Who was Alexander?

If the given date of his birth is correct, he could not have been Platon, although he could be Socrates,

But when the names of Platon and Socrates are mentioned, they get mixed up in my mind,

I see that the two exchanged names after “Socrates’” death, just so that “Platon” could publish Socrates’ works, without being persecuted,

I need the help of a historian to tell me if there’s any shred of evidence of such a vision.

All the dialogues, and some of the text, were written by Platon,

He would go and debate those people, and then come home and write what was said, as accurately as he could remember,

And when young Socrates heard about him, Platon recognised him as one of his “Brothers”, so he gave him all the writings which he used to hide under his mattress, in the basement of his house, where he used to sleep alone, after him and his wife were separated while still living in the same house,

Socrates, being a member of the Aristocracy, no one dared to persecute him, so Platon said to him: you take this material and publish in your name,

And Socrates added later some of his own writing, and started teaching Philosophy to his disciples, and the authorship was now his.

So Platon was reborn as Alexander,

But I haven’t mentioned Aristotle yet. Because Aristotle was a huge admirer of Platon, and he was probably the first to adopt his teaching, after Socrates,

So now Alexander, as a young king’s son, went to Aristotle’s school, to learn … everything …

Did the two recognise one another? Aristotle did recognise Alexander, but the latter was too young now to recognise Aristotle.

As a young boy, Alexander was once walking with his father, and dignitaries who used to suck up to his father King Philip II saw him, and offered to take him to the temple,

I don’t know what kind of temples the Macedonians had at that time, but Alexander felt apprehensive, and his father came to his rescue, when he said to them: no thank you.

In that school, many young men used to come, to learn from the all wise and all knowledgeable Aristo,

And although he sounded in disaccord with Platon, Aristo knew very well that he and Platon were talking about the same thing, and many still see that the two opposed one another, when in fact they just came from two different directions to concur in the same point.

Aristo once held a clay jug and asked his class: look at this, take your time, examine it, make some emotional attachment to it if you can,

And he gave the class quite a bit of time, for each student to hold the jug, and do what the Master asked them,

Then when all were ready, he held the jug before everyone’s eyes, and said: does this jug exist?

And they answered by the affirmative,

Then he dropped it and let it smash on the stone floor, and now it was just fragments and chips and dust,

So he asked the class again: does the jug exist now?

And some were unable to answer, and were confused between saying yes or no,

Those who said no: he said to them: OK, tell me about it, what kind of jug was it, describe it, did you like it ….?

So they started giving their description etc ..

And he said: so you are talking easily about it, so how can you talk about something that does not exist??

So they were silent,

Then he said: if you could make one like it, as in same design and size, and decorate it with the same decoration, and use it instead of the old one, can you see then perhaps start to see that this is the same jug … although it is not made of the clay of the old one … and not exactly identical to the old one …

They were reluctant to say yes, but didn’t seem to have any strong objections,

This is how Aristotle used to run his classes most of the time.

There was also the walking exercise that everyone had to do at the start of the lesson. Walking slowly does help you relax and concentrate, I often pace up and down the living room at my house, if I want to think, or just to relax,

 As a young man Alexander had to learn also the arts of war,

I don’t know if this was mentioned in any historical documents, but at a young age, Alexander was invincible in the arts of war,

And then Macedonia was a culture which prided itself with its military legacy and men’s biggest honour and fame was their reputation as worriers,

And they used to have competitions at peace time to parade their new soldiers and have them compete with one another to honour the winners,

Alexander perhaps felt that this was his thing in this life: invincibility,

While fighting, whether in the real battle or in competitions, he used to hear his own voice telling him what his next move should be, as if the voice was reassuring him of a definite victory.

While young, he had a dream that he was riding a white horse, and that he wanted to reach a certain place in a far distance,

And as he started his trip he came across one difficulty after another, until there was a high wall that was impossible to jump,

And there were people who started warning him of the danger, and told him that no one was able to jump up that wall on a horse,

But he wasn’t swayed from it, so he retreated to let his horse take a good look at it, and he also took a good look,

He felt that his horse in that dream was an extension of himself, and as if the two knew what each was thinking all the time,

So when he and his horse felt ready, the horse started running at its fastest possible speed, and as it came close to the wall it flew, defying gravity, and the wall collapsed partly  allowing the horse to jump over, and it landed on the other side safely,

So he continued his trip in his dream and when he woke up he was shaken and unable to explain what he saw,

But later on in his life, he understood that this dream was only meant to summarise what was going to happen in his life,

And the Qur’an testified to this when it told his story. Every time he embarked on a new mission, it said: “so he followed a lead” (fa atba3a sababan).

Alexander’s physical beauty was a kind of embarrassment to him and a burden, because it attracted many fans and admirers, in then Macedonia and Greece, where homosexuality was accepted and expected,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AlexanderTheGreat_Bust.jpg

 The bust that I’ve linked to depicts him best as a young man.

And historians seem to be too keen to talk about the presumed homosexuality of Plato, Socrates and Alexander,

In the Western world, homophobia has been very common for a few centuries, and homosexuality was and still is considered by many a major “sin”,

It is this problem that Western culture has created in people’s minds that is pushing the Western world today so fast to the other extreme of dealing with homosexuality and gay marriage as a hot political issue,

But I do not want to drift too far, this is a complex subject which needs to be discussed a bit further separately I guess,

But my main point is that I see that Western historian’s obsession with the sexuality of Plato, Socrates and Alexander as a reflection of what has been on the conscience of the West for many centuries.

I remember when I was young, it was very common to see friends of the same gender walking in the streets holding hands or having their arms around each others’ shoulders,

And physical contact between members of the same sex was not an issue, and young people would lean on each other and get so close to one another, without any inhibitions,

On the other hand, in the West you had to keep distant from your friends, and once you’ve shaken hands … that’s it, stay away, and don’t come too close.

In ancient Greece friendship between men probably went too far, and perhaps many men had male lovers in addition to their wives, and this was totally acceptable.

How society deals with people’s need of intimacy is a very delicate balance, probably impossible to get right, and as times changes, traditions change and people should be prepared to adapt to them,

And how people’s sexuality moves from one channel of their brain to another, by their own attractions and experiences, is also very hard to control, and people do not necessarily have to precipitate in any sexuality, and they can tap onto the channels of their minds which take them to the essence of things where the love of beauty does not break down into an expression of sexuality.

But for us now, over two thousand years after ancient Greece, it is not possible to fully understand the emotions of those people from our modern perspective, or to explain their behaviour by our standards of behaviour today,

And I’m not trying to say that Alexander and Plato were gay but we should be understanding and accommodating,

I’m saying that what historians have written was their own observation, which does not reflect the facts from the perspective of the Greek people at that time.

And a lot was also told about “Socrates’” love story with one of his students, and that’s also an issue that needs to be clarified,

Most of us love children and young people, and if we are attracted to a young person we want to hug him/her, have our face close to theirs, touch them, caress their hair … and all this is normal human behaviour, so long as that child is not annoyed,

But if sexual arousal is involved on either side then it becomes wrong, and people who do get sexual arousal from being close to children should be barred completely from any children, and this is another issue that the world only recently started dealing with openly,

But to go now and consider that any desire to be close to children and having physical contact with them should be disallowed, and that if anyone shows such desires they should be treated as potential child molesters and criminal … is taking it too far.

People’s appreciation of physical beauty is a very delicate thing in the very core of their hearts. Some people are very sensitive to beauty and cannot help falling in love with it, and that’s totally normal,

And if they have a desire to unite with it, it is also totally normal, and people should not feel any guilt about it,

But the problem comes in when they want to express their desire. If that expression involves sexual pleasure, and worse still, if this pleasure is not shared by the other party, or if the age gap is too big, and I know it is hard to put numbers on this … then it becomes wrong and should not be expressed in that way,

And how people deal with such feelings is a skill that people can learn. Suppressed feelings can cause all kinds of mental, emotional and physical illnesses at a certain point, and suppression cannot be an answer to feelings which cannot be expressed,

Many artists expressed their feelings in works of art, and poets in writing poetry …  and some people just switch off and indulge in working hard, feeling that their work is the expression of their suppressed love …

There are also techniques which were taught in ancient times in India and the rest of the Far East, and even in the Middle East, but are now completely forgotten.

Again, how societies deal with these issues varies in place and time, and it is not easy for us to look back at a society of two and half millennia ago to judge them in the framework of our traditions and the legal systems of today,

After all, we have our own problems, and future cultures will look back at us and might find serious problems in our own behavioural patterns today, which in our perspective now are normal, legal and religiously acceptable,

I’d love to have your comments on this,

 Alexander and Hephaestion,

Hephaestion was Alexander’s closest friend since childhood, and Alexander was coaching him to be a military leader, and he came as Hannibal,

The two have a love-hate relationship, because since early times, Alexander wants to bring him back to the Light, and although Hephaestion does love the Light, he prefers to be in darkness, where he believes that the game of life and death could be more interesting and exciting,

This sets him on the wrong track and he ends up in big trouble and misery, and Alexander cannot always come to his rescue,

And worse still is when people bewilder while completely unaware, believing that this is how it is meant to be, and this is the status of humanity today.

So Alexander shared all his secrets with his friend, and often consulted him before making the next move, because he saw that Hephaestion’s understanding of the mind of darkness was better than his,

The two spent a lot of time together discussing all kinds of issues, and those who had only sexual desires on their minds were jealous, and all they could think was that the two were lovers,

But neither of Alexander or Hephaestion could be bothered explaining to anyone that this was not the case, and even if they did, people believed only what they wanted to believe,

And being slightly myopic, Alexander was unable to identify some stars at night, and this was one of his secrets, so he used his friend’s eye’s to watch the heavenly skies.

So again by telling the human story of Alexander I hope that the myths and mythology are forgotten, and the man is shown as a human, and not as a demon.

A few years back, a movie was made about him, which portrayed him as a drunken gay invader. I guess such a character can bring more money into the box office than Alexander.

Alexander’s mare was another friend of his in his campaign.  His friendship with this animal goes to very early times of existence, when “animals” were still talking somehow to humans,

How karma brings people and people, and people and animals together is a secret that is hard to understand. But rest assured, that even the people that you come across randomly on the streets, and the animals, you have known one another, and that brief encounter is part of a bigger event.

So, that mare fell pregnant, to the dismay of Alexander. And as her pregnancy became heavy, he had to get off her back completely. And at one point she tripped over a rock and broke her leg or something, and was in severe pain,

From the shock, she quickly gave birth to a male foal, and died, to the sadness of Alexander, who felt helpless and unable to help her,

He wished he could hold her and protect her from the coldness of that freezing night on high mountains, and make her comfortable,

So she came back to him in another life as a cat and his and her wish were granted.

 And perhaps it is known that at some point his troops ran out of water in the middle of a desert, which in my mind was south of Iraq, so his soldiers collected every drop they had and offered it to him, but he refused to drink while everyone else was breathing flames of thirst, and he poured that water on the ground and let it go.

But there was another thing that was not mentioned and that was a big part of the shoe lace of one of his shoes was cut off, and he was unable to tie up his shoe properly as a result, but no one noticed and he kept going, and they were probably short of reserve leather to fix it,

He fought battles with a piece of leather barely hanging on his foot, until in one of the cities where they settled, someone noticed and offered to bring him a new pair of shoes.

I’m not going in a chronological order by telling those bits and pieces of events, firstly because I cannot recall a chronological sequence of events, and secondly because a lot is known and has been told in that regard,

And all this was irrelevant to his true mission, which I will talk about in the next post,

Why did Alexander want to go around the known civilised world of the time and wreak havoc in it, and destroy its temples and statues, and defeat its kings and leaders,

Why such a soft-hearted man had no problem with seeing people being killed ruthlessly,

And why did he build new cities pretty much wherever he settled,

 So, the coming of the Greek philosophers was the start of a new era, and the end of an old one,

Mind you there was Judaism, and I don’t know if it is mentioned anywhere in history, there was a fairly big Jewish community in then Greece,

They were considered a low caste, and worked as servants, slaves, and took the jobs that the Greeks would not do,

Not unlike migrants from poor countries to wealthy countries today.

The Jews lived in their own communities, and their religion was not welcome to then pagan Greeks,

As for the people who were being exposed to the Philosophers, those saw the Jewish traditions of sanitation and kosher eating as laughable, and were turned off by it, 

But the Jews saw themselves above that pagan society, and looked down on it, perhaps similarly to the Muslims today in Western countries.

So perhaps from the view of the Mediterranean basin and the Middle East, this was a time for a major change, to burry old pagan practices and beliefs, and start afresh,

On one hand there was the Aramaic and Hebrew Books pointing to Faith, and setting the people on a path of righteousness, expressed in a code of behaviour,

On the other hand there was the Greek Philosophy, which opened a new gate in the human mind: the gate of Reason,

Faith and Reason are, as I suggested in a previous post about the Hudood: the two Callers to Union (taw7eed), from two approaches of the Mind,

And let’s not forget, that all this happened after Nebuchadnezzar II conquered Judea and the First Temple was destroyed, because the Jewish people turned it to rituals of worship of the Ark of the Covenant,

So the Jewish people were still reeling from being exiled and defeated, and their ideology was being thought over, one would hope, in their clergies’ minds,

And the pagan beliefs which were still alive in the rest of the Middle East and Persia … those had to go,

And all had to pave the way for a new era in human consciousness: approaching Union from different perspectives,

And to give the people a warning about the consequence of falling in the traps of pagan and materialistic belief,

Not because the skies are vengeful,

If people see it this way, it is their choice,

But it comes to a point when the world cannot continue on the way it is, and it comes to a dead end,

And this causes suffering and pain to many.

And individuals cannot be woken up sometimes,

Even the loudest voice fails to open their ears, and the brightest light fails to open their eyes,

It’s worse than being in a coma,

Alive, yet dead,

And worse, when they believe strongly that they are alive, well, awake and on the straight path,

This is the miracle of this Grand Creation,

And the more miraculous miracle, is when a very few can actually wake up, where it is near impossible, to look around, to see only mummies in graves, who get up in horrible figures, and wander aimlessly,

It is not for nothing that the Qur’an called it the Cave, and Platon also,

Who can come out of it?

Not after defying the laws of nature and sleeping in a cave continuously for hundreds or thousands of years.

Petty is man’s mind, why can’t they see the most obvious, or understand the most lucid,

Why do they choose complexity when simplicity is abundant and much easier?

Why do they choose irrationality when rationality leads to facts and truths?

So there was nothing that was going to hold Alexander back, to give those yet another chance,

How many times was he there himself? He was thinking, how many times did he teach and spread his Lords Call, in Persia, in Iraq, in Egypt, in Lebanon ….?

And he did warn them, of the coming of the Sword of Justice, to destroy the crookedness of baseness,

So this was the time, everything pointed him to it,

And they had said that they had a better way of doing things,

So he had to let them try their ways,

But their ways failed many times over,

And by their own rules of the game he had to face them, and face them he did,

And entire cities were ruined,

And new ones were constructed in spots of his choosing, where the paths converged,

To spread the Spirit, and the face of his teacher Aristotle, used to glow in his vision, every time he needed reassurance,

And the voice of his Lord spoke to him and the Qur’an testified.