Why I Dont Use Images

Image via Wikipedia

I will not ever interfere with another form of worship. However I worship without images. God is unlimited and undescribed. To say God is infinite is a label that fails; He will not be pinned down.

He is in everything and beyond everything at once. He transcends the infinite.

I understand that some believe that than icon can help them focus on the divinity they cannot see.

However, I believe that a spiritual experience has a transcendent quality. If I seek then I should desire to experience its reality. Truth should be understood in its own terms unmediated by the skills of an artist.

Our focus is on and through the body. It is all we know; and it is an exceptional being too truly experience the Divinity within. His experience is not here-say, not the words of a preacher, or the scripture. Rather the teacher, the scripture, or tradition offers us a potential to refine our souls and transcend our prejudices.

It is perhaps possible, that a saint may be able to see beyond a temple, cathedral or mosque and experience the truth of the divinity there worshipped. For us mere mortals, this is only a dream.

Others claim that in the majesty of nature they experience G-d.  Yet it is the beauty of nature, or the beauty inspired by the building, that inspires reverence. They are not truly experiencing Him.

To see G-d we must aspire to go beyond mediating our experience of the indescribable G-d. However for all our efforts we mere mortals can only imagine the infinite divinity that transcends description.

The feelings of awe experienced before a majestic temple are our reactions. They are our past memories and emotions resurfacing in the presence of beauty.

They encourage desire for G-d, but they are not G-d.

If the preacher so convinced in his model of realty inspires me to look deeper then well and good. If I it helps me  to search beyond his words and make truth my own. If a beautiful building encourages me to contemplate the Divine  beauty that defies  description well and good. Again, If I take the awe I experience and meditate further.

Until I take this emotional power and personally seek the infinite  am I simply worshipping my own emotions? Has the awe I experience become another form of idolatry?

So it is that an iconoclast. He may face a direction – pray to Mecca or Jerusalem. Is it the direction that matters or the divinity these places recall? Is praying to the east a means of focus, a means to trigger in our neurology a preprogrammed sense of respect? Is it idolatry?

Is the Book sacred? Or the meaning expressed in the Book that is holy?

Rituals have a great ability to return our focus. They can be a powerful aid.

However, they can also become rote. Without an intention to reach beyond our experience, they lose their purpose.

Perhaps this is where structured exoteric religion fails. Not that the most orthodox  cannot experience the mystic. Some of the most orthodox teachers in Judaism developed a Kabbalistic reality built on orthodox beliefs.

Exoteric religion can take a person only so far. It is then up to the individual to go further and seek within.

Sadly, most are comfortable with the security of religious certainties. Few are prepared to face their own demons.

Is my goal to obey rules, or experience G-d? Will I follow rules religiously? Will I convert my religion? Or will I use my religion to convert my soul?

When finally I stand refined in heart and soul, no image will ever compare to my experience of Him. And no image will be needed.