Jagannath's smile

At the temple, the 2 year old was comfortable with all idols but was scared of the Lord Jagannath's idols. He came to me and secretly pointed out to idol of Jagannath and said it was the 'bad guy' in the temple (a fictitious person I conjured on his earlier visit to my house earlier so that he would not shout at the top of his voice).
I did not know what to say, for I am always inspired by the penetrating eyes of Jagannath. I just asked him, are you a good guy? He replied with the innocence of a child..yes. I said that it was only to 'bad kids' that the Jagannath appeared to be bad guy. I asked him to pray to Jagannath, saying he was a good boy. And I further added that he had to do it by closing his eyes and should not cheat. He dutifully did that and had no problem all that evening. He replied as we left the temple that he no longer looked at Jagannath's idol as a bad guy. He told me that he was smiling at him now!

That made me wonder..Is there any meaning to the idols that we pray except that they are focal points to hold our minds? Apart from the religious context we associate feelings and emotions with people, objects, pictures, sounds. But is it our mind that they all come from?

Can the happiness that we all seek be found within us? And as Anne Frank said, "we all seek happiness. we are all so Different yet so similar."
One of the upanishad verses claims that everything outside is just a reflection of what is inside. My cousin's son forced me to reflect on these at a temple and I wondered how true they were. Lord Jagannath is probably smiling at this childish enquiry.

@