The Inner Temple

Having been part of a Hindu temple for the past 12 years, I felt a huge shift inside me when someone suggested I build an inner temple.

I could picture it immediately.  I could feel it in my heart. I envisioned gold blocks being built block by block. Solidly placed with love and integrity. I could see the blocks would come one by one, each one a truth, each block an awakening to what has been there.

The idea made me ponder the word temple. It is such an easy word now, so accessible and so full of richness, color, energy.  But growing up I had no imagery of a temple save the picture I had seen painted of Jesus in a stone building with columns. Those columns had reminded me of picture of building in Greece or Rome that might be called temples. 

Of course we had Masonic lodges and the Knight's Templar but I had no connection with them.

In college I was introduced to people of the Jewish faith and gradually understood that they went to Temple, but as I had never attended one, it still had no meaning.

The first Hindu Temple I visited was in Cincinnati and `it was a far cry from the Catholic Churches I attended growing up. A big open space with many deities near the front. It was more reminiscent of the cathedrals I had seen in Europe in terms of the open space. 

i had the opportunity in Delaware, Ohio to have first hand experience in actually setting up, administering, managing and taking part in the rituals of a Hindu Temple. This is a rare opportunity for a woman, especially a caucasian woman who was not brought up as a Hindu. The Temple is known as Nithyanandeshwara Paramashiva Hindu Temple. Being part of the temple community, the sangha, is now part of my muscle and bone memory. Working in a temple, spending long hours in a temple, is being in the center of high frequency energy. The space is healing, lifts depression, allows thoughts to slow down and miracles to happen. 

As a doer, I can get caught up in doing and over-doing. So this idea of an inner temple, that I will visit and hang out in has the same potent possibilities as the outer temple that I serve.

I can see and feel it now. Gold, radiating sun-filled energy. Welcoming myself through its doors.