contemplating Eternity...

Imagine, then,

the state of a being which cannot fall away from the vision of this, but is for ever caught to it,

held by the spell of its grandeur,

kept to it by virtue of a nature itself unfailing—

or even the state of one that must labour towards Eternity by directed effort,

but then to rest in it,

immovable at any point,

assimilated to it,

co-eternal with it,

contemplating Eternity and the Eternal by what is Eternal within the self.


Plotinus
Enneads, III.7.5