The first and Greatest victory is to conquer yourself. - Plato.
No doubt about Plato is one of the greatest philosophers of his era. Followed by a long line of his disciples, philosophy is a massive tree which flourishes generations. I am here to drink a drop of wisdom which it provides, and to understand the meaning of life. Let's look at the above quote with mindfulness wisdom we have to understand it better. Why? Because we should not believe anything anyone say without thinking for ourselves, and that goes to Plato as well. I am sure you are in fear to think, So, I will help you with imagination.
How to conquer something?
Let's look at conquering, for that matter countries. Latest, example is provided by Putin. He would tell that is not easy to conquer countries and he learned it the hard way. My personal opinion on that matter is the war is absurdism and stupidity at its bet. But that is for the discussion on another day. As Putin is not good at conquering countries we will ask from Napolean Bonaparte. He will tell us if we need to conquer a country, or for that matter enemy, you have to know as much details as possible about them. You have to know their move, their tactics, their weaponry and their plans. Allow them to make mistakes and strike them when they are weak. Even in modern warfare, information plays a huge role. Unless it is a nuclear war.
So, the bottom line is we have to know our enemy if we want to conquer them.
Why should you conquer yourself?
This raises two more questions for me. First one is why should we consider ourselves as enemy? Answering this will also provide us information on why Socrates wanted us to conquer ourselves.
I am sure we all have some Idea on this. Our minds do not behave the way we want it to be. Sometimes, it is like dealing with a monkey. Monkey mind. It jumps when we want it to sit, and it laugh when we want it to cry. There is no limit to the stupidity it does when we closely follow up its actions throughout the day. This is why we are ended up in places where we are now. It has been like this in the past, and in the future, I see no better, unless I follow wisdom of Plato. Maybe when Plato uttered these words, he may have just realized his mind is no other than a monkey mind. If this is true for me and Socrates, I can assume this is the case with every mind, hence yours as well.
How can you conquer yourself?
The second question this arises is, how can I conquer myself? And there is the problem. With the wisdom of Napolean, we can understand first we have to know the enemy. In this case it is me, and for you its yourself. If we do not know who we are there is no point trying to conquer anything as we will be battling in the dark waving our swords while the monkey mind plays havoc with its night vision goggles and cut everywhere killing everyone. As we can see, to do what Plato said we first need to understand ourselves. I can refine the quote now to a better version.
First and Greatest victory is to understand yourself - magical mindful living
Second and next greatest victory is to conquer yourself. - Plato.
Now, for countless people who have been searching for the former, they have found nothing. I cannot tell you how and why, because this experiment of finding yourself is totally subjective. But first we have to point out exactly where the monkey hides before striking.
I can tell you being aware of yourself, or as we call it mindfulness is the tool which is used to understand yourself. And more and more you are searching more and more wisdom you will gain. Like the brave lion who turn back, or the one who wanted to wake up like Carl Jung suggested, you will dig deep into yourself until you find something. And if you do not find anything I would not be surprised either, as that will nullify the second victory of Plato and leave the first as the first and only victory that is there to have.
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