In the Secret Doctrine we are told that Plato was not merely the greatest philosopher of Greece, but also an Adept who belonged physically, mentally, and spiritually to a higher plane of evolution (Cohen). He imparted spiritual truths through myths and allegories, which his aim was both to awaken the Manas and to arouse the Buddhi of his hearers. In our age today, Plato’s myths have often been dismissed as poetic fantasies, and some people have suggested that they were used to cover up deficiencies in his chain of reasoning. Thus, his critics have not properly understood his philosophical system and political thought.

Unlike Socrates, Plato was both a writer and a teacher. His writings appear in the form of dialogues, with So

The allegory then goes on to explain that the cave is the world of sight, the light given off by the fire is the sun, and the journey out of the cave is the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world. One interpretation that can be made is that it is wrong to think that we put sight into blind eyes or knowledge into the soul, which did not already exist there before. The power and capacity of learning already exists in the soul, and it is only by the movement of the whole soul that the instrument of knowledge can be turned from the world becoming into that of being, and can learn by different degrees to endure the sight of the good and the true (Raghavan). Other virtues can be implanted by habit; where as the virtue of wisdom contains a divine element that is the identifying property of the soul.

Plato’s allegory starts with a depiction of the pathetic condition of most of mankind. There are chained slaves in an underground cave, which has an open end towards the light that reaches all along the cave. Theses people have been here from their childhood, unable to move or to see beyond, being prevented by chains that keep them from turning their heads around. Behind and above them, at a distance, there is fire but between the fire and the people there is a low wall, necessary to foster the illusion for a puppet show. These prisoners in this cave only see their own shadow or the shadows of one another, thrown on the opposite wall of the cave by the fire. To them the truth would literally be nothing but the shadows of the images, and they cannot distinguish the voices of one another from the echoes emanating from the surrounding darkness (Raghavan).

The freed prisoner will need to grow accustomed to the world outside of the cave. He will first see the shadows best, then the reflection of men and objects in the water, and then finally the objec

Some topics in this essay:
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