Greatness of Temples

Schopenhauer, the German philosopher, says thus: “ We see in all times and in all conditions that the great majority of mankind finds it much easier to beg their way to heaven by prayers, rather than deserve to go there by their actions. It is because the majority think like this that there are so many places of worship, festivals and priests in the worlds”

These words, which are in a complaining tone, are true in a way and applicable to all religions. It is wrong to suppose that we will get heaven or moksa, or that all our duties towards the Lord have been accomplished by merely going to the temple and praying there. Children, who are always engaged in play in the house, go to the school and their minds turn towards their studies. Similarly, ordinary people, whose minds are always running after sense objects, will find temples and pilgrimages useful to turn their minds towards God.

Even the mind of a pleasure loving man gets elevated, transcending sense objects, and becomes purified with thoughts of the Lord alone, when he enters temples that are clean and calm, situated in naturally enchanting places, filled with the fragrance of various kinds of incense and the sound of devotees singing the praise of the Lord who is enshrined in the beautiful idols.

In the pure abodes of God, there is no room for impure thoughts. It is a rule that one must purify the mind and the body before entering a temple. The temples and the idols in them are only the means to make the minds pure and to turn them towards the Lord. When one goes to the temple, one is not worshipping the stone idols there, but the Lord of all, who is represented by the idol. Nobody prays there, “Oh stone! Grant me my wishes.” But, looking at the idols we pray, “Oh Lord of all! The indweller in every bosom! Protector of the helpless!  Please bless me by granting my wishes!” Without such symbolism, it is very difficult for an ordinary man, who does not have purity of heart and thinking capacity, to develop devotion ands sraddha towards the Lord.

Temples and pilgrim centres are established for those dull seekers who are incompetent to contemplate on the all-pervasiveness of the Lord and see Him everywhere. One who thus lifts himself up with such support, gets a pure mind, and gradually all his actions becomes pleasing to the Lord. The mind of such a man of sraddha never revels in any path other than that of dharma ordained by the Lord. The Lord’s grace blesses such an exalted man. On the other hand, if a person goes to the temple for mere darsan and afterwards does only evil actions, to such a man of meagre sraddha, there can never be any beneficial result.

The temple is not a place where one goes merely to beg for fulfillment of desires; it is a ladder to ascend to the palace of devotion to the Lord. This truth we must grasp well, and having grasped it, we should enter the temple, believing that it is the abode of the Supreme Lord. The Lord is sitting in everyone’s heart and is the witness of everything. Without having pure devotion towards the Lord and without doing good deeds for pleasing Him, if one roams around like a beggar, the Lord cannot be pleased.

Thus, temples are the support for the worship of the Lord, whether one is with or without desires, whether desirous of knowing the Lord (jijnasu) or already knowing the Lord (jnani). All are fit to go to temple and worship the Lord. The one with desires goes to pilgrim centres for the fulfillment of his desires, the one without desires for purification of the mind, and the jijnasu for attaining knowledge. The lord blesses them by fulfilling their desires . But the jnani is already fulfilled and has nothing more to achieve. He has seen the truth of the Atman like the gooseberry on his palm and has experienced the truth that the jiva, isvara and jagat are all the imaginations of a deluded person. For such a jnani, what is there to gain by pilgrimages or singing the glory of the Lord? This doubt has to be cleared.

Jnanis also work according to their samskaras till their bodies drop. Their samskaras cannot but be auspicious because of their auspicious samskaras, They have the desire to do only auspicious actions. It is because of the worship, auspicious actions like pilgrimages, practice of yoga and desireless actions done in the form of tapas in their previous lives, that they have got purity of mind and jnana in this life. Because of the samskaras resulting from the practice of auspicious actions before God realizations, they continue doing such actions even after attaining knowledge.

One who is well established in the state of knowledge also gets up early in the morning, and after bathing goes to the temple, has darsan of the Lord, worship Him, does the japa of the lord with the rudraksha mala in his hands, sits in a comfortable seat and does dhyanam, as well as reflection on Vedanta declarations.  Being prompted by his own tendencies, the jnani also performs such actions and revels in them, but unlike an ignorant man, he does not think that the jiva, jagat and Isvara are real or consider such actions as his duties. When a jnani walks such a prescribed path, it becomes lesson and a blessing to other common men. All the holy actions like pilgrimage are performed by jnanis in this manner, without any attachment. Acharya Bhagavatpada describes, with example, this unwavering detachment of the jnanis in the following verse:

kShIraatsarpiryathOddhrya  kShIptaM tasminnaa pUrvavat|

buddhyaader-j~jaanastathaa satyaanna dehi pUrvavad bhavet||

After churning out the butter from the mils, even if we throw the butter back into the milk, it will never get mixed with it. Similarly, one who is merely a witness of the intellect and so on, can never again have any relationship with them, even if he has to transact in the world with his mind and intellect.

Thus, if the jnani has no relationship with the intellect etc., then he will have no relationship with this world of multiplicity, which is the creation of the intellect. Without blessings of the Lord, our wrong tendencies will not come to an end; without the destruction of the vasanas, there cannot be purity of mind, and without a pure mind, there can be no attainment of jnanam. That being so, the blessings of the Lord are essential for the attainment of knowledge.

In our state of ignorance, we prayed to Isvara, and through His blessings, we got the highest knowledge. After the attainment of knowledge, It will be ingratitude on our part to forget that Isvara. Similarly, the teacher and the scripture that help us to gain knowledge should not be disregarded after attainment of knowledge, or else we would incur the sin of ingratitude. Hence, the acaryas have ordained that even jnanis should worship and remember the Lord.

One who is established in jnana has no relationship with evil qualities, nor does he have any bounden duties to be performed, but these have been prescribed from the point of view of worldly transactions. Thus, if the adoration of the Lord is not forbidden to a jnani, then visiting the holy pilgrim centres and worshipping the Lord there are also not forbidden.

Not only ancient sages of the Puranas like Veda Vyasa, but even historical figures like Adi Sankara Bhagavatpada and other acharyas  are examples of this. Though he himself was established in the higher spiritual knowledge and was the author of many scriptural texts, there are no holy places and rivers in Bharat which Adi Sankaracarya did not visit and worship.

• Published in Tapovan Prasad, June, 2014, a CCMT publication