Harry Potter's Invitation to the World
by Vickie Ewell
Chapter 54 – Dumbledore Teaches About the Mirror (HP Chapter 12)
The next morning, the snow still hadn’t melted. Both Harry and Ron were cold of heart. Ron suggested they play chess or go visit Hagrid, but Harry wasn’t being cooperative. Ron knew Harry was thinking about the mirror, and asked him not to go back. He had a bad feeling about it, and related several possibilities of what might happen if Harry did. Many of us live in a world full of “what ifs.” These “what ifs” create quite a lot of stress in our lives. Harry totally rejected Ron’s advice. “You sound just like Hermione.”
The next night, Harry found the room with the mirror more easily. This infers that with each lifetime, we find and discover the Path more quickly than before. Harry walked faster and made more noise than last time, but he didn’t care. All he cared about was the mirror. This shows us how dangerous our desires can be. While Ron was reacting from his childhood conditioning, Harry wasn’t acting consciously either. He was reacting to his emotions.
Once there, Harry slumped down onto the floor and sat in front of the mirror. There was nothing to stop him from staying here all night with his family. Nothing except – Albus Dumbledore. “So – back again, Harry?”
Harry’s insides turned to ice. What Ron had cautioned him about earlier had come true. Someone was in the room with him. Harry looked behind him. Dumbledore was sitting on one of the desks by the wall. In his anxiousness to get to his parents, Harry had walked right past Dumbledore without seeing him. This is how the false aspects of our self can hide in plain sight. Harry’s attraction to the mirror had reached the level of obsession. So much so, that he had thrown caution away, and reacted carelessly.
Dumbledore was one step ahead of Harry. He knew Harry would return to the mirror. While seeing family shows us that Harry’s heart is pure, we also see how our obsessions can prevent us from moving forward. We can become stuck, just as Harry was stuck within his desire to be with his parents. The thought of Liberation creates a desire to return to where we came from, but that desire can also become an obsession. And like Harry, it can actually cause us to stall in our progression if we are not careful to live in the present and do the work that’s required.
“Strange how nearsighted being invisible can make you.” When Dumbledore speaks, it’s probably a wise idea for us to pay attention to what he says. Love of family can make us nearsighted because it sometimes blocks love for friends, community, and fellowman. Dumbledore slipped off the desk and sat down on the floor next to Harry. Dumbledore was acting like a friend. He sat at Harry’s side – not above him.
Hundreds of people before Harry had discovered the delights of the Mirror of Erised. It made its viewers feel good to see their hearts manifested in a physical form. “I expect you’ve realized by now what it does?” Harry didn’t. He only knew it showed him his family. It showed Ron winning the House Cup, holding up the Quidditch Cup, being Quidditch Team Captain, and being Head Boy. But Harry didn’t understand what that meant, nor did he understand how Dumbledore knew what Ron had seen.
“I don’t need a cloak to become invisible,” Dumbledore assured him. The inference here is that just as Dumbledore used his talent of invisibility to keep an eye on Harry, he will use it again in the future.
“The happiest man on earth would be able to use the Mirror of Erised like a normal mirror. That is, he would look into it and see himself exactly as he is.”
Our heart’s desires show us whether we are content with ourselves. If not, it shows us our desire to be different. It shows us that we are either living in the past (Harry) or the future (Ron). We need to learn how to live in the present moment – to be satisfied with whom and what we are right now.
Harry thought the mirror showed us what we want, but that wasn’t exactly true. Dumbledore corrected the error. “It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts.” The key word here is “desperate” desire. Harry had never known his family. Ron, who had always been overshadowed by his brothers, saw himself standing alone – the best of them. “However, this mirror will give us neither knowledge or truth.”
Coming face-to-face with the desperate desires of our hearts (including our desire for freedom and liberation) doesn’t help us. Desire for liberation doesn’t bring knowledge, and it doesn’t offer us the truth of what’s really going on.
Dumbledore explained that men have wasted their lives standing before the mirror, entranced by what they saw. Some have gone mad because they couldn’t figure out if it showed reality – or if what they saw was even possible. For that reason, Dumbledore had decided to give the mirror a new home and asked Harry not go looking for it again.
However, he added a little tidbit for us. “If you ever DO run across it, you will now be prepared.” So we can expect to see the mirror again because Harry’s experience was a preparation for a future event.
Dumbledore also gave Harry another piece of advice. “It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that.” Here we receive the reason why desire dams us. No matter who we are, we have dreams. They might not be dreams of grandeur such as Ron’s, or a desperate longing for something we’ve never had, but there is a very real danger in spending our lives hoping for things to come – rather than living what is offered to us today.
Religion keeps people focused on heaven and Alchemy keeps people focused on turning into gold. Both can cause us to forget to love, live, and experience the present.
Harry asked Dumbledore what he saw when he looked into the mirror. “I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks.” When we first met Harry, he was picking a spider off one of his socks. When Harry and Ron were searching for the mirror the night before, Ron’s feet were cold. Socks don’t just keep our feet warm. They keep heat from escaping from the body. Thick, woolen socks hold in a lot of heat.
Harry stared at Dumbledore because he didn’t understand what Dumbledore was trying to tell him. “One can never have enough socks,” said Dumbledore. As our vibratory level increases, so does our heat. If we can never have enough socks, then there is no end to progression. There will always be something else to learn. There will always be another place to go. So achieving liberation is only a single step inside Eternity.
Christmas had come and gone, and with it, the Christmas Spirit that enables the Holy Spirit to work with mankind easier. Dumbledore, once again, had not received a single pair of socks. He had received books – what others insisted on giving him. Books represent earthly knowledge, something the Holy Spirit doesn’t need. Books do not save us. Increasing our warmth, our love, by putting on another pair of socks is what Dumbledore wanted for Christmas, but he didn’t receive it. What we do for ourselves, we give to him.
The point Dumbledore was trying to make was that we seldom receive the desires of our hearts, so there isn’t much use dwelling upon them. Telling Harry what his desire was would not enable it to come to pass. Harry is looking at Dumbledore’s words literally. He thinks Dumbledore might have been lying about the socks. Dumbledore was using “socks” as an object lesson to represent his heart’s desire. Socks are a small thing in the physical world, but symbolically they represent the pureness of our heart – our ability to increase in vibration. Our ability to love.
Harry reached out and shoved Scabbers off his pillow. That seemed to represent Harry’s release from the mirror’s hold over him. Scabbers was larger than a Dursley spider, but Harry’s desire was just as damaging to his Eternal progression as the Dursleys were. Shoving Scabbers away symbolized that Harry was ready to move forward, and since he was ready, the knowledge he was seeking will be given to him