Are doors mystical symbols?

I've always had a thing for old doors. My first animated movie was of Meher Baba walking through a door into a sunlit field. My second animated film, "Where is My Master's Workshop?" began and ended with the passing through a door. It turns out that the door is a Sufi symbol.

Gar andar amad avval ham bidar shud
Agar cih dar ma’ad az dar bidar shud.

“He returns to the door from which he first came out,
although in his journey he went from door to door.”

The quote appears in God Speaks. It is from "Garden of Secrets" by Sheikh Mahmoud Shabestari.




Update: (July 15, 2009)

I stand corrected. Kendra Crossen informs me that the door is not listed as a Sufi symbol in a book she owns called Sufi Symbolism by Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh. Thank you Kendra. I only wish there was some way I could inform Sheikh Mahmoud Shabestari of this. He must not have read that book. (:

I'm glad this came up, because it brings me back to the subject of how Baba used words. The following is interesting in that regard.

What Baba meant, by Sufism, was not Islamic Sufism. He always used the word Sufism in its universal sense, as seekers of God, those who wish to draw closer to God, to love him, praise him, and know him by actual experience. Meher Baba said that Sufis always come in the wake of the Avatar. So Baba said that the first Sufis were at the time of Zoroaster and there were Sufis surrounding every Avatar. The last one, of course, was Mohammed. He would say, “I am a Sufi. I am the great Sufi. I am the greatest Sufi.” --Murshida Carol Weyland Conner - from an interview with Naosherwan Anzar for Glow International

So maybe we will come up with our own symbols.

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Examples of doors pop to mind when thinking of Christian mystics, though I can't speak about theological symbolism. These are some that have stuck in my mind.

If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern. --William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1790-1793

The God-man closeth Hell's sad doors, In all His majesty He soars. --Goethe, Thoughts On Jesus Christ's Descent into Hell, 1765

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And here is one by Bhau Kalchuri

The infinite abode of the Avatar has seven doors, and each
door remains closed to those bound in illusion. The aim of human consciousness undergoing involution is to open these seven doors, one after another, and finally to experience the Infinity. (The Hole He Has Cut)

Baba seemed to think the door was a symbol. Wasn't he a Sufi?

I am the greatest Sufi of the past, present and future. (Meher Baba LM 5036)

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Update 2: (Aug 12, 2009)

The word dervish is said to mean one standing at the threshold (vish) of the door (dar). In Turkish Sufism, one speaks of "four doors" (dort kapi): the law (shari'a), the path (tariqa), realization (haqiqa) and discernment (ma'rifa). In "Everything and Nothing," Meher Baba refers to these by the analogies of swimming, diving, gathering pearls and sharing pearls. And of course ~~ we "a-door" Meher Baba. - Talat Halman

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Also see: Doors as symbols of the path