Dr. Athena is a Fellow at Harvard University’s Center for Hellenic Studies and teaches at the University of Toulouse. She has extensively studied Ancient Greek Philosophy, Epistemology and Consciousness, and has been instrumental in making Hellenic studies practical and applicable in everyday life.

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Dr. Athena Despoina Potari

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 DR. ATHENA DESPOINA POTARI
 shares her insights on Hellenism, the ancient civilization of the
 Mediterranean, the cultural cradle of Western civilization, and the
 birthplace of Western science, politics, democracy, and philosophy.
 Her insights reveal that the Hellenistic tradition is also a spiritual
 tradition of awakening, divine devotion, purification, virtue,
 non-duality, and self-realization that are usually associated with the
 spiritual traditions of the East. She shows us that the East-West
 divide is our illusion.
 </h4>

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 In the Ancient Hellenic language, “El” stands for the Light of Being or
 spiritual Light. As its root-syllable expresses, (H)El-lenism is a
 worldview, a civilization, and a spiritual tradition which centers
 around the ontology and practice of Light. The sciences and philosophy
 are methodical routes towards self-liberation and the realization of
 Light. Focusing on the notions of Eros and universal consciousness,
 Hellenism is, in its very essence, a path of enlightenment.
 

 <h4 class="block-heading">
 Hellenism
 
 </h4>

 
 What most people know about Hellenism is that this ancient civilization,
 born in the heart of the Mediterranean, is the cultural cradle of
 Western civilization. Its heritage is marked by an impressive devotion
 to scientific research and the pioneering commitment to reason or Logos.
 All of the above justify its status as the birthplace of Western
 science, along with politics, democracy, and philosophy.
 

 
 What many people don’t know about Hellenism is that its tradition
 developed over thousands of years in an ongoing co-creative dialogue and
 exchange with the numerous Eastern traditions of the pre-Christian
 world. The Hellenic sages had strong ties with their Egyptian, Persian,
 Babylonian, Hindu, and Buddhist counterparts. For example, Pythagoras
 was educated in the revered esoteric schools of Egypt, where he served
 as a high priest for twenty-two years, then studied next to Persian magi
 in Babylon for another twelve years, before becoming a spiritual teacher
 in Greece and southern Italy.
 

 
 In addition, what is also not widely acknowledged is that Hellenism’s
 core concept of reason (Logos), so highly acclaimed in our modern
 discourses and political societies, has little to do with mind-based
 faculties or discursive abstraction resting upon the use of purely
 rational and linearly logical methods. Reason as Logos, in its original
 sense, refers to the essence or substance of consciousness that
 everything is made of, which permeates the entirety of cosmic creation
 (like the notion of atma).
 

 
 Epistemologically, it is a state of consciousness beyond discursive
 knowledge, where individual experience merges with the all-pervasive
 wisdom of being. Despite its linguistic affinity, Logos is at
 once the defiance, the transcendence as well as the culmination
 of logic. Its essential meaning is most conveniently described as
 universal consciousness revealed to us through and
 as non-dual, unified awareness.
 

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 Reason as Logos, in its original sense, refers to the
 essence or substance of consciousness that everything is made of, which permeates the entirety of cosmic creation (like the
 notion of atma).
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 A few intriguing repercussions follow. First, if Hellenism is the
 cultural and epistemic landmark demarcating the West from the East, then
 we have stumbled upon the very exciting realization that the myth of the
 West-East division is severely undermined once we start delving deeper
 into the root-tradition of the West.
 

 
 A closer study into the precepts and history of Hellenism reveals that
 whatever we think of as the cradle of Western civilization is integrally
 constituted by what we consider as the sine qua non of the East –
 spirituality and the possibility of awakening. The Hellenistic tradition
 is also a fascinating variation of the spiritual teachings of awakening,
 divine devotion, purification, virtue, non-duality and self-realization
 that we find in abundance in the East. With that understanding, the
 East-West divide collapses.
 

 
 Second, since Logos, as the realization of Being or universal
 consciousness, dwells at the heart of science (episteme) and
 philosophy, then the widely held view of philosophy as a rational,
 argumentative, armchair vocation, removed from direct experience,
 appears as an outdated caricature.
 

 
 Therefore, Hellenism is essentially a spiritual tradition like yoga,
 Advaita Vedanta, or any other practice of self-realization. Hellenic
 philosophy, which literally means “the state of falling in love with
 wisdom,” is an intimate, self-transformative, experiential path of
 awakening to the unity of all experience and the experience of that
 unity as the true Self.
 

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 “He who has been instructed thus far in the path of Eros, and
 who has learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when
 he reaches toward the end, he will suddenly come to
 view a nature of wondrous beauty: a nature which is
 everlasting; which is not born nor perishes, which does not grow nor
 decay, which neither waxes nor wanes; a beauty which is not beautiful
 from one point of view and ugly from another, nor sometimes beautiful
 and sometimes not, nor beautiful in relation to this and ugly
 in relation to that, nor beautiful here and ugly there, nor
 beautiful for some and ugly for others. Neither will this beauty appear
 to him in the likeness of a face or hands or any other bodily part; nor
 as any form of speech, or knowledge, or science, nor as existing in any
 other being, such as for example, in an animal, or in earth or in
 heaven, or in any other place; but only it, in itself, by
 itself, eternal singular being, absolute, separate, simple, and
 everlasting, and all other things beautiful (are so because they) in
 some way partake in it, such that when they come- to-be and perish away,
 that neither increases nor diminishes, nor changes and nothing
 happens to it. He who from these beautiful things, ascending in the path
 of true Eros, begins to perceive that beauty is not far from the end.
 This, my dear Socrates … is that life above all others which man should
 live.”
 

 
 That is how Socrates’ teacher, Diotima, a female teacher, priestess, and
 well-known shaman of her time, summarizes the philosophical path – as a
 path of Eros, beauty, and goodness. In Greek, “kalos” means
 both beautiful and benevolent. Divinity, benevolence, and beauty
 coincide as one and the same thing (which is a no-thing) – they are the
 main qualities of Being itself.
 

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 The path of philosophy is a path of Eros and light.

 
 The quest of self-realization is essentially a love affair – a divine
 love affair (erotiki pedagogy). It is a relationship of Eros,
 where Eros means “merging,” and merging implies the dissolution of all
 separation, the vanishing of duality. This process involves an
 ever-increasing expansion of the radius of Eros, until that circle of
 love comes to include and encompass everything. The philosopher is
 patiently trained to be in love with everything, because the
 ultimate intimacy emerging from merging with everything is the
 realization of oneness. Through successive ascensions in the quality of
 Eros experienced, the end goal is reached suddenly, unexpectedly, in a
 lightning strike, and the spiritual seeker reaches “the view of the vast
 sea of beauty (the Good).”
 

 
 No words can really describe this experience: “We are talking about an
 inconceivable, indescribable beauty” (Republic, 509). Socrates’
 description reminds us of the notion of the Tao “that cannot be told,”
 “the nameless” that is “the beginning of heaven and earth.” The
 experience of this view is called “theoria” in Greek, what we
 nowadays call a “theory,” although the meaning is different.
 

 
 Theoria comes from “theon oro,” which means, I see
 (oro) the Divine (theon). Theoria means
 ascending to the view of the Divine, where the veil of ignorance drops
 and the cosmic play is revealed as it is – the miraculous, mysterious,
 ever indescribable play of oneness.
 

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 <h4 class="has-text-align-center block-heading">
 Theoria means ascending to the view of the Divine, where the veil of ignorance drops and the cosmic play is revealed as it is – the miraculous, mysterious, ever
 indescribable play of oneness.
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 Nothing around changes, nothing is gained or lost, nothing happens, but
 this one event, which is really a “non-event,” a perspective, a view, is
 simply revealed.
 

 
 From that view, what I experience as a form of seeing is the stripping
 away of all knowledge, all science, all objects. The very self, its
 sensations, and the objects of its sensations, all dissolve into a “a
 vast ocean” of “singular being” which “always is” and which feels like
 an “ocean of pristine beauty.” This is the view or the experience of
 Being, the Good, Divinity itself.
 

 
 Aristotle refers to Divinity (God or First Principle) as Universal
 Consciousness, which is in a pure state of being aware of being aware of
 itself. It is the pure energy of self-awareness (noesis noiseos) (Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1074Β 20-1075). He also identifies
 it as the prime cause or prime mover – that which perpetually sets
 everything in motion, in existence, in life. And why does “it” do so?
 What is the motivation or end goal behind Divinity’s activity as a prime
 mover setting into motion, thereby manifesting, existence?
 

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 Eros is the thread that unites the outward movement of Being with the returning to its source; it is the thread of
 Unity between 
 One and All. It is the energy of universal consciousness.
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 Aristotle’s explanation is at once astonishing and completely mystical:
 The prime mover moves in order to be the beloved, in order to be the
 object of Eros (“os eromenon”). The teleology of consciousness
 is entirely erotic; it manifests the world in order to merge back into
 itself by self-realizing as pure love.
 

 
 The love affair of philosophy, as seeking knowledge, leads the devoted
 lover beyond knowledge, beyond science, beyond subject and object
 duality, to a view of Being as consciousness-aware-of-itself. The end of
 Eros is the view of and the merging within the vastness of Being. But
 then the end goal of Being manifesting itself is also Eros; the divine
 self-Eros of Divinity. Does the philosopher substantiate the teleology
 of cosmic manifestation? Is our urge for merging with oneness an
 expression of oneness’ urge for merging with – or returning to – itself?
 Or is perhaps our Eros for Being, Being’s Eros for itself, since we and
 it are one? Eros is the thread that unites the outward movement of Being
 with the returning to its source; it is the thread of Unity between One
 and All. It is the energy of universal consciousness.
 

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 This excerpt is printed with permission from the author. First
 published on April 21, 2021 at
 https://www.embodiedphilosophy.com/the-light-of-hellenism/.
 

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 Illustrations by JASMEE MUDGAL
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Dr. Athena Despoina Potari

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