Doors as symbols of the path

About four years ago I wrote a post titled Are Doors Mystical Symbols? This is merely an addendum to that original 2009 post, with a few pictures and quotes illustrating the thought and feeling that doors are sometimes used to convey symbolic mystical meaning in different ways.

Page from Blake's Marriage of
Heaven and Hell, see last lines

The line "Doors of Perception" originated in the poem Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake.

The line from the poem is,

"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 thro' narrow chinks of his cavern."

The line was borrowed by Aldous Huxley for one of his most famous books, which in turn inspired the name for the rock band "The Doors."

A 'hobbit' door

The following lines are from the book Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, which described scenes that Meher Baba said were similar to points on the spiritual path.

The first quote seems to symbolize the embarking upon the spiritual path with going out one's door.

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door," he used to say. "You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to. Do you realize that this is the very path that goes through Mirkwood, and that if you let it, it might take you to the Lonely Mountain or even further and to worse places?" (LOTR, Bilbo's words to Frodo)

The following line from much farther along in the book, near its climax, refers to a door cut into the side of the Fiery Mountain (Mount Doom) for Sauron at the beginning of time, lead to by a path called "Sauron's Road."

Approaching the door at the end
of Sauron's Road

"The path [He did not know it, but he was looking at Sauron's Road] climbed on. Soon it bent again and with a last eastward course passed in a cutting along the face of the cone and came to the dark door in the Mountain's side, the door of the Sammath Naur." (LOTR)

The image shows Sam carrying Frodo toward the door.

In God Speaks by Meher Baba, it says (quoting the 14th century Sufi poem Rose Garden Of Secrets by Mahmud Shabistari):

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

The meaning of this line is explained in God Speaks:

". . . it is God alone who plays the different roles, real and imaginary. The beginning is God and the end is God; the intermediary stages cannot but be God. The spiritual dictum of Islamic theology is 'Huwal awwal, Huwal akher, Huwal zaher, Huwal batin' (He is the first, He is the last, He is the external, He is the internal)."

But even aside from all that thinking, the images of old doors sometimes simply invoke a sense of spiritual meaning, the source of which you can't put your finger on.




Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you (Mattew 7:7).


KNOCK AND THE DOOR WILL OPEN
SEEK AND YOU WILL FIND
ASK AND YOU WILL BE GIVEN
THE KEY TO THIS WORLD OF MINE

I'LL BE WAITING HERE
WITH MY ARMS UNFURLED
WAITING JUST FOR YOU
WELCOME TO MY WORLD

– Jim Reeves, Welcome to My World


See also: Are doors mystical symbols?