/lit/ - Literature

>>21678877
>wouldn't that incur risk to ourselves?
I don't think so. Interesting question. I'll just answer as I see it. The one who seeks retreat still sees a division within the soul. There is no risk to self as self is really the universal soul. Having realised the universality of soul the individual will become a conduit for the motion of that universal, a point at which the goodness of the intellectual realm can flow through into the sense realm. Of course each individual nature is capable only of expressing the act of universal soul to the extent that such a nature allows.
There's a section in the biography of Plotinus by Porphyry where he talks about the former's ability to hold the contents of his contemplation whilst engaged in conversation with others. This is the kind of invulnerability of the sage that negates all risk. Because the lower phase of the soul is always gazing upwards, or is at least conditioned to turn back toward it's origin when it is called away, the motion of the world cannot perturb it because it's always capable of identifying that motion with universal soul striving to manifest the good in the Divine mind. An example I love of this sort of imperturbability, that I posted in a previous thread, is of Diogenes, who, whenever he meet with any supposed misfortune, would pray thus: thank you Fortune, for having given me the opportunity to train my virtue.