“Now, no one goes willingly toward the bad or what he believes to be bad; neither is it in human nature, so it seems, to want to go toward what one believes to be bad instead of to the good. And when he is forced to choose between one of two bad things, no one will choose the greater if he is able to choose the lesser.” Plato, Protagoras 358d

Each “level” of the human soul has its own Good. The Good of the lower soul is Pleasure, and the evil of the lower soul is Pain. The Good of the middle soul is Power, and the evil of the middle soul is Weakness. But the Good of the higher soul is Wisdom which culminates in union with the real Good of all reality.

Therefore, you will always pursue the Good corresponding to the level of soul you are most identified with. As you continue to walk the lantern lit path of wisdom, your Good will change as your soul elevates towards the divine realm.

For [animals], it is enough merely to eat, drink, take rest and procreate, and perform such other functions as are appropriate to each, whereas for ourselves, who have been further endowed with the faculty of understanding, that is no longer enough, but unless we act in a methodical and orderly fashion, and in accordance with our own specific nature and constitution, we shall no longer attain our proper end. For in so far as beings have different constitutions, their works and their ends will differ too. So where a being's constitution is adapted for use alone, mere use suffices; but where a being also has the capacity to understand that use, unless that capacity be properly exercised in addition, he will never attain his end. What of the animals? God has constituted each according to its intended purpose, one to be eaten, another to be used in the fields, another to produce cheese, and another for some comparable use; and to be able to perform these functions, how is it necessary for them to be able to understand impressions and be capable of distinguishing between them? But God has brought the human race into the world to be a spectator of himself and of his works, and not merely to observe them, but also to interpret them. It is thus shameful for a human being to begin and end where the irrational animals do. Rather, he should start off where they do and end where nature ended with regard to ourselves. Now it ended with contemplation, and understanding, and a way of life that is in harmony with nature. Take care, then, that you don't die without having contemplated these realities.

Epictetus, Discourses 1.6

Plotinus’s opposition to Gnostic violation of the cosmic hierarchy, both with respect to theodicy and the administration of providence, is directly incumbent on the issue of soteriology, to which he immediately turns: “Then, another point, what piety is there in denying that providence extends to this world and to anything and everything? And how are they consistent with themselves in this denial? For they say that God does care providentially for them, and them alone.” For Plotinus, this view is philosophically unpalatable because it violates the modulated hierarchy of beings: the Gnostics do not know their place. They exalt themselves, set themselves separately above Intellect, claim to be “sons of God”—but on the contrary, providence extends not to separate parts (individual, special humans) but unified wholes (all of humanity). Second, this leads them to reject “the beings received from tradition (ἐκ πατέρων).” For Plotinus, Hellenic tradition emphasizes the unity of the cosmos with all of humanity; he wishes to defend the traditional, civic Greek cult, which is precluded by these exclusive claims to salvation. Third, such claims presume an incoherent psychology, making an unsupportable distinction between “true,” elect souls and false, “reflections” (εἴδωλα)” of souls, the non-elect. In contrast, Plotinian salvation is universally accessible to all those who imbibe Hellenic learning (παιδεία). As noted by Arthur Hilary Armstrong, Plotinus’s criticism may have particular Gnostics in mind, but it extends to “all those who make the characteristic claim of Abrahamic religion to be the elect, the people of God, with a particular and exclusive revelation from him which causes them to reject the traditional pieties.”

Finally, Plotinus moves from physics to ethics. At first glance, it is tempting to differentiate the Gnostics of 2.9 [33] from (proto)-orthodox Christians on the basis of Plotinus’s accusations of moral libertinism and general lack of interest in ethical philosophy. However, his account of Gnostic libertinism is no more valid than the lurid denoscriptions, probably false, of a Clement or Epiphanius. Rather, his opponents’ rejection of the civic cult is tantamount in his mind to atheism. Together with the doctrine of elect soteriology (mutually exclusive with his view on providence), it thus merits a tarring with the brush of Epicureanism. Moreover, he says that they do not compose treatises on virtue. This indifference to ethical matters puts them out of order with the hierarchy yet again, this time not with the hierarchy of the cosmos but with a philosophical approach to it: virtue precedes and even reveals God, not the other way around.

Much as the debate over the composition of the World-Soul and its demiurgic activity presumed a rejection of Gnostic temporality and narrative imagery, these arguments over theodicy, soteriology, and ethics presume that the Gnostics failed to ascertain the proper location of divinity, its transmission, and how people show evidence of interaction with it. Multiplying needless intermediary entities, the Gnostics reject the entities that are actually necessary for the dissemination of providence (the stars), asserting that they have a special access to God via theophanies that exist outside the proper order of the universe. The ramifications of this axiom of divine theophany extend to a criminal soteriology, empty ethics, and, ultimately, pedagogy antithetical to the philosophical enterprise and its Hellenic heritage.

— Dylan M. Burns, Apocalypse of the Alien God

Diversão, putas e pinga, são como iguarias deliciosas;
Embora pairando como amigas, ainda o deixaram sozinho.
Agora mesmo, na verdadeira naturalidade sem separatividade,
Floresce, confinada na prisão da existência natural.

Longchenpa

Para Bhairava State

“Nas tradições iniciáticas, há deuses e deusas que representam e inspiram a Loucura divina. Eles desafiam nossas visões de bom senso da realidade e normas de conduta. Em suas tentativas de ensinar verdades espirituais, chocam os limites cognitivos, desorganizam e sacodem as sensibilidades morais com radical excentricidade, artimanha e excesso. Essa desordem e a subsequente dissolução das fronteiras mentalmente definidas podem converter-se numa porta de entrada a uma ordem divina de maior relevância para a real transformação.”

- Georg Feuerstein

Asceticism often brings to mind very extreme images, but we can get an accurate sense of the real meaning of asceticism by looking at the etymology of the word.

The word “ascetic” ultimately derives from the ancient Greek word “askein,” which means “to train for athletic competition.”

Therefore, genuine asceticism is spiritual exercise, with the aim of gaining mastery over your impulses and appetites. Just as you lift weights to become stronger and healthier, you should practice asceticism to strengthen your soul.

Asceticism does not need to be (and shouldn’t be) extreme. It can be as simple as abstaining from pornography, eating only enough food to be healthy and no more, and the like. Of course, you know your own vices best and should find ascetic practices that aid you in your most problematic areas.

How to overcome bad habits and characteristics

1. Sincerely wish that you will be happy, fulfill your highest purpose, and live in tranquility. Sincerely wish to be beautiful before God. Commit to obtain the purity that lies within you and that comes from divinity.

2. Imitate great men, such as Socrates, or any others you know. Remember how they behaved in difficult situations.

3. When anything happens - a temptation or a problematic situation or anything else - call on the aid and support of God. (By the way, it is perfectly correct to use singular God within the context of polytheism. Of course you can call upon a specific God too.)

4. Tell your thoughts and feelings to wait a moment, so that you can see what they’re all about. Tell them you don’t want to be swept away by their speed and momentum. When they ask you to start imagining all sorts of things that might happen, say no and instead think of something beautiful and noble.

5. Offer a sacrifice and prayer. To whatever extent you committed a wrong, gave into temptation, etc., acknowledge that in your sacrifice and prayer.

6. Consciously note every day that goes by since you were last defeated by your problem. “The last time I lost my temper was yesterday.” “The last time I was overcome by lust was three days ago.” Enjoy your victory each time.

7. If you defeat your problem for thirty days in a row, offer a sacrifice to God.

Source: Epictetus, Discourses 2.18

If you choose to take on an ascetic practice, you can use this guide as a tool along the way.

"Todo panteão, como o dos gregos, supõe deuses múltiplos; cada um tem suas funções próprias, seus domínios reservados, seus modos particulares de ação, seus tipos específicos de poder. Esses deuses que, em suas relações mútuas, compõem uma sociedade do além hierarquizada, na qual as competências e os privilégios são alvo de uma repartição bastante estrita, limitam-se necessariamente uns aos outros, ao mesmo tempo que se completam. Tal como a unicidade, o divino, no politeísmo, não implica, como para nós, a onipotência, a onisciência, a infinidade, o absoluto.

Esses deuses múltiplos estão no mundo e dele fazem parte. Não o criaram por um ato que, no caso do deus único, marca a completa transcendência deste em relação a uma obra cuja existência deriva e depende inteiramente dele. Os deuses nasceram do mundo. A geração daqueles aos quais os gregos prestam um culto, os olimpianos, veio à luz ao mesmo tempo que o universo, diferenciando-se e ordenando-se, assumia sua forma definitiva de cosmos organizado. Esse processo de gênese operou-se a partir de Potências primordiais, como Vazio (Cháos) e Terra (Gala), das quais saíram, ao mesmo tempo e pelo mesmo movimento, o mundo, tal como os humanos que habitam uma parte dele podem contemplá-lo, e os deuses, que a ele presidem invisíveis em sua morada celeste.

Há, portanto, algo de divino no mundo e algo de mundano nas divindades. Assim, o culto não pode visar a um ser radicalmente extramundano, cuja forma de existência não tenha relação com nada que seja de ordem natural, no universo físico, na vida humana, na existência social.

Em sua presença num cosmos repleto de deuses, o homem grego não separa, como se fossem dois domínios opostos, o natural e o sobrenatural. Estes permanecem intrinsecamente ligados um ao outro."

Jean Pierre Vernant

"O politeísmo grego não repousa sobre uma revelação; não há nada que fundamente, a partir do divino e por ele, sua inescapável verdade; a adesão baseiase no uso: os costumes humanos ancestrais, os nómoi. Tanto quanto a língua, o modo de vida, as maneiras à mesa, a vestimenta, o sustento, o estilo de comportamento nos âmbitos privado e público, o culto não precisa de outra justificação além de sua própria existência: desde que passou a ser praticado, provou ser necessário. Ele exprime o modo pelo qual os gregos regulamentaram, desde sempre, suas relações com o além. Afastar-se disso significaria já não ser completamente si mesmo, como ocorreria a alguém que esquecesse de seu idioma."

Jean Pierre Vernant

"Os deuses gregos não são pessoas mas Potências. O culto os honra em razão da extrema superioridade do estatuto deles. Embora pertençam ao mesmo mundo que os humanos e, de certa forma, tenham a mesma origem, eles constituem uma raça que, ignorando todas as deficiências que marcam as criaturas mortais com o selo da negatividade - fraqueza, fadiga, sofrimento, doença, morte -, encarna não o absoluto ou o infinito mas a plenitude dos valores que importam na existência nesta terra: beleza, força, juventude constante, permanente irrupção da vida."

Jean Pierre Vernant

"Não que se trate de uma religião da natureza e que os deuses gregos sejam personificações de forças ou de fenômenos naturais. Eles não são nada disso. O raio, a tempestade, os altos cumes não são Zeus, mas de Zeus. Um Zeus muito além deles, visto que os engloba no seio de uma Potência que se estende a realidades, não mais físicas mas psicológicas, éticas ou institucionais. O que faz de uma Potência uma divindade é o fato de que, sob sua autoridade, ela reúne uma pluralidade de "efeitos", para nós completamente díspares, mas que o grego relaciona entre si porque vê neles a expressão de um mesmo poder exercendo-se nos mais diversos domínios. Se o raio ou as alturas são de Zeus, é que o deus se manifesta no conjunto do universo por tudo o que traz a marca de uma eminente superioridade, de uma supremacia. Zeus não é força natural; ele é rei, detentor e senhor da soberania em todos os aspectos que ela pode revestir."

Jean Pierre Vernant

“O son, how many bodies have we to pass through, how many bands of demons, through how many series of repetitions and cycles of the stars, before we hasten to the One alone?”

Hermes Trismegistus

“Extended practice of prayer nurtures our intellect, enlarges very greatly our soul’s receptivity to the gods, reveals to men the life of the gods, accustoms their eyes to the brightness of divine light, and gradually brings to perfection the capacity of our facilities for contact with the gods, until it leads us up to the highest level of consciousness … and, in a word, it renders those who employ prayers, if we may express it, the familiar consorts of the gods.”

Iamblichus

“But when a man prays to a heavenly body, some influence comes from it upon him or upon another person. But the sun, or another heavenly body, does not hear his prayers. And that which he prays for comes about because one part is in sympathetic connection with another, just as in one tense string; for if the string is plucked at the lower end, it has a vibration at the upper.”

Plotinus

“First that they exist, secondly that they concern themselves with the things of this world, and further that they do no injury at all either to mankind or to one another, out of jealousy or envy or enmity.”

Flavius Claudius Iulianus Augustus

"The soul, being eternal, after death is like a caged bird that has been released. If it has been a long time in the body, and has become tame by many affairs and long habit, the soul will immediately take another body and once again become involved in the troubles of the world. The worst thing about old age is that the soul's memory of the other world grows dim, while at the same time its attachment to things of this world becomes so strong that the soul tends to retain the form that it had in the body. But that soul which remains only a short time within a body, until liberated by the higher powers, quickly recovers its fire and goes on to higher things."

Plutarch

"Como soberano, Zeus encarna, diante da totalidade dos outros deuses, a maior força, o poder supremo: Zeus de um lado, todos os olimpianos reunidos do outro, é ainda Zeus que prevalece. Diante de Cronos e dos deuses Titãs em liga contra ele para disputar o trono, Zeus representa a justiça, a exata repartição das honrarias e das funções, o respeito aos privilégios de que cada um pode se prevalecer, a preocupação com aquilo que é devido mesmo aos mais fracos. Nele e por ele, em sua realeza, a potência e a ordem, a violência e o direito, reconciliados, conjugam-se."

Jean Pierre Vernant

Hail, many-named Mother of the Gods, whose children are fair
Hail, mighty Hekate of the Threshold
And hail to you also Forefather Janus, Imperishable Zeus
Hail to you Zeus most high.
Shape the course of my life with luminous Light
And make it laden with good things,
Drive sickness and evil from my limbs.
And when my soul rages about worldly things,
Deliver me purified by your soul-stirring rituals.
Yes, lend me your hand I pray
And reveal to me the pathways of divine guidance that I long for,
Then shall I gaze upon that precious Light
Whence I can flee the evil of our dark origin.
Yes, lend me your hand I pray,
And when I am weary bring me to the haven of piety with your winds.
Hail, many-named mother of the Gods, whose children are fair
Hail, mighty Hekate of the Threshold
And hail to you also Forefather Janus, Imperishable Zeus,
Hail to you Zeus most high.

"(Zeus é) pai dos deuses e dos homens, como já o designa a Ilíada - não porque tenha gerado ou criado todos os seres, mas porque exerce sobre cada um deles uma autoridade tão absoluta quanto a do chefe de família sobre sua gente."

Jean Pierre Vernant