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Select Works of Plotinus · 198 of 752 · tr. Thomas Taylor

Select Works, Section 202 (part 2)

All this is the doing of man knowing no more than to live the lower and outer life, and never perceiving that, in his weeping and in his graver doings alike, he is but at play; to handle austere matters austerely is reserved for the thoughtful: the other kind of man is himself a futility. Those incapable of thinking gravely read gravity into frivolities which correspond to their own frivolous Nature. Anyone that joins in their trifling and so comes to look on life with their eyes must understand that by lending himself to such idleness he has laid aside his own character. If Socrates himself takes part in the trifling, he trifles in the outer Socrates. We must remember, too, that we cannot take tears and laments as proof that anything is wrong; children cry and whimper where there is nothing amiss.
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Themes
Active Contemplationpraxis

A form of meditation that uses imagery, imagination, or symbolic thought rather than purely empty stillness.

[auto] The text encourages reasoning to wonder at the spectacle and understand the form allotted to entities.

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Apophatic Theologytheology

Describing the divine only by negation—God transcends all positive categories and concepts; the via negativa.

[auto] It states that no reasoning or arrangement could express the Divine Intelligence, highlighting its ineffability.

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Emanation Hierarchycosmology

A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.

[auto] It distinguishes between the Intellectual Principle and the realm of sense, implying a hierarchical structure of being.

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Logoscosmology

The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.

[auto] The passage centers on the 'Reason-Principle' as the creating and ordering force of the Kosmos.

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Unity Of Beingtheology

The doctrine that all existence is ultimately one substance or one divine reality; non-duality as a theological claim.

It asserts that the Reason-Principle extends to every possible existent, suggesting a unified underlying reality.

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Related passages · 4 parallels
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Shared concept: Active Contemplation — A form of meditation that uses imagery, imagination, or symbolic thought rather than purely empty stillness. (derived)
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Shared concept: Active Contemplation — A form of meditation that uses imagery, imagination, or symbolic thought rather than purely empty stillness. (derived)