Harry Potter: Page, Reel and Beyond

Harry Potter. Much has been said, read and seen. The words printed on the pages were enough to transport the readers to a magical world of fantasy. Literature critics appreciated the text for its rich sensory elements especially visual imagery, fluid language and intricate details. The experience was magnified by the reels of the motion pictures directed by Chris Columbus, Alfonso Cuarón, Mike Newell, and David Yates. J.K. Rowling became a happy woman with the shower of praise and tinkling Galleons. But from what I see, she is a woman with a great knowledge, understanding and insight of metaphysics which she has intertwined with the fiction. If your eye lens is your window to see the fiction, you will be mesmerized by what you see and read. But if you see it through your inner eye, you will undergo a process of realization and enlightenment.

To begin with, Rowling wrote 7 books. Harry was born in the 7^th month. Voldemort made 7 horcruxes. And the list goes on (pay attention to the number of Weasley kids and other details when you read the next time!). 7 is the most magical number. Why? The number seven stands for completeness, energy of the mystics, spirituality and psychic tendencies. Get the connection? Even fields like Cognitive Psychology and Software Engineering swear by the magical number 7.

Voldemort is called the Dark Lord. What is darkness? No, it’s not black light! It’s the absence of light. Voldemort symbolises the absence of light, that is absence of love and knowledge (which Dumbledore doesn’t tire of stressing till the end). Voldemort is ignorant, not because of his knowledge of dark magic, but because of his lack of knowledge about love. His Nagini, a serpent, is a symbol of duality of good and bad, which is the foundation of the series.

The seven horcruxes or splitting of soul is not a mere fiction. It refers to the spiritual concept of soul fragments, which in simple language, are the pieces of energy that we leave with other people, places or any object. For instance, if you have had a fight with your partner don’t you feel ‘drained’? Your get ‘drained’ of some energy which leaves you and attaches itself to your partner. On a higher level, soul fragments can be understood in terms of parts of a person that remain even after death. These fragments wait around for the soul to come back and reunite with it, but that too needs a conscious process. Though this topic is essentially metaphysical and a little difficult for amateurs to understand, Rowling has to be credited for her outstanding effort in trying to explain it through Horcruxes.

Remember what saved Harry when Voldemort killed his parents?

“Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love.”-Dumbledore

Dumbledore explained that the sacrificial protection saved Harry, which is when a person sacrifices his/her life out of true love. One just can’t emphasise enough about the importance of love. It is the positive energy which fills up a person to such an extent that no evil or negativity can harm the person. The concept may seem far-fetched to some, but not to the ones who understand and value the importance of love. It simply needs courage to open up to love and see through the inner eye. If you are in extreme pain, doesn’t one hug from the person you love makes it all better and give you strength?

The series is drenched in the theme of ‘Love’.

Talking about Dementors, they affect Harry more as there is more pain and tragedy in his life. Dementors feed on the pain and negativity. Relating it to the world beyond, it is said that the more evolved souls pre-decide a life of pain before taking birth, for a better learning process. The pain does scar their soul, but they acknowledge the fact that there is no learning without pain. Some get drowned in this pain, some rise with the learning experience. The ones, who let the pain take over, allow negativity to thrive in them, which attracts more negative forced from around. Thus Harry attracted Dementors more. But what is it that drives them away? Harry’s happy memories of his parents in the Mirror of Erised and of the enriched bond of friendship with Ron and Hermione.  Why? Because the only way to drive away negativity is by being positive, this is only possible through love. Love is the protection and the Patronus charm to protect you from Dementors. Now you know why Voldemort couldn’t possess Harry’s body in the ministry? (HP5)

From personal experiences, whenever I am in pain or feeling ‘drained’, I simply close my eyes and think of all the pleasant things in my life. My parents, brother, friends, all the things I have been blessed and gifted with. And within minutes I am rejuvenated with a new force of positivity. I get laughed on when I suggest this to others. Is it so difficult to devote few minutes in a day to think about the good things in your life? And be thankful to it? It’s the Universal Law; whatever we are grateful for comes to us in abundance. Try it and with ‘awareness’ you will see the change.

HP5 also reminds me of Sirius’s death and the amount of tears I still shed while reading it, Sirius being my favourite character. When Harry was anticipating Sirius’s return in the form of ghost, Nearly Headless Nick tells him that Sirius has ‘moved on’. In HP1, when Mr and Mrs Flamel decide to die, Dumbledore says, “After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.” (The use of ‘well-organized’ mind is of great importance here. Only an evolved mind, who has opened his inner eye to see the world beyond, has acquired the knowledge to drive out ignorance. To the others this will be mumbo-jumbo, probably some will understand when their ‘time’ comes). Dumbledore’s bird, the phoenix, is a symbol of rising after death. Using such themes, Rowling has integrated the theme of the cycle of life and death.

Many people oppose the idea of rebirth, due to beliefs or religion. Hinduism propagates rebirth. Christianity and Islam disregard it. According to some scholars this disregard is due to their belief in the Judgement Day. It probably is so that humans are given a fixed time to finish their learning process. Obviously no one would hurry if they have all the time in the world. But according to religions like Hinduism and brilliant parapsychologists like Dr. Brian Weiss, souls undergo the cycle of life and death. They are immortals who live a life and die and again take birth. If we apply our science to it, soul is energy and the law states energy cannot be created or destroyed, only converted from one form to another.

Whether to believe all this or not, is a choice you have. But sometimes one should stop looking at the concrete things around and try to look ‘within’ and ‘beyond’. Learning is not only about log-tables or statistics. Learning is absorbing the knowledge and the lessons of love. Make love your strength and it will protect you no matter what. 

Harry Potter is not just a fiction; it is a lesson in metaphysics, spirituality and most importantly, ‘love’.