Socrates in the street in daytime with a lantern, asking: "Where is light?" What he really wanted to express??

Yes, I think it was his expression of desperation not being able to find people who would respond to what he was able to offer. Each of us might come to the same desperation when trying to share something essential and special with others and then not finding any response. This reminds me to the story of Jesus. He was walking for many years through the land and talking to people, so that finally at least he found a dozen of followers, who didn’t really understood what he was talking about, but he impressed them and being unsatisfied by their life and not knowing what else to do, so they joint him. Jesus talked a lot to all kind of people, but the response was poor, - nothing has changed indeed! - and after many years he got really tired and probably felt the same desperation as Socrates and then started to provoke people stronger. What finally cause a response because people felt threatened in their state of being and so they denounced him. When he was in the court in front of Pilatus who asked him to defend himself, he didn't say anything. Why? Probably he was just tired of the silliness of people being in total darkness. Pilatus was an intelligent man and he could have said something to get out of this, but he didn't. He had given up...

Did Jesus realize that there was no way to tell people something about 'Light' and how to get to it? If he would have known what people would do with his teaching the following two thousand years for sure he would have kept in total silence and wouldn't have left it to the interpretation of his disciples with the disastrous result of the creation of a religion and an administration of light...

Let's realize what has happened and where we are. We can get out of it, freeing ourselves from concepts... "Where is the Light?" It is here: within ourselves!

Rahmona

I can imagine what had happened to Socrates. He was a very clever guy and a great thinker, too good for the people around him and when he expressed himself, because he was human and would have liked to share his thoughts, then nobody really understood him. It is possible that he felt desperate about the stupidity of people and their silly way to think, mainly turning around their daily survival games, the same as in our days, - nothing has changed... Then he wanted to tell people, that there indeed is light if they get out of their personal darkness. He was talking about it where he could meet people. They were listening to him with some interest because in those days there was no TV or other media that would offer entertainment, but the interest of the people was not enough to make them think by themselves, the same as now, they were staying with their established way of seeing things. So Socrates started to provoke people by talking more strongly about their habits and that this gives the businessmen the power to manipulate them, among other examples... He also spoke about it in political circles just because he wanted to move something. But this seemed to be dangerous for the system and he got in danger to be eliminated, what finally happened... Socrates got really mad about the ignorance of people and the impossibility to show them that there is light in every body, so that was the moment when he didn't know what else to do and he went into the street with the lantern asking "Where is light?" Then people said that he is crazy. In our days authority would put him into a mental hospital: case resolved!

What he wanted to say? Probably he wanted to make people understand that they would find light within themselves if they would put some attention there and not give all their energy to the outside, trying to solve all problems there. He tried to teach 'self knowledge' and that this is the only way to find 'light'. But he was several thousand years too far ahead of his time and it is the question if he would live in our days, if there would be much difference...

InkyPinkie

InkyPinkie you are right! The simple fact that nobody is answering this interesting question here in answers Yahoo is showing that nothing has changed.

"Where is light?" As a question to provoke, to make people think, it doesn't work. If you ask this question in 'religions/spirituality' then you will receive a lot of answers from people who want to convince you of their beautiful concepts and beliefs, telling you that 'Light is there where you have faith' and this might bring you to the same desperate condition Socrates found himself, finally not knowing what to do about the primitive state of people... and then being forced to drink poison, this might have been a release for him and he didn't resist anymore, realizing that he was part of the reality and that there was no way to escape from it. Excepting it he was free, not depending anymore on people and outside circumstances, then he was the light, not needing to demonstrate anything or asking. Fulfillment was the answer.

BeiYin

Probably was high on mushrooms. I've noticed that kinda thing before but just a little more proliferated after a few thousand years.

read the allegory of the cave

light/fire same idea