Inner space as sacred space: the temple as metaphor for the mystical experience

Cross Currents, Fall, 2002 by George Wolfe

Two excellent examples of sacred stories that pertain to the temple metaphor, considered for their mythological or internalized meaning, are found in the Christian and Jewish traditions. The first I will consider here comes from the Christian gospels where Jesus chases the moneychangers out of the temple. On the level of myth, this story becomes a parable pertaining to the purifying experience of meditation. The temple is the body, filled with selfish desire and craving for the material world, which is cleansed by the "light of life within," recognized through meditation to awaken us to more profound realizations and wisdom. Each time we sit to meditate, the moneychangers are cast out of our own bodily temple as the mind settles into the state of inner contentment, the condition of non-desire.

A similar rendering can be made of the Hanukkah story from the Jewish tradition in which, following a battle for religious freedom, it is said the lamp within the temple, having oil for only one day, burned miraculously for eight days. Again, on the level of myth, the temple becomes the body, the temple of the soul. Over time, as one experiences the "light of life within," it is realized that this light is eternally "burning" within regardless of the battles one may be engaged in outside the bodily temple. In mystical language this is the state of liberation or spiritual freedom. A person permanently established in the "light of life" has attained enlightenment or become "illumined." The veil of ignorance is removed, leaving the faculties of realization fully and permanently awakened. (5)

Designing Sacred Space

My primary point in this article is that the internalization of religious stories and teachings is of utmost importance in a person's spiritual journey. When we appreciate religion as myth, we are able to extract its timeless, cross-cultural and universal meaning; timeless in that the meaning appeals to many generations, cross-cultural in that the symbols are shared between cultures, and universal in that it speaks to human nature at a depth that is independent of historical accuracy and ethnic background.

The problem with built temples is that they can, in all their grandeur, be a distraction from the inner essence of the spiritual experience and risk misleading the devotee into thinking that Truth is to be found in dogma, design, symbolism or geographical location. In Vedic mythology, Martanda, the ancestor of the human race, was stillborn and thrown aside by his mother, the goddess Aditi (O'Flathery, 1981). In the book of Genesis, Adam is formed from dust, lifeless material that is typically swept aside and discarded. In Christianity, this idea is conveyed using the temple metaphor. Christ, the second or "last Adam" (I Corinthians 15:45) is depicted as "the stone which the builders rejected" that becomes the cornerstone of the new temple (Matt. 21:42). In our preoccupation with dogma and sensory icons, we often discard or kill the spiritual essence, but it is out of this discarded essence that a new and meaningful expression of spirituality is eventually revived and "rebuilt." Given the trappings of the ego, intellect and senses, one might therefore rebelliously conclude that the best design for a sacred shrine is no design at all!