The Idols Within and Without

Neville's Inner Vision

To Jeremiah's reader, the verse speaks not of timber and metal alone, but of a state of mind that worships appearances. The 'customs of the people' are habits of thought—images carved from fear, glittering with silver and gold, fastened by habit so they seem to stand upright. Yet they speak not; they cannot move you, for they are lifeless beliefs. In Neville's language, such idols are states of consciousness that pretend to govern your life from outside. The power you seek is not in the idol but in the I AM, the spacious awareness behind all images. When you mistake form for reality, you give power to the idol; when you revise by claiming the true source within, the image loses its grip and your life adjusts to your inner state. Imagination is the instrument through which you awaken; by aiming the life you want as already present in your inner world, you breathe reality into it. The warning to fear them becomes a liberation: fear is the fuel of external worship, and release comes by returning attention to the one, eternal 'I' that remains unchanged while appearances change.