Plotino - Tratado 38,35 (VI, 7, 35) — Indo além do Intelecto, a alma reencontra seu princípio

35. En esa disposición el alma llega a desdeñar la Inteligencia, que en otro tiempo tenía para ella un atractivo especial. Porque el pensamiento es un movimiento y el alma no quiere ya moverse. Ni habla de lo que ve, aunque lo contemple convertida en inteligencia; pues lo que ocurre es que el alma se ha intelectualizado y vive ya en la región inteligible. Es aquí donde posee y piensa lo inteligible; y lo abandona todo en cuanto ve el objeto amado, lo mismo que aquel que penetra en una mansión bellamente dispuesta, observa y admira toda su riqueza interior antes de ver al dueño de la casa. Ahora bien, cuando le ve y él se hace objeto de su admiración, no es ya este hombre algo así como una estatua, sino algo realmente digno de ser contemplado. Es claro que dejará todo lo demás para mirar sólo a este hombre; no apartará de él sus ojos y, sin embargo, no verá nada nuevo aunque su visión no se interrumpa. El objeto de su visión termina por mezclarse con la visión misma hasta tal punto que se convierte incluso en visión. Todo lo demás es dado al olvido y no cae en el campo de la contemplación. Pero aún quizás se conservaría mejor la analogía si dijésemos que quien se presenta al que admira la casa no es ya un hombre sino un dios. Y este dios no se aparece a los ojos del cuerpo sino que llena al alma con su presencia.

(Conviene), por tanto, que el alma posea el poder de pensar, para ver así lo que hay en ella, y ese otro de tender y asentir a lo que está más allá de ella. Hay así como una cierta aprehensión, que podría explicarse de este modo: primero, el alma ve tan sólo su objeto, luego, como consecuencia de esta visión, se convierte en inteligencia y forma una unidad con aquél. El primer poder será considerado como el propio de una contemplación inteligente; el segundo como eí de una inteligencia que ama. Cuando se halla fuera de sí misma y embriagada de néctar, la Inteligencia se convierte en poder de amar para llegar así, simplificada en su actividad, a un estado de suma felicidad. Esta borrachera suya es para ella de mucho más valor que el estado más digno.

¿Podríamos entonces advertir dos fases en la Inteligencia, aquella en que ve los seres parte por parte, y esa otra en que tiene ya tal visión? Desde luego que no, aunque la razón presente los hechos de esta forma; porque la Inteligencia posee siempre la facultad de pensar y ese otro estado en el que realmente no piensa, pero que le permite una visión del Uno que no es la propia del pensamiento. La Inteligencia, con sólo ver el Uno posee ya los seres que éste engendra, toma conciencia de ellos y los advierte como engendrados en sí misma. Este acto de ver es lo que se identifica con el pensar, aunque la Inteligencia pueda ver también el Uno por su mismo poder de pensar. En cuanto al alma podríamos decir que alcanza este poder cuando confunde y borra lo que hay en ella de actividad inteligente; y aun posiblemente ocurra que sea la Inteligencia la que ve primero para que después esta contemplación vaya al alma y una y otra formen tan sólo una unidad. Es el Bien el que extendiéndose y uniéndose a ellas, se desliza por ambas y consigue su unidad. Como entonces está cercano a ellas les da con su presencia una sensación y contemplación plenas de felicidad, y, por otra parte, las eleva a tal altura que ya no puede decirse que estén en un determinado lugar o en cualquier otra cosa, y ello aunque naturalmente una se dé en otra. Porque es claro que el bien no se halla en parte alguna; se encuentra en El lo que llamaremos el lugar inteligible, pero El en cambio no se encuentra en ninguna otra cosa. Por esta razón no decimos entonces que el alma se mueve, ya que el Bien no lo hace. El alma ni siquiera es un alma, puesto que el Bien carece de vida y supera en realidad toda vida. Ni es tampoco inteligencia, dado que el Bien no piensa y el alma habrá de ser semejante a él. No piensa el Bien, añadiremos, porque tampoco es objeto de pensamiento.

XXXV. Tel est alors l’état de l’âme qu’elle n’attache plus de prix même à la pensée, qui excitait auparavant son admiration : caria pensée est un mouvement, et l’âme souhaite de n’en avoir aucun. Elle n’affirme même pas que c’est l’Intelligence qu’elle voit, quoiqu’elle ne contemple que parce qu’elle est devenue intelligence, qu’elle est en quelque sorte intellectualisée (ωοωθεῖσα) et établie dans le lieu intelligible. Arrivée à l’Intelligence, établie en elle, l’âme possède l’Intelligible et pense; mais dès qu’elle a l’intuition du Dieu suprême, elle abandonne tout le reste. Elle fait comme le visiteur qui, en entrant dans un palais, admire d’abord les diverses beautés qui en ornent l’intérieur, mais qui ne les regarde plus dès qu’il aperçoit le maître : car le maître, supérieur par sa nature à toutes les statues qui ornent le palais (122) absorbe l’admiration et mérite seul d’être vraiment contemplé ; aussi le spectateur, l’œil attaché sur lui, le considère-t-il seul désormais. A force de contempler continuellement le spectacle qu’il a devant lui, il ne le voit plus; la vision se confond en lui avec l’objet visible ; ce qui était d’abord l’objet visible pour le spectateur passe en lui à l’état de vision, et lui fait oublier tout ce qu’il voyait autour de lui. Pour que cette comparaison soit juste, il faut que le maître qui se présente ici au visiteur ne soit pas un homme, mais un Dieu, et que ce Dieu ne se contente pas d’apparaître aux yeux de celui qui le contemple, mais qu’il pénètre son âme et la remplisse tout entière.

L’intelligence a deux puissances : par l’une, qui est la puissance propre de penser, elle voit ce qui est en elle; par l’autre, elle aperçoit ce qui est au-dessus d’elle à l’aide d’une sorte d’intuition et de perception : par cette intuition, elle voyait d’abord simplement ; puis, en voyant, elle a reçu l’intellection et elle s’est identifiée à l’Un. Le premier mode de contemplation est propre à l’intelligence qui possède encore la raison, le second est l’intelligence transportée d’amour.

Or, c’est quand le nectar l’enivre (123) et lui ôte la raison que l’âme est transportée d’amour et qu’elle s’épanouit dans une félicité qui comble tous ses vœux. Mieux vaut pour elle alors s’abandonner à cette ivresse que de demeurer plus sage. Dans cet état, l’intelligence voit-elle successivement une chose, puis une autre? Non : la parole, quand elle enseigne, énonce tout successivement ; mais c’est éternellement que l’intelligence possède la puissance de penser, aussi bien que la puissance de ne pas penser, c’est-à-dire de voir Dieu autrement que par la pensée. En le contemplant en effet, elle a reçu en elle-même des germes, elle les a sentis lorsqu’ils ont été produits et déposés en son sein ; quand elle les voit, on dit qu’elle pense ; mais quand elle voit Dieu, c’est par cette puissance supérieure en vertu de laquelle elle devait plus tard penser.

Quant à l’âme, elle ne voit Dieu qu’en confondant, en faisant évanouir en quelque sorte l’intelligence qui réside en elle ; ou plutôt, c’est son intelligence première qui voit ; mais la vision que celle-ci a de Dieu arrive jusqu’à l’âme, qui alors s’identifie à l’intelligence. C’est le Bien qui, s’étendant sur l’intelligence et sur l’âme et se mettant à leur portée, se répand sur elles et les fond ensemble ; placé au-dessus d’elles, il leur donne l’heureuse vision et l’ineffable sentiment de lui-même; il les élève si haut qu’elles ne sont plus en aucun lieu, ni en quoi que ce soit (dans aucun des sens où l’on dit qu’une chose est dans une autre) : car lui-même n’est en rien; le lieu intelligible est en Lui, mais Lui il n’est en nulle chose autre. Alors l’âme ne se meut plus, parce que Dieu n’est pas en mouvement ; à proprement parler, elle n’est plus âme, parce que Dieu ne vit pas, mais est au-dessus de la vie ; elle n’est pas non plus intelligence, parce que Dieu est au-dessus de l’intelligence : car il doit y avoir assimilation complète [entre l’âme et Dieu]. Enfin l’âme ne pense même pas Dieu, parce que dans cet état elle ne pense pas du tout.

THE SOUL SCORNS EVEN THOUGHT: SHE IS INTELLECTUALIZED AND ENNOBLED.

35. Such, then, is the state of the soul that she no longer values even thought, which formerly excited her admiration; for thought is a movement, and the soul would prefer none. She does not even assert that it is Intelligence that she sees, though she contemplate only because she has become intelligence, and has, so to speak, become intellectualized, by being established in the intelligible place. Having arrived to Intelligence, and having become established therein, the soul possesses the intelligible, and thinks; but as soon as she achieves the vision of the supreme Divinity, she abandons everything else. She behaves as does the visitor who, on entering into a palace, would first admire the different beauties that adorn its interior, but who regards them no longer as soon as she perceives the master; for the master, by his (living) nature, which is superior to all the statues that adorn the palace, monopolizes the consideration, and alone deserves to be contemplated; consequently the spectator, with his glance fixed on Him, henceforward observes Him alone. By dint of continual contemplation of the spectacle in front of him, the spectator sees the master no longer; in the spectator, vision confuses with the visible object. What for the spectator first was a visible object, in him becomes vision, and makes him forget all that he saw around himself. To complete this illustration, the master here presenting himself to the visitor must be no man, but a divinity; and this divinity must not content Himself with appearing to the eyes of him who contemplates Him, but He must penetrate within the human soul, and fill her entirely.

INTELLIGENCE HAS THE TWO POWERS OF INTELLIGENCE AND LOVE.

Intelligence has two powers: by the first, which is her own power of thinking, she sees what is within her. By the other she perceives what is above her by the aid of a kind of vision and perception; by the vision, she first saw simply; then, by (perceptive) seeing, she received intellection and fused with the One. The first kind of contemplation is suitable to the intelligence which still possesses reason; the second is intelligence transported by love. Now, it is when the nectar intoxicates her, and deprives her of reason, that the soul is transported with love, and that she blossoms into a felicity that fulfils all her desires. It is better for her to abandon herself to this intoxication than to remain wise. In this state does intelligence successively see one thing, and then another? No: methods of instruction (or, constructive speech) give out everything successively; but it is eternally that intelligence possesses the power of thought, as well as the power not to think; that is, to see the divinity otherwise than by thought. Indeed, while contemplating Him, she received within herself germs, she felt them when they were produced and deposited within her breast; when she sees them, she is said to think; but when she sees the divinity, it is by that superior power by virtue of which she was to think later.

THE SOUL DOES NOT THINK GOD, FOR IN THAT CONDITION SHE DOES NOT THINK.

As to the soul, she sees the divinity only by growing confused, as it were by exhausting the intelligence which resides in her; or rather, it is her first intelligence that sees; but the vision the latter has of the divinity reaches down to the soul, which then fuses with intelligence. It is the Good, extending over intelligence and the soul, and condescending to their level, which spreads over them, and fuses them; hovering above them, it bestows on them the happy vision, and the ineffable feeling of itself. It raises them so high that they are no more in any place, nor within anything whatever, in any of the senses in which one thing is said to be within another. For the Good is not within anything; the intelligible location is within it, but it is not in anything else. Then the soul moves no more, because the divinity is not in motion. To speak accurately, she is no longer soul, because the divinity does not live, but is above life; neither is she intelligence, because the divinity is above intelligence; because there must be complete assimilation (between the soul and the divinity). Finally, the soul does not think even the divinity, because in this condition she does not think at all.

35. Such in this union is the soul’s temper that even the act of Intellect, once so intimately loved, she now dismisses; Intellection is movement and she has no wish to move; she has nothing to say of this very Intellectual-Principle by means of which she has attained the vision, herself made over into Intellectual-Principle and becoming that principle so as to be able to take stand in that Intellectual space. Entered there and making herself over to that, she at first contemplates that realm, but once she sees that higher still she leaves all else aside. Thus when a man enters a house rich in beauty he might gaze about and admire the varied splendour before the master appears; but, face to face with that great person - no thing of ornament but calling for the truest attention - he would ignore everything else and look only to the master. In this state of absorbed contemplation there is no longer question of holding an object: the vision is continuous so that seeing and seen are one thing; object and act of vision have become identical; of all that until then filled the eye no memory remains. And our comparison would be closer if instead of a man appearing to the visitor who had been admiring the house it were a god, and not a god manifesting to the eyes but one filling the soul.

Intellectual-Principle, thus, has two powers, first that of grasping intellectively its own content, the second that of an advancing and receiving whereby to know its transcendent; at first it sees, later by that seeing it takes possession of Intellectual-Principle, becoming one only thing with that: the first seeing is that of Intellect knowing, the second that of Intellect loving; stripped of its wisdom in the intoxication of the nectar, it comes to love; by this excess it is made simplex and is happy; and to be drunken is better for it than to be too staid for these revels.

But is its vision parcelwise, thing here and thing there?

No: reason unravelling gives process; Intellectual-Principle has unbroken knowledge and has, moreover, an Act unattended by knowing, a vision by another approach. In this seeing of the Supreme it becomes pregnant and at once knows what has come to be within it; its knowledge of its content is what is designated by its Intellection; its knowing of the Supreme is the virtue of that power within it by which, in a later [lower] stage it is to become "Intellective."

As for soul, it attains that vision by - so to speak - confounding and annulling the Intellectual-Principle within it; or rather that Principle immanent in soul sees first and thence the vision penetrates to soul and the two visions become one.

The Good spreading out above them and adapting itself to that union which it hastens to confirm is present to them as giver of a blessed sense and sight; so high it lifts them that they are no longer in space or in that realm of difference where everything is root,ed in some other thing; for The Good is not in place but is the container of the Intellectual place; The Good is in nothing but itself.

The soul now knows no movement since the Supreme knows none; it is now not even soul since the Supreme is not in life but above life; it is no longer Intellectual-Principle, for the Supreme has not Intellection and the likeness must be perfect; this grasping is not even by Intellection, for the Supreme is not known Intellectively.