What Is Tradition: The Ternary

In Neoplatonism there is a Hypostasis, which is considered the underlying reality of all things.  That underlying reality or “structure” of all things is what I often refer to as “tradition” in its most transcendent sense void of all contrivances that time and the process of world solidification/embodiment put upon it.

For Plotinus this hypostasis was made up of three principles.  There was the One, The Nous, and the World Soul in that order.  The following sequence of numbers called the Fibonacci sequence is the numeric representation of the ”emanation” or the unfolding process of all existence from the One down to the material world.  This series is symbolically represented even in the physical manifestation of things like flowers, plants, and even people.  The further into the process (via time and space) we get, the further away we move from meaning, divine form, and truth.  At the end stages of this process of becoming the most dark and ghastly forms and ideas begin to emerge.  Ideas that are false representations of ideal or archetypal forms existing in the world that is untouched by time and space.  The Fibonacci Series: 

For this post, I only want to talk about the first three numbers and how they are essentially found at the heart of all things, living and merely inert.  God’s eternal self-reflection is found in this initial ternary:

This ternary can never be reduced.  Contained within it, if you can read it intuitively, is “I AM”, but also “I AM FOREVER”.  It is within these three numbers that the primordial differentiation takes place, a differentiation that is beyond both time, space, and causality-a differentiation without beginning or end.  It is through this differentiation alone that the manifestation of unique forms and identities emerge into an actualized state.  Without this initial differentiation from the chasm of nothingness (the Deus Absconditus) everything would exist in an impersonal state, a mere blob of meaningless oneness represented by “0″.  While many people suffering from a modern mindset will arrogantly criticize phrases like,

“…And there was darkness over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.”

It is only because they do not understand what they are reading or what this verse is actually describing.  It must be kept in mind that numbers and holy scriptures are themselves only a symbol of the divine and not the divine itself.  The modern evangelical movement is a perfect example of a misunderstanding of the divine.  By pulling what is sacred “down to earth” they effectively ”literalize” and politicize it by pulling it away from that archetypal or idyllic form, which exists in a purer expression of this world, mainly the archangelic world of the Seraph.  Their religious authority, like all religious authorities of this age, are ultimately meaningless.  God has sadly become a mere paper idol void of spirit. 

All numbers (i.e. people, places, ideas, and etc.) that proceed outward from this ternary are eternally distinct from that ternary even though it remains hidden deep within every person and in fact upholds their lives both in the physical domain and in the divine world.  In this regard, each human being, Seraph, and all forms of life in general become mirrors through which the Ternary or the “personhood” of God beholds itself.   Existence beyond time and space is expansive, the beings in that world even though they retain their individualities, they possess within themselves the individualities of everyone else.  Life in ”heaven” particularly the levels closest to “The ONE” possess an empathy that defies all possible explanation.  It is a thing of pure ineffable beauty.  

To describe all of this philosophically:

The ONE was:  The unconditioned and unknowable absolute that is beyond all conception and knowledge, the Deus Absconditus.  It is the source or even “void” from which all things emerge into physicality. Even a mere intellectual brush with the ONE causes you to see the smallness of “infinity” as it is reduced to a mere intellectual concept.

The Nous was: The first assumption and eternal expression of the ONE.  The Nous is the manifested mind of the ONE, the source of being itself, yet still ”prior” to being.  It is from the Nous that all things essentially enter from the potentiality of the ONE, to actual existence.  The Nous is often viewed as the pure or clear light, the very centerpiece of every individual personality.  The Nous is also seen as the “Word”, the divine language of which all matter and beings are composed via modulations of light, a continuous and unending modulation of 0 1 01 11 01 01 01 01 01110 1100101001.

The World Soul is:  The totality of creation or the emanated worlds and those beings that make up this infinite tapestry.  The world soul is the Body of the ONE, whereas the Nous is the intellect.  The world soul is the expression of this relationship, the love between the Pater or The One, and the Son which is the Nous.  This Love expresses itself fully in the offspring of the world soul.  The structure of the world soul is Fractal.  The whole exists within every piece.  Thus every human individual is in fact a microcosmic copy of the whole.  Since the physical domain is so isolated today, due to tolma or the process of world solidification, these ideas and forms essentially break off and fall into disrepute.