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Message |
| Posted By: |
UT |
| Date: |
26-Jul-2005-10:20:21 |
| Subject: |
The real magic of Harry Potter (no spoilers) |
The Harry Potter books are a legitimate phenomenon, one
that few people understand, although a lot of people claim
to. They think that the series' popularity has to do with magic,
and a fascination for magic in those who have never really
experienced it. They think that the kids (and adults) who are
intrigued by these books are intrigued because the world of
Harry Potter and Hogwarts School Of Wizardry is so foreign
to them that it provides an escape into fantasy.
I disagree. I think that the real secret of the world of Harry
Potter and his friends is that it's so *ordinary*.
The wizards and witches and warlocks and giants and
werewolves and other creatures who populate the books
are *ordinary*. They have their petty likes and dislikes, they
have their prejudices, they do things for the same silly and
stupid reasons that everyday humans do them.
THAT is the brilliance of the concept. Magic isn't presented
as extraordinary; it's presented as ordinary. The presence
of magic in their lives doesn't suddenly make the lives of
these characters perfect and heroic and devoid of pettiness.
Magic *coexists* with the problems and the pettiness and
the silly emotions and the fighting and the wars and the
heroism and the cowardice. There is *no problem* with
magic coexisting with all these things.
I think there's a lesson in the Harry Potter books for those
who wish to spread the concept of enlightenment. So many
people paint enlightenment as a panacea, something...uh...
magical that happens and then everything is different, perfect.
In my experience, that scenario is not only not true, it undercuts
the point, which is to spread the dharma, and let more people
know about enlightenment. Why would they be interested in
something that is portrayed in such glowing, obviously unreal-
istic terms? The way enlightenment is described by many
teachers and many traditions, it's *obviously* a fantasy; it
just couldn't exist like that.
And, IMO, it doesn't, and never has. What the world needs
is a book or set of books that does for enlightenment what
the Harry Potter books have done for magic -- make it ordinary,
everyday. Because it is. It doesn't *replace* everyday life, with
its trials and tribulations and pettiness and glories. It merely
adds to that life, supplements it.
The most valuable teaching about enlightenment I know of
is, "Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water; after
enlightenment, chop wood and carry water." Enlightenment
changes nothing. But everything is changed, because enlight-
enment is added into the mix. I suspect that if more teachers
talked like that, instead of putting the enlightened up on a
pedestal, and the concept of enlightenment up there with it,
more people would actually realize enlightened.
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