Harry Potter's Invitation to the World
by Vickie Ewell
Chapter 31 – Neville Receives a Remembrall (HP Chapter 9)
Harry was surprised to discover that he hated Draco Malfoy even more than he hated Dudley. He was coming to understand that the Dursleys are not the worst thing that could have happened to him, but he doesn’t understand the purpose for opposition yet.
Although we have seen Harry perform many of the spiritual disciplines, he has also embraced some of their negative aspects as well. So far, Harry has only had to endure Draco and the other Slytherins during Potions class, but that will soon change. Flying lessons start Thursday, and Gryffindore and Slytherin will learn how to fly together.
The students began Hogwarts as a single group. The Sorting Hat divided them into separate houses, depending upon their strongest traits. They must now learn how to reunite themselves back into a single group, but the polarities they experience from the separation can be illusionary. That separation seems to magnify their separate characteristics.
Since the students function within a judgmental consciousness, the qualities of each house were perceived to be good or bad – something to be embraced or shunned. In reality, these characteristics must be integrated into the whole. As long as Harry sees Slytherins as bad, rather than an essential part of himself, that won’t happen.
Harry had been looking forward to learning how to fly more than anything else, but the thought of making a fool of himself in front of Draco made him feel ill. Like many of us, he cares about what other people think of him. He doesn’t remember flying around on a broomstick before his parents died, so Ron tried to rescue him with the voice of reason.
According to Ron, Harry didn’t know if he was going to make a fool of himself, or not. He might turn out to be very good at flying. Much of our inner stress and turmoil comes from what we think might happen, rather than what actually does. We are often much harder on ourselves than we are on others.
However, Harry’s fears and self-doubts continued to multiply when both Draco and Seamus bragged about their ability to fly. They told fantastic stories of adventure. Even Ron had a flying story to tell, which made Harry feel left out and even more worried about his own abilities. He feared the feelings of inadequacy that Draco’s ridicule and mockery ignited.
Neville, on the other hand, had never been near a broomstick, so his worry was justifiable to Harry who thought that was for the best due to the number of accidents Neville had experienced on the ground. Hermione was as nervous as Neville, since you can’t learn how to fly by reading a book, although Hermione had tried. She was boring everyone except Neville on Thursday morning with the flying tips she’d learned from a book.
Although reading and study can be helpful, what we learn from books often doesn’t coincide with the experience. Plus, transformation comes as we put what we learn into practice. It’s personal experience that matters.
At mail that morning, Neville received a package from his grandmother. It was a glass ball, the size of a large marble, which was full of white smoke. The white smoke represents the transformative power that will move Neville from lead to gold. Neville told his friends that the ball was a Remembrall. It alerted you if there was something you had forgotten to do. If it glowed red – which the Remembrall did when Neville held it tightly – it meant you had forgotten something.
The thought that came to mind was how Neville bounced when he was accidently dropped out of the window. In a sense, Neville flew without a broom that day. He had the power to fly, the power to save himself, but he had forgotten how to do that.
On the physical level, white smoke performs the same work that vinegar does. It penetrates, develops, and exalts everything it unites with. White smoke symbolizes Neville’s potential for liberation from the bondage of the physical body and senses. It can dissolve the chains that are keeping him securely attached to the physical world and its vices. He can fly because he has already done it.
Neville was trying to remember what he had forgotten when Draco snatched the Remembrall out of his hand. Draco’s maliciousness was like stealing Neville’s memory from him. The false aspects of our self do not want us to remember. Since Draco represents darkness and blindness at this point, this was also a caution that we can lose our ability to transcend further if we don’t guard and protect the power of change we have within ourselves.
Draco’s actions show us how fallen man blindly serves the powers of darkness. As long as we don’t remember who we are, as long as we don’t look inward for the truth, or even desire liberation from our inner turmoil and strife, Voldemort is content because things remain the same. We aren’t a threat to him until we begin to study the inner man.
Both Harry and Ron jumped to their feet at the same time, ready to defend their friend. Since fear isn’t a factor in mechanical behavior, reacting can sometimes bring out the best in us. Harry didn’t think before he acted, he just responded. The downside to reacting from conditioning is that we are not acting from the perspective of choice.
If the subconscious mind believes we should always rise up and defend someone we believe to be weaker than ourselves, we will do that automatically, without thinking about it. But when we react, rather than act, free agency doesn’t exist. For most people, it’s an illusion.
Professor McGonagall popped up faster than trouble could start. Neville informed her that Draco had taken his Remembrall. Draco lied about his intension and dropped the ball back onto the table. Draco was clearly not as strong as he pretended to be, which hints at the possibility that his father might not be as strong as he pretended to be either.
When tested, those who appear strong outwardly often crumble and fall. Those who appear to be the least likely to stand, many times arise to show us an inner strength we didn’t realize was there.
The first flying lesson started later that afternoon. There were 20 broomsticks lying neatly on the ground. The brooms appear to represent the students’ grounded condition. They are functioning at the level of subjective consciousness. These are well-worn, school-supplied brooms, so although they can help the students see a higher level of reality, they don’t exactly fly true. Higher realities cannot be interpreted with our current level of judgment.
The Weasley twins also told Harry that the broom might vibrate if you fly too high. They always fly slightly off to the left. Flying too high is similar to running faster than you have strength. If you go to a higher level of reality than you are able to bear, the vibration level will shake the broom so hard you may find it difficult to hold onto its rod, and fall.
The brooms always fly slightly off center. The left side of the uppermost section of the brain is specifically devoted to learning systematically. It’s devoted to rules, order, and logic. The school brooms always fly to the left because schools offer a structured, logical, rule-based curriculum