Indira stood up at this point and brought the focus back onto Plato. "Does anyone understand the parable of the cave?" she asked. "Plato's parable ends in a celebration, the celebration of freedom in a brand new world that had not been recognized before to even exist.

      Without waiting for an answer she began to tell the story, which she said is the story of a people who have been held prisoner in a cave deep inside a mountain. They have been there for so long that the cave has gradually become the only world they knew.

      The prisoners were laid in chains in that prison. They were fastened behind a wall in the cave facing the rear of a cavern. This rock-encrusted world was the only world they knew. The only light they could see was the light from a fire that was maintained on the other side of the wall, which was reflected off the rocks of the cavern in front of them and above them. In this manner, their world became a narrow world of a faint glow of light and of huge shadows of objects that were passed in front of the fire. These shadows, which they all were able to behold with their senses, thus became a reality to them, a reality they could relate events to that in part defined their world. This went on for a long time.

      Then, one day everything begins to change. Someone manages to break away from the chains, and cautiously ventures to the other side of the wall. With great amazement the prisoner that is no longer chained to the ground begins to observe the process that creates the shadows, which had defined the prisoner's world.

     The person who experiences this awakening, thereby becomes free in more than one sense. This self-freed prisoner now sees the fire, and also sees the objects that obscure the light and thereby create magnified shadow images of the shape of these objects. The so self-freed prisoner begins to understand that the mythology of the world of shadows, that the prisoners had created for themselves was not real, but was merely a construct of their deduction based on the limitations of their perception.

      The self-freed prisoner also soon understands the fire to be the source of their light, contrary to the myths that the prisoner's had come to believe to be real. Also, in the distance behind that fire the self-freed prisoner discovers another light, and discovers that there exists an exit from this cave of shadows and delusions.

      Behind this exit from the cave the self-freed prisoner suddenly discovers a whole New World, a world of blinding sunlight that he soon understands to be the glorious nature of the real universe. Also, the suddenly free person discovers at this very threshold as he enters into the sunlight, that he isn't a prisoner anymore.

      "With this profound allegory Plato illustrates the challenge that we all face to resolve the great paradoxes of human existence," said Indira. "We live in a world of human thought that is defined by the limitations of what our senses are able to behold, and by the finity of the imaginary worlds that we deduce from what we thus see. We bow to those shadows that the limited senses tell us is the reality of our being and our universe. But when we, like that prisoner, break free from the chains that bind our existence; when we see the fire and the process that causes the shadows. Then, when we begin to understand the processes of the real world and finally see the exit from our cave, the whole cave experience dissolves into little more than just a shadow itself; a shadow of a bad dream.

      "This story illustrates my life," Indira concluded. "When Pete helped me to take off those chains, back then in Old Delhi, a whole New World unfolded. A great tragedy had caused me to consider suicide at the time. Suddenly, with a few perceptions changed, I stood in the sunshine, but its light wasn't blinding. It illumined my heart, and I was overjoyed by what I found there. Do you know what it is like when one steps from such a cave into the daylight? For me, suddenly everything became enveloped in love. Love became everything. It uplifted everything, it fulfilled every need, even the most basic human needs, even those elements of it that we are taught not to acknowledge, like sex that is practically forbidden to be looked at. In the light of the higher level love that began unfolding the most ordinary became extraordinary; melodies became music; a smile a symphony; an outstretched hand a commitment to enrich one-another and the world. In this light, portals began to open for meeting our needs in the human dimension, in the most unconventional and unexpected ways."

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Stories about  Healing from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche