THE MISSION OF PARSIFAL

This Spirit of God was first mentioned in Genesis 1:2 "And the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters" which would indicate a close association of the Spirit with the process of Creating. In fact many people have come to the recognition that the creative Part of God is His Spirit, the Holy Spirit and that is probably why He is concerned with the dispensation of Power for its maintenance. Not only then is the Holy Spirit concerned with the coming into being of the Creations, He is also concerned with its maintenance.

This He does through the Holy Grail, which is the subject of the legends we have been discussing. The Holy Spirit therefore, pours out the Power through the Holy Grail to the Creations for their continuous existence. If the Holy Spirit does not pour out this Power through the Holy Grail, then as has been said in the legends, everything would dry up. Parsifal therefore, as the Spirit of God is responsible not only for the creating but also for the maintenance of the Creations. Since the Creations have Laws, He is also responsible for the maintenance of the Laws that guide the Creations. If He is therefore, concerned with the Laws, then He must also be concerned with Justice within Creation. He is therefore, the Justice of God embodied. He who is concerned with the Laws is also as a matter of course the upholder of the Justice that must exist within the work. If He is therefore, concerned with Justice, He must also be concerned with Judgement.

The Justice of God and the Judgement of God go hand in hand. The Judgement therefore, is the responsibility of Parsifal. We quote Abd-ru-shin again "Christ Himself said that sins against God the Father and against God the Son could be forgiven, but never those committed against the "Holy Spirit"! Does the Holy Spirit then stand higher or is it more than God the Father and God the Son?....The Holy Spirit is the Will of God the Father, the Spirit of Truth Which, severed from him, works separately in all Creation, and yet like the Love, in the form of the Son, remains closely connected with the Father and one with Him....The Holy Spirit is Executive Justice, Whose eternal, irrevocable and incorruptible laws pulsate throughout the Universe. Up till now these laws have only been guessed at and variously described as...Fate...Karma...Divine Will!"

If then the Spirit of God is responsible for Justice or Judgement how do we prove this? Is the Judgement not the responsibility of Jesus? In John 14:25-26, we read "These things I have spoken to you, while I am still with you. But the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you." Jesus here has obviously referred to the Holy Spirit in person and He referred to Him as he, which means that Jesus regards the Holy Spirit as being personal. Here Jesus predicted the coming of the Holy Spirit although contemporary religion has interpreted this coming to be the event that took place at Whitsuntide when the power from the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples at Pentecost and tongues of flame were distributed amongst them. Even this extraordinary event at Pentecost can be explained in the light of the legends alone when for example the Grail appeared at king Arthur's table at Pentecost.

The image of the Grail was so spectacular that as from then on several of Arthur's knights vowed to seek after the Grail. What happened at Pentecost with Arthur and with the Disciples of Jesus is always so at Pentecost. It is when the Holy Grail sends out Power to the whole of Creation for its renewal and rebirth. This is an event which always recurs every year at this period and that was why the Grail made its appearance because this power comes from It as has been explained.

The gathering of the disciples coincided with the day of the Pentecost and being open spiritually, they experienced the rapture, which is always connected with the Grail. And this rapture is already explained in the legends themselves in that the knights are always held in rapture whenever the Grail dispenses its blessings. The reason is that the human spirits at such moments receive of the Power of God as dispensed through the Holy Grail and the effect of this Power on the human spirit borders on the miraculous. The disciples therefore, experienced the effects of the Power of the Grail on themselves. This is however, not the fulfilment that Jesus meant by His prediction concerning the Holy Spirit. This was obviously not a personal fulfilment, as one would be forced to conclude if these words were critically examined.

Jesus however, went further in John 14:30 "I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me." What did Jesus mean by this statement. Who is the ruler of the world? From what we have been discussing so far the answer to this question would be obvious. The Holy Spirit is the ruler of this world. He is ruler simply because He is the Creative Will of God. He is that Part of the Holy Trinity whose responsibility it is to guide and maintain the Creations.

In maintaining and guiding however, He rules. Jesus goes further to say that this ruler has no power over him. This means that this Ruler of the world and Jesus are equals. They are both Parts of the Holy Trinity, both Sons of God and as such they are equal. Nobody else can be an equal to Jesus apart from the Holy Spirit. And then He says that this Ruler is coming. This other Part of the Trinity is coming. This Spirit of God will be sent to teach us all things and will be sent in the name of Jesus. All this goes to confirm what has been said concerning the Holy Spirit or Parsifal. Jesus went further and said that the Holy Spirit will teach us all things and will bring to our remembrance all that He had said to us. From this it looks like a personal fulfilment is involved here. Somebody has to come to bring Christ's teachings to our remembrance. Jesus also called Him a Counsellor.

A Counsellor obviously cannot be some form of amorphous power. Properly considered a Counsellor has to come personally and counsel. He went further in John 15:7-8, "Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Counsellor will not come to you. And when he comes he will reprove the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgement." Jesus Himself has proven that the task of the Holy Spirit is Judgement. Therefore Parsifal is concerned with Judgement, with reproving the world of sin and righteousness. From Jesus' words Himself one could easily conclude that the task of judging was not going to be administered by Him but by another whose duty it has been right from the beginning to do this.

Parsifal therefore, is the embodiment of the Holy Spirit whose duty it is to administer the Judgement. In His Mission however, of reproving the world of sin, he had to explain to us once more the Message of Christ. This is why Jesus alluded to the Spirit of Truth bringing His Words to our remembrance. Jesus went further in John 16:12-14 "I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you." This is obviously the promise of the coming of one who will fulfil all these.

This is to be regarded as a prophecy from Jesus of the coming of someone who will come and personally fulfil this prophecy. It is doubtful whether we can conclude that all that Jesus prophesied was fulfilled at Whitsuntide. There was no Judgement, there was no new teaching and the world was not reproved of any sin but on the contrary sins multiplied. All the diversion I have made is to try to clarify the issue of why Parsifal found Himself on the plane of Amfortas.

Being the Holy Spirit or the Spirit of Truth He was on a general Mission for all the Worlds and being on a Mission of Redemption for all the World and since as Christ prophesied He had to be personally involved in everything, it is then not surprising that He also became personally involved in the Grail story of Amfortas. The reason He became personally involved is already clear from what Christ prophesied as quoted above but is also explained by Wagner in Parsifal (der reine Tor, "durch Mittleid, wissend") meaning through pity, knowing. Parsifal's inability initially to understand Amfortas' problem until he had personally gone through the same experience.

Parsifal had to go through the same ordeal and temptations and experiences like Amfortas for him to be in a position to help. Then the words of Wagner should have been "das reine Tor, durch Erfahrung, Wissen" the pure Gate through experience, knowledge. It was only through the experiences, which he had to go through that he gained the knowledge to help Amfortas. When he first made his entrance into the Grail castle he did not understand what was going on, he could not understand Amfortas' pain. After going through all of the experiences however, he was now in a position to help through his knowledge, hence "the pure Gate, through experience, knowledge".

This is already indicated in the way the drama unfolded. Parsifal coming as he did from out of the Light had absolutely no knowledge of evil, hence his innocence, and hence his lack of understanding for what befell Amfortas. He soon gained knowledge of it however, through all his experiences including through his encounters with Kundry and Klingsor. With these experiences his eyes became open and he recognised his mission. Thus, Parsifal in order to be an effective Counsellor or Teacher first had to know what the problems with human beings were. He first had to come to know evil and all the consequences.

He first had to experience evil on Himself and through these experiences, would gain the knowledge necessary to help mankind. Having experienced all the evil in that realm He then was in a position to help Amfortas, not before. He was therefore, on a Mission of redemption for all the worlds and since Amfortas' realm was not the only realm besought by evil He could not have tarried there. He moved on to other parts in the fulfilment of His Mission and inevitably He would find Himself on earth also in fulfilment of the Mission prophesied by Jesus so long ago. Just like it happened in Amfortas' plane, He would first have to gather his experiences, come to experience all the evil that were wont to befall man and through these experiences gain the knowledge to be able to offer help out of this darkness at the right time. Jesus said as much that He would guide us into all truth.

Through His experiences on earth and also on all the planes that make up the entire Creation, He would be in a position to offer advice and help for all those wishing to free themselves from the effects of the darkness. In his book "In the Light of Truth" the Grail Message, Abd-ru-shin says "To think of Parsifal as the Son of the Light, Who descends into Creation from above, Who is not perchance lifted up from below; to think of Him as the beginning and the end in Creation, the A and the O for all the weaving outside of the Divine, and therewith King of the Holy Grail, King of Creation! Parsifal's great work of purification which leads Him personally through the worlds, with the unreserved condition that He must through His own experiencing learn to know all the evil, which work was bound to end with the fettering of Lucifer for the protection of the Creations and of all the creatures that remain after the purification."

His battle with evil was depicted in Wagner's opera when not only did He have to face temptation with the flower maidens and then Kundry, He also had to face Klingsor who tried to kill him with the spear. Parsifal's struggles was not only depicted by Wagner however, but is to be found in the earlier legends where he encountered on two separate occasions two ladies who tried to tempt him. With him therefore there had always been the struggle he had to have with the forces of darkness. One would have wondered why this was so but we now know the answer to this question. The consistency with which the writers of the legends mention this in their stories would bear this fact out.

The Grail legends therefore, if looked at objectively and critically enough, may well represent a reality of life. The decision to examine it critically and to look for its meaning in the experiences of our lives however, rests with each individual alone.

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