're both white, but it's not an arithmetical identity, this point is not this point, of whiteness.
RG: And the finger is not your -- you know, the nose. But the form white is present in all whitenesses, just as the Soul is present in all body, I don't-- I don't get it.
JC: Yes but that's-- he's-- that's what I'm saying, he's using white as embodied and not as disembodied. (S: Well--) But he's saying that the Soul is present to any point of the body, not as like this is the left part of the Soul, like this is the left part of white that's embodied and this is the right part of white that's embodied, he's not saying that. You can't have a left or a middle or a right of Soul, it's all the total of Soul in each of those points.
S: Right, right.
JB: Yes the same way white is embodied in this point.
BS: But, you can't be the total of Soul.
AD: But isn't that so, isn't that what he's saying Richard, what [Jeff] Cox just said?
RG: What-- Yes but, I don't know, this is a Proclean understanding of a--
S: Oh no.
RG: No I just-- I just wonder why--
AD: I mean, why don't you at least stay away from the examples (RG: I know. Yes.) (inaudible) directly extracting but Cox just said the right-- He just pointed out what he's talking about what the example is and we don't even have to worry about the exa--
RG: Alright, we'll go-- we'll go with Cox's. (student laughter)
AD: Let's get-- let's get-- let's get to the point this man-- What-- what is the point he's making here?
RG: What Soul (inaudible).
JB: What looks like distribution is omnipresence.
RG: In the Soul is identity no matter where it appears to be, it never leaves its place. There's one Soul that is undistributed over all of manifestation.
BS: But-- If I may, and I hope this is not (inaudible).
RG: No he didn't like the right one. Let's get the right answer.
LD: But isn't Jeff saying white can have a spatial referent and Soul cannot have a particular space?
AD: Go ahead, Bert.
BS: Hm?
AD: Go ahead Bert, you were going to say something.
BS: Oh I guess I (inaudible). I'm beginning to get the impression--
[Audio File 1983 0722a Ends]
[Audio File 1983 0722b Begins]
S: Yes.
BS: A part of Soul that's embodied, such as in the hand, is participating as entire in all of Soul. I think we're coming to, or at least I am, that participation would be of Soul within itself, Soul with Soul. Because if we-- I guess one of the reasons (inaudible) Soul illuminates matter and in some sense produces a foot which is part of an entire body-- in producing a foot the same Soul powers so to speak are not used as those that were being used to produce a hand. But both hand and foot to be produced, have to be produced with the presence of the entire Soul. So participation, at least to me at this point, it would seem to be of difference of degrees of Soul powers which would appear to be limited by a vehicle, but the Soul itself is entire.
AS: You know, there's one other point I think he could make of this white example, is that the white is actually IN the objects-- you wouldn't say the object is in the white. The paper isn't in the white, the white is an attribute of the paper. If you talk about Soul, you wouldn't say your Soul is in your foot or in your hand, it wouldn't make any sense at all, a hand (inaudible) Soul or whatever, (inaudible) in the Soul. So obviously the white is actually distributed as being IN the very things that are participated in-- in the book, in this, in that. The Soul is not in the hand or foot, or it would be caught there; the hand or foot is within Soul.
RG: But he does say it, though. (AS: What?) He does say it is one Soul in foot and in hand.
AS: Yes but IN. Yes-- I know, but I think the hand is different, like "in"--
AD: No. Dickie, what do you mean by hand, there?
As: In or out--there.
S: Not (asking/exactly) where--
RG: I agree. But I don't get the example. Well obviously the hand and foot are in Soul.
AH: Could you say, in summery perhaps, that Soul is not manifested the way that all other things are to interpret this example? You can't be speak of Soul being manifested the way that other qualities or other things might be.
AS: That's certainly true, yes.
AH: And the example of white is precisely to that point. (AS assents) There's the form white and the manifested examples of white-- Soul can't be thought of as being a form and then manifested. It doesn't work to think of it (inaudible).
Plotinus VI.4.1, cont. (JB reading): "Obviously, we must take hold of the question from the very beginning [discussion about what to read] in the hope of finding some clear and convincing theory as to how Soul, immaterial and without magnitude, can be thus broad-spread, whether before material masses exist or as enveloping them. Of course, should it appear that this omnipresence may occur apart from material things, there is no difficulty in accepting its occurrence within the material."
JB: So if we can come to allow omnipresence as occurring separate from matter, then we shouldn't have any problem understanding how Soul could be omnipresent within matter.
AD: What is he asking you to conceive? Soul as an immaterial principle, what would be the result of a conception like that?
S: Soul as (inaudible)-- are you saying that the "broad-spread" -- isn't broad-spread like spaces. In the sense of being prior to it , is not then over space, are you saying--
AD: We're going to go around in a circle here. Go ahead--
S2: Kind of everywhere and Soul nowhere at once.
AD: Everywhere and nowhere, can we think a little more, elaborate that a little more? Because you've got to feel-- what could an immaterial thing be? Well we don't know any such thing, right? You don't, right? (student snickers) You don't know of any, right? You just heard him say you don't know any such thing and you say yes.
RG: Right. (laughter)
AS: No I disagree. (more laughter)
AD: You don't know an immaterial principle, sure.
S: Well we do know an immaterial principle.
AD: Where does your knowing take place?
S: (inaudible) (in the knowing knowing) (inaudible).
AD: In the firing of the brains-- the neurons in the brain? Where's this knowing take place?
Students: In the mind.
AD: Well, where is that!?
Students: It's right here. (S: Not anywhere.)
AD: Right here (inaudible). (laughter, inaudible student comments)
S: The answer supposed to be at the (inaudible)?
AD: You have to, you have to, you have to change your way of trying to understand this-- you can't say mind is here-- here isn't-- Here is in the mind, not mind is here.
AH: The spatial referent follows from mind, (it's not it's identification with it).
AD: Don't you see how all our language, all our logic is conditioned by the empirical way of operating-- and therefore if there is a Soul it has to be everywhere, or in a certain place. What in the world does it mean to say something like that? "[I]n the Soul the identity is undistributed; . . . we sometimes call [it] . . . omnipresence."
AH: It's undistributed in the sense that there's no spatial reference.
RG: Not only that but it's all Soul-- Soul is entire, is always present, Soul at all is present, and Soul entire is present --there's no partial Souls here. Therefore its identity is never distributed-- if you could speak of Soul's identity as being distributed, you'd then have parts of it. Since you don't, Soul is always present.
AH: How do you say Soul is present without spatial manifestation?
RG: That's the question, how do we say it?
BS: That's why I said it participates in itself--
RG: No that's the question, but the other side of her question is how is this participation in itself other than identity. Can you fall towards the sides of identity? So you have to hold the middle ground between it not being in identity, and then the word for participation is meaningless, and also it have not being an intrusion into the sensible where real participation doesn't occur-- Now what's that middle understanding?
LdS: I don't know if this helps, but isn't the point that when you speak of distribution or omnipresence, or some kind of presence that you're always speaking from the perspective of the Material-All or those vehicles produced by the Material-All. Like if you speak of the Soul as an Authentic Existent, um, eternally unified, never anything interrupting it, then there's no problem from its stand from any kind of presentation or permeation of any material-all, it's always only from the material-all or (inaudible) vehicles from within that, that we can we can speak of this process or this quality of omnipresence, or some form of distribution which he just negated here. Like the problem only arises from the Material-All perspective--
RG: The problem of omnipresence?
LDS: Yes.
RG: The problem may arise from here, but the truth of it doesn't.
LDS: If you think of the Soul as an authentic existent, and a Unity, there's no question there of any kind of space, distribution, location--
RG: Exactly, but they're still omnipresent, that's his point.
JB: So maybe the error of distribution comes from material--
LDS: Yes, and omnipresence. To speak of location, to speak of being present TO something is only from the perspective of our situation or the Material-All.
RG: But not the idea of omnipresence. Because the idea of omnipresence he's trying to get us to, corrects that notion, and says there is a real omnipresence, we interpret it sensibly but that's wrong. Now he's going to try to lead us to the real idea of omnipresence.
LdS: Okay, and I'm saying the idea of omnipresence is understandable if you're thinking strictly in terms of the Soul-principle per se, and think of unity per se, there omnipresence is no problem. Because you're not trying to spatialize or locate it in anyway.
RG: But then, the other side of the problem is, is that if that's omnipresent, what is it omnipresent TO? If you wipe away the manifestation, there is no problem, but it's holding the manifestation and the principle, and saying how is it omnipresent to the manifestation without spatially overriding the manifestation? You can't wipe away one or the other and get to the omnipresence.
AD: You have to hold it, you have to hold them (inaudible/together).
LDS: I don't think I'm trying to wipe it away, I'm trying to. distinguish where the problem arises. Like now that we have both realms, that is, the material-All and this Unity, this of the Authentic Existent, now we have to try to resolve this business. But I was just trying to show where the problem arises, on what side of it. (RG: Sure.)
AS: But Louis, Richard's answer is to the point, that the problem arises in the interrelation between an immaterial principle and the material principle. If it were just either one there wouldn't be the problem, the way he's speaking of here, of the omnipresence of an immaterial to the material principle.
LDS: But he also makes the point -- that it's from the vehicle side or the material-All side that there's a quest towards this, there's a developing kind of reactivity to this unity that is everywhere and nowhere. So its always on the side of the vehicle that it's trying to approach or receive or come into this principle of Unity.
RG: But you know he's going to deny that-- I think (inaudible)-- I think he's going to deny this from the vehicle that it participates. In fact the vehicle is what gets in the way of participation, because participation is real, and the vehicle prohibits it.
AD: Look, Richard, let's try something like this now. Let's really exaggerate it. Let's imagine you got a square okay, it's got a thousand points, okay, and this on the side of manifestation. Now from the other side, the side of the Soul, the Soul is totally present at each and every one of those points, simultaneously. I said it wrong, didn't I?
LdS: You said the Soul was present to each and every one of those points.
VM: Why wouldn't you say those points are within the Soul, as well as the whole square?
AD: Fine. Go on.
LdS: But you still haven't exhausted it.
VM: That's a little different.
AD: Well, go on, go on, Vic.
VM: Well, I mean to use the example of the mind, it seems easier for me to come to grips with. You would say that all of manifestation is within the mind, and it's not a question of trying to find, once you're within manifestation, where the mind is. --Look is it in this place or that place, because that's the inappropriate hoisting of spatial and temporal constraints on the description of the Soul. So in your example, you have the square with a thousand points, to sort of put that out in a spatial sense, and then trying to invest the Soul in each one of those points seems inappropriate. But if you take the Soul as primary, and then speak of any configuration, whether it's thousand points of square as within that principle, then you're closer, I think, to what he's trying to get at. I'm not sure I went in the direction you were attempting to go--
DH: It's going to be more than that because (inaudible) room, but it still doesn't have that-- the room is not omnipresent--
AD?: Not just containing--
[omitted student discussion continuing along this line for about 4 minutes]
AD: The 2nd.
RG: We'll read, we'll read [VI.4]2.
Plotinus VI.4.2 (RG reading): "Side by side exist the Authentic All and its counterpart, the visible universe. The Authentic is contained in nothing, since nothing [RG reads as 'no thing'] existed before it; of necessity anything coming after it must, as a first condition of existence, be contained by this All, especially since it depends upon the Authentic and without that could have neither stability nor movement."
RG: So we have these two things, we have the manifested universe, and we have the Cosmic Soul or the All-Soul. And the Authentic or the All-Soul is not contained in anything, it can't be because it's prior, and "nothing existed before it" all things are within it, and in fact the Authentic-All gives all things its principles of Stability, Movement, Life, etc. So there's no way to think of the visible universe as prior to this All in any way.
AH: What was the opening statement of that passage?
Plotinus VI.4.2 (RG reading): "Side by side exist the Authentic All and its counterpart, the visible universe. . . .
"We may be reminded that the universe cannot be contained in the Authentic as in a place, where place would mean the boundaries of some surrounding extension considered as an envelope, or some space formerly a part of the Void and still remaining unoccupied even after the emergence of the universe, that it can only support itself, as it were, upon the Authentic and rest in the embrace of its omnipresence; but this objection is merely verbal and will disappear if our meaning is grasped; we mention it for another purpose; it goes to enforce our real assertion, that the Authentic All, at once primal and veritable, needs no place and is in no way contained. The All, as being an integral, cannot fall short of itself; it must ever have fulfilled its own totality, ever reached to its own equivalence; as far as the sum of entities extends, there this is; for this is the All."
VM: Whew!
RG: So far that everything that's real and true is within the All, it would be pretty foolish to talk about any manifestation not already being contained within it in some sense.
LdS: Dickie, would you say at the end of that: "as far as the sum of entities extends, there this is; for this is the All" --he's not saying there that the totality makes up this All, it doesn't exhaust this ALL, you're not coming to that conclusion, right?
RG: No, but he's saying that the All, so far as you can think of the infinity of individual entities that could exist, you can't think of them as being outside this principle. (LDS: Right.)
AD: How would you interpret it, Avery?
AS: (inaudible, silence) second paragraph.
AD reading Plotinus: "Side by side exist the authentic all and its counterpart . . ." (AS: That one?) You may be reminded, that the universe, etc.
AS: The Authentic All is the Unit Soul or the I AM.
AD: Or my mind.
AS: Yes, the unit--
AD: I want to get brutal, My Mind!
AS: Everything's in my mind, the whole universe, and the visible universe is the appearance within it. And that "side by side" it's a funny side by side, he said that: Side by side of the immaterial with the material-- I mean--
VM: I mean, it's slightly misleading if you read it superficially, because you can't make it one big place next to--
AS: Well the way that a thought would be in my mind.
AH: Mind as continuous-- (student giggling)
AS: Not mind as continuous with its appearance, (laughs) it's just that I have certain associations (inaudible). It's that's my mind or the I AM, the Overself is contained, (S: Containing the visible universe.) and my mind or the I AM is not contained within anything. "Since nothing existed before it." It's authentic.
DH: He's also making the point at the very beginning of this paragraph that it's not contained in (inaudible).
AS: Oh yes, the next paragraph? "We may not be reminded that the universe cannot be contained". Yes-- your mind is not like a box. (laughter, inaudible student comments, triangles) Yes I agree.
VM: (inaudible) It's not sort of parts of empty space that you can imagine that the Soul hasn't entered into, there's some just hanging around vacant.
AS: Right, to the part of the mind that's vacant, just waiting for something to come into it. (laughter, a few inaudible student comments)
AD: I'll read it okay--
Plotinus VI.4.2 (AD reading): "Side by side [my mind] <exist the Authentic All > and its counterpart, the visible universe. <The Authentic> [My mind] is contained in nothing, since nothing existed before it; of necessity anything coming after it must, as a first condition [in order for it to appear] <of existence,> be contained by this <All> [my mind], especially since it depends [my mind] <upon the Authentic> and without that could have neither stability nor movement."
AD: Do you mind if I put it that way? (RG: No, no.)
Plotinus VI.4.2, cont. (AD reading): "We may be reminded that the universe cannot be contained in [my mind] <the Authentic> as in a place, . . ."
AD: You know like if you think of a thought that your mind has, alright, and then you say that this thought is in a place, you would see how absurd it is--
Plotinus VI.4.2, cont. (AD reading): ". . . where place would mean the boundaries of some surrounding extension considered as an envelope, or some space formerly a part of the Void and still remaining unoccupied . . ."
AD: Let's go on to the next--
Plotinus VI.4.2 cont. (AD reading): ". . . we mention it for another purpose; it goes to enforce our real assertion, that the Authentic All [MY MIND, is], at once primal and veritable, [it] needs no place and is in no way contained. The All, as being an integral [my mind as being integral], cannot fall short of itself; . . ."
AD: It must always be what it is, this total unit of consciousness which will never be anything but that unit of consciousness. (S inaudible) Hm? (RG: No that's right, sure.)
Plotinus VI.4.2 cont. (AD reading): "Inevitably, <also,> anything other than this All that may be stationed [within] therein must have part in [my mind] <the All>, merge into it, and hold by its strength [the strength of my mind]; it is not that the thing detaches [whatever the thing may be, which is part of the World-Idea, detaches] a portion of [my mind] <the All> but that within itself it finds [my mind] <the All> which [it] has entered into <it> while still unbrokenly self-abiding, <since> Being cannot lodge in non-Being, but, if anything, non-Being within Being."
AD: That means the World-Idea must come into MY mind which is Real-Being, it isn't that my mind which is real Being, could go into non-Being.
S: Whew!
AD: That's really a frank way of saying what this man is talking about. Let's do [VI.4.]3, Avery, huh?
Plotinus VI.4.3 (AS reading): "But are we to think of this Authentic [my mind] < Being> as, itself, present, or does it remain detached, omnipresent in the sense only that [its powers or that powers enter from it, that only] the powers from it enter everywhere?
"Under the theory of presence by powers, Souls are described as rays; the source remains self-locked and these are flung forth to impinge upon particular living things.
AS: So we could say it another way, there would be a principle of mind, but somehow individual or partial minds are "flung forth" from this principle of mind.
S: Powers of the mind.
AS: Or-- "Under the theory of presence by powers, Souls are described as rays"
AS: You could say either one--
S: You're saying that Individual Souls are there--
AS: Individual minds, or you could think of powers of my mind, as somehow as operating as separate from my mind, operating on the appearance or the divis-- (inaudible)
Plotinus VI.4.3, cont. (AS reading): "Now, in beings whose unity does not reproduce the entire nature of that principle, any presence is presence of an emanant power: . . ."
LR: Excuse me, Avery, just on that other sentence-- it seems to me the problem isn't so much with the first part of the sentence-- in other words, that Soul is carried on its powers, but with the second part where he says that "the source remains self-locked." (AS: Right.) In other words, to see that Soul goes out with its powers, that's okay, but it's just the idea that the principle stays back in, and that these other things extend from it-- and the thing remains locked up and can't also--
AS: I agree. I tried to emphasize this by saying partial Soul, (inaudible) Proclus, that's why I didn't like the ray example either (inaudible). (S: Yes/inaudible.)
LR: I don't think that's what he's saying, you're saying that-- a part of it remains locked and the other --
LC: No I'm saying that's what he's arguing against.
LR: Right.
LC: This whole paragraph is going to argue against.
LR: Argue against what? Argue against where it says "the source remains self-locked and these are flung forth to impinge upon particular living beings."
AD: That's simply the theory or the hypothesis of outward-facing power, that's all that's referring to. Any true authentic reality has an outward-facing power which it projects forth from itself, but it remains in principle what it is. I don't know you keep humming around that like a bee. (inaudible student queries, comments) That's not new, that's the theory of powers, that's going to be reduplicated again when the Individual Soul also will have powers which we are going to call motion, memory, etc. all these. And it'll be again an outward-facing hypostasis of Soul.
LR: So he says "under the theory of presence by powers" where you said that's Proclus's stupid idea, you're taking that back.
AD: No, I'm not taking that back, I'm just trying to explain what he means by the theory of powers.
LR: Which there's nothing wrong with.
AD: There's nothing wrong with it.
MW: The thing is, the theory of powers is not going to explain omnipresence of Soul, it may explain something, but it won't going to explain--
AD: That's right, Michael, it's not going to explain the problem we're faced with.
RG: So it's not wrong--
LR: So he puts this here as something which tries to explain it but does not, I'm trying to understand what this sentence is, this paragraph referring to.
MW: I still think he's trying to explain omnipresence, and this is a theory that doesn't explain omnipresence. (a few laughs)
RG: But it explains something else. (inaudible student comments, the Kabbalah)
AD: Well, if you think about it, how would a theory of an outward-facing hypostasis explain omnipresence? (VM: . . . emanation, inaudible student comments) He makes another remark somewhere else about that, he says the explanation by progression does not clear the problem. So let's go to the problem. "Now in Being" alright-- let's continue--
Plotinus VI.4.3 (AS reading): "Now, in beings whose unity does not reproduce the entire nature of that principle, any presence is presence of an emanant [AS emphasizes] power [AS: That's okay.]: even this, however, does not mean that the principle is less than integrally present; it is not sundered from the power which it has uttered; all is offered, but the recipient is able to take only so much." (S inaudible)
AS: So any vehicle, he's talking about an inauthentic being, how the presence of the authentic-- how the authentic is present to it, like the ego or any vehicle, any body, and so on, which cannot "reproduce the entire nature" of the principle of Soul, then the "presence is presence of an emanant power." For example in the body, we could see the power of sensation is present. And he says "even this, however, does not mean that the principle [of Soul] is less than integrally present" in the power of sensation, for example -- the power of sensation would not be "sundered from the power" of the Soul, which (inaudible). The Soul is not sundered from that power of sensation "which it has uttered" and which is present given (all presence in) to body. "[A]ll is offered, but the recipient is able to take only so much." So the Soul offers itself entire, but the body is only able to appropriate or take part in the power of sensation; it can't take part in any of the other powers. And yet in that very power, even in that power of sensation, which (is the only power that) that body can admit, the Soul is in some way not sundered in that power of sensation.
Plotinus VI.4.3, cont. (AS reading): "But in Beings in which the plenitude of these powers is manifested, there [AS emphasizes] clearly the Authentic itself is present, though still as remaining distinct; it is distinct in that, becoming the informing principle of some definite thing, it would abdicate from its standing as the total and from its uttermost self-abiding and would belong, in some mode of accident, to another thing as well." (S inaudible)
LdS: Avery, would you say that he's speaking in sort of an incorrect mode here, like temporarily, because by saying that the authentic itself is present but "still as remaining distinct" doesn't he have to say that it still remains distinct? Simply because he previously said that this authentic is present-- what he really means is that this material vehicle is within the authentic. You know, it's the way, he said it, the mode in which he's speaking of it, that he has to clarify by saying there's a distinction still. (S: Yes.)
MW: But what are the beings here, in the authentic? (several people talking at once)
RG: You know, Louis, there's a way of interpreting it that doesn't think he's not meaning what he's saying-- (LdS: Go ahead--) If you interpret it as a distinct thing, that in beings "clearly the Authentic itself is present, though still as remaining distinct"-- it's distinct from the side of the thing still, not from the side of its self-abidingness.
LdS: Wait a minute--I think I follow that but I don't see how that's different from what I was saying-- um--
RG: Okay. I don't think he's hiding anything, by saying that.
LR: Distinct is not mixing with that it participates in, "that which participates" in (inaudible; RG: Yes.) -- distinct but not becoming diffused in that presence, a loss from the presence. (RG affirms)
AS: Well, suppose we say, let's take an individual, beings, an individual-- "in which the plenitude of these powers has manifested"-- there clearly the mind or the authentic Soul itself is present "though still as remaining distinct" -- it still remains distinct from the entity in which its manifested.
VM: Can we try the approach that maybe the first sentence where he's speaking about the presence of the Soul to vehicles. But in this he's speaking of the presence, let's say, of the Absolute Soul to the Unit Souls. Because for one thing-- (LR inaudible) The first part was saying now these beings, let's say the vehicles, whose unity does not reproduce the entire nature of that principle, the vehicle doesn't reproduce the entire nature of Soul, and he goes on to say here, that the recipient, which I'm trying to take as those vehicles, is able to take only so much, so that's one approach. But now in beings like Unit Souls, in which the "plenitude of these powers" is of the Absolute Soul is manifested, there clearly the authentic Soul principle is itself present, though still as remaining distinct, in the sense that you still (want to) maintain a distinction between the Unit Souls and the Absolute Principle of Soul. It starts getting hard to maintain, now, this next part is hard to understand
S: Can't that second one be the I AM on the side of the intellectual? Whereas the other one is the I AM as in association with its parts divisible about body, whereas this is (inaudible).
VM: That's not that much different from what I was saying, I don't think so.
JC: But he goes on to speak about, entering-- becoming a chattel, I don't think he'd be referring to the I AM as chattel. ["Still it is not the property of what may seek to join with it; it chooses where it will and enters as the participant's power may allow, but it does not become a chattel."]
RG: But he says it does not become a chattel.
JC: Yes, but he's not saying the Absolute Soul enters some other principle lower, because the principle lower he goes on to refer to as chattel. So that I would maintain that "in Beings in which the plenitude of these powers is manifested," would be like the human beings, in which the Soul is mirrored. Unlike in the prior example which would be like the eye in which the power of sensation is present, well I would say Soul's not present itself, only the power of sensation. (someone tries to interrupt) But in this case he's saying the human being, in the body of the human being, all of the Soul is present.
VM: I don't see how that differs at all, you're saying about the first part there you're talking about the eye or a physical organ or the vehicle, okay, and you're saying that Beings with a capital B is the authentic human, isn't that the I AM?
JC: I'm talking about the Shadow in the Cave or whatever, the manifested human being. (inaudible student comments) Because that is a vehicle which properly can represent what a human Soul is.
VM: I guess we have to go on, I can't decide--
AD: No-- go over it Jeff. Go over it. What in Beings, are you saying Beings is what?
JC: Like a human being.
AD: Yes.
JC: And in which the plenitude of powers of Soul-- (inaudible, AD/JC/others talking at once)
AD: If you read the whole thing, does it make sense that way?
JC: I think so.
AD: I think so.
LR: Well, the first beings is not characterized, and the second is-- I don't know if that makes any difference.
AD: Sure.
Plotinus VI.4.3 (AD reading): "But in [human] Beings in which <the plenitude of> [all] these powers is manifested, there clearly there clearly the <Authentic> [mind] itself is present, though still as remaining distinct; it is distinct [that is, this mind] in that, becoming the informing principle of some definite <thing> [human being, alright, and self-abiding], it would abdicate from its standing as the total and from its uttermost self-abiding and would belong, in some mode of accident, to another thing as well. Still it is not the property of [this human being which] <what> may seek to join with it; it [this mind] chooses where it will[s] and enters as the participant's power may [show,] allow, but it does not become <a chattel> [its servant]; it remains [that which we are seeking for] <the quested> and so in another sense [it] never passes [away] <over>. There is nothing disquieting in [the] omnipresence [in this way, in this fashion] <after this mode> where there is no appropriation: in the same accidental way, we may reasonably put it, Soul concurs with body, but it is Soul['s] self-holding, not inbound with Matter, free even of the body which it has illuminated through and through.
AD: Now what objection do you have to that rendition that Jeff gave? (LR: None.) Because there's a word there that says "in Beings" and right away you react as though it's an ink blot-- (laughter)
LR: No, I was just wondering what the first beings was referring to. (S inaudible) Do you think it's the same?
AS: Jeff explained it, like the example in a being in which only the sense power is present-- that's very meager, and yet even there in some sense the sense power is not cut off from Soul. Now imagine a human being in which the totality of all these Soul powers are present, that still doesn't make him the Authentic, he still may be striving for the authentic here-- Because as long as you talk about the powers present to the human then you still have to conceive of the Authentic as distinct from the powers although manifesting, in some way. So there's just grades of beings.
LR: Grades of realization, you might say. (AS: Or grades of--) (inaudible) Like we speak of developing the Soul powers or refining these powers-- so then you'd be saying even in the lowest (inaudible) the Soul does not become, (inaudible).
AS: There's a part of Soul that always remains completely distinct, an aspect of Soul completely distinct from any possible appropriation.
AD: Now what I was going to suggest, Avery, if you feel really brave, if you can get them through these two tractates [VI.4, VI.5], when I come back [from visit to Sweden], we can apply this to the Parmenides.
AS: Thanks a lot. (student laughter) Do you think it would be-- (inaudible)
AD: There's only one place you can understand those 9 Hypotheses is right here.
VM: Understand this and use it as springboard to do any Hypotheses is--
AD: Well, to do the One itself is almost impossible, as I found out. But to do the Soul, Soul as a Unit, do that as the one, and go apply the 8 Hypotheses, you'll see it very clearly. You remember the first Hypothesis: "One is." And then the second one, "If a One has Being." And then the third, the 2A where he speaks about, "If it has existence" --no, that that existence which comes into it has only two ways, either it comes in or goes out, there's no intermediate. That's like he's speaking about the relationship of the Unit Soul to the World-Idea that comes into it, it has only two ways, In or Out, no in-between. And that we spoke about that as the "sudden" or the "instant". And then the third Hypo-- We could apply this all the way. But you have to understand Unit Soul. That's what those Eight Hypotheses were really about. [Note 1: See WG Classes 1983 0902b, 0909b, and 0916 for a discussion of all eight hypotheses as applied to Unit Soul. Note 2: From jf's notes 8/26/83 (no tapes), marked as important comment by AD: The indivisible and divisible nature of the Soul is non-dual. Everything he says about the 1st Hypothesis applies to the essence of your Being.]
AS: And that's the lo-- you know, when he said that strange logic, that's the logic of the Parmenides is what he's using and applying it to the Soul. But I think that those Hypotheses apply to anything which is authentic.
AD: Which is a 'one', but this one would make it clear, (VM: Yes, closer to home.) this would be clear. Because you have the One, alright, and then you have the One "if the One has Being," and you could see the World-Idea is the Being that is being referred to, alright. Then that existence has only a one-way street to go on. So this would show the 8 Hypotheses very clearly. Whereas the Absolute would be-- is really difficult. So if you're willing to do it, you know, when I come back, we'll do the Parmenides, and apply it to this understanding. Alright let's call it quits.
AS: Oh, one thing, next week there's no class. So the next class is (inaudible) there.
AD: Yes, no class next week during the-- during the-- you know, the Fireman--
AS: Yes we'll just-- you know, we'll keep-- (several people talking) What? Will there be meditation on Sunday? Probably. Well, okay this is-- Well, maybe we should--
VM: What day (inaudible) (S: Thursday.) does it run on Sunday night or not?
Students: No.
AS: No it's not, it won't run on (VM: No.) Sunday night-- Sunday night. Anthony, I was thinking that maybe a good thing to do would be on Sunday night to have one meditation and the sun[set meditation].
AD: (One tonight.)
AS: I know. I'm saying. I was suggesting, while you're here like to suggest that on Sunday night we could do a meditation and then do the sunset meditation. Do a regular one and repeat.
AD: Yes maybe we could do between the two. I made a collection, I marked out a numerous amount of notes on meditation.
AS: Yes.
AD: You could start reading them.
AS: Yes, I saw them. Yes those are--
AD: They go-- you know, they go-- they range from (AS: The gamut. Yes I know.) the elementary to the ultramystic. [Note: See Paul Brunton, Notebooks, primarily Categories 4 and 23.]
AS: Well, maybe we could do that, either, you know, have a regular meditation first and then read those and then do the sunset meditation on Sundays, so we'll keep doing that then.
AD: You know what Mrs. Ybor asked me? Says why do these people get up after a half hour? (bit of laughter)
S: Mrs. Ybor wasn't watching us.
AD: She was watching. (student laughter) She thought it was inspiring but she couldn't understand why they got up and went away. (bit of laughter)
AS: Well, too much of the light is-- (student laughter)
MW: Wasn't there a line here about that, the student is able to take in so much?
AD: No you really do have-- For the sunset [meditation] to work you got to give it at least 45 minutes. I notice that you're all ready to go sit down 20 minutes before time.
[Audio File 1983 0722b Ends]
1983 07/22 V11r: CLASS: Plotinus; Soul. Copyright 2024 Wisdom's Goldenrod p. v