Harpy: Our Individual Teachers
(The Daemon That Drives Us Onward)

A Harpy is the driving force behind an individual's problems. It is an individual's private demon which drives him relentlessly. It will not allow him to have any measure of satisfaction in anything which he does, neither will it allow him to rest. An example of an Harpy might be an individual's need to succeed... that which drives him to drink... that which the individual fears... that which the individual hates. We are reminded of the law: An Individual will become the things that he hates and walk towards the things that he fears.

Harpies are real, in the sense that in the illusion of Man, all that is real to him remains real until proven otherwise. Harpies come in many forms to many people. To some people, harpies are a real person; to others, harpies are but a concept, an idea which will not allow him to rest; it is a driving force (see Fig. #1).

Never more evidence is there that the Harpy is often a true friend to Man than during the individual's in between time. As we know, if an individual is experiencing his in between time, then he is in the process of dying. If, during the process, the individual refuses to give up his attachments to the games which belong to the life that is ending, the OtherWorld Teachers will be viewed as demons and Harpies who plague him with experiences which are, in and of themselves designed to help the dying one to make the transfer from one life to another easier.

The A Happenings of the in between time can be both, very frightening or very peaceful, depending upon the individual's willingness to give up the attachments to the games which belong to the life that is now ending. In any case, regardless if an individual refuses to give up the attachments to the games of his now ending life, or if the individual willingly gives up the attachment to the games which belong to the life that is now ending, he will encounter OtherWorld Teachers.

Here comes a big difference to the individual that is in the process of dying. If he willingly gives up his attachments to the game which belongs to the life that is now ending, he will view his OtherWorld Teachers' image in a friendly form. The form, or the personage will depend upon the nature of the Individual's spirituality. The OtherWorld Teacher could come in the form of a parent, a relative, an old friend, a new friend, or, some image which belongs to the Individual's religion.

Regardless of the form which the OtherWorld Teacher takes, the individual will be led, or placed, upon the path which will lead him from his present life to his next life, be that next life on the same level as the last life, or be it upon a totally different level of experience. In any case, the dying individual will know, within himself, when he approaches The Double-Gate which leads out of the in between time, which leads into the next level of experience. For some, this Double-Gate comes in the form of a door. To some, it comes in the form of a bridge, wherein the bridge has a point of no return, wherein one side of the point resides in the in between time and the other side of the point resides out of the illusion of his life which has just ended.

However, if the individual refuses to give up his attachments to the games which belong to the life that is ending, the OtherWorld Teachers will be viewed as demons and Harpies who plague him with experiences which are, in and of themselves, designed to force him to rid himself of his attachments to the games which belong to the life that is in the process of ending. It can be said that this in between time is, indeed, a hell of dreams.

During this time in the hell of his own thoughts, of his own creation, of his own dreams, the laws of a new reality take hold. While it is true that the individual views his OtherWorld Teachers as daemons and Harpies, in truth, they are not. Simply put, their image's forms come from the individual's own mind. They take on the image of the individual's fears, of the individual's hates, and, of the individual's desires.

As the individual is slowly forced to change, to give up attachments to the games which belong to the life that is in the process of ending, because of the horror of the in between time's experience, he does not view this change as the process of growth; at least, not at first.

It must be remembered that the dying individual is in a very special type of hell, albeit a hell of his own making. It is because of the hell-type experiences which he is forced to experience that he views the change that is taking place in him as a process wherein the Harpies of the in between time are driving him toward the very daemons of his fears, daemons which always rip away a part of his mind [the memory of events and special people are lost], a part of his dreams, a part of his memories, and, thus, a part of his life.

It is not until the ending of his in between time hell that the individual comes to realize that what he thought were harpies and daemons were, in truth, friends and/or spiritual beings who were in the process of teaching him how to leave the old life behind.