T. 29. VIII. 1 – 3. Jesus: “What is an idol? Do you think you know? For idols are unrecognized as such, and never seen for what they really are! Therein lies the only power that illusions have. Their purpose is obscured, and they are feared at times and sometimes worshipped, because you do not recognize what they are for, nor why you have made them what they seem to be to you.
An idol is but an image of your brother in your mind, one that you would value more than what he really is! An idol is made, no matter what the form, that he, himself, may be replaced by an image you would rather see. And it is this ‘substitution’ that never is perceived, nor recognized for what it is.
Be it a body or a thing, a place, a situation or a circumstance, an object owned or wanted, or a right demanded or achieved, all idols are the same. Let not their form deceive you. Idols are but substitutes to keep you from your reality!
In some way, usually obscured from view, you believe that idols will complete your little self; that they will give you safety in a world perceived as dangerous with many seeming forces massed against your confidence and peace of mind. You think your idols have the power to supply your lacks, and add the value that you do not have within.
No one who has not enslaved himself to thoughts of littleness and loss believes in idols. And thus he seeks beyond his little self for strength to raise his head and stand apart from all the misery the world reflects. Yet this is the penalty for looking not within for certainty and quiet calm that liberates you from the world, and lets you stand apart, in quiet and in peace.
An idol is a false impression or a false belief. It is some form of ‘anti-Christ,’ that constitutes a gap between the Christ and what you see. An idol is but a wish made tangible in your mind and given form by you, and thus perceived as real and seen ‘outside.’ Yet an idol is still a thought, and cannot leave the mind that is its source. Nor is its form apart from the idea that it represents.
All idols; all forms of anti-Christ oppose the Christ in you! And they obscure His face like a dark veil that seems to shut you off from Him, alone in darkness. Yet the light is still there! A cloud does not put out the sun. No more a veil can banish what it but seems to separate, nor darken by one whit, the Light itself.”