Idealization

I find it to be one of the more difficult attachments to get rid of.  The mental ideal.  It begins in the ego, that sense of I.  The easiest place to find it is when one is in love.  The individual will have an ideal in their mind about their object of love. They will not see what it really is.  Some say love is blind, but it is not love that is blind; it is the ideal in one's mind that is false.  The ideal is based on thoughts, and thoughts can never be a reflection of reality.

It isn't love that is blind, but the person in love that is blind.  The person in love will not be looking at the person they are in love with, they will not be seeing who they really are.  It can't be done.  No matter what anyone does; one cannot actually know the other.  It's a lie to believe otherwise.  The ideal can never be real.  Falling in love means something is true about the other that can't be seen in one's self.  If you could see who the other person really is you would not be in love.

Unfortunately it goes much deeper than just love.  It happens with almost everything.  One could say thinking is an ideal itself.  Every thought is a hope, a dream, an expressed ideal.  Think about it. Have you ever waited a year to see a movie only to be disappointed because it was not what you thought it would be?  Everywhere people treat animals like people they have idealized them so much.  Anything can be idealized.  One can idealize a meal.  Whenever I think of WiseGuys Pizza in Columbia I already have an ideal in my mind of how delicious it is going to be.  The obvious difference though is that the pizza is not very complicated.  I am almost guaranteed that it will be the same as it has always been.  It is not so with a human being.

Unfortunately it goes the other way too.  Not just material non-sense, but to the most metaphysical too.  The mental ideal, to idealize, is a reason why so many never find God.  Before they even begin the search they have an ideal in their mind regarding what God is; therefore they can never see what it really is.  This idea, to idealize, causes more suffering than any other type of thought.

It applies to the spiritual as well.  Say you are looking for a job, and in your mind you are dreaming of the perfect job.  In your head you have all these ideas about what that is, a perfect job, and turn down jobs that do not seem to perfectly match your perfect ideal.  You very well may have passed up the perfect job.  One cannot know what lies ahead by thinking it out.  No one knows what changes will occur from moment to moment in the lives of everyone involved.  You never know who you might meet next.

Let me correct myself.  This probably seems contradictory.  There is a way to know which path to take, but it doesn't have anything to do with thinking, or logic.  It has to do with intuition.  Using the example of the job.  Using intuition one can know what job is best, but using thoughts and rationalizations will not get one very far.  One must be willing to make decisions that seem contradictory to what lies on the surface.  It's just not what thoughts are meant to be used for.

Humans collectively do not yet realize that their thoughts are their mind's voice to the universe.  Nothing more.  The way that thoughts just ramble on constantly is no different than a person who just talks constantly.  Most everyone is walking around perpetually spewing thoughts out into the universe.  What would it be like if everyone did so verbally?  Strange, but because it happens quietly in our heads it is acceptable.  I say it is not acceptable.  The mind that cannot step aside from the train of thoughts isn't yet a mind at all, but yet is still merely an animal.  The monkey knows not why it does what it does; it just does it.

To be clear.  Thoughts can't be true in the sense that they are reflections of reality.  A thought is a real thing, no doubt, but it can never be an actual reflection of reality.  So thoughts about God can never be a reflection of what God really is.  It cannot be so.  If I told you I found God, it would be meaningless because I wouldn't be able to tell you anything else about it.  It cannot be communicated.  It cannot be thought.

This line of thought though has to be followed all the way down the line.  That is what thinking is for.  It is for becoming more aware.  We get fooled because so many times, with mundane things, our thoughts seem to be true.  Like that delicious WiseGuys pizza.  We think because we know what so many things are, that we know what everything is.  We do not.  We can't.  The next time we meet a person, regardless of how long we have known them, they are different.  They are no longer the same.  There is a reality occurring, nothing more, nothing less.  It is occurring despite what any of us think about it.  Our thoughts can have an effect on reality, but our thoughts do not reflect reality.  The senses are too limited.

This is why in the East they say in order to know god one must meditate, stop thinking, because a thought cannot know god.  One must gain intuition.  You can know god, but your thoughts never can, never will; it cannot be so.  You will have to learn to just be.  You will have to dig deep into your own mind, where no one else can follow.  You will have to learn what your thoughts really are.  You will have to know yourself.  Then you will know God.  It won't be what you thought it was.