Symbols
Why do people get so attached to symbols? A symbol in and of itself is nothing, and yet through out history people have demonstrated strong emotional attachments to symbols and what they represent. Symbol's such as the cross, a national flag, or an Olympic torch, are only man made physical things. They have no value other than the value that we decide to assign to them.
Symbols do however have meaning and on many different levels. The five pointed star symbolizes man standing with his feet stretched out, grounded on earth, and his hands and head reaching up to the heavens. To me, this symbol speaks of mans quest to reach God while rooted in a physical existence. The snake has often symbolized Satan because snakes are so bound to the earth and in pre-Christian philosophies (Hindu I believe) it was believed that the purpose of Satan was to keep us from reaching God by keeping us trapped on the earth plane via Mya or illusion and therefore caught in an eternal cycle of reincarnation. Birds often symbolize the opposite because of their ability to break away from earth, such as the dove that represents the holy spirit in Christianity. So when you think about it, there are symbols everywhere in almost everything. Numbers and letters are symbols. We use our bodies as symbols. Smiling is a symbol of happiness. Waving is a symbol of departure or acknowledgement. Holding up the middle finger is a symbol of anger and challenge.
So what is the true meaning of symbols and why do they invoke so much feeling and emotion? We use symbols because we lack the ability to communicate on a deep level. All symbols hint at something more profound and divine than what they appear to be. Even flipping the bird is rooted in spiritual significance. In many ancient cultures it was believed that the life force entered our body at the top of the head (the crown chakra) and exited thru the hands and feet. It was believed that the energy could be directed towards somebody (or something) as it left the body. If you pointed the hand straight out with all fingers touching each other, the energy exited the hand (and was the most potent) via the longest finger. If your intent was positive it was considered white magic. If your intent was negative, it was black magic. Over time it just devolved to what it is today.
If we could communicate what we really feel to each other, if we weren't always trying to hide and disguise who we really are, we would have less need of symbols. We use symbols because they stand for that which we don't know how to truly communicate. Although every symbol has a different meaning, or a different slant to the same meaning, the ultimate truth of all symbols is that, in their deepest context, they all point to the same thing....God, divinity, truth, whatever you want to call it. But doesn't everything in nature, everything in life, everything in existence do that? We get caught up in the illusion of what things appear to be. But just because we are not capable of seeing the higher truth in all things, doesn't mean that higher truth isn't there. So we use symbols.
Symbols in and of themselves are not good or bad, they are just props. The problem arises when we identify with a symbol. We identify with a symbol because we loose our identity with who we really are. When we loose our true identity, we identify with countries, with religions, with dogma's, with creeds, with cultures and sub cultures, even with emotions and feelings. Instead of seeing these things as outer experiences and allowing ourselves to experience them, we become them. Instead of experiencing living as an American, I AM an American. Instead of experiencing being angry, I AM angry. At this point, we've lost our self. When you loose yourself, you take things like flag burning, religion, politics, and even Olympic torches very personally.
I believe that we learn who we really are by first experiencing and then realizing who we are not. That may be the reason we are in this world. When we've had enough of being who we are not, we will become who we are. When we identify with anything other than pure consciousness, we take a piece of ourself out of pure consciousness and put it into that thing we are identifying with, especially when we identify with thoughts, feelings, and emotions. As long as we keep "putting ourselves out there", we will have a need to protect those things that are "out there". Remember, symbols only symbolize the truth, they never are the truth.