Tertium Organum (P.D. Ouspensky) · 107 of 225 · tr. Nicholas Bessaraboff and Claude Bragdon
Chapter XIV (part 6)
And at last he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him as he is in his own proper place, and not in another, and he will contemplate his nature.
Certainly.
And after this he will reason that the sun is he who gives the seasons and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold?
Clearly, he said, he would come to the other first and to this afterwards.
And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them?
Certainly, he would.
And if they were in the habit of conferring honors on those who were quickest to observe and remember and foretell which of the shadows went before, and which followed after, and which were together, do you think that he would care for such honors and glories, or envy the possessors of them?
Would he not say with Homer,— "Better to be a poor man, and have a poor master," and endure anything, than to think and live after their manner?
Yes, he said, I think that he would rather suffer anything than live after their manner.
Imagine once more, I said, that such an one coming suddenly out of the sun were to be replaced in his old situation, is he not certain to have his eyes full of darkness?
Very true, he said.
And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who have never moved out of the den, during the time that his sight is weak, and before his eyes are steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable), would he not be ridiculous?
Men would say of him that up he went and down he comes without his eyes; and that there was no use in even thinking of ascending: and if anyone tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender in the act, and they would put him to death.
No question, he said.
This allegory, I said, you may now append to the previous argument; the prison is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, the ascent p.
165 and vision of the things above you may truly regard as the upward progress of the soul into the intellectual world.
And you will understand that those who attain to this beatific vision are unwilling to descend to human affairs; but their souls are ever hastening into the upper world in which they desire to dwell.
And is there anything surprising in one who passes from divine contemplations to human things, misbehaving himself in a ridiculous manner.
There is nothing surprising in that, he replied.
Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees the soul of any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul has come out of the brighter life, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light.
And then he will count one happy in his condition and state of being.
Footnotes 162:1 "The Dialogues of Plato," Transl.
by B.
Jowett, Vol.
II, pp.
341-345, Chas.
Scribner's Sons, N.
Y.
1911.
Eckhart's Abgeschiedenheit/Gelassenheit — radical letting-go of will, image, and grasping that opens the soul to God; distinct from inner_silence (quietness) and from material renunciation, and adjacent to Sufi tark and Buddhist non-grasping as a practice rather than a metaphysical claim.
The liberated soul refuses honors and glories associated with the cave, showing detachment from worldly status.
Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.
The shadows are described as mere reflections and deficiencies compared to the true sun, implying ignorance is a lack of light.
Transgressive knowing acquired against divine prohibition — the Watchers' teaching of metallurgy, sorcery, and cosmetics in 1 Enoch, the Gnostic Eve narratives, the Promethean mytheme; explicitly contrasted with gnosis_direct_knowledge, which is salvific.
Those who try to lead others up to the light are killed by the prisoners, indicating that this knowledge is dangerous and forbidden to the masses.
Gurdjieff and Ouspensky's claim that ordinary human beings live in a state of waking sleep, reacting mechanically without unified will or consciousness, and that the spiritual path begins with recognising this condition.
The prisoners react mechanically to shadows and confer honors based on superficial observation without true consciousness.
The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.
The prisoners in the den are depicted as exiled from the true light and reality, living in a state of ignorance.