To part 1
There are images that can help us. In Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute Tamino, contemplating the portrait of Pamina, sings:
“This portrait is enchantingly beautiful as no eye has ever seen.”
We can take the words “as no eye has ever seen” literally, because it is an inner image which cannot be seen with normal eyes. In Tamino this image awakens the longing to unite himself with it. It is a key experience that leads him to the gates of the Temple of Wisdom. He finds Pamina, the depth of his own soul. And after further trials, Pamina and Tamino are finally admitted to the temple.
The Magic Flute is about the reversion of our natural state into the spiritual state of enlightenment. The process is guided by Sarastro, the sunlike element within us. It is about a transformation as is spoken of in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 51: “But we shall all be transformed”. The transforming factor giving the impulses lies within ourselves.
Overcoming the Queen of the Night
In the Magic Flute the Queen of the Night represents the world of sensations that imprisons us, the world of collective bubbles. She is vindictive and rages with jealousy when we try to escape her, when we decide to follow the inner image. When revenge, hatred, anger, passions arouse within us, we are not yet in the temple of wisdom. The process of transformation can only begin when we suffer from our current state.
Three boys “from the air”, each holding a silver palm branch, guide Tamino in his search for Pamina. They encourage him by singing:
“To your destination, this track will lead you,
but you, young man, must win like a man,
So hear our lesson:
Bear up, be patient and close-lipped.”
This indicates the method of working your way out of the sphere of the Queen of the Night. And the sphere of the images of the “magic mirror”, the screens, can even help here, at least when they are used in the right way. Mirrors used to get their mirroring properties from a coating of silver, the metal of the moon. The widely ramified network with its many nodes and myriad connections is the tool of the collective astral sphere, the world of sensations.
“Bear up, be patient and close-lipped”: direct your gaze to the image within, to “Pamina”, and do not let anything overlay or obscure it. Whether woman or man – the love for this image will make you triumph “like a man”. Let yourself be guided by the love for the inner image.
When through the act of choice and our love for the inner image our agitated emotional life finally comes to rest, then we can take our first breath in fresh, pure air and great joy spreads. This is the way to the “forecourt of the temple”.
Pamina – the lotus
One can also compare Pamina with the “lotus” that unfolds within us. It has pure white petals, to which nothing can stick because of the special coating. The cross-section of the roots of the lotus show huge holes through which the plant pumps oxygen into the pond where it grows. Oxygen, symbol of the spirit, can enter us, the “pond” from which the lotus, the new soul, grows.
Through the spiritual consciousness that comes into our being, we can take the first, liberating breath towards the sun. The window of the soul is cleansed and allows a clearer view. In this way we can perhaps understand a little of the truth about how the creation in which we live is constructed and move in it in a new way.
If we remain like this, with a crystal clear soul, focused on the images from the fire and light of the spiritual sun, then they will be sent to the darkest corners and nooks of our being. Our whole being begins to vibrate in the purity of the spirit.
Because the main target is the union with Pamina, the image of our soul reaching into the Divine.
