Some people view education and enlightenment to be different, some believe they are the same, and a third camp is of the opinion that after enough education, a person can attain enlightenment. Education can be defined as the act or process of acquiring general knowledge and preparing oneself or others for an intellectually mature life. Enlightenment, on the other hand, can only be vaguely outlined as reaching a level of intellectual or spiritual light; “light” being left open to any interpretation, but generally regarded as a new level where one understands what has been illuminated for them. In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” an analogy is used of prisoners held in a dim cave, seeing only what is in front of them and ignorant of their place in the world and truly, anything but the shadows of puppets worked by puppeteers thrown on the walls by the flickering torches in the cave. This allegory is to show that what we learn via education is but a picture of what is reality, and not reality. Only by understanding knowledge gained from education and how it relates to a person’s place in the world may one reach enlightenment; that is to say, education and enlightenment are two heads on the same body: separate and distinct, yet also representative of perfect duality.
Knowing the definitions of education and enlightenment, a third term must be discussed- intellect. Intellect is the capacity to learn and seek knowledge for oneself and to reason and understand the world independently. Intellect is the main link between education and enlightenment because knowledge must be sought before it can be understood. In Allegory, Socrates uses a comparison of two men in a cave. Both men know only shadows projected on the wall by the flickering fire. These shadows, while they are images of reality, they are not real. The chained men have the ability to see the shadows and learn about them and what they represent, but they can never view the true objects casting the forms on the wall. Ergo, they are educated about what they see, but not enlightened because they can’t fully understand what they are seeing. Neither can they become enlightened until they understand that the shadows are mere images and small portions of what is real. Because of intellect, each man seeks as much as he can learn about his world. Each man will want to know what he is seeing, be it grass on the ground or silhouette of a rabbit on the wall. Each man will seek to know as much as is possible about his world, intellect being the primary motivator for such seeking.
The following quotation explains how the long, rugged journey upward and out of the cave is the leaving of education and the beginning of the ascent to understanding and thus, enlightenment:
And suppose, once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he is forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light, his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything of what are now called realities. (129)
Then, the man’s eyes are no longer dazzled. Instead of the constantly flickering and changing shadows in the dim glow of the caves light, the man now sees the world for what it is. After being shown images and representations of reality in the form of dim shadows, he experienced a change in the form of gaining his freedom. The man’s point of blindness was his moment of understanding, and that moment of understanding is when he has truly reached enlightenment. He now understands that the shadows are shadows and nothing more, and he understands that he is a man and can cast a shadow of his own. The sun, representing the truth of the world, is so bright that he is blinded, but soon it is nothing but perfectly clear to him. The man knows of the shadows of the cave and of the world as it is illuminated by the sun, and he is educated and enlightened. The second man, a forgotten prisoner of the cave, will not know enlightenment until he is free; he is ignorant of his own ignorance. Only a man who is aware of both realities is enlightened, because it is he alone that truly understands his world.
There is a third man, a man who knows only of the outside world. He has never been in the cave and he has never seen the flickering and ever changing shadows cast by the puppeteers; he has never been educated about the shadows. He has only seen the bright sun and the outside world as it is. Is this man considered enlightened because he has seen the same things that the freed prisoner has seen? No, because he is only educated about his world. He doesn’t understand that there are prisoners beneath his very feet and that there is another form of learning about things than by simply seeing them with your own eyes. This third man is unenlightened, because he is ignorant to the lesser reality unknown to him. Thus, he cannot know and fully understand his place in the world. “And when he (the freed prisoner) remembered his old habitation and the den of his fellow prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change and pity them?” (130) Would the third man pity the prisoners, had he been aware of their existence? It is likely that he would. The third man would view the cave’s inhabitants as people to be pitied, the lack of true knowledge something to be lamented. If he were sent to the cave to watch the shadows, the third man would understand that they were images and not reality, and he would become enlightened of the lesser reality. However, the prisoners do not know what the man knows, and they would remain woefully ignorant.
The puppeteers can be viewed as teachers or as dictators. They can either be sharing knowledge with the prisoners or forcing knowledge upon them. As a college student, I feel that modern universities and institutes of higher learning are caves. We students are shown shadows of what the puppeteers want us to see. When I go to class, I gain education and learn new things and have more information about the shadows I see, but it is up to me to use that knowledge to understand the world around me for myself. Education can be taught, enlightenment must be attained for the individual, because it applies only to oneself. An enlightened person can’t simply walk up to an educated person and make them understand their own world, because no two people are alike. While I may be educated, I do not consider myself enlightened. I am intellectual and intelligent, but I am lacking an understanding of my place in the universe or purpose for living. I have no personal experience of a moment of bright understanding of my life, and perhaps that is my deep understanding. While I am not a prisoner in a cave and can understand that there is more to the world than my existence, neither do I understand my existence and my reason for being. I understand that I am insignificant against the giant, unfathomable expanse of the cold, dark and empty universe, but I do not consider such knowledge to be enlightenment.
According to Andy Bill Barlow, “Only one who knows both may achieve truer understanding.” Only one man is enlightened- the man who left the cave and, after a period of dazzling white light, saw the world for what it is. This is the only man who understands that the shadows are pictures of reality. The man in the cave truly believes that the shadows are real while the fictional third man is uneducated of the shadows, and also unenlightened. Education and enlightenment are two fish in a circle, each needing the other to be a whole; education and enlightenment are both bound and held fast by intellect, the catalyst for seeking knowledge, without which neither would be within the grasp of a man. If a man does not seek knowledge, he is neither educated nor enlightened, because every great journey must begin with a step in the right direction.
Works Cited
Plato. “The Allegory of the Cave.” Mercury Reader. Ed. Janice Neulib, Kathleen Shine Cain, Stephen Ruffus. Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing. 2008. 127-131. Print.
Barlow, Andy Bill. Personal interview. 20 April 2010.
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