Quest Magazine

By Kay Mouradian

Originally printed in the July - August 2005 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Mouradian, Kay. "My Mothers Story." Quest  93.4 (JULY-AUGUST 2005):136-139

As a child growing up in the United States, my mother, Flora, would tell me stories of her own childhood in Turkey. She was a survivor of the 1915 Armenian genocide and it was these stories that became the basis for my novel, A Gift in the Sunlight. I would not have written the book however, if it hadn't been for a series of remarkable events that happened to my mother in the final years of her life.

In 1984, at the age of 83 my mother, having outlived her husband and two of her four children, was hospitalized. She was diagnosed as terminally ill with congestive heart failure, and could not feed herself because she suffered from severe hand tremors. Most likely due to the onset of Alzheimer's, became confused and did not recognize people she once knew.

"Let her spend her last few days at home," her doctor said. There was nothing more he could do for her.

With a heavy heart, I brought her home. Her final moments were near. I did not expect her to survive the night. But I was wrong. As time passed, not only did my mother rebound but she literally recovered! Her hands quieted and no longer trembled and more amazingly, her mind was again clear and alert as if her brain cells had been renewed. Was this a miracle? I watched as she developed new relationships with friends that only recently she hadn't recognized. Strangely, she didn't remember her past associations with them, but remembered everything about them from that point on—it was as if she had met them for the first time. The most miraculous and wonderful part of all of this was that my mother had become more loving.

Until her heart attack, her life had been colored by the Armenian tragedy. She was filled with anger and self-pity and dwelt on the horrors of the past. She often talked about her family who had perished at the hands of the Turks. Now, incredibly, that dark shadow was gone. It was as though something happened inside Flora's heart, something beyond my ability to understand. I remember telling friends--with humble humor--that my mother left her negativity on the other side and returned with all her good qualities intensified. I smile, even today, when I think that that transmutation may have actually occurred.

My mother had three more episodes. Each time my family and I were told she would not survive without the help of a respirator and each time we refused, feeling she needed to move on if it was her time. But Flora was not ready to die. She had a second bout with congestive heart failure in 1986 which also proved to be a stunner. With her heart laboring in cardiac care, her doctor didn't expect her to survive the night. My cousin, my nephew, and I sat at her bedside waiting for her to transition. My mother had remained unresponsive the whole time when suddenly she began to speak.

"Do you know why I'm still here?" she asked, sounding as if she knew a great truth. She looked at my cousin and said, "Because you don't have any children." She turned toward me and again said, "Because you don't have any children." Then to my nephew sitting farther away she said, "And you don't have any children. If I died no one would know. They showed me a lot of pictures."

I wondered who the "they" were. I knew people who had near-death experiences claim to view their lives at the moment of death. Was my mother having the same kind of "vision" with whoever "they" were?

She looked at my cousin. "Your mother was there." His mother had died thirty years earlier. My mother mentioned seeing an Armenian family who was a karmic mirror of her family and told us prophetic things that would happen to members of our own family. Two of them have already come to pass.

"They showed the afghans." she said. Over the years my mother had made afghans for everyone in our family, our neighbors, and our friends. Interestingly, after this vision she began making her exquisite afghans specifically for disabled veterans, and I still wonder today if her enlightened understanding at that moment urged her into an act of service for the greater good.

She turned her gaze to me. "You're going to write a book about my life."

"No, Mom, not me," I said. "Maybe your other daughter will. She's the real Armenian in the family."

"No! You are!" she protested "And you're going to be on The Donahue Show!"

The Donahue Show! In 1986 Phil Donahue was the king of talk shows but my mother, who loved family stories such as Little House on the Prairie, had never watched Donahue. I dismissed that statement as delusion.

Then she ended her "little speech" saying "They said it was my choice." The sentence gripped my attention. Did she mean that it was her choice as to whether she stayed or transitioned?

I have spent my entire adult life trying to make the right choices and it is never an easy thing for me. Now my mother had made the choice to stay on in defiance of her body's fragile and deathly appearing state. She obviously had more to do before she could let go. I just was not aware of it at the time.

Against the odds my mother rallied and a few days later, was released from the hospital. In the middle of her first night home I heard her stir and rushed into her bedroom. There she was sitting up in bed, her face absolutely radiant. She gave me a huge smile.

"Do you know what life is all about?" she asked, not waiting for a reply. "It's all about love and understanding, but everyone's brain is not the same, so you help when you can. That's what life's all about." Her face still radiant, she laid herself down and went back to sleep. That is a night I will never forget. The next day she again couldn't move without help.

Time passed again and slowly my mother recovered. With each attack and each recovery she became more alert and more loving. After her third incredible recovery her doctor began to refer to her as "the miracle lady." Every time she "died" we thought it was the end and each time she surprised us. Despite this emotional rollercoaster, I have always felt privileged to have been a witness to her amazing transformation, but I was also awed. As her primary caregiver, there were times she was so frail I couldn't leave her side for even two minutes. Weeks, sometimes months, would pass before she regained enough strength to resume her church and senior citizen activities or even merely crochet her exquisite afghans.

My mother's fourth encounter with death really stopped me. In 1988 I had gone to Aleppo, Syria, to search for the family that had given my mother safe refuge from the death march into the hot barren Syrian Desert in 1915. I found the one remaining descendant, a woman who was born in 1920, two years after my mother had left Aleppo. The next day I received a call from Los Angeles. My mother had another attack. I prepared myself for the worst, believing this would be the end.

When I saw my mother lying once again in a hospital bed, she tried to smile but was too weak. "I don't know why I didn't die," she said. Her voice was barely audible.

I wondered also. I wondered if my mother knew something I didn't. I leaned close to her and gently asked, "Mom, do you think you will die now?"

"It doesn't look like it," she said, her voice cracking and her face reflecting her own disbelief. Somehow, she knew. Two days later, when I entered the cardiac care unit I was astonished to see my mother sitting up in bed, unattended. A day earlier she couldn't even turn her head without help. When she saw me she shouted something in Turkish, a language she hadn't spoken in more than fifty years!

I was startled. She was filled with energy and animated. But I couldn't understand why she was speaking Turkish. I also felt bewildered as I couldn't understand what she was saying.

"Mom, I don't understand you," I said, trying to calm her. "Speak to me in English or Armenian."

She kept shouting in Turkish, and I began to panic. What if she had become delusional and would only continue to speak only Turkish? I wondered if I would lose contact with her forever. I decided I would try to retrain my mother's brain to think in English.

"Mom," I said firmly "Repeat everything I say." I went through the entire English alphabet. She repeated each letter dutifully, as if she were in school following a teacher's instructions. We counted numbers and she repeated those in English. But then she started to shout in Turkish again. An occasional English or Armenian word was in the mix. I struggled to understand. The best I could comprehend her yelling was:

"They took my education! They took my family! Do you know what it was like?

I went crazy!" She looked straight into my eyes and said loud and clear in English, "The bastards!"

I couldn't hold back a laugh. Though there were moments when I panicked, other moments like this one were just plain comical. Throughout this wild scenario, even when she was shouting in Turkish, my mother appeared to be joyful.

"Mom, are you happy?" I asked trying to understand this phenomenon.

"Yes!" she said emphatically.

"Why?" I questioned.

"Because I'm awake!" she said with authority.

I found her choice of word intriguing. I would have expected her to say, "Because I'm alive." But after three recoveries, from what I now call her "return from death's door," I had a suspicion of what might have happened. But these suspicions were just questions, with no answers. Could my mother have crossed over into another plane and witnessed the Armenian Holocaust from a higher, non-personal view? Had she gained an understanding of the horrific karmic debt the perpetrators would have to pay? Had she been given an opportunity to release her own intense hatred of the Turks? Was that hatred released with the strong expulsion of her anger when she shouted, "The bastards!"--a word not even in my mother's vocabulary? I'll never know for sure, but I can state for a fact that my dear mother was very loving after this fourth brush with death that she couldn't harbor hatred, even toward the Turks. Love poured out of her heart, like a flower releasing its perfume. Everyone around her felt it.

These unusual events made me question much about my own life. At the time, I had dismissed much of my mother's visions or predictions as delusion, especially the part about Donahue. I had no plans to write a book about my mother or the Armenian tragedy that she experienced firsthand. My mind was focused on researching material for exercises that stimulate the body's "chi," and I had been accepted to study at the Acupuncture International Training Centre in Beijing, China. But what was happening to my mother was remarkable, and I began to rethink what she said about writing her story. I began to read about events that happened in the Ottoman Empire during World War I and became overwhelmed. I had not known the depth of the Armenian tragedy, and I began to understand the heartbreaking scars on my mother's heart and on the hearts of Armenian survivors everywhere. I came to realize that my mother's story needed to be told in detail, including the blessing that was granted to her in the final years of her life.

Eventually, I set aside my plans to study in China in order to write my mother's story. I was unaware of how difficult it would be to write about this little woman who kept escaping death time and time again and who instead of becoming bitter, became more alert, aware and loving each time. Her amazing transformation during those last five years of her life taught me a lifetime of understanding. The greatest of these is the fact that when negative matrixes like hatred and anger no longer rule the heart, streams of fragrant love pour out of every cell in the body. She shined like a thousand suns.

I knew my mother was being helped by unseen forces. For her to have grown from her first hospitalization when she did not know who I was, only referring to me as her "old age cane," and to have grown so quickly into the person she truly was—an irresistible and loving human being—she had to have had super human help. My heart tells me there are great and learned souls who care. They live high in the Himalayas, and for many years I have felt a strong bond to those teachers and their chelas. They watch from afar and are quietly engaged. Assuming their energies were helping my mother, I had to understand my role. Was I merely a caretaker? Or was my mother's miraculous transformation a sign of hope for all? As a witness to her growth, was I needed to tell the inspirational story of her unimaginable adventures through a fictionalized memoir of her life? Only time will tell if I have concluded correctly.

Kay Mouradian is a retired professor of health and physical education for the Los Angeles Community Colleges. A long time student of Theosophy, she is author of Reflective Meditation (Quest Books 1982) and soon to be published A Gift in the Sunlight (Garod Books). She can be reached at cmouradian@earthlink.net

By Sheldon Stoff

Originally printed in the July - August 2005 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Stoff, Sheldon. "Thinking in Freedom." Quest  93.4 (JULY-AUGUST 2005):126-129

Human freedom is inner freedom, given to us by God.

 —Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Almost four years ago, Osama bin Ladin and his Al Qaeda network destroyed the World Trade Center. The men who carried out this act were slaves. In fact, bin Laden was a slave, too. Though on the surface he seemed powerful—and still does—bin Laden lives in a state of slavery to the self-centered ego. When tragedy struck, we found ourselves with choices. These choices would determine the extent to which we would shore up our freedom or enslave ourselves.

After we were attacked, we Americans found we could react to the hatred that destroyed the World Trade Center with hatred of our own. Some of us sought vengeance, based on our hatred for individuals and for their ideals. This response, like the horrible actions initiated by the terrorists, came out of the self centered ego. Though vengeance can be self-directed, acts of vengeance are not acts of freedom. We cannot act in freedom and hatred at the same time.

We could respond with a desire to protect the civic freedom Al Queda attacked. Many people did express concern about safeguarding our American tradition of doing what we want to do, when we want to do it. However, this response also grew out of ego. It, too, revealed a false sense of freedom. The concept of freedom entails more than physical movement, more than physical action, even more than the absence of mental compulsion. In fact, an understanding of the concept of "freedom" is an understanding of who we are and what we are really all about. That is perhaps why Rabbi Abraham Kook has remarked, "...the greater the freedom, the greater the level of holiness."

In that time of unspeakable sorrow, we also found we could choose to affirm our holiness and act out of real freedom: we could love. Freedom is essentially spiritual activity motivated by love. Even as I write in the midst of war and great uncertainty, we can, by inner effort, rise above revenge. Our thoughts can soar, regardless of these external circumstances, into the pure air of freedom. The many examples of noble thought during and immediately after the Twin Towers' destruction attest to our ability to transcend physical conditions. If we are to think in freedom, we must overcome inner and outer conditions, whether favorable or adverse. We can become our own person! We can act out of our essence! We can act as we really are! We must not turn away from our spirituality in our time of great need. It is our key to both spiritual growth and action.

When are we, as individuals, free to be ourselves? We become masters of ourselves when we have achieved a harmony of loving thought and action. If we respond automatically to any action, horrible as it may be, we act without control of our own will power our free will. There is then little of the essence of the individual in such response. Such action ignores who we are and what our values are all about. In its undue emphasis on externals it loses sight of our inner quest, our primary need for self conquest, never to act in hatred, but to act out of our core, the spark of God placed within each of us, the spark that equals love that equals conscience.

The finest guides in our quest for the higher self, the only self that suits the individual and benefits the world, have always been found in the self forgetting concepts of sacrifice and active service to humanity. Without our willingness to sacrifice any limited self advantage for the whole, which becomes dearer than self, we are doomed to pursue the kinds of self aggrandizement that have always ended in defeat. Our sages, on the other hand, have sought to lead communities of people to the light and power of such ideals as that of rebirth through the giving of ourselves. Today, each of us must discover these ideals anew if we are to progress on the path of decency, maturity, and spirituality.

For each of us to think in freedom is to overcome stereotype and tradition, religion, nationalism, gender and peer pressure. It is for the individual to consider how the pure ideal can be imaginatively, efficiently, and lovingly realized in action. It is to overcome our bias of self importance in order to truly know who we are. With the help of our inner spark we can execute justice, fairness, even kindness. We can act in truth. We can act in freedom. We can act in love. On this level of experience, intuition is awakened. The person using only intellect as a guide is alienated from those about him or her. That individual becomes simply a spectator to life. When we combine intellect with loving intuition the balance brings about wisdom, freedom, responsibility and creativity— the goals of human achievement.

Ours is the beginning of an age in which external restraints are crumbling. In such a situation we have the rare possibility of making our own decisions. A society of free individuals, capable of rising at critical moments above their inner and outer compulsions, achieves loving action as its goal. It is the goal of an enlightened civilization. The individual who searches for meaning in life comes to feel the pain and joy of the hour's claim on his or her soul. Such a person begins to chart his or her course, and to shoulder social and spiritual responsibility. We can walk on the thin edge of freedom that rises between the abyss of self immersion on one side and the abyss of self abandonment on the other. We were born with the gift of free will, and in this culture and this age, we can apply it broadly. We can choose to act for good or evil—and we are responsible for our actions!

An aspect of our growth toward freedom lies in the development of independent thought. We ask, Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of life on Earth? It may well be that the most relevant challenge the individual can face is the time honored one of learning to know who he or she is. We make progress in this encounter as we come to recognize our essence within: a spirit temporarily in a physical body—a spirit choosing to have a human experience

As individuals, we can experience ourselves as both commonplace and sacred. Our consciousness can expand until all about us comes alive and we can experience our oneness with all that is. We can experience the reality of the oneness of unity. All of us and all the world are a symbol, and the symbol is to be penetrated: reality is to be known! When loving intuition joins intellect in the complete act of thought; when we realize the wonder, sacredness, and beauty of the earth; when we resonate with the spark within ourselves and in the world—only then are we acting in freedom.

When we surrender to another—even a perceived God, if that God is entirely outside us— we have lost touch with our free will and the reason for incarnating. Because we have not identified with our essence, we give up our identity to another. Surrendering free will is the opposite of freedom. Such a surrender of free will is an insidious challenge to freedom. Remember that free choice is an essential for spiritual growth. Without free choice and the personal responsibility that ensues, we would experience no learning and achieve no growth. There would be only slavery.

It was not appropriate in Nazi Germany to surrender to Hitler's plans; it was not appropriate for the Al Qaeda underlings to allow bin Laden to prosecute his plan; and it is never appropriate for the individual to succumb to anyone else's plan if the plan co-opts the individual's freedom. The power of the leaders does not absolve individuals of responsibility. We are responsible for our deeds even when we voluntarily enter into slavery. Only we can make plans for ourselves, though we may seek the advice of our guides. To fail in this quest is to miss the meaning of our times. Each of us, then, must make an effort to understand our own motives. The conquest of our self-centered ego is the painful, laborious task of our time. It is also the gateway to our upward climb.

Without a spiritual love for the deed there can be no freedom in action. But if we act out of our spiritual core, we embark on a life of love, immersed in spirituality and true freedom. Since the soul is always connected to the Eternal One, thoughts and actions that come out of our essence—out of what we recognize as our soul—also come from the source of our creation, the Eternal One. It is that and only that which can be called freedom of action.

Some time ago I sought help from Rabbi Isaac Luria in understanding the meaning of freedom. I list some of the thoughts that were given to me:

Act without thought of self.

Act only with love for the action

Your essence is the spark of God.

Your essence is love.

Live a life of loving-kindness.

Your actions, derived from your essence of love, are not only free actions, they are also spiritual actions. The two are inseparable.

We may or may not be able to be free outwardly, but we are impregnable if we are inwardly free, if we act from the spark that the Eternal One placed in each of us.

 

The Eternal one has placed free will and freedom of thought on our shoulders and in our hearts. This is both a wonderful burden and a challenge. We must take up the burden joyfully and the challenge eagerly to show our gratitude for so great a gift. We must strengthen ourselves with study and meditation so that we may not stumble and lose this freedom of ours. We must become wise, developing our own sense of spiritual reality so that we may not be tricked into giving it away. We must be firm in our ultimate goals, for they are the rock on which we stand. We must act as the freeborn children of God by giving freely of our love.

 

Parts of this essay came from my recently published book: Universal Kabbalah: Dawn of a New Consciousness. Published by BUSCA, Inc. (Buscainc.com)

The Quest for the Father in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

 Originally printed in the July - August 2004issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Algeo, John. "Harry Potter's Four Fathers." Quest  92.4 (JULY - AUGUST 2004):145-149.

By John Algeo

The Harry Potter stories have enchanted readers—both children and adults—all over the world since the first book appeared just seven years ago. Why have these books captured the imagination of people differing widely in maturity and culture? They have done so because, like all great literature, the Harry Potter stories speak to people of all ages by presenting universal truths—not by preaching but in a subliminal, parable-like way.

The theme of the third book in the series, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, is Harry's search for his father. The quest for a father, or the Father, is one we all participate in. The surface-level story begins in the first book, when Harry was orphaned as an infant. His mother and father were murdered by the evil wizard Voldemort, whose own body was destroyed when he attempted to murder the infant Harry as well. But Harry survived and was given to his mother's sister and her husband (Petunia and Vernon Dursley) to rear. When Harry reached the age of eleven, he was sent, according to arrangements made by his parents before his birth, to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to prepare him for a career as a wizard.

Harry is happy at the school, where he progresses in his studies and becomes a star in the wizard sport, Quidditch, which is played in the air on broomsticks. He spends each summer, however, with his aunt and uncle in their house on Privet Drive, Little Wingeing, Surrey. They are Muggles (that is, non-wizards) but also are prejudiced, ignorant, and mean-spirited. These summers are miserable times for Harry because in the Dursleys' house he is a Cinderlad, ill-treated by his relatives, deprived of contact with his school friends, and forbidden to engage in his studies or favorite pursuits.

Harry's real life is at Hogwarts, where each year he has a quest to perform, and sometimes more than one, all of which are aspects of a single great quest: the quest for self-knowledge—the quest to discover who and what he is. In the third book, Harry's specific quest is somehow to find his dead father embodied in what today we call a "father figure."

Harry's passionate love for his father is introduced early in the book, when Aunt Marge, his uncle's sister, arrives for a visit at the Dursleys' toward the end of the summer. Aunt Marge breeds bulldogs and picks on Harry unmercifully:

She jerked her head at Harry . . . .

"This one's got a mean, runty look about him. You get that with dogs. I had Colonel Fubster drown one last year. Ratty little thing it was. Weak. Underbred. . . .

"It all comes down to blood . . . . Bad blood will out. Now, I'm not saying nothing against your family, Petunia [the sister of Harry's mother] . . . but your sister was a bad egg. They turn up in the best families. Then she ran off with a wastrel and here's the result right in front of us. . . .

"This Potter," said Aunt Marge loudly, seizing the brandy bottle and splashing more into her glass and over the tablecloth, . . . "A no-account, good-for-nothing, lazy scrounger who—"

"He was not," said Harry suddenly. The table went very quiet. Harry was shaking all over. He had never felt so angry in his life. (26—7)

But Aunt Marge continues to insult Harry's parents as she swells with fury. But then she begins to swell all over. Her whole body swells up as though it were full of hot air, and it floats up to the ceiling like an over inflated blimp. Harry, unconsciously, has put a spell on Aunt Marge so that her physical form mirrors the emotions and empty falsehoods she was expressing.

That is the introduction of the Father theme in this third novel, and from it we know that Harry's love for his father, whom he greatly resembles in appearance and character, is so strong that Harry will brook no unjust criticisms of him. Later in the novel, when Harry is back at Hogwarts School, he has a run-in with one of his teachers, Professor Snape, who was a schoolmate and rival of Harry's father and between whom there was bad blood:

"How extraordinarily like your father you are, Potter," Snape said suddenly, his eyes glinting. "He, too, was exceedingly arrogant. A small amount of talent on the Quidditch pitch made him think he was a cut above the rest of us, too. Strutting around the place with his friends and admirers —the resemblance between you is uncanny."

"My dad didn't strut," said Harry, before he could stop himself. "And nor do I."

"Your father didn't set much store by rules, either. . . . Rules were for lesser mortals . . . . His head was so swollen—"

"SHUT UP!"

Harry was suddenly on his feet. Rage such as he had not felt since his last night in Privet Drive was thundering through him. He didn't care that Snape's face had gone rigid, the black eyes flashing dangerously.

"What did you say to me, Potter?"

"I told you to shut up about my dad!" Harry yelled. "I know the truth, all right? He saved your life! . . . You wouldn't even be here if it weren't for my dad!"

Snape's sallow skin had gone the colour of sour milk. (209—10)

Any unjust criticism of Harry's father provokes a violent response from him because he has constructed an ideal figure of his father, a figure he himself is trying to live up to. Harry has put his dead father on a pedestal and honors him with intense devotion. In one of the recurring visions Harry has of his parents' death, he sees his father heroically battling the evil wizard Voldemort, trying to give his wife time to escape with their infant son, Harry himself.

James Potter, Harry's father, was indeed brave, intelligent, loyal, and accomplished. But in his younger years he was also something of a hellion and a scamp. He was, that is, a bright, independent, and normal young man. Harry is, however, seeking an ideal image of his father, and he embodies it in four persons, each of whom reflects some particular characteristic of the father image and each of whom also has his own limitations. A subordinate theme of the book is that no person is perfect, but all—however good and admirable in some ways—have imperfections of some kind. That is the nature of human beings, even wizard human beings.

A Albus Dumbledore as Intuition

The first of the four father figures is the Headmaster at Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore, who might more appropriately be called a grandfather figure, for he was a teacher at Hogwarts in James Potter's day. Dumbledore (whose given name, "Albus," means "white" in Latin) is reputed to be the greatest and best wizard of the time: "Harry happened to agree . . . that the safest place on earth was wherever Albus Dumbledore happened to be. Didn't people always say that Dumbledore was the only person Lord Voldemort has ever been afraid of?" (55).

But Dumbledore, though wise and powerful, is not omniscient or omnipotent. He could not save Harry's mother and father from being killed by Voldemort. And he cannot save a poor Hippogriff (a beast that is half horse and half eagle) from being put down because it was goaded by a nasty boy into a violent response, nor can he save Harry's godfather, Sirius Black, from being sent back to prison and death for a crime he did not commit. Dumbledore tells Harry, "I have no power to make other men see the truth," and in response, Harry stared up into the grave face and felt as though the ground beneath him was falling sharply away. He had grown used to the idea that Dumbledore could solve anything. He had expected Dumbledore to pull some amazing solution out of the air. But no —their last hope was gone" (287—8).

But actually no, their last hope is not gone, and Dumbledore does pull something out of the air. He says to Harry's friend Hermione, "What we need . . . is more time." That cryptic remark with its special emphasis was a message to Hermione that she and Harry have what they need to save both the Hippogriff and Sirius Black. Hermione, who is the most industrious student at Hogwarts, has been taking several courses at the same time. As a special privilege as the best student at the school, she was allowed secretly to use a Time-Turner, which is a device that allows the user to travel back in time. At the end of a class, she simply turned the time back before the start of that class and went to a different class instead, thus doubling the number of courses she was in.

With his cryptic remark, Dumbledore suggested to Hermione that she and Harry could go back in time and save the Hippogriff from being beheaded and then use the Hippogriff to fly Sirius Black away from his persecutors and to safety. That's the way all the Great-Souled Teachers work. They do not tell us what to do or how to do it; they do not direct. They suggest; they give little hints or clues, which we are expected to act upon on our own initiative and in our own way. The Great-Souled Teachers do not give us instruction. They give us intuition. And that is Dumbledore's role.

Albus Dumbledore is the Father, or Grandfather, of Intuition. He is the embodiment of Buddhi.

A Remus Lupin as Knowledge

The second of Harry's four father figures is Remus Lupin. His name is significant because he is a werewolf, a man-wolf, who was bitten by a wolf in his childhood and therefore turns into a wolf at every full moon. In Roman mythology, Remus was the brother of Romulus, both of whom were suckled by a she-wolf as babes; and "Lupin" is from Latin lupinus, meaning "of a wolf."

Remus Lupin teaches the course in Defence against the Dark Arts, which Harry takes during his third year at Hogwarts. The dark creatures that Harry is most terrified of are the Dementors. They are guards at the wizard prison of Azkaban, from which Harry's godfather, Sirius Black, has escaped. But the Dementors are not normal guards. They are sightless creatures who suck out all happiness and hope from their victims, leaving them in mindless despair. The Dementors are personifications of psychotic depression. Their ultimate weapon is to suck the very soul out of their victims. Because the Dementors play upon the fears of humans, Harry, having been attacked by Voldemort as an infant, is especially susceptible to them.

Remus Lupin tells Harry that what the boy fears most of all is fear itself, and then teaches him a defense against fear and the Dementors. It is the Patronus Charm. This charm "conjures up a Patronus . . . which is a kind of Anti-Dementor—a guardian which acts as a shield between you and the Dementor" (176). The Patronus is an embodiment of the most intense happiness the user of the charm has ever experienced. Harry wants to know what the Patronus looks like, but Lupin tells him that each is unique to the wizard who conjures it. It is a very difficult charm to work, and even some of the most skilled wizards are unable to use it successfully. The word patronus is Latin for "protector" or "defender," but it is based on the Latin word pater, "father."

Because Remus Lupin is a man-wolf, he combines the human and the bestial. In that, he is like the mind, which is also twofold, human and animal. In his human phase, Remus is helpful and mild; in his wolf phase, he is vicious. Because he knows he is both man and wolf, both human and beast, he is wise, full of the knowledge of both the higher, light side and the lower, dark side of life.

Incidentally, Remus is also the first one to prescribe chocolate for Harry as a remedy for shock or whatever else ails him. The nurse at Hogwarts discovers this and remarks approvingly: "Did he now? . . . So we've finally got a Defence against the Dark Arts teacher who knows his remedies."

Remus Lupin is the Father of Knowledge. He is the embodiment of Manas.

A Sirius Black as Devotion

The third of Harry's four father figures is Sirius Black, who was James Potter's best friend, best man at his wedding, and godfather to Harry. But Sirius was framed as the betrayer of James and his wife, Lily, and also as a mass murderer. For those supposed crimes he was sent to the prison of Azkaban. But whereas most prisoners in that most feared of all prisons go mad within a short time, deprived of all hope and overcome by fear of the Dementors, Sirius Black had control over his emotions. Because he did not succumb to fear, he survived in Azkaban and eventually managed to escape, in order to hunt down James and Lily's actual betrayer, who was also the real mass murderer, and also to protect his godchild, Harry.

Sirius Black and James Potter were also close friends with Remus Lupin. To be companion for Lupin and help to control him when he entered his wolf phase at the full moon, they both became Animagi, wizards who can assume an animal form at will. Sirius Black became a huge black dog. The dog is proverbially man's best friend, and Sirius was James Potter's best and devoted friend.

Sirius is also the name of the brightest star in the sky, located in the constellation Canis Major (Latin for "big dog"), and Sirius is therefore called "the Dog Star." The name Sirius comes from Greek seirios, meaning "the scorcher"; it was so called because the time of the year when this star rises with the sun is the hottest season or midsummer, also known as the "dog days." Heat is associated with active emotion, and warmth with devotion. In ancient Egypt, the first rising of Sirius in the morning sky marked the beginning of the Nile flood, on which the agricultural richness of the land depended. Water is traditionally associated with life and emotion, and rising water with rising emotions.

Sirius Black was energized by his emotions and especially his devotion to friends. Although he usually controlled those emotions, not they him, they did sometimes run away with him. In his school days, he was the initiator of the high jinx that created an enmity between another student, Severus Snape, and James Potter, which still affects Harry's relationship with Snape, who is one of his teachers. But Sirius loves Harry and is a devoted godfather to him. He gave Harry great hope and happiness when he invited him to come to live with him rather than with the boy's Muggle relatives. In turn, Harry's devotion to him results in Sirius Black's freedom from being the "Prisoner of Azkaban."

Sirius Black is the Father of Emotion and Devotion. He is the embodiment of Bhakti.

A James Potter as Active Will

The ultimate of Harry's four father figures is his own biological father, James Potter. It was Harry's spirited defense of his father's name and reputation that triggered the events of the third book in the saga. Harry is the spitting image of his father, except for his eyes, which are those of his mother. Harry is consequently especially identified with James as his ultimate father figure. And he responds to critical challenges as his father would have.

For example, when Remus Lupin and Sirius Black have captured Peter Pettigrew, who actually betrayed Harry's father and mother and also was the mass murderer, they intend to kill him. But Harry intervenes to save his life and explains to the culprit, "I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing it because I don't reckon my dad would've wanted his best friends to become killers—just for you" (275). And Dumbledore later confirms that reckoning: "I knew your father very well, both at Hogwarts and later, Harry . . . . He would have saved Pettigrew too, I am sure of it" (311). And when Sirius Black leaves Hogwarts and the dreaded Dementors for freedom, his farewell words to Harry are "We'll see each other again . . . . You are—truly your father's son, Harry."

But the real identity of Harry with his father James comes when he successfully uses the Patronus charm. Harry and Hermione have used her Time-Turner to go back several hours in order to rescue the Hippogriff and to use it to free Sirius Black. They have the Hippogriff and are biding their time, waiting for the proper moment to free Sirius. Harry scouts around to see whether the coast is clear for them to move, and as he looks out over a lake he sees, on its other side, the Dementors about to overcome Sirius Black and himself (as he was at that earlier time). He knows that the only way to save them both is with the Patronus charm, which he has never been able to work well. But at that moment he knows that he must use it and that it must work because he survived that earlier attack.

So Harry evokes a Patronus—a magnificent, huge, luminous white stag, which gallops across the lake and scatters the Dementors. The Harry of that earlier time saw the Patronus coming to save him and then returning to the distant figure on the far side of the lake, and he thought that figure was his father. But of course it was himself from another hour, come back to be his own savior as well as the savior of Sirius Black.

The stag form of the Patronus is also connected with Harry's father, for as an Animagus James Potter transformed into a stag, and in that transformation was called "Prongs" because of his antlers. As Chevalier and Gheerbrant show in their Dictionary of Symbols, stags are important symbols in shamanic cultures and in Celtic myth; they represent creation and renewal, as well as the sun and light. Harry's Patronus stag was a brilliantly white animal, a fitting complement to Sirius's black dog. The Church Father Origen likened Christ in his active role in the world to a stag. The stag is swift to act, leaping and speeding. Alchemically, it is mercury or masculine will.

The earlier Harry, who witnessed his later self sending the Patronus and who mistook that self for his father, comes to realize that it was he himself who saved himself. He later talks with Dumbledore about it:

"It was stupid, thinking it was him," he muttered. "I mean, I knew he was dead."

"You think the dead we have loved ever truly leave us? You think that we don't recall them more clearly than ever in times of great trouble? Your father is alive in you, Harry, and shows himself most plainly when you have need of him. How else could you produce that particular Patronus? Prongs rode again last night. . . . So you did see your father last night, Harry —you found him inside yourself." (312)

H. P. Blavatsky talks about much the same thing in The Key to Theosophy:

James Potter is the Father of Active Will. For Harry, he is the embodiment of Atma, the Higher Self, the "Father in heaven." As an Anglican liturgical reading addresses God: "We are the clay, you are the potter." And that Potter is Harry's Father and Father of us all.

References

Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna. The Key to Theosophy. London: Theosophical Publishing Company, 1889.
Chevalier, Jean, and Alain Gheerbrant. A Dictionary of Symbols. London: Penguin, 1996.
Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. London: Bloomsbury, 1999.

John Algeo, PhD served for nine years as president of the Theosophical Society in America and is now international vice president of the Theosophical Society. He is author of the Quest book Reincarnation Explored and now editor of The Letters of H.P. Blavatsky 1861-1879. He is widely published in Theosophical magazines.

Originally printed in the July - August 2004 issue of Quest magazine.
Citation: Abdill, Edward. "The Secret Gateway." Quest  92.4 (JULY - AUGUST 2004):128-132.

By Edward Abdill

The Voice of the Silence by H. P. Blavatsky is an extraordinary book. In effect, it is a guidepost for living a life that is said to lead one ultimately to enlightenment. The book is not for everyone. In fact, HPB dedicated it "to the few." Reading only the first few verses reveals why only a small number of people would take the book seriously.

The preliminary verses tell us that we must become indifferent to the objects of perception and seek out the thought producer. Surely that is no simple task. Few would have any interest in trying it, particularly when they realize the hardships, dangers, and self sacrifice required to reach the goal set before us.

In the short piece entitled "There Is a Road," HPB mentions a secret gateway. The essay is not included in The Voice of the Silence, but both point in the same direction. While The Voice of the Silence describes the steps along the path, "There Is a Road" simply points toward that path and assures us that although it is steep and thorny, with effort we can reach the goal. This little piece highlights both the hardships and the possibility of overcoming them. It reads:

There is a Road, steep and thorny, beset with perils of every kind, but yet a Road. And it leads to the very heart of the universe.

I can tell you how to find those who will show you the secret gateway that opens inwardly only, and closes fast behind the neophyte forevermore.

There is no danger that dauntless courage cannot conquer.
There is no trial that spotless purity cannot pass through.
There is no difficulty that strong intellect cannot surmount.

For those who win onward, there is reward past all telling: the power to bless and to save humanity. For those who fail, there are other lives in which success may come.

Throughout the spiritual literature of the world, the road, path, or journey is often used as a metaphor for a way of life. Just as a physical road is useless unless traveled, so is the metaphorical way of life useless unless lived. In The Voice of the Silence we read: "Thou canst not travel on the Path before thou hast become that Path itself." (Fragment I, verse 58) There is no actual path or road apart from our own evolving self. There is only a way of living, and the experiences that change us.

In one sense there are really only two roads. The one that most of us choose is the sensate one. That is the road that winds through feelings of every description. Our experience on this road tells us that we are our feelings. This road is not wrong. We learn as we travel it, but we learn ever so slowly over many lives.

The other road is often symbolized in myths and legends as one that is traversed at the risk of death. Yet the reward at the end is worth all the trials that the journey requires. Where is that road? Why is it so perilous, and why is the gateway to it secret?

This less-traveled road is the one whose gate opens "inwardly only and closes fast behind the neophyte forevermore." It opens inwardly to our thoughts, feelings, desires, hopes, aspirations, and ideals. It also opens to a reality beyond all that, beyond the "me" with which we identify. It opens to who and what we truly we are.

We might think that we know who we are, but do we? Perhaps we are like the man who was frantically trying to get on another flight after his was canceled. There was a long line at the counter where an agent was rapidly working to rebook everyone. The man dashed to the front of the line and told the agent that he absolutely had to be put on the next flight. The agent politely told him that he would have to stand in line with everyone else. In his desperation, he shouted, "Do you have any idea who I am?" At that the agent picked up the mike and announced, "We have a gentleman here who seems to have lost his identity. If anyone can help him recover it, please report to gate A36."

If the gate that opens inwardly is simply a gate to the self with which we are familiar, it certainly does not close fast behind us forevermore. There is hardly anyone whose personal nature has not been modified to some extent over years. Sometimes our experience changes us. Sometimes through psychoanalysis we make major changes. As we grow older, friends often notice that we have mellowed. The familiar self can be modified. We can go in and out the gate to that self, modifying the "me" or not as we please or as circumstances force us to change. Moreover, there is nothing secret about that kind of gate.

The gate that closes permanently behind us is not a gate to self-analysis. It is not a gate to new ideas or theories about ourselves and the world, not even Theosophical theories. Rather, it is a gate that opens to a totally new state of consciousness, to the first experience of the Inner Self. That experience is qualitatively different from the everyday experience of "me." It is an impersonal state in which there is no longer a sense of self and other, no longer duality, but only the Eternal. So long as we identify with some state within us and say, "This is I," there is the duality of subject and object. There is the self that observes and the object, or state of consciousness, that is observed. In The Voice of the Silence we read:

When waxing stronger, thy Soul glides forth from her secure retreat: and breaking loose from the protecting shrine, extends her silver thread and rushes onward: when beholding her image on the waves of Space she whispers, "This is I,"— declare, O Disciple, that thy soul is caught in the webs of delusion." (Fragment I, verse 16)

The gateway that leads to the experience of the Inner Self is secret because it is totally unknown until experienced. Until then, we have only theories about it, words, concepts, ideas, and creeds.

When that Inner Self is experienced, when for a fleeting forever we are that SELF, there is no time. There is no self. There is only Eternity. Once that reality flashes upon our mind, the gateway closes fast forevermore, because no matter how difficult life may become in the future, we can never forget that at the depth of our being we are rooted in the Eternal.

It is said that when we are born we get a flash of the life to come. In a fleeting instant we understand what it is that we must try to do in that lifetime. The flash is but a preview of our goal, not the goal itself. A lifetime of pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, and challenges of every sort lie before us. Just as that flash preview comes at the beginning of a life, so does the flash awakening of the Inner Self come at the beginning of a new kind of life. At that moment we have no more reached the goal than the infant has done in the flash preview of the life about to be lived.

Speaking of an experience such as that in meditation, Blavatsky writes:

In his hours of silent meditation the student will find that there is one space of silence within him where he can find refuge from the thoughts and desires, from the turmoil of the senses, and the delusions of the mind. By sinking his consciousness deep into his heart he can reach this place—at first only when he is alone in silence and darkness. But when the need for the silence has grown great enough, he will turn to seek it even in the midst of the struggle with self, and he will find it. Only he must not let go of his outer self, or his body; he must learn to retire into this citadel when the battle grows fierce, but to do so without losing sight of the battle; without allowing himself to fancy that by so doing he has won the victory. That victory is won only when all is silence without as within the inner citadel. Fighting thus, from within that silence, the student will find that he has solved the first great paradox. (Collected Writings, Vol. VIII, p. 128)

We have not reached "the very heart of the universe." Rather, we have seen that ahead of us lies a steep and thorny road. Only gradually, through challenging experiences, do we discover just how steep and thorny it is.

One of the first things we may notice on the road is that throughout life our mind and emotions have become powerfully conditioned. For the most part we automatically react to circumstances that come before us. Like a cat that hisses at someone who has abused it, we "hiss" at certain people who have annoyed us. We react emotionally to ideas that threaten our views. If someone upsets us, we remember it. When we meet again, the memory of the upset comes into our mind and we react to it. We do not really see people as they are now. Instead, we see our memory and react to it.

Our mind and emotions have been running us, although we may be totally unaware of it. While the Inner Self sleeps, it can do nothing. For us it does not exist. We are only aware of our mental and emotional states and our often feeble attempts to change them. Simply working on ourselves from within the "me" is much like rearranging the furniture in our home. We may make things more attractive by doing that, but it is still the same old house and the same old furniture.

Once the Inner Self is awakened, we realize that it is from there that we must gain mastery over our whole nature. From there we must rein in the mind, purify it, sharpen it, direct it in totally new ways, and make it so crystal clear that it will carry out the will of the Inner Self.

This is a gigantic task. Why? Because our habitual way of thinking and acting has built up a powerful momentum that can only be changed with great effort over time. Commenting on "self-purification," Master KH explained to Sinnett that it is not the work of a moment but the work of a series of lives. Alluding to psychological inertia, he adds that we must "undo the effects of a long number of years spent in objects diametrically opposed to the real goal." (Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom, First Series, letter 6).

If we are among the few who long for union with the Eternal, what must we do to obtain it? HPB tells us to begin by becoming aware that we are not only ignorant of our true nature but constantly self-deceived. Next, she says, we need a deep conviction that with effort we can obtain intuitive and certain knowledge. Third, she adds, we must have an "indomitable determination" to get that knowledge and face it. Such knowledge is unobtainable by rational thought alone. It is the awakening of the Divine nature within.

The determination that HPB mentions is the driving force that keeps us on the road to knowledge. If the inner will is weak, if we give up when the road gets steep and thorny, truth and self-knowledge will elude us.

Armed with an indomitable determination to see ourselves as we are, faults and all, we can begin the long and arduous self-transforming journey. Unfortunately, there are no clear, detailed maps, only guideposts that point toward the ultimate goal. No map will do, because although the goal is the same for all, the route is unique to each traveler. The route is our life.

One of the clearest guideposts for living is one that was given to Madame Blavatsky by one of her teachers. It has been called the Golden Stairs, and it reads as follows:

A clean life, an open mind, a pure heart, an eager intellect, an unveiled spiritual perception, a brotherliness for one's co-disciple, a readiness to give and receive advice and instruction, a loyal sense of duty to the Teacher, a willing obedience to the behest of Truth, once we have placed our confidence in and believe that Teacher to be in possession of it, a courageous endurance of personal injustice, a brave declaration of principles, a valiant defense of those who are unjustly attacked, and a constant eye to the ideal of human progression and perfection which the Sacred Science depicts. These are the golden stairs up the steps of which the learner may climb to the Temple of Divine Wisdom.

On the surface, the statement is clear and easy to understand. Yet to live in accordance with the Golden Stairs requires far more than a superficial understanding of what is required. One might meditate on these qualifications for years, gradually gaining deeper insight into their meaning as one attempts to understand and live them.

There is another guidepost for living called the Three Limbs of the Theosophical Life. Those three limbs are study, meditation, and service. Once again, there are depths of meaning in those three qualifications.

Most people think that study is linked to an acquisition of knowledge. Often students read texts, remember what they read, and are convinced that they have studied. On one level, they are right. We must know certain facts if we are to function in the world. Yet the kind of study required to reach the secret gateway is far more than that. Simply accepting what is written about a spiritual principle is of little use. We need to go beyond the written word to the level of insight. By pondering the concepts that we sense are true, by stretching the mind, we may experience a flash of understanding that changes us.

The kind of study just described is in fact a type of meditation. Meditation is not a thinking process. It is an action of the mind. In study, our meditation is on a spiritual principle that we seek to understand. In meditation proper, we try to come into union with the Eternal. Both study and meditation take our focus away from the "me." Both can lead to insight and transformative change.

Although the quality of service is listed separately, it is in fact the consequence of the first two qualifications. Study, meditation, and service are inseparably linked. Through study and meditation we come to experience a closer unity with humanity itself. This results in compassion, which motivates true service. Many people of goodwill volunteer their services to help others. This is a good and useful thing to do. Yet if we seek to serve because we want praise and admiration from others, then our service is motivated by self-interest. Real service is an attitude of mind and a way of life. It is doing what is right, regardless of personal inconvenience. The simple act of smiling at a supermarket clerk who seems to be unhappy is service.

Whenever we do what we can to bring joy and harmony into the life of a fellow being, human or other, we are serving. Those who render true service do so because it is part of their nature. They can do no other.

All valid guideposts point toward the secret gateway. They point, but they cannot lead us to that gateway and road beyond. Ultimately, it is only our own innermost Divine nature that can lead us to the gateway. That Divine reality shines through every human being, but in most it shines feebly. That is because our egos are like clouds. Some are dark and threatening. Some are pleasant and fluffy, but each cloud, each ego, blocks the sunlight in varying degrees.

In some individuals, known as adepts, the light shines on the world through a cloudless sky. That light can also influence and guide us, but only if we dissipate the clouds of ego. If we deeply long to alleviate suffering in all its forms, if we are motivated by compassion and altruism, we are automatically within the stream of influence radiating from the adepts.

To reach the gateway and the road that leads to reward past telling, we must be driven by compassion. We must have an iron, never-failing determination and yet be gentle and humble. We must be clad with the armor of courage, take up the shield of purity, and wield the sword of intellect. If we try to do that, I believe that we can and will enter the stream of influence from the adepts and contribute to it.

By passing through the secret gateway and following the steep and thorny road, we may come at last to SELF knowledge. Only then will we be free. Only then, will we reap the reward past telling, the power to bless and save humanity.

Reference

• Blavatsky, H. P. The Voice of the Silence. Adyar, Madras: Theosophical Publishing House, 1888
• Jinarajadasa, C. Letters from the Masters of the Wisdom. Adyar, Chennai: Theosophical Publishing House, 1988.

Edward Abdill served six years on the National Board of Directors of the Theosophical Society in America. He lectures in Spanish and English and has spoken throughout the United States, in Australia, Brazil, England, and the New Zealand. His video course on "Foundations of the Ageless Wisdom" is used internationally.