Temples

Man may have lived far away in a forest, or on a mountain, or in a cave, or on the bank of a river : he may have lived anywhere for that matter – but wherever he has lived man has built something resembling a temple. Something has come out of his consciousness. There is no blind imitation in it; they were not constructed by looking at other temples. So all temples have been of different shapes and types, but they have always existed.

There is a lot of difference between a temple and a masjid, their arrangement and planning are quite different from each other, but there is no difference in man’s aspiration or inner urge. Man may be anywhere; however unfamiliar and unacquainted he is with others, he carries the same latent seed somewhere in his consciousness.

Another thing worth noting is that though thousands of years have passed and we have no clue about the locks or the hidden treasures, still we continue to carry strange keys as though under the spell of some lingering memory. Despite all the attacks on this – reason tries to shatter it from all sides; the so-called modern intellectual doesn’t accept it – still the human heart treasures this memory and continues to be fascinated by it. So we ought to remember that though today man is not aware of it, yet somewhere in his unconscious there is a resounding echo which tells us that some locks once used to open.

Why is this stored in the unconscious? It is because none of us is new to this world. All of us are born again and again, and there was never a time when we did not exist. What we knew consciously in days past is now, today, unconscious, buried within us under thousands of layers as the unconscious.

If in days past we knew the significance and deeper secrets of a temple and experienced the opening of some inner door, then somewhere in the deep recesses of the unconscious that memory still lies embedded. The intellect may totally deny its existence, but intellect cannot reach that depth where the memory is retained.

So despite all obstacles, despite its appearing meaningless in every way, this is something which persists, which can’t be removed. It may take new forms, but it continues. This is only possible if we have known something an infinite number of times in our infinitely long journey of births and deaths – though we may not remember it today.

Apart from having an outward use – as a means to an end – each of these things also have a deeper significance and purpose.

The universal appeal for making a temple is inherent only in man. Animals make their dwellings, and birds build nests, but they do not build temples. When distinguishing man from animals, one prominent feature is that man is a temple-making animal; no other animal makes temples. To provide some shelter for oneself is absolutely natural because it is done by every creature. Birds and animals do it, even small insects do it, but to build a house the divine is a distinctive feature of man. 

Without man’s having some deep awareness of the divine, a temple could not be built. Even if that awareness is later lost, the temple will still remain; and it is quite certain that it could not have been built without a deep experience of the divine. 

You make a guest house because guests go on visiting you. If there were no guests, you wouldn’t waste money on a guest house. But even though there may be no guests now, the guest house remains. So the whole idea of building temples or shrines for the divine must have been conceived of in such moments when the divine was not just a matter of imagination but a living reality for people. The very process of the incarnation of the divine on earth made it necessary to have special places in every nook and corner of the world which could serve as special abodes for him. To properly receive anything, adequate arrangements have to be made. 

It can be understood this way.... Radio waves are passing by all around us, but they cannot be picked up without a radio receiver. Tomorrow, if there was a third world war and if all technology was destroyed but somehow a radio receiver was luckily left intact, you wouldn’t want to throw it away. Though you know that you can’t broadcast, or tune in to any program, or even find a technician to repair it, you wouldn’t want to throw the radio away.

After several generations in your family, if anyone were to ask the use of the radio, none of your family members alive then would be able to reply. They might only say that their fathers and their forefathers were insistent on its being preserved, so they continue to keep it. Their forefathers never told them what it was for, they don’t know its use and so it is of no help to them; even if that radio is dismantled nothing could be known. By opening the radio it couldn’t be known that some time in the past music and talks could be heard through it. The radio only used to act as a receiving station for some happening elsewhere, but it could pick up the waves and act as a medium to present them as sounds to listeners.

Exactly in the same manner, temples used to function as receptive instruments.

The Hidden Mysteries 

The Secret of Sound, Shape and Fragrances 

Osho