An Iconoclastic Existence?

What does it mean to live an iconic existence? Fundamentally it means the way in which we acquire experience that becomes the attached identity of self. Icon mentality starts very early in life. We are taught to look up to those who present an example. We are told that we must emulate those who are perceived to be of outstanding character and accomplishment. But what actually takes place in the psyche that develops through identification with icons? As is often the case in life we discover that as we gain experience those icons that we once revered are discredited, modified or replaced with others that have similar attributes. So in the mind we are looking to emulate, to find meaning and definition that is the result of the experiential, of knowing what we should be like. This knowing leads us to believe that the answers to life problems are found outside the self, in icons of authority.

An icon of authority is anything that establishes an ideal requiring psychological and/or physical conformity to one degree or another. The self seeks identity and definition with the icon and its underlying doctrines or concepts. The authority of the icon becomes the authority of the self. One conforms to a mind set that in essence worships the icon. Worship does not mean that one necessarily believes all tenants of an icon, it means that one gives creditability to ones established belief in the iconic self, which is the result of the icons influence. The iconic self is a persons psychological identification with the icon. In essence all icon worship is worship of the self.

An icon is an object, person, concept or event that the mind creates a psychological ideal or ideology around. The ideal is the authority of self that results in conformity to the tenants and images of an icon. It is the self that knows and is influenced by the external. But the known is never the reality of the moment. A person who lives through the icons of an ideal, lives in the illusion of the self. Such a mind is trapped by its attachment to an ideal which can only lead to conflict and confusion. To be totally free one must be iconoclastic. It is the illumination of the absolute moment which is the dissipation of the self that knows. To be iconoclastic means that you are negating all fixed images and concepts that are the result of a mind that is trapped by the authority of the self and its ideology. It is the negation of all attachments that give rise to dogmatism and fanaticism in the extreme and all images that are the result of identification and conformity.

Iconic attachments are generally very deep subconscious longings that promote an ideology of becoming. One is always dissatisfied with ones present circumstance, so the mind escapes into the illusion of iconic attributes. A person is especially susceptible to icons of a religious or spiritual nature because they are the ultimate escape from of all that is unexplainable and temporal. If you realize that you have been iconically brainwashed since childhood, then there is the possibility of freedom that is not the replacement or substitution of icons, but of total understanding. The outcome of that understanding is abandonment of the iconic self. You must realize that this abandonment is not a reaction. If it is a reaction then one is simply seeking a replacement, another new and different icon. In true understanding there is no reaction, there is simply understanding that sees the truth of the moment. It is the freedom of an unconditioned entity that accepts the truth of the moment without creating a psychological need to capture, quantify and idealize.