The Idea of ​​Bodily DesireSocrates, in Plato's work "Symposium", presents the scale of love through his conversation with the divine figure, Diotima. The more knowledge we acquire about love, the higher we climb and the less we focus on physical beauty. After Socrates explains these concepts, Alcibiades intervenes. He is confused because he himself is in love with philosophy, but he is also lost in bodily desire. According to Socrates' ideology as expressed in Plato's work "Symposium", the musician in Mehta's "A River Sutra" is at the bottom of Diotima's ladder because she is entirely infatuated and obsessed with love of physical beauty, and not by the ideal of Socrates. , which is the love of wisdom. In the same way, one could say that Alcibiades too gets lost in bodily desire at the bottom of the scale. In the Discourse of Diotima, Socrates explains that Love is neither wise nor beautiful, but rather is the desire for wisdom and beauty; “to love is to want to possess the good forever” (Plato 52). It presents love as a broader term; this is what makes a person happy, and therefore we only desire good things. According to Diotima, Love is a spirit that mediates between man and the gods and is therefore not a god. He maintains that an ascetic life passionate about wisdom and beauty is true Love. In saying this, Plato rejects the act of sexual love. This argument is in harmony with a philosopher's quest for truth. The ultimate goal is to live a pure life so that the afterlife goes as smoothly as possible. The body gets in the way and tries to disrupt this process. Therefore, he concludes, the search for the philosopher's wisdom is the most valuable of all activities. Socrates states that understanding love is a process. The process is called the “love ladder.” We start as a young boy attracted to a particular beautiful body and together they participate in beautiful rituals. The next step is to understand that all bodies are the same and that it is foolish to only love one particular body. This will make the boy love all beautiful bodies. After a while, he will understand that true beauty comes from the mind and not the body. He will then come to appreciate and love those who are beautiful in spirit, whether they are beautiful in body or not...