What Plotinus said

Withdraw into yourself and look. If you do not as yet see beauty within you, do as does the sculptor of a statue that is to be made beautified: he cuts away here, he smooths it there, he makes this line lighter, this other one purer, until he disengages beautiful lineaments in the marble. Do you this too. Cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labor to make all one radiance of beauty. Never cease "working at the statue" until there shines out upon you from it the divine sheen of virtue until you see perfect "goodness firmly established in stainless shrine." Have you become like this? Do you see yourself, abiding within yourself in pure solitude? Does nothing now remain to shatter that interior unity, nor anything external cling to your authentic self? Are you entirely that sole true light which is not contained by space, not confined to any circumscribed form, not diffused as something without term, but ever unmeasurable as something greater than all measure and something more than all quantity? Do you see yourself in this state? Then you have become vision itself. Be of good heart,. Remaining here you have ascended aloft. You need a guide no longer. Strain and see.