Return to the One (sections 1-2)

I've started reading Brian Hines's Return to the One. Here are a few short notes on his first two sections, "God is the Goal," and "One is Overall."

He starts by making the point that Plotinus is an ascetic, but not because he wanted to be a joyless curmudgeon. He says that Plotinus is an ascetic because he wants to get at what is truly good, and not be distracted by lesser goods which are unsatisfying. That remark sounds a little like my thoughts about asceticism here. Then he says that we all desire the One, that we should therefore channel all our desires towards it, and that when we finally achieve the One (if we ever do) all our desires will cease. 

How does it make any sense to say that we all desire the One? Don't we desire a lot of different things? Food, shelter, love and companionship, money and nice things, admiration and respect, … and on and on? Well yes, of course. But Plotinus says that these are only distractions from the One, or at best they are reflections of it; whereas if we had the One Itself, we wouldn't need all the other things.

At first hearing, this sounds bizarre. It comes from Plato defining the Good as that which we all seek, and that definition comes in turn from saying, "I want food because it is good; I want shelter because it is good; I want companionship because it is good," and so on. But to jump from saying all these things separately to saying that there is one single thing called "the Good" that we can somehow acquire and that will satisfy all our desires at once … that sounds like a joke. It sounds like Plato (or Plotinus) is playing with words to charm us or mystify us or confuse us, and in any event to get us to follow along. Of course Plato and Plotinus would deny that the Good (or the One) is a "thing" that we can "acquire." Also, they are both very smart; so if I can see that the jump from adjective to noun looks like a stretch, odds are that they see it too. Maybe there is more to it than meets the eye. Keep this question in mind as we go on.

Notice by the way that Robert Pirsig does something similar in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance when he introduces the term Quality but refuses to define it beyond saying "Quality is what you like." [p. 232] There are some words in there about Quality as an immediate felt experience, but nothing very exact. If the comparison helps, I think it is fair to use it. 

When Plotinus says that all desires will cease he sounds for a minute like a Buddhist (I've remarked before that the Buddha dharma and the Πλατωνικός λόγος sound awfully similar) but his path doesn't sound especially Buddhist. Hines writes that, "Plotinus does not espouse the extinction of desire, but the channeling of desire. Within us is a spiritual engine, longing, that is always running strong.... [But] In truth, that hunger can only be satisfied by the One." [p. 40]

Is the difference real, or only apparent? I'm not sure yet. This is another question to keep in mind as we go, to see if it is answered later. I admit that when I hear that the way to the One involves using all our power of longing and desire but simply channeling it, the first thing I think of is William Blake's remark in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell that "at the end of six thousand years …. the whole creation will be consumed and appear infinite and holy, whereas it now appears finite & corrupt. This will come to pass by an improvement of sensual enjoyment." [plate 14] But I'm probably wrong: at any rate I make no claims here that Blake and Plotinus are saying anything like the same thing. 

So if we all want the One, where do we find it? Plotinus says that the One is everywhere, that it is the source (but not the creator) of all existence, and that the only way to see it is to look back on ourselves in contemplation, screening out all the other distractions that occupy our attention. Here again, the advice sounds quasi-Buddhist: meditate quietly in order to understand the true nature of reality. Right now my working hypothesis is that the methods and experience which Plotinus is teaching may turn out to be very similar to the methods and experience taught by the Buddha, but that the language and conceptual structure in which he describes them are rather different. Let's see if this hypothesis holds up.       

What's wrong with following your passion?

There is a kind of fashionable advice on careers that says to find work you are passionate about. The argument behind it is that your passion will fuel your hard work, and the hard work will bring success. And usually there is an example given, of this or that person who never finished school or labored under some other handicap, and who nonetheless succeeded because of single-minded dedication fueled by passion. 

This argument is wrong in two ways, not just one. One well-understood flaw is that it is an example of survivorship bias. (See especially this section of the article, as well as this cartoon.) 

But the second error is that it assumes passions are immutable. On the one hand, if you find yourself becoming successful at something you are likely to start feeling passionate about it. But also, if you regularly fail at something you are likely to lose your passion. Think of a young boy who loves role-playing as a superhero. He hears the advice about following your passion, and so he makes it his life's goal to achieve fame and fortune in a career where he can role-play as a superhero. Of course such careers exist — there are actors who star in superhero movies, after all — but they are few and far between. So the numerical odds are stacked way against him, and the overwhelming probability is that he will fail.

What then? Will he be as passionate about playing superheroes at 45 as he was at 10? Probably not. His tastes will likely have changed over time, and his repeated failures to make even a bare living this way will likely have dampened his ardor. But if he then complains to the propagandist who sold him on the "Follow your passion" dogma years ago, how is that fellow going to reply? "Don't complain to me, Sonny. Just look at yourself: you're no longer passionate about superhero role-playing, and so of course your flabby commitment is dragging down your performance. Of course you failed. It's your own fault for losing that passion you had when you were younger, because if you had only kept the flame alive you would surely have succeeded one day."

In other words, "follow your passion to achieve success" really means "your failure is your own fault." 

But sometimes it ain't.

See also a similar point made by Scott Galloway on Twitter, here. 

This clip is excerpted from a much longer speech which you can find here:

         

Return to the One (Introduction)

 Some months ago, I bought a book that has been sitting around waiting for me to read it. (To be clear, this happens a lot.) In the meantime, though, I've picked it up and browsed at random through it any number of times. (This, too, is pretty common.) And I've thought, "What if I actually read the thing from start to finish? You know, the way it's meant to be read."

The book is called Return to the One: Plotinus's Guide to God-Realization, and it's by Brian Hines. In the Introduction, he says that the right approach to Plotinus's teaching is to probe it, criticize it, and ask questions. Plotinus taught a very distilled form of Platonism; so as the conceit of this blog is that ancient philosophy is still meaningful today, looking into Plotinus's thought would seem to be a natural thing to do. And isn't the medium of a blog post just tailor-made for criticizing or asking questions? For thinking through topics when you're not sure how they will turn out? Maybe if I plan to post something here once a week or so it will keep me on track. We'll see.

I explained back in the inaugural post of this blog that at the time I saw great value in classical thought as well as some areas that I simply disagreed with. That's still true today. To make it clear where I am starting from, let me quote one summary paragraph (and just a bit more) from Hines's introduction:

During the third century, in Plotinus's lifetime, Neoplatonism and Christianity competed for the hearts and minds of those in the Mediterranean world.... Indeed, the spiritual message of one of these combatants can be summarized in this fashion: There is only one God, who is all love; every human being has an immortal soul, whose highest destiny is to be united with God; if we live virtuous lives, we will join our heavenly Father after death, but if we do not, justice will be done; we must humbly yield to the divine will, accepting with equanimity whatever life brings us; to be attracted to the sensual pleasures of this world is to be distanced from God, the Good we seek but never find in material pursuits. And then there is the Christian conception of spirituality, which I won't bother to summarize, as it should already be familiar to the reader. [Hines, p. xvi]

Fine, let me take this radically abbreviated summary of Neoplatonism and suggest where I stand today with respect to each of its points. Naturally by the time I get to the end of the book I might have changed my mind on some of these opinions.

• There is only one God, who is all love. Of course it depends on how you define the word "god." Under one definition this claim is perfectly reasonable. But the word has also been used to describe other phenomena as well, that don't fit so neatly into this view. It will probably take me at least one whole post on its own to explain what I have in mind.
• Every human being has an immortal soul, whose highest destiny is to be united with God. If I look at this through the metaphysical lenses that I normally use, it's hard to agree. What is this soul made out of? Matter or energy? How do we detect it? Also, anything made out of either matter or energy cannot be immortal, based on what we understand of physics. On the other hand the anecdotal sources attesting to ghosts or other communications with the dead are many and they come from all over the globe. So this point deserves some thought before I dismiss it.
• If we live virtuous lives, we will join our heavenly Father after death. This belief relies on what came before, about the immortal soul. If that fails, this does too.
• But if we do not [live virtuous lives], justice will be done. This, on the other hand, looks perfectly obvious to me. If I lead a corrupt and vicious life, my punishment is to be the kind of person that my actions make me. And living a life as that kind of person is unpleasant. Such a life is not worth living. So the justice is immediate and, I would argue, inescapable: cause and effect, no more.
• We must humbly yield to the divine will, accepting with equanimity whatever life brings us. Yes, equanimity is a good thing. And kicking against Reality -- refusing to accept that what is, is -- that's just a waste of time and effort. And it makes you needlessly miserable. I'm completely onboard with this point.
• To be attracted to the sensual pleasures of this world is to be distanced from God, the Good we seek but never find in material pursuits. Not so sure about this one. Are we really supposed to think that wine and music and love are worthless distractions? That's a hard argument to make, and I will be interested to see how Plotinus makes it. I have already started to discuss this point before, for example here and here.

So it's a mixed bag. And again, my positions may change after I read the book. Let's see.