अल्विनके पत्रमें प्लॉग्निसके दो सुन्दर अद्धरण थे: “I have been meditating on the writings of Plotinus so like the Gita in his stress on the life of beauty which men live when they have climbed above the life of senses. He speaks of the eternal beauty which makes its lovers beautiful so that they too are worthy of love. “It is for this that souls must run their ultimate and greater race; the prize of all their striving is this, that they be not without portion in the supreme spectacle. Blessed is he whose eyes have seen the blessed Vision, but he who fails in this has verily failed. For a man may fail to win fair body, may fail to win power or office, or a king's thronc, and yet it is not failure. Failure it is, although he should gain all else if a man fail of this ~ for whose winning he ought to reject thrones and principalities of all the earth and sea and sky, if by leaving these behind him and looking beyond them his vision might be converted thither and he should see.' Plotinus gives this account of the ascetic process: Withdraw in thyself and see thyself. And if as yet thou see no beauty in thyself, then do as docs the maker of an image which shall at last be fair; as he strikes off a part and a part planes away, as he makes this smooth and releases that, until he has revealed upon the image its face of beauty. So do thou strip away all excess and make straight all crookedness. Whatsoever is yet prisoned in darkness, labour to release it that it may be bright, and cease not from the fashioning of thine own image, until that day when the glory of virtue as of a god shall flame upon thee and thine eyes shall behold serenity established on her stainless pedestal.'" " मैं प्लॉटिनसके लेखोंका चिन्तन कर रहा हूँ। मनुष्य जब विषयोंसे निवृत्त होते हैं तब जिस सौन्दर्यका अनुभव कर सकते हैं, उस पर गीताके बराबर ही भिसने भी जोर दिया है। शाश्वत सौन्दर्यके बारेमें 'वह कहता है कि अपने सुपासकोंको 'वह सुन्दर बनाता है, जिससे वे भी प्रेमपात्र बनते हैं। आत्माका अतिम और परम पुरुषार्थ अिसीके लिभे होना चाहिये । जिस सारे पुरुषार्थका फल यह है कि वे चरम दर्शनके हकदार बनते हैं। जिन्हें यह दर्शन हो गया है, वे 11 66 १७९
