Ideal to Hero to Idol

K,

QM stopped over Sunday night and we spoke about your talk. I had a few insights about the topic, and I thought I'd share them with you briefly:

IDEAL:
The ideal can be analogously equated with the timeless essence; the
Spiritual Truth; or the Higher Self of something. It is the Christ, or the
face of the beloved.

HERO:
The hero is the name for the human vehicle which embodies (more or less) some aspect of the Ideal.

IDOL
The Idol represents what we see when we do not use our discernment, and mistake the vehicle for the essence. Put another way, the Idol comes about when we mistake the hero for the ideal which he/she embodies.

We idolize when we "idealize the vehicle" instead of using our discrimination.

It's the same error as mistaking Jesus and Christ as being identical, instead of seeing that Jesus was a (perfected) vehicle for Christ. When we see only the mask (instead of the beloved behind the mask) then we end up either idolizing some object/thing (if the mask be benevolent) OR we end up fearing some Devil (if the mask be severe).

So for example, by idolizing Jesus, some Christians have also strengthened their belief in the Devil. Thus they bounce pillar to post, running from a devilish mask, and attempting to appease an angelic mask. Perhaps this is also why some people (Christian and non-Christian alike) crucify Jesus all over again in their prejudiced, superficial fear-based actions towards others. They superficially examine the vehicle and thus fail to see the indwelling spirit that makes us all brothers.

So the IDEAL incarnates in the HERO. What usually happens next is that the HERO is seen at the surface level, and this particular Form is then made literal, rigid, dogmatic, crystallized, etc.... and becomes the IDOL. People then look to the outer form (the particular person, ideology, institution, etc..) instead of to the IDEAL (essence, higher self).

This rigidifying of the form thus necessitates its eventual dissolution, in order to renew, cleanse, and release the essence from the form. This dissolution of form is commonly known as Death or Transformation.

So now we know why we like to elevate our heroes and place them on a pedestal, only to then to later knock them down (and crucify them) when we discover that they do not meet our culturally biased mass-mind
expectations.

This cycle goes like this:

IDEAL-incarnating in the HERO- who then thinks that his/her ego/personality is the source of their good fortune and falls into the trap of allowing himself/herself to be IDOLIZED - which then necessitates that the false Tower of Pride be destroyed in order to teach discrimination.

The essence(K0) incarnates(K15) into a vehicle(K7), which as it is tempered and tested by the Self (K14) eventually becomes unable to hold the essence due to its constitution being built upon the delusion of separation (K16) , so the vehicle is dissolved (K13) in order to release the essence (K0) so that it may incarnate again in a more fit vehicle.

Thus we have the "Hero with a Thousand Faces" (as Joseph Campbell put it), which is another way of saying "The Essence (Ideal) expressing through a thousand vehicles".

JC.