Plato's Allegory

[Fred Steeves]

Hi everybody. Every so often, I think it's good to dust off this old classic, and have yet another looksie. I still get new subtle little tidbits out of it from rewatching. How personal is this little story to most people here? We all have already gone through exactly that experience to varying degrees haven't we?

I could make a laundry list of points in the allegory to discuss, and please, anyone else so inclined, bring up what sticks out for you. I would start with the symbolism of the wise old man character freeing the young shackled man, and leading him to the light.

We all had that "influence" also at some point, but what exactly WAS that influence? We look around, and we plainly see that most people haven't had that influence, that unquenchable thirst for the truth, and why is that?

I have my ideas, and ya'll know I certainly don't hesitate in speaking my mind(LOL), but I'm genuinely curious of other's takes on this, one of my all time favorite stories.

Cheers,http://www.bigtenfever.com/forums/images/smilies/cheers.gif
Fred

N6LUptADIww

[Spiral]

Excellent allegory, its explains the murder of Christ 500 years before his birth, I wonder what Plato would make of the millions sat before the "shadows" on their 52inch flat screen HD televisions ?

Mankind has not progressed one millionth of an inch in 2500 years, in fact we are going backwards.

As to who was an influence, no living human that's for certain.

[christian]

I definitely came across a lot of wise men and women, who helped me a lot. But they can always only show me the door.

This story also illustrates that in order to grow you have to
a) accept the possibility that there may be a world even more real than what you consider real right now
b) have the willingness to leave everything you grew accustomed to behind and reach out for the unknown

In my experience to this day, this never ceased to be true.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-m1yChznHR84/UAw1vDs0PsI/AAAAAAAABlk/00uHreVJZXU/s1600/o-that-system-is-our-enemy-but-when-youre-inside-you-look-around-what-do-you-see-businessmen-teachers-lawyers-carpenters-the-very-minds-of-the-people-w.jpg

[Fred Steeves]

I definitely came across a lot of wise men and women, who helped me a lot. But they can always only show me the door.

This story also illustrates that in order to grow you have to
a) accept the possibility that there may be a world even more real than what you consider real right now
b) have the willingness to leave everything you grew accustomed to behind and reach out for the unknown

In my experience to this day, this never ceased to be true.


Yes Chris, that was something else. Just because the young man had awoken, did not mean he needn't awaken again, then again, and yet again...And so on...

[spiritguide]

As it has been said the deceit is different at every level.

[Fred Steeves]

As it has been said the deceit is different at every level.

No doubt about that spiritguide, as is the truth. As Spock would say: "Fascinating".

[Jenci]

I just saw this today, Fred and thought of your thread :)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmFDMf8VSfA&feature=player_embedded

[Fred Steeves]

I just saw this today, Fred and thought of your thread :)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmFDMf8VSfA&feature=player_embedded

WOW! Good find Jenci.

[another bob]

Nothing is what it seems. Not a single thought, conception, or experience, high or low, is anything but a modification of dreams, a kind of hallucination, the conjunction of wave patterns in vibratory frequencies, typically appearing very elusive to perception in the denser realms of the ordinary senses, where thought-energy rigidifies momentarily into seemingly solid objects. Nevertheless, there are no enduringly solid objects. This so-called world is a phenomenon of luminous interweaving energetic interactions -- a radiant play of light.

It is always an event in Consciousness, in the vastness of which everything that appears is simply a modification. However, when we attach, or cling to, or fixate on any of these endlessly arising objects or conditions or their effects, exclusive of their Source, then we make those objects, states, or conditions "real" by the process of identification and differentiation -- we grant them substantiality apart from ourselves, and thus create our own suffering as a result.

By Grace, when that perceptual presumption of duality is recognized as the activity of separation itself and thereby begins to be undermined, these billion upon billion appearances once more become non-binding, fluid, and transparent. The whole adventure they imply – in whatever realm, heaven and earth or hell and high water -- is recognized as an expression of the dream, having no defining or ultimate significance, but only as the play of Mystery -- the Unknown -- Itself.

We do not know what any of this is! We cannot actually differentiate ourselves from a single thing, any more than wetness can separate itself from water. There is no definitive explanation for any of it, nor is there really any need for one, except to the mind of dilemma. This is not a matter of belief or speculation. It can be directly verified when one stops and simply contemplates the mystery of one’s own appearance here, the awareness that we Are, but that "What" is aware is unknowable, since it can never be an object to itself. It just is. Is.

What we know of dreams can serve to illuminate our "position" in the so-called waking state. In either, we are in exactly the same situation – we appear to create our environment in both conditions, as well as our sense of being an independent "I", but we have no idea how this is happening, except that we Are. Everything else is subject to interpretation, but the simple fact of Awareness is our irreducible inheritance.

By allowing attention to rest in this Awareness of pure being itself, rather than on the objects and events that appear and disappear in the absorbing play of thought-energy, something quite interesting is revealed. Clearly the dream is a creation, a product of our own consciousness -- who makes this dream but us? And yet we don't know what we Are, except that we Are. Our experience here is free from thought and movement, with no judgment or measure of inside/outside – utterly clear and transparent, like space. There is no separation between the experiencer, the experiencing, and the experience.

On the other hand, though dreaming arises in our own consciousness and dissolves “there” just the same, can we even call it "our own"? When we awaken, we realize the dream has no concrete substantiality, except what we might attribute to it in our conditioned and conditional knowing. This activity is itself a kind of humorous pretense that most take quite seriously, nevertheless. So serious, in fact, that when differing dreamings clash, further confusions, contentions, and even wars follow. Who would imagine that world conflicts originate in dreaming?

Just so, this waking realm can be seen as not a place or world, but as an indefinite dimension that is not fixed like any object, but fluidly manifesting as a play of infinite possibility. Then, our limited points of view can begin to be submitted to a conscious process in which we unfold in a truly heart-felt relationship to the wonder of this mystery, without the terrible burden of knowing or identification, or even any humorless concern about the implications of the dream world itself. Paradoxically, we can begin to become responsible for our separative tendencies, which are the real creators of every circumstance of the dream, and the source of our suffering and chronic sense of alienation.

This true responsibility is relative to the force of our own activity, which creates the drama in the same way as if we were to complain about a pain in our arm, only to discover that we have been pinching ourselves in our sleep. The dream itself does not have to be accepted or rejected in terms of any of its content. It resists definition. Where do we dream? Where is a "place"? It is our own habitual activity which is separating, contracting, seeking, suffering, imagining, and calling all of this into form and giving it a kind of reality. When this is seen, felt, and welcomed without recoil, without grasping or turning away, then our inherent freedom "resumes" as the ordinary and natural state of being.

[Reaver]

Hi everybody. Every so often, I think it's good to dust off this old classic, and have yet another looksie. I still get new subtle little tidbits out of it from rewatching. How personal is this little story to most people here? We all have already gone through exactly that experience to varying degrees haven't we?
At this point that's not surpising to me. The fact that someone would get new insights from Plato's Cave allegory. I feel The Cave is an archetypal allegory and when you explore archetypes you'll notice that you can constantly expand on its meaning and impact.

Plato's Cave could be applied to the sedated societies which believe in the shadows being projected by the overlords who claim to possess the keys to a better future. I guess many on the alternative scene have had such experiences. You try to communicate the lies perpetuated by the elite to your fellow human beings, but their faith and dependence on those shadows is so massive that any attempt to question them is seen as a threat to their very existence (you fellow humans existence that is).

On another level you could have an occultist who studies the underlying principles of the visible causes and then tries to communicate his discoveries to a scientist, but if this scientist is bent on a having a strong faith on the material realm then he'll refuse to see who or what is casting the shadows which give shape and form to matter.

It could even be an inner allegory. Sometimes we can refuse to walk the path of Self-hood and instead we'll create shadows which represent a pseudo-self and we'll actually convince ourselves of being authentic and sane. We may refuse to see that our own ignorance, stubbornness and lack of Will are the elements which cast those shadows.