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Plotinus - The Enneads - The solution is in understanding the virtues
Identifier
013607
Type of Spiritual Experience
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A description of the experience
Plotinus – The Enneads
The solution is in understanding the virtues and what each has to give; thus the man will learn to work with this or that as every several need demands. And as he reaches to loftier principles and other standards these in turn will define his conduct; for example, Restraint in its earlier form will no longer satisfy him; he will work for disengagement; he will live no longer the human life of the good man – such as civic virtue commends – but leaving this beneath him, will take up instead another life, that of the gods.
For it is to the gods, not to the good, that our Likeness must look; to model ourselves upon good men is to produce an image of an image; we have to fix our gaze above the image and attain Likeness to the Supreme Exemplar.