Nov
Escape from Plato’s Cave
With all the problems in the world today, it’s amazing to me why there is so much blind acceptance of them. News pundits and other “experts” feel the need to expand on them and tear them apart with intellectual analysis and opinions. This procedure tends to compound the problem rather than offer any viable solution.
From Galileo to Dr. Einstein, we have been given the answers as to how to prove our dominion over problems. Even if one professes to believe the many biblical references and allegories that detail how to “overcome evil with good” and the revelation God is all power and “beside me there is no other”, we still tend to fear and react to negatives and destructive elements more than we do to exercising the necessary mental disciplines to overcome them.
We are guilty of adhering to the old saying, “We grow too soon old and too late smart”.
One is forced to review Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” wherein prisoners are chained and immobilized inside a cave with their backs to the opening through which light projects shadows on the cave’s back wall. The prisoners could view only the shadows on the wall; these became their only sense of reality. Their interpretation of them represented the only world they knew.
Then, one of the prisoners broke his bonds and escaped from the cave. From outside the cave he could see the real world and the source of the light. From this new perspective, he realized that the shadows, which he was brought up to believe represented reality were, in fact, only fraudulent interpretations of reality. He discovered a new world free of limiting shadows, a world of ever-expanding enlightenment and an awareness of his unity with it.
In his enthusiasm, he returned to the cave to share his new discovery with the prisoners only to be rejected as a misinformed victim of some irrational philosophy that deviated from the real world. Most of the “prisoners” are not impressed by such a concept even though it promises to free them. They will continue living in their world of shadows and continue to complain about the inequities they represent. But some others will be responsive and explore this new world of expanding opportunities.
We have just had an election. Many will be elated at the outcome and anticipate better times ahead with fewer problems. Many other will be disappointed and prepare to survive in a world they feel is heading in the wrong direction.
In spite of these diverse positions, the universe outside the cave is still in full operation maintaining its own integrity. We will experience that which we accept as shadows on Plato’s cave wall or the real world powered by irrevocable laws and principles outside the cave. Being opposites, we can have one or the other, but not both at the same time.
As for me, I’ll go along with Galileo, Dr. Einstein and the bible and find balance within my own conscious awareness. I never did like caves, anyway.
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