Mind Over Matter
...still in the cave what is outside but they are unable to believe him, for it is so far beyond anything they have ever experienced, “What do you think he would say, if someone told him that what he had formerly seen was meaningless illusion, but now, being somewhat nearer to reality and turned towards more real objects, he was getting a truer view? Suppose further that he were shown the various objects being carried by and were made to say, in reply to questions, what each of them was. Would he not be perplexed and believe the objects now shown him to be not so real as what he formerly saw?” (p.229, the Allegory of the Cave). The men in the cave cannot understand that there is more to the world than what they have seen, cannot understand that what they are seeing is just a representative of reality…not reality itself. In the Gospel of Mary, Mary Magdalene has a vision of the Savior that dispels all the previous perceptions of the way people view God and religion. In Mary’s vision she is told that, “There is no such thing as sin; rather, you yourselves are what produces sin when you act according to the nature of adultery, which is called ‘sin.’” (Mary 3:3-5) meaning that what we perceive to be a sin is not something ordained by God but rather something that we identify by ourselves. This comes as a major surprise because it was a widely spread belief that the definition of sin was determined by God. The vision that Mary had turns the beliefs that the disciples had on their heads, “this is why you get sick and die, for you love what deceives you” (Mary 3:7-8) and made them realize that there are no true rules to govern what they should believe. In the vision Mary sees that people will continue to believe something even when it hurts and deceives them, because it is all they know. Both The Gospel of Mary and the Allegory of the Cave show the difficulties people encounter when trying to further their knowledge of reality. Vision is a gift and a curse. In the Allegory of the Cave the man to leave the cave discovers that his entire reality is not what he thought while in the Gospel of Mary the disciples discover that what they believe of God, or of their way to commune with God, is not as correct as they once believed. However, what is the same is the idea that there is always more to learn than what you already know. Many people are satisfied with the reality that they know at the moment and do not quest to seek out more and therefore reject the attempts of others to enlighten them, He might be required once more to deliver his opinion on those shadows, in competition with the prisoners who had never been released, while his eyesight was still dim and unsteady; and it might take some time to become used to the darkness. They would laugh at him and say that he had gone up only to come back with his sight ruined; it was worth no one’s while even to attempt the ascent. If they could lay hands on the man who was trying to set them free and lead them up, they would kill him. Yes, they would. (p.231, Allegory of the Cave) This hesitance is rooted in a lack of knowledge that many people are hesitant to...