Plato’s Cave Allegory – Confusing Symbol With Source – SFACIM class/conversation

In this video recording of a class (given for the enlightening School For A Course In Miracles – SFACIM curriculum graciously hosted by Lyn Corona and Tim Wise), we explore the classic Allegory of the Cave by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work Republic, and how it applies to ACIM‘s pure non-dual metaphysics. We review commentary by Kenneth Wapnick, Gary Renard, and others and engage in a lively conversation about how we need our Inner Kindness Teacher (a.k.a. Holy Spirit or the Jesus of A Course In Miracles) to lead us out of our metaphoric caves.

I became interested in Plato in the 1970s when I was exploring the lore of Atlantis and the Platonic Solids (both added by me in the background image in the lower left corner of the “School of Athens” painting by Raphael), both topics referred to in Plato’s Timaeus. Plato (along with Freud and Shakespeare) was one of Helen Schucman’s in-depth interests and influenced the style (form) but not the content of her writing as Ken Wapnick points out in several places in his work. Insights from all three of these historical pioneers are well integrated into numerous works by Ken. While Ken’s work emphasized Plato and Shakespeare, he definitely has plenty of great commentary on Plato as well. Plato’s philosophy was profoundly influential on western civilization; it gave us the idea of avoiding confusing symbol with source:

“Remember, then, that neither sign nor symbol should be confused with source, for they must stand for something other than themselves.” (ACIM, T-19.IV-C.11:2)

In the School of Athens painting, under the central arch, Plato is the figure on the left with his index finger pointing up, next to Aristotle motioning downward. ACIM’s vertical metaphor that Plato’s upward pointing digit represents reminds us that we need Holy Spirit’s help to bring our thinking “above the battleground” with the lofty perspective lifting all out of the thought system of sin, guilt, and fear based on the mistaken belief in separation.

We need a transcendental spelunker, one with perfect illumination, to lead us out of the cave in Plato’s Allegory, one with a metaphorically eternal lamp that will not go out, one that needs no batteries or fuel!

“We are ready to look more closely at the ego’s thought system because together we have the lamp that will dispel it, and since you realize you do not want it, you must be ready.” (ACIM, T-11.V.1:3)

In the “Golden Thread of Hope” (Ken Wapnick’s workshop) of asking HS to reinterpret the exact same witnesses that ego tampered (distorted, bribed, threatened) to lie on it’s behalf,  Ken uses a dark thread to represent ego’s fragmenting, separating, insane path away from Innocence, leading us deeper and darker into the abysmal gloom of guilt’s labyrinthine caverns of depression, despair and death. The Holy Spirit’s gentle response is the negation of the ego’s negation, using the exact same thread (the specifics that seem to be our material experience) metaphorically turning ego’s dark thread into a golden thread of forgiving light, kindness and reunification, leading us out of the darkness, avoiding the pitfalls of specialness, substitution and separate interests. It’s the same thread – the same story – the same forms – the same words, just given a completely different interpretation (purpose) seen through the gentle, patient vision of Holy Spirit’s grace, healing our Identity, restoring our wholeness.

“The only reality is God, and everything else is the world of appearance… Truth or Reality is always in mind, everything else is appearance or illusion.” – Ken Wapnick paraphrasing Plato

“Words are but symbols of symbols… twice removed from reality”  – a very Platonic idea reiterated by the Course.

Appearances lie:

“Nothing so blinding as perception of form.” (ACIM, T-22.III.6:7)

“You don’t want to worship the symbol; you want to use the symbol to get back to the Source.” – Ken Wapnick, referring to ACIM (the book) as a symbol of the content in our mind (the remembrance of our shared, undifferentiated Unity outside of space and time that transcends all symbols. (from “Appearance versus Reality” at about 2:07:00.

Here are some instances of words related to Plato’s Cave Allegory in ACIM:

• 83 instances of the word “shadow” in ACIM
• 325 instances of the word “dark” in ACIM
• 738 instances of the word “light” in ACIM
• 9 instances of the word “lamp” in ACIM
• 80 instances of the word “sign” in ACIM
• 124 instances of the word “symbol” in ACIM
• 229 instances of the word “Source” in ACIM
• 94 instances of the word “represent” in ACIM

“When anything seems to you to be a source of fear, when any situation strikes you with terror and makes your body tremble and the cold sweat of fear comes over it, remember it is always for one reason; the ego has perceived it as a symbol of fear, a sign of sin and death. ²Remember, then, that neither sign nor symbol should be confused with source, for they must stand for something other than themselves. ³Their meaning cannot lie in them, but must be sought in what they represent. ⁴And they may thus mean everything or nothing, according to the truth or falsity of the idea which they reflect. ⁵Confronted with such seeming uncertainty of meaning, judge it not. ⁶Remember the holy Presence of the One given to you to be the Source of judgment. ⁷Give it to Him to judge for you, and say:

Take this from me and look upon it, judging it for me.
Let me not see it as a sign of sin and death, nor use it for destruction.
Teach me how not to make of it an obstacle to peace, but let You use it for me, to facilitate its coming.” (ACIM, T-19.IV-C.11:1-10)

“The power of one mind can shine into another, because all the lamps of God were lit by the same spark.” (ACIM, T-10.IV.7:5)

“Who can be born again in Christ but him who has forgiven everyone he sees or thinks of or imagines? Who could be set free while he imprisons anyone? A jailer is not free, for he is bound together with his prisoner. He must be sure that he does not escape, and so he spends his time in keeping watch on him. The bars that limit him become the world in which his jailer lives, along with him. And it is on his freedom that the way to liberty depends for both of them.” (ACIM, W-192.8:1-6)

“There is another advantage,—and a very important one,—in referring decisions to the Holy Spirit with increasing frequency. Perhaps you have not thought of this aspect, but its centrality is obvious. To follow the Holy Spirit’s guidance is to let yourself be absolved of guilt. It is the essence of the Atonement. It is the core of the curriculum. The imagined usurping of functions not your own is the basis of fear. The whole world you see reflects the illusion that you have done so, making fear inevitable. To return the function to the One to Whom it belongs is thus the escape from fear. And it is this that lets the memory of love return to you. Do not, then, think that following the Holy Spirit’s guidance is necessary merely because of your own inadequacies. It is the way out of hell for you.” (ACIM, M-29.3:1-11)

Plato’s Cave Allegory in Gary Renard’s work:

“It would be helpful for you to understand that J’s reality is not the same as the world’s reality. He is not here in the illusion. Just like when you wake up in your bed from a dream, you are no longer in the dream. At times you may have experienced  the dream as being real, but it wasn’t. You may long to bring J into your dream with you, but he has a better idea. He wants you to wake up so you can be with him.  He wants you to be free—-outside the dream completely. Outside Plato’s cave. Outside all limits and beyond all boundaries.” – Arten in “Lifetimes When Jesus and Buddha Knew Each Other – A History of Mighty Companions” (by Gary R. Renard) from the chapter “Plato and Friends” pp. 53-66.

Pursah: “… it’s very clear Plato understood that what you’re seeing in this world is not real. The prisoners in the cave are bound in chains so hard they can’t even move their heads to get a different view. And they’ve been there so long they’ve forgotten what reality is like. They think the shadows they see on the wall in front of them are reality, and they don’t understand they are merely the shadows of those walking by outside. When one of the prisoners escapes, he eventually can stand to look at the light again and sees where the images are really coming from. He runs back into the cave to tell the prisoners the truth, but none of them want to hear it. They’re stuck in the doldrums of being the way they are. It’s what they’re used to, and the returning escaped prisoner is hated by them.”

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Arten: “There’s a parallel saying to that in the Course. “Prisoners bound with heavy chains for years, starved and emaciated, weak and exhausted, and with eyes so long cast down in darkness they remember not the light, do not leap up in joy the instant they are made free. ²It takes a while for them to understand what freedom is.” (ACIM, T-20.III.9:1-2)

Takis (Jesus): “Plato has a dilemma. In his philosophy all things come from The Good. And all the objects in the material universe are symbolic of an idea. So, like with the cave, the images the prisoners are seeing are symbols, or shadows of something else. They’re not real. But here’s the dilemma. Coming from The Good, Plato can’t figure out why The Good would make something that isn’t real, and he ends up compromising. He’s come to the conclusion that the things he’s seeing are not real, but that the ideas behind them are. And he has still ended up with dualism because he has the source making illusions. If the source is interacting with something else, that’s dualism.

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Ikaros (Buddha): “You’re right. Plato is a brilliant philosopher, but the truth is that the symbols we’re seeing are not real, and neither are the ideas behind them. They’re coming from an illusory, seemingly separate mind. And this mind is not the source of real life, only an imitation of life.”
…
Ikaros (Buddha): “This life is a hoax. It’s all distraction to keep us from experiencing the truth, from knowing real life. Philosophical speculation is fine, but where does it get you? We have to get to a place where there’s no compromise, where we’re making a firm decision between the real and the unreal, and empowering that decision with belief.”

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Takis (Jesus): “So we can’t have it both ways. The truth is true and nothing else is true. There’s a formless oneness just beyond the hoax. It’s nondualistic. It’s perfect, and only that perfection is true. We’ve both had lovely glimpses of it, but there must be a way to remove the barriers to it and experience it on a permanent basis.”

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Pursah: “Plato believed in logic, and that intellectual development would lead to self-fulfillment. But Takis and Ikaros had enough experience to know enlightenment had nothing to do with individuality. Indeed, it’s the relinquishment of individuality–psychologically that is, not physically–that leads to real fulfillment. That fulfillment can be found only in oneness.”

More about Plato’s Cave Allegory from Ken Wapnick’s work:

• Appearance versus Reality (also available in CD form on Amazon)
• From a Plurality of Perceptions to Unified Vision
• It is By Beauty That All Beautiful Things Are Beautiful (also available in CD form on Amazon)
• Love Does Not Condemn (also available in book form on Amazon) (a scholarly book by Ken); pages 49, 327-330, 520;

Starting with “Love Does Not Condemn” (probably not the best book for Course beginners):

• T-20.III.9:1-2
• T-25.VI.2:1-4
• T-28.V.7:1-5

“Prisoners bound with heavy chains for years, starved and emaciated, weak and exhausted, and with eyes so long cast down in darkness they remember not the light, do not leap up in joy the instant they are made free. ²It takes a while for them to understand what freedom is.” (ACIM, T-20.III.9:1-2)

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“Eyes become used to darkness, and the light of brilliant day seems painful to the eyes grown long accustomed to the dim effects perceived at twilight. ²And they turn away from sunlight and the clarity it brings to what they look upon. ³Dimness seems better; easier to see, and better recognized. ⁴Somehow the vague and more obscure seems easier to look upon; less painful to the eyes than what is wholly clear and unambiguous.” (ACIM, T-25.VI.2:1-4)

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“You who believe there is a little gap between you and your brother, do not see that it is here you are as prisoners in a world perceived to be existing here. ²The world you see does not exist, because the place where you perceive it is not real. ³The gap is carefully concealed in fog, and misty pictures rise to cover it with vague uncertain forms and changing shapes, forever unsubstantial and unsure. ⁴Yet in the gap is nothing. ⁵And there are no awesome secrets and no darkened tombs where terror rises from the bones of death.” (ACIM, T-28.V.7:1-5)

“Recall the Allegory of the Cave, and Plato’s similar question concerning the freed prisoner’s return to the dark cave with his message of light and truth. And so Jesus, himself such a messenger, states of himself in the Course:”“Many thought I was attacking them, even though it was apparent I was not.” (ACIM, T-6.V-B.1:5)

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“What you must recognize is that when you do not share a thought system, you are weakening it. ⁸Those who believe in it therefore perceive this as an attack on them. ⁹This is because everyone identifies himself with his thought system, and every thought system centers on what you believe you are.” (ACIM, T-6.V-B.1:7-9)

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“The outcome thus was inevitable, given the ego’s attraction to the dynamics of guilt and fear:”“To the ego, the guiltless are guilty. ³Those who do not attack are its “enemies” because, by not valuing its interpretation of salvation, they are in an excellent position to let it go.” (ACIM, T-13.II.4:2-3)

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“When it was confronted with the real guiltlessness of God’s Son it did attempt to kill him, and the reason it gave was that guiltlessness is blasphemous to God.” (ACIM, T-13.II.6:2-3)

“The Prince of Peace was born to re-establish the condition of love by teaching that communication remains unbroken even if the body is destroyed …” (ACIM, T-15.XI.7:2)

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“The lesson I was born to teach, and still would teach to all my brothers, is that sacrifice is nowhere and love is everywhere.” (ACIM, T-15.XI.7:5)

This video was recorded on August 1, 2022.

(I highly recommend Lyn and Tim’s almost daily SFACIM zoom classes!)