Spoiler alert! Plot details of the Harry Potter books are revealed here.
Great books are about us, the marvellous and mysterious miracle that every human being is. Their characters and stories affect us endlessly. Their pages are like a mirror - they open one's eyes to his or her inner universe and reflect what we have inside us. In the stillness that comes from reading them we connect with our own essence. JK Rowling's books are definitely like that.
Several years ago when the Deathly Hallows came out I wrote an essay about the Harry Potter series in Russian, my native tongue. There, I said that for me Harry's story was a path to myself. Now I can add that it was just the beginning of that road.
In my quest for the meaning of it all I asked myself some of the important questions like "Who am I?", "What am I here for?", "Why is the world the way it is?", "Why will I die and what happens after death?". It is possible, of course, that there is no meaning at all and that we are just a bundle of evolved accidental atoms interacting with each other trying to live just another day. Yet, the answers have been coming, and I've realised I have known them all along. Bedtime, children's stories, not unlike the tales of Beedle the Bard for Harry, Ron and Hermione, have been pointing at the truth from the very start of that journey. I am now returning to the beginning, seeing it through different eyes.
Great books are about us, the marvellous and mysterious miracle that every human being is. Their characters and stories affect us endlessly. Their pages are like a mirror - they open one's eyes to his or her inner universe and reflect what we have inside us. In the stillness that comes from reading them we connect with our own essence. JK Rowling's books are definitely like that.
Several years ago when the Deathly Hallows came out I wrote an essay about the Harry Potter series in Russian, my native tongue. There, I said that for me Harry's story was a path to myself. Now I can add that it was just the beginning of that road.
In my quest for the meaning of it all I asked myself some of the important questions like "Who am I?", "What am I here for?", "Why is the world the way it is?", "Why will I die and what happens after death?". It is possible, of course, that there is no meaning at all and that we are just a bundle of evolved accidental atoms interacting with each other trying to live just another day. Yet, the answers have been coming, and I've realised I have known them all along. Bedtime, children's stories, not unlike the tales of Beedle the Bard for Harry, Ron and Hermione, have been pointing at the truth from the very start of that journey. I am now returning to the beginning, seeing it through different eyes.
