Plato, Spirituality and Government

Avatars: The Dali Llama, Chief Joseph, Red Cloud, Jesus, Buddha etc.

I was totally fascinated with the reading on Plato. It is comforting to find out that people long ago knew what many of us know today: that only a person who understands the nature of reality and operates in the spirit, or forms, of true reality can lead in a selfless way, allowing for just and honest treatment. I was able to study Chinese and Indian medical systems at Everglades. Both of these bodies of knowledge opened my eyes to a way of thinking that changed me forever. I was also exposed to the Native American way, which added to my understanding of spiritual reality, or forms. I am amazed how much Plato and I agree. When studying Hindu medicine, I discovered the spiritual understandings they believed. They are very ancient and very real. I found myself not only seeing things in terms of what I experienced in the world, but I was beginning to see things in terms of these “new” truths. I believe these ancient understandings have influenced many civilizations. Taken in a holistic understanding of health and wellness, their beliefs about spiritual things also speak of a holistic view of the spirit. The body, mind, spirit connection is inseparable and to ignore one or limit one is to limit all of them. One affects the others.

I believe truth and justice can exist in the material world. I do not believe absolute truth and justice can exist in the material world, but I believe you can get pretty close to it. When a person functions in the world without spiritual enlightenment, it is natural for them to move from event to event in their lives and to respond to what is around them with their desires for the things that they want. This is called “free-floating” through life with no purpose and no goals. People generally will want things, many times, to fill needs that seem to be satisfied with material things. From the time we are born to the time we die, we are surrounded with things that are acquirable and bombarded with a constant din of “buy, buy, buy”. The business and acquisition of material things appears to fulfill us. But, in reality they don't. They just weigh us down with things we have to do something with and keep, clean, fix, etc.

What Plato said is true. Without someone coming along and taking the chains off our leg and our neck and helping us to rise and turn around to see the source of the light, we see only shadows of reality. Science proves that the spiritual world is more solid than the material world, more real than what we see and possesses. Eternal premises such at justice, truth, love, and other virtues, values and attributes are ideals that are spiritual in nature. Quantum thought is also a spiritual understanding based in Science. The two fields are becoming one, because one looks at the laws of the temporal and the other looks at the laws of the spiritual. They are mirrors of each other and speak of the true reality, where we all come from and where we all go. Like Plato, I understand that they are, as he calls them, forms or part of a perfect eternal reality. When you live as if material things are the truth and the only reality, you get lost in it and most times you are only concerned about what is in it for you. It is easy to get lost with all the trinkets out there!

I think that we all know what is good and what is right. The spiritual spark in us is attached to the spiritual forms or plane. It is attached to what created it, Spirit, however you see the eternal Supreme Being or Energy. Whatever you call it, there is a place where absolute justice and truth exist, but it is in the eternal plane not in the temporal one. Justice is about fairness. Laws are supposed to be about fairness and be used to protect people from those who would take advantage of them or force them to do their will. Truth is about what is right and what is good, which we all know inherently because we are part of the spiritual realm. I believe we are spirits in these bodies to learn how to be Creator to each other and to nurture and heal our world. What greater gift can you give than your love, your kindness, the truth and fair justice to another? We all feel clean and good when we do right and when we are treated fairly. Nothing undermines self worth quicker than unfairness (injustice).

Truth lines up with spiritual reality and justice lines up with spiritual understanding. The Native Americans chose their leaders on the basis of their spiritual development. Only those who were wise could lead the tribe. He must be willing to give his life for the well being of the tribe. He must be the servant of the people in all ways. He must do what is best for all. He looks for the greatest benefit for his people to bring health and happiness to them. He speaks the truth and is fair to everyone, seeking no advantage for himself. He has no agenda for himself. A self serving agenda would have poisoned his ability to think first of the people and the land. By caring for his people, he has everything he needs and is rich along with his people in love, care, fairness, survival and all that the people need to live well and be happy. Simplicity, living close to the Earth and caring for her, caring for each other and doing what was right for all was a matter of survival. It also allowed a high quality of life and the survival of the tribe without engaging in excessive materialism. It was their lifestyle.

In our country, there are many kinds of leaders who appear to be very much about their own hidden agendas. The state of this country has been sabotaged by these self seeking, greedy men and women who use power to take from the people and the land without regard or without giving back. The welfare of the people and the land that supports life is the last consideration by much of government. In this material reality there is a great golf between proper government and what we are now experiencing. Science and spirituality are coming together. Will the inhabitants of the Earth be able to let the wise lead us? Will humankind continue to allow the unenlightened to be our rulers?

The Indians say that the highest form of government is spirituality. I think that is what Plato was getting at. The only thing I find lacking in Plato’s thinking is that he limits the attainment of spirituality to education. Education alone is not enough. Something in us, that we can’t explain, is more real than anything else and causes us to seek after it. Properly attaching to spirit and attaining understanding of spiritual things is the only pursuit that fills that “God shaped hole” within us. Plato missed out on the way to get enlightenment by leaving out meditation and other disciplines that help us to become available to this eternal knowledge and connection. I think his inability to embrace the whole understanding he most probably learned from the Asians may be because of the influence of the society he lived in during his life. The fact that he found that truth and justice were spiritual principles, called forms, and that he believed that enlightenment through knowledge of spiritual reality, through education, were essential to be able to lead the people was quite amazing.

A question that comes to mind is how can you be truly spiritual and be involved in politics? Plato addresses this is his story about the cave and the light. He says that once you become enlightened, you really have no interest in attaining stuff, power or anything else in the temporal realm. He says that a person, who doesn’t want to rule because of the depth of spirituality possessed, should feel it a duty to rule because it is in the best interests of all concerned. I wonder if the status quo would allow the Dali Llama to rule the world instead of Bush and his One World Government cronies.

It doesn’t matter what you name things, the ideas of Plato are very close to Asian beliefs about our world. They mirror Native American ideals and they have elements of Quantum thinking beliefs. The fact is that truth and justice both have been diffused by the greed and self-serving agendas of many leaders and corporations. Their agendas are not in line with enlightened spiritual knowledge. Many of the choices that are being made are not for the benefit of the Earth or her people. But no matter how much you deny truth and pervert justice, they remain the same, convicting the abusers in their hearts because they, too, know what is right and what is good. They cannot escape that knowledge. They will be held accountable by them.