Plotinus

419 Pages·2016·8.99 MB·English

by  Timothy Smith

A. E. (George W. Russell) & Plotinus
Wikipedia: George William Russell (10 April 1867 – 17 July 1935) who
wrote with the pseudonym Æ (sometimes written AE or A.E.), was an
Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, artistic painter and Irish nationalist. He
was also a mysticism writer, and a personage of a group of devotees of
theosophy in Dublin for many years. He used the pseudonym “AE”,
or more properly, “Æ”. This derived from an earlier Æon signifying
the lifelong quest of man, subsequently abbreviated. His house at 17
Rathgar Avenue in Dublin became a meeting-place at the time for
everyone interested in the economic and artistic future of Ireland. His interests were
wide-ranging; he became a theosophist and wrote extensively on politics and
economics, while continuing to paint and write poetry. Æ claimed to be a clairvoyant,
able to view various kinds of spiritual beings, which he illustrated in paintings and
drawings. He was noted for his exceptional kindness and generosity towards younger
writers: Frank O’Connor termed him “the man who was the father to three generations
of Irish writers,” and Patrick Kavanagh called him “a great and holy man.”
(419-1) I remember one day when A.E. (George W. Russell) the Irish poet and statesman,
chanted to me in his attractive Hibernian brogue, some paragraphs from his beloved Plotinus that
tell of the gods, although the number of words which stick to memory are but few and disjointed,
so drugged were my senses by his magical voice. “All the gods are venerable and beautiful, and
their beauty is immense … For they are not at one time wise, and at another destitute of wisdom;
but they are always wise, in an impassive, stable, and pure mind. They likewise know all things
which are divine … For the life which is there is unattended with labor, and truth is their
generator and nutriment … And the splendor there is infinite!”
Duplicates 08 (Literary Notebook Carbons)
(173-5) Out of his own large experience of meditation, “Fear not the stillness,” wrote A.E. in a
poem.
Grey Long 03 04
(11-1) Seventy years ago that versatile Irishman who used the pen name of A.E. published his
collected poems. He was a gifted painter as well as a poet, economist as well as a prose essayist,
clairvoyant, seer and, when I met him, more of a sage. Looking through his verses I select a few
lines which impress me:
“The power is ours to make or mar
Our fate has on the earliest morn,
The DARKNESS and the RADIANCE are
Creatures within the spirit born.*
The Wisdom that within us grows
Is absolution for our sins.**
He does not love the bended knees,
The soul made wormlike in HIS sight,
Within whose heaven are hierarchies
And solar kings and lords of light.†
He felt an inner secret joy —
A spirit of unfettered will
Through light and darkness moving still
Within the ALL to find its own,
To be immortal and alone.††
Dark churches where the blind
Mislead the blind. *†
Unto the deep the deep heart goes,
It seeks a deeper silence still;
It folds itself around with peace,
With folds alike of good or ill
In quietness unfostered cease.”‡
* The whole stanza (from The Twilight of Earth) is:
The power is ours to make or mar
Our fate as on the earliest morn,
The Darkness and the Radiance are
Creatures within the spirit born.
Yet, bathed in gloom too long, we might
Forget how we imagined light.
** From “Faith” the first stanza is:
HERE where the loves of others close
The vision of my heart begins.
The wisdom that within us grows
Is absolution for our sins.
† This is the third stanza of “Faith”
†† These are the last lines of “Endurance”
*† This couplet is the last line of “Transformations”
‡ This is the first line of the first stanza and the whole second stanza of “The Place of Refuge”
UNTO the deep the deep heart goes,
It lays its sadness nigh the breast:
Only the Mighty Mother knows
The wounds that quiver unconfessed.

It seeks a deeper silence still;
It folds itself around with peace,
Where thoughts alike of good or ill
In quietness unfostered cease.
AD BV 2
Henry Ward Abbot & Georges Santayana
Henry Ward Abbot was a Harvard classmate of Santayana’s, whose life was
otherwise undistinguished. They wrote letters to each other which we still have today.
(35-2) Santayana tersely defined what he called “the idealistic dogma” as being
“knowledge of objects is but a modification of the subject,” in a letter to H. W. Abbot. He then
declares “the impossibility of being a thorough going idealist, because consciousness of any kind
implies the existence of something not itself outside of itself.”
Duplicates 16 (Pink Folder 2)
Lascelles Abercrombie
Lascelles Abercrombie (also known as the Georgian Laureate, linking
him with the “Georgian poets”; 9 January 1881 – 27 October 1938) was a
British poet and literary critic, one of the “Dymock poets”. He was born in
Ashton upon Mersey, Sale, Cheshire and educated at Malvern College, and at
Owens College. Before the First World War, he lived for a time at Dymock in
Gloucestershire, part of a community that included Rupert Brooke and Robert
Frost. Edward Thomas visited. During these early years, he worked as a
journalist, and he started his poetry writing. His first book, Interludes and
Poems (1908), was followed by Mary and the Bramble (1910) and the poem
Deborah, and later by Emblems of Love (1912) and Speculative Dialogues (1913). His critical
works include An Essay Towards a Theory of Art (1922), and Poetry, Its Music and Meaning
(1932). Collected Poems (1930) was followed by The Sale of St. Thomas (1931), a poetic drama.
He wrote a series of works on the nature of poetry, including The Idea of Great Poetry (1925)
and Romanticism (1926). He published several volumes of original verse, largely metaphysical
poems in dramatic form, and a number of verse plays. His poems and plays were collected in
‘Poems’ (1930). Lascelles Abercrombie died in London in 1938, aged 57, from undisclosed
causes.
(251-13) “I was a fool. And now I know what wisdom dare not know: For I know
Nothing.”– Lascelles Abercrombie
Grey Long 14 19
Acts of the Apostles
Wikipedia: The Acts of the Apostles (Ancient Greek: Πράξεις
τῶν Ἀποστόλων, Práxeis tôn Apostólōn; Latin: Āctūs Apostolōrum),
often referred to simply as Acts, is the fifth book of the New
Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian church and the
spread of its message to the Roman empire. Acts is the second half of
a two-part work, referred to as Luke-Acts, by the same anonymous
author, referred to as Luke the Evangelist, and usually dated to around 80-90 CE. The first part,
the Gospel of Luke, tells how God fulfilled his plan for the world’s salvation through the life,
death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the promised Messiah. Acts continues the story of
Christianity in the 1st century, beginning with the Ascension of Christ. The early chapters, set in
Jerusalem, describe the Day of Pentecost (the coming of the Holy Spirit) and the growth of the
church in Jerusalem. Initially the Jews are receptive to the Christian message, but soon they turn
against the followers of the Messiah. Rejected by the Jews, under the guidance of the Apostle
Peter the message is taken to the Gentiles. The later chapters tell of Paul’s conversion, his
mission in Asia Minor and the Aegean, and finally his imprisonment in Rome, where, as the
book ends, he awaits trial. Luke-Acts is an attempt to answer a theological problem, namely how
the Messiah of the Jews came to have an overwhelmingly non-Jewish church; the answer it
provides, and its central theme, is that the message of Christ was sent to the Gentiles because the
Jews rejected it.
(267-4) If you want to know the purpose of life read (Acts XVII, 2): “God made man to
the end that he should seek the Lord.”
Grey Long 03 04
(76-8) Why is it that nobody seems to give the proper weight to the words of St. Peter in
the Acts of the Apostles: “And we are witnesses of all things which He, whom they slew and
hanged on a tree, did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem.” Is this not a flat
contradiction of the common belief that Jesus was nailed and crucified?
Duplicates 20
Henry Adams
Wikipedia: Henry Brooks Adams (February 16, 1838 – March 27,
1918) was an American historian and member of the Adams political family,
being descended from two U.S. Presidents. As a young Harvard graduate,
he was secretary to his father, Charles Francis Adams, Abraham Lincoln’s
ambassador in London, a posting that had much influence on the younger
man, both through experience of wartime diplomacy and absorption in
English culture, especially the works of John Stuart Mill. After the
American Civil War, he became a noted political journalist who entertained
America’s foremost intellectuals at his homes in Washington and Boston.
In his lifetime, he was best known for his History of the United States. During the Administration
of Thomas Jefferson, a 9-volume work, praised for its literary style, but sometimes criticized for
inaccuracy. His posthumously published memoirs, The Education of Henry Adams, won the
Pulitzer Prize and went on to be named by The Modern Library as the top English-language
nonfiction book of the twentieth century.
(392-10) Henry Adams (1838-1918) “I travelled to every place on earth described as
fascinating, in hope of finding one where I should want to stay, but 3 days in any place is all it
will bear. The pleasure is in the movement.”
Book Notes 4
John Quincy Adams
Wikipedia: John Quincy Adams (July 11, 1767 – February 23, 1848)
was an American statesman who served as the sixth President of the United
States from 1825 to 1829. He also served as a diplomat, a Senator and member
of the House of Representatives. He was a member of the Federalist,
Democratic-Republican, National Republican, and later Anti-Masonic and
Whig parties. In his biography, Samuel Flagg Bemis argues that John Adams
was able to: “gather together, formulate, and practice the fundamentals of
American foreign-policy – self-determination, independence, noncolonization, nonintervention,
nonentanglement in European politics, Freedom of the Seas, [and] freedom of commerce.” As
president, he sought to modernize the American economy and promote education. Adams
enacted a part of his agenda and paid off much of the national debt. He was stymied by a
Congress controlled by his enemies, and his lack of patronage networks helped politicians eager
to undercut him. He lost his 1828 bid for re-election to Andrew Jackson.
(775-7) There is the curious case of John Quincy Adams, who believed firmly in God’s
existence when his first candidacy for President of the United States was successful, but who had
shattering doubts about God’s existence when his second candidacy for a further term was
unsuccessful!
Grey Long 14 19 page 11
(68-6) “Is there a possibility that men are but fireflies, and that this all is without a
father?” asked John Adams, and proceeded to reject the atheistic answer. Yet he was no
supporter of the older Churches, this brilliant intellectual who helped to formulate the
Constitution at the founding of the United States of America, and later became one of its first
Presidents.
Duplicates 14 (1966)
Sheikh Ibrahim ibn Adham
Wikipedia: Sheikh Ibrahim ibn Adham (مهدأ نب ميهاربإ); c. 718 –
c. 782 / AH c. 100–c. 165) is one of the most prominent of the early
ascetic Sufi saints. The story of his conversion is one of the most
celebrated in Sufi legend, as that of a prince renouncing his throne and
choosing asceticism closely echoing the legend of Gautama Buddha. Sufi
tradition ascribes to Ibrahim countless acts of righteousness, and his
humble lifestyle, which contrasted sharply with his early life as the king
of Balkh (itself an earlier center of Buddhism). As recounted by Abu Nu’aym, Ibrahim
emphasized the importance of stillness and meditation for asceticism. Rumi extensively
described the legend of Ibrahim in his Masnavi. The most famous of Ibrahim’s students is Shaqiq
al-Balkhi (d. 810).
According to Muslim tradition, Ibrahim’s family was from Kufa but he was born in Balkh
(Modern day Afghanistan). While some writers traced his lineage back to Umar, the most famous
family tree of his Sufi ancestors, most authors trace it to ‘Abdullah, the brother of Ja’far al-
Sadiq, and son of Muhammad al-Baqir, the grandson of Husayn ibn Ali. It is also very important
to note that Ibrahim was a Sunni Hanafi Muslim.
Ibrahim was born into the Arab community of Balkh as the king of the area in around 730
CE, but he abandoned the throne to become an ascetic. He received a warning from God, through
Khidr who appeared to him twice, and, abdicated his throne to take up the ascetic life in Syria.
Having migrated in around 750 CE, he chose to live the rest of his life in a semi-nomadic
lifestyle, often travelling as far south as Gaza. Ibrahim abhorred begging and worked tirelessly
for his livelihood, often grinding corn or tending orchards. In addition, he is also said to have
engaged in military operations on the border with Byzantium, and his untimely death is supposed
to have occurred on one of his naval expeditions.
As is often with the graves of saints, numerous locations have been placed as the burial
place of Ibrahim ibn Adham. Ibn Asakir stated that Ebrahim was buried on a Byzantine island,
while other sources state his tomb is in Tyre, in Baghdad, in the “city of the prophet Lot”, in the
“cave of Jeremiah” in Jerusalem and, finally, in the city of Jablah (on the Syrian coast).
(153-5) The correct key to the meaning of Omar Khayyam’s “Rubaiyat” is neither the
literal nor the mystical one, but a combination of both. The Persian character and outlook are
such that they can easily hold the sceptical analyst, the pious devotee, the careless sensualist and
the theosophical faqueer under a single hat. Consequently some of the verses of the “Rubaiyat”
are to be taken as they stand, but others must be searched for an inner meaning. And this
meaning is openly hinted at by a Persian Sufi teacher, Sheikh Ibrahim {ibn Adham}, in a
quatrain where we are told to weep in yearning for the divine soul and to give it our heart’s love:
“The real wine is the blood of our hearts,
Do not search for it in the bottle.
The true pearls are the tears of our eyes,
Do not look for them in the ocean.”
Duplicates 32
Aeschylus, Euripides, Lao-Tzu & Shankara
Wikipedia: Aeschylus (Greek: Αἰσχύλος Aiskhulos; c. 525/524 – c.
456/455 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian. He is also one of the first
whose plays still survive; the others are Sophocles and Euripides. He is
often described as the father of tragedy: critics and scholars’ knowledge of
the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier tragedies is
largely based on inferences from his surviving plays. According to
Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in plays to allow conflict
among them whereas characters previously had interacted only with the
chorus. Only seven of his estimated seventy to ninety plays have survived,
and there is a longstanding debate regarding his authorship of one of these plays, Prometheus
Bound, which some believe his son Euphorion actually wrote. Fragments of some other plays
have survived in quotes and more continue to be discovered on Egyptian papyrus, often giving us
surprising insights into his work. He was probably the first dramatist to present plays as a trilogy;
his Oresteia is the only ancient example of the form to have survived.
(263-2) For Lao-Tzu, Shankara, Aeschylus, Euripides, it was our ancestors who lived in
the Golden Age when peace and happiness prevailed.
RVLSII
Alagaddupama Majjhima Sutta
The Majjhima Nikaya (-nikāya; “Collection of Middle-length
Discourses”) is a Buddhist scripture, the second of the five nikayas, or
collections, in the Sutta Pitaka, which is one of the “three baskets” that
compose the Pali Tipitaka of Theravada Buddhism. This nikaya consists of
152 discourses attributed to the Buddha and his chief disciples. The
Majjhima Nikaya corresponds to the Madhyama Āgama found in the Sutra
Pitikas of various Sanskrit early Buddhist schools, fragments of which
survive in Sanskrit and in Tibetan translation. A complete Chinese
translation from the Sarvāstivādin recension appears in the Chinese
Buddhist canon, where it is known as the Zhōng Ahánjīng (中阿含經). The Madhyama Āgama
of the Sarvāstivāda school contains 222 sūtras, in contrast to the 152 suttas in the Pāli Majjhima
Nikāya.
The Alagaddupama Sutta is known as the Snake Simile, and is listed as MN22 (meaning
it’s chapter 22 of this collection)
(247-2) Buddhism points out that although Nirvana is, there is no self to perceive it. As
Buddhism denies a permanent self, the question of what Nirvana is experimentally does not
arise. Nirvana is not a state of mind which is to be produced but what is realised when the long-
cherished notion of ‘I’ is given up. Nirvana, in short, is the miracle of egoless being. The
Buddha’s doctrine of the soul was stated in negative terms because he was controverting current
misconceptions. He explained this in, Alagaddupama Majjhima, 1, 135. “Even in this present
life, my brethren, I say that the soul is indefinable. Though I say and teach thus, there are those
who accuse me falsely of being a nihilist, of teaching the non-existence and annihilation of the
soul. That is what I am not and do not teach.Ӡ
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† Alagaddupama Sutta: The Snake Simile translated from the Pali by
Nyanaponika Thera
37. “So teaching, so proclaiming, O monks, I have been baselessly, vainly, falsely
and wrongly accused by some ascetics and brahmans: ‘A nihilist [38] is the ascetic
Gotama; He teaches the annihilation, the destruction, the non-being of an existing
individual.’[39]
“As I am not as I do not teach, so have I been baselessly, vainly, falsely and
wrongly accused by some ascetics and brahmans thus: ‘A nihilist is the ascetic Gotama;
He teaches the annihilation, the destruction, the non-being of an existing individual.’
“What I teach now as before, O monks, is suffering and the cessation of suffering.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.022.nypo.html
Sheikh al-Alawi
Wikipedia: Ahmad al-Alawi (1869–14 July 1934), (Arabic: نب دمحأ
يوالعلا ىفطصم‎), was the founder of a popular modern Sufi order, the
Darqawiyya Alawiyya, a branch of the Darqawi, Shadhili tariqa. Sheikh
Al-Alawi was a Sufi shaykh in the classic Darqawi Shadhili tradition,
though his order differed somewhat from the norm in its use of the
systmatic practice of khalwa and in laying especial emphasis on the
invocation of the Supreme Name [of God]. In addition to being a classic
Sufi shaykh, Sheikh al-Alawi addressed the problems of modern
Algerians using modern methods. As well as writing poetry and books on established
Sufi topics, he founded and directed two weekly newspapers, the short-lived Lisan al-
Din (Language of Faith) in 1912, and the longer-lived Al-balagh al-jazairi (Algerian
Messenger) in 1926. Sheikh al-Alawi attempted to reconcile Islam and modernity. On
the one hand, he criticized Westernization, both at a symbolic level (by discouraging the
adoption of Western costumes that lead to ego attachment) and at a practical level (by
attacking the growing consumption of alcohol among Algerian Muslims). On the other
hand, he encouraged his followers to send their children to school to learn French, and
even favored the translation of the Koran into French and Berber for the sake of making
it more accessible, a position that was at that time most controversial. Although Sheikh
al-Alawi showed unusual respect for Christians, and was in some ways an early
practitioner of inter-religious dialogue, the centerpiece of his message to Christians was
that if only they would abandon the doctrines of the trinity and of incarnation “nothing
would then separate us.”
(705-2) Sheikh al-Alawi: “The acts of worship were prescribed for the sake of
establishing remembrance of God.” Here a Sufi teacher puts in a short pithy sentence, the chief
service of most religions.
Grey Long 14 19
Ibn al-Arabi aka al-Shaykh al-Akbar
Wikipedia: Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn
al-ʿArabī al-Ḥātimī aṭ-Ṭāʾī (Arabic: نب دمحم نب يلع نب دمحم هللا دبع وبأ
يئاطلا يمتاحلا يبرعلا‎) ‎(25 July 1165 – 8 November 1240) was an Arab
Andalusian Sufi mystic and philosopher. He is renowned by some
practitioners of Sufism as “the greatest master” and also as a genuine saint.
‘Abū ‘Abdillāh Muḥammad ibn ‘Alī ibn Muḥammad ibn `Arabī (هللا دبع وبأ
يبرع نبا دمحم نبا يلع نبا دمحم ) was born in Murcia, Taifa of Murcia on
Sunday, 17th of Rama
ān 560 AH (25 July 1165 AD) at night. He went by the names al-Shaykh al-Akbar,
Muḥyiddin ibn Arabi, and was also later nicknamed the Great Shaykh. He was also known as
Shaikh-e-Akbar Mohi-ud-Din Ibn-e-Arabi in the Subcontinent.
(229-6) The Sufi-Muhammedan sage-poet, Ibn al-Arabi:
“O Pearl Divine! While pearl that in a shell
Of dark mortality is made to dwell,
Alas, while common gems we prize and hoard
Thy inestimable worth is still ignored!”
Middle Ideas 14 19
(311-2) “There are three patterns and levels of knowledge,” exclaimed Ibn al-Arabi,
Spanish Arab Sufi master.
Middle Ideas 14 19
Alexander the Great
Wikipedia: Alexander III of Macedon (20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11
June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great (Greek:
Ἀλέξανδρος ὁ Μέγας, Aléxandros ho Mégas, from the Greek ἀλέξω (alexō)
“defend” and ἀνδρ- (andr-), the stem of ἀνήρ (anēr) “man” and means
“protector of men”) was a King (Basileus) of the Ancient Greek kingdom of
Macedon and a member of the Argead dynasty, a famous ancient Greek royal
house. Born in Pella in 356 BC, Alexander succeeded his father, Philip II, to
the throne at the age of twenty. He spent most of his ruling years on an
unprecedented military campaign through Asia and northeast Africa, until by
the age of thirty he had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world, stretching from
Greece to Egypt and into northwest India. He was undefeated in battle and is considered one of
history’s most successful military commanders.
During his youth, Alexander was tutored by the philosopher Aristotle until the age of 16.
After Philip was assassinated in 336 BC, Alexander succeeded his father to the throne and
inherited a strong kingdom and an experienced army. He had been awarded the generalship of
Greece and used this authority to launch his father’s Panhellenic project to lead the Greeks in the
conquest of Persia. In 334 BC, he invaded the Achaemenid Empire, ruled Asia Minor, and began
a series of campaigns that lasted ten years. Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of
decisive battles, most notably the battles of Issus and Gaugamela. He subsequently overthrew the
Persian King Darius III and conquered the Achaemenid Empire in its entirety. At that point, his
empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River.
Seeking to reach the “ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea”, he invaded India in
326 BC, but was eventually forced to turn back at the demand of his troops. Alexander died in
Babylon in 323 BC, the city he planned to establish as his capital, without executing a series of
planned campaigns that would have begun with an invasion of Arabia. In the years following his
death, a series of civil wars tore his empire apart, resulting in several states ruled by the
Diadochi, Alexander’s surviving generals and heirs.
Alexander’s legacy includes the cultural diffusion his conquests engendered, such as
Greco-Buddhism. He founded some twenty cities that bore his name, most notably Alexandria in
Egypt. Alexander’s settlement of Greek colonists and the resulting spread of Greek culture in the
east resulted in a new Hellenistic civilization, aspects of which were still evident in the traditions
of the Byzantine Empire in the mid-15th century and the presence of Greek speakers in central
and far eastern Anatolia until the 1920s. Alexander became legendary as a classical hero in the
mold of Achilles, and he features prominently in the history and myth of Greek and non-Greek
cultures. He became the measure against which military leaders compared themselves, and
military academies throughout the world still teach his tactics. He is often ranked among the
world’s most influential people of all time, along with his teacher Aristotle.
(93-8) “Thou art only thought,” said the philosophic yogi whom Alexander the Great
interviewed. He then proceeded to prove his statement by mesmerizing the king into believing
himself to be a poor man struggling against destitution. I do not know if this anecdote exists
amongst the Greek records of Alexander’s adventures, but I found it amongst the Indian
traditions about him.
Vinyl X to XI