The Illusion of Idols and the Path to Reality

In German there is an expression, “man ist was er isst,” which means — it’s a pun — translated in English, “You are what you eat.” But in German, “ist, i-s-t,” means “are,” and “isst, i-s-s-t,” means “eat.” So you eat what you eat, you are what you are, you eat what you are, you are what you eat! And we translate it into, “You are what you eat.” So, the point is, essentially, that which you put into your being is what you become.

Let’s take that a few steps further. We are the entire amalgam of our cognition. We become what we think we are. Now, this makes it very, very important that you’re aware of what you think you are. Because if you don’t know what you think you are, you don’t know what you think. If you’re not aware of your imaginations about yourself, you may be becoming something that you don’t necessarily want to become. You have been given an active part in what happens to you, and you take an active role in what happens to you. So what you think you are has a lot to do with what you are. Now, do we really know what we think we are? Are we aware of the driving forces deep inside of us that create what we think we are?

Now, the kalimah says, Lā ilāha illallāhu, nothing exists but God. The Hebrew version is Adoshem Elohenu Adoshem Echud, God is God, God is one — essentially the same meaning. The second commandment is you shall create no graven images. There shall be no idols. Now, let’s understand what idols are. If God is all that exists, what are idols? Non-existence. So, if you worship something other than God, what are you worshiping? Non-existence. Therefore, why did God tell you not to have idols? To save your soul from non-existence because you are creating your own non-existence. You’re dooming your being. You shall have no graven images before you. What is the existence of images? They don’t exist. When you walk into a holy place, you’re not supposed to have images. Why? Because you’re not supposed to be involved in things that don’t exist. If images don’t exist, if you are giving your attention to images, you’re worshiping what doesn’t exist. You’re creating your own non-existence through the creation of idols. Therefore, you shall have no graven images. You shall have no imaginations. If your imagination begins to run amok, to run crazy with all kinds of thoughts and ideas, what happens to you if you pay attention to them, if you associate with them, if you see yourself as them? You force non-existence on yourself.

So, we have this situation that we are in. We are constantly in between the world of illusion and the world of reality. And we have to choose where we want to be. Do we want to be in illusion or do we want to be in reality? And if we choose idols, we choose illusion. If we choose non-form, we are choosing reality. So we have to be very careful about the way we walk through the world and the things that we pick up as we walk through the world. The more that we pick up, the more that we hold sacred, the more that we treasure the things of the world; the more we put ourself into the world of illusion, the more we disappear from reality. The more we let go of these things, the more we are able to disassociate ourself from idols, from images, from treasures, from desires; the more we begin to appear in reality.