Return to the One by Brian Hines Read Free Book Online

social problems. We want happy gatherings with like-minded people, uplifting talks, communal prayer and music, tasty food and drink in a spirit of brother- and sisterhood.
    Plotinus doesn’t offer us any of that in the Enneads. His sole focus is on uniting one’s soul with universal truth. To do this, one must become more than human, and pass beyond everyday human concerns. Refreshingly, he reminds us that spirituality has everything to do with spirit. Nothing else matters, especially matter.
    Worshipping in a holy place? If the place is physical, this isn’t spiritual. Reading a sacred book? If the book is physical, this isn’t spiritual. Being in the presence of a saintly person? If the person is physical, this isn’t spiritual. Thinking divine thoughts? If the thoughts are physical, this isn’t spiritual. Doing good works? If the works are physical, this isn’t spiritual.
    “Well, gosh!” one feels like crying out in exasperation. “What do you want, Plotinus? If none of this is spiritual, then what is?”
    From the essence of his teachings, an answer comes: “What is spiritual is spirit. Spirit forms matter but isn’t part of matter. So spirituality means leaving behind all physical sensations and thoughts of materiality.”
To be sure, you were already previously the All, but since something other came to be added on to you besides the “All, “you were lessened by this addition. For this addition did not come from the All—what could you add to the All?—but from Not-Being.
When one comes to be out of Not-Being, he is not the All, not until he rids himself of this Not-Being Thus you increase yourself when you get rid of everything else, and once you have gotten rid of it, the All is present to you. [VI-5-12] 2
     
    Subtract, don’t add
    W E HAVE TO START on the spiritual path from wherever we are now and that place is right here, the material world, relative Not-Being. Here we think many thoughts, emote many emotions, and perceive many perceptions. Plotinus tells us that the best thing we can do is get rid of what we have within our minds now, by stopping what we are habitually doing now.
    Hence, the best thought is the concept that leads to no further thoughts, the best emotion is the feeling that leads to no further emotions, and the best perception is the sensation that leads to no further perceptions—at least during the period of contemplation when we seek to experience spirit and the One, the All. In essence, the only belief a spiritual seeker should aim to retain is, “I will see it when I stop believing in, and seeing, what is not it.”
    Reason, then, guides us to an understanding that spirituality is a process of subtraction, not addition. This is an eminently scientific approach to the investigation of whatever non-material reality may exist apart from the physical universe because it is founded on the ultimate null hypothesis: a mystic, or spiritual scientist, subtracts from his or her consciousness all thoughts, emotions, and perceptions concerning materiality and simply observes what remains. To my mind, the logic of this metaphysical experiment is persuasive. Elimination of what is physical and personal necessarily leaves what (if anything) is non-material and universal.
    Where to leap?
    S INCE RELIGION generally emphasizes faith over reason, it is commonplace in spiritual circles to downplay or even disparage the value of rationality in one’s search for God or the ultimate meaning of life. We’re told that all we need to do is to have faith.
    Well, fine. But faith in whom, in what? In Jesus? Buddha? Muhammad? Moses? Lao Tzu? Guru Nanak? Angelic guides? Our own souls? God? Nirvana? Tao? Spirit? The Holy Ghost? Even if I accept that I need to make a leap of faith, tell me: why should I leap in this direction, rather than in that direction?
    All manner of faiths—Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, New Ageism (if we may use such a term), and many others—vie for our attention and