Plotinus and Sankara: Where do they meet?

PLOTINUS AND SANKARA: WHERE DO THEY MEET? *

ANIL K. SARKAR
Professor Emeritus, California State University, Hayward, and
Director, California Institute of Asian Studies, San Francisco, California

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 -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 grounds.

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-witha 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 grounds. The Plotinian elimination of the positive statements can be extended to Husserl’s principle of eting 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 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.