The Cave and Buddhist Pasts

An understanding or insight came to me to help me better understand two seemingly different things that I was not altogether clear about for some time. The two things are how to understand the fire and the objects being moved along the wall with the people moving them also talking in the cave in the Parable of the Cave in the Republic and how to understand my Buddhist practice and realization in this and previous births (and my practice and realization in other related systems in other previous births) in relation to the Path and Platonist practice. I have always found the Parable of the Cave extremely important and powerful, but never understood the part about the fire and objects in the cave and the prisoner initially having to look at them and see them as more real than the shadows, with great pain and difficulty, before proceeding to actually move out of the cave. I now see that the fire, which plays a somewhat analogous role in the cave to the sun/the Good outside of the cave, represents the individuated soul at the samsaric/genesic/space-time/changing level, the center of experience/consciousness/awareness, the mind and true mind, which at some level at bottom is connected to the One, comes from the One, the Source of all consciousness and experience. (Recall the individual soul centers in Ennead 6.9 that are all connected to the true center of the One.) The objects being moved along the wall and the people moving them represent the various karmic acts and thoughts of different souls that are illuminated by the true mind or conscious center or soul, including the world-soul, to be projected out as our experience of the sense world, including ourselves in it, as the shadows and echoes on the cave wall. All this is entirely within the cave. Even when the newly released prisoner is finally able to look at the fire and the moving objects and people and understand what is actually going on and that this is more what the shadows actually are and is more real, it is still all just inside the cave and he still hasn't yet moved out into the real world outside. I have long explained an important and vital difference between Platonist practice and contemplation and that of the other related systems, by putting it that the other Indo-hellenistic systems in general, e.g., Chan and related forms of at least Mahayana metaphysics based Buddhist meditation, Advaita Vedanta, at least some forms of Jaina meditation, Orphism even, and etc., all teach and are about just withdrawing into the subject, turning the light of the mind back onto itself and such various expressions. Platonist contemplation, on the other hand, involves not only withdrawing into the subject, but bringing both subject and object up together into the noetic realm where subject and object are distinguished but not separated, and finally into the One where they are not distinguished at all. You will note, for example, that in the Phaedo the soul does not only just withdraw into itself alone but does so in and for contemplation of the Forms and that this constitutes its true collection and withdrawal and when it is in this condition it is always in contact with the real beings and contemplating them. In other words, in the other systems the soul or mind or awareness withdraws from objects to focus on or turn back to itself, recognizing only half or the subjective side of Reality, and realization consists in, to use as an example just one of the many forms of expression, in this case from Chan, "seeing the nature", seeing the center of the soul where it connects to the One, but thinking that this is the actual Absolute or fundamental Reality Itself, whereas it is actually only the derived or emanated soul center or a shadow or image of the Good. In Platonism, on the other hand, the soul, through withdrawal from the whole sensate phenomenal level and recollecting the Forms shifts its whole and all of being back up to Nous or the noetic realm, shifting or identifying itself with Nous and its objects with the Forms, the two not actually being separate and being mutually dependent or co-arising, and realization consists in moving, initially, to this whole higher and more real level of Nous/the Forms and then from there to the ultimate highest level of the One, where there is only One and Good, and final release is attained. Thus, the practice of the other systems is only turning to look at the fire and the objects and moving people in the cave and their realization is to be able to finally look straight at the fire and see it and the objects and people clearly. They think that this is the end and release, but it, while certainly a big step compared to the chained prisoners who only know the shadows and echoes and think that they are all there is, is still just entirely within the cave and they haven't even left it at all. The practice of Platonism, though preliminarily seeing and understanding the fire and all within the cave, is to actually go out of the cave and see first the images of the objects there and then the things there themselves and finally to be able to look directly at the sun and this is its realization and understanding, which is true final release from becoming. When I consider my many years of Buddhist practice and even realization prior to becoming a Platonist and practicing Platonist contemplation, I have in the past been puzzled how to quite fit that into my present askesis and understanding, especially in terms of realization experiences in the course of Buddhist practice. I now see, however, that all this and even the realizations attained was just turning to look at the fire and the objects casting the shadows and getting to be able to look at them--an important step in the very long journey through thousands of births and lifetimes to release from becoming, but still only within the cave--and it is now time to get on with actual progress towards getting out of the cave altogether, seeing the real things out there and the sun, etc. (already actually intermittently begun at some occasions in some previous births) and real ultimate realization and release. I think that this also goes a long way in explaining some of the differences in the other different systems and why even what are supposed to be the realized adepts and texts of the other systems often seem to still be caught up in and involved with particular relative reality systems and versions thereof. Even if they have seen the fire and the passing objects, they are still in the cave and still enmired in the particular configuration of passing objects in their cave not having seen the true archetypes of the Forms, still having known only that set of particulars not the universals. They are still in their particular hollow in the lower earth not having popped up at all yet to see the true earth, in the expression of the Phaedo muthos.