I felt an impulse to share an animation based on Plato’s famous “Allegory of the Cave.”
For me, it is one of the most beautiful metaphors of the divine spark imprisoned in the world of matter, and of the suffering it endures there.
According to this myth, we humans do not know the true nature of reality. Like prisoners in a cave, chained with heavy shackles and turned away from the light, we are unable to see the world as it truly is. All we can perceive are reflections of reflections; we can only guess at what our eyes are actually seeing.
The original text presenting this myth takes the form of an imaginary dialogue between Socrates and Glaucon, and the entire story, rendered visually, can be seen in this animation:
When I watch this short film, I think of the Gnostics and the suffering of Sophia fallen into matter. I also think of the book The Power of Kabbalah by Yehuda Berg, which speaks of the two kingdoms—the Kingdom of Light and the Kingdom of Darkness—where the realm of light constitutes 99 percent, and the realm of darkness only one.
Life in the cave is life in that one percent of darkness. And so, when the time comes for the soul to awaken, the experience feels like sinking into profound darkness. A longing then arises for something that is not of this world. And the long journey out of the cave of shadows begins.
This story can only be understood with the heart.
And only by those who know—beyond the mind—the world of light.
Kameliya
