Time and Being. Plotinus and Forgotten Western Enlightened Seers

Common folks tired with traditional Western spirituality often look to the East--to Buddhism, Vedanta, or forms of Yoga--for more expansive takes on the spiritual and mystical. Or else they (more commonly nowadays) submerse themselves in eclectic mixes (or mishmashes) of various New Age, New Thought, and/or Neopagan hybrids that draw from Eastern spirituality, pop culture, folklore, and fakelore. Mysticism and spirituality focused on nondualism and self-actualization, however, is hidden as it were, in the Western Mystery Tradition and dates back to at least the time of Pythagoras, who lived about the same time as Buddha. A strand of the philosophy and mysticism of the pre-Socratics, including Pythagoras, carried over into Neoplatonism, a type of thinking first attributed to Plotinus, who lived in the third century of the common era (about the time that Christianity started to gain legitimacy and become standardized). With the rise of Christianity, however, the work of Plotinus and those who followed him, such as Iamblichus, was sidelined to be picked up and reframed centuries later during the Italian  Renaissance.

I came across this insightful YouTube presentation of Plotinus' discourse on Time and Being. Truths spoken by a largely forgotten Western seer thousands of years before Buddhist or Vedantist thought hit this side of the globe.

At Peace in the Maw of the World

From the unreal, lead us to the Real

From darkness, lead us to Light

From death, lead us to Immortality

Reach us through and through ourselves

And evermore protect us by Thy sweet, compassionate face.

                                                      --Vedantist prayer derived from the Vedas

Master Peace Sigil September 11 2015

In my last post, I shared how a Hindu spiritual philosophy called Advaita Vedanta and floating in an isolation tank inspired an image about capturing the original self. I’m still on a Vedanta roll. Probably because, after letting go of the trappings of spirituality several years ago, I got curious and accompanied friends to a week-long satsang to hear a teacher that they’ve been following.

Although the satsang took place on a campgrounds, I roomed on a compound that was part Buddhist abbey, part Druid sanctuary, and part organic farm with a fabulous view of Mount McAdams and the Clackamas mountain range. I would’ve been happy enough to just meditate and muck-about at that place, but I did sit through about 28 hrs of lecture/discussion (the satsang) that didn’t need to be more than 3. Still, it was insightful, and I think I returned home a little changed. A bit more dispassionate, temperate, and observant perhaps . . . reflective of what spaciousness is like and what the imposition of a middle-aged human body and its personal circumstances is like, too.

I came home to the 9-11 anniversary, the Syrian refugee crisis, a media circus surrounding a serially adulterous Christian fundamentalist anarchist “martyr” who refuses to do her job and issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, conflagrations across the US West Coast, and the usual morass of American anarchy, zombie apocalypto, and anti-intellectualism. 

I got the idea to make an image of being at peace in the midst of the horrific mayhem we too eagerly like to remind each other that life is—even when it is not in our personal world sphere.  

I pulled out my tin of Caran d’ Arche wax crayons and had a little fun building the image. Then I goaded some friends who follow a kind of New Agey, Wicca lite, manifestation spirituality into building a Chaos Magic-type sigil with me by embellishing the crayon sketch with stickers and cabochons. I then made a series of digital and painted images of the sketch.

Digital version of  my sketch (upper left) and two versions of being at peace within that ferocity. Images print as 18 x 24 Copyright Dee Rapposelli 2015

At Peace in the World Maw Acrylic on stretched sail cloth 24 x 36 copyright Dee Rapposelli 2015