Wake up

Plato provides a classic description of the process of waking up in the Allegory of the Cave:

The story begins in a dark cave where people have been tied up since childhood and can only see shadows on the cave wall.

These prisoners consider the shadows to be the only reality, as they have never seen anything else. They give the outlines of the shadows names without realizing that they are only images.

The twist in the story occurs when one of the prisoners is freed. This person leaves the cave and initially experiences pain and confusion in the face of the bright outside world.

After a period of adjustment, the liberated person recognizes the true nature of things and the sun as the source of all light and life.

Motivated by this new insight, the freed person returns to the cave to free the others. But the return is difficult: the eyes have to get used to the darkness again, and the prisoners who stayed behind react with incomprehension and even hostility to the new perspective.

In Plato’s philosophy, the sun stands for the only truth and the process of leaving the cave means following a direct realization.

But is that really the case?

The people in the cave live in their reality and for them the shadow play is true – perhaps they develop a logical, self-contained science of the shadow play. And how does the supposed recognizer know that he is moving in the only true reality? Could it not be that he has only ascended into a more tricky and more perfectly designed all-encompassing cave and that the supposed sun is nothing but a mirror shining into this larger cave?

The self-recognizing person cannot exclude anything and this is exactly where the crux of awakening and enlightenment begins – because with every sincere insight, the doubts about this, but also all previous experiential knowledge, will also increase.

In the end, there is no final truth and reality that applies to everyone. There are as many truths as there are thinking creatures and each of these creatures lives and interprets its own perceptions. Every living being creates its own reality. But this also means that there are no universal values, no right or wrong, no good and evil – all morality, guilt and pride will always remain something very personal.

Waking up does not begin with seeing the light or feeling the love, nor does it begin with rising above the perceptions or knowledge of others. Waking up begins with the realization of knowing nothing.

The guardrails and inner compass that seemed to give us a direction in life have disappeared at a stroke or have steadily dissolved over a longer period of time. In the first case, psychiatry often refers to this as psychosis or dissociation, while in the second case, a creeping depression is diagnosed.

However, both are merely side effects in the process of growing up, caused by an increase in knowledge in a world that insists on supposed knowledge.

The challenge is not to actually recognize, but to transform this into wisdom.

Waking up, awakening or enlightenment is often associated with having found the only eternally blissful truth and from now on resting permanently in peaceful equanimity – ideally combined with excellent health and a level of prosperity commensurate with one’s personal circumstances.

This idea is fed by esoteric glossy magazines, promises of paradise and travel gurus and feel-good ashrams that change according to the zeitgeist.

What is ignored is that there is no lasting peace in the world around us and that the small feeling of inner peace is all too often hanging by a thread.

Transforming direct knowledge into wisdom requires humility and patience; it has nothing to do with heavenly peace, but rather not understanding the new state as an ego booster. The great challenge is to develop tolerance, respect and compassion from not-knowing when encountering the respective worlds of others, without becoming entangled with them.

The prisoners in the cave from the parable do not experience their cave and the projections on the wall as a prison, it is their living space, which they decorate with illusions from love movies, building houses, career thoughts and everything that belongs to the desired personal happiness. They sense that you have seen something, perhaps they find it interesting or exciting, perhaps a few are even curious about your story. However, you can’t go back into the prisoners’ den permanently and don’t even think about freeing them – no one will follow you.

The allegory of the cave concludes with the words:

“If he were to return to his old place anyway, he would first have to slowly get used to the darkness of the cave again. As a result, he would do badly for some time in the usual examination of the shadows there. The cave dwellers would then conclude that he had damaged his eyes upstairs. They would laugh at him and say that it was obviously not worth even trying to leave the cave. If anyone tried to free them and lead them upstairs, they would kill them if they could.”⁶

Waking up means rubbing the night out of your eyes and sneaking out of the dormitory alone, stepping out quietly into the light and freshness of the morning – be careful not to wake anyone up and enjoy the reverent silence of this unique moment.

Plato’s teacher Socrates quoted: “I know that I know nothing”⁷. For me, this is the hardest wisdom to bear. My personal challenge is to remain compassionate when I am confronted with dogmatism or concepts such as reason, rules and universality.

How do you feel about squinting alone into the rising sun?

Can you feel its gentle warmth on this still chilly morning, or do you want to go back to the cave heated by the floor and papered with the comforts of life?