Plato’s Cave – Part Two
The Bible records the occasion when Nicodemus, who was described as being both a Pharisee and a ruler of the Jews, came to Jesus by night saying that he knew that he was a teacher sent by God, because no one could perform the miracles that he did unless God was inside him. Jesus replied:
“Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God”. Nicodemus responded in amazement: “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born”? (John 3: 4-5)
It was obvious from his answer that although Nicodemus was well versed in all aspects of the Jewish religion, he clearly had no idea what Jesus was talking about when he said that a man needed to be born again in order to see the Kingdom of God.
And in the two thousand years that have passed since Jesus died upon the cross, Christians are still mired in ignorance. To this day there is hardly a Christian believer alive who understands what it means to be born again, or how to attain the Kingdom of God while still retaining a human body.
The Kingdom of God
The idea that one needed to die in order to gain admission to the Kingdom of God was central to the message that Jesus preached throughout his ministry. It was also a theme that he returned to again and again, as we can see from the following quotations:
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it”. (Luke 9: 23-24)
“And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
“For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it.” (Mark 8: 34-35)
“He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.
“He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it”. (Matthew 10: 37-39)
It is important to note here that Jesus spoke these words to his followers and disciples long before his own death upon the cross. And it gives new meaning to the reason for his death, which was to show that it is necessary to sacrifice one’s life in this world in order to gain eternal life.
But what did Jesus mean when he said that we have to be born again? And what was he referring to when he said that a man must be prepared to “deny himself and take up his cross daily”? After all, it is one thing to take up your cross, but quite another to “do it every day”!
René Descartes
In a strange way, we may gain an insight into this mystery by studying the words of the 17th century French philosopher René Descartes.
Descartes has been called the father of modern western philosophy, largely because of his most famous work titled Principles of Philosophy, which was published in Latin in the year 1644. It was in this work that he wrote the words for which he is best remembered to this day.
The words were “Cogito ergo sum”, meaning “I think, therefore I am”. Now Descartes was not using the words “I am” in the way that Jesus used them. In fact they referred to the very thing that Jesus said needed to die before a man could gain access to the Kingdom of God.
As explained in Part One, Jesus not only referred to himself as the I AM, but he taught that this I AM sensation that we all experience inside of ourselves was not only the pathway to God, it WAS GOD. For, as he explained to his disciple Thomas:
“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the father but by me”. (John 14: 6)
So what Jesus was saying to Thomas was that the I AM was the way, the I AM was the truth, and the I AM was the life. And since Jesus referred to himself as the I AM, it followed that no one could reach the Kingdom of God “but by me”, or in other words through the I AM.
But to return to René Descartes, the “I am” that he was referring to was the idea that his independent existence as a man was attributed primarily to his ability to think. And this ability to think also enabled him to interact with the world around him by means of his senses.
Now all of us think, and like Descartes, we use this faculty both to confirm our existence as an individual, and to function in the world. And it is this ability to think that enables us to organize our lives, as well as deal with the problems of the present and make plans for the future.
And then there are our emotions and our desires. Our lives are motivated by a host of different desires. And whenever we are successful in attaining our desires, or are thwarted in these endeavours, we respond by means of a variety of emotions that further impact upon our lives.
But the people that surround us in our lives are not real. They are illusions. In fact they are nothing more than a series of images appearing in consciousness, just like movie actors on a screen. And we have become trapped inside our personalities, just like the prisoners inside Plato’s Cave.
The fundamental problem of all human life is that we have become imprisoned by our individual personalities, because we have chosen to identify that sense of being inside of ourselves with our bodies and the events that are going on in the world around us.
And the secret to escaping from the prison that we have built around us, lies in a re-evaluation of the word “identify”. For it is this act of “identifying” with what we see and sense around us that binds us to these things, and traps us in those “identities” that we imagine ourselves to be.
In other words, it is because I identify myself with my physical body that I become trapped in this three-dimensional world of space and time, where I have to experience the opposites of pain and sorrow, happiness and joy, success and failure, and ultimately old age and death.
And the way to escape this world of opposites is simple. I just need to swop the old idea of René Descartes (I think, therefore I am), with a new idea: “I don’t think, therefore I AM”. In other words, if thinking leads to the creation of the individual personality, then not thinking leads to the Divine.
Taken at face value, such mundane advice seems ridiculous. After all, if I stopped thinking, then how could I possibly live my life? How could I perform my job, feed my family, or do anything worthwhile in the world? And the answer that Jesus gives us is: “If you surrender to God, He will provide every need”.
As we have seen above, the basic message of Jesus is that it is only by dying that we can enter the Kingdom of God. We don’t have to acquire anything new. We simply have to give up the false idea that we exist as a person. That is what he meant by “losing your life” in order to find it.
Escaping the Cave
So if we want to escape from Plato’s Cave, we have to unshackle ourselves from the chains that have bound us up until now, and make our way out of the cave. If we want to escape from our illusory body which was born and is doomed to die, then we have to give up our identification with it.
So Jesus calls on each one of us to make a choice. We have to decide whether we want to live an ordinary life, by doing all those things that people normally do, or voluntarily decide to “take up our cross” and turn away from life in the world. There is no middle way.
And this is where those who call themselves Christians fail. Not only do they not realise that the death of the personality is the pathway to eternal life, but they cling to their precious individuality with every sinew of their being. The very idea of “taking up their cross daily” fills them with horror.
For we are now living in an age of the glorification of the individual, in which people everywhere try to express their personalities in ever more exotic ways, and all the while striving to be the best. But this was not the message of the Saviour, and those who follow this path are doomed to die.
You cannot try to lead a successful life in the world and at the same time pursue the path of Truth, just as you cannot remain in the cave and try to leave it at the same time. For as Jesus explained to all those gathered around him on the occasion of his famous sermon on the mount:
“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon”. (Matthew 6: 24)
Furthermore, anyone who strives to attain the Kingdom of God has to sever his links with his family and friends. Obviously, if your goal is to “deny yourself”, you can no longer retain those relationships that bind you to the personality that is destined to “die upon the cross”. For as Jesus said:
“He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me”. (Matthew 10: 37)
And when Jesus was told on one occasion that his mother and brothers had arrived and wished to speak to him, he replied:
“Who is my mother? And who are my brethren?” (Matthew 12: 48)
In other words, if your intention is to rid yourself of your chains and leave the cave, then you can no longer hold on to those things that draw you back into the cave. And for those people who shrink from making such a sacrifice, Jesus beckons to them with a message from the beyond.
“Fear not, O ye children of little faith, for I lead you forth into a new world of experience that is more glorious than anything that you can imagine, where you are no longer bound by the limitations of your human body, and are freed forever from the pangs of suffering and death.”
The lilies of the field
So to return to the question that we posed earlier. If we are prepared to give up everything in order to follow Christ, then how can we fulfil our duties in this world, and how can we provide for those who depend on us for food and shelter? And for all those in doubt, Jesus has a reassuring answer.
“Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
“Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
“And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
“Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
“Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
” But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” (Matthew 6: 25-34)
Jesus urges us to seek the Kingdom of God “first”, before we attend to any other duty or responsibility in life. So the crucial challenge then becomes: how do we go about doing this? How do we go about “taking up our cross daily and denying ourselves”?
All the ancient Mystery Schools, as well as all the major religions of the world, agree that there are only two ways that one can do this. Either one has to surrender to God and let Him take charge of their life, or one has to investigate the source of the I AM that lives inside each one of us.
Jesus offered his followers both of these options to follow him. They could choose either to “Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind”, or they could follow the advice of the 46th Psalm and “Be still and know that I AM God”.
Since it is the “mind” that is the primary barrier that stands between normal human consciousness and the Kingdom of God, the sole object of these two methods is to overcome the mind. And it is the process of doing this that steadily dissolves the human personality until only God remains.
The path of surrender
On the face of it, the path of surrender is supremely easy. All one has to do is to let go – and let God. The human mind merely has to step aside and allow the Divine spirit within to take over and make all the decisions that we, as individual personalities, would normally make. As Jesus says:
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly of heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light”. (Matthew 11: 28-30)
By surrendering to God, we release the burden of our lives, as well as the responsibility for fulfilling our duties to our families and all those around us. We already have the assurance from Jesus in the previous quotation that all of our worldly needs like food, clothing and shelter will be met.
In addition, we no longer need to concern ourselves about whether our lives have meaning, and whether our efforts will be crowned with success. Once we have made the decision to surrender our lives to God, the results of what we do or do not do in life need no longer concern us.
We can simply live our lives according to a new maxim, “Let what comes come, and let what goes go”. For if we have truly handed over the control of our lives to God, then everything that happens in our lives can only come from God. But of course, the difficulty is in trying to do this every day.
It is the challenge of beating back the doubts and fears generated by our minds that requires us to “deny ourselves and take up our cross daily”. But in meeting this challenge, we are fortified by faith, and the conviction that we will, in time, be united with God.
We also need to remind ourselves of the words that Jesus spoke in his hour of need: “Nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done”. (Luke 22: 42) But if there is anything that needs to be done at any moment of our life, we need to do it to the best of our ability, and to dedicate our actions to God.
The path of enquiry
The path of enquiry is equally simple in theory, but is perhaps even harder to achieve in practice than the path of surrender described above. All one has to do is to follow the guidance of the 10th verse of Psalm 46 in the Bible. “Be still, and know that I am God”.
Again, this is one of those aphorisms that slides easily off the tongue, but can seem impossibly difficult to do once we decide to put it into practice. That is because the process of “knowing God” involves overcoming the mind, which as we have seen, is the main barrier between God and man.
The requirement of “being still” is common to all the mystical traditions of the world. It involves meditation, contemplation and single-pointedness of mind. And this is only achieved after endless hours of practice, requiring limitless patience and extraordinary determination.
The process goes like this. First of all, you have to be still. You have to calm the mind, much like the ripples on the lake that break up the image of the sun in the example quoted earlier. Then you have to focus on the source of the I AM feeling that exists inside of you.
With practice, this source will be found to emanate from a point inside the chest just to the right of the breast-bone. It is the place we instinctively point to when we refer to ourselves. This is why the Bible says: “A wise man’s heart is at his right hand; but a fool’s heart at his left”. (Ecclesiastes 10: 2)
If you continue to focus the mind on this source of the I AM, you will find that over time you will be drawn deeper and deeper into this source. And as you do this, you will begin to experience an inner peace that will transfuse your entire being. And the more you do it, the more you will WANT to do it.
The reason why it is so difficult to achieve is that one cannot use the mind to go beyond the mind. The goal cannot be reached by mental effort, because it is our very striving that stands as a barrier to further progress. One simply has to let go and JUST BE.
That means letting go of the business of living, and letting each day unfold as it will. The moment you act like a person and desire an outcome you have inserted the ego. As the Sages point out, you have to be sufficiently mature spiritually to let go of everything and LET GOD DO EVERYTHING.
The soul will ripen of its own accord in its own time just like the fruit on a tree. Finally, there comes that moment when the fruit falls from the tree and the I AM reveals itself in all its glory, resplendent as the Divine Creator and sustainer of all things.
That will be the moment you will realise that you are not only aware of God, but that you are united with God.
So the process of enquiry unfolds in the following way. Be still. Be still and focus your attention on the source of the I AM sense within you. Be still until you come to realise that this I AM sense IS God. What you previously thought of as your personal identity has been replaced by the eternal I AM – which is God. The human journey is complete.
In the ancient Hindu Vedas, the I AM is said to emerge from the heart-centre on the right side of the chest at a point that they call the Sphurana. This is described as being a “knot-hole”, which in normal human consciousness always remains tightly shut.
This “knot-hole” can be likened to the shutter of a camera which normally remains tightly closed. It is only when it is opened that the darkness disappears as light floods into the camera, revealing the glory of what had previously been hidden.
And this is what happens after prolonged meditation. This knot-hole or shutter begins to open, at first momentarily, but then for longer periods. It is only when it opens permanently that full enlightenment is gained. When that happens, the person becomes free, even though they still retain a human body.
The peak experience
These precursors of enlightenment can also sometimes happen unexpectedly, and many people have reported having experienced them. The American psychologist Abraham Maslow even coined a term for these experiences. He called them “peak experiences”.
In describing these experiences, Maslow wrote that they were “rare, exciting, oceanic, deeply moving, exhilarating, elevating experiences that generate an advanced form of perceiving reality, and are even mystic and magical in their effect upon the experimenter.”
Some of the best descriptions of these peak experiences have come from poets, particularly English poets belonging to what became known as the Romantic Movement that began at the end of in the 18th century. The following lines from Percy Shelley’s Ode to Liberty are an example:
“Within a cavern of man’s trackless spirit
Is throned an Image, so intensely fair
That the adventurous thoughts that wander near it
Worship, and as they kneel, tremble and wear
The splendour of its presence, and the light
Penetrates their dreamlike frame
Till they become charged with the strength of flame”.
My own peak experience happened when I was 31 years old. I was living in India at the time, and was visiting a friend in the town of Varkala in Kerala, not far from the southern tip of India. As I sat down one morning, idly gazing into the water of a small pond that was part of his estate, IT happened.
Although the experience itself only lasted for perhaps a few seconds, its effect on the mind was electric! But because the I AM exists beyond the mind, the mind itself is incapable of describing it. Nevertheless, the experience left a residue that has been imprinted on my mind ever since.
I was left with a sense of sheer exhilaration. I knew without a shadow of doubt that I had experienced a state of freedom that lay beyond the mind. It was a state of bliss that defied description. I was not only free from the limits of space and time, but I understood at that moment exactly how the entire universe worked.
I understood also what the ancient Sages of India had said about life. They described it by the Sanskrit term Lila, which represented a form of cosmic dance, in which every part of the created universe had meaning, and that meaning was to reflect the joy of the creator.
The best description that I have heard of that state is the one that has been recorded in the Vedas. They called it Sat-Chit-Ananda, which can be translated as Being-Consciousness-Bliss. And that was my experience. I was not only aware, but I was conscious of being aware, and I was immersed in total Bliss.
So the ultimate goal of all life is not to save the world, or live a more fulfilling life, or gain more wealth, or explore space, or overcome adversity or physical disability. The highest goal that you can achieve in life is to stop dreaming and WAKE UP from the dream you call your day-to-day reality.
Only then will you escape the confines of Plato’s Cave.
Only then will you be freed from this illusory world of shape and form.
Only then will you find the peace that passes all understanding.
Only then will you feel the bliss that can never be described in words.
Only then will you know the Truth that has been hidden from you up until that moment…….
That you not only ARE free, but that you have ALWAYS BEEN FREE.
