What do you want?
Money? Power? Success? Fame? Love? Pleasure? Knowledge? Recognition? Security?
Whatever your answer may be, look carefully at the structure behind that want.
There is a price for your want.
There is a way for your want.
There is a path for your want.
And there is a deity associated with your want.
Once you strongly desire something, you naturally begin searching for the way to obtain it. You identify the path that promises to take you there. You accept the price that the path demands. And consciously or unconsciously, you begin depending upon and submitting yourself to the power that you believe governs the fulfilment of that desire.
In that sense, every desire creates its own form of worship.
Every Want Has a Price
Nothing we desire comes without a price.
If you want wealth, you must pay its price. If you want fame, there is another price. If you want authority, pleasure, recognition, victory, knowledge, or social status, each demands something from you.
The price may be money, but very often it is something much more valuable: your time, attention, energy, discipline, relationships, peace of mind, or even years of your life.
The stronger the desire, the greater the price we are prepared to pay.
This is why our wants are not insignificant. They quietly determine how we spend our lives.
Every Want Has a Way and a Path
Once a want arises, a path appears.
A person who wants wealth follows the path that promises wealth. A person who wants political power follows the path toward influence and authority. Someone who wants fame follows the path toward public attention. Someone seeking pleasure follows whatever path promises that pleasure.
The object may change, but the mechanism remains the same:
Want → Path → Effort → Sacrifice → Expected Fulfilment.
We normally think that we are simply pursuing what we want.
But spiritually, another process may be taking place.
Every Want Has a Deity
Behind every worldly desire, according to this way of looking at life, there is also a deity associated with that desire.
Ancient civilizations made this relationship explicit. Different aspects of human life—wealth, fertility, victory, love, knowledge, rain, harvest, war and prosperity—were associated with different deities.
Modern human beings may no longer consciously approach those deities.
But the desires themselves have not disappeared.
We still want wealth.
We still want power.
We still want victory.
We still want pleasure.
We still want recognition.
We still want prosperity.
The names, institutions and methods may have changed, but human wanting remains.
Therefore, when a particular desire begins directing our life, we may unconsciously be giving ourselves to the deity or power associated with that desire—even without consciously thinking, “I am worshipping this deity.”
The worship is expressed through pursuit.
The sacrifice is the price we pay.
The ritual is the repeated activity through which we pursue the desire.
And the expected blessing is the fulfilment of the want.
Unconscious Worship Is Still Worship
This makes the question of worship much deeper than consciously standing before an idol.
A person may say, “I don’t worship any idol.”
But what does that person’s life revolve around?
What determines the person’s decisions?
For what are they willing to sacrifice years of their life?
What do they believe will finally make them fulfilled?
What do they fear losing?
What do they continually pursue?
The answers reveal what governs the person’s inner world.
From the Qur’anic perspective developed in this argument, this becomes the danger of idol worship: something other than the one God is allowed to occupy the position of ultimate dependence, submission and pursuit.
The Qur’an even describes the possibility of a human being taking his own desire as his god.
So an idol need not always be understood merely as a statue made of stone.
Desire itself can lead a human being into submission.
Buddhism Takes the Question Back to the Want Itself
Buddhism approaches the problem from another direction.
Instead of asking which deity should fulfil a particular worldly desire, Buddhism examines the mechanism that produces the desire in the first place.
Why must I have this?
Why does my mind believe that obtaining this object will finally satisfy me?
What happens after I obtain it?
Usually another desire arises.
One want is fulfilled, and another takes its place. Satisfaction appears temporarily and then disappears. The mind begins pursuing something else.
Thus craving keeps the cycle moving.
The Buddhist response is therefore radical: do not merely change the object of craving; work toward relinquishing craving and attachment themselves.
If wanting creates the path, and the path creates dependence, sacrifice and attachment, then freedom requires examining the want at its very root.
Before Asking How, Ask What
Human beings usually ask:
How can I get what I want?
Perhaps an earlier question is necessary:
Why do I want it?
And then:
What price will this want demand from me?
What path will it make me follow?
What deity is associated with this desire?
By pursuing it, what am I consciously or unconsciously worshipping?
Every desire may look innocent when it first appears.
But a desire can become a path.
A path can become a way of life.
A way of life can become submission.
And submission can become worship.
So perhaps the most important spiritual question is not merely:
“Which God do you say you worship?”
It is:
“What do you want—and what has that want made you worship?”