THE ONE AND THE MANY • PART 2
Proclus and Porphyry are perhaps pointing to the fact that we can become dazzled by the many forms of beauty and by the manyness of everything clothed in shape, colour, perfume and sensation. This does not mean that we should cease to delight in beautiful things. Rather, we are invited to enjoy them without losing sight of the eternal Beauty of which they are expressions. Added to these are the further garments of opinion, hearsay and phantasy.
But when we gradually peel these outer garments away, we begin to perceive the living Ideas themselves—shining with truth and vitality, and imparting to us a genuine motive power.
Looking Beyond Appearances
In the previous reflection we considered how easily consciousness becomes scattered amongst the many forms of the world, and ended with the question: How do we return to Unity? Proclus and Porphyry suggest that the answer begins by learning to see beyond appearances to the eternal Ideas that underlie them.
Porphyry and the Vision of Eternal Essences
Returning to Proclus and his observations about the “evils of form and shape”, we find a similar idea in the third-century philosopher Porphyry. His thoughts may seem to us in the twenty-first century—accustomed to oversimplification and the demand for a “thrilling read”—somewhat dense. Nevertheless, if we are patient and remain with him, we begin to glimpse pure unity emerging. He says:
When you have grasped an eternal essence, infinite in itself according to power, and begin to perceive intellectually a nature unwearied, untamed, and never-failing, but transcending in the most pure and genuine life, and full from itself; and which is likewise established in itself, satisfied with, and seeking nothing but itself: to this essence, if you add a subsistence in place, or a relation to a certain thing, at the same time you (appear to) diminish it, by ascribing to it an indigence of place, or a relative condition of being. You do not, in reality, diminish the essence itself. Rather, you distance yourself from perceiving it, because your own imagination becomes like a veil, obscuring the reality with the assumptions you have projected onto it.
We might think of these eternal essences as pure abstract Ideas. At the physical level, there are ideas such as roundness, squareness or twoness—the recognition of which we take for granted, but which point to the fact that such ideas are somehow innate within us, so close to us that they often pass unnoticed.
Moving higher, there are Ideas such as Order, which quietly govern our everyday lives. Without an innate sense of order, how would we know when a picture hanging on the wall was crooked? Beyond these lie the great universal Ideas – those brilliant Stars called: Unity, Goodness, Truth and Beauty.
The Mind Penetrating Outer Forms and Revealing Essence
In truth, throughout the day we carry out this “peeling away” almost automatically. Otherwise, we would never recognise that a particular warm-blooded creature belongs to a family called “mammal”. It is as though the mind is naturally built to penetrate outer form and release the Idea within—like uncovering the kernel hidden within its husk.
Yet we can make this gift of revealing the inner essence much more conscious as we become aware of what we are doing. Then we begin to operate more from our centre, cultivating that “second sight” which moves beyond manyness.
In the sacred Mysteries this second sight was cultivated through the cathartic virtues—prayer, meditation, contemplation and ritual—which gradually free us from appearances and allow us to penetrate to the real nature of things.
Through such practices we may begin to see that although metaphor, analogy and simile are immensely helpful in describing reality, they remain limited. They are, after all, only fingers pointing to the Moon. If we cling too tightly to these fingers, they may actually lead us away from the truth. Great Ideas such as Beauty and Truth become reduced to particular examples, and their deeper significance is lost.
For this reason, we need to leave plenty of space around our reflections, resisting attachment to our present understanding and allowing room for future growth.
But this raises another question. If the mind is capable of penetrating beyond appearances, how do we consciously cultivate that capacity? Is there a practical discipline that enables us to move from the many expressions of an Idea towards its unifying essence?
The Platonic tradition answers this question with a remarkable art of inquiry known as dialectic. Far from being merely an abstract philosophical exercise, it offers a living method of gathering together the many into the One.
In the final reflection, we shall explore this practical discipline and consider why the journey through multiplicity is not a detour from truth, but an essential stage in our return to Unity.
———————————————————————————————
Read the Series|The One and the Many: Returning the Many to the One
Part 1: How We Can Enjoy the Trees Without Losing Sight of the Wood
Exploring how sensory multiplicity fragments consciousness and how we lose unity.
Part 2: Looking Beyond Appearances
Drawing on Proclus and Porphyry, this post invites us to appreciate the world’s beauty without losing touch with the unifying truths of Goodness, Truth, and Beauty itself.
Part 3: Gathering the Many Back to the One.
Practicing dialectic—plus an invitation to our online reading group on Plato’s Phaedo.
