Search:
Bhakti List Archives

Re:need to know

From the Bhakti List Archives

bindinganavale suresh • August 11, 2000 


Dear priya,
           you wrote :-
Why do we all go to a temple....it is said ..the heart
is the place 
of god...then why temple...

Your question is good.Following are the different
meanings i understood from the above statement,i will
try to answer them to the best of my understanding:-

1.God is in our heart and not outside like a temple.  
 
2.God in temple is in our heart,so why strain
ourselves
going to the temple?.
3.Be good at heart and develop god like qualities in
ourselves which is on par with mere travelling to
temples.

The answers :-
1.God is in our heart and not outside like a temple.
   
  Surely God is in our heart,which means he is the
center or core of our very existance,just like heart
is
the center of our biological body.But,God is not
limited to the space within the heart alone,but is
everywhere as proved by prahalada in narasimha
avatara.
Infact a Temple in the true sense means dwelling place
of Lord.From the point of view of reality,everything
including us is a temple as he is omnipresent.Limiting
the meaning of a temple only to certain geographical
locations or biological locations is only an offset in
our understanding from the reality of God as all
pervading.So,God is in the heart and temple too.

2.God in temple is in our heart,so why strain
ourselves
going to the temple?.

On the contrary if god in my heart is also in the
temple,then there is nothing wrong in going to a
temple,which is a certified divine place(for the
benefit of persons like me who cannot see his all
pervading form) on the authority of scripures and
revelations to saints. Moreover a temple is the place
where there is more probability of meeting Bhagavathas
and discussing with them about god.Infact from the
worldly point of view,there is no place like a temple
of God,which gives us a sense of holiness,blessedness
and peace of mind.So,there is nothing wrong in going
to a temple even if you are a realized soul ,but
surely there is something wrong if you don't go to a
temple.

3.Be good at heart and develop god like qualities in
ourselves which is on par with mere travelling to
temples.

This is very much true because aslong as we don't
clean
our heart of evil tendencies and raise ourselves to
become a good human being first followed by a higher
realisation as a atman and the highest realisation as
a sesa of Lord,any number of trips to temple will not
help us.This does not degrade a temple,but merely
points to lack of self effort to understand reality in
the proper perspective.

Hope the above answers satisfies your query and errors
in analysis is mine and can be ignored as my
ignorance.

Sri krishnaarpanamasthu
Suresh B.N.             

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Kick off your party with Yahoo! Invites.
http://invites.yahoo.com/

--------------------------------------------------------------------http://click.egroups.com/1/7874/5/_/716111/_/966002534/
--------------------------------------------------------------------|e>-

--------------------------------------------------------------
           - SrImate rAmAnujAya namaH -
To Post a message, send it to:   bhakti-list@eGroups.com
Visit http://www.ramanuja.org/sv/bhakti/ for more information