Through the looking glass & Vedanta

Continuing the Advaitic exploration of "Alice in Wonderland" in its sequel, the first thing one notices is Alice's going "through" the glass into a parallel universe, (a metaphoric game of chess here) quite familiar in quantum physics to which Advaita is similar. Reference may also be made to the final scenes of Kubrick's "2001 A Space Odyssey" where Bowman enters an apparently parallel universe mutating into a "Star child." In the new universe, Alice also finds the pictures all alive, like in Hogwarts & a poem "Jabberwocky" appropriately in "mirror script."

In the second chapter, Alice finds flowers which talk, (another Vedantic idea) but like the animals in the earlier book, make personal remarks about her, but tip her off about another humanoid, which turns out to be the Red Queen, who after some talk, drags Alice, supposedly a chess pawn into a run to the eight's square to make her a Queen.

But the Red Queen disappears, & Alice finds herself in a queer train with talking insects, which also evaporates, leaving her in a wood with a fawn, which also dissolves on discovering it's identity, like the soul merging with the infinite after self-realisation.

Now come the identical twins Tweedledum & Tweedledee, who recite the poem of the Walrus & the Carpenter, both lachrymose like the Mock Turtle & Gryphon earlier, who after enticing a number of oysters to follow them, eat up every one of them. Then the three come across the Red King snoring, & on Alice trying to wake him up, the twins propound the Advaitic truth that Alice cannot do it because she isn't real but only exists in the Red King's dream! After a childish quarrel about a rattle, the twins get ready to fight but dissolve after darkness caused by the White Queen's flying shawl.

The White Queen offers "Jam yesterday & Jam tomorrow" but never Jam today, like temporal pleasures which are only in memory or anticipation but never to be actually enjoyed. Later the Queen turns into a sheep (Animagus in Hogwarts?) & sitting in a shop where all the shelves, except those directly looked at (which are empty), are full. Like in life, grass being always greener on the other side! Later, the shop turns into a boat, & back again into a shop, where Alice buys an egg, which turns into Humpty Dumpty sitting on a wall.

They engage in an acrimonious debate about semantics, which ends with Humpty Dumpty saying, "When I use a word, it means just what I want it to mean, no more & no less." (Like our politicians!)

The next episode is the White King watching the Lion & the Unicorn (a mythical animal) fighting for his crown! The noisy fight dissolves into nothingness, leaving Alice alone with two knights, Red & White, arguing in a Kafkaesque way about whose prisoner she is!

The White knight claiming victory, escorts Alice to the next brook, on the way to which, he recites the tale of the old man on a gate, reprising Father William earlier. After crossing the brook (8th row in the chessboard) Alice the pawn is promoted into Queen Alice with a golden Crown.

But the Red & White Queens whom Alice meets, do not accept her & insist on an examination at the end of which they fall asleep & Alice goes to a door with her name on it, opens it & enters into a banquet, where she is prevented from eating anything by the two queens, who have materialised by her side again. Frustrated, Alice pulls away the table cloth & grabs & shakes the Red Queen, who turns into Alice's cat, pulling Alice into the temporal world, where it all started with a game of chess.