Of a temple without deity
   Date :07-Jul-2020

Dalai Lama_1  H
 
 
By Vijay Phanshikar :

“The only temple that matters can be found within yourself.”
-- The Dalai Lama
 
 
 
MOST profound truths are often expressed in the most simple words. As he campaigns for a spiritually-blessed living for the whole of mankind, the Dalai Lama is often heard stating deep and profound truths in words that are easy to understand linguistically but very difficult to comprehend spiritually. And like all sages, he also says, whatever matters most for a spiritually fulfilling life -- “the temple” -- is within yourself. Every sage, every book says the same thing. Swami Vivekananda said, Education is the manifestation of perfection within.
 
In his seminal work ‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull’, Richard Back also quotes a seagull as saying, in effect, that there is nothing called heaven per se. Heaven is not a place or a time, but the perfection within. Within, thus, is the word that makes the difference. If you are looking for a temple that matters, then it can be found within yourself. So, don’t engage yourself in a senseless search of that temple, go inward, for it lies deep within, and not outside. Your spiritual bliss, your sense of the sublime, your sense of inner fulfillment is going to be found inside of you and not anywhere else. No matter how rich -- or poor -- you are, no matter how powerful you are, no matter how beautiful you are, your happiness will always be within you, and nowhere else. But what does one do to travel within in search of that temple, that perfection, that heaven, that sublime spot where all grief melts?
 
That search is not physical, as even a little child would tell. That search is spiritual. And in order to launch that search, one has to live simply -- without expectations, without attachment to the material world. One has to learn abstinence from desire, remove all the clutter of criss-cross ideas from the head, withdraw slushy emotions from the heart, before stepping within where deep down is that temple that matters where peace engulfs everything, where desire is dead, where greed has little value, where there is no asking for anything, where there is only one final giving -- of one’s sense of self in the absolute surrender to the Divine. In that sublime state, one then finds oneself standing right in the middle of the temple’s sanctum sanctorum (where actually there is no deity).
 
For, that place is marked by completeness, complete oneness: Aham Brahasmi (I am the Brahma)! That moment of realisation that there is no distinction between the deity and the devotee -- in other words when there is no deity to be marked -- is the moment one lives for, spiritually speaking. The Dalai Lama says all this in those ten simple words, describing the temple without deity -- the highest point of being.