Are you living in a cave in your mind?
About 2,400 years ago, Greek philosophers came together to explain to society the meaning of life and the purpose of man’s existence. Some argued that humans accept false images and information as reality mostly due to the need to perceive the world through the physical senses. In other words, if you don’t see it, hear it, smell it, taste it, or feel it, it does not exist and, therefore, it is not real.
In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato demonstrates how this false reality is simply the result of a lack of education and information. In his story, he explains that life is like three prisoners who have been imprisoned and chained up in a cave since birth. They are chained in such a way that they cannot move their hands, feet, or neck. As they hang, they are forced to look at the cave wall directly in front of them. A fire burns behind them and whenever something walks past this fire, shadows are cast on the cave wall. Year after year, they watch the shadows of people and animals and the things they carried as they walked past the fire. Because the prisoners have never stepped out of the cave into the outside world, they make up their own names for the things they see on the wall.
Somehow one prisoner breaks free from his chains and he is forced to turn around and look at the fire. The fire immediately hurts his eyes and all he wants to do is stay in the cave. This is because he does not understand the fire but he knows the shadows on the cave wall are real. But as his eyes adjust to the light of the fire, the prisoner realizes that he must get out of the cave. As he painfully pushes himself to go outside of the cave, the sunlight immediately hurts his eyes and he becomes disoriented and confused. Again, all he wants to do is go back into the shadows of the cave because he knows the shadows are real. At the same time, he feels the urge to keep moving forward in his pain.
In this new world, people tell him that the shadows are not real but are only the reflections of objects that have color. The man refuses to believe that the objects with color are real because the shadows seem to look clearer to him. However, as his eyes gradually adjust to his new world, he is able to look directly at the objects with color and his eyes no longer are hurt by the sun. In time, this former prisoner realizes that the light that once hurt his eyes, the sun, is the reason he can see everything.
In his excitement, the enlightened man goes back to the cave to tell his friends that the shadows are not real and that reality is outside the cave. But when he looks at the cave wall, he has a hard time seeing the shadows because his eyes are no longer used to the dark. As he tries to explain his new reality, his prisoner friends now think he is stupid and blind and they violently refuse to be set free.
When faced with an unknown that points to a different level of awareness or reality, many humans will retreat back to the cave and argue to the point of hostility about how the shadows are real. Carl Jung called this cave “the cave of the human collective unconscious.” According to the founder of analytical psychology, the collective unconscious is the part of existence where the most primitive of human memories and thoughts are stored. And because unconscious literally means “without a conscience,” the collective unconscious stores and makes readily available all of humankind’s most fearful and vilest thoughts to the mind of man. This is the lowest level of awareness.
The next level of awareness is the subconscious. This stores a person’s individual memories and thoughts as well as the “messages” that society as a whole “programs” others to believe with them. These “messages” in the subconscious include such things as the definition of marriage and strict gender roles and expectations.
Normal waking consciousness is your mind’s level of awareness when you are awake. This includes the continuous ebb and flow of thoughts, sensations, perceptions, and feelings that make up your vivid sense of reality.
The highest level of awareness is God-consciousness. I am learning that God-consciousness, also known as pure love, is Heaven within.
Theologian and philosopher, Robert H. Nash, wrote, “Like the prisoners chained in [Plato’s] cave, each human being perceives a physical world that is but a poor imitation of a more real world. But every so often, one of the prisoners gets free from the shackles of sense experience, turns around, and sees the light!”
How does your mind cope with strange ideas and thoughts? Does it immediately retreat to the shadows of the dark cave in fear and ignorance? Or are you open to new ideas and different ways of thinking that may be outside of your five physical senses? Awareness is simply a level of consciousness. The only way to move from one level of awareness to a higher level of awareness is to remove the ego’s resistance to change. Removing resistance is the first step to awareness and walking out of the cave. Mother Owl.
