Harry Potter's Invitation to the World
by Vickie Ewell
Chapter 81 – Ron Sacrifices His Self (HP Chapter 16)
With three chessmen gone, there was three empty spaces for the kids to move into. When you take something away, you must replace it with something to maintain balance. This also signals a collective effort in getting across the board. Ron’s intellect won’t be the only force that moves them forward. It will take a combination of powers that also includes the other chess players. Ron’s reversal of circumstances also paves the way for his transcendence.
Ron told us that the white players always move first, so the kids watched a white pawn move forward two spaces. The movement of the white pawn represented our introduction to our female energies. Ron began directing the black pieces on where to go. They moved wherever he told them to. This inferred that we can control most of the events that occur in our subconscious mind, but we don’t do it in the way that most people think.
The whole process made Harry nervous. He was still playing his “What If?” game. What if they lost? Although Harry had submitted to Ron’s talent, he wasn’t as convinced of the outcome as Ron was. That’s why it was necessary for Ron to take over. He was the one who had the degree of confidence needed to win. This seems to indicate that at the beginning of the game, some degree of vanity or ego is necessary.
Ron directed Harry to move diagonally four spaces to the right. Harry’s movement through the Path (and probably our own) was not in a straight line. It was more of a zigzag. Traveling a straight line would be faster, but many of us have to learn our lessons the hard way. We swing back and forth between the two opposites we’re trying to resolve.
The kids were horrified when they see the other Black Knight taken. The White Queen (his Luna or anima) smashed him to the floor and dragged him off the board where he continued to lay face down and still. At first glance, the white chess pieces did extremely ugly deeds. Many people do Satan’s bidding while wearing masks of Christianity and other spiritual traditions. Abusers, such as Professor Umbridge, generally wear masks of goodness in front of others. Their abusive nature is something that manifests only in secret.
Sometimes, ugly deeds are done by those who feel they don’t have another choice. These individuals don’t see death as a legitimate option. When faced with death, they choose to perform ugliness rather than sacrifice their life and stop participating in the Game. This doesn’t come from a conscious choice, however. What awareness does for us, is teach us that we are all conditioned exactly the same.
The white pieces represented the opposition we face at this level. Our opponents show absolutely no mercy. The insinuation is that our enemy will deceive, defeat, and eliminate the Knight if at all possible. The object of this level is to begin to purify our self with the Living Water we came to know at Level 4. Simulated deaths are common within the framework of Initiation. They represent parts of ourselves that we lay aside or cleanse so that our soul can grow into the stature of Christ.
However, the false aspects of our self are not always recognized for what and who they are. As the pile of black players continued to grow, Ron tried to take out as many white players as they had lost. We cleanse ourselves a little at a time. Parts of us die, and parts of ourselves are resurrected or reborn. Becoming the White Stone doesn’t happen all at once. It’s a gradual process.
A couple of times, Ron almost didn’t see that Hermione or Harry were in trouble. This reminds us that we need to stay aware of what is happening around us. It’s our awareness that we’re trying to repair. Book 5 deals with various forms of mental perception and possession attached to a lack of subconscious control.
Although Professor Snape tried to teach Harry self-control, Harry didn’t understand why controlling his subconscious mind was necessary until he found the connection between him and Voldemort useful. Because of that, he didn’t practice as Snape asked him to do.
Ron does manage to save his friends just in time, the same as Harry managed to rid his self of Voldemort’s possession by using what was in his heart, but not before his inability to keep Voldemort from deceiving him contributed to Sirius’ death.
As the game neared its conclusion, Ron realized that in order to acquire the White Stone, he had to sacrifice his self. It was the only way to win the game. This upset Harry and Hermione because they didn’t understand what that meant. “NO!” they both shouted together, but Ron had come to realize that the game of life required you to make a few sacrifices.
So far, Ron had monopolized the movements of the game through mental perception, but a Knight must be willing to follow his Path even unto death. There was no room for egotism or selfish pursuits. Our faith in the Divine Plan must be absolute. One of the strongest revelations we come to during this period is that our conditioned self and false beliefs are not our True Self. Those that die are not us.
The Knight spends most of Level 5 fine-tuning his mental powers and abilities, but there comes a time when the intellect isn’t enough to win the game. At that moment, the Knight must place his mental powers aside so that the White Queen (the pure love of Christ) can come into being. In a way, Level 5 is where we “find” our Inner Light. For Harry, this moment arrived when Sirius sacrificed himself, and then Voldemort entered his mind, so he could learn that there were things that were worse than death. He also needed to learn about the Power of Love.
Ultimately, Ron’s sacrifice will leave Harry free to checkmate the King.
Harry made a couple of protests but eventually realized there was no other way. After cautioning the pair not to hang around after Harry had won, Ron stepped forward, allowing the White Queen to pounce. Ron’s forward movement seemed to be a matter of switching control. With the body’s mental powers (or old way of being) out of the way, we begin to live from the heart rather than the mind.
The queen struck Ron hard across the head with her stone arm, indicating that it was a portion of the intellect that had died, not Ron himself. Ron crashed to the floor. Hermione screamed (obviously reacting to the emotional pain), but she stayed within the boundaries of her own mental square as the White Queen (Ron’s anima) dragged him over to the side. Ron looked like he had been knocked out.
At the end of Book 5 when Harry was trying to sort himself out after Sirius’ death, he ran into Luna in the hallway while everyone else was at the feast. She told Harry that she wasn’t at the feast because she had lost almost all of her possessions. She needed them back, so she was pinning a note to the notice board pleading for the people who took them to return them.
Luna hadn’t lost “all” of her possessions yet, just almost all of them, but Harry felt sorry for her. He asked if she needed help finding them. “Oh, no,” she said. “They’ll come back. They always do in the end.” This hinted to Sirius’ return, but also to how our false beliefs, opinions, and other forms of conditioning can return when our True Self falls asleep.
Unlike the movie, this was where Luna actually shared her own experience with death. She reminded Harry that he heard the voices of the dead through the veil when they were at the Department of Mysteries. It was exactly what Harry needed to hear to begin centering himself.
Shaking, Harry moved three spaces to the left. Discovering our anima and living from the heart is only a part of the task. Harry must move left to find the center. Jo tells us in Book 5 that after Sirius’ death, many of the things Harry wanted now felt disconnected to him. We watch Ginny turn The Quibbler upside down, and Ron move a White Queen forward while playing chess with Harry on the trip home.
When they arrived at the station, there was a welcoming committee that Harry didn’t expect to see. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Mad-Eye Moody, Lupin, and Tonks thought it was in Harry’s best interest for them to meet the Dursleys at the train, so they could inform them that if they didn’t hear from Harry at least every three days, they would send someone along to check up on him. Harry was not alone. He was no longer a victim of the Dursleys’ cruelty. He had friends who would help him complete the Path.
Once Harry found his center, he was in a perfect position to checkmate the King. The White King removed his crown and threw it at Harry’s feet. The kids had won. The remaining chessmen bowed and parted, leaving the door ahead clear. Voldemort’s remaining servants and Harry’s enemies will do the same thing at the end. Not only will Dudley express his gratitude to Harry for saving his life (in the only way that Dudley could), but at the train station, Draco will bow in respect to Harry as they help their own children board the train for Hogwarts.
With one last desperate look at Ron, indicating that female energies had now begun to work more properly within them, Harry and Hermione charged through the door and up the next passageway