Comparative & Continental Philosophy Circle 2015

Prospects for a Tantric Practice of Platonic Love

by Noelle Lopez & Paul Gerstmayr

I. Platonic Love: A Lost Path

In Platos Symposium, Socrates recounts a conversation he once had
with a wise mystic woman named Diotima. Diotima, he says, taught him
about something very valuable: the art of love, a practice by which any
person may come to lead the life most worth living for a human being. In a
nutshell, this practice consists in a three-pronged evolution: first, in the way
a person literally visually sees beauty; second, in the way they cognitively
understand what is beautiful, and third, in the way they desire to possess
beauty for themselves. A person undergoes this evolution by repeatedly
exercising certain techniques: they cognitively reflect on their desires and
beliefs, they create outputs that manifest and propagate their conception of
beauty, and they act virtuously in order to become as divine as humanly
possible. The practice culminates in wisdom. The Platonic lover becomes
able to distinguish particular beauties in the world from true Beauty itself,
with the result that theyre also able to create truthful art and to act truly
virtuously, unconstrained by conventional aesthetic or ethical norms.
Because wisdom is the aim, this art of love is properly characterized as
philosophical. In this paper, we refer to this philosophical art as the practice
of Platonic love.
Plato depicts the philosopher Socrates as the paradigmatic practitioner
of love. Socrates is different from the other symposiasts in both speech and
deed. For one, he suggests that the other symposiasts speeches were
pretty-sounding but untrue: they praised mere conventions and images of
love, beauty, and the good, rather than the truth about these things. Later,
Socrates is crowned as the wisest poet at the symposiumeven over
Aristophanes and Agathon, who were both established Athenian poets of the
time. Socrates also demonstrates bizarre and amazing displays of virtue:
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standing for hours in contemplation, living happily without material comforts,

and courageously serving Athens in battle.
At the end of his speech, Socrates calls the other symposiasts to join
him: I myself honor the art of love and practice it especially, and I exhort
others to do the same, he says (Symposium 212b5-7). Its a call for the
symposiasts to step beyond the speech-giving thats characterized their time
togetherbeyond mere conventional discourse to a transformational,
philosophical way of life. In this paper we ask: what happened to this
philosophical way of life, this practice of Platonic love? And: is there any
hope of reviving it? After considering the practice of Platonic loves fate in
light of early Christian spirituality, we compare it with the path of Tantra in
Asia to help us answer the second question.
II. How We Lost the Path
The practice of Platonic love wasnt lost immediately. Or, more
specifically, fundamentally philosophical practices like that of Platonic love
werent lost immediately. This is evident in the Hellenistic school of Stoicism,
for instance. The Stoic way of life aimed at achieving passionless,
enlightened sagehood akin to the wise Platonic lovers life most worth
living. The Stoics employed familiar techniques: rational reflection on ones
desires and beliefs, Socratic dialogue with oneself and others, repeated
virtuous action. Later, Plotinus the Neo-Platonist also urged a Platonic lovelike philosophical practice: If you do not yet see your own beauty, do as the
sculptor does with a statue which must become beautiful: he removes one
part, scrapes another, makes one area smooth, and cleans the other In the
same way, you too must remove everything that is superfluous, straighten
that which is crooked, and purify all that is dark until you make it brilliant
Never stop sculpting your own statue, until the divine splendor of virtue
shines in you (Ennead 1, 6, 9, 8-26)

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Pierre Hadot has suggested that, although we find philosophical

practice akin to the practice of Platonic love as described above, this
spiritual-practical activity was eventually absorbed into early Christian
spirituality. In fact, influential early Christian writers such as Clement of
Alexandria and Origen not only located philosophical practice within
Christianity; they identified Christianity as the true philosophy. As a result,
non-Christian philosophia such as that manifested in the practice of Platonic
love lost its identity as a practice concerned with holistic spiritual
transformation. Philosophia literally, the love of wisdom became an
abstract-theoretical activity relegated to universities increasingly focused on
specialization and professionalization. We are still experiencing the
implications of this shift. Today academia is ostensibly the path for one
inspired to take up a philosophical practice like Platonic love. Yet, while
academic philosophy has similarities with the practice we find described in
Platos textsit involves cognitive reflection on ones beliefs, dialogue with
self and othersit is dissimilar in significant ways. How often does academic
philosophy demand that its practitioners be present in the world,
encountering its beauties and uglinesses, calling them to use that material
for contemplation? How often does academic philosophy use the study of
texts as, in the words of the classically-inspired French philosopher Simone
Weil, a way to develop the faculty of attention and wait upon truth? (Weil
1957) How often does academic philosophy ask us to go beyond discourse to
the point of transforming our very way of living? Unfortunately, the
predominantly abstract-theoretical nature of contemporary academic
philosophy is incongruent with a genuine, full practice of Platonic love. Its in
confronting this situation that we turn to Tantra as a path for comparison a
path that may help us discern prospects for reviving a holistic practice of
Platonic love.
III. Tantra: A Path for Comparison

Comparative & Continental Philosophy Circle 2015

On the other side of the globe, in India, the term aivism implies a
number of distinct, but historically related systems comprising theology,
ritual, observance, and yoga, which have been propagated as the teachings
of the Hindu deity iva (Sanderson 1988). A aiva is a practitioner of
aivism. This is not necessarily the same as a worshipper of iva. Some
forms of aivism elevate the Goddess (Dev) from her usual role as ivas
consort or inherent power (akti) to a position of transcendence and
superiority.
Tantras are the scriptural revelations of the aiva mainstream, and
those following their ordinances are consequently termed tntrikas. The
basic meaning of Tantra is system of ritual or essential instruction. In this
special context however, it indicates a distinction between Tantra on the one
hand and scriptural authority derived from the Vedas (ruti) and secondary
textual traditions with Vedic claims (smti) on the other. ruti and smti
together prescribe the rites, duties, and beliefs that constitute the basic
order and soteriology of Hindu society. From the tntrikas point of view,
Tantra promised a more powerful soteriology: Tantric initiation (dk) was
held to destroy the rebirth-generating power of the individuals past actions
(karma), and the ritual, as a transformative act, supposedly
consubstantiated the initiand with the deity.
aivas were not the only tntrikas, and the production of Tantric
revelation was not a preserve of the Vedic sphere. Tantric practice flourished
- in different degrees - among Jains, Vaiavas, Sun worshippers, and
Mahyna Buddhists. By the second half of the first millenium CE, vast
bodies of Tantric literature were coming to the fore.
All Tntrikas maintained a similar relationship to their religious
substrate and orthopraxy. Despised by traditionalists for overstepping the
boundaries of the common systems, the Tantric practitioners themselves
integrated the established practices as the outer level of a concentric
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hierarchy of ritual and discipline, with the potential for inner, more esoteric,
transgressive Tantric practices. Some of those rites involved the consumption
of meat, alcohol, and other impure substances, even sexual intercourse and
mixing of caste classes.
Nevertheless, adherents of Tantra should not be misunderstood as
revolutionaries rejecting the hypertrophy of mainstream ritualism for a
liberated cult of ecstasy. Such a view however popular would overlook
the hyper-, if not super-ritualism of Tantric practice. An initiate was prepared
to augment ritual duties, without abandoning, at least outwardly, preceding
commitments. Hence, overall, Tantra in a broader sense came to pervade all
areas of Indian religion, whilst Tantra proper or more narrowly understood
was a more exclusive phenomenon.
Possibly the most sophisticated Tantric system developed in India was
the brilliant synthesis by Abhinavagupta, the 10th/11th century aiva-kta
polymath from Kashmir. Just as in the case of Platonic love, Abhinavaguptas
practice based on a theory of dynamic non-duality failed to catch on more
broadly in following generations; in fact, as an elite model it probably never
attracted substantial following among Tantric practitioners on the ground.
Already in the 13th century, the scriptural base and knowledge of his
commentators who followed a different practice had contracted. Under
Muslim rule (after 1320), with changes in royal patronage, a decline in
Brahmanical learning and population, conversion, and outbreaks of
persecution, the very foundations of the socio-religious system for preserving
complex Tantric practice had been hit, leading to a gradual extinction of its
practical and ritualistic aspects. What survived was small-scale engagement
with more gnostic concepts, meditative practices, or mainstream ideas. The
last forms of any kind of initiatory aivism and corresponding aiva ritual
probably died out in the early 20th century; the last living traditional
exponent and lineage-holder of this intellectual milieau passed away in 1991.
Nevertheless, domesticated, transformed, or more popular types of worship
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and regular practice can still be found in contemporary South Asia, and
Tantric Buddhism (the Vajrayna or Mantranaya), having been exported to
Tibet, Central, and East Asia in the Middle Ages; they continue to be
practiced, now also in the West, with somewhat intact lineages and
frameworks.
IV. Tantric Platonic Love: Prospects for a New Path
So how might Tantra understood broadly as an existing set of
techniques and methods not limited to any particular tradition how might
this Tantra help us to revive a holistic practice of Platonic love?
At this point wed like to articulate prospects for a Tantric practice of
Platonic love. This practice would involve several key components common
to both Tantra and Platonic love: experience of the truth of impermanence
and change, desire for liberation understood as clear perception and freedom
from misunderstanding, and contemplation of the Ultimate Reality which one
aims to know and unite with through ones practice.
But what techniques and methods does this Tantric practice of Platonic
love employ in light of these components? Indeed, this was one of the
shortcomings of the art of love articulated in Platos Symposium: it was an
excellent theory of practice, yet it lacked clearly articulated techniques by
which to proceed. For inspiration here we turn to Ngndro, the foundational
techniques practiced in Tantric (Vajrayna) Buddhism.
On a basic model, Ngndro consists in four outer and four inner
practices. The outer practices are constituted by four thoughts that turn the
mind away from samsara, that is, away from the ever-repeating cycle of life,
death, and rebirth. These thoughts are: preciousness (i.e. that of mortal life
and existence), impermanence and change, karma, and the suffering
inherent to samsara. The inner practices are each to be practiced at least
100,000 times. They are: prostrations to take refuge in the Three Jewels
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(Buddha, dharma, sangha), alongside the generation of altruistic motivation

(bodhicitta); repetition of the 100 syllable mantra of Vajrasattva; mandala
offerings; and guru yoga practices. Several of these practices serve
particularly well as techniques for cultivating the abovementioned
components common to both Tantra and Platonic love. Specifically, the outer
practice of thinking on impermanence and change quite clearly serves to
cultivate experience of the truth of impermanence and change; the inner
practices of prostrating while visualizing refuge in the Three Jewels and
reciting the Vajrasattva mantra while visualizing the deity these serve to
cultivate liberation understood as clear perception and freedom from
misunderstanding; and finally, the inner practice of guru yoga serves to
cultivate contemplation of the Ultimate Reality which one aims to know and
unite with through ones practice. To better understand how these Tantric
practices may be integrated with Platonic love, for which the emphasis is
more on a wisdom-seekers relationship to beauty, well now try out a fusion
technique not in line with either tradition specifically, but intended to serve
as an example of how Tantric Platonic Love may be practiced today.
* TANTRIC/PLATONIC LOVE FUSION TECHNIQUES *
1. To cultivate experience of the truth of impermanence and change: Think of
a beautiful moment or an example of beauty from your life. Reflect on the
ways in which that beauty is fragile, and has changed/will change with time.
(other possibilities: how its dependent, complicit, subject to certain laws,
what it would mean and look like to give it away)
2. To cultivate liberation understood as clear perception and freedom from
misunderstanding: Some kind of visualization (this one more difficult to
map exactly, so perhaps skip)
3. To cultivate contemplation of the Ultimate Reality which one aims to know
and unite with through ones practice: Bring to mind a moment of clearly
perceiving and experiencing beauty. Now think of the event or being that
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inspired this perception, this experience. Imagine yourself approaching it,

approaching ituntil you are one. Rest in that oneness.