/lit/ - Literature

>>13544909
>the grandest claim on lit
Ok but how so?

Was Plotinus actually liberated?

>>13544944
he experienced samadhi several times in his life

>>13544909
"If, however, the subject of things is a certain quality, being something common in each of the elements, in the first place indeed, it must be shown what it is. And, in the next place. how quality can be a subject be explained. How, likewise. can a thing which has quality be surveyed in that which is without magnitude, and without matter? Likewise, if the quality is defined, how can it be matter? But if it is something indefinite, it is not quality, but a subject, and matter which we are now investigating. What hinders, therefore, but that it ma y indeed be void of quality in consequence of not in its own nature participating of any thing, it may be endued with quality, entirely possessing a certain peculiarity, and differing from other things, being as it were a certain privation of them? For he who suffers a privation of anything, as for instance, a blind man, is a participant of quality. If, therefore, there is a privation of these things about matter, how is it possible it should not be endued with quality? But if, in short, there is privation about it, it is in a still greater degree a participant of quality, if privation is a certain degree a participant of quality, if privation is a certain something that has quality. He, however, who thus objects, what else does he do than make all things to be qualities, and the participants of quality? So that quantity, and also essence, will be quality..."
"...if indeed it is difference itself, it will not subsist as a thing that is such like, since neither is quality the participant of quality. If, however , it is different alone, it is not alone different through itself, but through difference, and is the same through sameness. Neither, therefore, is privation quality, nor participant of quality, but is destitute of quality, or of something else, just as silence is the absence of sound or of some other thing. For privation is negation"- Plotinus, "on matter, XIII"

Oh yeah? This guy was, is, and will always be, the truth itself.

>>13545105
I really love Jesus Christ

>>13545073
u wot m8?

>>13545244
He basically saying matter is not a subject nor thing that subsists as something by itself. It's a privation and destitute of qualities, something that qualities are imparted onto.
Like still water waiting for someone to splash it basically.

>>13545105
That's because he esoterically taught something along the lines of the two people OP posted, but this was later obscured and forgotten

>>13544950
>important sounding dead languages

>>13545244
Matter is a receptacle for form, not a substance. Plato 101.

Plotinus is cool

>>13545105
>reconciles neoplatonism & christianity

>>13546317
>reconciles neoplatonism, christianity, and german idealism 950 years in advance

>>13546377
comfy lookin' fella

>>13546392
he wasn't looking very comfy when his students stabbed him to death

>>13546401
thats what I want to do to all my professors

>>13545506
K, so what are qualities, and where do those come from?

>>13546488

>>13546536
"is jerking off to asmr normal?"
KEK
Yes, it is.

>>13544933
Sankaracarya’s dictum, ‘Verily, there is no other transmigrant but the Lord’ (satyam, nesvarad anyah samsari, BrSBh, 1.1.5) startling as it may appear to be at first sight, for it denies the reincarnation of individual essences, is amply supported by the older, and even the oldest texts, and is by no means an exclusively Indian doctrine. For it is not an individual soul that Plato means when he says: ‘The soul of man is immortal, and at one time comes to an end, which is called dying away, and at another is born again, but never perishes .. . and having been born many times has acquired the knowledge of all and everything’; or that Plotinus means when he says: There is really nothing strange in that reduction (of all selves) to One; though it may be asked, How can there be only One, the same in many, entering into all, but never itself divided up; or by Hermes who says that ‘He who does all these things is One, and speaks of Him as ‘bodiless and having many bodies, or rather present in all bodies’. The ‘Lord’ of whom Sarikaracarya speaks is, of course, the Supreme and Solar Self, Atman, Brahma, Indra, of all beings Overlord, of all beings King’, whose omniformity is timeless and whose omnipresence enables us to understand that He must be omniscient (sarvanubhuh, BUt II.5. 19, cf. IV.4.22 and SA, XIII); Death, the Person in the Sun, Indra and Breath of Life, ‘One as he is Person there, and many as he is in his children here’, and at whose departure ‘we’ die (SB, X.5.2.13, 16); the Solar Self of all that is in motion or at rest (RV, 1.115.1); our Immortal Self and Inner Controller ‘other than whom there is no seer, hearer, thinker or knower' (BU, III.7.23, III.8.11); the solar Indra of whom it is said that whoever speaks, hears, thinks, etc., does so by his ray (JUB, 1.28. 29); Brahma, of whom it is said that our powers ‘are merely the names of his acts’ (BU, 1.4.7, cf. 1.5.21); the Self, from whom all action stems (BU, 1.6.3; BG, 111.15); the Self that knows everything (MU, VL7). Whether as Surya, Savitr, Atman, Brahma, Agni, Prajapati, Indra, Vayu or madhyama Prana-yadrgeva dadrse tadrg ucyate (RV, V.44.6)6—this Lord, from within the heart here, is our mover, driver and actuator and whole source of the evanescent consciousness u that begins with our birth and ends with our death (MU, II.6d, III. 3).12 We do nothing of ourselves and are merely his vehicles, and instruments (as for Philo, passim). This ‘higher’ (para) Brahma is that ‘One, the Great Self, who takes up his stand in womb after womb .. .as the omniform Lord of the Breaths'.

>>13545105
If that was true so many millions of westerners would never have abandoned Christianity for being uninspiring and for being hard to take seriously.

>>13544909
Plotinus couldn't hold a candle to a one of Shankara's farts. The fact that he would try to construct some metaphysical system on the talks of some random guy who never even clearly stated during his life whether he agreed with it - LMAO what a joke, meanwhile my nigga Shankara revealed the supreme truth of the Aryan scriptures. Shankara is also way more lucid and logical than Plotinus, he completely btfos like 5 or 6 different schools of Hindu philosophy along with Jains and Buddhists all at the same time without breaking a sweat while all Plotinus does is whine and bitch and some gnostics etc. To compare the value of them let's just see what happened to them, Neoplatonism got absorbed into the opposing doctrine of Christianity and finally was cucked out of existence by Christian authorities while Shankara is revered across India and most Indian Philosophy after him is just a modification of his ideas.

>>13546708
>judging a philosopher based on how diluted and corrupted their works became due to the ignorant translating it.

Oh and also based on the shorthand notes taken Plotinus, then transcribed by his student Porphyry.

>>13546900
its bait reposted from another thread, nobody who's actually read both dislikes either

>>13546499
The One, Nous, Universal Paradigms, The Forms, Soul, Efficient Causes

>>13544909
best Plotinus book?

>>13547501
the only work extant and known is the Enneads i suggest Proclus if you want something more systematic.

>>13547998
I mean of all the books listed on Amazon.

>>13548016
The complete Enneads edition in the red hardcover.

>>13544909
>ramblings of philosophers
>truth

huhoh we have a brainlet over here

They don't even say the same thing.

>>13548025
>>13548016
The dustcover is red (by Lloyd Gerson).
The actual book is completely black.

>>13548016
>>13548047

>>13548052
thanks -- you had more patience than I did to post the cover. It's the best option in my opinion. Reasonably priced compared to Loebs, good translation, and quality binding.

>>13548052
I'll also add John Deck's secondary lit on the Enneads -- "Contemplation, Nature, and the One". The Enneads are dense stuff -- sometimes contradictory -- and his work provides a useful commentary.

>>13546083
care to redpill a poor plebian on what JC taught us esoterically?

>>13544909
Have you read my diary desu though?

>tfw you thought you achieved enlightenment reading Plotinus, but actually you have been reading Plautus

>The intellect which you humans conjecture to be the first is not. There is another intellect prior to it, more ancient and divine.

>The Father perfected all things, and delivered them over. To the second Mind, whom all nations of men call the first.

>The Chaldæans call the God Dionysos (or Bacchus), Iao in the Phœnician tongue (instead of the Intelligible Light), and he is also called Sabaoth, signifying that he is above the Seven poles, that is the Demiurgos.

The Hen is all things
but not a single one;
for the arche of all things is not all things,
but in that particular way it is all things, that is to say thither
they run.
Rather, they do not yet exist,
but they will be.

How then does it all come out
of a Simple One which has in itself
no intricate appearance,
nor any kind of folds whatsoever?

It is because there is no-thing
in itself
that through this out of itself come
all things,
that Being may be;

through this he himself is not existing, he, the progenitor of itself. But as such
this is the prime engendering.
Being complete,
to not seek, to not hold, to not need,
in some kind of overflowing,
and overplenteousness of itself
it has made another.

So the becoming to itself
is turned and filled,
born toward itself gazing, &
this is the Nous.
& the-standing-towards-that,
the Being of itself she made, as her view towards itself is Nous.

As it stood towards itself, that it may see,
out of the same nous it becomes and Is.
This one
now being such as that one,
The likeness creates the potency,
pouring out the many
– and this image is of itself –
just as before

the prime of itself poured out.
& out of the substance this energeia
Is the Soul, the becoming of that abiding
& so the Nous-of-the-abiding-before-itself has become.
Yet not abiding she creates, but
Motioned she is born
a phantom.

However looking there, whence born,
she becomes full,
Advanced into another motion her contrary she engenders ,
a phantom of herself, sensation,
the nature within natural things.

>>13548101
based?

and?

redpilled.

>>13548101
All I ever hear im Indian thought is the exploration of Nous, and even that is a stretch. Most of the time their minds only find Soul and, like the stoics, think her to be the highest King.

>>13546083
No. What modern Christians believe is what Jesus taught. He wasn't a Monist or a non-dualist.

Shut your fucking mouth.

>>13548300
then he was gayer than I thought

>>13548307
He was.

>>13548300

He is.

>>13544933
https://www.swami-krishnananda.org/com/com_plot.html

https://dbnl.org/tekst/staa009adva01_01/staa009adva01_01.pdf

>>13548148
You don't sound like you actually know Indian thought that well

>>13548463
because I find it unenlightening

>>13548148
>>13548903
What book is this?

>>13548936
the first picture has it in itself
the second is 'Neoplatonism and Indian Thought'

>>13544909
a western ape cannot ever be on the same level

>>13546911
I see, I was gonna say they both monists practically saying the same thing.

>>13546499
>so what are qualities, and where do those come from?

An example of a "quality" would be "coldness" or "hotness". They follow a paradigm of disparity. To say that they "come from" something is sort of a misnomer since qualities aren't actually "something specific" to begin with. They are uncreated and exhibited by things that are created (ice exhibits coldness/hotness) and are relative to other qualities that intermingle. If you melt the ice, the coldness seems to "vanish" yet it comes back to be exhibited one the water freezes again.

>>13547501
>>13548052
Proclus is good, but get the Thomas Taylor translations of Plotinus. Better to have an actual platonist transcribe/translate the meaning of what's been said. Also was the first to translate platos works into English, the only downside is that it's all in old style english and gets extremely verbose. Armstrong translations of Plotinus are ~okay~, but even more infuriating to understand.

>>13544909
plotinus is a dualist, proclus understood this

>>13549901
yikes

>>13549428
John Dillon is a full on Platonist
Gerson is more of a professor of Platonism, but that might be insulting
Going by George Boys-Stones' works he seem quite beholden to Platonism

I would call these men the Platonists of our day, just as Algis Uždavinys was (and Thomas Taylor), the carriers and transmitters of the true Tradition.
This new translation is itself a homage to Plotinus.

>>13550016
>yikes
fuck off
Plotinus is essentially Triadic (not dualist or monist), there's no conflict of powers, but there's fundamentally a plurality by necessity because of the One.
It's a philosophy of why and how there are things, the One isn't "the All", that is Nous.

>The One is all things and no one of them; the source of all things is not all things; all things are its possession- running back, so to speak, to it- or, more correctly, not yet so, they will be.
>But a universe from an unbroken unity, in which there appears no diversity, not even duality?
>It is precisely because that is nothing within the One that all things are from it: in order that Being (Nous) may be brought about, the source must be no Being but Being's generator, in what is to be thought of as the primal act of generation. Seeking nothing, possessing nothing, lacking nothing, the One is perfect and, in our metaphor, has overflowed, and its exuberance has produced the new: this product has turned again to its begetter and been filled and has become its contemplator and so an Intellectual-Principle (Nous).

>>13544909
Chris Langan's pretty much got the truth down pat

>>13547429
>>13549428
>uncreated
I gotta ask, do you guys just like follow a metaphysical system logically and then auto-agree with it, like in virtue of the fact that you sorted it out and followed the thinkers reasoning? or do you sit down and really hammer out a thinker’s worldview and then put it into conversation with another? I ask because there are certain thinkers I have definately done the former with (Kant and Spinoza, notably) and honestly this all reads like the same self-cogratulatory airs that I had when I was convinced they offered stone-cold-solid arguments. No matter what I could offer in response or rebuttal, you’re going to pull some capital T terminology out of your ass with deep layering of argumentation underneath it that you know about and have already agreed to the scope of and that I don’t know nor will never appreciate the scope of. Thank god for cynicism and brutish dismissal. This is why i am immensley grateful for my analytic training, especially thinkers like Quine who really forced me to stfu with empty metaphysical systems and get down to real argumentation. Not like we’re gonna acheive that though on the Tawainese Basket Weaving forum though.

>>13551040
I had already, through my interest in physics/cosmology, arrived at priority monism by my self. Deconstruct anything and everything and you find the bottom oneness (quantum field), use emergence to build up and you find the category of everything; both ways leads to the Parmenidean One. While Parmenides (and Heraclitus) might be said to deny Plurality, Platonism doesn't.

Study Physics (like Penrose' Road To Reality) and modern Set Theory, and you'll understand Neoplatonism.

>>13551092
What’s your take on perspectivalism? Also thats cool you followed that route but I’ve personally always found the closeness of math/science to philosophy to be the least tantalizing/interesting/consequential area of thought. I’ve never been convinced (despite all the a priori epistemology window-dressing my Kripkeite professors could instill in me) that it matters or that it’s radically different, under certain pressures, than what Kant hints at in virtue of a more general ambiguity in reasoning. Then again I namedropped Quine so what do you expect. Hume really fucked me up.

>>13551092
>quantum
What quantity though?

>>13551040
>I gotta ask, do you guys just like follow a metaphysical system logically and then auto-agree with it, like in virtue of the fact that you sorted it out and followed the thinkers reasoning?

sorty of what this anon said
>>13551092
Negation. "What it is not".

>While Parmenides (and Heraclitus) might be said to deny Plurality, Platonism doesn't.
But it's monist (the one) is it not?

>honestly this all reads like the same self-cogratulatory airs that I had when I was convinced they offered stone-cold-solid arguments. No matter what I could offer in response or rebuttal, you’re going to pull some capital T terminology out of your ass with deep layering of argumentation underneath it that you know about and have already agreed to the scope of and that I don’t know nor will never appreciate the scope of.

But like...the monists understood that. That's why Parmenides, Plato and the other Platonist really didn't like discussing "the one". The whole point was that it was incomprehensible. If it could be comprehended then we wouldn't be sitting here discussing it.

>Thank god for cynicism and brutish dismissal. This is why i am immensley grateful for my analytic training, especially thinkers like Quine who really forced me to stfu with empty metaphysical systems and get down to real argumentation.

"from what".

>>13548034
/thread

>>13546536
>/biz/ did i get scammed?
>Google-can i report racism to fbi?
>/suicide/support
it's a modern poem

>wanting other people to think you know something they don't
>throwing around -isms
>stuck in that early 'better than' phase of life
>actually mentioning enlightenment
>ever

>>13551859
If you have any goals, hierarchies and priorities are necessary. Seeing something as 'better' is at worst a tool, but might just be an accurate representation of how we do in fact, actively perceive life.
We much prefer life over death, even if we had a desire for death - else we wouldn't remain here.

>>13546536
wtf are those tabs LMAOO

>>13546669
Christianity is declining but hardcore evangelicals and mormons are growing in number. And traditional Catholics are waxing while the church wanes

>>13551876
Thanks for your one-dollar presentation of Jordan Peterson's 120 hour series inspired by Piaget. From there let's say that being a bigoted jerk is justified by the fact that yes, we do judge some things to be better than others, so why not let that be a guiding principle in every facet of life?

4chan and most of the world live at level 2 of pic related.

>>13551876
>hierarchies and priorities are necessary
priorities make things orderly and sensible, but hierarchies are top down, meaning: here's why you should do what i say, any questions, look at my sword.

Spheres of influence with priorities affected by them are the truth, just because big men with swords have been foisting their diseased hierarchy programming on everyone for millenia doesn't mean they are valid. The current trends towards nostalgia, resentment, anger and fear are catapulting us all straight back into a kind of barbarism that has access to books and pants but no real ethics.

>>13548101
just ripped the veil lads

>>13551275
Damascius preferred the term "The Ineffable".
The problem is that the One "is" the Good equally. It's because of its goodness that there's something other than he. The World (plurality) is good, the world is One AND Many. But not the One itself (he is One alone). The term 'One' isn't necessarily a reference to 'everything being one' but that he is the first and last.
Each thing is a oneness (participating the One), but also a Many (composite). The One is the ultimate perspective, not the sole legitimate perspective—the Forms are real, Nous and Soul are real and self-sufficient.

>>13544909
Bruh how the fuck is the soul real. It has no content.

>>13553928
Soul is the Psyche, 'to mind something' (but not our person/individuality).
Intellect (nous) is what all [human] Souls can actualize, but only some do.

>>13546377
>https://youtu.be/TZwxfw2Wikc

>>13554482
https://youtu.be/Uv9_T0OOKI4?t=211

i have no idea what this thread is talking about
will reading philosophy from presocs to kant help?

>>13546377
>reconciles neoplatonism and german idealism with Christianity
>gets condemned for his heresy
nice try christcuck. Your religion holds only to a baby-tier Abrahamic metaphysics and if someone ever tries to reconcile it with intellectualism and deep metaphysics he is deservedly gets inquisitioned.

how do i become enlightened

>>13554579
Easy mode: Psychedelics + Weed + N20
Only works if you’re not a brainlet, if you are you will end up with a permanent psychosis
Alternatively read and meditate with discipline for years until you get your enlightenment moment

>>13554535
Read "Early Greek Philosophy" it covers most of it. Especially the Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Melissus chapters.

>>13548148
>>13548903
>All I ever hear im Indian thought is the exploration of Nous
That's a stupid criticism, which is even more silly given that you evidently have not studied the main Indian writings themselves but only a 40-year old compilation of some random essays comparing them to Neoplatonism. It's blinkered and ignorant to assign value to something solely based on how closely it aligns to Neoplatonism, but secondly your criticism is not even applicable in this situation because Indian thought goes beyond the Nous and deals with subjects and concepts that align much closer to the One. If you had just read the primary Indian sources yourself this would have become clear to you.

The Nous in Plotinus' system corresponds to the Saguna (qualified) Brahman, or the cosmic being of Prajapati/Hiranyagarbha; whereas the One corresponds to the Nirguna (unqualified Brahman). Like the One of Plotinus, Nirguna Brahman is self-sufficient, passive, undivided, and is the source and contains the possibilities of all existence. Like the One, Nirguna Brahman is not itself the 'creator' of multiplicity but rather just like with how Plotinus assigns creation to the Nous the creation of multiplicity and phenomena belongs to Saguna Brahman/Prajapati which is not Nirguna Brahman.

I've noticed a few people who are into Neoplatonism get butthurt when people mention Vedanta as if they feel uncomfortable that people consider Vedanta to be on the same level intellectually. This is absurd and there is no real reason why you should be getting upset at Vedanta, but if you want to criticize it than you'll have to better than that and actually point out something specific about it that you think is wrong instead trying to make uninformed and half-assed comparisons which are themselves wrong. If you haven't read Shankara's writings or those of the other Vedantins you are in no position to pass judgement on anything without making a fool of yourself.

No contemporary philosopher takes Neoplatonism seriously.

>>13545506
But this dosnt seem to different from most other big wig philosophers. Plato with his cave, Descarte with his doubt, augustine with his faith, Kirkegaard with his absurdism. why these two specificaly.?

>>13555696
contemporary philosophy is garbage

Is secondary lit worth reading?
I feel I am going nowhere by just reading the primary texts per se

>>13546669
"But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his SUBTLETY, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that in in Christ"
Corinthians II 11:3

>>13556096
>haha nothing's wrong with Christianity and it's totally not lacking in any way compared to other religious and spiritual teachings, the ONLY way people would turn away from it in large numbers is because of the devil
obvious cope

>>13556096
pathetic cope

>>13555696
no contemporary philosopher says anything of value or has any balls

>>13544909

>>13556069
Read Joseph Campbell

>>13545073
This guy is fucking based. Good thing I just got his complete works and a new ereader. Gonna be a real comfy night.
>tfw "tfw gf" doesn't even come close

>>13556666
checked, and epic win

>>13556096
>Guys our religion is really lacking in sophistication
>Just tell them to STFU and stop thinking

quick rundown on the dude on the right?

>>13556870
He plagiarized Buddhism

>>13556870
Isn't that just Siddhartha Gautama?

>>13555696
>No contemporary philosopher takes Neoplatonism seriously.

Not an inaccurate statement, but that's not exactly a compliment to the average western existentialist.

>>13553928
>Bruh how is a signal real, it's not in the radio or antennae. It has no content.

>>13556069
In very small dose

>>13556879
That's wrong, basically everything that people claim he took from Buddhism can already be found in the pre-Buddhist Upanishads. On the other hand, Buddhism very clearly comes from the Upanishads. Most of the key teachings of Buddhism appear first in the earliest Upanishads (pic related). The Buddhist cries out in pain as he strikes you.

>>13556870
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adi_Shankara
https://www.iep.utm.edu/adv-veda/

>>13556096
>tfw no hindu appu

neo-platonism, more like gay-o-platonism

>>13556924
signals are material though

>>13548070
http://gnosis.org/naghamm/gthlamb.html

>>13557155
What are they made of?

>>13544909
*taps shoulder*

>>13549428
>get the Thomas Taylor translations of Plotinus
dont do this btw

>>13556667
>dude discount distilled "psychologized" versions of truths that are much better expressed in the actual primary sources that they come from lmao

>>13557695
why not?

>>13558208
hes a bit too close to his material and a bit too willing to fudge the translation to match plotinus' thoughts with his own

>>13558261
>hes a bit too close to his material and a bit too willing to fudge the translation to match plotinus' thoughts with his own

I don't understand how someone could actually believe that's a bad thing.

>>13558306
are you reading plotinus to find out what plotinus wrote or are you reading plotinus to find out how thomas taylor reads his own thoughts into what plotinus wrote

>>13551928
>hardcore evangelicals and mormons are growing in number
you mean spics

>>13557155
No, they're waves, perturbations OF material, not the material in and of itself, you fucking nigger retard bitch shitwipe kumquat faggot

Do you guys even Plotinus?

>>13544909
based OP

>>13546594
go away ken wheeler
>>13548058
don't read this, read thoamst ay

>>13550819
Why do you say that?

>>13558377
too bad you get shitty translations

>>13558425

An Armstrong man are we?

>>13549428
The paperback of Gerson's translation is in publication and is roughly equal in price to Taylor's. You might as well buy both of them and compare the two.

>>13558438
thomas taylor
>>13558443
thomas taylor is the best

>>13546594

This passage frustrates me. Is he saying that our "individual" souls aren't actually divided up? If this is the case, then what exactly is liberated?

>>13558322
>are you reading plotinus to find out what plotinus wrote
Yeah. Unfortunately none of his actual writings survived, only shorthand transcriptions and accounts of his existence. Everything he ever wrote was heavily edited before Thomas was even in the picture. Since he was a neoplatonist I don't see the issue in "fudging" the translation when his thought process was similar.

>>13558479
porphyry was a neoplatonist who knew plotinus personally ffs

>>13558484
>Unfortunately none of his actual writings survived,

>porphyry was a neoplatonist who knew plotinus personally ffs

And now you know why none of his actual writings survived.

>>13558454
>>13558208
>>13549428
Thomas Taylor's translation of Plotinus' Enneads is only a anthology not a complete translation.

>>13558607
he wrote in shorthand

>>13545105
based

>>13545105
>>13558673
The average 17 year old knows more about theology than Jesus.

>>13558695
t. midwit

>>13558706
not an argument

>>13558715
Just copying yours.

>>13558471
>Is he saying that our "individual" souls aren't actually divided up?
According to Advaita Vedanta, the inner Self (Atma) of all living beings is Nirguna Brahman, the attributeless, immutable, undivided and limitless Supreme Being comprised of consciousness-bliss. This can be considered the true 'soul' from the Advaitic point of view. This is considered to be separate from the mind and intellect, which inhere in something called the subtle body. The awareness of the Atma illuminates and observes the activity of the intellect/mind (of all beings) while the Atma remaining itself unaffected and changeless. The reflection of the Atma in the intellect is mistaken for the Atma itself as though would mistake one's reflection on the surface of a mirror for yourself. This occurs because of ignorance which itself stems from the maya that the Lord exercises as His power. The subtle body is the thing that is held to transmigrate from body to body at death, while the Atma remains unchanging, formless and all-pervading like space or the ether; although the subtle body is not conscious and it has no soul or awareness, it is like an inert object that the Atma animates.

Hence when Shankaracharya says "there is no transmigrant but the Lord", he is not saying the Atma (which is the Lord) really descends and becomes bound up in and connected with a body but he is talking about really the only continuity is the Atma, and not the subtle body which is itself not ultimately real. The personality/traits of a single person isnt reborn again in another life but its forever lost while only the subtle body observed by the Atma transmigrates. The very sense of being an individualized presence (due to identification with the subtle body) instead of the one all-encompassing infinite bliss is a false appearance due to maya similar to how the one moon falsely appears as many when reflected in many ponds. Coomaraswamy writes there about how Plato, Plotinus and Hermes took the same/similar view in some way. I can see a similar concept with how Plotinus regarded the soul as not fully descending but that the soul was split into a higher/divine soul that remained in contact with the Intelligence while only the lower one descended into matter.

>If this is the case, then what exactly is liberated?
Advaita holds that liberation is synonymous with the destruction of ignorance, when the illusion of multiplicity/individuality caused by ignorance vanishes along with that ignorance, only the one undivided and omnipresent Atma remains in its true state that it was really in all along; liberation is the end of the 'dream' of embodied existence that obscured this.

>>13558728
give an argument jesus made

>>13558813

I'm still struggling, but clearing up some misconceptions. So can I say that the attributes of the subtle body contains the impressions and memories of the past life? I hate using computer metaphors, but the subtle body would be like the hard drive? And since that is in flux as well, just like the intellect, consciousness, and senses, that is not the true self either?

>Advaita holds that liberation is synonymous with the destruction of ignorance, when the illusion of multiplicity/individuality caused by ignorance vanishes along with that ignorance...

So at it's core, the goal is not actually liberation of the soul, the soul is already liberated, but nonidentification with the subtle body, and everything else?

>>13558425
What's so bad about Stephen McKenna's translation?

>>13544909
lol nope

>>13545073
You could have just shat over his works and it would yield a better translation than that.

Imagine reading the ideas of an indian philosopher discussing whatever he heard about buddhism 1000 years after the death of buddha.

>>13558377
I wanted to show you, yes.
But it would so dwarf your collection, and all the books don't even fit the screen

>>13559345
I'm interested. I don't care how many screenshots it takes, show me your collection.

Plotinus didn't truly invent or refurbish anything, he was only the greatest defender and fulfiller of the oldest most precious wisdom.

>>13558888
>can I say that the attributes of the subtle body contains the impressions and memories of the past life?
Yes, although they are more like minor residues. Shankara writes in his commentary on the Brihadaranyaka that these residual traces can explain people being born with an innate talent at speech, music, art etc. At the same time though these shouldn't be confused with the continuation or 'rebirth' of the personality/individuality of the person who previously died.
>I hate using computer metaphors, but the subtle body would be like the hard drive?
Yes, sort of.
>And since that is in flux as well, just like the intellect, consciousness, and senses, that is not the true self either?
Yes, the subtle body is not the true Self/Atma. The activity of the intellect (which only seems to take place because of the Atma observing it) is falsely taken to be the Self, but the Self is actually the attributeless awareness which registers the intellect. One metaphor used in Shankara work's is that the Atma is like a clear crystal ball that falsely seems to take on color when placed next to a red cloth despite it being unaffected in reality. He writes about how when you analyze the phenomenology of one's mind that you see that the immediate and direct awareness which perceives sensations never *is* those sensations but always observes them as something separate and removed from them, the ever-present subject of every subject-object distinction. Any time you try to attribute qualities or attributes to this awareness it just inevitably creates a subject-object distinction because this attribution takes place in thought, which the awareness observes while remaining separate from it, it's impossible to assign any qualities to this awareness because as the very witness of thought it cannot be grasped and delimited by that thought but always precedes it. And to be more clear, the Atma is not something totally removed from and inaccesible to a conscious being, it already forms the basis of one's immediate consciousness, the unreal intellect and illusion of embodiment take place *within this* consciousness which is the ultimate substratum and reality underlying everything.
>the goal is not actually liberation of the soul, the soul is already liberated, but nonidentification with the subtle body, and everything else?
Yes, that's correct. There are some other components as well such as the overcoming/abandoning of desire and some other aspects/practices but they all tie together into the process of attaining knowledge and destroying ignorance.

>>13559141
read
>>13558479
>>13558546
When a work such as Plotinus' Enneads gets botched throughout history, you're left with nothing but the thought process behind it.
Imagine reading some history left behind from the works of a historian and then later finding out that the historian botched it so much that you have no choice but to study historiography just to understand why he fucked it up to the degree he did. That is basically every translation of Plotinus. The guy was essentially a Morpheus of his day and Porphyry thought he had to revise what was said so that it could be comprehended by the audience that he was writing for. It was bad enough that Plotinus himself wrote so little.
Given that Thomas Taylor >13549428 was a platonist and therefore more familiar with how the Platonist thought process works, he is the "historiographer" so to speak.


>>13559270
>about buddhism
>This moron thinks he was talking about Buddhism.

>tfw slowly observing this board go from being christian larper contrarians into Buddhist larper contrarians
Don't you guys feel that you're pathetic?

>>13551883
first time on 4channel?

>>13551040
>analytical
saged. This is a mystic board, no autistic screeching allowed.

>>13558846
Read the Bible, brainlet.

>>13558370
You are confusing the system for the particles that makes up the wave.

>>13560390
Not as pathetic as you, the passive observant.