Chapter X

Next, about the House of God, the Residence of the concretised Formful Aspect of divinity (called Alaya or Mandir), the Temple and the Rules of Dharma relating to it. Rules have overgrown and overwhelmed these institutions, following the whims and prejudices of various authorities. They have led people away from Dharma and Brahmam and even proper Karma; they have confounded the devotees by their variety and unreasonableness. They are insisted upon blindly and so, they have done much harm to the welfare of the world itself. In fact, these rules and formalities form the first steps in the retreat away from God. They have fostered atheism in a great measure.

Think deeply over the functions of the temple. Temples are centers of discipline, where the aspirant is guided step by step to attain a vision of the Truth, they are schools for the training of the spirit; they are academies for the promotion of Sastric studies; they are institutes of super-science; they are laboratories for the testing of the values of life; they are hospitals for the treatment and cure not only of the "birth-death-disease", which has persisted in the individual from ages, but even the much more patent "mental disorders" that trouble those who do not know the secret of acquiring Santhi; they are gymnasia where man is reconditioned and has hesitant faith, waning conviction and upsurging egoism are all cured; they are mirrors which reflect his aesthetic standards and achievements. The purpose of the temple is to awaken the Madhavathwa in the Manavathwa, the Divinity in Humanity, inducing man to believe that the physical frame in which he lives is itself the House of God. Therefore all the temple formalities, rites and rituals emphasise and cultivate this Brahmajnana, the Truth that the Jivi is just a wave of the Sea.