PLATO'S CAVE

The following exchange took place as a discussion relating to 

a previous post Reflection of a reflection

Deepak Srivastava Hare Krishna Mata ji, Profound philosophy in so few words. Merry-go-round was my favorite amusement ride as a child. It was fun sitting on the monkey or the bird or the giraffe. However I never realized that the merry-go-round reflects the numerous cycles of birth and death that we go through till the time we get back to the Godhead.
Meena Devi Dasi Plato wrote about how people were simply seeing shadows of images in his analogy of the cave. People have been fascinated by Plato's analogy of the cave and speculated about it's meaning for centuries. So now we can see from the carousel what Plato was trying to describe. Video Plato's Cave Analogy 
Deepak Srivastava Hare Krishna Mata ji, The link has confused the hell out of me. I thought that your poem is trying to convey the many forms that we go through till the time we attain liberation. My interpretation seems wrong.  Could you, at your convenience, elaborate on points 8 to 11 of the link with some more examples.
Meena Devi Dasi A poem may not be easily deciphered. Sometimes there are several layers. There is a dream like quality to them. They defy the grammatical rules of prose and have their own grammar. What I was trying to express is something like this: The carousel reflects the material situation of life of after life birth after birth in the material world. The material world itself is also a reflection of the spiritual world. So it is like a reflection (the carousel) of a reflection (the material world) of the actual eternal world. Hope that helps. Hare Krishna
Meena Devi Dasi Plato's cave also has that reflection of a reflection theme. As far as his realizations took him he could perceive that people were enamored of things with no real substance, Shadows on the wall. But even the objects that were casting the shadows had no real substance. They were being cast by fire light. It wasn't until one of the people was freed and could actually experience the sunlight that the whole situation could be seen as it is. Hare Krishna. There is an added twist to Plato's analogy, when the person who was freed and enlightened tried to give the good news to those that were still bound they rejected him, probably as being crazy. Hare Krishna...