PLOTINUS
AND SANKARA: WHERE DO THEY MEET? *
ANIL
K. SARKAR
Professor
Emeritus,
Director,
California Institute of Asian Studies,
This
paper wants to compare the mystic unitive experience the One of
Plotinus, a resident of Lycopolis (Egypt) in the second century A. D., with the
transcendent non-dual self-shining experiential
continuum (svayamprakasa) of Sankara, a Vedantist of India of the
eighth century A. D.
The
basis of this comparison between these two unique mystics of two different
centuries and of two cultural areas–one representing the West and the other
representing India–is in their respective historical contexts, and hence their
mystic-philosophic attitude, can be placed as a consequent process of their
respective cultural inheritances.
The
Plotinian mystic mode – as a transcendent experiential process of integral
consciousness (the One) – emerges in the back-ground of the contemplative
attitude of Plato as reflected in his dialogues, specially the Republic and
Parmenides. It has some suggestins from Aristotle’s metaphysical notions
of an ultimate reality but not in the intellectual ways of actuality and
potentiality. According to Armstrong, Plotinus was influenced greatly by Ammonius
Saccas, and even by the anti-Aristotelian group among the middle Platonists.
According to Armstrong, again, the philosophy of Plotinus “is not only a
philosophy but a religion – a way for the mind to ascend to God.”
Commenting
on the mystery religions of the Plotinian period, Armstrong says, that Plotinus
took from his contemporaries, a certain type of decorative symbolism, in
connection with divinity. There is no evidence that
Plotinus had any direct contact with orthodox Christianity, rather his Enneads,
from his direct disciple, Porphyry, shows that he knew very little
about Christianity–his was a different type of religious thought.
K.
Jaspers, speaking of Plotinus, says, that Plotinus was dissatisfied with the
philosophical trends of his time until he heard of Ammonius Saccas. “This was
the man I was seeking for” he declared after the first lecture, and stayed with
him for eleven years. When thirty-nine he took part in the
Emperor Gordianus” Eastern Campaign in order to familiarize
himself with Indian wisdom, but he was far removed from Sophist grandiloquence,
his delivery suggested friendly conversation.
Criticizing
the notion of some kind of dependence between the Plotinian and the Indian
Vedantic thought then stretched to Egypt from India–Paul Hacker, in his paper, Cit
and Nous, or The Concept of Spirit in Advaita Vedanta and in
Neo-Platonism (read in a session of International Conference on
Neo-Platonic Society and Indian Thought) says that “I do not think that such
dependence is proven in any way, though I would not deny the possibility that
Plotinus may have had a vague and dim knowledge of one or two Vedantic
doctrines, mediated to him through inexact translations or accounts.”
All
of these thinkers, in their own ways, try to establish the uniqueness of
Plotinian mysticism, and choose to develop it, in Western contexts only. But
this writer while admitting the uniqueness of Plotinian mysticism in its
Western contexts and developments, would like to suggest that there are some
common ideas, though the realisations of them could be possible, in different
ways. In a sense, the Plotinian and Vedantic mysticisms have their special
importance, they should be discerned in their cultural contexts, but their
similarities cannot be ignored.
Armstrong
refers to the three streams of the Plotinian periods – Gnosticism,
Neo-Platonism and Christianity, but he contends that these three currents
maintain their respective specialities all-through. But each one is aware of
the other two currents. Speaking of Christianity, Armstrong says that,
“Christianity assimilates what it takes from the other two but remains itself.”
This is true of both Plotinian and Gnostic mysticisms.
The
Plotinian transcendent One transcends the God of Christianity, and as a
mystic experience of a Godhead, could be developed as influencing the entire
Christian mystic processes from Dionysius the Areopagite of the fifth century
A. D., to Eckhart of the thirteenth century onwards through the Hegelian and
post-Hegelian periods to the modern times along phenomenological and
existential lines, not excluding the contemporary evolutionists, Bergson,
Santayana and Whitehead among others; Plotinian influence touches the
post-Hegelian Absolutist Bradley as also pragmatist William James, Plotinian
influence could be found among
the medieval Islamic mystics from Ibn Sena (Avicena) to Jalal-al-Din Rumi to
contemporary Indian Islamic mystic Iqbal, who stood for Pakistan, during the
period of Indian Independence from the British rule. If the Plotinian mysticism
was so dominant with its influence upon the two major religious currents –
Christianity and Islam – of the medieval West, it will be unnatural to feel
that it had not influenced the mystic trends of Judaism also. But this writer
will persist in holding that each of these mystic trends had its specialty,
belonging to its respective religious backgrounds.
In
the context of these mystic trends through the centuries, this writer will
clarify the mystical experiences and specialities of Plotinus in some details,
following chiefly Armstrong and Jaspers as below.
While Armstrong refers
to the currents of Christianity and Gnosticism, surrounding the Plotinian
mysticism. Jaspers sticks to the main principle involved in the Plotinian
notion of emanation from the transcendent One to Matter, through
the intermediaries of the Nous and the World-Soul, as an
identical expression with no loss of the perfect vision, only becoming
progressively diminished by the distances from the One to Matter. In
the words of Jaspers, “In every stage, however, the begetter is simpler and
better than the begotten.” The other peculiarity of the descent-process is its
“unwilled consequence,” not that the creator decided at sometime to bring it
forth as in Plato’s Demiurge, or, in a different cultural area of Indian Aiterrya
Upanishad, where the transcendent self had a desire to penetrate into the
created orders. The Plotinian mystic process of descent is not the creation out
of nothing of the Christian God. On the other hand, the evolutionary
process as expressed through descent in Plotinus, is not a drive towards a
final actuality beyond all potentialities, as in Aristotle. In Plotinus the
world came into being by emanation, which is not a concept, but a mystery
expressed through countless images or symbols. The universe, as apparently
experienced, flows from a source which feeds its waters which never get dry or
dispersed. It is like the one around which the circle moves. There are other
metaphors also–the product is no less an
independent being than is its source. A son is not an artifact depending for
its existence on its maker; he is an independent self, yet it was not himself
but his father who brought him into being. Plotinus calls the One the father, Nous the son, and the World-Soul the grandson. But generation comes
through vision. All being is the product of seeing. Thus the One engenders the Nous. Standing still in order to see, it
becomes Nous and enters
into being. Looking upon the earlier stage as a prototype, each stage engenders
its copy in the following stage which sees in turn, vision engendered by
vision, and carries on the cycle. Descent-generation and upward
contemplation are two aspects of the same process, a process that has
symbolical, variety and novelty but with no estrangement from the inspiring
transcendent basis.
Elaborating
the descent-process, from the Nous to the next steps–World-Soul and
Nature (matter)–Jaspers says, “Looking upon the archetypes in the Ideas
of the Nous, the World-Soul engenders the world without any plan or
activity, without sound or effort. Nothing escapes it. Perpetually it regains
its domination over conflicting things. For it is always the All.” The
inspiring basis never ceases to be, separating itself from the evolutionary
orders and stages.
When
Jaspers thinks that “to each step downward in the generative process, there
corresponds an ascending movement–the contemplation of the higher stage–he
seems to develop the Plotinian thought to the advanced notion of process of the
evolutionists like Whitehead of the contemporary West and Sri Aurobindo of
contemporary India, for the descent-process in all these thinkers, is a kind of
involution to a last limit-matter-with a simultaneous ascent
(evolution) from matter, to the transcendent One (Plotinus) – to
Creativity with a move from the forms to the formless (White-head )–to
Supermind–or the Fourth of Sri Aurobindo.
Jaspers
generalises the descent-ascent process as a single impulse at work; the souls
drive towards its source, which it finds in contemplation and love; in the
recollection of its origin; in self-purification. To attain this source is the
soul’s greatest joy. It confronts two possibilities: ascent or further fall.
This kind of analysis of Plotinian mystical experience, whatever the cultural
difference, is non-different from the Upanishadic notion of the apparent orders
of experiential processes as psychic states from the ignorance of the
deep-sleep to the subjectivity of the dream and the subjectivity and objectivity
of the waking, but all these confronted orders of experiential processes are
grounded upon the ever-shining transcendent consciousness of Turiya, the
Fourth, which like the Plotinian One, is indescribable through concepts.
According
to Jaspers: For Plotinus as for Plato the transcending process consists of two
steps–“the first transcends sense-perception and attains to that which cannot
be seen but only thought.” Here this writer’s suggestion will be to change the
expression “can be thought” to “can be contemplated upon.” In the Platonic way
“This ideal world of necessary thoughts is the infinite world of archetypes, of
which the sensuous world discloses infinite copies.” If rendered in the
Upanishadic way, it is a detached contemplative or meditative way, with no
reference to the archetypal ideas.
The
transcendent One of Plotinus, “is not manifold...it is
uncontained…nothing can be above it.” Here also there is a closeness between
the Plotinian One and the Upanishadic Turiya or the Fourth, but
there is a difference in the contemplative ways, and also in the ways of their
detached attitudes. Both Plotinus and the Upanishadic thinkers take recourse to
negative schemes or statements. They say what the transcendent One or Turiya
is “not.” Whatever we can think, we must say: it is not this. The aim of
this transcending is named: the First. the One, the Good. But it
is not what these words mean. This is also true of the Upanishadic transcendent
Fourth, which can be named as Turiya, Atman or Brahman, but
not what these words mean. All these are negative statements. Jaspers refers to
Plotinus here to say “Over and over again Plotinus enjoins us”: Take away all
other things when you wish to speak of the One or to achieve awareness
of it. And when you have taken everything away, do not try to add something to
it but ask whether there might be something that you have not yet taken away
from it in your thinking. Even Being is imputed to it only “under the pressure
of words.” Strictly speaking we may not call it this or that, Here
also one may find some similarities of expressions between Plotinus and the
Upanishadic thinkers, but, we know, there is difference between them. These two
thoughts can be stretched to posterior Western and Indian thought, with similar
differences, from their respective cultural backgrounds. The Plotinian
elimination of the positive statements can be extended to Husserl’s principle
of backeting or elmination, and the Upanishadic elimination of the positive
orders can be interpreted by Sankara’s doctrine of Maya as a veiling and
superimposing process of the self-shining transcendent non-dual reality, by the
doctrine of Apavada or refutation or elimination of the entire veiling and
superimposing process (Maya), beyond the Buddhist thought of India in contrast
to the thoughts of the Upanishads.
The
Plotinian mystic experience of the transcendent One from the orders of
emanation from Nous to Matter is primarily a speculative and
general discipline recommended to all who choose to follow the Plotinian way.
His is a life of simplicity and exalted deliberation, but, in the context of
Sankara, we shall find a dual discipline, which is not only a general
speculative discipline but a yogic discipline also; it is recommended to those
who are willing to choose such a disciplined life. In this context Sankara has
a view which governs the Indian thought from the days of the Upanishads to
Buddhism, that each individual collects in his or her body-mind construct a
continuity of ignorant process from his/her past activities (Prarabdhakarma).
The reference will be to Sankara’s one of the small treatises, entitled, Aparokshanubhuti
(Self-Realisation), and not to his other small or great treatises or
commentaries, for clarifying the core of his philosophic and practical
attitude; it is a method with an extreme brevity, but not losing the
fundamentals of his contributions in the advanced lines of deliberations
beyond the Upanishads and Buddhism. In this small treatise of Sankara, there is
a dual discipline, speculative and Yogic, in the advanced aspects beyond the
epistemological positions of the great Buddhist logicians, and beyond the Yogic
practitioners in the systematic ways of the Yoga of Patanjali. The advanced
epistemology is exhibited by Sankara’s doctrine of Maya, which is a veiling and
a superimposing process, and is followed by a process of refutation (Apavada),
which is not only speculative, but also Yogic by a reinterpretation of the
eight-fold Yogic disciplines of Patanjali, by a total change in the practice of
breath-control (pranayama), which is no more a stoppage of breath after
the ingoing or outgoing breath-processes, but continuing the process of
continuity as to attain the spontaneity of the ultimate continuum of the
self-shining reality (svayamprakas). The final objective is not
discipline, but a complete freedom from disciplines after following all
disciplines (sadhana-mukti). In a very summarised form, the fifteen
disciplines of Sankara will be referred to with a suggestion for the ultimate
condition of the freedom from all disciplines (sadhanamukti). These
fifteen disciplined ways of Sankara are: (i) Yama (control of the
senses), (ii) Niyama (control of mind), (iii) Tyaga (renunciation),
(IV) Mauna (silence), (v) Desa (space), (vi) Kala (time),
(vii) Asana (posture of the body), (viii) Mulabandha (a posture
of the body restraining the roots of sense-organs from one’s anus), (ix) Dehasamyam
(a condition of equipoise of one’s body, (x) Driksthiti (firmness of
one’s vision), (xi) Pranayama (control of one’s breathing mechanism),
(xii) Pratyahara (withdrawal of the mind from the sense organs and
sensations), (xiii) Dharana (concentration), (xiv) Dhyana (continuance
of concentration) and (xv) Samadhi (complete absorption in a continuity
of concentration).
If
due to the accumulated ignorant processes due to one’s past, not merely of
one’s present life-process, but also of one’s past life-processes, in a series
is granted, as accounting for the apparent presented orders of experiential
processes from the ignorance of deep-sleep to the subjectivity of dream and to
the subjectivity and objectivity of waking then, to Sankara, this apparent
process can be eliminated or refuted by his dual disciplines–speculative and
Yogic, as mentioned earlier. Except the practical Yogic practices, Plotinus
also has a similar suggestion for the elimination of the presented orders for
getting back to the condition of the transcendent One. For Sankara, one can
refer to the verse 98 of his above treatise, Aparokshanubhuti, and for
Plotinus, one may refer to jaspers’ chapter on Plotinus from pages 56 to 63.
Eliminating the details, only some select expressions from Plotmus, may be
quoted: To Plotinus, the One is self-sufficient, perfect and undivided.
Hence the One looks upon itself, it has nothing other, but is itself
alone. All questioning into the ground of the One takes place in the
shattering category of the ground that is groundless. Plotinus has only a
philosophic discipline, which, in his words, is a vision and
a speculative dialectic, and, in both cases, a purification of the soul. The
aim of philosophy is not merely to know Being and the World, but through this
knowledge to life up the soul. The soul has the alternative of slipping
downward or of rising upward.
Plotinus’
view of the emanation from the One to Nous, et al, is jest
general, and he is talking about the universe (which is obviously the
apparent), not like Sankara’s; for Sankara speaks in detail about each
individual having a body-mind construct with a past ignorance. The schedule of
Plotinus is beyond and above the ways of the Gnostics and the Christians, for
his is a raising of the temporal perishing process to the eternal and
transcendental order of the One, but he cannot also go beyond his
speculative generalisations. The individual is left with infinite time
to prepare himself for the final lift, but Sankara tries to expedite this
process of evolution by his dual disciplines–speculative and Yogic.
This
writer, however, does not want to dogmatise on Sankara, he is ready to
modernise his position by indicating a prospect, both in the Western and
Eastern way – by Western developments, in some form of meditative ways, as in
Whitehead’s peace, or by his minglings of logics, as suggested in
the Adventures of Ideas, or, in terms of the Indian and Chinese–Japanese
way–in the Yogic ways of Sri Aurobindo and in the ways of Japanese Suzuki’s
Zen, not alone in the aspect of Dhyana (or even Vijnana) but also
in the aspect of Prajna. According to Suzuki, Dhyana (in the
context of Vijnana, is still ideational, and it stands for silent
meditation, whereas Prajna stands for continuous activity-process with
no specific content, even in the context of the higher order, of meditative
processes.
–Courtesy
Sri B V S S Mani, Hony. Director,
Swadharma
Swarajya Santha
* Paper read at the
Fourth World Congress of the International Society for Neo-Platonic Studies
organised by the Swadharma Swarajya Sangha (founded by late Sri Kowtha
Suryanarayana Rao), at Madras on 25th and 26th Dec. 1979.