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The One
Plotinus says that there exists an entity, the source of all things, which he calls the One. The One emanates stages of reality that are called "hypostases." The One, for Plotinus, is the source of all being; it is ineffable, transcending even being itself. It is utterly simple, unified, and it is beyond any form of distinction or limitation. The One is the source of emanation from which everything else flows.
This flow of emanations does not occur in time as a series of historical events, as we see in Hegel's Spirit seeking self-knowledge; rather, Plotinus' One is continually emanating its hypostases, as the sun continually emanates its light.
Intelligence
The fist emanation produces the hypostasis called "Intelligence" (Nous). The contents of Intelligence are the Platonic Forms, the universals. These universals are not separate or fragmented; they are unified by an act of perfect self-thought. Intellect transcends time, is purely intelligible and unchanging.
Soul
The second hypostasis is Soul (Psyche). There is individual Soul and a World Soul. The Soul receives the Forms from Intelligence, but in Soul they exist only as reflections, or images, of themselves. Soul stands between the intelligible world of Nous and the material realm.
Plotinus avoided anthropomorphizing, in an explicit way, the hypostases but he seems to have viewed the World Soul as a kind of great collective person: Plotinus tells us that the World Soul contains and gives rise to all individual souls (though, today, we see the collective as arising from the individuals); the World Soul thinks, and desires to return to the one; it has a unity-in-multiplicity.
The Material World
The third hypostasis is the Material World, the dynamic spatiotemporal world of individual instantiations. Here, the One has been fragmented.
At this point, the individual person can experience a return to the One, a journey through the Material World, then the Soul, and Intelligence, a journey that happens in time.
But Plotinus also says that the Soul never actually leaves the One, that part of the Soul eternally remains turned toward the One, the divine. So, in a deep sense, emanation and return are occurring always, eternally. From one point of view, everything is with the One, always; from another point of view, we journey back to the One in time.