The Dreamer and the Yogin and The Allegory of the Cave

“Is perception the awareness of objects that have an independent existence and that consciousness simply reveals, just as a lamp lights objects that were already present in the dark?” (Ratié 437)

When beginning reading The Dreamer and the Yogin, this first line in the introduction stood out to me as a concept that I have personally thought deeply about before. Throughout the reading, although this Indian philosophy digs more deeply into the concepts of objects, cognition, and awareness, I was consistently reminded of Plato’s allegory of the cave. I first learned about the allegory of the cave in my religion classes at the Catholic high school that I attended and it was used as an attempt to explain the nature of the Holy Spirit. It wasn’t until my freshman year philosophy class while reading Plato’s “Republic” that I truly understood the mystery behind this allegory with an open mind.

The allegory is meant to be a visual representation of the effects of education on the human soul. The gist of the allegory is that humans were tied in this cave since childhood facing a wall. Behind them there is a fire and there are other humans that are acting as almost puppeteers. They parade objects in the shapes of people and animals casting shadows for the chained prisoners to see. This is the only sense of reality that the prisoners have. This is what they know to be true. If one prisoner was to be released and was able to go out of the cave and experience the “real world”, it would be hard for him to come back and explain his experience to the still chained prisoners. They would not be inclined to believe him because for years they have understood these shadows as reality and some might even call this “enlightened” prisoner deranged.

This connects well to the concept of ignorance and attaining truth. The Buddha might have experienced this as he became enlightened. He thought that although he now came to an understanding of the truth of suffering and liberation, he thought that he couldn’t explain this to anyone else. Some might call him crazy or not be willing to accept that there is truth beyond what they know. He was encouraged to teach despite his doubts. In the cave, ones perception of these objects was that they were humans and animals walking on a walkway outside of the cave when in reality they are puppets. It takes consciousness and cognition of the true nature of what they are seeing to be revealed and believed.