Plotinus - Enneads Vol 1.6

Summary for Enneads by Plotinus Vol. 1.6

            What is beauty?  Why are we drawn to it?  Why are some things beautiful and other things not?  How do we find beauty in things?  People who can answer these questions transcend conventional experience and they can ascend to the origins of beauty and goodness.  In addition, these ultimate experiences can be returned and shared with the rest of humanity.  

            Conventional thought suggests that a thing is beautiful if it is “well proportioned and measured.”  This theory implies that only complex items, or items constructed of individual parts, can be beautiful.  It also implies that all things well proportioned are beautiful.  However, general observation reveals beauty is present in simple items, and many things that are well proportioned are ugly.   These ideas reveal that there is more to beauty than proportion, parts and complexity.

            Beauty in things reveals aspects relating to the human soul.  The soul transcends the physical realm and is attune to higher realities.   When the soul recognizes beauty in a thing, it recognizes something of itself.  It becomes “delighted and thrilled” and it “remembers itself.”   The virtues are part of the soul and reflective of the higher realms.  Beauty is the reflection of virtuous ideas instilled and unified within material things. 

The soul determines beauty, and it uses its own inner forms as standards for comparisons.  Light is a formative power, and it reveals an object’s color and form through the shaping of darkness.  The soul gives definition and understanding to beauty in the same fashion that fire gives illumination to objects.  Music also works on the principle, as the absence of melody gives meaning to the notes that are revealed.

There is beauty in knowledge and virtue.  Although all souls can see these beauties, not all souls have seen them.  There are people who are attuned to the higher forms.  They have the ability to see and experience them.  These people can help us learn.  They can help us understand why “real beings make the soul lovable,” and can guide us to revelation.  Ugliness comes from want of the material, whereas the beauties come from explorations of the higher realms.

The soul becoming good is akin to becoming like god.  Death is the “separation of body and soul,” and courage is not being afraid of death.  Wisdom and intellectual pursuits purify the soul by turning people away from the material.  Good, beauty and reality are all the same, and the other things are primary evils.   The shaping of the soul, through the beauties, makes beauty in the body.  One who masters ascension and beauty succeeds completely.  Regardless of material success, one will fail completely if they cannot master beauty.

Finding beauty is enticing and difficult.  Although one may see the beauty in a thing, they must not pursue it as real.  They must understand that beauty is a reflection of higher virtue, and not the thing itself.  They must separate, by reflection, the material from the beauty in order to see into the higher realms.  Failure to understand this means the individual will ponder on the wrong aspects of reality.  Everyone is capable of exploring beauty, but not many people do it.

The soul needs guidance and training to awaking the inner sight.  It must look at the beauty in life and beautiful works.  Again, not at the things themselves, but the aspects of beauty that shine through them.  One can also look to the souls of artisans who have produced beautiful work.  Finding beauty is a lifelong endeavor, and the search enables confidence and trust within one’s self.  The search will lead to full ascension and to the “good that is beyond.”