Enneads VI.7: How Ideas Multiplied, and the Good
Thus Love Begins Physically but Becomes Spiritual
This is proved by what happens to lovers; so far as their eyes remain fixed on a sense-object, they do not yet love genuinely. Love is born only when they rise above the sense-object, and arrive at representing in their indivisible soul an image which has nothing more of sensation. To calm the ardor that devours them they do indeed still desire to contemplate the beloved object; but as soon as they come to understand that they have to rise to something beyond the form, they desire the latter; for since the very beginning they felt within themselves the love for a great light inspired by a feeble glow. The Shape indeed is the trace of the shapeless. Without himself having any shape, He begets shape whenever matter approaches Him. Now matter must necessarily be very distant from Him, because matter does not possess forms of even the last degree. Since form inherent in matter is derived from the soul, not even mere form-fashioned matter is lovable in itself, as matter; and as the soul herself is a still higher form, but yet is inferior to and less lovable than intelligence, there is no escape from the conclusion that the primary nature of the Beautiful is superior to form.
THE FORMLESSNESS OF THE SUPREME IS PROVED BY THE FACT THAT THE SOUL WHEN APPROACHING HIM SPONTANEOUSLY RIDS HERSELF OF FORMS.
34We shall not be surprised that the soul’s liveliest transports of love are aroused by Him, who has no form, not even an intelligible one, when we observe that the soul herself, as soon as she burns with love for Him, lays aside all forms soever, even if intelligible; for it is impossible to approach Him so long as one considers anything else. The soul must therefore put aside all evil, and even all good; in a word, everything, of whatever nature, to receive the divinity, alone with the alone. When the soul obtains this happiness, and when (the divinity) comes to her, or rather, when He manifests His presence, because the soul has detached herself from other present things, when she has embellished herself as far as possible, when she has become assimilated to Him by means known only to the initiated, she suddenly sees Him appear in her. No more interval between them, no more doubleness; the two fuse in one. It is impossible to distinguish the soul from the divinity, so much does she enjoy His presence; and it is the intimacy of this union that is here below imitated by those who love and are loved, when they consummate union. In this condition the soul no longer feels (her body); she no more feels whether she be alive, human, essence, universality, or anything else. Consideration of objects would be a degradation, and the soul then has neither the leisure nor the desire to busy herself with them. When, after having sought the divinity, she finds herself in His presence, she rushes towards Him, and contemplates Him instead of herself. What is her condition at the time? She has not the leisure to consider it; but she would not exchange it for anything whatever, not even for the whole heaven; for there is nothing superior or better; she could not rise any higher. As to other things, however elevated they be, she cannot at that time stoop to consider them. It is at this moment that the soul starts to move, and recognizes that she really possesses what she desired; she at last affirms that there is nothing better than Him. No illusion could occur there; for where could she find anything truer than truth itself? The soul then is what she affirms; (or rather), she asserts it (only), later, and then she asserts it by keeping silence. While tasting this beatitude she could not err in the assertion that she tastes it. If she assert that she tastes it, it is not that her body experiences an agreeable titillation, for she has only become again what she formerly used to be when she became happy.
All the things that formerly charmed her, such as commanding others, power, wealth, beauty, science, now seem to her despicable; she could not scorn them earlier, for she had not met anything better. Now she fears nothing, so long as she is with Him, and contemplates Him. Even with pleasure would she witness the destruction of everything, for she would remain alone with Him; so great is her felicity.