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Advaita and Neoplatonism (1961)

Advaita and Neoplatonism

(1961)–Frits Staal–rechtenstatus Auteursrechtelijk beschermd

A Critical Study in Comparative Philosophy


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2. Interiorisation. Non-dualism and the hierarchy of being

The topic of the above treatise on contemplation can be developed, with reference to Advaita, in several directions. It is a true specimen of the Plotinian method which leads us from the sensible realm upwards to the One. This upwards trend is what Plotinus calls dialectics.35

 

First, it is clear that contemplation is higher than action. Plotinus starts his treatise with a reference to the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, and (as Bréhier remarks)36 the ancient reader must have recalled, that the chapter on the Ethics from which this passage is taken37 is quite soon followed by a chapter,38 where contemplation is regarded as the highest good, but where it is at the same time limited to the most divine in the noû of human being. The priority of contemplation is still more explicit in Aristotle's Metaphysics, In Aristotle the term theōría has often the meaning of study or science, a meaning which is secondary in the Enneads.39

The meaning of theōría in Plotinus is the same as in Plato. The priority of this contemplation goes back to the Republic, where the well-being of individual and community depends on the contemplation of the eternal being by a small number of elected persons.

 

In Book Λ of the Metaphysics, the celebrated book dealing with the theology of the Stagirite, the Prime Mover leads a life of activity ‘such as the best that we can for brief periods enjoy.’40 ‘Its very activity is pleasure (hēdonḗ) - just as waking (egrḗgorsis), perceiving (aísthēsis), thinking (nóēsis) are most pleasant (hḗdiston) because they are activities.’41 ‘All physical activity being excluded by the immaterial nature of the first mover, Aristotle can only ascribe to it mental activity, and only that kind of mental activity which owes nothing to the body, viz., knowledge; and only that kind of knowledge which does not grasp conclusions by the aid of premisses but is direct, intuitive (nóēsis)....’. This knowledge is also called contemplation (theōría), ‘the pleasantest and best of all things’. But the knowledge of God must be self-knowledge: it is a knowledge which has only itself for its object. Ross has convincingly proved that Aristotle's God does not know the world and that the interpretation that he knows the world at least in principle or en parérgōi, has to be rejected. This interpretation is due to Thomas Aquinas, who also held that God's knowledge has to be conceived as self-knowledge. ‘But,’ says he, ‘it does not follow that everything different from him is not known to him; for by knowing himself he knows everything else.’42 This is akin to Śaṅkara's view, where the same difficulty arises on account of the svayamprakāśatva of knowledge; ‘Moreover you (the Vedāntin) also who assume an all-knowing Brahman can ascribe to it all-knowingness in so far only as that term means capacity for all knowledge. For Brakman cannot always be actually engaged in the cognition of everything.’43

Plotinos develops in a more consistent manner than Aristotle, the Platonic doctrine of transcendent ideas which form a kosmos nóētos. Aristotle emphatically calls God's being an activity, and with him (as also with Plato, as we shall see) nóēsis and theōría are activities.44 But when Aristotle specifies this activity with regard to God, it turns out to be a purely interiorised self-knowledge, which cannot even know the world - i.e., in fact an inactivity. Plotinus, who is nearer to Plato, says that if contemplation is ‘the pleasantest and the best of things’ and so unlike an activity, it must be better than any activity too. Developing this in his own manner he attributes contemplation to all things; but the higher the being, the further is its contemplation removed from activity.

 

The general trends in Plotinus and Śaṅkara are the same, but the differences are conspicuous too. For Śaṅkara meditation is a lower activity and knowledge is higher than activity. For Plotinus there is a scale of contemplations, the higher the less active, ultimately transcending all activity. The general trend is subordination of activity under contemplation (in Plotinus) and knowledge (in Śaṅkara).

 

In the above passages of the Enneads the concept of knowledge has no separate place as in Śaṅkara, but is another term for the higher forms of contemplation. But in a chapter of the treatise which states that the One does not think,45 it is clearly expressed that the self-knowledge of the nous and its final release are the same. Self-knowledge is only possible because of knowledge of the One: ‘Self-knowledge exists only in a being different from the Good (i.e., the One)46....knowing the Good, it subsequently knows itself; looking at the Good it knows itself’.47 Plotinus often speaks about self-knowledge as nearest to the knowledge of the One. But this results from the same idea which led Advaitins to the thesis of the self-luminosity of knowledge: i.e. the tendency to conceive a knowledge which does not presuppose any relationship.

Thus Plotinus says: ‘especially one should not view the One by means of other things.’48 Similarly Śaṅkara says that one should not see the Absolute in a symbol (na pratīke....).

 

Both the lower forms of contemplation in Plotinus and meditation (dhyāna) are productive. When Plotinus says that nature through silent contemplation produces ‘the traces of the (physical) bodies’ we are on the one hand reminded of the creator in the Brāhmaṇas, who ‘thinks silently in his mind: what is in his mind becomes the sāman Bṛhat’ (leading later to the equally inactive process of creation of names and forms -‘traces’-in Advaita); while on the other hand we recall dhyāna which mysteriously produces (through apūrva) svarga and celestial felicity, just as nature produces through theōría itself and its own beauty and grace.

 

Both the higher forms of contemplation in Plotinus and knowledge in Śaṅkara are not productive. Their aim hes in themselves and they reach the perfect unity of subject and object. Thus the highest theōría in Plotinus leads to the One, whereas the Advaitic jñāna leads to and is identical with Brahman.

 

For Plotinus we have to go beyond the nous in order to reach the One. For Śaṅkara brahmajñāna is not ordinary, discursive knowledge but a direct experience, But is not Brahman for Śaṅkara cit which seems to be more or less the same as nous and would not be the highest in Plotinus? It is true that Śaṅkara at this important point follows the well-known śruti, that Brahman is saccidānanda. But his actual interpretation identifies these three qualifications throughout and entirely, in such a way that they disappear in the quality-less Brahman where nothing is left of the unity-in-multiplicity characteristic of the nous. Elsewhere Plotinus says that the soul wants to go beyond the nous and cease to think (noeîin), because ‘thinking is a movement.’49 Similarly saccidānanda is beyond all movement and cit in this compound is a higher entity than nous.

In the treatise on contemplation an increasing plenitude corresponds to the upward movement towards the One. The unity

of the One manifests itself as plenitude in the nous. This plenitude, when diversified, manifests itself as harmony, as a ‘symphony’, as a sumpátheia tōn hólōn. But though this plenitude proceeds from the One, the One remains undiminished and unaffected, just as the Absolute is described in the ‘peace chant’ of the pūrṇam: plenitude proceeds from plenitude, but it remains as plenitude.

 

The most isnteresting parallel in the analysecl treatise is the description of the sage-foreshadowed in Plato and in the Stoa-as a person who finds the One by turning towards himself and finding ‘everything inside’. Whoever is familiar with Indian terminology is tempted to translate: who finds the Self by turning inward-another way of expressing the celebrated tat tvam asi. For the purpose of comparison with Advaita it is relevant to know whether according to Plotinus the individual soul is actually and always identical with the Absolute, or whether it can find itself identical with it under certain circumstances. It is clear that the soul is for Plotinus a third divine being, which seems prima facie different from the first divine being. This first question therefore becomes whether the individual soul is in the last resort, ‘in reality’, one with the One, or whether it possesses the possibility of becoming One (identifying itself) with the One. Or, more generally formulated, a, second question is, whether the One is the only reality, notwithstanding the three hypostases, or whether there are other realities too. The first question will be considered first.

 

Are psukhḗ and nous ultimately the same as the One, or do they merely become the One?-Let us first listen to the divine Plato, whom Plotinus generally follows. Plato conceives of the soul in two ways which are apparently contradictory: in the Phaedo and the Republic the psukhḗ is the principle of knowledge and a statical, thinking soul.50 In the Phaedrus and the later dialogues the psukhḗ is the principle of life and movement, a dynamical, moving soul.51 It is defined as: tò huph'heauton kînoumenon, ‘the self-moving principle of movement’.52 The only interpreta-

tion of these two divergent defrnitions seems to be the one suggested by Loenen, i.e. that nous is a function of the psukhḗ (for which there are other indications) and that nous is kínēsis, ‘a movement’53 or poîein, ‘an activity’.54 As mentioned earher the doctrine of psukhḗ as movement and activity occurs in Aristotle and in Plotinus. In Plotimis the paradox arises, that this moving thought comes to a standstill in the contemplation of the One, which the soul finds in itself. This implies that the definition of the soul as a self-moving principle of movement is no longer valid for Plotinus (which he apparently never recognises): for it finds in itself also the calmness and quiet which is the One, and in that situation it neither moves itself nor anything else. We have to conclude that the soul can assume states of motion, connected with the world of multiplicity, and states of rest and union (hénōsis) in the One.

 

Thus we are led to Bréhier's conclusion55 that the soul is ‘the power and capacity to travel along all things and to assimilate itself to each of them through a series of transformations’.56 Accordingly we read in Plotinus: ‘for the soul is many things and all things, the superior and the inferior, and it extends over life vx its entirety.’57 This is sometimes specified with the help of the Aristotelian pair of concepts actuality (enérgeia) and potentiality (dúnamis) e.g., with regard to the relation between the individual and universal soul or the individual and universal nous. Puech summarizes some passages as follows:58 ‘Our individual soul is individual in actuality, but the universal soul in potentiality, whereas the universal soul is universal in actuality, but the individual soul in potentiality.59 Likewise each individual nous is individual in actuality, but all nóoi the universal nous, in potentiality, whereas the universal nous is in actuality all the individual nóoi

and in potentiality each of them."60 The process of actualization of the potential is since Aristotle a process of transformation (as will be stressed below) and thus it follows that the Plotinian soul is subject to a kind of pariṇāmavāda. But this universal possibility of actualization also throws more light upon the different contemplations about which Plotinus speaks. It actually converges to the idea of dhyāna in the Brāhmanas and in Pūrva Mīmāṁsā, where the human soul is capable of identifying itself with everything.

Unlike Śaṅkara, Plotinus does not say that these identifications are ‘subjective’; on the contrary, they are the actualizations of existing possibilities. We become what we know, says Plotinus, generalizing Aristotle, who said that the mind in knowing immaterial forms is one with its object.61 This can in turn be looked upon as a generalization of what the Muṇḍakopaniṣad taught: ‘He who realises Brahman through knowing becomes Brahman’. Śaṅkara interprets this not as becoming, but as the realization of being: he who knows Brahman, knows that he is Brahman. Here we observe again how a similar idea manifests itself in Plotinus as a hierarchy and in Śaṅkara as a well marked differentiation:62 according to Plotinus knowledge is higher the more completely subject and object are one; according to Śaṅkara subject and object are generally different,63 but they are one in brahmavidyā. The degrees of contemplation and unification of which Plotinus speaks are perhaps phenomenologically given, but logically they are not very clear. The distinctions of Śaṅkara are the result of a superior logic. Though Plotinus generally accepts the phenomena and compromises with them in their phenomenal character, there is also an uncompromising ‘transcendentalising’ direction in his thought. Śaṅkara on the other hand, in principle strictly logical and uncompromising with the world of avidyā, com-

promises with regard to the vyāvahārika realm. Both contrary trends seem to essentially belong to the two systems of thought.

 

Let us consider an example from both, beginning with the ‘contrary’ trend in Śaṅkara. It has been pointed out above (and more extensively by Bhattacharyya) how Brakman gives its reality to the vyāvahārika realm by means of its śakti. Sanskrit śakti seems to denote the same idea as Greek dúnamis (in the pre-Aristotelian, pre-technical sense). And thus there is accordance when Plotinus characterizes not only the soul as dúnamis, but also calls (as we saw above) the One dúnamis pántōn, ‘power, potency of everything.’ Here dúnamis has the same meaning as śakti and does not yet have the technical meaning of ‘potentiality’. Aristotle would never call his Prime Mover a dúnamis; it is an actuality, enérgeia. This is due to the fact, that for Aristotle actuality is always prior to potentiality; he proves this with several arguments,64 e.g. on account of the actual force which is needed when something potential becomes actual Plotinus fully accepts this priority,65 and this may seem inconsistent when he calls the One dúnamis pántōn. But it only shows that the latter denomination does not mean that the One is a potentiality, but that everything is potentially contained in it. The One is the potency of everything, because everything originates from it.66

 

The other ‘contrary’ trend will here be considered with regard to the highest state of the soul, where it is one with the One. This is the samdāhi which Plotinus experiences and which he called ékstasis in a descriptive passage. Here he speaks about ‘a vision (théama), but a different kind of seeing, an ecstasy (ékstasis), a simplification (háplōsiss), an abandonment of oneself (epídosis hautoû), a desire for immediate contact, a standstill (stásis)....’67 It is well known that Porphyry has recorded that Plotinus had this vision four times, tetrákis, but it is generally for gotten that this was during five years only, for Porphyry adds: ‘during the time that I was with him’,68 which must have been

from 263 until 268 A.D. (two years before Plotinus' death in 270). P. Henry has rightly emphazised this.69 Throughout his life Plotinus may have had this experience more frequently, and he speaks in fact about the occurrence of his own awakening70 as a phenomenon which took place pollákis ‘often’-not tetrákiss. Bréhier71 and Dodds72 rightly remark that this experience cannot be regarded as the starting point of the metaphysics of Plotinus, as its interpretation is independent from the experience itself.73

 

That we are entitled to speak in this context about a ‘contrary trend’ (to the general world-affirmative outlook of Plotinus' writings) follows from the fact that in the hierarchy of states of the soul this state is evidently evaluated most highly as the ‘goal’. Although Plotinus does not deny the other realities which are accessible to the ever transforming and assimilating soul, this state is not a transformation and is undoubtedly the most significant. In addition Plotinus often describes the contemplative state in negative terms as a withdrawal from the world-in a similar marnier as Advaitins define the concentration of dhyāna and upāsanā. He speaks in the above passage of a epídosis Kautoû, ‘an abandonment of oneself’, and in the above discussed section on the theōría of the nous it is said that the nous reaches the One by as it were abandoning itself.74 Elsewhere, he says with reference to the One: ‘If you pronounce its name and think about it, leave everything else (tà álla pánta áphes); leaving thus everything, abandon even the word: It’.75 Plotinus gives a short characterization of his own ideas in the words: áphele pánta, ‘leave everything behind’. All these passages point strongly in the direction of world-negation.76

But there is more. Though Plotinus is nowhere entirely explicit, there is good reason to follow the opinion of Bréhier who says: ‘The fact that ecstasy rarely manifests itself in the soul tied to the body, exceptionally and momentarily, does not exclude its being the normal and necessary state of the soul and of the nous’.77 This implies that unification with the One is the normal and necessary state, in other words: the One is real being. Moreover, that the One is always the underlying reality, and its occurrence not simply due to a transformation of the soul, is evident from a passage where Plotinus corrects himself in his own usage of language, which is generally under the influence of a pariṇāma-like mode of thinking: ‘When the soul happens to go to the principle, or, better (mâllon), when the latter's presence manifests itself (parón phanēi)....’78

 

Summarising it can be said that there is in the Enneads, despite the positive characterization of life and contemplation even in the lower stages, and despite the description of ordered beauty of the cosmos,79 a contrary trend of withdrawal from this world and of search for a reality which is more real and more true.80


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