Chapter VIII - Overview: The Practical Dimension

	Much of the subtlety of philosophy is not in the stating of a philosophic position but in the qualification of that position. Often a person who objects to some point or other in a complex argument is unaware as to the extent of their general agreement with the fundamental or common ground of that argument-process. Moreover, a need arises for the clarification of the dispute to show to what degree the center of the critique should be transmuted to the level of the qualification itself. 
	Many historical controversies continually resurface from one generation to the next promoted by a critical shortsightedness that overlooks this mutual ground, the interminable heat of such discussion being fueled by the fact that generally accepted principles or features of this ground overlap or appear to contradict and that such conflicting elements need to be mediated through various forms of dialectical treatment that qualify such dissonant and discordant unsophistication. It may well be that philosophic argument, self-reflection and the intellectual life of the human individual in general can deal only with the contradictions and paradoxes that predicate our fundamental existence as a conscious-being. That accepted then it follows that the human spirit can only grapple with such contradiction through the dialectical qualification of even more subtle forms of contradiction, etc. But the attention of our vision is quite naturally occupied with the end results of such mediations and therefore we loose sight of the fluidity of such a matrix that gives birth to all the content of our consciousness. This tension, that interposes itself between questions, between questions and answers and between answers themselves, weaves and moulds the very fabric that is made to clothe our individual existence-in-this-world. Without such tensions being allowed to surface to drive the philosophic argument one would find little motivation to continue in the same vein. Only through the ongoing resolution of such tensions could the structure of consciousness function and in turn be brought back in on itself before our conscious reflection and self-reflection? The very structures entailed in awareness involve the equal presence of non-awareness otherwise the qualification of our ignorance could never be brought to the fore before our conscious attention.
	As in the previous chapter I have entitled this one with a word that has a double meaning, an ambiguity that will divide it into two major sections. The word overview can mean either our looking over the extent of some situation or context, or, our looking beyond a certain context and letting our sights enter a field of wider horizons (in an endeavour to better appreciate in time, place, person or in the nature of human culture itself the significance of that territory which was previously under focus). In this chapter we shall look into the practical dimension of absolute philosophy and examine briefly, more through implication, those aspects that touch upon the experiential dimension - practices of ritual, religious experience, behavioural consequences, the role of the aesthetical, questions of value, moral guidelines and obligations, salvational expectations, etc.
	In the first half of this chapter I shall investigate four problematic regions in the idea of an absolute philosophy as exemplified by these two traditions. These four regions of apparent conflict internal to the instantiation of this type of philosophy are, namely, aspects concerning - purification, devotion, insight and salvation. In order to examine and account for these features in this particular type of absolute philosophy I shall try to let these two traditions do this for us themselves, assuming that they too have had to consciously face and deal with just such problematic areas of concern. On the assumption that there is a fundamental symmetry between these two traditions I shall, moreover, let each tradition, where appropriate, also act as a commentary upon the other. This process will be facilitated by the fact that each tradition through cultural differences, etc. will stress and develop particular structural and functional facets with varying degrees of explicitness/implicitness, emphasis/de-emphasis, potentiality/actu-ality, etc. and thereby through such individualistic surface differentiation allow us to find an informative contrast that will highlight for us how these various dialectical tensions are exposed and the possibilities open to them for their resolution. 
	In the second half of this chapter I shall try to appreciate what possible historical significance might reasonably be drawn from the existence of this structural and functional isomorphism between these two contemporaneous religious-philosophical traditions bringing this thesis to a final conclusion?
	However, first, let me discuss this aspect in absolute philosophy whereby the sense of the absolute is equated with the sense of the relative, that indeed both of these traditions do come to this same conclusion of equivalence.

The Postulation Of A Fundamental Equivalence

	Elsewhere I have discussed the presence of a sense of the absolute in these two traditions, a topic that is not without some controversy. Building on this discussion I would like now to examine the relationship between the sense of the relative and the sense of the absolute. Essentially I perceive the nature of this relationship to be one of an identification between the Absolute and Relative, albeit from the absolute point of view.
	In this type of religious-philosophic tradition a characteristic hallmark would appear to be the postulation  in some form of an implicit or explicit equivalence between fundamental dichotomies, e.g., transcendent and immanent, the mental and the physical, the self and the world, microcosm and macrocosm, between Mind and Being, between deity and devotee, etc., in effect creating a sense of the absolute through a transcendence of the logical; returning distinctions to a pre-logical basis. This important hallmark of an absolute philosophy and the prominence to which this feature is made explicit is, I believe, a direct indicator of the degree to which the absolute philosophy is critically self-reflective, i.e. is actually self-formulated as an absolute philosophy. The sense of the absolute as ground, whether this be perceived in an explicit mode or in an implicit mode, is a realization that the dualistic polarization of meaning results in a loss of meaning if this polarization is conducted in an extreme logical frame of reference. The consequent deconstruction that can be demonstrated in such an attempt being utilized as an intellectual and/or experiential indication that meaning is born through contrast and is delivered through such a process that recognizes this ground and uses this recognition to resolve historic-philosophical and religious controversies. This critical and dialectical qualification of the logical is turned around to demonstrate that only the transcendental or the absolute can self-subsist through its own self-efforts, be found meaningful in and through its own self. This point of view is obtained through an identification of the particular dichotomies originally proposed as being fundamental to a particular positive philosophy. In a transcendence of such fundamental duality the grounds of such a distinction, or the ground of such distinctions, become transcended revealing that which is promoted as logically prior. 
	This priority is then promoted as that which is the absolute or Absolute but in through doing so places this very distinction itself into the jaws of a further duality that can only be resolved through its recognition of a need for a higher order internal equation between all involved parties. In the Buddhist Wisdom Tradition, through its critical Madhyamaka systematization, a point is realized that the prov-ince of the logical can only apply to that which is non-metaphysical, i.e. empirical. Going beyond this point of application is to enter a realm of the meaningless, the relativity of relativity, the emptiness of all thought constructions, a domain that cannot be anything other than that of the absolute and which at the same time, must as a consequence, be equally that which is the relative. This sense of the dialectical is also present in Plotinus?
	For Plotinus Dialectic is the most precious part of philosophy and is that which deals with verities and not the truth of propositions - collection of words - being a study of the operations of the soul and the laws of the universe. Plotinus goes on to tell us that it is a study of the universals striped of all matter for treatment by the understanding. By this path our progress is upwards towards the One. As with Plato our preparation for such a pursuit lies in the field of mathematics in order to develop our abstract thought and Plotinus offers us three ways to realize this Dialectic, namely, as metaphysicians, musicians, or as lovers.
	It would seem, for Plotinus (and this Buddhist Tradition) that propositional knowledge is a necessary precondition, for the development of abstract thought, but in itself is incapable of realizing this transcendence of language.
	Likewise in this Buddhist Wisdom Tradition language is also seen as defective from this absolute point of view....

This perfection of wisdom cannot be expounded, or be learned, or distinguished, or considered, or stated....

To call it `perfection of wisdom,' O Lord, that is merely giving it a name. And what that name corresponds to, that cannot be got at. One speaks of a `name' with reference to a merely nominal entity. Even this perfection of wisdom cannot be found or got at. In so far as it is a word, in so far as it is perfect wisdom; in so far as it is perfect wisdom, in so far as it is a word. No duality of dharmas between those two can be either found or got at.

	What is the reason behind this disvaluation of language, and, are both traditions motivated by the same reason or reasons? For both it seems language is unable to express this sense of the absolute and yet at the same time it is this inability of language to express this sense of the absolute that allows it to do so by critical negative means.
	The philosopher Nagarjuna, traditionally seen as a commentator on the scriptures of the Perfection of Wisdom Tradition, states this identification or equivalence quite explicitly, if not most bluntly! 

	There is no specifiable difference whatever between nirvana and the everyday specifiable world (samsara); there is no specifiable difference whatever between the everyday specifiable world (samsara) and nirvana.
	The ontic range (limit) of nirvana is the ontic range of the everyday world. There is not the slightest difference between the two.

	In other words, in order to more succinctly paraphrase the above, we could say - that the Absolute equals the Relative, the Relative equals the Absolute.
	In this tradition of the Madhyamaka the above conclusion can be seen to follow from the Wisdom Tradition's analysis of the sameness (samata) of all things. Through the conclusion that all things are empty (sunya) it logically follows that all things have the same essential nature hence their equivalence.
	Does Nagarjuna's explicit thematization of this point cast some light on the Neoplatonic position in this regard? We would expect in the type of emanational scheme that Plotinus laboriously details for us that the relative would at least be treated as an extension of the One, albeit as a reality with a diminished sense of being, power and freedom (in inverse proportion to the degree of that extension). It should also follow that an analysis and reduction of the relative should also reveal its relative impoverishment at face value and its deeper roots and authenticity in and as an extension of the One.

Let the image - offspring of the individuality - fare as it may, the true soul when it turns its light upon itself, chooses the higher and by that choice blends into the All, neither acting now nor extinct.

	Neither tradition therefore maintains a duality between Absolute and Relative. This characteristic, in this type of absolute philosophy, can be quite simply stated as one of identification or equivalence. The subtlety of absolute philosophy, however, arises in how that identity is arrived at, and, in how this equation is to be qualified in order to comprehend its full significance and ensure its correct comprehension. This qualification effectively reinterprets the traditional positive theology embedded in this type of philosophical and religious innovation and it is upon such a level that we must examine the four problematic areas we have chosen for our first investigational overview.

The Problem of Purification

	Put simply how is it possible, assuming an equivalence between the sense of the absolute and the sense of the relative, for an absolute tradition to invoke and stress an essential facet of purification within the confines of such a scheme?   
	In the Neoplatonic context this could be restated - how is it possible if everything is derived from the purity of the One that there exists in the world of the relative the need for spiritual purification? Then, from a Buddhistic point of view this could be translated as - how is it possible, when the substantiality of the world and the ego is an illusion, that there can exist the possibility and the need for spiritual purification? Both points of view are essentially inter-translatable. Relatively implicit in the Buddhist perspective is the assumption that the essential nature of reality, as thusness (tattva), is unstained by the imposition of thought constructions, and therefore is naturally pure. Likewise, the world of emanational reality for the Neoplatonic philosopher is implicitly, at least, a world of illusion, illusory phantoms, reflections, etc., albeit a beautiful world, a beautiful illusion, in contrast to the pessimism, duality and negativism of the gnostic viewpoint, et al.
	To seek a satisfactory answer to this problem we need to ask ourselves what motivates the desire for purification. Moreover, we should investigate what is entailed in the search for purification and what part it plays as a component in the general structure that essentially describes this type of absolute philosophy accounting in the process for its relative need and absolute non-necessity?
	Plotinus, himself, recognizes this problem....

If goodness existed before the impurity, purification is enough; but even so, though the purification will be enough, the good will be what is left after purification, not the purification itself. And we must enquire what that which is left is; perhaps the nature which is left was never really the good; for if it was it would not have come into evil. Should we call it something like the good?

	Plotinus also perceives the act of purification as the
stripping of everything that is alien. Moreover he perceives the fact that the soul in its association with a body is evil when it is thoroughly mixed with the body and shares its experiences. Consequently, the soul, in its own way, in its separating from the influences of the body is to that degree purified. Throughout this drama the Good remains unstained for the soul's contact with the material is correctly an illusion since such a realm is essentially the domain of the non-existent. Therefore from the absolute point of view there can be no real process of purification only a re-orientation of our finite and limited existence towards the omnipresence of the Good. This re-orientation is also perceived as a step-by-step reversal of the stages or levels of reality that were progressively generated through emanation, reflecting in a one to one correspondence the structure of such a philosophy.
	In a similar fashion this Buddhist Wisdom Tradition explicitly recognizes this same type of apparent dilemma.

If all dharmas are isolated and empty, how is the defilement and purification of beings conceivable?

	This quotation continues and offers the following solution....

Do beings course a long time in I-making and mine-making?
So it is, Lord.
Are also I-making and mine-making empty?
They are, O Lord.
Is it just because of their I-making and mine-making that beings wander about in birth-and-death?
So it is Lord.
It is in that sense that the defilement of beings becomes conceivable. To the extent that beings take hold of things and settle down in them, to that extent is there defilement.

	The Neoplatonic solution and the Buddhist Wisdom solution to this problem, as just discussed, on the surface appear to be different. However, in deeper structural terms of reference both types of solutions have the same essential form, namely, from the absolute point of view there can be no real purification as the absolute is unstained by thought-constructions, desires, egotistic references, etc. but to the degree that an individual person entertains an immersion in these notions to that degree can the possibility of purification in relative terms of reference be effected.
	In this process of redefining the role of purification in an absolute philosophy traditional purificational practices become re-invested and overlaid with new meaning as well as being given an experiential dimension more in keeping with the tone of meditational reflection. As has already been remarked in Neoplatonic purification the practitioner is urged to strip away, stage by stage, all sense of the alien and isolated in such existential nakedness open themselves up to the absolute presence of the One, a stateless state of mental being that defies all description. In similar fashion the Buddhist who follows this Wisdom Tradition is encouraged to forsake all mental constructions and discriminations....

Just as the Tathagata is one who has forsaken all constructions and discriminations, even so perfect wisdom has forsaken all constructions and discriminations.

	The apparent result of such thorough phenomenalistic reduction and the further ongoing reduction of this very process itself is claimed to set the stage for a realization of the unthinkable nature of the perfection of wisdom....

Unthinkable, O Lord, is the perfection of wisdom.
Because the perfection of wisdom  is not something thought ought to know, or that thought has access to.

Just so a Bodhisattva, who courses and dwells in perfect wisdom, comprehends that all dharmas are like an echo. He does not think about them, does not review, identify, or perceive them, and he knows that those dharmas do not exist, that their reality does not appear, cannot be found, cannot be got at. If he dwells thus, he courses in perfect wisdom. 

	In a similar light we can present the following Neoplatonic quotation....

So long as the presence holds, all distinction fades.... the soul has now no further awareness of being in body and will give herself no foreign name, not "man," not "living being," not "being," not "all".... she is of perfect judgement and knows that This was her quest....

The Problem of the Devotional

	This sense of presence (as expressed in the last quotation) is treated with respect and reverence. The presence or revelation of the sense of the absolute as an experience, though reflection, is treated as being personal or interpersonal in character and devotional in orientation. In a re-cognition of a discrepancy between theory and practice we find ourselves confronted here by a profound paradox that appears to strike at the very center of such a philosophy.
	This sense of the absolute in its transcending of the limitations that circumscribe finite existence would be expected on a priori grounds to leave little or no room for the sanctioning of a devotional attitude. It would appear on a first reading of a representative text of such a philosophy that it could neither countenance the existence of an object of personal devotion nor authorize the need for, or the usefulness of, such a misdirected practice. Yet for all that a common denominator to both of these traditions is their strong undercurrent of devotionalism - a personal-like experience of the numinous, the presence of a devotional attitude that is not directed towards some personally circumscribed divinity but which for all that is experienced as intensely personal in its overall ambience. On textual grounds we find this tendency given expression in the conception and perception of the Absolute in personal terms, being referred to, e.g., as The Father by Plotinus and as The Mother of the Buddhas or Tathagata in The Perfection of Wisdom literature. I shall try to resolve this apparent anomaly through an investigation of those elements associated with such a stance and in the process further demonstrate the underlying structural isomorphism and functional affinity between these two contemporaneous traditions.
	This strong more centrally-orientated undercurrent of devotionalism, I believe,  motivates the surface, or more apparent, expression of purificational desires and practices felt necessary to be performed by the religious person following such a tradition. On one hand the finite limitations of the individual are phenomenologically exposed and on the other, when the individual is rendered vulnerable through such disvaluation, a re-identification of the individual is inaugurated with the promotion of an equation of such relativity with the sense of the absolute. It would appear that purificational programmes are devised to theoretically ground and experientially reveal such an equivalence or coincidence. Through a reductive analysis and disvaluation of the individual an individual's traditional sense of value is initially rendered as valueless then into this experiential anomaly or void the sense of value is restored through the continually recreated insight, derived from a critical-negative analysis, that the relative is grounded in and upon the sense of the absolute and is therefore an extension or part of the same. This re-evaluation of the individual then restores the sense of value of that individual as infinitely valuable in so far as the individual then sees themselves as part of the Absolute as manifested through its cosmic expression, in all its drama. This sense of restoration or re-creation results in the re-sacralization of the world for the individual and returns religious meaning to all traditional forms of religious expression, albeit from an absolute orientated point of view. Whereas such practices were previously viewed, explicitly or implicitly, as religious ends in themselves (as rituals conducted with an objective purpose for their performance without the prospect of self-transformation), now such practices are generally viewed as means, means to a newly redefined religious end whereby the individual finds themselves experiencing the sense of the absolute along with its inherent sense of salvation. The intensity of such an existential-like experience is textually presented and perceived as strongly relational, spontaneous, as a revelation and thereby as being personally directed and personal or interpersonal in character. The direct consequence of this is that this experience of the sense of the numinous or divine, induces, almost as a reflex response or reaction, an accompanying sense of, and need for, the devotional. In many ways this type of experience is often perceived as the catalyst that initiates a process of conversion or self-transformation. Motivating such a search in the first place is the installation of a psychic need for salvation, a need generated through a demonstration to the individual that they lack in their life a certain quality or set of qualities. Once this perception of a potential difference is induced (through sermons, various art-forms, etc.) the religious tradition that fostered this sense of personal deficit then proffers the means whereby this inadequacy can be diminished. In such a manner this new religious tradition or approach can carve out for itself a niche in the psyche of the religious person.
	This explanation is not meant to belittle such a type of religious experience but to show, through a variety of responses, how this type of religious tradition can accommodate such dissonance. Essentially devotion, in this context, is a reverential attitude engendered in the individual through some form of reflection upon the nature of the absolute from the point of view of the relative. This perspective of the relative relativizes this experiential sense of the Absolute and personalizes such an otherwise abstract and fundamental dimension. 
	My solution to this problem, therefore, tentative as it is at this point in time, is to perceive that this type of tradition, implicitly or explicitly, accepts the intensity of the religious experience of the sense of the numinous to indicate that the sense of the absolute has for the individual a personal-like dimension without sacrificing the philosophically-abstract trans-personal dimension of the Absolute from the point of view of the Absolute itself. More simply put, through making the following observation, one could here state that religious experience is experienced by an individual and that the type of religious experience engineered by this type of tradition is viewed, reflected upon and expressed as being essentially personal and personally directed. Thereby, as a consequence, this religious experience is translated through religious expression and expectation as interpersonal, i.e. as devotional in character?
	The various trends in religious art around this period of time seem to suggest a parallel progressive development and intensification in the practice and expression of devotionalism. The divinization of religious founders as super-human cosmic-like beings, the fondness for apocalyptic visions and the advent of messianic personages, the personalization of religious experience in general all find their reflection in artistic innovations of the time. Indeed the Graeco-Roman influences in Gandharan art, e.g., eloquently testify to the integrity and reciprocity of East-West relations. The variety of religious imagery and the rich profusion in symbolism elicited by such open-ended iconography indicating through such repetition that the devotional attitude was never directed solely at such devices but through them to a world of the numinous that in the final account would transcend the limitations of the divine personality or personalities represented, individually and collectively. Almost as means rather than ends such religious iconography will ultimately act as stepping stones in the indication and revelation of the sense of the numinous but which, in the ongoing nature of such a process, will preserve their apparent integrity, etc. In the development of this direction practices of theurgy and tantric ritualism, etc. can be seen to not only parallel each other but also present themselves as a continuation of this trend. Essentially the nature of this devotionalism, through its invocation of emotional and affective means, is a more manifest expression of, and response to or reaction against, the dry abstract analytical nature of negative theology. In effect the iconography and implements of such a practice are items on the path of the via negativa and in this light ultimately need not nor cannot conflict with the absolute nature of the Absolute.
	On the provisional nature of devotionalism we can perhaps note the following anecdote from Plotinus.

He belongs no longer to the order of the beautiful; he has risen beyond beauty; he has overpassed the choir of the virtues; he is like one who has penetrated the inner sanctuary, leaves the temple images behind him - though these become once more first objects of regard when he leaves the holies; for There his converse is not with image, not with trace, but with the very Truth in the view of which all the rest is of secondary concern.

	It is interesting in regards to this idea of the provisional nature of devotional practice that as an example of skillful means (upaya) even the apparent body of a Buddha or Bodhisattva can be treated on the same par as, e.g., an image in a temple. Developmental treatment of this concept becomes thematized in the doctrine of the Three Bodies of the Buddha (trikaya).

The physical personality of the Tathagata, on the other hand, is the result of skill in means of the perfection of wisdom. And that becomes a sure foundation for the (acquisition of the) cognition of the all-knowing (by others).... As the sure foundation of that cognition it has, for all beings, become a true shrine, worthy of being saluted respectfully, of being honoured, revered and adored.

The Problem of Insight

	In a similar fashion we could ask ourselves, how the Absolute, or a part thereof, say a person e.g., can entertain an insight into the nature of this absolute when the Absolute, or a part thereof, can stand in no need, being this Absolute, for such enlightenment?
	On such a topic Plotinus agonizes in great detail as to how the One can have an intuitive understanding of itself above and beyond the limitations and duality inherent in the general nature of consciousness. In an extension of the same problem he examines the difficulties that accompany an individual's appreciation of the One. A final attempt to resolve this dilemma accepts, amid much qualification, the necessity for some form of intuition that is neither unconscious like the non-existence of the material realm nor conscious as in the dual nature of discursive thought. In such a state the dichotomies of the seer and the seen, the knower and the object of the knowing are transcended.

We must think of it not as looking but as living; dependent upon That, it kept itself turned Thither.... In this way the Supreme may be understood to be at once the cause of essential reality and of the knowing of reality. The sun, the cause of the existence of sense-things and of their being seen, is indirectly the cause of sight, without being either the faculty or the object....

	The Buddhist Wisdom Tradition confronts the same type of problem. If the manifestation of personal existence from the point of view of the absolute is a fiction how can entities truly be said to need, let alone be able to obtain or find, salvation, i.e. nirvana? Such a solution is quite shocking and ostensively counter to traditional Buddhist theory and practice. The logical presentation and consequential demonstration of such a position must have incited some considerably heated debates in its day and without doubt must have remained the topic of conversation for lengthy periods of time for not only traditional Buddhist sects would be disturbed by such heretical notions but the entire philosophic fraternity, with the exception of the materialists, would be equally effected. With no grounds for salvation there can be no path and without a path there can be neither enlightenment (nirvana) nor the need for the same with, as a consequence, no need for the presence of religious specialists either. Such an apparent recipe for sacred and secular anarchy must have especially disturbed conservative proponents of traditional positive philosophies and I am sure that this type of topic for a religious debate must have been one of the items of information to flow across national boundaries (perhaps helping to explain something of the fascination the West had for the East). In the Heart Sutra we find the following heretical-like exposition....

There is no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path. There is no cognition, there is no obtainment, no non-obtainment.

	For this type of Buddhist even Nirvana is empty (sunya), without any form of substantial and egotistical self-reference or self-existence. That being the case, and such being discovered through some form of intense reductive analysis, we find we have released ourselves, it is claimed, from the reification of one more religious term that would have otherwise obstructed our true understanding and appreciation of the phenomenal world. For all the negativity of such analysis the final result is claimed to be quite the opposite. Moreover, like the floodgates of a dam made to open, this release and reintroduction of traditional positive territory, previously negated, is now transformed and in the process is interpreted from an absolute point of view. For all the initial systematic destruction of traditional terminology the final result is announced to be of quite a different nature. In the last text as quoted above the final result, in a stark contrast, through the positivity of its final pronouncement(s), is that there is a transcendental realm of significance that lets us go beyond, and not only beyond but altogether beyond, beyond the noumenal and the phenomenal, beyond all forms of duality and thence allows us to realize the fundamental equivalence between the Absolute and the Relative, between Nirvana and Samsara.

Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, O what an awakening, all-hail!

	Is the explicitness of this Buddhist exposition in this regard able to commentate upon the Neoplatonic position? Rather than argue for such confirmation I shall try to get the following quotations do this for me. In a metaphor of passage (going upwards) Plotinus passionately states....

....so high it lifts them that they are no longer in space or in that realm of difference where everything is rooted in some other thing.

	And this quotation continues to qualify, through a contradiction of this metaphor of movement, this sense of transcendental passage....

The soul now knows no movement since the Supreme knows none.

	Moreover this insight into the nature of the Absolute is such that....

for the Supreme has not Intellection (Nous) and the likeness must be perfect; this grasping is not even by Intellection, for the Supreme is not known intellectively.

	It would appear therefore that the Absolute does have a special intuition about itself. Acknowledgement of this feature, therefore, without an adequate interpretational structure to qualify the nature of the relationship between the Absolute and the Relative can only deepen this conflict, this puzzle as to the role and necessity for insight in such a philosophical framework. If the Absolute has special insight what need has the Relative to repeat this?

The Problem of Salvation

	It would appear, therefore, at some point in time upon reflection to the careful observer, and no doubt to the religious person themself in the midst of such a tradition, that the cognitive perception of the necessity for insight,  affectively manifesting itself as a desire for salvation, may in the final analysis be realized to be nothing more than an illusion or joke. If the Absolute is all-knowing (of) itself what need is there for a part of the Absolute to repeat the same trick, albeit from some particular point of view?
	In the Buddhist Wisdom Tradition this problem is explicitly recognized, moreover, the very process of systematic-negational analysis that is to initiate such an insight is also perceived as potentially destablizing for the individual, the religious community etc. An urgency is therefore felt to quickly qualify such analysis and reassert a religious meaningfulness for the religious life whose raison d'être is the definition and realization of salvation. 

....a Bodhisattva, a great being, leads countless beings to Nirvana, and yet there is not any being that has been led to Nirvana, nor that has led others to it. To hear this exposition without fear, that is the great thing which entitles the Bodhisattva to be known as `armed with the great armour.'

	On one hand there is salvation through enlightenment and, on the other, there is no salvation through enlightenment. What can one make of this contradiction or paradox? As with our other three interrelated problems the same deeper structure in effect presents itself. From the point of view of the Absolute the Absolute stands in no need of some desirable religious quality, epithet, structural feature and/or function x,y,z,.... However, from the relative point of view, in the midst of such relativity the same religious quality, etc. is perceived as desirable by a religious person for the religious person. Ultimately, the acquisition of such a desirable feature sees its simultaneous dis-establishment or non-discrimination as the acquirer realizes the non-existence and the non-necessity for the same. Essentially what is at stake is a matter of orientation, or, more correctly, re-orientation, and once the absolute is allowed to establish itself, through our recognition of the same, this state of affairs is allowed to existentially manifest itself without our self-conscious self-deliberation. Hence the utility (upaya) of the perfection of wisdom, all-knowledge, etc. Can such an explicit feature in this tradition act as a commentary upon the Neoplatonic Tradition in this regard?
	Plotinus tells us....

Health, similarly, is the condition of a body acting as a co-ordinate unity. Beauty appears when limbs and features are controlled by this principle, unity. Moral excellence is of a soul acting as a concordant total, brought to unity.

	This unity is a matching of cause and effect, means and ends, a harmonious correspondence between essence and that being informed by the former. We are told that....

In a principle, act and essence must be free.

	In the same chapter we are told....

Virtue and Intellectual-Principle are sovereign and must be held the sole foundation of our self-disposal and freedom, both then are free....

	Moreover....

Soul becomes free when it moves, through Intellectual-Principle, towards The Good; what it does in that spirit is its free act.

	This freedom is without compulsion. It is done through knowledge of what is called for, through such wisdom  one comes to spontaneously perceive the good within an activity in a certain event, perceiving the direction desired to be made by that good embedded in that situation in its movement towards The Good.  Being the province of the higher self it is not left to the blind deliberations of the lower self and its decision making influenced by body.
	The spontaneity and appropriateness of this activity, as an ethical response, e.g. can, in some measure, be seen as a certain degree of salvation in practice, being the fruits of the salvic process (and at the same time also acting as a pre-condition for the same).
	Both traditions see salvation as being by stages (or at least in its pre-conditional phases), as a metaphorical movement deeper or higher into the nature of reality. However, this Buddhist Tradition explicitly recognizes that enlightenment, insight, salvation, etc. from the absolute point of view is more correctly a fiction. This aspect in the writings of Plotinus is generally implicit although elements of this position surface from time to time.

Thus the Supreme as containing no otherness is ever present with us; we with it when we put otherness away. It is not that the Supreme reaches out to us seeking communication: we reach towards the Supreme; it is we that become present. We are always before it: but we do not always look: thus a choir, singing set in due order about the conductor, may turn away from that centre to which all should attend: let it but face aright and it sings with beauty, present effectively. We are ever before the Supreme - cut off is utter dissolution; we can no longer be - but we do not always attend:

	Enlightenment, insight, salvation, etc. it would seem is neither an absolute fact nor an absolute fiction or illusion but a re-orientation of the individual towards the sense of the Absolute. Devotion, or devotionalism, it would appear, invokes the same type of structural mechanics and it would seem to be but another word for re-orientation.

That our good is There is shown by the very love inborn within our soul....
The soul in its nature loves God and longs to be one with Him....

	What hope can the individual entertain in matters of their personal salvation. Plotinus is optimistic in this regard.

But how comes the soul to not keep that ground?
Because it has not yet escaped wholly: but there will be a time of vision unbroken, the self hindered no more by any hindrance of the body.

	Perceiving a relationship between devotionalism and this re-orientation can we find the presence of the same structural-feature functioning in the Buddhist Wisdom Tradition?

The perfection of wisdom gives light, O Lord. I pay homage to the perfection of wisdom! She is worthy of homage. She is unstained.... Most excellent are her works.... She is identical with all-knowledge.... Herself unstopped and unproduced is the perfection of wisdom.... She is the Mother of the Buddhas....

	In the above quotation we can witness the strong devotional flavour that permeates this list. In the following quotation we are told....

What, O Lord, are the attributes, tokens and signs of an irreversible Bodhisattva, and how can we know that he is a Bodhisattva in the first place.

	In answer to this question our quotation continues and presents the following reply.

The level of the common people, the level of the Disciples, the level of the Pratyekabuddhas, the level of the Buddhas - they are all called the "level of Suchness." With the thought that all these are, through Suchness, not two, not divided, not discriminated, undiscriminate, he enters on this Suchness, this nature of Dharma. After he has firmly stood in Suchness, he neither imagines nor discriminates.

	In this regard our text at this point appears to clearly mirror the Neoplatonic idea, and v.v., as can be witnessed in the following quotation from Plotinus. In our passing beyond knowing we pass beyond discrimination.

Our way then takes us beyond knowing; there may be no wandering away from unity; knowing and knowable must all be left aside, every object of thought, even the highest, we must pass by....

	Moreover we are told by Plotinus that this movement beyond is one undertaken by the individual who rises above the things of this world, who through a transcendence of the things embedded in relationships, stands alone before the presence of the Absolute.

This is the life of gods and of the godlike and the blessed among men, liberation from the alien that besets us here, a life taking no pleasure in the things of the earth, the passing of the solitary to the solitary.

	The Buddhist concept of the isolated (vivikta) that parallels this rising above the world of relational participants therefore mirrors this Neoplatonic idea of the solitary, this sense of the alone. In turn an explication of this Neoplatonic idea offers itself as a commentary on this Buddhist term of the isolated. Through a transcendence of the relational the relativity of the individuality is transcended. From the absolute point of view there can be no individual, no world, no salvation, although our transcendental appreciation of the Absolute from the relative point of view fortunately re-discovers this same- world-for-us re-investing it with traditional religious meaning, albeit, now reinterpreted from this absolute point of view.
	What appears to be intended behind these two terms is an absolute appreciation of relationships, namely, the perception that the ground of all relationships has the same nature and that the relationship of all relationships finds a unity of expression in the sense of the numinous treated as the Absolute. In an individual's personal appreciation of this sense of the numinous both traditions claim a transcendence of the world of relativity and its apparent dualities, multiplicities, diversity of personalities and entities, etc. Because there is now no thing for this person to entertain in this unthinkable religious state of affairs, neither during its experience nor retrospectively, it therefore cannot be sensibly discussed in normal conversation? However, discourse can direct our religious-philosophical attention towards such a goal, stating the attested fact that there is such a religious state of affairs whose numinousity is open to some form of experiential access. It can do this through a number of stratagems and variations on the same. Firstly, by metaphorically pointing to it and stating that this vision of religious reality exists and has a special form of existence. Secondly, by analogically wandering around such an experiential arena through the use of metaphors and insisting that between the metaphor and the religious reality indicated that there is an element of isomorphism. Thirdly, through informing us what this numinous is not, the latter exercise being reinforced through a critical systematic-negational approach. Such negation being repetitive, persistent and integrated as a special part of a total religious package that attempts to convert such negational analysis into some experiential form of cognitive and affective insight.
	Devotional treatment of this sense of the numinous can also parallel these three philosophical approaches, pointing to a sense of the divine, metaphorically treating it through analogies, and through a negational transcendence of divinities and lesser senses of the divine. Experiential discovery of this sense of the numinous being treated as some form or level of salvation, the latter state of affairs being seen therefore as an expectation to be progressively aimed for. The sense of the absolute also seems to be experienced with an indeterminacy as to whether we initiate such an experience or our experience of it is initiated by this sense of the Absolute. 
	In a transcendence of relative consciousness it would seem that we come to experience relational consciousness, that consciousness that is the ground and unity of relative consciousness. In such a type of philosophy salvation is sought and expressed through such a lonely encounter but, which, as the ground of the relative, must also encompass the entire world of phenomenal being. Through such an equivalence the sacred sacralizes the profane, whilst, converse-ly, the profane is seen as our access to the Divine and all degrees of divinity that are thought to flow from such num-inousity.
	The concept of salvation is seen, therefore, more as a provisional idea. As a useful concept in alerting us to the possibilities of other forms of experiential consciousness but which from the absolute point of view, when its purpose has been achieved, can be discarded. This modified concept of salvation, or i.e. salvationalism, can be treated in the same manner as devotionalism, etc.  In salvationalism there is an emphasis on means at the expense of ends; an indeterminacy in religious ends is tolerated and appears to assist religious functions that orientate themselves towards religious experience. The power of the paradox, e.g. along with other devices, being seen to facilitate this.
	Thus these four problematic areas of purification, devotionalism, insight and salvationalism are correctly interrelated and resolved in the same deep structural manner with important functional implications and consequences. From the absolute point of view there can be no real purification, etc., whereas, from the relative point of view these four aspects can assert, or reassert, themselves. The Absolute from the absolute point of view is seen in no need for such progressive or provisional concepts. The Absolute from the point of view of the relative is perceived in devotional terms of reference, the religious person being inclined to perceive such an experience as personal or inter-personal, i.e. as devotional. The Relative treated from the absolute point of view is philosophically perceived along emanational lines and functionally treated for experiential purposes as our involvement with a reality that is hierarchically structured and which can be fully recognized through some form of experiential reversal of this emanational or hierarchical unfoldment. Lastly the Relative from the point of view of the relative recognizes a physical world which although real in empirical terms of reference cannot be treated as real in non-empirical or trans-empirical terms of reference. Degrees of reality being defined through ideas of power, psychic proximity to the Absolute, ability to generate or bestow value, levels of consciousness, levels of epistemological structure and organization, etc. All in all these tensions follow on from the very structure and function of absolute philosophy and the explicit or implicit presence of these surface problems in both of these two traditions further indicates for us the empathetic proximity, for all their geographical separation, that they have with respect to each other. What historical conclusions can we derive from such a high degree of isomorphism? Let me now overview such a controversial question and conclude this thesis by outlining the essential features of this structural and functional equivalence.

A Concluding Historical and Philosophical Overview

	Through the apparent vagaries of cultural and stylistic differences one might not have thought at first that these two traditions of religious philosophy had much in common other than a few superficial similarities. However, when one explores the deeper structure and function, more central to the essential nature of each tradition one finds that they seem to traverse, metaphorically, the same type of ground and breath the same type of air. This observation is reinforced when one considers that both traditions appear to be motivated by a similar vision of the numinous, and that both philosophies function along many parallel lines to the extent that their overall isomorphism is often able to act as a commentary on the implicit and explicit structures and functions of the other. Such coincidence or equivalence accepted it would be then quite natural for us to ask ourselves if there is any direct relationship between these parallel states of affairs? Indeed we may well ask ourselves what historical relevance this coincidence might possess?
	In scholarship over the last one hundred years or so this question has been often controversially posed as the Oriental influences in the philosophy of Plotinus? Such a position is a difficult one to establish and in the course of general Neoplatonic studies one that has been even harder to eradicate. Reasons for establishing this assertion, I believe, are primarily intuitive. Many attempts to ground this general intuition have run a gamut of explanations, for holding such a belief, from loose association through to the complete misunderstanding of one or both parties. A lengthy catalogue of inadequate arguments have considerably weakened such a case and have included errors over chronology through to a misunderstanding as to what is or is not unique to a particular tradition. To compound this mess we find genuine arguments and observations mixed in from a variety of disciplines and other traditions that do, at least, establish apparent boni fide grounds whose merit should deserve our consideration. 
	On the other hand objections to such a position are often conducted on the spurious grounds that a tradition has its own roots and can stand alone in this changeful world impervious to the reciprocity of outside interaction and influence. Such a defense has been conducted with an apparent vehemence that borders on a religious-like belief in the purity of the Western Tradition (in the fear that a few important intrusions from the East would wreck the integrity, importance and uniqueness of such an establishment).
	Much that is controversial, it would seem, arises from the attempt by people to force or confine some question or other into too narrow a logical space. It would make for a safer bet, in most circumstances, for the truth to be seen to actually lie somewhere closer to the middle or mid-ground, that line of demarcation fought over by the warring parties. Such a dispute, maintained along traditional criteria, must therefore remain an interminable debate as a consequence under such circumstances. Often more revealing, for the more neutral observer, is the nature of the motivation, or hidden agenda, of that person who falls into one camp or the other and the real reasons behind the tenacity in which they maintain their persistent defense.
	Hopefully the manner of my resolution of this problem will not be effected by some of these faults decried by myself. I have come to the opinion that there is much validity in both camps, on both sides of this coin, and would like to take the risk of entering this no-man's land to synthesize such a solution or resolution, or rather, a possible map or sketch on how such an endeavour might be better conducted. To attempt such a task in full would correctly take us outside the terms of this thesis and offers us the more than adequate grounds for another.
	Such a task should consider itself as an inter-disciplined exercise. Besides requiring an expertise in religious and philosophic studies both East and West other considerations should include historical, geographical, economic, anthropological, sociological, psychological and archaeological contributions relevant to the clarification of this task. To get to grips with such a pursuit our attention must concentrate its efforts on that which is essential, those bits and pieces of information that are able to alter or reinforce the outcome, or nature of that outcome, in our research. With this project in mind I would like to make the following sketch as a provisional format, as an overview, for such a task.

	Firstly, I would like to state that a general study of negative theology should elicit the structure and function of the via negativa revealing in the process those conditions and preconditions necessary for this transition from a positive-orientated theology to a negative-orientated theology. With such information at hand we should be able to recognize that by the start of the Christian era both traditions were in a position to develop this transition. That being the case neither tradition need be influenced by the other and as long as those conditions are supplied, that assist that transition, influence need not be invoked.
	Secondly, an important condition is criticism for once a certain degree of critical self-reflection is entered into by a religious institution, along with a recognition of the historical unproductivity of logically treated controversies, there will develop an atmosphere of logical skepticism wherein the breakdown and rejection of the merely logical will manifest itself as an increased negation and/or contradiction of positive theological categories. Once a certain degree of critical negation is arrived at I would argue that the general structure and function of the religious philosophy would then rapidly change state and evolve along more systematic and absolutist lines. This being the case a thorough chronological-textual examination of this change of state might reveal different degrees of evolutional development and therein, indirectly, a possible direction of influence?
	Thirdly, I personally believe that both of these traditions in isolation would have naturally developed along these lines and through necessary internal developments reach a point when negative theological practices would take precedence along with its concomitant systematization and absolutization.
	Fourthly, these two worlds were not in a state oftural isolation. For a long period of time orientally-influenced religious influences were noted by people in the Roman world to flow westward into the Mediterranean Basin. Around this time East-West trade also dramatically increased. Indeed trade to India accelerated at the end of the Ptolemaic era (B.C.332-30) with the discovery of the direct route across the Indian Ocean, often in large convoys, using the monsoon winds. The time for the round trip by sea from the Medi-terranean Basin to the Indian Subcontinent and back was reduced from three years to one year and in the process avoided the use of many middle men and diminished the risk of coastal piracy en route.	
	Fifthly, critical developments in India appear to be more advanced and general scholastic endeavours better organized. Radical Buddhist criticism, as typified by the philosopher Nagarjuna, e.g. had a devastating effect and no doubt successful philosophical innovation would be quickly adopted or countered and that this process of adaptation need not necessarily necessitate the adoption of foreign philosophies, philosophers, and their texts, etc. Plotinus' regard for the philosophers of India and Persia may well stem from a recognition of a possible flow of religious-philosophic innovation westward?
	Sixthly, it may well be that increased East-West trade itself, alone, sparked off this change of philosophical state. The widespread use of Gnostic imagery in religious texts, Graeco-Roman influence in religious figure sculpture in north-west India, the quick uptake of religious figure sculpture generally, oriental cults in the Roman Empire all indicate that the world was not strictly compartmentalized into watertight cultural zones. Perhaps increased trade itself created the necessary effective economic surplus that led to the increased support and patronage of religious institutions which as centers of learning assisted this change of state. It is interesting to note in this regard that it is generally recognized that the Mahayana itself was probably first developed in the south of India along the western coast and it may well be that some of the silver of the Roman Empire indirectly paid for its development? Another very early center for the development of Mahayanic thought being situated in the region of Gandhara (and Afghanistan) which, through its Graeco-Roman history and influence, reinforces this point.
	Seventhly, an adequate model of religious change must be proposed to account for the passing on, induction of and/or the catalyst of religious innovation. As indicated in this thesis increasing educational standards are reflected in a society's general level of self-reflection and that increased critical cognitivity often seems, upon reaching a certain critical level in educational developments, to unleash a reformational type mentality, etc. This is then followed in turn by a tendency to restore the sense of the affective, or the emotional, through devotional means, e.g., an aspect of the psyche that would have been subjected to intense disvaluation in the previous phase.
	Eighthly, it would seem safe to recognize that there has always seemed to exist between the European World and the Indian World a general isomorphism in mythic structures, religious functions, etc. founded upon the similar grammatical nature of the Indo-European Languages, similar social structures and the persistence of economic routes and the transfer of information, ideas and innovations concomitant with the same.
	Ninthly, once a case for philosophical reciprocity has been established between these two spheres of influence I believe the same could be subjected to the following test. Assuming the same type of trade between Europe and India was also conducted with China then we would expect essential facets of the former to repeat themselves in the relationships between Europe and China, and, India and China, respectively. As one instance of this I perceive the transmission of Mahayanic Buddhism to China, along with its ideas of absolute philosophy, to most likely mirror the same type of relationship as that had between Europe and India. The successfulness of this process would probably also reflect the fact that the same essential pre-conditions were also being developed in Chinese religious philosophy and culture (and this might be verified in early Taoist studies and the nature of the substantial interaction between this tradition and the overall Buddhist Tradition).
	As a tenth and last point I would like to add the observation that in the developmental evolution of living structures, and no doubt institutions as well, there are periods in their development when minor imputs contribute to considerable changes of state with catastrophic-like consequences either for those structures or those around them. In the advent of absolute philosophy with the gradual surfacing and resurfacing of the background consequences and implications of such a positional orientation those final crucial innovative developments that took place prior to the full exhibition of an absolute philosophy, although minor in themselves, would have contributed to considerable changes in the parent religious culture and those cultures around them. Indeed, this moment in time saw many religious innovations, e.g. the advent of figure sculpture, devotional-orientated practices, etc. that in themselves are witness to these trends and the origins of those trends?

	My general solution to this controversy would therefore be complex. I would argue that the necessary pre-conditions for the development of the emphasis on negative theology can be found in both traditions. Then, I would argue that there is however, in this period of time, a potential difference between these two worlds in favour of the Indian, a difference supported by the increasing size of the Buddhist monastic organizations. Next, I would argue that through increased patronage, the result of increased East-West trade, this transition to an absolute-orientated style of philosophy would inevitably accelerate. Lastly, that any form of influence would in the final account be two-way and of such a nature to need no direct transmission of philosophies, philosophers and/or their texts, etc. That this intellectual type of interaction probably took place in much of what we know as the Old World throughout pre-recorded and recorded history.
	Therefore I believe that in the philosophy of Plotinus we should perceive, and we will find, a receptivity to elements of the latest developments in philosophy at that time, developments that took place in an intellectual atmosphere that encompassed both the Graeco-Roman world and the Indian and Chinese spheres of influence? Likewise in the Perfection of Wisdom literature we should recognize a similar mentality of an equal openness to the latest state of art developments in philosophy at that time that in turn, in its own way, reflects this period of relatively more intense East-West interaction.

	The overall objective of this thesis was the attempt to exhibit the close isomorphic structure and function of these two traditions, not to speculate on the possible historical implications or consequences of such a coincidence or equivalence. Letting our investigations take a phenomenalistic-like interest in deeper essential structures and their experiential-functional practices and consequences it was found that both philosophies were stratificationally structured by negative theological processes. Such levels of qualification made for a very complex philosophy of a type that necessitates caution in examination of these interrelated strata. The general nature of an absolute philosophy was found to be critical, systematic and transcendental in scope. The sense of the absolute was seen as non-dualistic, non-pluralistic, transpersonal and yet treated as a source of religious experience of a personal and devotional nature. Such a religious philosophy reinterprets traditional positive theological material in the light of such an absolute position using language to indicate, analogically encircle and negational devices to qualify what it perceives to be the unified pre-conditional and pre-causal grounds of the world of experience. Through experiences of a numinous-like nature the absolute is perceived to be a religious reality, i.e. the religious reality of the Absolute. This Absolute in both traditions is given many names none of which can either capture the essence of the absolute or correctly point to it or describe it. As a mystery it is given a face through the hierarchy of beings both systems find themselves being richly endowed with, but which in the final analysis must be put aside in that isolated flight or descent to the Absolute both traditions optimistically regard as open to us. Here, it appears, we are presented with a vision of reality that also restores a reality to a world of the relative even though such a vision of the relative is also perceived to be an illusion, like a reflection or a dream, from the transcendental viewpoint of the Absolute!
	I started this thesis with the observation that between these two traditions metaphors of illusions appeared to play an important part in the formulation of their philosophic-religious philosophies. To some extent we have gone a full circle and can now find ourselves in a position to better appreciate the significance of such a metaphorical comparison. 
	From a structural point of view it would appear we are invited to extract an analogical feature, indicated by the context of the metaphor, and apply it to our everyday vision of reality. As a result this everyday naïve vision of reality we initially hold to be real is subjected to a suspension of belief. Under such a suspension the phenomenal-essential features of such a state of affairs are better delineated before the critical-cognitive powers of the mind whilst, at the same time, all belief structures associated with this essential description are for the moment made inoperative, i.e. attitudes or judgments of ontological, epistemological, aesthetic, ethical and pragmatic value are either postponed or put to the side. However, development of an absolutist-orientated position necessitates that we treat in the same manner these essential-descriptions themselves extracted from such suspension or bracketing. Thus in turn this plurality of universalistic-structures is treated as a spectrum of illusory-like fictions when viewed from the unified transcendental position or ground of the absolute. Thus the sense of the absolute is, as a consequence, fundamentally pre-essential, pre-logical and pre-phenomenal in scope although the very derivation of the meaningfulness of such a concept the absolute cannot escape some form of discursive-intellectual discrimination and thematization if by the very fact alone that the negative theological process itself is parasitic upon the ongoing presence of positive theological material. Treatment of this concept of a unified ground in a religious mode, from a personalistic perspective, allows the religious person in this type of philosophy to view the absolute, in devotionally orientated terms of reference, as the Absolute. Then taking the implications of an absolute philosophy to their ultimate conclusion ensures that the vision of the sense of the absolute is itself treated as an illusion and that an identity between the senses of the Relative and the Absolute must be recognized and realized. Thus in this manner we allow ourselves to come full circle but with an important difference to the effect that we have, in the mean time, subjected ourselves to various processes of religious transformation through the fact that these various stages of double-like negation do not return us to that place where we exactly started from. At the same time we are also made to feel that the sense of the illusion is not absolutely unreal just as, in the opposite extreme, no vision of final reality is allowed to masquerade as absolutely real, i.e. if such reality is perceived to be static and powerless. 
	The metaphors of illusion utilized in the exercise of this practice of illusionism in conjunction with the negative theological processes at work behind the scenes are seen to conspire to give us an insightfulness into the nature of the numinous and the nature of the relationship between absolute and relative, and the nature of the religious relationship between Absolute and Relative. Explicitly or implicitly this type of philosophy tries to follow the illusion of the illusion to its final resting place, that realization that sees the sacralization of the profane and the profane as a doorway to the clear light of the Divine or Numinous.
	In the light of this dialectical complexity in operation behind these allusions to illusion we might now be better able to appreciate the spiritual implications intended behind such processes that are meant to involve our meditative powers of reflection and our re-emergence in this world as harmonious extensions of this sense of the Absolute. Through such re-orientation we are invited, through a variety of textual formulations, to realize that our freedom and enlightenment follows, quite naturally, from the skillful exercise of our existence appropriate to the nature of our position in this world and that this perfect wisdom is by right our true birthright. Perhaps the following quotations can better sketch out for us the essential stages on this dialectical pathway....?

Just so the Tathagata has taught that all dharmas are like a dream. All those who do not wisely know all dharmas as they really are, i.e. as like a dream, as the Tathagata has pointed out, they adhere to the Tathagatas through their name-body and form-body, and in consequence they imagine the Tathagatas come and go. Those who in their ignorance of the true nature of dharmas imagine a coming and going of the Tathagatas, they are foolish common people, at all times they belong to birth-and-death with its six places of rebirth, and they are far from the perfection of wisdom, far away from the dharmas of a Buddha. On the contrary, however, those who know as they really are all dharmas as like a dream, in agreement with the teachings of the Tathagata, they do not imagine the coming and going of any dharma, nor its production nor its stopping. They wisely know the Tathagata in his true nature, and they do not imagine a coming or going of the Tathagatas. And those who wisely know this true nature of a Tathagata, they course near to full enlightenment and they course in the perfection of wisdom. These disciples of the Lord do not consume their alms fruitlessly, and they are worthy of the world's gifts. 

	In comparison let us carefully attend to the following quotation from Plotinus.

	Our being is the fuller for turning Thither; this is our prosperity.... all living apart from Him, is but a shadow, a mimicry. Life in the Supreme is the native activity of Intellect; in virtue of that converse it brings forth gods, brings forth beauty, brings forth righteousness, brings forth all moral good; for of all these the soul is pregnant when it has been filled with God....
	Things here are signs; they show therefore to the wiser teachers how the supreme God is known; the instructed priest reading the sign may enter the holy place and make real the vision of the inaccessible....
	There is thus a converse in virtue of which the essential man outgrows Being, becomes identical with the Transcendent of Being. The self thus lifted, we are in the likeness of the Supreme: if from that heightened self we pass still higher - image to archetype - we have won the Term of all our journeying. Fallen back again we awaken the virtue within until we know ourselves all order once more; once more we are lightened of the burden and move by virtue towards Intellectual-Principle and through the Wisdom in That to the Supreme.
	This is the life of gods and of the godlike and blessed among men, liberation from the alien that besets us here, a life taking no pleasure in the things of the earth, the passing of the solitary to the solitary.

Epilogue

	In this overview of the apparent isomorphism between the contemporaneous Neoplatonic and Buddhist Wisdom Traditions I believe I have shown that both systems appear to exhibit a strong degree of deep structural and functional coincidence or equivalence. On superficial textual grounds it would appear that we cannot demonstrate some definative form of direct interaction between these two philosophies that could lead to a positive indication that they borrowed from one another? On the other hand the rapid simultaneous uptake of identical innovations in this regard effected by both traditions might well indicate a more closely linked intellectual world between the Mediterranean Basin and the Indian Subcontinent hitherto not explicitly recognized. It may well be that as both traditions have the same preconditional ground for the development of an absolute philosophy that they would be empathetically more susceptible to this mutual transfer of information. Such a process would find itself being reinforced if the same was packaged with the powerful influences of relevant and associated artistic-iconographic innovations, a religious process that appears to have been increasingly aimed at the individual in the urban-orientated trade-dependent imperial environment(s) of those times and no doubt assisted through an inter-change of traders, travellers, missionaries, monks, scholars, philosophers, priests, anchorites, magi, actors, minstrels, musicians, artists, artisans, ambassadors, soldiers, sailors, migrants, refugees, tribal populations, etc. that we read about as having travelled about in this period of time. That any particular tradition could be silent and maintain its purity of presence amid the clamour of everyday existence without entertaining some form of intellectual interest or curiousity about other cultures and their traditions I find to be most improbable and quite counter to textual evidence. Without doubt the fate of interesting ideas, whether they be ancient or novel, is one like a currency that is taken in, melted down, restruck and reissued, with little regard as to the original source of that metal, in such a way as to reflect the fashions, ambitions, needs and the political realities of that particular period in time.