What’s in there for me: An eye-opening fact that would make us think twice before making “religiously discriminating” statements. Here it goes – To our consciousness Lamb maybe only a household animal, but not for the unconscious. Just to scratch the surface, Lamb, at least for the descendants of Abrahamic religions, is a symbol of humility, willingness to surrender to higher power or higher order. It symbolizes acceptance of and repentance for shortcomings and malevolent deeds. The sacrifice of Lamb means to symbolically exterminate the aspects of human nature that have tendency to inflate to the point that may hurt others. For example, our anger, ego, jealousy, self-importance, among others. It is a mechanism of our psyche to keep our worldly attachments in control.
This post makes part of the post “The Secret Stories for Symbols“. Click the link to read more about the wonderfully secretive nature of the symbols.
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Me and the Lamb
These days, when one talks about Lamb as sacrifice, automatically our mind associates it with Islam. Does this symbol really belong to Islam only? From what I found out, absolutely NO.
While in Argentina when I started these studies, one of the things I was surprised to find out was that one of the names of Christ was also The Lamb. He himself represents sacrifice in this case.
Currently I live in Rome and this place is just heaven for those interested in evolution of thought. Just by walking down the street one can learn so much by carefully observing monuments. This city is also home to the oldest catholic churches, which still carry old facade paintings. This is what I love about Rome. History is live here. Cut to the chase, about 4 blocks from my home there is an old church. Over the façade of this church there is an image of the Lamb right at Christ’s foot. After seeing this I started to inspect the facades of other churches. Interestingly, I found a handful of them with similar illustrations. So this has been a recurrent symbol.
The Secret Story of Lamb
True, The Lamb is almost a forgotten image in Christianity these days. However, I guess, everybody knows that it is a very living symbol in Islam. It is a symbol of Muslim holiday Eid-Mubarak. Again, it is a symbol of sacrifice. Also, Torah mandates Jews perform sacrificial ritual of Paschal Lamb on the eve of Pass Over (Pasqua).
To sum up, to our consciousness Lamb maybe only a household animal, but not for unconscious. Just to scratch the surface, Lamb, at least for the descendants of Abrahamic religions, is a symbol of humility, willingness to surrender to higher power or higher order. It symbolizes acceptance of and repentance for shortcomings and malevolent deeds. Sacrifice of Lamb means to symbolically exterminate the aspects of human nature that have tendency to inflate to the point that may hurt others. For example, our anger, ego, jealousy, self-importance, among others. It is a mechanism of our psyche to keep our worldly attachments in control.
Why such a bloody ritual? Pain in body makes soul suffer and suffering is fundamental for spiritual growth. Just like a famous expression goes: Light enters through wound. That’s why normally religious rituals are violent and harsh.
This post makes part of the post “The Secret Stories for Symbols“. Click the link to read more about the nature of the symbols.
