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here replicates the yogic words of Diotima

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years ago

From Plato, The Symposium

 

'These are the lesser mysteries of love, into which even you, Socrates, may

 

enter; to the greater and more hidden ones which are the crown of these,

 

and to which, if you pursue them in a right spirit, they will lead, I know

 

not whether you will be able to attain. But I will do my utmost to inform

 

you, and do you follow if you can. For he who would proceed aright in this

 

matter should begin in youth to visit beautiful forms; and first, if he be

 

guided by his instructor aright, to love one such form only--out of that he

 

should create fair thoughts; and soon he will of himself perceive that the

 

beauty of one form is akin to the beauty of another; and then if beauty of

 

form in general is his pursuit, how foolish would he be not to recognize

 

that the beauty in every form is and the same! And when he perceives this

 

he will abate his violent love of the one, which he will despise and deem a

 

small thing, and will become a lover of all beautiful forms; in the next

 

stage he will consider that the beauty of the mind is more honourable than

 

the beauty of the outward form. So that if a virtuous soul have but a

 

little comeliness, he will be content to love and tend him, and will search

 

out and bring to the birth thoughts which may improve the young, until he

 

is compelled to contemplate and see the beauty of institutions and laws,

 

and to understand that the beauty of them all is of one family, and that

 

personal beauty is a trifle; and after laws and institutions he will go on

 

to the sciences, that he may see their beauty, being not like a servant in

 

love with the beauty of one youth or man or institution, himself a slave

 

mean and narrow-minded, but drawing towards and contemplating the vast sea

 

of beauty, he will create many fair and noble thoughts and notions in

 

boundless love of wisdom; until on that shore he grows and waxes strong,

 

and at last the vision is revealed to him of a single science, which is the

 

science of beauty everywhere. To this I will proceed; please to give me

 

your very best attention:

 

 

 

'He who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and who has

 

learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when he comes

 

toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty (and

 

this, Socrates, is the final cause of all our former toils)--a nature which

 

in the first place is everlasting, not growing and decaying, or waxing and

 

waning; secondly, not fair in one point of view and foul in another, or at

 

one time or in one relation or at one place fair, at another time or in

 

another relation or at another place foul, as if fair to some and foul to

 

others, or in the likeness of a face or hands or any other part of the

 

bodily frame, or in any form of speech or knowledge, or existing in any

 

other being, as for example, in an animal, or in heaven, or in earth, or in

 

any other place; but beauty absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting,

 

which without diminution and without increase, or any change, is imparted

 

to the ever-growing and perishing beauties of all other things. He who

 

from these ascending under the influence of true love, begins to perceive

 

that beauty, is not far from the end. And the true order of going, or

 

being led by another, to the things of love, is to begin from the beauties

 

of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these

 

as steps only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair

 

forms, and from fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to

 

fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute

 

beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is. This, my dear

 

Socrates,' said the stranger of Mantineia, 'is that life above all others

 

which man should live, in the contemplation of beauty absolute; a beauty

 

which if you once beheld, you would see not to be after the measure of

 

gold, and garments, and fair boys and youths, whose presence now entrances

 

you; and you and many a one would be content to live seeing them only and

 

conversing with them without meat or drink, if that were possible--you only

 

want to look at them and to be with them. But what if man had eyes to see

 

the true beauty--the divine beauty, I mean, pure and clear and unalloyed,

 

not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the colours and

 

vanities of human life--thither looking, and holding converse with the true

 

beauty simple and divine? Remember how in that communion only, beholding

 

beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not

 

images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a

 

reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the

 

friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may. Would that be an ignoble

 

life?'

 

 

 

Such, Phaedrus--and I speak not only to you, but to all of you--were the

 

words of Diotima; and I am persuaded of their truth. And being persuaded

 

of them, I try to persuade others, that in the attainment of this end human

 

nature will not easily find a helper better than love: And therefore,

 

also, I say that every man ought to honour him as I myself honour him, and

 

walk in his ways, and exhort others to do the same, and praise the power

 

and spirit of love according to the measure of my ability now and ever.

 

 

 

The words which I have spoken, you, Phaedrus, may call an encomium of love,

 

or anything else which you please.

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