God is not external to anyone, but is present with all things, though they are ignorant that He is so.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the omnipresence of God in all things, even when people are unaware of it.
Plotinus asserts the idea that divinity is not separate from the world or individuals but rather coexists with everything. The essence of God permeates all existence, yet many remain oblivious to this reality, highlighting a disconnect between human understanding and spiritual truth.
In practice
During a discussion on spirituality, one might use the quote to illustrate the concept of divine presence in everyday life.
Beauty addresses itself chiefly to sight, but there is a beauty for the hearing too, as in certain combinations so words and in all kinds of music; for melodies and cadences are beautiful; and minds that lift themselves above the realm of sense to a higher order are aware of beauty in the conduct of life, in actions, in character, in the pursuits of the intellect; and there is the beauty of the virtues.
Knowledge, if it does not determine action, is dead to us.
The stars are like letters that inscribe themselves at every moment in the sky. Everything in the world is full of signs. All events are coordinated. All things depend on each other. Everything breathes together.
I am striving to give back the Divine in myself to the Divine in the All.
All things are filled full of signs, and it is a wise man who can learn about one thing from another.
The Soul of each one of us is sent, that the universe may be complete.
It saddens me that Christians need to be reminded that awe is owed also to those who disagree with them, who believe otherwise than they do.
Youth is the future smiling at a stranger, which is itself.
Non-violence means dialogue, using our language, the human language. Dialogue means compromise; respecting each other’s rights; in the spirit of reconciliation there is a real solution to conflict and disagreement. There is no hundred percent winner, no hundred percent loser—not that way but half-and-half. That is the practical way, the only way.
People working on bigger ideas on a more protracted timeline will be more on the stealth side. They aren’t releasing new PR announcements every day. The bigger the secret and the likelier it is that you alone have it, the more time you have to execute. There may be far more people going after hard secrets than we think.
The everyday cares and duties, which men call drudgery, are the weights and counterpoises of the clock of time, giving its pendulum a true vibration and its hands a regular motion; and when they cease to hang upon its wheels, the pendulum no longer swings, the hands no longer move the clock stands still.
Oft expectation fails, and most oft there where most it promises; and oft it hits where hope is coldest, and despair most fits.
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