The Cause of the Descent of the Soul
Or, that there is no first cause of Soul’s descent. The alpha principle behind Emanationism
Copyright 2-2008 webmaster kathodos.com

Plotinus, the greatest metaphysician who has ever lived, upon whose shoulders us very few have seen further still.

     The most ancient and unsolved mystery of the cause, impetus, reasoning, logic behind the soul’s descent is something unsolved by all save Platonism and Buddhism/Advaita/Vedanta, and sadly though Buddhism was correct to deem avijja as, so to say, first cause in its descent metaphysics as embodied by Buddhism’s paticcasamuppada plan, its founder lacked the wisdom and foresight to see the necessity of a full metaphysics for his ministries survival and denied outright his followers any elaboration into the metaphysics of same, including the specifics for the soul’s descent. We might include half-truths in the models of heavily veiled metaphors and analogies as found in some ancient systems regarding partially true explanations for the soul’s descent, however these same symbolically drenched religious systems were and are highly counterproductive to a sharp insight into the logical system of the whys and hows of the metaphysical mechanics behind the embodiment of souls. 
     Ignorance is cause of the soul’s descent, as deemed TOLMA in Plotinus [5.1.1] for the reason behind the soul’s necessity of embodiment, also avijja/avidya in Buddhism’s paticcasamuppada plan. Without going into details of avijja specifically which I cover elsewhere, suffice to see avijja is meant the attribute of the Good, the One, the insentient superprinciple behind the Kosmos noetos (noetic, or spiritual cosmos, the immaterial and metaphysical universe under and behind the visible, material cosmos). Causes pertain as coordinate to the principle (of the One) wherein which the attribute is not differentiated from the principle of the Absolute. It cannot be said that the impetus for descent differs between the attribute of the One, or that of privation (tolma/avidya), such that said privation has no Cartesian position as cause for embodiment, and wisdom wherein it is acknowledged, or made self-known (initiatory realization of ones predicament), that a lack of wisdom (of the nature of ones immaterial Selfhood or divinity) is present as the perpetual and continuing impetus for embodiment. The One, the Absolute may be thought of conventionally as point (principle) and line (attribute), both of which together ‘spell’ as it were the One, for the One cannot, does not, may not ‘stay in itself’ (Plotinus, Plato) but radiates its Goodness outwards such that it is in nature, as it is in its activity; to deny same is to deny the One altogether, to negate the very definition of the One. The One carries with it no fault for embodiment, for the One is neither sentient nor being, but rather the principle behind being, suffice to mention that the One cannot be being is dealt with elsewhere by myself; as such ‘God is to blame’ cannot come to pass, for the One is not being, cannot be God. The error of inverse relation or composition as created by Creationists who have wrongly concluded from the truism “as above, so below” (true to Emanationism) therefore necessitates that beings here are a lesser manifestation of superbeing there (i.e. God), therefore the Absolute must be God. This same super-error is dealt with not only by Platonism, but by Vedanta as well. 
     It is impossible to contradict the very system of Emanationism by separating the One in its principle and the activity of the One; such would be establishing a contradiction to the system itself. As Plotinus himself would point out [4.8.6] the absolute and utter necessity besides unity (of the One) must be present, for if not, the One would not be the One, and the One would be halted in and to itself, an unbroken whole without attribute; but of course it cannot happen that even the Good, the One, may be devoid of an attribute, for what the One is in its physis (nature) is also that which it is in its activity, or attribute (nous, willing, illumination [to objectivity as yet unmanifest]). Discerning, as men have tried to do thru time immemorial, assign or find blame for the soul’s embodiment is a dog chasing its tail, an exercise in capital futility; for there is neither locus nor personal blame for the soul’s descent, no ‘original sin’ common to Creationism. Monism/Emanationism’s absolute simplicity is only bested by its absolutely choate, logical and intelligent philosophical mechanics, for Emanationism would be a truism to Occham’s razor; nothing more simple can or could be devised. 
     Necessity of Emanationism, or its equivalency, the soul’s descent as such must be seen in wisdom’s light of the nature and mechanics of the Monistic system common to Platonism, Vedanta, to wit what the One is in nature, or principle, cannot, shall not, may not, can never be differentiated from what it is in its activity, or as Plato has said that “to be the Good, means (it) does Good”. There exists nothing in either the material or immaterial cosmos which is lacking in at least one attribute, even That which is most utterly simplex, the One, or the Good (Brahman, the Absolute), just as light cannot be differentiated from what it is in its activity (illumination) nor will/mind from what it is in its activity (willing, mentation). This primordial uncaused ‘cause’ (no real cause) of the principle, will, or nous towards objectification (tolma, a-vijja, a-vidya) in its attribute, undistinguishable from its principle as the Good, has no Cartesian cause which can be pointed to as the source or, as Creationism is so fond of telling, blame for the soul’s descent. 
     As embodiment is manifest, quite literally unfolds as I have coined it, the five M’s, as it were: 1. Monad (the One, Brahman, Hen), 2. Mind (nous, citta, spirit, pneuma, soul), 3. Magnitude (topos), 4. Matter (hyle), 5. Man (On, embodied being, lesser soul), of which 1 & 2, and 3 & 4 are coeternal pairs with  5. Man/Being the union of these pairs, the Monistic Trinity or metaphysical system. The manner by which the nous has become coordinate to and with matter is due to the eidos as present within both formless matter (the byproduct of the emanation process) and the same noetic eidos as present within the nous, but those details are best saved for another discussion. Going into the details of lesser potencies of spirit is reserved for later, what is important to understand, is the means by which embodiment is itself uncaused and without directed blame either to the soul, to the One, or the empirical being, and certainly not to matter which itself does not partake of the One, but which itself is a necessity, a mirage of being as manifest thru the processes of the ones unfolding, or as meant Emanationism specifically and its byproduct, or wake, that being matter.
     Were a man to wander in the parched desert, synonymous with samsara, or empirical becoming life after life, and so perish time and again from a privation of water, something innate and synonymous with the desert itself, what could or would such a man point to as the cause of his miserable perishing? In the analogy of causes, there is no locus to point to in the instance of a privation, that privation has no locus to say “it is there, that is the cause”. The true fool suffers the desert and perishes all the while, not knowing the remedy, the precious water (wisdom, vijja, gnosis) which would free him from his many deaths, surely such a one would shake his fist at his God and find blame therein, or plead forgiveness from same. One cannot, in the metaphysics of Monism, assign cause, blame, or locus to this privation, to this lack of wisdom (Subjectivity as = Self-gnosis) as needed to be freed from this objectification (attribute of the One = self-identity, or embodiment, culmination of the soul’s descent). The One is what it does, and does what it is, to seek or assign blame for the soul’s descent is the insane quest which cannot be fulfilled. The highly intelligent go-around for the Mobius loop of assigning blame for embodiment, was as espoused in earliest Buddhism: “when this is present, that is, when this is not present, that is not”. Who can assign blame, and how can one assign blame to a light, which falls upon and becomes coincident with matter? The manifestation of being, as a finality of the soul’s descent, as equivalent to matters illumination from a light afar shining has no locus which can be so deemed cause. The One must ‘do’ as it is (in principle); to blame either the Absolute or elsewise is a fools errand in futility. The only manner in which embodiment could be removed would be to remove the One itself, a heretical and absurdly untenable proposition. 
    To understand the meaning and nature of this or any privation is to understand the reasoning not only behind embodiment but also the mechanics of the One in its pure abject simplicity. The One cannot be another, or in another way; embodiment is as much a absolute necessity as the One, the Good is necessarily by its attribute and nature, Good. To understand this absolutely simplex truth is to fully grasp with the reigns of wisdom the process and manner by which embodiment cannot be otherwise, nor shame and blame be assigned either to the soul, much less so to the One. This noetic and blissful revelation into the simplicity of the werks of the One is a grand treasure granted to but a small few who have ever lived; I bow before the grace I myself have been given into seeing this unassailable truth into the Absolute, the One, which so few have ever glimpsed. It has been akin to noetically constructing a trillion-piece jigsaw puzzle in my spirit by means of insight, and beholding a unified picture whose magnificence is only glorified all the more so by its heart-stopping simplicity which is unmatched in the material universe.
     The spiritual impotence as present in the embodied, or perpetually objectified spirit (nous, citta) is a blameless attribute of which sages and philosophers have tried to find the locus of since before time itself could or was being made count of; to which nothing can said to be an older spiritual question to be solved, for even those ignorant billions over all time’s past have desired to “know God” in so simultaneously trying to grasp, to know the reason for their pestilent enslavement and embodiment in this frail objective form of life. There is no one, nothing to blame either above or below for embodiment, but the lack of Subjective wisdom (the truth behind ones spiritual divinity) is to blame for the continuance of that very same embodiment. There is however ample cause for the non-Aryan that there is blame for his continued misery that he does not ask (philosophy) of himself for the reasoning behind his becoming, life after life and render this uncaused attribute impotent; but for all those beings, Aryan and non-Aryan alike, there exists neither cause, nor blame, nor a first cause, not a locus, for his very soul’s descent into the world, the cosmos of antinomies, becoming, the fires of time, of which there is an escape, final and everlasting; for if there were not, wisdom’s perfection would be a fruitless endeavor.