Dharma Vahini - Post 21

Dharma related to Temple

In this chapter, Swami beautifully explains about a devotee's dharma when he visits a temple.

Functions of the temple

"Think deeply over the functions of the temple. Temples are centers of discipline, where the aspirant is guided step by step to attain a vision of the truth. They are schools for the training of the spirit, academies for the promotion of scriptural studies, institutes of super-science, and laboratories for the testing of the values of life. 

They are hospitals for the treatment and cure not only of the “birth-death disease”, which has persisted in the individual for ages, but even the much more patent “mental disorders” that trouble those who do not know the secret of acquiring peace. Temples are gymnasia where people are reconditioned and their hesitant faith, waning conviction, and up-surging egotism are all cured. Temples are mirrors that reflect aesthetic standards and achievements.

The purpose of the temple is to awaken the Divinity in humanity (Madhavathwa in manavathwa), inducing people to believe that the physical frames in which they live are themselves houses of God. Therefore, all the formalities, rites, and rituals of the temple emphasize and cultivate the spiritual truth (Brahmajnana) that the individual (jivi) is just a mighty ocean of God.

Devotion is the queen

The scriptures teach that all actions and activities must lead ultimately to non-attachment, for this is the best qualification for the development of knowledge of Brahman. Of the three, devotion, wisdom, and renunciation (bhakthi, Jnana and vairagya), devotion is the queen. 

The rules and rites are the maids-in-waiting; the queen treats her maids with kind consideration and favour, no doubt, but if the ceremonies, which are only “servants” and “aides”, disregard the queen, they should be mercilessly dismissed. 

Devotion helps the attainment of the bliss of merger

with the basic Brahman most easily by channelizing towards the Lord the mental agitations, the sensory reaching-out, and the emotional urges of people. It is in this direction that all the details of the worship of the Lord in temples took shape. 

In the temple, all the various ceremonies, from the “awakening of God in the early dawn” to the “laying in bed” late at night, are intended to heighten and promote the devotional trends of the mind. 

In turn, each incident helps the sublimation of the appropriate emotion, in a peculiarly charming manner. In the sublimity of that experience, the agitation of the lower emotions declines and disappears. The vulgar feelings of ordinary life become elevated to the status of worship and dedication to the Almighty Presence.

Continued.......

Love.