The Wit and Wisdom of Plato

[manitou]

I thought it would be a wonderful topic for General Discussion to discuss and triangulate various quotes of Plato, metaphysician extraordinaire.

 

The first quote is the following:

 

 

"And isn't it a bad thing to be deceived about the truth, and a good thing to know what the truth is? For I assume that by knowing the truth you mean knowing things as they really are." (Plato)

 

 

Does anyone want to discuss this quote? Let's give it a go -

[manitou]

How do we come to know things as they really are? Is it by first knowing ourselves as we really are?

[SEEKER OF TRUTH]

Hi Manitou and good topic. I think knowing ourselves is a very good starting point, but sometimes the truth can be seen differently by different people, so then it comes down to perception of the truth, rather than an ultimate truth. If you have ever been in a relationship, I'm sure you know what I mean.

[ChiDragon]

One knows oneself may know others.
One knows oneself may not know others.

One knows others to know oneself.
One knows others may not know oneself.

One may never know oneself to see the truth.
One may never see the truth to know oneself.

One depends on others may never see the truth.
One doubts others will never see the truth.

One solely believes others may not see the truth.
One solely believes in oneself may not see the truth.

One who can see the truth is to find it with one's wisdom.
One who can sort out the reasons from chaos may see the truth.

Edited October 25, 2013 by ChiDragon

[Stosh]

There is a truth that can be known only if one can ignore their preferences

and be unbiased for one conclusion or the other.

Which would imply that one need know oneself first ,to know the truth -for truth.

 

One may may think they know truth , though they know-not themselves.

So how does one know if they DO know the truth, or just think they do ?

By cross-checking with others, to find out what , their own bias is,

and instead accepting that standing alone

one is adrift in a sea of unconfirmed possibilities.

 

One is never decieved by the actual truth, but can be misled about parts of it.

One can never know the total truth directly , but may infer.

 

There are Zen gardens in Ryoan-ji... which should be considered.

[manitou]

A body that knows not the Self

 

Cannot know the One.

 

When one falls into the 97% agreement with others category,

 

The One is hidden indeed.

[Stosh]

I don't know what that means.

[ChiDragon]

A body that knows not the Self

 

Cannot know the One.

 

When one falls into the 97% agreement with others category,

 

The One is hidden indeed.

 

When one not falls into the 97% agreement with others category,

The One will be hidden indeed.

[dawei]

Zhuangzi said: Close the ears; close the mind; Listen with Qi... then you can know something more.

 

But I don't think that Plato had this in mind... or maybe this was his mind...

[Stosh]

I haven't read any plato that would correspond to the idea of chi in any of its incarnations , but would find it interesting if it was there.

[Nungali]

I thought it would be a wonderful topic for General Discussion to discuss and triangulate various quotes of Plato, metaphysician extraordinaire.

 

The first quote is the following:

 

 

"And isn't it a bad thing to be deceived about the truth, and a good thing to know what the truth is? For I assume that by knowing the truth you mean knowing things as they really are." (Plato)

 

 

Does anyone want to discuss this quote? Let's give it a go -

Okay ... I will give it an uninformed shot.

 

Truth is relative (IMO) so to be decived is to be decived about how 'relative natures' relate to each other (the 'Form behind the Forms'?)

 

Knowing what the truth is , is to understand the relative (how things relate to each other) nature of things.

 

I think this is important in Platonics ... to see things in their relationship to each other .... not as seperate entities containing their own form (that seems Aristotlian to me).

[manitou]

Chi is energy. Unmanifested chi is the void, the Dao. This is exactly where Plato's mind was.

 

Stosh, what I meant by the 97% comment was that if 97% of the people are in agreement on something, chances are that it's wrong. Seems like the truth lies in the minute quantity. How many enlightened people do you know? The enlightened ones will see from the perspective of the void, which is what Zuangzi said in Dawei's comment. Close the ears and the mind. Stop all thought and find clarity, find the void. Close the ears and don't form an opinion based on the opinions of others. Go to your own inner clarity, once found, to See.

 

All phenomena is illusion, that Plato knew. Traveler and I were recently on an astounding thread on Ch. 12 of the Hua Hu Ching; he posted Plato's metaphor of The Cave. I tried to paste it here but was unable; here's the link to the Cave metaphor in the thread. He speaks of Socrates but it was written by Plato, his student.

 

See Plato's Allegory of the Cave.

 

 

Edited October 26, 2013 by manitou

[Stosh]

Oh, we are on slightly different pages. I was looking at it along the idea that platonic forms exist in some fashion which are independent of the items which actually embody the form. Similar to the cave thing, - an actual horse is a shadow of the perfect form.

I believe he backed away from the idea eventually.. an opponent said , I have been to Plato's house, and have seen his cup and table, but did not see his cupness and tableness.

Meaning that the object was self defining ..though we conceptualize and group stuff , those concepts and groups have no existance aside from that.

For instance the worlds people can be grouped by color race nationality language food preference birthday with mammals with plants with etc etc The grouping that you do is up to you and you can litterally pick any boundaries that suit your sense of appropriateness, it is totally arbitrary..(not random )

 

The commonality of the human experience allows us to understamd each other occasionally

So knowing yourself leads to insight about me, and anyone else.

Besides that, we both trip over the chair in a dark room and we both don't like it.Though we both can't see what the heck it was we tripped over, we both tripped over something. In doing so we mutually confirm that there really is an obstacle even though the experience was subjective.

I have no idea how many people are enlightened, it could be everyone who is sentient is enlightened to their own subjective experience, or we all are enlightened to inferred abstractions, Its one of those arbitrary ( not random) groupings.

Edited October 26, 2013 by Stosh

[Spotless]

Knowing

It falls away again and again - forever fading and re-emerging

We grasp it anew and our hand fades - we do not let it go - it is not ours to undo

This is the nature of knowing

 

With inadequate words the sage may speak as though in knowing but we give him credit he does not ask for.

Edited October 26, 2013 by Spotless

[silent thunder]

sometimes know myself better, by finding out what I am not...

[manitou]

I believe he backed away from the idea eventually.. an opponent said , I have been to Plato's house, and have seen his cup and table, but did not see his cupness and tableness.

 

My guess is that the opponent wasn't able to see Plato's cupness and tableness because the opponent was unable to find his own cupness and tableness.

 

(having a little trouble with the Reply function on my twitterbox).

 

I believe that the manifestation of the horse (what us commoners would call the real horse) is still not the real horse. The shadow of the horse is what we see, according to the cave analogy. The person seeing the horse on the screen is us, and we are a clump of condensed energy. The Real Horse is contained within the metaphor of the sun, where the idea exists and is emitted.

 

Our thought, or Its thought is manifested and filtered through our tiny brains. It does indeed manifest its own boundaries, even as to our own shape and conditions. And things that 'happen to us' - we are the creator, the thinker, always.

 

Your comment about grouping arbitrarily strikes me. Parallel universes. No two of us see the world in the same way at the same time. If you and I are sitting next to each other in a room and each one of us snaps a photo of the rest of the room in front of us, and then measure the dimensions of the walls within the photo - your walls in your photo will be seen at a slightly different angle; the measurements of the walls in the photo will be minutely different. We all live in parallel universes. If we are sitting across the table in a restaurant talking to each other, our experiences are totally different because our visual plane is exactly opposite; two different experiences will be had.

 

I like your metaphor of the chair in the dark room. What is the similarity of the experience? Probably not the location on our toes where we stubbed them. Not the position of the chair after we bumped into it. The similarity of the experience is in our feeling about the experience. Neither of us would immediately laugh. We would both feel the momentary cringe of the pain and the flush of the feeling of "Damn!" going through our bodies. Yes, we are One. We are part of the It, and it is our sentient reactions that bind us.

Edited October 26, 2013 by manitou

[manitou]

sometimes know myself better, by finding out what I am not...

 

I think this is perfect. And I would go one step further and remove the word 'sometimes'. The operative principle in discovering one's self is Elimination, IMO.

[Stosh]

Well I like your restaurant metaphor analogy. Though we both live in different worlds subjectively, we both enjoy the cozy chat..even though we are imperfectly certain of that which we divulge or hear.

At least its better than staring at our plates in chilled silence , feeling both alone and in need of escape. For a moment we extend our envelope , consider things we didn't directly experience and share what we have dreamed.

[traveler]

Here's a well-known tale that I thought of when reading about stumbling over the chair in a post above:

 

 

ELEPHANT AND THE BLIND MEN

 

Once upon a time, there lived six blind men in a village. One day the villagers told them, "Hey, there is an elephant in the village today."

 

They had no idea what an elephant is. They decided, "Even though we would not be able to see it, let us go and feel it anyway." All of them went where the elephant was. Everyone of them touched the elephant.

 

"Hey, the elephant is a pillar," said the first man who touched his leg.

 

"Oh, no! it is like a rope," said the second man who touched the tail.

 

"Oh, no! it is like a thick branch of a tree," said the third man who touched the trunk of the elephant.

 

"It is like a big hand fan" said the fourth man who touched the ear of the elephant.

 

"It is like a huge wall," said the fifth man who touched the belly of the elephant.

 

"It is like a solid pipe," Said the sixth man who touched the tusk of the elephant.

 

They began to argue about the elephant and everyone of them insisted that he was right. It looked like they were getting agitated. A wise man was passing by and he saw this. He stopped and asked them, "What is the matter?"

 

They said, "We cannot agree to what the elephant is like." Each one of them told what he thought the elephant was like.

 

The wise man calmly explained to them, "All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all those features what you all said."

 

"Oh!" everyone said. There was no more fight. They felt happy that they were all right.

 

About being awake, let's compare this to a dark room full of people. A candle is lit and illuminates the room. Everyone in the room benefits from the light, but nobody feels like the candle flame. The flame is the one who is awake, the one who is holy; it is an unique experience. Others look on and can't decide what the flame is feeling. They need the holy ones all the same for what would this world be like without light?"

[manitou]

About being awake, let's compare this to a dark room full of people. A candle is lit and illuminates the room. Everyone in the room benefits from the light, but nobody feels like the candle flame. The flame is the one who is awake, the one who is holy; it is an unique experience. Others look on and can't decide what the flame is feeling. They need the holy ones all the same for what would this world be like without light?"

 

I'm missing something here, Traveler. There is kundalini flame, and it is felt. I don't understand what you mean when you say others can't decide what the flame is feeling. Is the flame analogous to the awake one? Or is the flame the source of the light in the sense that clarity involves the removal of obstruction within for the flame to shine?

[traveler]

Let us say that you are in a room. A light appears and within the light you see a being of light. You feel almost overwhelmed by the loving energy of this being. You feel this being. But you don't know what the being of light is feeling, only what you are feeling. We are all people in a room illuminated by a candle. We know what we feel like but cannot comprehend what the enlightened ones are feeling.

 

Since awakening is a never ending spectrum of evolution, we too are the flame of the candle in our own right, giving warmth and light to those around us. We know what we are feeling as the kundalini runs through us. Those whose snake has not yet risen cannot know what we are feeling, only what they are feeling as they sense the energy in us. Sometimes someone is called upon to be a conduit for healing energy to aid in correcting a "problem" in another. The healed person knows what it is like to be healed but not what it is like to have the snake awakened within, to be a healer.

 

We can come to a place where we share the feelings of others, seeing them as being Us on some deep level. But to feel exactly as the other feels is less likely. For instance, let's assume the sun is an intelligent being, then can we truly feel what the sun is feeling? I cannot. Not fully. For I am not the sun. I can understand the sensation of feeling as one with another human. To feel as one with the sun takes more than I can fathom at the moment.

 

So, we are all in a room with a candle. We feel the flame's warmth. The sensation of being the source of that warmth is a sensation quite outside my experience. When I am the flame, then I know what I feel. But there are many flames and a candle flame cannot feel the same as a bonfire.

[someone else]

Plato not really mystical. He have problem with class war. He is from rich, his uncle very bad rich man Kritias, and he try to make political correct. But he fail. Also try in Syracuse and fail. So he open school, try to teach rich how to be human being. Philosophy mean friend from the wise.

[manitou]

Plato not really mystical. He have problem with class war. He is from rich, his uncle very bad rich man Kritias, and he try to make political correct. But he fail. Also try in Syracuse and fail. So he open school, try to teach rich how to be human being. Philosophy mean friend from the wise.

 

 

Rather than throwing a wet blanket on Plato, wouldn't it be more fun to just participate in the discussion?

[manitou]

Let us say that you are in a room. A light appears and within the light you see a being of light. You feel almost overwhelmed by the loving energy of this being. You feel this being. But you don't know what the being of light is feeling, only what you are feeling. We are all people in a room illuminated by a candle. We know what we feel like but cannot comprehend what the enlightened ones are feeling.

 

Since awakening is a never ending spectrum of evolution, we too are the flame of the candle in our own right, giving warmth and light to those around us. We know what we are feeling as the kundalini runs through us. Those whose snake has not yet risen cannot know what we are feeling, only what they are feeling as they sense the energy in us. Sometimes someone is called upon to be a conduit for healing energy to aid in correcting a "problem" in another. The healed person knows what it is like to be healed but not what it is like to have the snake awakened within, to be a healer.

 

Clarified wonderfully, Traveler. Got it now. I would offer one word of 'correction'. When you say 'we know what we feel like but cannot comprehend what the enlightened ones are feeling.' You would know. You. The Traveler. You would feel love and non-judgment when acting from the source of your flame. The rest of the time, you are riding your ox.

[manitou]

* * * * * * * * * * * * * NEW PLATO QUOTE * * * * * * * *

 

 

 

 

Last night I found a wonderful paragraph quoting Plato, followed up by discussion of his quote. It is written by Albert Pike, author of Morals and Dogma (of the 33 degrees of the Scottish Rites of Freemasonry). These paragraphs are within the lengthy chapter in the 32nd degree, page 858.

 

Please feel free, anybody, to throw in Plato quotes that you find anytime you wish! This discussion could go on for a while -

 

* * * * * * * * *

 

 

We see the Soul, Plato said, as men see the statue of Glaucus, recovered from the sea wherein it had lain many years - which viewing, it was not easy, if possible, to discern what was its original nature, its limbs having been partly broken and partly worn and by defacement changed, by the action of the waves, and shells, weeds, and pebbles adhering to it, so that it more resemble some strange monster than that which it was when it left its Divine Source. Even so, he said, we see the Soul, deformed by innumerable things that have done it harm, have mutilated and defaced it. But the Mason who hath the ROYAL SECRET can also with him argue, from beholding its love of wisdom, its tendency toward association with what is divine and immortal, its larger aspirations, its struggles, though they may have ended in defeat, with the impediments and enthrallments of the senses and the passions, that when it shall have been rescued from the material environments that now prove too strong for it, and be freed from the deforming and disfiguring accretions that here adhere to it, it will again be seen in its true nature, and by degrees ascend the mystic ladder of the Spheres, to its first home and place of origin."

 

 

(My thought: I'm thinking that this is ultimately a metaphor for that which lives hidden within all of us, hopefully to be uncovered and manifested in this lifetime)

Edited October 27, 2013 by manitou