To be free means one has the power to “begin,” to create anew, which is why Christ — most moral and most free of beings — can say, “Behold, I make all things new.”

Parzival's quest is a path not to perfection, but rather to forming a right relationship to our imperfections.

Such outer events, however, provide just the raw material for initiation; the transformation results from what is happening within. As alchemists realized, transformation cannot be observed directly; it is an inner experience long before anything observable appears.

The moment that soul and spirit meet, nourishment becomes available for the starving people in the castle-body.

Only as he begins to “leave” them — to transform raw yearning for the heights into a clear relationship to God and to temper dogged determination with a trust that he does not have to do everything himself — will his circuitous wanderings develop direction and lead to his goal.

If the end of the Grail journey is to become like the Grail, then the crowning achievement is to stand with humble dignity upon the threshold between the earthly and spiritual worlds. Like the Grail, human beings who inhabit their speaking are the connection, the common boundary, between visible and invisible realms. The Grail journey brings

Christ promises that, when two or more are gathered in His name, He will be present. Communion in dialogue both requires and creates the willingness to relate to self and other as “thou.” “Thou” is then felt to be inside and outside simultaneously “Thou” is the “presence” or the “love” that manifests in communication which is communion.14

the nexus uniting individual soul with World Soul lies in the realm of the heart,

The women of the Grail are representatives of the soul qualities necessary for transforming the self, for realizing that true individuality lies in coming to know ourselves as human spiritual beings.