PLATO'S CAVE

Plato, the Greek philosopher, wrote a series of `Dialogues' which summarized many of the things which he had learned from his teacher, who was the philosopher Socrates.  One of the most famous of these Dialogues is the Allegory of the Cave -- but only a handful of people are astute enough to perceive the reality that they are themselves, immersed in the illusions of the Cave.
In this allegory, mankind is portrayed as being chained in a cave so that they can only see the shadows which are cast on the walls of the cave by a fire burning behind them.  Plato likens people of a natural organic mindset who can see and perceive the outer world only with the earth-bound senses of their physical body -- senses which are comprised of earth-matter -- people who think and reason only with the very limited resources of the natural (physical) mind -- as prisoners who are chained in a cave, unable to turn their heads to see the Source of what they perceive and think they understand.   In reality, all they can see is the wall of the cave.  Behind them burns a fire.  Between the fire and the prisoners there is a parapet, along which puppeteers can walk.  The puppeteers, who are behind the prisoners, hold up puppets that cast shadows on the wall of the cave.  The prisoners are unable to see these puppets, the real objects, that pass behind them.  What the prisoners see and hear are shadows and echoes cast by objects that they do not see.  Because they are unable to see the source of reality, the prisoners mistake the appearance of the shadows cast on the wall of the cave for reality.  They mistakenly think the images they see on the wall (the shadows) were real -- and they know absolutely nothing of the real causes of the shadows.   So when the prisoners talk, what is it that they are talking about?   About the shadows that have been cast upon the wall of the cave.   If an object is carried past behind them, and it casts a shadow on the wall, a prisoner says "I see that"!   But what is he talking about?   While the prisoner is under the delusion that he is talking about something real and tangible, he fails to perceive that what he senses is the shadow that has been cast upon the wall of illusion.
It is noted that the whole of the language of man makes reference to the shadowy symbols, assuming that these shadowy symbols are the real thing.  Plato's point: the general terms of our language are in reality not "names" of the physical objects that we can see.   They are actually names of things that we cannot see -- things that we can only grasp with the mind -- but not the mind or organic (physical) man which is earth-bound in its perception.  The prisoners may learn what a book is by their experience with shadows of books.  But they would be mistaken if they thought that the word "book" refers to something that any of them has ever seen.  Likewise, we may acquire concepts by our perceptual experience of physical objects.  But we would be mistaken if we thought that the concepts that we grasp were on the same level as the things we perceive.   Intellectuals ascribe to their wisdom in their books -- religious people place great faith in their scriptures -- yet, the books and scriptures of this world are nothing more than shadows of books of wisdom, and shadows of the Living Word that man must seek to Know the Truth.
To these people, the shadows represent the totality of their existence -- and it is impossible for them to imagine a reality which consists of anything beyond the fuzzy shadows on the wall.   Those who seek the Knowledge of what is Real, rather than the illusion of the shadows, are those who were prisoners, and have escaped the limitations of the intellectual cave that shackles the great majority of mankind in the abyss of ignorance.   The Knowledge acquired by those who succeed in breaking the shackles of physical limitation -- i.e., the Sacred Manna or Gnosis -- is the Experiential Wisdom and Knowledge they learn when they go out of the cave of this world via an inner dimension of self that is unknown to the masses and their religious, intellectual, cultural and political leaders, and into the inner reality which is portrayed by Plato as the light of the sun, where they are then able to gaze upon and behold man's true reality -- the reality of self-expressed in the words of the Gospel of Thomas: "But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty... Whoever finds himself is superior to the world."   And upon escaping from the intellectual cave that shackles mankind, when they try to go back into the cave and tell the other captives the truth, they are mocked as madmen.   This fact you can observe throughout the history of man, as well as in the present time.   We are all initially prisoners and this tangible world that we perceive as physical reality is our cave.  And while the spiritual path of the Disciple in search of the Spiritual Manna/Gnosis of Higher Truth, begins when one who was a prisoner escapes out into the sun, this is in effect only the beginning of the journey as the mature soul begins to amass Gnosis, which is purely spiritual knowledge gained as they ascend into the true Light of true reality.   What is equally interesting is the literal interpretation of Plato's tale: The idea that reality could be represented completely as "shadows" on the walls.   Reality exists in another dimension beyond our vision, but we are so hypnotized by the world of shadows, that we fail to perceive the inner reality that is the source of everything in the life that we live.  
When properly understood, the mesmerizing effect of the world of shadow-images that people mistake for being valid in this realm, is parallel to the statement in the Gospel of Philip in the words: "Names given to the worldly are very deceptive, for they divert our thoughts from what is correct to what is incorrect. Thus one who hears the word "God" does not perceive what is correct, but perceives what is incorrect. So also with "the Father" and "the Son" and "the Holy Spirit" and "life" and "light" and "resurrection" and "the Church (Ekklesia)" and all the rest - people do not perceive what is correct but they perceive what is incorrect, unless they have come to know what is correct. The names which are heard are in the world [...] deceive. If they were in the Aeon (eternal realm), they would at no time be used as names in the world. Nor were they set among worldly things. They have an end in the Aeon."  And this is true to the degree that Clement of Alexandria warned , Stromata V.14: "We are not to think of God according to the opinion of the multitude".   Why?  Because even at best, the opinions of the multitude are based upon Cave logic and reasoning, and are wholly immature and without higher perception and understanding.