Harry Potter and the 12 Powers

The Power of Power & Harry Potter

Winifred Wilkinson Hausmann says;

 

“Power! The word itself has a magical, mystical sound. Through the years the idea of power has been the main goal of existence in more than one person’s life—the never-ending search for power over other people, power in the political or ecclesiastical area, power to accomplish miracles, power to amaze and mystify others. Power, power, power!

 

Like a siren song, the idea has lured people on. And always, in the end, those who have sought power for its own sake have found disillusionment and disappointment.”

 

Isn’t that what we think of when the word POWER is mentioned?

 

“… Truly, power is a gift of our Creator, freely given, but it is a gift to be used under God direction only. Wrong use of the God-given power potential will bring disappointing or even disastrous results.

 

But power, rightly used under the direction of the Higher Self of each individual, will accomplish good beyond our present ability to imagine.”

 

“Power is not an end in itself, not a goal to be sought. Rather, it is simply a means that enables us to attain the end result of bringing forth God ideas on earth. It is not to be used for selfish gain or satisfaction of the personal ego, but for the forward spiritual movement of the whole.

 

It is to be exercised not for the purpose of controlling others, but for the purpose of taking dominion over our own thoughts and feelings in order to come into a greater God-awareness. It is a gift of God, and as such it must be respected and utilized to further Divine work on earth.”

In Charles Fillmore’s Unity classic, The Twelve Powers, he likens the creative faculty of “power” to the divine ideas of dominion and mastery. In Fillmore’s view, the power of power is the capacity to have dominion over one’s experience and also the potential to achieve mastery over that experience.

Fillmore places the power of power energy center in the throat area, specifically, the voice box. It is with the power of our word that we engage the wheels of creation itself and whatever we “bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever [we] loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” [Matthew 18:18]

In the creation story of Genesis, the power of the word comes into play almost immediately with the words “Let there be light.” With the creative power inherent in the sound of those words, the creation of the universe was set into motion.

In John 1:1 states, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”

Virtually every religious and spiritual tradition acknowledges the creative power of sound and words. In the Hindu creation story, Brahma, the Creator, revealed himself as a golden embryo of sound, a vowel resonating outward from his center, resonating off the embryo walls, echoing back upon itself and becoming water and wind.

In the Toltec tradition, great emphasis is placed on being “impeccable with your word.” Words and sounds have power and they create both positive and negative effects depending upon how we use and direct them.

In Sanskrit, this power is called “Matrika Shakti,” the inherent creative energy in the sound of the letters that make up words. In the Sanskrit alphabet, each letter has a corresponding sound vibration that resonates in our body’s subtle energy channels and also in the cosmos.

In each tradition, the creative power that is implied is the same power that Charles Fillmore calls the power of power, one of the twelve creative faculties of humankind.

It was Dumbledore who said, “Words are our most inexhaustible source of magic, capable of both inflicting injury and remedying it.”

When working to intellectually understand the power of power, or indeed any of the twelve powers, it is useful to maintain awareness that each one only represents a potential power. It will always remain our personal responsibility to achieve mastery or dominion over our own experience. No one can do it for us and mastery is not guaranteed. However, our creative power is never a matter of potential. It is always a matter of personal choice.

Personal responsibility again…a very important part of Unity.  Our 5^th Principle. And a reminder that we always have a CHOICE.

At the level of consciousness, dominion and mastery over our own experience means that we have assumed the personal responsibility to exercise executive management over the thoughts, feelings, beliefs and attitudes that reside in our own consciousness.

When we engage the power of power, we use our words to communicate the thoughts and feelings present in our consciousness. If we have a consciousness of conflict, we use words of fear to criticize and divide. If we have a consciousness of peace, we employ words that affirm our fundamental unity.

Like the other powers, the power of power works interdependently and synergistically with the other powers. It does not achieve its potential if used in isolation or to the exclusion of the other powers. To fully engage the creative power of power, we must fuse it with the harmonizing power of love, inform it with the twin powers of spiritual understanding and discernment, clothe it in the dynamic power of our imagination and galvanize it to action through the executive power of our will.

The remaining powers, including strength, zeal and renunciation also play unique roles in the effective expression of the power of power. While mastery and dominion may not be guaranteed, it is reassuring to know that we are equipped with the limitless creative potential to accomplish them.

After all, if the power of the word is enough to set the entire universe into motion, it is likely powerful enough to help us to achieve our own comparatively smaller creative dreams and visions, even world peace.

 

Harry James Potter is the title character and protagonist of J. K. Rowling‘s Harry Potter series. The majority of the books’ plot covers seven years in the life of the orphan Potter, who, on his eleventh birthday, learns he is a wizard. Thus, he attends Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Rowling states, “Harry had to be an orphan—so that he’s a free agent, with no fear of letting down his parents, disappointing them … Hogwarts has to be a boarding school—half the important stuff happens at night! Then there’s the security. Having a child of my own reinforces my belief that children above all want security, and that’s what Hogwarts offers Harry.”

Harry is associated with the Power of Power because he uses his dominion and mastery of his Spiritual Power as he learns of his fate with regards to Lord Voldemort.  He learned to “fuse his power with the harmonizing power of love, with the twin powers of spiritual understanding and discernment, with the dynamic power of imagination and with the executive power of will.”

Harry’s ability to bring all the Spiritual Powers together as book 7 came to a close was the perfect example of the growth we all take on this Spiritual Journey called being a human being having a Spiritual experience on this planet called earth.

He took dominion over all the information he had before him and made the choice he made…to sacrifice himself and then to return and complete his journey and his growth.

Kind of like surrendering to the Divine Guidance we are receiving instead of fighting it for ego’s sake.

Could we do what Harry did? That is our question.  Harry had the opportunity to bring the 3 parts of the Deathly Hallows together to ‘conquer death’, yet he choose to aid humanity. J. K. Rowling said the difference between Harry and Voldemort is that Harry willingly accepts mortality, making him stronger than his nemesis. “The real master of Death accepts that he must die, and that there are much worse things in the world of the living.” He placed himself to be killed by Voldemort, and in doing that he conquered death anyway.

Could you do it? Could I?  Would I have the wisdom and strength to walk away from the power that was before Harry? He was tested by ego.  As we all are.

What Harry did was find his purpose. He questioned all he was learning. All the challenges before him…or I like to call them growth opportunities.

We need to do that…to question everything.  To seek within what our true purpose is. To honor God’s gifts, whatever they are.

We are reading and discussing the book, “Hell in the Hallway, Light at the Door” by Ellen Dabenport in Tuesday’s class. The title comes from the saying, “when one door closes another opens, but it’s hell in the hallway”. And her point being, when you are in a hallway, there are all kinds of gifts for us all if we just keep open to see them, to receive them.

Harry had a hallway in each book that lead up to the long, final hallway that each earlier hallway played a part in because they each had gifts, lessons to help him grow as he came closer to facing his Shadow, Voldemort.

Harry Potter and the 12 Powers – Understanding & Hermione

 

We are coming close to the end of our summer series on the 12 Spiritual Powers and Harry Potter. I hope you are not only enjoying the series but recalling what the 12 Powers mean to you and how they can help you through your Spiritual Journey as a physical being in this universe.

 

This week we will take a look at the Power of Understanding.  And we can certainly use some understanding, can’t we.  It seems many of our fellow Americans have chosen to act out their beliefs and others have chosen to stand for what they believe in contrast. And THAT has caused a bit of a physical clash.

 

Let’s be reminded that we ALL have a part in what is showing up in our world.  As long as any of us bear the thought of ‘better than’, ‘other than’; we will see that manifest in our world. Diversity is important in our world. We’d easily get bored if we were all the same. This is where discernment comes in to play with our thoughts and actions. We’ve discussed this several times. This is why we say, Peace begins with me.

 

It kind of goes down to something Dumbledore said to Harry, we all have a choice between what is right and what is easy. And ALL of us, my friends, get to choose.

 

Take a deep breath and let go of any and all distrust, disharmony and negativity….. and breathe in the love that we have here and know that is all there really is. There is only God and that means, only GOOD.

 

 

Let’s talk about understanding, our Spiritual Power this week.

 

WHY is it important to seek understanding? Understanding is invaluable because only understanding can give peace to the heart.

Understanding has many applications: it’s the mental process of a person who comprehends; it’s comprehension; personal interpretation:

It is also, the superior power of discernment; enlightened intelligence:

And, a mutual agreement, an agreement regulating joint activity or settling differences.

It’s demonstrating comprehension, intelligence, discernment, empathy, like an understanding attitude.

 

Can you see why understanding is needed for our hearts to be at peace?

 

Charles Fillmore, our co-founder, states in The Twelve Powers, “Spiritual discernment always places wisdom above the other faculties of mind and reveals that knowledge and intelligence are auxiliary to understanding. Intellectual understanding comes first in the soul’s development, then a deeper understanding of principles follows, until the whole man ripens into wisdom.”

 

Understanding is a bridge to living love. The more we understand, the more we are able to feel and express the love that is already present.

 

The awakening of our own faculty of understanding starts with questioning—questioning the old ways of thinking that may have been taken for granted. Questioning our domestication. Wanting to know the spiritual Truth.

 

The desire for understanding leads to thinking about what is learned and seeking to put it all together in a body of information that will provide a basis for living; your integrity.

 

Understanding is different from … wisdom. Charles Fillmore defines wisdom as “intuitive knowing; spiritual intuition,” … and understanding as “the ability of the mind to apprehend and realize the laws of thought and the relation of ideas to one another.”

… To put it more simply, wisdom knows. … Understanding knows why, it sees the relationship between the parts of God’s universe.. … When your understanding is developed in both head and heart, not only will you have the light in mind, but you will also have the ability to apply it in your world.

 

Don’t work on understanding unless you are willing to change. You will attain a new understanding of yourself and your world.

 

Understanding is important in developing our spiritual nature, because it is the faculty which puts feet under our prayers and gives our spiritual activity something to stand on. Blind faith, faith without understanding of the spiritual laws, may get results on occasion, but our spiritual growth demands a base that is more dependable … understanding that is grounded in spiritual Truth.

 

 

This revelation of Truth to the consciousness of a person is spiritual understanding.

You may say to yourself, over and over again, that you are well and wise and happy. On the mental plane, a certain “cure” is effected, and for a time you will feel well and wise and happy. This is simply a form of hypnotism, or mind cure.

 

But until, down in the depths of your being, you are conscious of your oneness with the Creator, until you know within yourself that the spring of all wisdom and health and joy is within your own being, ready at any moment to leap forth at the call of your need, you will not have spiritual understanding.

 

All the teachings of Jesus were for the purpose of leading us into this consciousness of our oneness with the Creator. He had to begin at the external man—because people then as now were living mostly in external things-and teach us to love our enemies, to do good to others, and so forth. These were external steps for us to take

Jesus told us how we might find the kingdom of heaven within ourselves—the kingdom of love, of power, of life. Thus, giving us power over every form of sickness, sorrow, and over even death itself.

Every day we are met with opportunities to understand more. We each have a worldview. Those views are influenced by our country of origin, gender, life story, religion, education, economic status, Enneagram number, ethnicity, and the list goes on. We tend to gravitate toward the people who we share similar worldviews with. It’s easier to understand those who are like us and therefore easier to love them.

Then there are those relationships and situations where we bump up against other viewpoints, informed by a different set of influences than our own. We can make up many stories based on limited, external information. Our call is to go deeper. The more we understand, the more we can feel the love that connects us all.

There are many ways to inquire to develop understanding and ultimately love. When you are seeking to build understanding, the important starting point is to be pure in your intention. Start with the awareness that this is a soul in human form that has a story, with hopes and dreams, challenges and struggles. When you start with that, you start from a place of connection with them that is beyond personal beliefs.

Then, be curious. Ask questions in a welcoming, open tone; welcoming because you want to be invited into their world; open because there is room in your awareness for what they have to share.

Ask: “Will you please tell me more?”

The more curious we are, the more we can stay open to viewpoints outside our own worldview, ultimately building understanding and an ability to love more.

 

Some persons fall into the subtle trap of affirming misunderstanding. They say, I don’t understand my mother (father), I don’t understand my wife (husband), I don’t understand why my neighbor (friend) acts the way he does. Without realizing it, these persons have affirmed misunderstanding, they have invited misunderstanding to be a part of their life.

 

We can reverse this trend by Asking questions with an open mind and heart; by not making assumptions that misunderstanding is what is present…

 

Our Harry Potter character for the Power of Understanding is Hermione.

The name Hermione, is from the Greek, which is derived from Hermes, the messenger god known for his sharp wit and ability to transition between worlds.

Hermione makes one of the most beautiful changes out of any character in the Harry Potter series. She grows from a rather annoying know-it-all to a humble, intelligent, thoughtful witch. Hermione has an overwhelming thirst to prove herself in the wizarding world. Being Muggle-born in a world full of prejudice purebloods like Draco Malfoy could not have been easy to deal with.

Perhaps this is what fuels her thirst to always be the absolute best at magic. After getting her Hogwarts letter, Hermione purchased the required school books and then some. She then proceeded to read through all of them and memorized them all before the term even started, and simply hoped that would be enough for her to get by. She raises her hand to every question in every single class and does extra work proving that maybe she just might be a bit of a bossy, know-it-all.

But by the time readers leave Hermione at the very end of Deathly Hallows, she has become a witch who is so full of self-confidence that she understands answering every single question isn’t necessary to prove she’s deserving of being a witch, despite how fun it may be. Oozing with intelligence, she chooses her words very carefully as a means to not upset anyone or come off as a know-it-all. She is wise beyond her years and the most humble and clever witch around.

Her early compassion for House Elves led her to a career in the Ministry of Magic, furthering the cause for the better treatment of house-elves, before being promoted to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. She eventually married Ron Weasley, and together they had two children Rose and Hugo. Hermione became the godmother of Harry and Ginny Potter’s eldest son James. By the year 2019 she was elected Minister for Magic.

Hermione’s understanding, not only of life’s situations but of others and herself is a perfect example of what this power can do for us all.

 

Harry Potter and the Twelve Spiritual Powers: Wisdom

 

 

This morning we are looking at the spiritual power of Wisdom.  The dictionary defines wisdom as knowledge and good judgment based on experience; being wise. Wise implies having knowledge and understanding of people and of what is true and right in life and conduct, and showing sound judgment in applying such knowledge.

 

In ‘The Twelve Powers of Man’ Charles Fillmore writes that “Wisdom includes judgment, discrimination, intuition, and all the departments of mind that come under the heading of knowing.”

 

Wisdom in this case is good judgment. Wisdom is making wise choices.  It is learning to balance our information, our knowledge, with our intuition.

 

So, if judgment is a good thing, why does it get such a bad rap?  “Don’t be so judgmental.”  “Judge not, lest ye be judged.”

It’s important to differentiate between true judgment, i.e. the ability to discern, and condemnation.  Discernment seeks only truth, only to do the right thing.  Condemnation makes others wrong. Look at it this way, discernment is love.  Condemnation is fear.  “Judge not, lest ye be judged” makes more sense if we insert the word “condemn.”  “Condemn not, lest ye be condemned.”

 

Wisdom is making wise choices.  The spiritual power most often associated with wisdom is love.  The combination of wisdom and love is a clear example of the connecting of head and heart.  Wisdom without love can become academic. Love without wisdom can become co-dependent, and make unwise choices.

 

Together, wisdom and love help us to move beyond ourselves, beyond what we thought we were capable of.  Wisdom and love help us to see beyond appearances.

 

 

King Solomon was a wonderful example of wisdom in action.  Fillmore writes, “Solomon…when asked by the Lord what He should give him, chose wisdom above riches and honor; then all the other things were added.  Solomon was also a great judge.  He had a rare intuition, and he used it freely in arriving at his judgments.  He did not rest his investigations on mere facts, but sought out the inner motives.

 

In the case of the two women who claimed the same infant, he commanded an attendant to bring a sword to cut the child in two, and give a half to each woman.  Of course, the real mother begged him not to do this, and he knew at once that she was the mother.”

 

Solomon used his intuition freely.  How do we nurture and develop our intuition?

Silence.  By becoming quiet.

 

Our Harry Potter character for the week is Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts.  Dumbledore is legendary among wizards.  He was famous for many, many accomplishments.

 

Author, JK Rowling stated that she enjoys writing Dumbledore because he “is the epitome of goodness.”

As we mentioned last week, Dumbledore, as Wisdom, has chosen to turn his trials into triumphs, to learn from life’s experience and use that learning to help others.  Both Jesus and Buddha point to an essential “renouncing” of the false self, a foundational death of the ego. This was his turn from his ego driven goals to his true self. This dying to self is at the heart of the spiritual journey.

 

He is a good example for us, many of us have made the same discovery to renounce our ‘old ways’ and learn from our life experiences, we have made a choice for life.

 

Dumbledore is a protector of Harry, because he sees beyond appearances.  He sees Harry’s power and potential.  Rowling states, “Dumbledore is a very wise man who knows that Harry is going to have to learn a few hard lessons to prepare him for what may be coming in his life.”

 

Dumbledore is described as someone who can sort things out and make the just and right choice.

 

“The trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them.”  Is that true? What are we choosing?

 

“Choose this day who you will serve… as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15. In other words, as for me and my house, we will base our decisions on Wisdom… in popular jargon, What Would Jesus Do?

 

We’ve mentioned this story from Cherokee teachings several times, here it is in full:

 

An elder Cherokee was teaching his grandchildren about life. He said to them, “A fight is going on inside me. It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.

One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.

This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too.”

The children thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

 

What wolf are we feeding?  What are we choosing? “Choose this day who you will serve.”  We know that Heaven and Hell are not actual physical places, but states of mind that we create.  Are our choices creating Heaven or Hell?  Do we choose grace?  Knowing that the gateway to grace is gratitude, do we choose to be grateful? Every day?  For everything?

 

Matthew Fox wrote, “When we are joyous and full of heart, we are emanating wisdom.  Wisdom is not in the head but in the heart and gut where compassion is felt.”

 

Wisdom is compassionate.  Wisdom feeds the wolf that stands for love, joy, & peace.  Wisdom serves our Creator, serves our Higher Self, the Spirit within.

 

Wisdom looks beyond appearances.  Here’s a passage from the end of The Sorcerer’s Stone.

 

Read pages 305 – 306.

 

Dumbledore rewarded the obvious acts of courage, as he should have.  And, in his wisdom, he looked beneath the surface, beyond the obvious and saw the tremendous courage it took Neville to stand up to his friends, to have the courage to say “no” to those that he loved.  Neville made a wise choice, and Dumbledore had the wisdom to reward it.

 

Philippians 4:4-9.  “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

 

Have the courage, the strength, and the wisdom, to feed the love & peace wolf.

 

 

Harry Potter and the 12 Powers – Will & Voldemort

Welcome back to our Summer Series on the 12 Powers and Harry Potter.  Today is an important day for us and I hope you are all planning to stay and enjoy our Anniversary Celebration.  Thanks to you we are 3 years old and growing!

This week we are looking at the Spiritual Power of WILL.  Will is the ability to choose, to decide, command, to lead, to determine.

 

Our free will is the most important element of our make-up, because within our will lies the power to choose – to choose by faith to follow God or choose by our emotions to follow self.

Our will in the Greek is called dianoia. Dia means “channel” and noya means “of the mind.” And this is exactly what our will is, the channel or conduit for God’s Spirit to flow from our hearts out into our lives. In other words, our choice is the key to whose life will be lived in our soul. Faith choices allow our Creator’s Life to come forth; emotional choices quench that Life

 

Free will” refers to the type of choice which is uniquely human: a moral choice. But don’t mistakenly think that morality is the choice between “good and evil.” Everyone chooses to be “good” – even what we would call the most evil, immoral people. Hitler rationalized that the Jews, gypsies and homosexuals were the enemies of the world, so in his mind he justified that eliminating them as doing “good.”

Free will is the choice between life and death. As the Torah says: “I have put before you, life and death… Choose life so that you may live.” (Deut. 30:19)

You might wish to look at how you define life and death????

 

One way or another, we are using our will, our executive mind power, all the time. We choose a course of action. We resist or resent. We submit or fight back. We aim high or we slide backward. Or we are willing to consecrate and dedicate our will to God and to let it be reeducated to go our creator’s way.

 

Romans 12:2 states: “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
That is our job in developing our Divinely-given potentialities – to reeducate the will, to teach it to become receptive to spiritual motivation, rather than to goals determined by our materialistic pursuits alone.

 

The rewards of unifying our wills with the will of God are great. They include health, happiness, joy, peace, harmony, prosperity and other good that we cannot even visualize in our present state of consciousness.

 

Many in harmonies in human relationships result from the clash of human wills. Learning to activate the divine will in your life does not mean that you will simply submit to the human will of others. Instead, it will give you a new freedom that recognizes the human force applied by others but does not submit to it.

Greatness lies in how we resolve conflicts – in using our free will to grow – not to quit. To face reality – not to escape. To live and not to die.

I found these 5 stages of free will…

Five Stages of Free Will

Level One: Self-Awareness

Become aware of the choices you’re making. Life is a constant stream of choices. Once you become sensitive to the fact that you are constantly making choices, then you can monitor them. That’s using your free will actively, not passively.

Don’t let decisions just “happen. “Have an intention for the day.  Ask yourself:

Why am I reading this article right now? Am I just surfing the web? Or do I have a specific goal?

Your choices shape your life and determine your destiny. Take charge. If you don’t, you’re just a pedestrian watching as life passes you by.

 

Level Two: Be Your Own Person

Don’t accept society’s beliefs as your own unless you’ve thought them through and agree with them. Live for yourself, not for society.

This refers to Don Miguel Ruiz’s 5 Agreement – to question everything. To look at your domestication. And his ‘Don’t make assumptions!

Evaluate your past choices. Start each day anew. Don’t remain bound to guidelines and determinations you made years ago, or even to ones that you made yesterday.

Check your assumptions and make sure that they are really yours and not someone else’s.

Level Three: Distinguish Between Body and Soul

Within each of us, a fierce battle is raging constantly. It’s a battle between the cravings of our body, versus the aspirations of our soul.

There are times when you know objectively that something is good for you, but your physical desires get in the way and distort your outlook.

Here’s how the battle-lines break down:

BODY: Gravitates toward transitory comforts and sensual pleasures. Desires to quit, to dream, to drown in passions, to procrastinate.

SOUL: Seeks understanding, meaning, productivity, accomplishment, permanence, greatness. Confronts challenges. Embraces reality and truth.

You’ve heard the Native American story about the two battling wolves inside each of us and which would win the battle depended upon which one we feed.

Identify whether it’s your body or your soul talking. Until then, you don’t even know why you’ve made the choice that you are making.

Choose what is meaningful and productive. Choose life.

 

Level Four: Identify with Your Soul, Not Your Body

Point to yourself. Who are you?

We believe that your soul is the real you.

Attain inner peace. Achieve mastery over your body by identifying with your soul.

The Talmud teaches: “The righteous talk to their bodily desires, while evil people let their desires talk to them.” The question is who’s running the show? Who will dictate what you’re going to do?

The only way to win is to get to the body to desire what the soul wants. Because there’s no way you’ll ever achieve peace by giving in to the body. Your soul will simply not give up. Never.

Level Five: Make Your Will God’s Will

The highest stage of free will is not when you ask yourself, “What does my soul want?” It’s when you ask yourself, “What does God want?”

When that is your prime interest, you will have achieved the highest form of living. You are using your free will to merge with the most meaningful and powerful force in the universe.

Free will is the choice between life and death.

 

Free Will Summary

Level One: Don’t be a sleepwalker. Make decisions actively.

Level Two: Don’t be a puppet of society’s goals, or a slave to your old decisions.

Level Three: Be aware of the conflict between the cravings of your body and the aspirations of your soul.

Level Four: Identify with your soul, not your body.

Level Five: Make your will God’s will.

Pic

 Tom Marvolo Riddle, the half-blood orphan, was to transform himself into the very powerful Dark Wizard known as Lord Voldemort.  Eventually he would lose all – not because he lacked power, but because of his ruthless methods, his inability to love or trust anyone but himself, and his belief in his own infallibility.

He believed that “there is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it.”

The name ‘Voldemort’ from the French means “flight from death”. This is what he was trying to do by hiding pieces of his soul in magical items he valued over humans.

Could Voldemort represent our shadow side? Our shadow side – an unconscious aspect of the personality which the conscious ego does not identify in itself. Because one tends to reject or remain ignorant of the least desirable aspects of one’s personality, the shadow is largely negative, or everything of which a person is not fully conscious.

An interesting thought to contemplate.

 

We have been talking about choices; Choices reflect the character we have and shape the character we will have.

We might try to be understanding to Tom Riddle, knowing his life circumstances, left to grow up in an orphanage; yet it is still his choices that turn him into the person he became. He is a materialist because he places part of his soul outside himself. It is an ego preservation, material identification with material things.

But consider:

“what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his soul.” Mark 8:36

Nothing. We gain nothing if we lose our soul. We must be true to it.

 

We will look at Dumbledore next week, but it is difficult to look at one without the other a bit.  In mythical terms, they are the representation of Good and Evil.  Dumbledore, as Wisdom, has chosen to turn his trials into triumphs, to learn from life’s experience and use that learning to help others.

Voldemort has chosen to use his Will to control and harm others.  Dumbledore uses his Life energy for the good of all; Voldemort has subverted his Life energy in order to manipulate and terrorize.  Both men were very powerful – and they made very different choices.

Remember what Dumbledore taught Harry in The Chamber of Secrets?  “It is not our abilities that show who we are, Harry.  It is our choices.”

 

What are we choosing?  Are we choosing to create out of the Truth?  Or, as we see with Voldemort, are we creating out of our wounds?

 

Voldemort, out of feelings of rejection, of being “different”, created a life based on fear.  The more hurt, the more shamed he felt, the more control he tried to exert.  A modern analogy for Voldemort would be Adolph Hitler.  Hitler created a life, a Hell on earth, out of his wounds.  His Final Solution ultimately killed over 6 million people.  His ideal was of the Aryan man, the tall, blue eyed, blond master race.

So, here’s what’s interesting.  Hitler was short, with dark brown hair and brown eyes, and had a Jewish ancestor.  Don’t you find it amazing that he exerted so much control over his followers that no one questioned the in-congruency of his message?  Can you imagine what good this man could have done, given his powers of persuasion and leadership, if he had created out of the Truth of who he was, instead of out of who he was afraid he was?

 

How often do we do that?  How often do we create out of reaction, out of fear, instead of out of love and wisdom?

We live in a dualistic world…It’s about our choices, about how we choose to see life.  Is it a struggle or a joy?  Is it a curse or a blessing?  We believe that our thoughts create our life.  How we’re showing up reflects those thoughts.

 

Here’s an interesting exercise to do this week: Set a timer, either on your watch, your computer, your kitchen stove, for every 15 minutes.  Whenever you hear the beep, stop what you’re doing and observe your thoughts.  What do you see?  Are they thoughts of love or fear?  If you acted on that thought in the moment, what would you create?

Interesting what we do with our time and energy and we are not even aware of it.

Let me know your thoughts.