What's on your pedestal?

Who or what
are you putting
on a pedestal?

A person?
A thing?
An idea?

More importantly
why are you
doing so?

From love?
From fear?
From custom?
From convenience?
From a need to belong?
Something else?

Most people
I know
are not too modern
to have their gods,
albeit modern gods,
though they may not
admit to having them :)

What separates
you from your idol?
What separates
you from your ideal?

Have you
had your ideal
for a long time?

Have you had
some ideal
for a long time?

When so much
in life
changes constantly
when so much
in us
changes constantly
what happens
to the distance
between
you and your ideal?

Can you ever
meet up
with your ideal?

Can you point
to somebody
you know
for whom
the gap has closed
between self and ideal?

If not
then does that
make you curious?
What preserves the gap?

If so
then what happens
with those
who realize their ideals?

Worship by all means
and that is beautiful
but if the worship
has an element
of unattainability,
of unreachability
for self,
if the worship
has an element
of intractable separation
from self
then what is the use
of such ideals?
What purpose
do they serve?
Can we really
look inside
and find out?

Worship by all means
at the feet of gurus
or teachers
or sophisticated ideas
or whatever else
but may we do so
while always
leaving open
the possibility
of being that
which we worship

This is what I see:
The gods
and gurus
and ideals
worth worshipping
are the ones
that take you
unto themselves
unreservedly
and completely,
that encourage you
to see in yourself
what you see
in them

The rest
are interested
in preserving
the status quo
of millennia
the status quo
of rigid hierarchy
and divisive separation