Living Temple

The significance of a living temple was only this much. A living idol signified the same thing; they affected even those who had not come there for any particular benefit. A temple could only be called living if someone could pass by it casually and suddenly sense that the air had changed and the atmosphere had been transformed, even though he might not have known that there was a temple in the vicinity.

Suppose you are walking along a road on a dark night, and when you pass by a temple you experience some sudden change within you.... You were thinking of doing something wrong, and suddenly your thoughts change. You were thinking of killing someone, and suddenly you feel full of compassion. But this can happen only if the temple is charged. Every brick and stone of that temple, the doors and gates, should have become vibrant; then the whole temple will vibrate with sound.

A unique method is used to charge the bell that hangs in front of temples: whoever enters, rings the bell. He does it with total consciousness, not with a sleepy mind. When you ring the bell of a temple – not half asleep but with alertness – that creates a discontinuity in your thoughts, a sort of break in the chain of your thoughts, and you become aware of a changed atmosphere. There is a similarity between the sound of the bell and the sound of ”Aum”; in fact there is some inner relationship. The sound of the bell continues charging the temple all the day long and the sound of ”Aum” also charges the temple with its vibrations.

Many other things like that were made use of in the temple, they have their inner connections. It might be an earthen lamp filled with ghee, the burning of incense, or the use of sandalwood paste or flowers or any other fragrance – all were related. It was not a question of a particular deity liking a specific flower, it was a question of the harmony of the temple. What type of sound and what type of fragrance was harmonious with the temple was decided through experiences. Only a certain flower with a certain fragrance which blended harmoniously with a certain sound was used; others with different fragrances were prohibited.

In a mosque only lobhan, benzoin oil creosote, could be used as incense, and dhoop and agarbatti incense in a temple. All these had their connections with sound. With the sound of ”Allah,” there is an inner harmony with the fragrance of lobhan. These links or connections were all discovered through the inner search for the ultimate; they were not found through any thinking process. I will tell you how this was done.

You may sit in a room where no lobhan has been burnt and repeat, ”Allah” – not just ”Allah” but ”Allahooh” with a special emphasis on ”hoo.” You will find that slowly that ”Allah” sound disappears and automatically only ”hoo” will go on being repeated. When this happens, suddenly you will find that your whole room is fragrant with the smell of lobhan. It was discovered that lobhan is similar to a substance that emanates from you. So lobhan is burnt in mosques with a view to helping people repeat ”Hoo.” Then the process is twofold: the emanation of the fragrance from within a person may take some time, but the same fragrance can initially be provided outwardly in the mosque. But the repetition of ”Aum” can never bring about the fragrance of lobhan. This sound strikes another center which cannot produce this smell.

There are separate areas of fragrance within our body, and these are linked with our thoughts and feelings. That is why Jainas believe that Mahavira’s body never gave out any bad odor. His body had a certain fragrance, on the basis of which it was possible to recognize a tirthankara. In Mahavira’s time, eight other people claimed to be tirthankaras, but this particular fragrance was not coming from them. 

None of them was less knowledgeable than Mahavira, they were of the same spiritual stature, but they were not practitioners of that system of spiritual discipline which produces this fragrance, so their claims were rejected. 

Buddha also was in no way inferior to Mahavira. He was of the same caliber and state of consciousness as Mahavira, but because he was not following the same method as Mahavira, his body could not emit the same type of fragrance. That fragrance had also emanated from Parshwanath, a tirthankara who had died long before Mahavira’s time. His contemporaries were still living and they confirmed that Mahavira’s fragrance was similar to Parshwanath’s. The ultimate result of a certain mantra process was that particular. The ultimate result of a certain mantra process was that particular fragrance.

This was a memory-based arrangement for determining the authenticity of a tirthankara. So though Mahavira never claimed that he was a tirthankara, he was readily proclaimed to be one. Makhkhali Goshal, on the other hand, did make the claim but could not prove it. You may wonder at how fragrance was used as the criterion. The test had to be that deep and infallible – words cannot be relied on. The whole individuality of that person should emit the special fragrance that would indicate that a certain flowering had happened within him, that the culmination of the mantra process which gives birth to a tirthankara had happened.

Makhkhali Goshal, Ajitkesh Kambal and Sanjay Vilethiputra were all claimants, were very knowledgeable, were of equal caliber to Mahavira – each of them had thousands of followers who claimed that their master was a tirthankara – but they all disappeared into oblivion. On the other hand, Mahavira was absolutely silent on this point and never made any claim. But in the end it was decided that only that person’s body that omitted that particular fragrance could be a tirthankara. 

Every mantra creates its own fragrance. Those who have practiced chanting ”Aum” have known a certain fragrance. Similarly, every mantra produces a particular type of inner light. How much light should be provided in a temple was decided on the basis of that inner light – neither more nor less. 

Hidden Mysteries 

Osho