3.3.5. The Allegory of the Cave

“Behold! human beings living in an underground cave… chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them… And if they could talk to one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them?”

— Plato, Republic, Book VII (c. 375 BCE), trans. Benjamin Jowett

There are moments on this path when it feels as though I have simply woken up in the midst of a long performance, blinking under harsh lights. The world continues as before — people talking, moving, pursuing their various aims — yet something essential has shifted. I begin to see how every thought, every sensation, every longing, weaves the fabric of a grand illusion. It is both sobering and liberating to stand at this threshold, glimpsing how our minds have long been the architects of our own confinement.

Plato’s allegory of the cave has endured for centuries because it so elegantly captures the human predicament. We are like prisoners, chained from birth to gaze only at the play of shadows on a wall. These shadows — our thoughts, perceptions, and feelings — are all we know, so we mistake them for reality itself. The idea of turning around to face the light is not only foreign but painful, even frightening. Those who manage it often return unable to slip back into old illusions, and they may be met with suspicion or outright hostility by those still entranced by shadows.

At this stage of the work, I recognise my own status as a kind of prisoner. Through earlier chapters, we explored how consciousness might be analysed: the eight types linked to elements, the intricate divisions of citta in the Abhidhamma with its 89 or 121 classes, or the four planes of existence — sensual, form, formless, and the supramundane. These are helpful models, yet still mere attempts to describe something ultimately beyond description.

What matters now is how these insights transform my relationship to experience. I begin to see how my habitual cognition — the way the mind leaps out to seize and label each phenomenon — actually forges the very walls of this cave. Each thought, each fleeting preference or aversion, constructs a prison of subjectivity, reinforcing the illusion of an inner world distinct from an outer.

For the arahant, liberation means the complete cessation of this inner grasping. The mind may still perceive, but it does so without papañca — the proliferating tendencies that spin narratives of self and other. Such a one abides in perfect contentment within the cave, untroubled by its shadows, and with death slips beyond into paranibbāna.

But for the Bodhisattva — and for the alchemist striving toward Rubedo — there is a different unfolding. Here, the process of objectifying phenomena and generating a subjective observer is suspended even while life continues. Phenomena still arise, but like dream images: insubstantial, fleeting, empty of any real separation. In this state, there is no longer an “inner” or “outer,” only a seamless awareness that shines without division.

Curiously, the method for cultivating such a shift is not complex. It is, in truth, almost laughably simple. The challenge lies in how our conditioning constantly pulls us away from this subtle, ever-present Buddha-nature. We overlook it because we are perpetually drawn to the objects of karmic significance — caught up in stories and sensations that perpetuate the illusion of duality.

In this Citrinitas, my hope is to help you discern the cave for what it is. Understanding the mechanisms of this conceptual prison is crucial for two reasons. First, it gives us a clear sense of direction, showing precisely where our efforts must turn. Second, it plants a vital doubt in the mind’s conviction that its experiences are as solid and real as they appear. With this doubt, we begin to loosen our grip on the veil — known in alchemical language as the Veil of Isis — that divides the seeming inner from outer worlds.

For the arahant, the veil remains, yet they neither cling to nor reject the phenomena that arise, abiding in nibbāna. For the Bodhisattva, this veil is eventually dissolved altogether, revealing a luminous non-duality. Here, the old distinctions of saṃsāra and nibbāna fall away, leaving only a continuous, thought-free awareness. When this becomes stable, it is none other than the state we call Buddhahood.

Three Types of Liberation in the Allegory’s Light

So we stand here together at the mouth of this cave, perhaps still half-turned toward the dancing shadows, yet now knowing them for what they are. With patience and clear seeing, the walls that seemed so solid begin to thin, until at last they give way to a spaciousness where there is no prisoner, no jailer, and not even a cave — only the quiet, unbounded light of what has always been.

This text is excerpted from the upcoming book Citrinitas: A Course in Modern Alchemy. The complete volume will include additional study guides, glossaries, and extended teachings. Learn more about the book here.