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  "work": {
    "slug": "ennead-6",
    "name": "Ennead VI — Being, Number, the One"
  },
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      "slug": "plotinus-enneads",
      "name": "Enneads",
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 9,
    "slug": "9-on-the-good-or-the-one",
    "title": "VI.9 — On the Good, or the One",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 6099,
    "text": "## NINTH TRACTATE\n\n\n#### NINTH TRACTATE.\n\nON THE GOOD, OR THE ONE.\n\n\n## Section 1\n\n\n##### Section 1\n\n1. It is in virtue of unity that beings are beings.\n\nThis is equally true of things whose existence is primal and of\nall that are in any degree to be numbered among beings. What could\nexist at all except as one thing? Deprived of unity, a thing\nceases to\nbe what it is called: no army unless as a unity: a chorus, a flock,\nmust be one thing. Even house and ship demand unity, one house, one\nship; unity gone, neither remains thus even continuous magnitudes\ncould not exist without an inherent unity; break them apart and\ntheir very being is altered in the measure of the breach of unity.\n\nTake plant and animal; the material form stands a unity; fallen\nfrom that into a litter of fragments, the things have lost their\nbeing; what was is no longer there; it is replaced by quite other\nthings- as many others, precisely, as possess unity.\n\nHealth, similarly, is the condition of a body acting as a\nco-ordinate unity. Beauty appears when limbs and features are\ncontrolled by this principle, unity. Moral excellence is of a soul\nacting as a concordant total, brought to unity.\n\nCome thus to soul- which brings all to unity, making, moulding,\nshaping, ranging to order- there is a temptation to say \"Soul is the\nbestower of unity; soul therefore is the unity.\" But soul bestows\nother characteristics upon material things and yet remains distinct\nfrom its gift: shape, Ideal-Form and the rest are all distinct from\nthe giving soul; so, clearly, with this gift of unity; soul to make\nthings unities looks out upon the unity just as it makes man by\nlooking upon Man, realizing in the man the unity belonging to Man.\n\nAnything that can be described as a unity is so in the precise\ndegree in which it holds a characteristic being; the less or more\nthe degree of the being, the less or more the unity. Soul, while\ndistinct from unity's very self, is a thing of the greater unity in\nproportion as it is of the greater, the authentic, being. Absolute\nunity it is not: it is soul and one soul, the unity in some sense a\nconcomitant; there are two things, soul and soul's unity as there is\nbody with body's unity. The looser aggregates, such as a choir, are\nfurthest from unity, the more compact are the nearer; soul is nearer\nyet but still a participant.\n\nIs soul to be identified with unity on the ground that unless it\nwere one thing it could not be soul? No; unity is equally\nnecessary to\nevery other thing, yet unity stands distinct from them; body\nand unity\nare not identical; body, too; is still a participant.\n\nBesides, the soul, even the collective soul for all its\nabsence of\npart, is a manifold: it has diverse powers- reasoning, desiring,\nperceiving- all held together by this chain of unity. Itself a\nunity, soul confers unity, but also accepts it.\n\n\n## Section 2\n\n\n##### Section 2\n\n2. It may be suggested that, while in the unities of the partial\norder the essence and the unity are distinct, yet in collective\nexistence, in Real Being, they are identical, so that when we have\ngrasped Being we hold unity; Real Being would coincide with Unity.\nThus, taking the Intellectual-Principle as Essential Being, that\nprinciple and the Unity Absolute would be at once Primal Being and\nPure Unity, purveying, accordingly, to the rest of things\nsomething of\nBeing and something, in proportion, of the unity which is itself.\n\nThere is nothing with which the unity would be more plausibly\nidentified than with Being; either it is Being as a given man is man\nor it will correspond to the Number which rules in the realm of the\nparticular; it will be a number applying to a certain unique thing\nas the number two applies to others.\n\nNow if Number is a thing among things, then clearly so this\nunity must be; we would have to discover what thing of things it is.\nIf Number is not a thing but an operation of the mind moving out to\nreckon, then the unity will not be a thing.\n\nWe found that anything losing unity loses its being; we are\ntherefore obliged to enquire whether the unity in particulars is\nidentical with the being, and unity absolute identical with\ncollective\nbeing.\n\nNow the being of the particular is a manifold; unity cannot be a\nmanifold; there must therefore be a distinction between Being and\nUnity. Thus a man is at once a reasoning living being and a total of\nparts; his variety is held together by his unity; man therefore and\nunity are different- man a thing of parts against unity\npartless. Much\nmore must Collective Being, as container of all existence, be a\nmanifold and therefore distinct from the unity in which it is but\nparticipant.\n\nAgain, Collective Being contains life and intelligence- it is no\ndead thing- and so, once more, is a manifold.\n\nIf Being is identical with Intellectual-Principle, even\nat that it\nis a manifold; all the more so when count is taken of the Ideal\nForms in it; for the Idea, particular or collective, is, after all,\na numerable agglomeration whose unity is that of a kosmos.\n\nAbove all, unity is The First: but Intellectual-Principle, Ideas\nand Being, cannot be so; for any member of the realm of Forms is an\naggregation, a compound, and therefore- since components must\nprecede their compound- is a later.\n\nOther considerations also go to show that the\nIntellectual-Principle cannot be the First. Intellect must be above\nthe Intellectual Act: at least in its higher phase, that not\nconcerned\nwith the outer universe, it must be intent upon its Prior; its\nintroversion is a conversion upon the Principle.\n\nConsidered as at once Thinker and Object of its Thought, it is\ndual, not simplex, not The Unity: considered as looking\nbeyond itself,\nit must look to a better, to a prior: looking simultaneously upon\nitself and upon its Transcendent, it is, once more, not a First.\n\nThere is no other way of stating Intellectual-Principle than as\nthat which, holding itself in the presence of The Good and First and\nlooking towards That, is self-present also, self-knowing and Knowing\nitself as All-Being: thus manifold, it is far from being The Unity.\n\nIn sum: The Unity cannot be the total of beings, for so its\noneness is annulled; it cannot be the Intellectual-Principle, for so\nit would be that total which the Intellectual-Principle is; nor is\nit Being, for Being is the manifold of things.\n\n\n## Section 3\n\n\n##### Section 3\n\n3. What then must The Unity be, what nature is left for it?\n\nNo wonder that to state it is not easy; even Being and Form are\nnot easy, though we have a way, an approach through the Ideas.\n\nThe soul or mind reaching towards the formless finds itself\nincompetent to grasp where nothing bounds it or to take impression\nwhere the impinging reality is diffuse; in sheer dread of holding to\nnothingness, it slips away. The state is painful; often it seeks\nrelief by retreating from all this vagueness to the region of sense,\nthere to rest as on solid ground, just as the sight distressed by\nthe minute rests with pleasure on the bold.\n\nSoul must see in its own way; this is by coalescence,\nunification;\nbut in seeking thus to know the Unity it is prevented by that very\nunification from recognising that it has found; it cannot\ndistinguish itself from the object of this intuition. Nonetheless,\nthis is our one resource if our philosophy is to give us knowledge\nof The Unity.\n\nWe are in search of unity; we are to come to know the\nprinciple of\nall, the Good and First; therefore we may not stand away from the\nrealm of Firsts and lie prostrate among the lasts: we must strike\nfor those Firsts, rising from things of sense which are the lasts.\nCleared of all evil in our intention towards The Good, we must\nascend to the Principle within ourselves; from many, we must become\none; only so do we attain to knowledge of that which is Principle\nand Unity. We shape ourselves into Intellectual-Principle; we make\nover our soul in trust to Intellectual-Principle and set it firmly\nin That; thus what That sees the soul will waken to see; it\nis through\nthe Intellectual-Principle that we have this vision of The Unity; it\nmust be our care to bring over nothing whatever from sense, to allow\nnothing even of soul to enter into Intellectual-Principle: with\nIntellect pure, and with the summit of Intellect, we are to see the\nAll-Pure.\n\nIf quester has the impression of extension or shape or mass\nattaching to That Nature he has not been led by\nIntellectual-Principle\nwhich is not of the order to see such things; the activity\nhas been of\nsense and of the judgement following upon sense: only\nIntellectual-Principle can inform us of the things of its scope; its\ncompetence is upon its priors, its content and its issue:\nbut even its\ncontent is outside of sense; and still purer, still less touched by\nmultiplicity, are its priors, or rather its Prior.\n\nThe Unity, then, is not Intellectual-Principle but something\nhigher still: Intellectual-Principle is still a being but that First\nis no being but precedent to all Being; it cannot be a being, for a\nbeing has what we may call the shape of its reality but The Unity is\nwithout shape, even shape Intellectual.\n\nGenerative of all, The Unity is none of all; neither thing nor\nquantity nor quality nor intellect nor soul; not in motion, not at\nrest, not in place, not in time: it is the self-defined, unique in\nform or, better, formless, existing before Form was, or Movement or\nRest, all of which are attachments of Being and make Being the\nmanifold it is.\n\nBut how, if not in movement, can it be otherwise than at rest?\n\nThe answer is that movement and rest are states pertaining to\nBeing, which necessarily has one or the other or both. Besides,\nanything at rest must be so in virtue of Rest as something distinct:\nUnity at rest becomes the ground of an attribute and at once\nceases to\nbe a simplex.\n\nNote, similarly, that, when we speak of this First as Cause, we\nare affirming something happening not to it but to us, the fact that\nwe take from this Self-Enclosed: strictly we should put\nneither a This\nnor a That to it; we hover, as it were, about it, seeking the\nstatement of an experience of our own, sometimes nearing\nthis Reality,\nsometimes baffled by the enigma in which it dwells.\n\n\n## Section 4\n\n\n##### Section 4\n\n4. The main part of the difficulty is that awareness of this\nPrinciple comes neither by knowing nor by the Intellection that\ndiscovers the Intellectual Beings but by a presence overpassing all\nknowledge. In knowing, soul or mind abandons its unity; it cannot\nremain a simplex: knowing is taking account of things; that\naccounting\nis multiple; the mind, thus plunging into number and multiplicity,\ndeparts from unity.\n\nOur way then takes us beyond knowing; there may be no wandering\nfrom unity; knowing and knowable must all be left aside; every\nobject of thought, even the highest, we must pass by, for all that\nis good is later than This and derives from This as from the sun all\nthe light of the day.\n\n\"Not to be told; not to be written\": in our writing and\ntelling we\nare but urging towards it: out of discussion we call to vision: to\nthose desiring to see, we point the path; our teaching is of the\nroad and the travelling; the seeing must be the very act of one that\nhas made this choice.\n\nThere are those that have not attained to see. The soul has not\ncome to know the splendour There; it has not felt and clutched to\nitself that love-passion of vision known to lover come to rest where\nhe loves. Or struck perhaps by that authentic light, all the soul\nlit by the nearness gained, we have gone weighted from beneath; the\nvision is frustrate; we should go without burden and we go carrying\nthat which can but keep us back; we are not yet made over into unity.\n\nFrom none is that Principle absent and yet from all: present, it\nremains absent save to those fit to receive, disciplined into some\naccordance, able to touch it closely by their likeness and by that\nkindred power within themselves through which, remaining as it was\nwhen it came to them from the Supreme, they are enabled to see in so\nfar as God may at all be seen.\n\nFailure to attain may be due to such impediment or to lack of\nthe guiding thought that establishes trust; impediment we must\ncharge against ourselves and strive by entire renunciation to become\nemancipate; where there is distrust for lack of convincing reason,\nfurther considerations may be applied:\n\n\n## Section 5\n\n\n##### Section 5\n\n5. Those to whom existence comes about by chance and automatic\naction and is held together by material forces have drifted far from\nGod and from the concept of unity; we are not here\naddressing them but\nonly such as accept another nature than body and have some\nconception of soul.\n\nSoul must be sounded to the depths, understood as an emanation\nfrom Intellectual-Principle and as holding its value by a\nReason-Principle thence infused. Next this Intellect must be\napprehended, an Intellect other than the reasoning faculty known as\nthe rational principle; with reasoning we are already in the\nregion of\nseparation and movement: our sciences are Reason-Principles lodged\nin soul or mind, having manifestly acquired their character by the\npresence in the soul of Intellectual-Principle, source of\nall knowing.\n\nThus we come to see Intellectual-Principle almost as an object\nof sense: the Intellectual Kosmos is perceptible as standing above\nsoul, father to soul: we know Intellectual-Principle as the\nmotionless, not subject to change, containing, we must think, all\nthings; a multiple but at once indivisible and comporting\ndifference. It is not discriminate as are the\nReason-Principles, which\ncan in fact be known one by one: yet its content is not a confusion;\nevery item stands forth distinctly, just as in a science the entire\ncontent holds as an indivisible and yet each item is a self-standing\nverity.\n\nNow a plurality thus concentrated like the Intellectual Kosmos\nis close upon The First- and reason certifies its existence as\nsurely as that of soul- yet, though of higher sovereignty than soul,\nit is not The First since it is not a unity, not simplex as unity,\nprinciple over all multiplicity, must be.\n\nBefore it there is That which must transcend the noblest of the\nthings of Being: there must be a prior to this Principle which\naiming towards unity is yet not unity but a thing in unity's\nlikeness.\nFrom this highest it is not sundered; it too is\nself-present: so close\nto the unity, it cannot be articulated: and yet it is a principle\nwhich in some measure has dared secession.\n\nThat awesome Prior, The Unity, is not a being, for so its unity\nwould be vested in something else: strictly no name is apt to it,\nbut since name it we must there is a certain rough fitness in\ndesignating it as unity with the understanding that it is not the\nunity of some other thing.\n\nThus it eludes our knowledge, so that the nearer\napproach to it is\nthrough its offspring, Being: we know it as cause of existence to\nIntellectual-Principle, as fount of all that is best, as the\nefficacy which, self-perduring and undiminishing, generates\nall beings\nand is not to be counted among these its derivatives, to all of\nwhich it must be prior.\n\nThis we can but name The Unity, indicating it to each other by a\ndesignation that points to the concept of its partlessness while we\nare in reality striving to bring our own minds to unity. We\nare not to\nthink of such unity and partlessness as belong to point or monad;\nthe veritable unity is the source of all such quantity which\ncould not\nexist unless first there existed Being and Being's Prior: we are\nnot, then, to think in the order of point and monad but to use\nthese- in their rejection of magnitude and partition- as symbols for\nthe higher concept.\n\n\n## Section 6\n\n\n##### Section 6\n\n6. In what sense, then, do we assert this Unity, and how is it\nto be adjusted to our mental processes?\n\nIts oneness must not be entitled to that of monad and point: for\nthese the mind abstracts extension and numerical quantity and rests\nupon the very minutest possible, ending no doubt in the partless but\nstill in something that began as a partible and is always lodged in\nsomething other than itself. The Unity was never in any other and\nnever belonged to the partible: nor is its impartibility that of\nextreme minuteness; on the contrary it is great beyond\nanything, great\nnot in extension but in power, sizeless by its very greatness as\neven its immediate sequents are impartible not in mass but in might.\nWe must therefore take the Unity as infinite not in measureless\nextension or numerable quantity but in fathomless depths of power.\n\nThink of The One as Mind or as God, you think too meanly; use\nall the resources of understanding to conceive this Unity and,\nagain, it is more authentically one than God, even though you reach\nfor God's unity beyond the unity the most perfect you can conceive.\nFor This is utterly a self-existent, with no concomitant whatever.\nThis self-sufficing is the essence of its unity. Something there\nmust be supremely adequate, autonomous, all-transcending,\nmost utterly\nwithout need.\n\nAny manifold, anything beneath The Unity, is dependent; combined\nfrom various constituents, its essential nature goes in need\nof unity;\nbut unity cannot need itself; it stands unity accomplished. Again, a\nmanifold depends upon all its factors; and furthermore each of those\nfactors in turn- as necessarily inbound with the rest and not\nself-standing- sets up a similar need both to its associates and to\nthe total so constituted.\n\nThe sovranly self-sufficing principle will be Unity-Absolute, for\nonly in this Unity is there a nature above all need, whether within\nitself or in regard to the rest of things. Unity seeks\nnothing towards\nits being or its well-being or its safehold upon existence; cause to\nall, how can it acquire its character outside of itself or know any\ngood outside? The good of its being can be no borrowing: This is The\nGood. Nor has it station; it needs no standing ground as if\ninadequate\nto its own sustaining; what calls for such underpropping is the\nsoulless, some material mass that must be based or fall. This is\nbase to all, cause of universal existence and of ordered station.\nAll that demands place is in need; a First cannot go in need of its\nsequents: all need is effort towards a first principle; the First,\nprinciple to all, must be utterly without need. If the Unity be\nseeking, it must inevitably be seeking to be something other than\nitself; it is seeking its own destroyer. Whatever may be\nsaid to be in\nneed of a good is needing a preserver; nothing can be a good to The\nUnity, therefore.\n\nNeither can it have will to anything; it is a Beyond-Good, not\neven to itself a good but to such beings only as may be of quality\nto have part with it. Nor has it Intellection; that would comport\ndiversity: nor Movement; it is prior to Movement as to Intellection.\n\nTo what could its Intellection be directed? To itself? But that\nwould imply a previous ignorance; it would be dependent upon that\nIntellection in order to knowledge of itself; but it is the\nself-sufficing. Yet this absence of self-knowing does not comport\nignorance; ignorance is of something outside- a knower ignorant of a\nknowable- but in the Solitary there is neither knowing nor anything\nunknown. Unity, self-present, it has no need of self-intellection:\nindeed this \"self-presence\" were better left out, the more surely to\npreserve the unity; we must eliminate all knowing and all\nassociation,\nall intellection whether internal or external. It is not to be\nthough of as having but as being Intellection; Intellection does not\nitself perform the intellective act but is the cause of the act in\nsomething else, and cause is not to be identified with caused: most\nassuredly the cause of all is not a thing within that all.\n\nThis Principle is not, therefore, to be identified with the good\nof which it is the source; it is good in the unique mode of being\nThe Good above all that is good.\n\n\n## Section 7\n\n\n##### Section 7\n\n7. If the mind reels before something thus alien to all we know,\nwe must take our stand on the things of this realm and strive thence\nto see. But, in the looking, beware of throwing outward; this\nPrinciple does not lie away somewhere leaving the rest void; to\nthose of power to reach, it is present; to the inapt, absent. In our\ndaily affairs we cannot hold an object in mind if we have given\nourselves elsewhere, occupied upon some other matter; that very\nthing must be before us to be truly the object of\nobservation. So here\nalso; preoccupied by the impress of something else, we are withheld\nunder that pressure from becoming aware of The Unity; a mind gripped\nand fastened by some definite thing cannot take the print of the\nvery contrary. As Matter, it is agreed, must be void of quality in\norder to accept the types of the universe, so and much more must the\nsoul be kept formless if there is to be no infixed impediment to\nprevent it being brimmed and lit by the Primal Principle.\n\nIn sum, we must withdraw from all the extern, pointed wholly\ninwards; no leaning to the outer; the total of things ignored, first\nin their relation to us and later in the very idea; the self put out\nof mind in the contemplation of the Supreme; all the commerce so\nclosely There that, if report were possible, one might become to\nothers reporter of that communion.\n\nSuch converse, we may suppose, was that of Minos, thence known\nas the Familiar of Zeus; and in that memory he established the laws\nwhich report it, enlarged to that task by his vision There. Some, on\nthe other hand, there will be to disdain such citizen service,\nchoosing to remain in the higher: these will be those that have seen\nmuch.\n\nGod- we read- is outside of none, present unperceived to all; we\nbreak away from Him, or rather from ourselves; what we turn from we\ncannot reach; astray ourselves, we cannot go in search of another; a\nchild distraught will not recognise its father; to find ourselves is\nto know our source.\n\n\n## Section 8\n\n\n##### Section 8\n\n8. Every soul that knows its history is aware, also, that its\nmovement, unthwarted, is not that of an outgoing line; its natural\ncourse may be likened to that in which a circle turns not upon some\nexternal but on its own centre, the point to which it owes its rise.\nThe soul's movement will be about its source; to this it will hold,\npoised intent towards that unity to which all souls should move and\nthe divine souls always move, divine in virtue of that movement; for\nto be a god is to be integral with the Supreme; what stands away is\nman still multiple, or beast.\n\nIs then this \"centre\" of our souls the Principle for which we\nare seeking?\n\nWe must look yet further: we must admit a Principle in which all\nthese centres coincide: it will be a centre by analogy with\nthe centre\nof the circle we know. The soul is not a circle in the sense of the\ngeometric figure but in that it at once contains the Primal\nNature [as\ncentre] and is contained by it [as circumference], that it owes its\norigin to such a centre and still more that the soul,\nuncontaminated, is a self-contained entity.\n\nIn our present state- part of our being weighed down by the\nbody, as one might have the feet under water with all the rest\nuntouched- we bear- ourselves aloft by that- intact part\nand, in that,\nhold through our own centre to the centre of all the centres, just\nas the centres of the great circles of a sphere coincide with that\nof the sphere to which all belong. Thus we are secure.\n\nIf these circles were material and not spiritual, the link with\nthe centres would be local; they would lie round it where it lay at\nsome distant point: since the souls are of the Intellectual, and the\nSupreme still loftier, we understand that contact is otherwise\nprocured, that is by those powers which connect Intellectual agent\nwith Intellectual Object; this all the more, since the Intellect\ngrasps the Intellectual object by the way of similarity, identity,\nin the sure link of kindred. Material mass cannot blend into other\nmaterial mass: unbodied beings are not under this bodily limitation;\ntheir separation is solely that of otherness, of differentiation; in\nthe absence of otherness, it is similars mutually present.\n\nThus the Supreme as containing no otherness is ever present with\nus; we with it when we put otherness away. It is not that the\nSupreme reaches out to us seeking our communion: we reach towards\nthe Supreme; it is we that become present. We are always before it:\nbut we do not always look: thus a choir, singing set in due order\nabout the conductor, may turn away from that centre to which all\nshould attend: let it but face aright and it sings with beauty,\npresent effectively. We are ever before the Supreme- cut off is\nutter dissolution; we can no longer be- but we do not always attend:\nwhen we look, our Term is attained; this is rest; this is the end of\nsinging ill; effectively before Him, we lift a choral song full of\nGod.\n\n\n## Section 9\n\n\n##### Section 9\n\n9. In this choiring, the soul looks upon the wellspring of Life,\nwellspring also of Intellect, beginning of Being, fount of Good,\nroot of Soul. It is not that these are poured out from the Supreme\nlessening it as if it were a thing of mass. At that the\nemanants would\nbe perishable; but they are eternal; they spring from an eternal\nprinciple, which produces them not by its fragmentation but in\nvirtue of its intact identity: therefore they too hold firm; so long\nas the sun shines, so long there will be light.\n\nWe have not been cut away; we are not separate, what though the\nbody-nature has closed about us to press us to itself; we breathe\nand hold our ground because the Supreme does not give and pass but\ngives on for ever, so long as it remains what it is.\n\nOur being is the fuller for our turning Thither; this is our\nprosperity; to hold aloof is loneliness and lessening. Here is the\nsoul's peace, outside of evil, refuge taken in the place clean of\nwrong; here it has its Act, its true knowing; here it is immune.\nHere is living, the true; that of to-day, all living apart from Him,\nis but a shadow, a mimicry. Life in the Supreme is the\nnative activity\nof Intellect; in virtue of that converse it brings forth gods,\nbrings forth beauty, brings forth righteousness, brings forth all\nmoral good; for of all these the soul is pregnant when it has been\nfilled with God. This state is its first and its final, because from\nGod it comes, its good lies There, and, once turned to God again, it\nis what it was. Life here, with the things of earth, is a sinking, a\ndefeat, a failing of the wing.\n\nThat our good is There is shown by the very love inborn with the\nsoul; hence the constant linking of the Love-God with the Psyches in\nstory and picture; the soul, other than God but sprung of Him, must\nneeds love. So long as it is There, it holds the heavenly love; here\nits love is the baser; There the soul is Aphrodite of the heavens;\nhere, turned harlot, Aphrodite of the public ways: yet the soul is\nalways an Aphrodite. This is the intention of the myth which tells\nof Aphrodite's birth and Eros born with her.\n\nThe soul in its nature loves God and longs to be at one with Him\nin the noble love of a daughter for a noble father; but coming to\nhuman birth and lured by the courtships of this sphere, she takes up\nwith another love, a mortal, leaves her father and falls.\n\nBut one day coming to hate her shame, she puts away the evil of\nearth, once more seeks the father, and finds her peace.\n\nThose to whom all this experience is strange may\nunderstand by way\nof our earthly longings and the joy we have in winning to\nwhat we most\ndesire- remembering always that here what we love is perishable,\nhurtful, that our loving is of mimicries and turns awry because all\nwas a mistake, our good was not here, this was not what we sought;\nThere only is our veritable love and There we may hold it and be\nwith it, possess it in its verity no longer submerged in alien\nflesh. Any that have seen know what I have in mind: the soul takes\nanother life as it approaches God; thus restored it feels that the\ndispenser of true life is There to see, that now we have nothing to\nlook for but, far otherwise, that we must put aside all else and\nrest in This alone, This become, This alone, all the earthly\nenvironment done away, in haste to be free, impatient of any bond\nholding us to the baser, so that with our being entire we may cling\nabout This, no part in us remaining but through it we have touch\nwith God.\n\nThus we have all the vision that may be of Him and of ourselves;\nbut it is of a self-wrought to splendour, brimmed with the\nIntellectual light, become that very light, pure, buoyant,\nunburdened,\nraised to Godhood or, better, knowing its Godhood, all aflame then-\nbut crushed out once more if it should take up the discarded burden.\n\n\n## Section 10\n\n\n##### Section 10\n\n10. But how comes the soul not to keep that ground?\n\nBecause it has not yet escaped wholly: but there will be the\ntime of vision unbroken, the self hindered no longer by any\nhindrance of body. Not that those hindrances beset that in us which\nhas veritably seen; it is the other phase of the soul that\nsuffers and\nthat only when we withdraw from vision and take to knowing by proof,\nby evidence, by the reasoning processes of the mental habit. Such\nlogic is not to be confounded with that act of ours in the vision;\nit is not our reason that has seen; it is something greater than\nreason, reason's Prior, as far above reason as the very\nobject of that\nthought must be.\n\nIn our self-seeing There, the self is seen as belonging to that\norder, or rather we are merged into that self in us which has the\nquality of that order. It is a knowing of the self restored to its\npurity. No doubt we should not speak of seeing; but we cannot help\ntalking in dualities, seen and seer, instead of, boldly, the\nachievement of unity. In this seeing, we neither hold an object nor\ntrace distinction; there is no two. The man is changed, no longer\nhimself nor self-belonging; he is merged with the Supreme,\nsunken into\nit, one with it: centre coincides with centre, for on this higher\nplane things that touch at all are one; only in separation is there\nduality; by our holding away, the Supreme is set outside. This is\nwhy the vision baffles telling; we cannot detach the Supreme to\nstate it; if we have seen something thus detached we have failed of\nthe Supreme which is to be known only as one with ourselves.\n\n\n## Section 11\n\n\n##### Section 11\n\n11. This is the purport of that rule of our Mysteries: Nothing\nDivulged to the Uninitiate: the Supreme is not to be made a common\nstory, the holy things may not be uncovered to the stranger, to any\nthat has not himself attained to see. There were not two;\nbeholder was\none with beheld; it was not a vision compassed but a unity\napprehended. The man formed by this mingling with the\nSupreme must- if\nhe only remember- carry its image impressed upon him: he is\nbecome the\nUnity, nothing within him or without inducing any diversity; no\nmovement now, no passion, no outlooking desire, once this ascent is\nachieved; reasoning is in abeyance and all Intellection and even, to\ndare the word, the very self; caught away, filled with God, he has\nin perfect stillness attained isolation; all the being calmed, he\nturns neither to this side nor to that, not even inwards to himself;\nutterly resting he has become very rest. He belongs no longer to the\norder of the beautiful; he has risen beyond beauty; he has\noverpassed even the choir of the virtues; he is like one who, having\npenetrated the inner sanctuary, leaves the temple images behind him-\nthough these become once more first objects of regard when he leaves\nthe holies; for There his converse was not with image, not\nwith trace,\nbut with the very Truth in the view of which all the rest is but of\nsecondary concern.\n\nThere, indeed, it was scarcely vision, unless of a mode unknown;\nit was a going forth from the self, a simplifying, a renunciation, a\nreach towards contact and at the same time a repose, a meditation\ntowards adjustment. This is the only seeing of what lies within the\nholies: to look otherwise is to fail.\n\nThings here are signs; they show therefore to the wiser teachers\nhow the supreme God is known; the instructed priest reading the sign\nmay enter the holy place and make real the vision of the\ninaccessible.\n\nEven those that have never found entry must admit the\nexistence of\nthat invisible; they will know their source and Principle since by\nprinciple they see principle and are linked with it, by like\nthey have\ncontact with like and so they grasp all of the divine that\nlies within\nthe scope of mind. Until the seeing comes they are still craving\nsomething, that which only the vision can give; this Term, attained\nonly by those that have overpassed all, is the All-Transcending.\n\nIt is not in the soul's nature to touch utter nothingness; the\nlowest descent is into evil and, so far, into non-being: but to\nutter nothing, never. When the soul begins again to mount, it comes\nnot to something alien but to its very self; thus detached, it is\nnot in nothingness but in itself; self-gathered it is no\nlonger in the\norder of being; it is in the Supreme.\n\nThere is thus a converse in virtue of which the essential man\noutgrows Being, becomes identical with the Transcendent of Being.\nThe self thus lifted, we are in the likeness of the Supreme: if from\nthat heightened self we pass still higher- image to\narchetype- we have\nwon the Term of all our journeying. Fallen back again, we awaken the\nvirtue within until we know ourselves all order once more; once more\nwe are lightened of the burden and move by virtue towards\nIntellectual-Principle and through the Wisdom in That to the Supreme.\n\nThis is the life of gods and of the godlike and blessed\namong men,\nliberation from the alien that besets us here, a life taking no\npleasure in the things of earth, the passing of solitary to solitary.\n\nTHE END\n.",
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