The Sufi Vision

“To discover the light and power latent within all human beings, that is the secret of all religion, the power of mysticism, and the essence of philosophy, without interfering with customs or belief.

The Message is to make humanity conscious of the words in the Bible, where it is said ‘We live and move and have our being in God’, to realize this and recognize the kinship of humanity in the realization of God.

This is not the time to advance any particular sect, church, or belief. We have too many sects. They are only outer forms. The things that really matter are deeper.”

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— Xenocrates

— Xenocrates

Plotinus, Ennad I, Book 8

Iamblichus, On the Mysteries

Plotinus, Ennad III, Book 2

Plotinus, Concerning the Beautiful

The Essence of Soul

“For the soul, contracting herself wholly into a union with herself, and into the centre of universal life, and removing the multitude and variety of all-various powers, ascends into the highest place of speculation, from whence she will survey the nature of beings. For if she looks back upon things posterior to her essence, she will perceive nothing but the shadows and resemblances of beings: but if she returns into herself, she will evolve her own essence, and the reasons she contains. And at first indeed she will as it were only behold herself; but when by her knowledge she penetrates more profoundly in her investigations, she will find intellect seated in her essence, and the universal orders of beings: but when she advances into the more interior recesses of herself, and as it were into the sanctuary of the soul, she will be enabled to contemplate, with her eyes closed to corporeal vision, the genus of the gods, and the unities of beings. For all things reside in us, after a manner correspondent to the nature of the soul: and on this account we are naturally enabled to know all things, by exciting our inherent powers, and images of whatever exists.”

— Proclus, Theology of Plato

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A. Andrew Gonzalez, Yemanja

Proclus

The Intellect of the Father, part II

“Time . . . is symbolically said to be the one principle of the universe; but ether and chaos are celebrated as the two principles immediately posterior to this one. And being, simply considered, is represented under the symbol of an egg. And this is the first triad of the intelligible Gods. But for the perfection of the second triad they establish either a conceiving and a conceived egg as a God, or a white garment, or a cloud: because from these Phanes leaps forth into light. For indeed they philosophize variously concerning the middle triad. But Phanes here represents intellect. To conceive him however besides this, as father and power, contributes nothing to Orpheus. But they call the third triad Metis as intellect, Ericapaeus as power, and Phanes as father. But sometimes the middle triad is considered according to the three-shaped God, while conceived in the egg: for the middle always represents each of the extremes; as in this instance, where the egg and the three-shaped God subsist together. And here you may perceive that the egg is that which is united; but that the three-shaped and really multiform God is the separating and discriminating cause of that which is intelligible. Likewise the middle triad subsists according to the egg, as yet united; but the third according to the God who separates and distributes the whole intelligible order. And this is the common and familiar Orphic theology.”

— Damascius, Orphica, Theogonies Fragment 54

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Orphic God Phanes, hatched from the World Egg and circled by the Zodiac Grec0-Roman Marble bas relief (2nd century AD) — Museo Modena, Italy

Proclus

The Paradigm of Nature

“The nature of the universe . . . being the mother of all things, comprehends the productive principles of all things; for, otherwise, it would be absurd that art, imitating natural reasons, should operate according to productive principles, but that nature herself should energize without reasons, and without inward measures. But, if nature contains productive principles, it is necessary that there should be another cause prior to nature, which is comprehensive of forms; for nature verging to bodies energizes in them, just as if we should conceive an artist verging to pieces of timber, and inwardly, by various operations, reducing them to a certain form: for thus nature, merged together with and dwelling in corporeal masses, inspires them with her productive powers and with motion; since things which are moved by others require a cause of this kind, a cause which is properly irrational indeed, that it may not depart from bodies, which cannot subsist without a cause continually residing with them, but containing the productive powers of bodies, that it may be able to preserve all things in their proper boundaries, and move every thing in a convenient manner.  Nature, therefore, belongs to other things, being merged in, or coordinated with, bodies.  

But it is requisite that the most principal and proper cause should be exempt from its productions: for, by how much more the maker is exempt from the thing made, by so much the more perfectly and purely will he make. And, in short, if nature is irrational, it requires a leader. There is, therefore, something prior to nature, which contains productive powers, and from which it is requisite that every thing in the world should be suspended. Hence, a knowledge of generated natures will subsist in the cause of the world more excellent than the knowledge which we possess; so far as this cause not only knows, but gives subsistence to, all things; but we possess knowledge alone. But if the demiurgic cause of the universe knows all things, if he beholds them externally, he will again be ignorant of himself, and will be subordinate to a partial soul; but, if he beholds them in himself, he will contains in himself all forms, intellectual and gnostic.”

— Proclus, Commentary on the Parmenides

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Rhea presenting Cronus the stone wrapped in cloth. Woodcut engraving, published in 1878.

Proclus, Theology of Plato

Intelligible Nature

“Again, if we should investigate the root as it were of all bodies, from which celestial and sublunary bodies, wholes and parts, blossom into existence, we may not improperly say that this is Nature, which is the principle of motion and rest to all bodies, and which is established in them, whether they are in motion or at rest. But I mean by Nature, the one life of the world, which being subordinate to intellect and soul, participates through these of generation. And this indeed is more a principle than many and partial natures, but is not that which is properly the principle of bodies; for this contains a multitude of powers, and through such as are different, governs different parts of the universe: but we are now investigating the one and common principle of all bodies, and not many and distributed principles.

If, therefore, we wish to discover this one principle, we must raise ourselves to that which is most united in Nature, to its flower, and that through which it is a deity, by which it is suspended from its proper fountain, connects, unites, and causes the universe to have a sympathetic consent with itself.  This one, therefore, is the principle of all generation, and is that which reigns over the many powers of Nature, over partial natures, and universally over every thing subject to the dominion of Nature.”

— Proclus, Commentary on the Parmenides

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Mark Henson, Wonders of Nature (1988)

Plotinus

Plotinus, Ennead III, Book 8

On Contemplation, part II

“It truly appears that all things derive their being from contemplation, and are contemplations, as well the things which truly exist as the things produced from them, viz. spectacles formed from the speculations of true beings, and every where presenting themselves either to the energies of sense, of knowledge, or of opinion. Actions too are directed to knowledge as their end, and desire affects knowledge. Generations likewise, originating from speculation into form, and there ending, cease to fabricate any other contemplative specimen, and every where particular imitations of efficient causes, produce spectacles and species. Generated substances likewise, imitations as it were of beings, declare that efficient causes behold as their end, neither productions nor actions, but the effect itself, for this only purpose, that it may be a spectacle to beholders.

But even our very thoughts desire to behold, and prior to these the senses, whose end is knowledge: and again before these nature herself, possessing in herself reason and a spectacle, generates besides another reason. So that from hence it appears, that since those natures which are the first of all abide in contemplation, all the rest must necessarily desire contemplation as their end, since that which is the principle of all things is proposed as their end. Hence when animals generate, the seminal reasons within stimulate to production, the whole of which is the energy of contemplation, and a stimulus desiring to fabricate many species and various spectacles, and to fill all things with reasons, and, as it were, to be fixed in perpetual intuition; for to produce any particular nature, is to produce a certain form, and this is no other than entirely to fill all things with contemplation . . .”

— Plotinus, Ennead III, Book 8

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Albert Toft, The Spirit of Contemplation (1901)