From Illusion To
Reality
Reality
In his Republic, circa 380 BC E, Plato used a
metaphor called the Allegory of the Cave to describe the multidimensional
reality of the Cosmos in which we “live and move and have our being.” The metaphor has people in chains sitting in front of a blank wall. There is a
fire behind them and all sorts and manners of things and objects pass on a
raised platform in front to the fire casting shadows on the wall. The chained
people, unable to turn their heads, see only the shadows directly in front of
them. For these folks, the shadows of the objects passing behind them are
reality.
The allegory goes on to
relate how one prisoner is freed and, at first blinded by the light of the
fire, is eventually able to see the things that were behind him. Eventually,
having been dragged by the philosopher up the path into greater light, which involves
the painful releasing of a continual string of illusion regarding the REAL, they
finally reach the caves mouth. Again after a period of adjustment, the prisoner
sees the Sun.
The prisoner now freed
from his illusions of reality wants to free the rest of the prisoners too. So,
he goes back into the cave to release the others. He is of course now blinded by
the lack of light and the prisoners conclude that the exposure to light is
painful and anyway, because of all of the totally weird stuff he is telling
them about, he is nuts. They decide that they should get rid of him.
As we all know, Socrates
was executed by the Establishment and Plato was sold into slavery.
The allegory is a
metaphorical representation, an effort on the part of Plato to communicate what
The Wise Ones have always known and a developing hard science has been trying
to tell us since the Renascence. We of course know what happened to Galileo
when he tried to point out to the Establishment that the Sun was the center of
the solar system, a fact that had been know and demonstrated for a several
thousand years.
This issue, the
difference between the REAL and illusion, has been at the core of humanities
struggle from the beginning. Plato, a Master of the Wisdom who along with
another Master whom we know as Socrates, was Teaching in Athens. In his
Allegory of the Cave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave
Plato, who was totally conscious of the fact of the multidimensional universe,
using the only tools available, metaphor and the dialectic, demonstrated with
utter clarity the infinite unbroken chain of thought which links the dimensions of Energy
or Reality with the thought created dense material forms which make up the
material world.
The further removed from
the Idea, the deeper into the cave of illusion, the less real is the
formulation. The greater the striving to manifest the Idea in its purest
possible form, the more accurate or Beautiful is the representation of Truth.
As another visionary teacher/poet pointed out, “Beauty is Truth and Truth is
Beauty”. We do not expect that individuals who are still living in the cave of intellectual
ignorance to understand this simple statement of the REAL. Only the heart can
comprehend a metaphor.
To say that to strive to
build systems and character that more and more clearly out picture the Images
of Truth, Ideas like Liberty, Freedom Equality, Justice, is unrealistic, is
simply ignorance. It is to deny humans that which makes them human. The
allegory is thus the story of every individual who has ever brought Light into
the darkness of the great illusion of reality which imprisons us in a cave of
ignorance, a cave from which we, humanity, have been struggling to free ourselves
since the Beginning.
Basically, Truth consists
of what we think of today as the Laws of Cosmic Physics. For Plato these Laws
were embodied in a number of totally abstract, that is formless, IDEAS, which
exist in the “formless world of Being”. These ideas are simply “images” of
Truth such as Beauty, Justice, Liberty. These Truths, are eternal and
everywhere present in Cosmos.
The Plato/Socrates
Teaching and the revelations that accompanied them were deemed by the then Establishment to
be “corrupting the youth of Athens.” (Truth always seems to have this “corrupting”
effect, that is the determination to get out of the Establishment’s cave, on the still alive ones. Youth has little to
do with chronological age. It is a matter of Consciousness. The Wise Ones are
always like little children, pure, loving, inclusive fearless, whole hearted…) Subsequently
Socrates, who was the apparent Head of the Academy, was tried for these crimes,
found guilty and sentenced to death. Plato was eventually sold into slavery.
This of course is the
Establishment’s old age way of getting rid of “trouble makers”, those who would
dare reveal the Truth. Incidentally in cases where mock trials are not
available there is no hesitation to use assassination or murder. Think of
Martin King and the Kennedys.
Today the present
incarnation of the ancient Establishment seeks the control of the U.S. and
desires to return the entire Planet to the rule of the “Deserving Few”. The DF’s
are employing the ancient tools of materialism to continue to block humanity’s
evolution. Basically, they maintain that if one cannot weigh or put a coat of
paint on something it does not exist; it is not “real”. So all of the IDEAS
upon which human evolution is based and toward which we have, forever, been
striving are “idealistic”, dreams, fairy tales which are not achievable because
they do not exist.
The Deserving Few mask
their halfway hearts through the distortion and manipulation of common sense
which they ironically refer to as “hardheadedness”. While protecting their own wealth, prestige
and position, they wear the sheep skin of being practical, hard-nosed “realists”. Those who strive for Principles are denigrated as foolish Idealists. Nice
people, but they are just unreal. They believe in dreams of liberty and freedom
for all which is an unachievable dream. And in its place the Hard Heads offer
what they call practical or pragmatic, achievable things.
Their positions are
natural effects of their mind identification with a one dimensional material
world which they see as REAL. They are not necessarily evil, but in the
ignorance of their intellectual fixations and the inability to see Reality,
they consider concepts like Liberty and Justice to be non-sense. They point to
the fact that such things are only ideal dreams, the do not exist.
The intellect rather than
the heart drives their plans. Only the Heart can comprehend a metaphor, or the
Plan.
The greatest hindrance to
the evolution of either an individual or Humanity as a whole is the identification
with where we are, our comfort with what we have either material stuff or our
conclusions about what constitutes reality and value. Try getting a lover of
gold to see that the gold is just a metal, a relatively dense form of matter,
and that possession of multiple tons of it does not and will not make him a
better person. Or try releasing a fanatic of this or that religion. Like the
dinosaurs of old, they are trapped and dying in their canyons of comfort.
As was said long ago, “From the beginning they struggled,
From the beginning we conquered!” We will not be dying with them!
Ideas are not dreams.
Ideas are “images of truth”. “… the images of Truth, which you call ideas,
rule the karma of the world. It is astonishing to see how images of Truth participate
in the spatial battle. While the multitudes disintegrate in a blind fury of
ignorance and betrayal, the thoughts of Truth weave their heavenly nests, which
for real evolution are far more vital than any worship by entire nations.” Agni Yoga #122
Tom, February 2016
