Plato wrote about life in a cave, watching the back wall and thinking flickering images dancing on the wall were reality. Genuine life was sacrificed to these shadows. All one had to do was to turn around and venture into the world that created these shadows, life with its joys and terrors, with its hopes and dreams and challenges.
Today, it seems to me, some/many people are looking at the back wall of the cave via the internet, television and various social media. Twitter mobs irrationally form over false assertions. People watch other people having adventures. Fictional characters and celebrities people our lives as if real neighbors and friends. Some talking head is upset over this or that, and we become upset too, never mind they were upset about the opposite last week and they will be upset about something else next week. Some politician rants this is constitutional and next month argues the opposite. People, in some/many cases swallow all of this and avoid a real life, real thoughts, real experiences.
My all time favorite mystic, Meister Eckhart, had a lot to say about it all, not the internet of course, but the back wall of the cave life.
Detachment from the shadows is necessary in order to know the Presence of God, to awaken to the fullness of life. Awakening is what we long for, even when we are not yet aware we need to awaken. Attachment to how we think things are has to go. All of our precious ideas, that have been set as if in stone, have to go. Exploration begins.
This day, Divine Presence, I come to You to ask help in detaching from the illusions of this world. My soul cries out for awakening. My soul hungers for You. I come humbly, realizing I know so little and realize what I thought I knew is likely just shadows on the back wall of the cave in which I have dwelt. Open all of me to You, dear One.
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