In order to begin the work of restoring the notion of person two things seem needed. Leads to these may be found in the past, but have been left unattended in modern times. The first is an ordering of human knowledge which frees one from choosing one of its modes against the others. Such choices achieve ideological unity and clarity, but at the cost of the richness of multi-levelled human experience. Plato had attempted to respond to this need in his simile of the divided line which he exemplified by his allegory of the cave. Here we would like to follow the well-known process of his analysis of the experience of the prisoner freed from bondage in the cave where only shadows can be perceived.

From this we will proceed to a second need, namely, for metaphysical awareness of existence as contributed by medieval Christian and Islamic thought and interiorized by the Vedantic philosophies of India.

With these two insights into knowledge and being it will become possible to reexamine in detail the more generally ignored experience of those who had been prisoners but, after being liberated and able to see the light at the mouth of the cave, had returned to the active life of the cave. Their return is no longer a matter of mere stages of thought, but of existential engagement, for the light at the mouth of the cave is the source of being and meaning. Its light penetrates the darkness to give new life and hope. This is the true power of being and of the modes of participation in being that are open to us.

In his Republic, Plato confronted a problem similar to that of modernization. Things were not well. That the state had killed its wisest thinker, Socrates, as too dangerous to the new generation suggested a perverse desire for blindness. Teaching was being left to the Sophists whose approach was exemplified by the character of Creon in Sophocles’ Antigone. There could be no truth, for every statement could turn dialectically into its opposite; no principles, for the mind was tied to changeable sense experiences after the fashion of Hobbes; and no standards of ethics, for public life was a Machiavellian exercise in managing the crowd.

In contrast, Plato undertook to design a project of education or enlightenment which would form a generation of leaders who could direct a state in which the human spirit could flourish. This was not a short range project; he did not envisaged merely a method or a handbook of techniques for managing people. Rather, his plan was an educational model to reopen the mind to all levels of meaning. Thus, his Republic serves as a checklist for the dimensions of the spirit. It presents an overall view in two media: the simile of the divided line and the prisoner freed from bondage in the cave.

Through the simile of the divided line (Rep. 509d-511e) and the Allegory of the Cave (Rep. 514a-521b) Plato deftly distinguishes the levels of knowledge; in the allegory of the cave he provides the imagination with a way of ascending these levels. The line is divided into two unequal parts, one represents the sense level, the other represents the intellectual level; when each is again subdivided unequally the result is four unequal levels. In the allegory of the cave there is again an unequal fourfold division. First persons are chained facing the inner wall and are able to perceive only the shadows reflected on the wall. Behind them is a raised partition, on the other side of which people are carrying placards; at the mouth of the cave there is light from a fire or the sun. The content of knowledge at the lower stages are the images or reflections shed by the fire formed according to the shapes of the placards.

The first level of awareness which Plato terms "imagination" (eikasia) may be seen as the affective order of sense and feeling corresponding to reflections, e.g., of trees cast upon the water of a canal, or to the shadows cast upon the wall by the placards and the fire.

In the second level of awareness represented by the second section of the line the concrete individual realities (placards/trees) which Plato terms "belief" (pistis) are directly perceived or intuited. They are but limited expressions of the natures they express. Thus the perception of a concrete tree at any moment expresses but part of what this tree is and will become, and this tree in turn is but one expression of the possible ways in which the nature of tree can be realized. Similarly, in the allegory of the cave when a prisoner is freed from his chains and turns to perceive a square placard raised above the wall he senses but one concrete individual realization form or shape.

In the third level of awareness which Plato terms "thought" (dianoia) and represents as passing beyond the partition in the allegory of the cave, the prisoner moves from the sensible to the intelligible order. There he not only perceives concrete physical patterns, but understands the nature of the square shape and can appreciate how squares can be variously combined to generate triangular, rectangular, and pentagonal figures–indeed, the whole science of geometry. The simile of the line identifies the key step in the development of such a science, namely, generating hypotheses on the basis of which the entire content of the science can be deduced (e.g., that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points as the initial hypothesis for Euclidian geometry). The content of such sciences being deduced from hypotheses is essentially and always hypothetical. This is the realm of ideas or forms, of the different ways in which being can be; it is that of the categories which Kant identifies as the conditions of possibility for the universal and necessary knowledge that constitutes the sciences.

In this third stage of knowledge one could only unfold more and more possibilities, descending from unity to multiplicity. One may, however, employ the hypotheses not as first principles for deductive awareness, but conversely as points of departure for moving to the fourth level of knowledge, to the necessary (rather than hypothetical) principle of the whole. This might be compared to Descartes’ step when he reflects that in doubting he certainly is thinking and being. Thus, that there be such a thing as an hypothesis – of whatever content – there must be a distinction between being and its negation. For were it possible that to affirm an hypothesis is the same as to deny it (if to say that X equals Y is the same as to say that X does not equal Y) then no statement of whatsoever kind is possible. In the allegory of the cave, this is to ascend to the mouth of the cave, to the fire or the sun as the source of light without which no shadows of any shape would be shed, nor would there be any meaning to form if all is undifferentiable darkness and obscurity. This level of knowledge Plato terms "understanding" (noesis).

Plato’s model of line/cave has become classic because it deftly both distinguishes and relates the levels of sensation and intellectual knowledge. These, in turn, can be subdivided so as to take account, on the one hand, of affectivity at level one, of perception of shapes at level two, and, on the other hand, on level three of the categorical sciences of natures and on level four of the metaphysics of being.

But if the fourth stage of the line (or, in terms of the allegory of the cave, the light at the mouth of the cave) is knowledge of reality itself of which all the rest are types of expressions, then the insight of Plato can be essentially and immeasurably enriched to the degree that this fourth stage can be appreciated. This can be approached from two directions: East and West. The Indian tradition of moksha-marga and yoga can be immensely helpful, and can be helped, in turn, by the Western development of phenomenology in this century. In the West the philosophy of existence developed in early Christian and medieval philosophy speaks most directly to this issue and is particularly relevant to our times.

Hence, before following Plato back into the cave to see what this direct awareness of the source of light at the mouth of the cave contributes upon return to life at each level we shall try to assemble what has been discovered about the source of light by the various traditions East and West, ancient and modern. Then and in its light will we return to the cave in order to see how metaphysical insight illumines all. Part II will apply this to the notion of person and Part III will unfold the implications of both Part I and Part III through examining the notion of culture.

Beyond Form and Matter, beyond Nama Rupa. For Plato reality was form or idea and the stages of the line/cave represented the levels of ideas acquired. In the more active philosophy of Aristotle these ideas or forms were also the forms of matter. Hence the Greek focus remained on the forms or kinds of being.

Development in the understanding of being required transcending this Greek horizon within which being had meant simply to be of a certain differentiated type or kind. This meaning was transformed through the achievement of an explicit awareness of the act of existence (esse) in terms of which being could be appreciated directly in its active and self-assertive character. The precise basis for this expansion of the appreciation of being from form to existence is difficult to identify in a conclusive manner, but some things are known.

  Beyond the Trinity to Human Freedom. First, it was a period of intensive attention to the Trinitarian character of the divine: to understand Christ to be God Incarnate it was necessary to understand Him to be Son sharing fully in the divine nature.

This required that in the life of the Trinity his procession from the Father be understood to be in a unity of nature: the Son, like the Father, must be fully of one and same divine nature. This made it possible to clarify, by contrast, the formal effect of God’s act in creating limited and differentiated beings. This could not be in a unity of nature for it resulted, not in a coequal divine Person, but in creatures radically dependent for their being. But to push the question beyond simply the nature or kind of being is to open directly the issue of the reality of beings, and hence not only of their form, but of their very existence as well. This is to ask not only how things are of this or that kind, but how they exist at all, rather than not exist. This constituted an evolution in the awareness of being, of what it means to be real, for it was no longer simply the compossibility of two forms, which Aristotle had taken as a sufficient response to the scientific question "whether it existed". Instead, to be real means to exist or to stand in some relation thereto.

Paul Tillich follows the progression of this deepening awareness of being by reflecting upon the experience of being totally absorbed in the particularities of one’s job, business, farm or studies–the prices, the colors, the chemicals–and then encountering an imminent danger of death, the loss of a loved one or the birth of a child. At the moment of death, as at the moment of birth, the entire atmosphere and range of preoccupations in a hospital room shifts dramatically. Suddenly they are transformed from tactical adjustments for limited objectives to confronting existence, whether in sorrow or in joy, in terms that plunge one to the center of the entire range of meaning. Such was the effect upon philosophy when human awareness expanded and deepened, from concern merely with this or that kind of reality, to the act of existence in contrast to non-existence; and hence to human life in all its dimensions, and, indeed, to God Himself.

The Philosophical Impact of Redemption: Radical Freedom. Cornelio Fabro goes further. He suggests that this deepened metaphysical sense of being in the early Christian ages not only opened the possibility for a deeper sense of freedom, but itself was catalyzed by the new sense of freedom proclaimed in the religious message.

I say "catalyzed", not "deduced," which would be the way of science rather than of culture. Where science looks for principles from which conclusions are deduced of necessity, a culture is a creative work of freedom. A religious message inspires and invites; it provides a new vantage point from which all can be reinspected and rethought; its effects are pervasive and enduring. This was the case with the Christian kerygma.

That message focused not upon Plato’s imagery of the sun at the mouth of the cave from which external enlightenment might be derived, but upon the eternal Word or Logos, the Son, who entered the cave unto death so that all might rise to new existence.

  In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made.

In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

. . .

But this was more than light to the mind. Christ’s resurrection was also a freeing of the soul from sin and death. Cornellio Fabro suggests that it was precisely reflection upon one’s free response to the divine redemptive invitation that was key to the development of the awareness of being as existence. The radically total and unconditioned character of this invitation and response goes beyond any limited facet of one’s reality, and/or any particular consideration according to time, occupation or the like. It is rather the direct self-affirmation of one’s total actuality. Its sacramental symbol is not one of transformation or improvement; it is not a matter merely of reformation. Instead, it is resurrection from the waters of death to radically new life. This directs the mind beyond any generic, specific or even individual form to the unique reality that I am as a self for whom to live is freely to exercise or dispose of my very act of existence. This opened a new awareness of being as that existence by which beings stand outside of nothing ("ex-sto")–and not merely to some minimum extent, but to the full extent of their actuality. Fabro calls this an intensive notion of being.

This power of being bursting into time through Creator, Redeemer and Prophet:

  - directs the mind beyond the ideological poles of species and individual interests, and beyond issues of place or time as limited categories or sequences;

- centers, instead, upon the unique reality of the person as a participant in the creative power of God–a being bursting into existence, which is and cannot be denied;

- rejects being considered in any sense as nonbeing, or being treated as anything less than its full reality;

- is a self, or in Iqbal’s term an ‘ego’, affirming its own unique actuality and irreducible to any specific group identity; and

- is an image of God for whom life is sacred and sanctifying, a child of God for whom to be is freely to dispose of the power of new life in brotherhood with all humankind.

This question was resolved soon thereafter in the work of Thomas Aquinas through a "real distinction" between existence and essence as principles of being. This rendered most intimate the relation of these two principles, related as act and potency respectively. Essence was simply that by which the being is what it is, while esse is that by which the being simply is or exists. This supported a new and uniquely active sense of being.

An Existential Metaphysics. In order that the mind not be subject to the closures later imposed by the modern mentality it is important to follow Aristotle’s example in developing a set of studies rightly termed metaphysics. This was not only about the spiritual but about all reality, both physical and non physical. How could such an inclusive science be developed? To do so for this expanded sense of life and its meaning Thomas Aquinas had to go beyond Aristotelian categorial abstraction the process of selective omission by which the other sciences had been initiated. For the mind to be all inclusive as is being he turned instead to the act of judgement which proceeds not in terms of contrasting, and hence limited, kinds of being or essences, but in terms of existence which of itself is unlimited and one.

This is not a ground clearing exercise presumptuously rejecting the vision and human sensitivity on which humble beauty and great civilizations have been built. Nor does it remove any part of the "brain" by which we think, of the "lungs" by which the Spirit breaths in us, or of the "heart" by which we love. That would be to engineer a robot or automation – which may be more effective, but only for a life so drastically reduced as to be inhuman.

Rather, with sensitivity and discrimination, Thomas’ negative judgement negates only what limits or negates further awareness of existence. It does this, not by rejecting any limited reality, but only by pointing out that this is not all of reality and hence cannot be the meaning of reality or of being as such.

Today as we move beyond modernity we turn, not surprisingly, to those existential factors of human life which Descartes’ clear and distinct ideas were calculated to omit, namely, to civility and self control, to non-violence and respect for the feelings and dignity of others, in a word, to love and hence to the existential dimension central to the metaphysics of the human person and to the quality of life. As objectivity is enriched by subjectivity, values and culture become central philosophical issues. At the center of this development stands the human person, no longer in isolation as individual, but as freely engaged with other peoples and civilizations in a global context.

As Augustine noted, the essential character of transcendence is not spatial but spiritual. While it can be pictured as an extrinsic journey to a far off place as in Bonaventure’s Intinerarium Mentis and in the later sections of the Vedanta Sutras.

More truly it echoes the neti neti of the Vedas by which as limited beings we approach the unlimited character of the divine through a double negative. This removes only the limitations, while affirming the radical openness of mind before the truth in which all things echo the Brahman as consciousness, and while attracting the heart in loving adoration of the Brahman as bliss in which is grounded joy without limit. The life of philosophy in these terms is then not a tool for domination, but a key for liberation unlocking the divine mystery at the heart of all.

Essentially it is an entering via one’s subjectivity to the sources of one’s limited selfhood in the absolute and infinite fullness of being, that is, the Self. In this journey the limitations and contrasts of the senses and even of contrary natures fall away and we enter the realm of consciousness or self-witness, echoing Aristotle’s noesis noeseos (knowing on knowing).

Here lies the experience of absolute freedom; indeed, this is freedom. It is, of course, accompanied by a certain ecstasy, but if taken only as a transport of the senses it is not the object of the journey, but its echo or image. Rather, the goal or telos that directs all is Existence itself, which is not only fullness of consciousness and thus not only blissful, but is consciousness and bliss itself.

In this one does not proceed from one to the other, for then one could not reach the plenitude of the infinite; rather as limitations fall away one finds one’s self as conscious of being, indeed of fundamentally unlimited Selfhood. This is the full realization of personhood and the root of the human person or self. Here we find the echo of Aquinas’s more technical role of the negative judgement in removing the limitations in order that the mind be open to limitless being or Being Itself. Aquinas’s concern was with establishing being as the subject of a metaphysics truly open to reality as such and hence to all of reality. This would be implemented spiritually through all the ascetical and mystical practices of prayer and meditation.

The Wisdom of Sankhya–the Vision of the Eternal 

In vedantin metaphysics especially the advaitan or non dual insight of Shankara all this is united so that what is encountered is not merely truth but lived consciousness, not only the good but bliss.

In this light Yoga is above all a system of release from the limitations of the empirical and a coordination of human capabilities in an attitude of balance and harmony. In the state of Samadhi one is both self-centered and compassionate, manifesting that one has transcended the ego as contrasted to others and entered upon the true sense of self as open consciousness or existence.

But on what basis should one follow this path (II,1-38)? The basis must be not merely the way I feel, or the way I look upon things, but the way things really are. This is the path of the eternal, on which is based the path of wisdom, the vision of the eternal and freedom from bondage. Here the method is to move from my multiple states of experience and feeling (hot and cold, pleasure and pain) which are transient (II,1) to my self as that which continues through all these states and is their basis, to move from the many subjective states to the one self who experiences them (14-15). But then Krishna directs Arjuna to go higher still, to rise to the absolute Self (16-18) above even one’s own self. This he relativises as a seen between the two unseens (28) which precede and follow after this life. Like Descartes, this is the search for what really is. The absolute or Brahman is described as sat or existence that is one, cit or consciousness, and ananda or bliss. These are the character of the absolute, of divine life; hence it is also the essence of our true life as deriving therefrom and directed thereto.

Existence (sat) is stated in terms of predurance and unity. It continues the first step noted above as being from the transient to the permanent; it identifies as goal that which is not of limited duration. Where the individual self was a limited "seen between two unseens"(28), this is definitive in existence. The real never is not; it is immortal and eternal, beyond time and destruction. As with Xenophanes the One is never changing or moving, but is ever one (16-19, 24, 30).

Consciousness (cit) is seen as the one source of all meaning. The whole process has been one of consciousness, from feeling the varied states of hot and cold, pleasure and pain, to the self. This appears here especially as justice or the ability to make the right judgement in terms of one’s duty or of doing what is right (31). It is honor as greater than death (33-26). Such right judgement is based on wisdom (39) which is the vision of the eternal. Ultimately, it is founded in the all knowing Spirit or Self–like Xenophanes’ God who knows all and moves all by His mind.

Bliss (ananda) is the ultimate Source and Goal of all. All comes from God who shows joy in sharing, indeed whose essence, as in Greek myth, is to share rather than to hide or inhibit. The ultimate aim of all then is joy in God or divine life (55); a good life gives peace on earth and glory in heaven (37).

In this broad light the particulars of life are ignored only if taken all by themselves and made into absolutes. This is particularly true of the ego or self, if taken as opposed to all others. This would make the ego an end in itself and reduce life to simply a matter of achieving particular pleasures. When, however, particular actions and persons are seen in and through the One they take on great importance as manifestations of the Brahman, i.e., of existence, consciousness and bliss. Only in these terms are they truly real, just and good. Hence, the point is not to achieve some goal, but to exist or live in a way that is true and just; only this is really meaningful. Only acting in a way that is good, i.e. as a dynamic expression of joy, does one really exists; the rest is illusion.

What then of action which–concretely for Arjuna–is to enter into battle. The response is direct: do your duty (31-33), that is, do what is true, just and righteous. Not to do so is dishonor; and seen in terms of God and eternal life dishonor is worse than death (33-36). In sum, when to battle is one’s duty, then that is what one must do. It is the moral quality of the action that is important, not its outcome, for victory is glory on earth, in death is glory in heaven (37-38).

The metaphysics presented thus far has great ethical implications. The first half of this second chapter of the Gita distinguishes three levels of life: first, that of the various sensations such as hot and cold, pleasure and pain; second that of the individual human self; and third that of the absolute Self or Brahma.

Considering things on the first level there is only an interplay of physiological states, of the senses and of behavior. There is no question of honor: indeed, honor is pretense when taken in terms of Creon in the Antigone. But that is to isolate these realities from their real foundations.

On the second level, that of the individual self or atman, people are seen only in terms of time and place; hence they are taken as egos opposed one to the other. To be united they must be seen in terms of reality which transcends this level.

The highest or third level (corresponding to the fourth level of Plato’s allegory of the cave) is what was spoken of in the totem and myth; here it is Brahman or the absolute at the third level of reality and of awareness. This is existence; it is consciousness, truth and justice; and it is bliss or joy and love as dynamic gift. The first two levels must be seen to originate from this third, which they express; only in as much as they do so do they really exist and become matters of truth and goodness.

Evil in contrast, as was seen in the Greek myths, is suppression of this emergence from the real, from truth and goodness and hence a negation of justice and goodness. It is dishonor on earth and hell thereafter (34).

After a life lived in truth, however, death is simply the termination of the time sequence. It is negation not of reality, but only of the unreal, that is, of the self as opposed to others. Death then is affirmation of reality (37).

On this basis the text proceeds in its second part to provide particular ethical directions on how to live karma yoga (39-72):

- avoid thinking only of this life or state (II 42-44); these are delusions in comparison to the eternal or if thought of without the eternal (52);

- what is important is to achieve wisdom, i.e., to see all according to the eternal, which entails bringing all things together into a unity or harmony (61-66);

- this is done by ‘re-collection’, that is, by recalling the senses from the particulars (59-61); and hence

- they are truly one who practice karma yoga (47-49).

"This is the eternal in man, O Arguna. Reaching him all delusion is gone. Even in the last hour of this life upon earth, man can reach the Nirvana of Brahman–man can find peace in the peace of his God" (72).

In this there is a seeming danger, for it may turn the attention of humankind away from the concrete structures of the world as perceived on level two of Plato’s allegory. This would leave a burgeoning population to wander bewildered, to err catastrophically, and to destroy unawares the patrimony of the natural universe required as context and support of human life. At the same time, we must avoid wandering into a choice between, on the one hand, transcendent meaning without support for physical life in our journey through time and, on the other hand, a journey with neither meaning nor destiny–which would be no journey at all.

To work out this active, existential reality of consciousness as life and being was the contribution of Heidegger. In the earlier part of his work (the so-called "early Heidegger"), his perspective was essentially that of time. Thus, his Being and Time focused upon the human being (dasein) as the point of emergence of being into time. After that work the focus of the so-called later Heidegger appears to have shifted, not so as to lose sight of the dasein, but to look at it from the perspective of Being which emerges through the dasein. At this point our usual conceptual apparatus falters, for it had been developed for the world of multiple realities, differentiated by names and forms which are contrasted and hence external one to another. In this regard negative terminology begins to play an essential role. The process of bracketing the categories of the mind begun by Husserl in his eidetic phenomenological reductions is now extended to all language, not because there is no reality, but because all our attempts to express it inevitably reflect our limited mode of being. Hence, as with Thomas’ negative judgment at the initiation of metaphysics and the via negativa at its culmination, what is being negated is limitation in order that our mind be able to unfold to the full the unlimited character of consciousness.

Modern consciousness in the Lockean branch of the Enlightenment had disdainfully rejected the sense of life based upon inner awareness and upon the Absolute in favor of restricting all to the empirical and temporal. Now, in the phenomenological search for its own roots, human consciousness in a new way returns to the ancient insight that reality ultimately is self-conscious.

This would appear to rejoin the Indian insight that consciousness is not merely a matter of perceiving some other or objective reality; but rather is itself the quintessential manner of being. As Descartes appreciated, most fundamentally within our doubting is thinking, which, yet more fundamentally, is being which ultimately is God. Hence, in opening to absolute or unlimited consciousness our self is united to the Absolute Self in a union which is not between two beings, but an entrance into the depth of being or a transparent rediscovery of one’s self in the Self or in Being itself. Here, the language and logic designed for the world of multiplicity no longer functions; the union is rather essentially unfathomable and of the character of limitless self-consciousness. We experience our own genesis and that of our consciousness in a mystical union which is a transforming and beatifying bliss. Tagore describes it as suddenly finding one’s home after wandering in a blinding fog. It has nothing to do with a labored empirical reconstruction of an object or a tentative tasting of some new food to see if I like it. Rather, upon rediscovering what I am, self assurance, faith, hope and the joy of being pours out.

By reviewing the insights of the Christian uncovering of the sense of being as Existence; the unfolding of this by the Hindu tradition regarding the Brahman as existence, consciousness and bliss; and the new access to this through the interior method of phenomenology, the initial insight of Plato regarding the fourth level of the line/cave has been vastly enriched.

First, it is existence itself, the single source of all which gives the seasons and years. Second, it is truth as openness to mind or consciousness for it is both the light of the visible world and the source of all reason and truth in the intelligible world. This implies as well that it is the principle of justice or of all things right. Third, it is good as corresponding to will for it is worth giving up all for; it is the basis of all good acts both public and private; and it is the power to be watched as norm and guide for whoever would act in public and private. Finally, it is beautiful and the author of all things beautiful. Hence it can be expected that proceeding in these terms a reexamination of life in time will reveal a vastly enriched sense of the person.

In this richly intensified light it is possible now to appreciate the great contribution of this awareness of being to the various aspects of the life of persons returning to the various levels of the cave. It is significant that Plato continues by noting that those who arrive at the source of light would not want to return to the cave. Why, they argue, would I go back to interpreting shadows when I already understand their principles or sources and all their possibilities and meanings. This suggests that their perspective was not adequately liberated, for it still has a sense of ego as opposed to others. Hence he continues, they were educated not for their own good but for the good of the state; and therefore it is just that they be forced to return in order to serve the commonweal. From this it would seem that his perspective remains inadequate before the full objective of moksha as liberation and of the buddhi satva ideal of returning to serve humankind where no element of force enters or is needed.

The Indian view of consciousness as bliss and the Christian sense of love are most central here. In the Vedanta Sutras it is the fullness of bliss, not need or external force, which leads to the unfolding ("we are one; let us be many") that constitutes the beginning of a new cycle of creation or of manifoldness and informs its every stage. In the Christian view appreciation of the plenitude and self-sufficiency of the divine means that creation cannot be the result of some need or some utility which returns to the divine source, but rather a pure sense of transcendence, that is, of expressing, manifesting or giving. This is the deepest insight regarding the nature of being. Together with the other characteristics of the source it provides the deepest insight regarding the reality of the effect.

Thus, as one descends in reverse order the stages of the line or the phases of the allegory of the cave each of the forms of knowledge takes on new and transforming meaning. Not only will one be inspired to reenter the world with the same spirit with which it was originated, but once accustomed to its circumstances one "will see 10,000 times better", for one will understand the true origin, nature and purpose of all therein.

Third level. In the process of ascent, on the third level the sciences were represented solely in themselves; they were simply hypothetical and without definite truth, meaning or purpose. In the process of descent or return into the cave, however, as enriched by the fourth or metaphysical level of knowledge, nature or essences can be appreciated in their being with existential reference. Ideas and principles are not only bases for hypothetical insights which may have symmetry but not reality; instead they are transformed into ways of existing – real truth, goodness and beauty. They are ways of unfolding the divine life and sharing in it.

For our days this has special importance because the search for liberation seems to have taken a reductionist turn. After the experience of oppressive totalitarian regimes, in order to eliminate the possibility of their return it is a matter of great concern for some that no recourse be left to any absolute point of reference. This extends through the practical order of ethical principles and to the speculative order as well. All principles are taken as restrictive and are to be rejected in favor of a simple amassing of empirical data which are then to be managed according to the unguided whimsy of changeable human interests.

But this is to read the whole in terms simply of the material cause – as the quantity of the bricks determines in the sense of limiting or restricting the height to which such a building can be constructed. In the Indian and Christian tradition – and indeed for the Greeks in the order of final cause – the origin is rather in being and love which is an outpouring, a sharing, a giving. This is not dominance and suppression, but communication and enlivening.

In the order of descent from the one to the many or of return into the cave in Plato’s imagery, this is particularly important. In the process of ascent in which it was the various sciences which were being articulated or understood and the various natures which were being discovered, the extent of the possibilities were those of variously combining such natures. In the process of descent, in contrast, all transpires in view of the infinity, and hence infinite possibilities, of existence. Far from being limited to working out the possibilities of a closed order (such as that of physics or biology) the mind is pushed further to seeing how all these possibilities can be part of unfolding life that is rich in the meaning that goes beyond any one and of an order that is reflected in all of them.

With the light of the Indian insight concerning the nature of being in the descent into the cave they are no longer simply human hypotheses concocted for human purposes, but are modes of unveiling and expressing the divine life as consciousness and logos, and as bliss and life-giving.

First Level. Finally, arriving at the first level of the line or cave, that is, to the reflections or shadows, we come to the affective life. This is our response to what is (level 4), according to its limited and specific nature (level 3), and as realized concretely (level 2). In this sense, emotions, rather than being blind as cut off from reference to objects beyond themselves, are our deep, affective, and even passionate responses to the Absolute and to all its expressions in our social and physical universe. This is a reflection of divine bliss in a turbulent world which we engage with passionate anguish and which we enjoy with pure delight.

Descartes set out on a great project, namely, to join the clarity of mind newly available in the mathematical sciences to the rich sense of life grounded in the religious vision of our culture and traditions. He was able to sketch out three stages of doubt, not unrelated to the divisions in the models of line and cave in Plato. The experience of modern times suggests that if these stages are left unconnected they can be powerful yet destructive, articulate yet empty. The above reflection suggests that Descartes’ grounding of his universal science in the existence of the divine in Meditation III should be seen, not as an external defence against skepticism or a subterfuge for a Promethean human intellect, but rather as a vast enrichment of the sense of truth, of knowledge and of being. This could be the sensus plenior of Shankara: not to ignore the finite realities of the life we live, but to see them in their divine and unconditioned depth in which persons have dignity that is absolute and power is a commission to care. This can both strengthen human resolve and orient its application. In Part II we shall seek out how the phenomenological method and the content of a metaphysical and religious tradition can provide an essential completion to the enlightenment project of Descartes, restore the sense of human dignity and equip humankind for the task ahead.