The result of virtue is similarity to God. But God cannot have virtue in the same sense we do because God is already perfect.

The soul becomes virtuous as it disentangles itself from the control of the body.

Wisdom is freedom from the body in thinking.
Self-control/Temperance is freedom from the body in willing.
Courage is freedom from the fear of death.
Justice is the body in obedience to reason.

"The focus is not on being exempt from moral error, but on being God."

Control is paramount. You should never feel bullied by your "body."

The point is not that body = bad, any more than the working class of a society = bad. You need the working class, and the working class is good - but if the working class bullies the rest of the society into following its various irrational and shortsighted demands, you will have a disastrous society. It is the same with you - your reason must be King.

"Just as a target is not set up in order to be missed, so neither does the nature of evil exist in the world."
Epictetus, The Handbook, 27

Evil is simply the absence of virtue - and virtue is assimilation to God.

I believe that there is one first cause of all things, whose nature is so immensely transcendent, that it is even super-essential; and that in consequence of this it cannot properly either be named or spoken of, or conceived by opinion, or be known, or perceived by any being.

I believe, however, that if it be lawful to give a name to that which is truly ineffable, the appellations of The One and The Good are of all others the most appropriate; the former of these names indicating that it is the principle of all things, and the latter that it is the ultimate object of desire to all things.

I believe that this immense principle produced such things as are first and nearest to itself, most similar to itself; just as the heat immediately proceeding from fire is most similar to the heat in the fire; and the light immediately emanating from the sun, to that which the sun essentially contains. Hence, this principle produces many principles immediately from itself.

I likewise believe that, since all things are distinct from each other and are replicated in multitudes with their proper distinctions, each of these multitudes is suspended from its one proper principle. For example, all beautiful things, whether in souls or in bodies, are suspended from one fountain of beauty. Furthermore, that whatever possesses symmetry, and whatever is true, and all principles, are in a certain respect born with the first principle, insofar as they are principles, with an appropriate subjection and likeness to it...

Thomas Taylor, The Platonic Philosophers' Creed, 1 - 4, moderately paraphrased

1. Alcibiades I
2. Gorgias
3. Phaedo
4. Cratylus
5. Theaetetus
6. Sophist
7. Statesman
8. Phaedrus
9. Symposium
10. Philebus
11. Timaeus
12. Parmenides

This is the classical curriculum of Plato's dialogues (in that order). You'll notice there are conveniently 12 of them, and none of them are particularly long (average length is about 58 pages). You can easily find free translations of them online.

It is an oracle of Necessity, an ancient decree of the gods,
Eternal and securely sealed with broad oaths,
That when one has sinfully polluted his hands with blood -
One of the daimones to whom long life has been allotted -
For thrice ten thousand seasons he wanders far from the abodes of the blessed.
In time he assumes all the various forms of mortal things
And exchanges one hard path of life for another.
For the power of aither pursues him into the sea,
And the sea spits him on to dry land, and the earth into the beams
Of the blazing sun, and the sun casts him into the whirling aither.
Each in turn receives him, but to all he is loathsome.
One of these I now am, an exile from the gods, a wanderer,
Putting my trust in the insanities of strife.

Empedocles, fragment 115

The Pythagoreans would break for exercise - some would have foot races, some would wrestle, some would lift weights. Exercise was a part of their daily routine. As esoteric and mystical as this path can seem at times, it's important to remember that this is not the path for couch potatoes or effeminate dreamers!

"The Handbook of Platonism" or Didaskalikos, a classic introduction to the Platonic path by the "Middle Platonist" philosopher, Alcinous.

As for sex, you should stay pure before marriage as far as you can, but if you have to indulge, do only what is lawful. However, do not be angry with those who do indulge, or criticise them, and do not boast of the fact that you do not yourself indulge.

If you are told that someone is saying bad things about you, do not defend yourself against what is said, but answer, ‘Obviously this person is ignorant of my other faults, otherwise they would not have mentioned only these ones.’

Epictetus, The Handbook, 33

The lovers of learning know that when philosophy gets hold of their soul, it is imprisoned in and clinging to the body, and that it is forced to examine other things through it as through a cage and not by itself, and that it wallows in every kind of ignorance. Philosophy sees that the worst feature of this imprisonment is that it is due to desires, so that the prisoner himself is contributing to his own incarceration most of all. As I say, the lovers of learning know that philosophy gets hold of their soul when it is in that state, then gently encourages it and tries to free it by showing them that investigation through the eyes is full of deceit, as is that through the ears and the other senses. Philosophy then persuades the soul to withdraw from the senses in so far as it is not compelled to use them and bids the soul to gather itself together by itself, to trust only itself and whatever reality, existing by itself, the soul by itself understands, and not to consider as true whatever it examines by other means, for this is different in different circumstances and is sensible and visible, whereas what the soul itself sees is intelligible and invisible. The soul of the true philosopher thinks that this deliverance must not be opposed and so keeps away from pleasures and desires and pains as far as he can; he reflects that violent pleasures or pain or passion does not cause merely such evils as one might expect, such as one suffers when one has been sick or extravagant through desire, but the greatest and most extreme evil, though one does not reflect on this. ... The soul of every man, when it feels violent pleasure or pain in connection with some object, inevitably believes at the same time that what causes such feelings must be very clear and very true, which it is not. ... Every pleasure or pain provides, as it were, another nail to rivet the soul to the body and to weld them together. It makes the soul corporeal, so that it believes that truth is what the body says it is. As it shares the beliefs and delights of the body, I think it inevitably comes to share its ways and manner of life and is unable ever to reach Hades in a pure state; it is always full of body when it departs, so that it soon falls back into another body and grows with it as if it had been sewn into it. Because of this, it can have no part in the company of the divine, the pure and uniform.

Plato, Phaedo, 82e - 83e

How angry you would be if someone handed over your body to just any person who happened to meet you! Are you not ashamed, then, when you hand over your mind to just any person you happen to meet, such that when they abuse you, you are upset and troubled?

Epictetus, The Handbook, 28

Socrates: Don't you realize that the errors in our conduct are caused by this kind of ignorance, of thinking that we know when we don't know?
Alcibiades: What do you mean by that?
Socrates: Well, we don't set out to do something unless we think we know what we're doing, right?
Alcibiades: Right.
Socrates: But when people don't think they know how to do something, they hand it over to somebody else, right?
Alcibiades: Of course.
Socrates: So the sort of people who don't think they know how to do things make no mistakes in life, because they leave those things to other people.
Alcibiades: You're right.
Socrates: Well, who are the ones making the mistakes? Surely not the ones who know?
Alcibiades: Of course not.
Socrates: Well, since it's not those who know, and it's not those who don't know and know they don't know, is there anyone left except those who don't know but think they do know?
Alcibiades: No, they're the only ones left.
Socrates: So this is the ignorance that causes bad things; this is the most disgraceful sort of stupidity.
Alcibiades: Yes.
Socrates: And isn't it most harmful and most contemptible when it is ignorance of the most important things?
Alcibiades: Very much so.
Socrates: Well, can you name anything more important than what's just and admirable and good and advantageous?

Plato, First Alcibiades

Just as a small object nearby falsely appears larger than a large object in the distance, so do short term goods (or apparent goods) seem greater than long term goods. But they are not actually greater - they only seem so. Therefore we must train ourselves to judge correctly. Cf. Plato, Protagoras

Your appetites are your “peasant class.” Your will is your “warrior class.” And your reason is your king - you are the “king” of yourself. Be sure to act like it.

People often wonder if there is a Western analog to Eastern meditation.

The answer is yes.

In our tradition, reason is akin to the divine. Therefore, to use reason to meditate on the divine is a spiritual activity. The method for doing this is called Dialectic or Meditation and Socrates is our great example of the meditating philosopher, of the dialectician.

Study the dialogues and you will learn how to use divine reason to move closer to divinity.

Once, having used dialectic, you have meditated, you can then sit in quiet knowing and see. This is Contemplation.

But you must always remember that this is not some self-aggrandizing intellectual game. It is the most serious thing.

Because of the state of modern global politics and society, many people have an understandable desire to find a spiritual path that is rooted in and expresses the spiritual understanding of their own heritage. There is nothing wrong with this. Indeed, one major reason I am not a Hindu is because, though I respect Hinduism and the Indian people tremendously, I can never shake the feeling that it (Hinduism) just is not mine. It is culturally unfamiliar.

However, I want to caution you against some common errors I see people making as a result of this desire.

First, there seems to be a tendency to conflate "universally true" with the Christian and Islamic imperative to convert everyone, as though if a religion is objectively true, and consequently universally true, then it obligates global outreach and proselytization. But one simply does not follow from the other. On the contrary, if something is universally true, then distinct cultures will probably tend to develop their own approaches to that truth which will interpret that reality, or aspects of that reality, in ways more useful to and intuitive for those cultures and peoples. This is what we do see happening throughout history and there is no reason for us to interfere with that process. Furthermore, if you believe that divinity is responsible for the existence of the cosmos, it is plainly incoherent to believe that is not a "universal" truth, since it entails the literal creation of the universe.

Second, I have noticed unhealthy ideas regarding the influence of different cultures and ethnicities. On the "Left" there is sometimes a bizarre need to overemphasize contributions or influences by non-Western peoples, almost as if they believe there is something shameful in having a tradition that is "too European." On the other hand, those on the "Right" can have an irrational aversion to even the slightest outside influence, with the result that they confine themselves to a narrow menu of options, none of which we know much about. But would you discard algebra because it was largely developed by Persians and Arabs and restrict yourself exclusively to the use of Euclidean geometry? That would be manifest nonsense. But the actual fact of the matter is that the Hellenic tradition is overwhelmingly the story - the collective path... - of the West developing its relationship with and beautiful understanding of the Divine. It is a path that will speak to you in terms that seem familiar and intuitive - you will feel like you are doing what you are doing: stepping onto the path of the European Wisdom Tradition.

So, please, do not fall into these common traps. I hope you'll find much that is useful.

Rejecting Platonism because some of its ideas were borrowed (successfully or not) by Christianity would be like rejecting classical music because jazz borrowed some concepts from it and you don’t like jazz.

Surely anyone with any sense at all will always call upon a god before setting out on any venture, whatever its importance.

Plato, Timaeus, 27c

The whole combination of soul and body is called a living thing, or animal, and has the designation ‘mortal’ as well. Such a combination cannot be immortal, not on any reasonable account. In fact it is pure fiction, based neither on observation nor on adequate reasoning, that a god is an immortal living thing which has a body and a soul, and that these are bound together by nature for all time.

Plato, Phaedrus 246c-d

Regular reminder that philosophy is not armchair nerdism. It is the love of wisdom, the pursuit of the divine. If your practice of philosophy does not result in significant lifestyle changes, you aren’t a philosopher, you’re just some guy who likes to sound smart.