Plato was a very famous Greek philosopher. He has given a different explanation in his book Republic. If your friends want to learn something new and open the eyes of your mind, that is, open the doors of your mind, then it is very important for you to understand this case. I will try to explain what it was. 

Suppose there is a group of people who are imprisoned in a cave. Cave means a cave in which there is a wall in front and shadows are being formed on that wall and what are those people. Their hands and feet are tied with chains. They cannot even get out. They have seen all their life. They have seen that cave and the shadows being formed on the wall in front of the cave all their life and imagined what things could be. That means they never got up and saw that on the other side, that is, on the other side, at a height, the fire is burning, due to which the shadows are being formed, why is it being formed. They just guessed that if you want to understand the truth of your life, then understand these shadows. Understand the things that were said in these shadows.

Now you people will ask why their hands and legs are tied, so I told you that they are prisoners. Their hands and legs are tied and they do not get up and look. The fire is burning on the other side. We escaped. They have made this cave their world and the image that is being formed in the cave is a shadow. They have accepted that as the truth. There is nothing beyond this. Now what happens one day? By chance, one of these people opens his chain, gets free and looks up and sees that a fire is burning. Now the light of the fire falls on his eyes and he is unable to bear the light. 

Now what will a man who has lived in darkness all his life do if he is suddenly shown light. He cannot bear the light but still what does he do after trying? He gets up and moves ahead, tries to get out. He moves a little further, crosses the fire and sees that there is a path going upwards and that path opens up to the road above. Now when he moves upwards from there, he sees the light of the open sky from above. Sunlight. Now the man who has lived in darkness all his life with his companions in the cave, has seen only shadows. He suddenly comes out and sees the sunlight, his eyes are unable to tolerate this light. His eyes start paining but still, somehow what does that man do, he looks up thinking that somehow I will tolerate this light as well and I have to go and see what is outside? 

When he comes out, he sees grass. He had never walked till today. Friends, he had never even walked on the road. He starts crawling. Now when he went into the light, he did not accept things. At first he thought that no, this cannot be true because in the dark he could see all the things clearly as shadows. In this light, he was seeing things blurred and he wanted to run back to the cave as quickly as possible. But we all know that when he has come into the light, why will he go back into the darkness and how will he go. Now he wanted to go into the cave but could not go back. Do you know why? Because when he saw how colourful the world is, the sky is blue, the stars shine at night, he saw the bark of the tree, saw the greenery. Then it came to his mind that how colourful this world is. 

Till now I was living in dark days. I was sitting with my friends and imagining shadows. But when I went out into the world, I saw so many things. Why don’t I bring my friends here too? Why don’t I go back to the cave and make them aware of the truth too. It is simple that he does not want to live in darkness anymore. He had seen the light. He does not feel connected with his friends, does not feel connected with their thoughts, does not feel connected with them. That is why he wants to go back and wake up his friends. He goes back to the cave to tell his friends everything. But now that he was used to walking outside, he was not able to walk in the cave. Somehow he goes down hitting the rocks to his companions and tells them that I saw this, I saw so much light. Now friends, what happens is that when he goes back to the cave, the people around him refuse to believe him. They start attacking him. When he tells them that there is a lot more in the world than darkness. Come, come out with me. But what do they think that their companion has been made blind and weak by the outside world. He does not think like us, does not feel connected to us, so what do they do, they try to kill him because their comfort will be taken away from them. Those people cannot tolerate light like their companion did. This teaches us that facing reality can be a little painful but it does not mean that you do not know reality at all. It is possible that when you go towards the light, your eyes may hurt a little. You may not be able to tolerate things immediately. But it does not mean that you sit in the dark all your life and keep looking at shadows. 

Going into the light is so painful because that light proves all the things you have believed in your life till now to be false. Whatever you have believed, understood, known till now, it proves them all to be false. That is why light seems painful to you. But believe me, once you go into the light, you will not be able to go into the darkness again. You will consider yourself blessed that I am really blessed that I got to know all these things. Whatever you believe today, whatever you understand today, whatever you believe fanatically, then think once that maybe someone has painted that on the wall of your mind, by looking at which you are imagining. Try to go out of these things once. Try to come out. You will see the light, you will see the world, you will see the reality. Now it depends on you whether you want to stay in that cave all your life and comment on the shadows formed on the wall or you want to come out. And if you want to come out in the light, then one subject can help you in this and that is philosophy. This is philosophy. As far as I know, no one wants to live in a cave. No one wants to live in darkness. 

Everyone wants to go into the light. Everyone wants to learn new things. But the pain that the light causes in the eyes, not everyone has the ability to bear that pain. Friends, if you have it, then you should come out. You must have understood it friends, I have tried to explain it as best as I could. I hope this article will help you in some way. That’s all in today’s article.  

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