Plotinus and I make so much sense

Today I made a lot of sense to myself. Per usual. When I heard myself explaining how Neoplatonism relates to Christianity and why not-knowing is the highest form of religion I was totally convinced that I knew what I was talking about.

This afternoon it was nice to have two captive audiences: me, whom I can’t seem to ever get away from, and a man with whom I have a business relationship, who was trying to entice me to sign up for additional services.

We’d never met, as he’d taken over our account from another guy, so this was a get-to-know-you conversation. Naturally he had to ask what I did. “Basically retired now. I’ve been writing books and keeping up my blogs.”

He then made the mistake of asking what I wrote about. This ended up reducing his sales pitch time considerably. Tip: unless you’ve got time to spare, don’t ask a woman who has recently given birth if her child ever does anything cute, and don’t ask a writer what his books are about.

I rolled through “God’s Whisper, Creation’s Thunder” and “Life is Fair” quickly, but found myself getting more and more enthusiastic about Plotinus and “Return to the One.” Partly because I knew that as soon as I stopped talking, the effort to sell me stuff would start.

But mostly because I was just making so damn much sense, I couldn’t bear to stop listening to myself. You had to be there (as I was, fortunately). However, I’ll try to recreate some of my 5-10 minute synopsis of what Plotinus, Christianity, and the cosmos is all about.

Plotinus, it’s been said, is “Plato without the politics.” So you’re left with Greek spirituality, minus all that boring stuff about the perfect form of governance. It’s also said that if you add Jesus to Plotinus’ Neoplatonism, you’ve got Christianity.

St. Augustine was a big fan of Plato and Plotinus before he became a Christian. The Gospels are mostly stories and don’t say much about the nature of God, soul, creation, and such. So Augustine took Plotinus’ philosophy, grafted it onto Jesus’ teachings, and voila, a Christian theology.

People think that the Greeks were rationalists. But Plotinus was a mystic and had profound experiences of the divine. He realized that thinking can only take you so far. After that, you’re in the realm of Mystery. For him, that was the One. Christians say, “God.”

Makes sense to me. Here we are, sitting in your office, a teeny-tiny part of a 14 billion year old universe. So far as we know, this is the only life in our part of the galaxy. Isn’t that amazing, that we’re here at all? To me, that’s what a genuine sense of religion is all about: Wonder.

Plotinus taught that it isn’t possible to say anything about God, the One. How could you? Whatever we know is something other than the One, because it is knowable—separate, distinct, dual. God can’t be known. Only approached as Mystery.

If every religion would recognize this, wouldn’t the world be a better place? Christians think they know what God is like. So do Muslims and Jews. Even Buddhists, though they don’t speak about “God.”

I don’t know anything about God. Neither do you. Likely nobody does. If we all could sit down together and honestly say “I don’t know” as one, that’d be terrific. Plotinus reminds us that silence is the best way to worship God. Just being present with…whatever.

Sure seems like that should be One, not more than one. Physicists aren’t searching for theories of everything—just one theory. So God likely is One also. If there are two things, given how the world is so nicely interconnected they have to be united in some fashion. Whatever does the final uniting is God, the One.

Science knows a lot about the very small through quantum theory. Science knows a lot about the very large through relativity theory. But the two theories can’t be fit together so far. Superstrings, that’s a possibility. Vibrating energy. Is that God? Nobody knows.

It’s a mystery.

That seemed like a good place to stop talking. Especially since I was only getting a polite smile in response, not the standing philosophical ovation that my not-so-humble self felt that I deserved.

When some papers were pushed across the desk toward me, I got a glimmer why. I noticed a classy-looking silver ring, on which was emblazoned a cross. I’d suspected that I wasn’t talking with a Wiccan. Suspicion confirmed.

So I had to be content with making sense to myself. Didn’t make a convert to churchlessness today. That’s good, I guess.

If you become a believer in anything, even if that is nothing, isn’t that something? And isn’t belief the essence of religion?

Good questions. Looks like I’ve got to have another conversation with myself.

Comments

[Bob]

Here is a letter I wrote several years ago after attending a Christian Fundamentalist memorial service....all too familiar!!

Last weekend, my wife and I attended a Memorial service for the husband of one of my co-workers. The ceremony was lead by a Christian fundamentalist minister. Whew, it was tough to swallow!!

Without going into the specifics about it, what caught both our attention was the similarity between his homily, the Christian fundamentalist philosophy, and RSSB. It was like attending satsang, and honestly, we were fortunate to be seated in the back row!!

First, the minister spoke on how this world is not our home and that our true residence lies beyond. That God is a transcendental being, whom can only be appeased and reached by our faith in Jesus Christ. And, that the only way of assuring our entrance into heaven is by accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior (of course, only if done in the church’s way!). In Sant Mat, we need to accept the PLM as our Lord and Savior in order to be admitted into Sach Khand.

He went on by stressing how we are inherently sinful and evil through our past association with Satan. In RS, we are covered with residuals karmas through our association with the mind. The preacher said that we have to stop our indulgences in sense pleasures, which are Satan’s weapons against our salvation. Sound familiar! The same form of dualism exists in RSSB. The goal being to transcend this dark world of sense pleasures for the more sublime joy of heaven (Sach Khand) above. The simple joys of this world are to be sacrificed for the greater world that awaits us in heaven. Anti-life sentiment in both cases!!

Another distinct similarity is the need to conquer Satan through Jesus while in RS, our goal is to conquer the mind…to fight and fight this long battle against Kal until victory is achieved. And, of course, this can only be done with the help of the PLM, our God-Incarnate Living Christ.

The minister also stressed that only those who accepted Jesus could attain salvation. These are Jesus’ chosen sheep…marked souls in RS?!!

And, then there is the threat of hell and damnation (Fundamentalism) and the endless cycle of birth and death (RSSB) if you don’t comply with their directives. Accept Jesus or go to hell. Accept the PLM or stay in the wheel of 84.

Gays get a bad rap in both groups.

Conclusion. RSSB is a branch of Fundamentalist Yoga. Like Christian fundamentalism, it uses fear to entice the masses and requires complete faith and surrender to the leadership in charge, the PLM and his organization.

It amazes me how God is often spoken of as having “unconditional love” yet unless we obey the rules, accept the doctrines of the churches and spiritual institutions, and surrender to the guru we are not entitled to that love.

Whether East or West, it’s about obeying rules and accepting certain belief systems that have been “indisputably” handed down by God through the medium of someone who “knows”.

“Indisputably” is the catch here because it closes the door to optional viewpoints and honest inquiry. It seizes the mind of the “true believers” and ironically, instead of freeing them, further enslaves them.

[Edward]

It is evident that if the methods of fundamental religion really worked, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Is it possible that people become intolerant beasts in and out of religious organizations for a different reason than because they are threatened with eternal damnation?

Is there a void in people that waits to be filled with enslavement to religious dread? Or is it possible that 99% of the people are just as clever as I, and go through the rigors of finding a system of organized thought that underwrites the already-existing fear and meanness?

I am reminded or Freud's theory of traumatic imprinting. There seems to be a point in development where the psyche abdicates the daily work of ethical prudence, or takes on that task in the joy of engagement with creation. And there are psycho-social supports for both paths.

Just a thought.

[Nick]

Bob
For an interesting take on 'sin' check out Neale Donald Walsch's 'Conversations with God'. Whatever else you make of such writing, he asks some funny questions of the big G, along the lines of, 'Why is that everything that is fun, such as sex and beer are deemed to be bad?' and 'Why did you make sex so much fun only to have your religions tell us to stay away from such things?'

[Zeston]

I see Christianity as an old man screaming on his deathbed.

Everyone can clearly see the old man dying, including the old man. But he won't go quietly with peace and dignity.

Instead he swears up and down that he's actually alive and it's the rest of the world that's dying.

Christianity's inability to honestly change and adapt to Reality is its greatest and fastest downfall.

There is Christian Universalism (www.christianuniversalist.org) but that seems like too little too late.