The Ancient Greeks followed the Ancient Egyptians in the final centuries of the Egyptian culture. Between 728 and 525 BCE the glory of Ancient Egypt was fading with the waves of invasions by the Nubians, Assyrians and Persians. It was during this period that the Ancient Greeks were learning at the feet of the remaining Egyptian teachers. Both early Greek philosophers ,Thales of Miletus[1] (circa 624 – c. 546 BCE) and Solon[2] (circa 638 – c. 558 BCE), journeyed to Egypt and met with Pharaohs, and were trained by priests. Thales was considered by Aristotle as the first philosopher and the later was noted by Plato as the source of the tales of the sinking of Atlantis. It should not then surprise us to find a comparable spectrum of spirituality in the Greek tradition.

Comparable to the Egyptians, the approaches of Parmenides, Plato and Plotinus provide us with a means for exploring the underlying human expression of our creative irrational and its striving towards spirituality at the highest levels.

Parmenides – As far as longing can reach

We begin with the lessons of the ancient Greek teacher Parmenides (circa 550 BCE) as presented by Kingsley[3]. His presentation helps us trace the possibilities for a new path to higher development. In particular we note that Kingsley’s insights into the writings of Parmenides show a link from the practices of the Ancient Egyptians into what the Greeks saw as the attraction to the higher.

Parmenides[4] was an early philosopher teaching in the town of Velia in Southern Italy. He was apparently an early priest of the worship of Apollo. While only a small amount of his original works has survived, one of his major works, entitled “On Nature” has survived. In this writing he provides a metaphor for the journeys to the edge of existence, the edge of our creative irrational. The first of the three sections of “On Nature” describes the undertaking of an initially spiritual journey from Parmenides’ ordinary life to the edges of this world to learn the great mysteries of life. He issummoned by the “Daughters of the Sun”.

We quote:

“In short, the Daughters of the Sun have come along to fetch him from the world of the living and take him right back to where they belong. This is no journey from confusion to clarity; from darkness into light. On the contrary, the journey Parmenides is describing is exactly the opposite. He is travelling straight into the ultimate night that no human being could possibly survive without divine protection. He is being taken to the heart of the underworld, the world of the dead.[5]”

So what does Parmenides, an early Ancient Greek with Phocaean heritage, have to contribute to our understanding of the purpose and drive behind the human creative irrational? What would make Parmenides succumb to this exceptional journey to the “edges of existence”? Kingsley portrays his motivation as originating from “longing”. To quote Kingsley again:

“The mares that carry me as far as longing can reach.”[6]

Parmenides is being dragged along by the power of allegorical horses at breakneck speed. This longing is no ordinary longing. It is not the rational individual ephemeral desires, appetites and wants of food, shelter and sex. His longing cannot be any stronger. It is almost as if this longing is insatiable; that it seems beyond reach. It is core to his Being. Although this longing is personal to Parmenides, it appears of exceptional and unusual scale to us all.

A little later Parmenides’ poem states:

“For it is no hard fate that sent you travelling this road - so far away from the beaten track of humans - but Rightness, and Justice.”

This introduces the necessary balance between the high-level internal longing on the part of Parmenides and the external influences of higher morals. Rightness and Justice have put him on this extraordinary journey. They are not personal. They are basic properties of the World that are beyond the ownership of any particular individual. So his journey is the result of both an exceptional personal longing and one that is combined with the more-than-merely personal higher forces at work in him.

The creative irrational pull that draws him is a central theme of the poem. But there is another aspect of his journey that cannot be missed. After he arrives in the presence of the goddess she provides him with insights. But there is an additional requirement paced on him. He is directed to “carry it away”. It is not sufficient that he receives the higher knowledge, but he is compelled to return to life with this knowledge. It becomes evident that this journey of his is not a one-way street. It seems that the return is an integral part of the motivation for the journey. There is a need for this knowledge to be delivered by Parmenides back to those who have not, or cannot, make the journey. There is something beyond the individual that is being satisfied by the experience.

So in Kingsley’s treatment of Parmenides we see the key elements of our personal creative irrational that includes an extreme internal personal longing as well as an external, more-than-merely personal influence to continue our existence beyond the rational biological, physical requirements.

The Classic Greek Metaphor of the Spirituality Spectrum: The Allegory of the Cave

The difficulties of simultaneously understanding different states within ourselves, ones that constitute our more usual situation, and others that are transformed states that we know only in special moments, comprise the main theme of “The Allegory of the Cave”, contained in Plato's writing called “The Republic[7]”. This classic allegory is an extended metaphor; a comparative image intended to convey a deeper level of understanding.

The second line of Table 2 describes in our own wording the description of the various stages in development of a human being according to the famous portrayal by Plato of his concept of the development of an individual’s movement from darkness into the bright light of the sun, as it is described in his essay the “Allegory of the Cave”. Plato, the archetypal classical Greek philosopher, thinker and writer circa 400 BCE, continues to be highly revered in the modern Western World for his contribution to our present day worldview. One of Plato’s it greatest works deals with levels of human existence. This “Allegory of the Cave” makes no sense if thought of literally in a physical world. It points to the need to see the levels of Being that are required for living consciously.

As we can see from the first two lines in Table 2 there are strong similarities between Plato’s description and that of the much earlier Ancient Egyptian. They both contain descriptions of both the rational biological and physical bodies and the more-than-merely personal levels of higher existence. In keeping with our definition of the creative irrational as being “beyond reason”, they are both dealing with the creative irrational using their preferred language and images.

Plato's mental construct in the Allegory begins with his presentation of the lowest level of human existence. He likens it to that of prisoners who from earliest childhood have been chained so that they can only look at the back of a long cave. They sit in a row and in only one position, unable to turn their heads; thus constrained to look only ahead of them at shadows cast on the back wall of the cave by the light of a fire burning behind them. They see only the shadow images, cast from what moves behind them, between them and the fire, images that appear to move along the wall. If someone carried implements behind them between them and the light, they would see only shadows of the carriers and the implements. And if sounds were heard, they would think that they came from the shadow images. These images would be the whole perceptual basis for their concept of what is real.

Plato then asks that we picture what would happen if one of the prisoners was freed and compelled to stand up and turn around to look at the light of the fire. He would suffer pain at gazing directly at it, and be so dazzled that he could scarcely discern the objects that had cast the shadows, and which made the sounds.

The story continues:

"What do you suppose would be his answer if someone told him that what he had seen before was all a cheat and an illusion, but that now, being nearer to reality and turned toward more real things, he saw more truly? And if also one should point out to him each of the passing objects and constrain him by questions to say what it is, do you not think that he would be at a loss and that he would regard what he formerly saw as more real than the things now pointed out to him?...

"...and if someone should drag him by force up the ascent ... into the light of the sun, do you not think that he would find it painful,...and when he came out into the light that his eyes would be filled with its beams so that he would not be able to see even one of the things that we call real?...

"There would be need of habituation, ... to be able to see the things higher up. At first he would most easily discern the shadows, ... later the things themselves, and from that he would go on to contemplate the appearances in the heavens and heaven itself .... And so finally, he would be able to look upon the sun itself and see its true nature, not by reflections in water or phantasms of it in an alien setting, but in and by itself in its own place.[8]"

By using such relatable physical items such as “cave”, “shadows”, “fire” and “Sun”, the story presents the very abstract, intangible concepts in a spectrum of spirituality from the lower physical to the highest level of being. The Allegory captures not only the various levels of spirituality but also the key point that progress up the spectrum involves great effort and pain for the person striving for the higher levels. The allegory also points out that the climb from the back of the cave into full daylight might take a rather long time and a great deal of effort. The allegory refers specifically to the need for what it calls a period of habituation for acclimating ourselves to what is encountered on the climb. This is consistent with the many statements in the Pyramid Texts that urge the central figure to rise, to continue on, to do what is difficult for an ordinary person – such as fly. Both sets of text make no secret of the difficulty in reaching the higher levels of experience. The texts speaks of the fact that in one state it is very difficult to appreciate what might be encountered in the others; the very objects accessible to sight are seen entirely differently in the different situations, so differently that experience in one state is insufficient preparation for understanding what is seen in others. To reach a "higher" state from that which determines our present outlook clearly requires a considerable effort of understanding and tolerance, both towards ourselves and towards others with whom we may be related.

The allegory states in several instances that movement from the dark to the light is both painful and dazzling, so much so that it is questionable if it could be undertaken voluntarily by ordinary man. Plato suggests that the act could be undertaken only under duress or being forced by some outside power, perhaps an event or condition that might lead us to recognize an inner sense of great need.

It is even suggested that if the possibilities were introduced without this help from our circumstances, and if we were able to apprehend it under ordinary conditions we would rather kill the urge than obey it. This follows the situation of Parmenides being drawn by forces both internal and external. Such dramatic language is not easy to appreciate until one encounters the resistance in oneself, such as our resistance to a re-interpretation of symbols with which we have been raised or have lived with for a long time.

But the allegory doesn’t stop with the scenario of the person appreciating the highest levels of existence as represented by the image of the Sun. Plato goes on to discuss what would happen to the same person brought down again into the cave among the former fellow prisoners. What had been experienced in the bright light of the full strength of the sun would now make it impossible for the person to see and identify the shadows as well those who remained in the cave. The person would be laughed at and counted as one who had lost their sight if the person tried to tell them about it, and they would all conclude that it was clearly not worth even to attempt such folly in an ascent. In fact, they would actively resist exposure to the new interpretations. As Plato puts it, "If it were possible to lay hands on and to kill the man who tried to release them and lead them up, would they not kill him?" What is more, the person’s situation, having returned to their former world of illusion would be worse, not better.

"Do you think it at all strange if a man returning from divine contemplations to the petty miseries of men cuts a sorry figure and appears most ridiculous, if, while still blinking through the gloom, and before he has become sufficiently accustomed to the environing darkness, he is compelled in courtrooms or elsewhere to contend about the shadows of justice or the images that cast the shadows and to wrangle in debate about the notions of these things in the minds of those who have never seen justice itself?

"A sensible man would remember that there are two distinct disturbances of the eyes arising from two causes, according as the shift is from light to darkness or from darkness to light, and, believing that the same thing happens to the soul too, whenever he saw a soul perturbed and unable to discern something, he would not laugh unthinkingly, but would observe whether coming from a brighter life its vision was obscured by the unfamiliar darkness, or whether the passage from the deeper dark of ignorance into the more luminous world and the greater brightness had dazzled his vision. And so he would deem the one happy in its experience and way of life and pity the other, and if it pleased him to laugh at it, his laughter would be less laughable than that at the expense of the soul that had come down from the light above....[9]"

One of the principal attractions of Plato’s work in the current context is that it uses images from an everyday level of experience to cast additional light on states that are removed but that can be recognized in our ordinary life. It thus provides important further perspective on what is needed to bridge the gap that separates our ordinary life from other levels of understanding. Plato states in the very beginning of this dialogue that in developing his ideas he is not intending to describe man's situation in the exterior world, so much as using the imagery of social and political situations to enlighten our understanding of what takes place within us (emphasis added), when we are able to pay attention. The imagery captures much of what we can discern about our confused, lack of understanding between the vastly different states within ourselves - see Row 2 in Table 2.

In keeping with the theme of the creative irrational being “beyond reason”, Plato’s Allegory of the Cave presents us with a description of human life that is far beyond food, shelter and procreation. He presents a model of human existence that includes higher levels, each requiring effort and habituation to appreciate as well as a necessary return from full experience to assist our fellow “prisoners”. Perhaps because of the great difficulty of seeing how these infrequent, hence unfamiliar insights depend on us, many religions have implied that they arise outside of us, in a consciousness that exists independently of us. In such a case insights might only be activated in special conditions of need, such as we presented in Chapter 1 regarding the car accident or the encounter with the aged “Mi’kmaw” woman. Perhaps it is possible from comparable states of prayer. We do not wish here to enter into a debate on the impartiality or reality of religious beliefs. However, if we treat all such statements as symbolic in the same sense that the allegory of the cave is told, we might be able to agree that images of external influences are speaking of externality in the sense that they are external to our exoteric sense of reality. For instance who or what would force the prisoner to break their shackles and turn to the burning bright light of the fire at the back of the cave?

But is the same true for our esoteric parts? Such interpretation is consistent with the theory that they arise through an innate commonality of our individual unconscious. We can at least conclude that we seem to harbour within us a knowledge of influences and functions that are properly the characteristics of another level of being. For our level, however, they are the "secrets" told to initiates.

What matters most at the moment is to recognize that because of the way new understanding arises and works in us, certain ancient, traditional stories can be seen to have been deliberately intended to use metaphor and allegory to appeal to personal experience as the primary means of conveying the meanings of questions of quality and value. In this way, our new understandings may often seem to be a rediscovery of what has long been known. The insights provided by the ancient stories can nevertheless be seen as in some way essential to the continued development of the sense of coherence and unity that we individually seek. They contain influences that do not appear under the ordinary processes of learning in a context of an orderly elaboration of knowledge of external things. The sense that there is a direction towards a higher level of values in civilization, a change in level that might also be likened to our wish for objectivity, seems to depend on the existence within us of this common capacity to use characteristics to discriminate between levels of comprehension. It appears as a mode of knowing that we learn about in special circumstances and that may be evoked in metaphor.

Whether we accept the later views of Philo who thought that only a select few humans can attain the higher levels of connection with the divine[10] or the view of Saint Paul that all may reach the kingdom of Heaven, there is certainly agreement of the existence of higher spiritual levels in the spirituality spectrum.

So we are dealing with a sphere of human interest that is not well communicated by common language. Throughout the history of human activities we have had to resort to metaphor and allegory to try and address our higher interest. Of course the greatest difficulty is that the lesson may be taken literally – missing the whole point of the artistic creation. As might be expected from the Egyptian lineage of Plato’s ideas, it is relatively easy for us to draw equivalence between the various levels found in each of the two traditions (Table 2). Each culture presents their understanding in different ways. It may also be expected that the representation of levels found in the Classic Greek version seems more approachable. The symbolism of fire, shadow and the sun connects more easily with our modern sensitivities than human-headed birds, disembodied hearts on scales and crocodile-headed gods. Yet the insights are the same: there is more to us than we normally attend to.

Intellectual Principle – Plotinus

Plotinus, circa 200 CE, was a Neo-Platonic philosopher writing about 800 years after Parmenides[11]. His major works entitled the “Enneads”[12] developed ideas of levels of existence that included the soul (Psuchē), the Intellectual Principle (Nous) and the highest level of the One (Monad). The third line of Table 2 names the levels according to the Plotinus. While his philosophy is linked to Plato, he is likely to have been influenced by Philo and the early Christian authors[13].

Plotinus believed that, “Everything leads to the One”. The One is the indivisible “All” containing the foundation of everything. Below the One he identified a number of levels of existence showing increasing differentiation as they occur lower in the scale. The key challenge of life according to Plotinus is to find within the highest existence, the Nous, that has been variously translated from Greek as the Intellectual Principle, Divine Mind, Logos or Order. Although Plotinus’ writings are not as widely recognized today as Plato’s, they have greatly influenced many of the Western World’s religions and Christianity in particular[14].

In light of our discussions regarding the different levels of phenomena in our daily existence, and the creative irrationality in seeing beyond our common experiences in our inner world, we can with effort still approach the terminology of Plato or of Plotinus. Thus, for example, perhaps without directly experiencing what the ancients called a Soul, or being able to identify exactly what was meant by Spirit, we are still in a position to recognize in these expressions hierarchies of phenomena in the inner world that do not differ in principle from levels in the hierarchy of phenomena described in exoteric models. In this way we can, for example, be prepared to appreciate the intent of Plotinus’ terminology. We can understand such terms to describe what he has detected as the levels or stages of ascent in inner spiritual transformation, rather than immediately dismissing them as either personal or “merely” metaphysical abstractions. By realizing the analogy with our own models of exoteric hierarchical structures, we can begin to contemplate the possibility of structures in the inner world that, while inaccessible to us in our ordinary conditions, are nevertheless phenomena that can be appreciated by us from their description by Plotinus.

In his presentation the Nous is the God within us that is simply a part of the indivisible, ever-present Monad. Plotinus speaks of the essential attraction of that part of us, the Nous, towards the all-present Monad. In his words:

“Any that have seen know what I have in mind: the soul takes another life as it draws nearer and nearer to God and gains participation in Him; thus restored it feels that the dispenser of true life is There to see, that now we have nothing to look for but, far otherwise, that we must put aside all else and rest in This alone, This becomes, This alone, all the earthly environment done away, in haste to be free, impatient of any bond holding us to the baser, so that with our being entire we may cling about This, no part in us remaining but through it we have touch with God. Thus we have all the vision that may be of Him and of ourselves; but it is of a self-wrought to splendour, brimmed with the Intellectual light, become that very light, pure, buoyant, unburdened, raised to Godhood, better, knowing its Godhood, all aflame then – but crushed out once more if it should take up the discarded burden.

“But how comes the soul not to keep that ground:

“Because it has not yet escaped wholly: but there will be the time of scission unbroken, the self hindered no longer by any hindrance of body.”[15]

This sounds very similar to the experience that Philo witnessed and reported.

Plotinus describes the Monad as a non-duality state that permeates everything. Its emanations establish all lower levels of existence. These ideas were developed a hundred years before Constantine formulated Christian beliefs of an omnipresent God[16]. Christianity later corrupted the concept of an all-present God into a concept of a separate, identifiable father figure that oversees everthing. In the Renaissance, 14th to 17th century CE, this “ever-present” God even became represented as an external old man sitting on a cloud surveying a physical world (Figure 28).

Figure 28. An image of the “Creation of Adam” painting by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City[17]. — **Figure 28. An image of the “Creation of Adam” painting by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City[17]**.

While recognizing that the pictorial representation in Figure 28 is a piece of art created to convey complex higher level metaphysical thoughts to a general audience, we must also see that it unintentionally actually presents a vision of a separation into many parts – human from God, sky from earth, higher from lower. Quite a distraction from Plotinus’ urge to find the unity in our being that represents the Monad.

So what does Plotinus have to offer our search for the creative irrational in Greek philosopy? He specifically refers to our true nature as the soul or Intellectual-Principle that is a shared aspect of God. He makes an awkward analogy with the “love of a daughter for a noble father” who falls as a result of being lured by a mortal love. He says, “But one day coming to hate her shame, she puts away the evil of earth, once more seeks the father, and finds her peace.”[18] We call this awkward because it still falls into depending on the duality of two separate and independent beings, father and daughter. Duality is a philosophical position that it is not easy for us to avoid. In the Western world we seem consumed by thoughts of good versus bad, you versus me, etc.

Indeed Plotinus frequently espouses “love” as the driving force that underlies our desire for levels above the physical ordinary life. Elsewhere he expresses the shared components among God and ourselves as individuals. He states:

“So it is with the individual souls; the appetite for the divine Intellect urges them to return to their source.”[19]

And

“It looks towards its higher and has intellection; towards itself and orders, administers, governs its lower.”[20]

The sharing of the aspects of God in ourselves leads us to a sense of loss in our ordinary lives and a desire to get back into contact with the higher. According to Plotinus, it is a shared love of a singularity that motivates us. Our preparation for this reconnection requires us to become disassociated from the distractions of our ordinary lives. The reconnection requires quiet preparation and waiting as well as the occurrence of God showing himself like an “eye waits on the rising of the sun”[21].

It is important to point out that Plotinus also recognizes our inability to stay connected with the higher. He says:

“Many times it has happened: lifted out of the body into myself; becoming external to all other things and self-encentred; beholding a marvelous beauty; then, more than ever, assured of community with the loftiest order; enacting the noblest life, acquiring identity with the divine; stationing within It by having attained that activity; poised above whatsoever within the Intellectual is less than the Supreme: yet, there comes the moment of descent from intellection to reasoning, and after that sojourn in the divine, I ask myself how it happens that I can now be descending, and how did the Soul ever enter into my body, the Soul which, even within the body, is the high thing it has shown itself to be.”[22]

And from a translation by Hadot, Plotinus states:

“Often I reawaken from my body to myself: I come to be outside other things, and inside myself. What an extraordinarily wonderful beauty I then see! It is then, above all, that I believe I belong to the greater portion. I then realize the best form of life; I become at one with the Divine, and I establish myself in it. Once I reach this supreme activity, I establish myself above every other spiritual entity. After this repose in the Divine, however, when I come back down from intuition into rational thought, then I wonder: How is it ever possible that I should come down now, and how was it ever possible that my soul has come to be within my body, even though she is the kind of being that she has just revealed herself to be, when she appeared as she is in herself, although she is still within my body?[23]”

The attitudes developed in contemplating such testimonials can help us understand the intent of searches into the phenomena of the inner world by allowing the creation within us of a sympathetic impulse towards the sincerity of the messages they have undertaken to convey to our generations. Plotinus recognizes the need to connect with the higher as well as the inevitable return to the ordinary.

He makes the point that the two states, the higher and lower, are naturally occurring and can be realized according to their circumstances:

“Souls that take this way have place in both spheres, living of necessity the life there and the life here by turns, the upper life reigning in those able to consort more continuously with the divine Intellect, the lower dominant where character or circumstances are less favourable.”

Critical to the distinction between Plotinian thought and the later Christian thought is the sense of who has access to the higher. In this quote the phrase “able to consort” strongly suggests that Plotinus saw a distinction between individuals who were prepared and able to access the higher and those who did not or could not access the higher. This is quite different from the modern Christian view espoused by Saint Paul that everyone who undergoes the process of baptism can expect access to the Kingdom of Heaven[24]. This distinction between those who expended significant effort and work and those who gain “entry” into heaven through a short, once in a lifetime ceremony certainly would have been seen and appreciated by Nietzsche.

So to summarize, Plotinus saw in us a portion of the unified God that longed to extend beyond our physical body and return to a communion with the Higher. Individuals are required to see themselves, develop a calm, quiet waiting posture and be prepared for when the unity of God presents itself. The answer to the question of “why awaken?” found in Plotinus’ teaching is that we inevitably hold a share of the indivisible, ever-present Monad within us. With time, effort and patience, our work in our ordinary life opens up the possibility of seeing this part of the Monad in ourselves and calls us out of our limited, unsatisfactory lives to the higher. Returning to the quote that we have presented in the “Introduction” of this book, he spoke of the attraction of ourselves to the higher with these words:

“I am striving to give back the Divine in myself to the Divine in the All”[25].

Consistency in the Creative Irrational of Greek Philosophy

The shared themes of Parmenides, Plato and Plotinus for a necessary departure and return to normal life are key. Parmenides was dragged away by “mares”, instructed by external powers and ordered to “carry it away”. In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave what constitutes our awakening involves moving from the dark to stare into the sun before returning into the cave. He explicitly addresses the need and the challenges that a returnee faces upon descending back into the cave after acclimating to the bright light of the sun. The “Allegory of the Cave” doesn’t deal much with the reasons why a person would go through the pain and suffering of moving up and out of the cave to look directly at the bright sun. Following that difficult challenge, he doesn’t suggest a reason for a person’s actions in leaving the sun behind and returning into the depths of the cave in an attempt to unshackle those remaining in the shadows. But both the exit and the return seem essential parts of the process. Finally in our presentation Plotinus, in this same lineage of thought, refers to awe of experiencing Monad and the inability of the individual to maintain such a connection. One must inevitably return to “real” life. The distancing and return to normal life seems to be a part of a completing process in a full cycle of reaching for Being and then returning again to one’s usual existence. Whereas there appears to be a deep-seated longing required for an individual to strive for higher consciousness, the return in our long-term personal development is also required by these philosophers as being obligatory. The whole concept of such movements highlights the creative irrational of such great and influential thoughts in the development of Western culture.

Although we present this creative irrational as something intrinsically human, it is obvious that its strength varies greatly and its full potential is only ever realized in a very limited number of individuals. It is not clear from the Greek writings whether they were addressing something realized by a few select dedicated individuals or all humans. As reported by Plotinus, the difficult and fleeting ultimate goal of the creative irrational in connecting with the “ever present” occurs rarely and requires individual preparation and work to become open to the opportunities when they present themselves. Using a Christian phrase it is said that, “many are called but few are chosen.” Thus we do not present the creative irrational as a recipe for the attainment of higher consciousness, but as a potential work aid to help focus our attention on the internal more-than-personal movements within us.

In summary, we appreciate from the points of view presented by Parmenides, Plato and Plotinus that they were struggling to provide insights into a process of individual development that while clearly irrational, is incredibly powerful in forming a human connection with the more-than-merely personal. All are obviously dealing with life beyond rational normal day-to-day existence towards the higher levels of existence and Being. All of them allude to a natural process of longing to be reunited with something that is more-than-merely-personal, something that is more than ordinary for most of us as individuals. Plotinus specifically points out that we are a part of something that is all encompassing in our world. The higher levels draw our interest in rejoining the higher. Parmenides made the point that there is great reward in experiencing the life at the edge of existence. But his view is that our initial encounters with the higher are unsustainable in our regular being. The creative irrational is a part of our existence; a longing for something that is beyond our ordinary lives, something more-than-merely personal in our consciousness.

———————— Chapter 7: A Modern Allegory of the Spirituality Spectrum: The Gurdjieff Work ————

————————- Table of Contents ———————————

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thales_of_Miletus

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solon

[3] Kingsley, P. 2003. Reality. The Golden Sufi Centre Publishing. Inverness, California.

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parmenides

[5] Kingsley, P. 2003. Reality. The Golden Sufi Centre Publishing. Inverness California.

[6] Kingsley, P. 2003. Reality. The Golden Sufi Centre Publishing. Inverness California.

[7] Hamilton E. and H. Cairns. 1980. Plato, The Collected Dialogues, including the letters. Bollingen Series LXXI. Princeton University Press. Princeton. 1743 pp.

[8] Hamilton E. and H. Cairns. 1980. Plato, The Collected Dialogues, including the letters. Bollingen Series LXXI. Princeton University Press. Princeton. 1743 pp.

[9] Hamilton E. and H. Cairns. 1980. Plato, The Collected Dialogues, including the letters. Bollingen Series LXXI. Princeton University Press. Princeton. 1743 pp.

[10] Sandmel, S. 1979. Philo of Alexandra: An Introduction. Oxford University Press. New York.

[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plotinus

[12] MacKenna, S. 1992. Plotinus The Enneads. Larson Publications.

[13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philo

[14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plotinus

[15] MacKenna, S. 1992. Plotinus The Enneads. Larson Publications. IV.9 (9-10)

[16] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_the_Great_and_Christianity

[17] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Creation_of_Adam

[18] MacKenna, S. 1992. Plotinus The Enneads. Larson Publications. VI.9.

[19] MacKenna, S. 1992. Plotinus The Enneads. Larson Publications. IV.8.4.

[20] MacKenna, S. 1992. Plotinus The Enneads. Larson Publications. IV.8.3.

[21] MacKenna, S. 1992. Plotinus The Enneads. Larson Publications. V.5.5.