Display sub-categories of parent category in side bar

Hello Everyone,

I have been trying to display the parent categories of the current category in the side bar and have looked through all the related topics in the forum and I am still not able to get the outcome.

I have got categories in the the following order:

cat 1
>>cat 1.1
>>cat 1.2
cat 2
>>cat 2.1
>>cat 2.2
>>cat 2.3
cat 3
>>cat 3.1
>>cat 3.2

whenever some is in the categories 2.1 or 2.2 or 2.3, I want to display the following in the side bar:

>cat 2.1
>cat 2.2
>cat 2.3

I have managed to get that displayed if someone chooses cat 2. But am unable to find out how to do it when in 2.1 or 2.2 or 2.3.

I have used ' Multiple Product / Category Templates' from http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route ... on_id=2359 and have created a new category.tpl file in which i am calling the $categories to display just cat2.1, 2.2 & 2.3 when cat 2 is selected. [using the solution from http://forum.opencart.com/viewtopic.php ... 20#p266568 ]

I was thinking maybe I could create another $categories as $parent_categories in the controller file and pass the parent categories to it and then use that $parent_categories in the .tpl file. But am not able to do it, if at all possible, with my measly knowledge of php.

Any help from any of you guys, how to achieve the outcome, is much appreciated.

Thanks.
FM