This term denotes any noble, desirable and seemingly un-attainable hard-won goal or objective. The search for Enlightenment has been romantically portrayed as the 'Quest for the Grail'.

For centuries the human imagination has been gripped by the image of the Grail - the embodiment of Spirit working thru matter. It has been interpreted variously as a repository of magical abundance, an endless source of food and drink, a numinous vessel that once held the mystical blood of Christ, a chalice holding the elixir of life, a heal-all, a source of immense creativity, a cauldron of rebirth, a womb metaphor for the divine feminine: Goddess as the Great Mother.

The Knights of King Arthur sought the Grail, but only Galahad was pure enough to see it. The Knight being a classical masculine symbol, sought the Divine Feminine to become whole (holy). The importance of the Grail story for our times is also seen in the development of boys to men. It requires not using violence to establish selfhood. Not using violence for self expression. And not using violence to solve problems.

The Ardagh Chalice

The Grail is the perfect metaphor which describes the ailing environmental and social state of our world, as well as the means through which to heal our global community and restore vitality to the land. As in the original story, this restoration depends on our willingness and courage to ask the 'right question'.

Author and foremost authority on mythology Joseph Campbell, once said, “Nature intends the Grail" suggesting that Nature herself was the first Grail Maiden - radiant, shining, knowing herself to be perfect, giving freely of her holy, sparkling seas, streams, lakes, springs, and pools, as her spirit moved through those waters like a queen. Everything changed when those waters, and the Maidens tending them, were violated. 
Medieval tales link the very origins of knighthood to this disaster, where the Water Spirits withdrew their aid from humankind until a group of men took an oath to protect the Maidens of the waters. These men became the first knights. Those who actually handle the Grail, dispensing its riches, are women - the Grail maidens of lore - unwounded and pure.  That women have such an easy familiarity with this cup, suggests that whatever else the vessel might be, it is indeed an archetypal manifestation of the divine feminine, which, when too long violated, demands that a compassionate balance be restored.
When the Hindu Goddess, Vak, is churned up from the bottom of the ocean by teams of gods and demons, she carries a Grail-like cup holding Soma, the elixir of life. Patra is the Sanskrit word for that cup Patra is also the word for an actor in India's sacred theatre, which suggests that the realm of creativity is the elixir of life, the source of wonder and magic, of individuation, compassion, and wholeness.

The Grail, equates with the suit of Cups in Tarot, and Cups represent the element of water. Water is essential for life on earth. This corresponds thoroughly with the healing principal of the Grail in its many forms through out history & Mythology.

Water and the Grail are inextricably linked.  The Grail, as a sacred vessel with its iconic feminine shape, is the symbolic receptacle for that most magical & precious substance: water. In terms of physics, water is essential for much of life on earth. It covers 60% of the planet, constitutes 70% of our bodies and humans can only survive three days without it. Increasing demand and worsening drought suggest that water is in short supply, yet the total of all the Earths water is unchanging. How symptomatic of our material world, that now even water is commodified! With water issues being the latest hot topic in the media, its commercial value commands the attention of politicians and entrepreneurs, as they trade and control it. The very concept of ownership of water would surely have seemed strange to the Ancients.      

Dr Matsuro Emoto is Chairman of International HADO, a membership organization that studies subtle energy and consciousness. In Japan, he set up a scientific laboratory to freeze water and then photograph the frozen crystals in order to study the properties of water, its contamination and how urban water differs from rural water. His groundbreaking work demonstrated how our thoughts & words affect the physics of water. He says in his book, "The Message from Water", that water is constantly trying to free itself from the bondage we have placed it in, to free itself, so that it can move and vibrate and swirl and heal itself and in so doing, heal us.

 

Theosophist-author Alice Bailey writes of the Grail in relation to the astronomy of Virgo, which she says: (is) "itself a cup-shaped constellation with three main stars outlining it - the cup of communion, of which Christ said "Drink ye all of it", is in its highest meaning the Holy Grail. The brightest star is Spica, which means "the ear of corn". Christ was born in Bethlehem, which means "the house of bread". We say, "Give us this day our daily bread", manna, bread from heaven, or the bread and wine of the communion. This symbology of bread runs through the Old and New Testaments, and today our great economic problem still remains to furnish bread, a symbol of food, to a hungry world. Bread for the body, and bread for those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. All this as part of the nurturing function of 'the mother of the world', who nourishes the form, and also the Christ-consciousness latent in that form."

 

Charity, self discipline, independence, courage and self help are qualities required of the Grail seeker through out the literature. The great enemy of the Grail was inertia and apathy - passively awaiting benediction. The Cauldron it was said, would not boil for a coward.  Robert Graves in 'The White Goddess', explains how the Grail is based on the much older legends of a Celtic Cauldron, a magical vessel of inspiration and knowledge. Ingestion of its contents was said to bring mystic revelation, a mind expansion that broke down the barriers between subjective and objective consciousness. Like the later Grail, the Celtic Cauldron was a transcendent object that formed a bridging talisman between the worlds of spirituality and corporeality. Associated with these Celtic legends is the belief in a Sleeper - a dormant power for Good. This faith in a sleeping redeemer was personified in Arthur, who by the late 1100s became Christianized as the Welsh king buried in Glastonbury Abbey. Meanwhile, the Grail was said to be hidden in the Pyrenees - home of the sect known as the Albigensians, who were liquidated by the Inquisition, as were those other Guardians of the Grail - the Knights Templar.

"Will you live your life spontaneously from the heart and its pathless call,
or conventionally from a prescribed role?
Will you take the path less traveled or the well trodden path?
This is the dilemma that Zen and the Grail Myth put to us, each in its own inimitable way"
'Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' - Robert M Pirsig