10 - Plato's allegory
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We,The People, are not happy
Plato was concerned about the importance of education in human lives. If we replace his cave with consciousness, his allegory still applies in the 21st century.
The next step was to let this explorer leave the cave. He discovers the outside world. He discovers a new ‘reality’, a new freedom, and a new consciousness. It seems (to us and today) that freedom and consciousness come together. You cannot blame the people in the cave for not being conscious of a freedom that they never experienced. They became conscious of freedom when they experience it.
Plato’s message is that we are prisoners and should get out of our jail. Let’s get out of our 5% of the material world. Plato would approve!
That may be one of the purposes of our life on earth: We must regain our freedom.
During the day, we live in the material world. Our sense organs keep us prisoners of what we can see, hear and touch. Our main concern is not the consequences that our actions have on our soul. We know that after our death, our bodies get recycled. What matters is the changes in our soul after our death.
Let us add another chapter to Plato’s allegory:
Plato makes his explorer go back to his cave to help his fellow men. That is very commendable, but we will try another ending. Let’s assume that our explorer decides to stay outside the cave. You can guess what happens. He meets a woman and falls in love. He becomes conscious of new feelings and a new reality.
The woman makes him conscious of feelings he could not have imagined. He discovers that his first cave was inside a bigger cave, itself inside another bigger cave. We could say that he was climbing a staircase, and every step up widened his point of view.
Plato imagined people who spent their entire lives in a cave. All they can do is watch shadows on the wall in front of them. The shadows are their ‘reality’. One day, one of them is set free to turn around and look behind him. He discovers a fire and symbols being moved in front of the fire. What he could see on the wall was only a shadow. Yesterday’s reality became a mirage.
Let us water the little seeds:
Freedom, consciousness, and love were already buried in our explorer, like seeds waiting to be watered. What happened inside him was like what happened in the nature around him. Seeds are buried in the ground like he was buried in his cave. If you don’t water the seeds, nothing comes out. Nature waters them. They rise. Seeds discover the sunlight and grow in a different world. It is their new reality. Consciously or not, we keep watering little seeds buried deep inside us. Pushing the envelope of our consciousness is a powerful motivation. Every stress in our life is an opportunity to bring something to the surface that will help us overcome our problems. This is how we water our little seeds and push the envelope of our freedom. The criterion of success is a feeling of happiness.
What comes next is the ‘platonic’ love. That means a feeling of love that does not need help from another human being. It is detached from the material world. It is the love of the whole universe! This love penetrates the world like the wind goes through a tree - without getting attached to it. To live a human life is to water some seeds that already exist deep in our soul, such as freedom, consciousness, love. It is by developing them that they can become conscious of a new reality.
What Plato did not say is that we have a problem. Not only do we water the seeds, but we also water the weeds. Everything grows in our garden - the good and the bad.
