The True Essence of the Inner Temple

Written by Mathew Naismith

When this came to me last night I wasn’t going to write about it, I’m still not sure about writing this as it’s a little beyond my writing skills, how do you write about the inner temple of oneself and at the same time relate this to our expression of this which, at times, can be egotistical. By the way, I’m not talking about the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, the four Inns of Court in London, but our inner selves, our true essence self.

Right throughout human history you can see that we have always tried to mimic this inner temple, the pyramids are a good example and so are the cathedrals and other man made temples mainly of worship.  I feel, unbeknownst to us, we have always tried to physically manifest this inner temple, which at times, lead to just being an expression of egotism and we wonder why we have lost our way.  

We don’t seem to be able to get away from physically expressing this inner temple, it’s as though we don’t really believe it exists until we physically express it, this of course is fair enough, we live in a chaotic destructive reality, physically expressing this inner temple allows us to know, to some degree, that this inner temple does indeed exist, it’s as if we are doubting our true nature, our inner temple.  Existing in such a chaotic destructive existence has given us doubt so we build physical temples; it actually makes sense to do so however in doing so we have, at times, become egotistical within our expression of this inner temple, this has made it difficult for us to stay connected to this inner temple.  We have unknowingly replaced our true essence of our inner temple with a physical replica which of course isn’t a true replica.

By building bigger and flashier monuments, we believe we are being more expressive of this inner temple; this is quite an understandable reaction however by doing so we have allowed our egos to become totally controlling which I feel has lead us away from our inner temple not to it.

There are many spiritually aware people today who have turned away from such expressions; they no longer see that a man made monument depicts their inner temple so how do these people now physically express this inner temple?

Usually through mind and body, aligning your chakras, meditating, eating right, sitting right, yoga and so on all help us physically express this inner temple by bringing us more in tune with this temple. No matter what we are doing we need to physically express this inner temple and the greater this physical temple is the more of this inner temple we feel we are expressing.  Is this any different to actually building monuments, the bigger the monument is, the more of this inner temple we are expressing? Yes and no, this depends on our own expression of egotism.  

The mind and body has now replaced man made monuments, the mind and body has now become our expression of this temple so the more we follow certain practices like Yoga and meditating, the greater our own physical temple will be. This is only true if we don’t become too egotistical about it, I personally know a yoga teacher who became quite egotistical, yoga became the be and end all, I see this everyday on the net. ‘”If you don’t sit or eat right for example you won’t become connected to this inner temple like I have”!!

I worked in the disability field with people with all sorts of disabilities; some of these people who couldn’t sit right, eat right or meditate right were more connected than a lot of people who have physically built themselves into a glorious monument, these disabled people have become expressive of this temple without building a monument reflective and expressive of this inner temple, how could this be so?

What is the mind and body? It is but a vessel that we can use to be expressive of what is; in this case this vessel becomes a monument to our inner temple, an expression of this inner temple through various practices. It is quite understandable why we think that by building up this vessel this is the only way we can be more expressive of this inner temple, this of course isn’t actually true. Some of these disabled people are in vessels that would be deemed as anything but an expression of this inner temple, does this mean these people will never be expressive of this inner temple? My own actual experiences with these people say no.  

Using any physical source to express this inner temple can have it’s down side, “it looks and feels great so it’s got to be an exact expressiveness of this inner temple and the greater I feel and look, the more I am expressive of this inner temple”.  This is only the case if we don’t have a controlling ego, in many circumstances while being expressive of this temple; we become controlled by the ego.  This is the same in building pyramids and cathedrals to express this inner temple; they can induce the ego to become controlling taking us away from this inner temple.

There is nothing wrong with building physical monuments of any kind to be expressive of this inner temple unless we ourselves become egotistical about it, there is however another way to be expressive of this inner temple without building monuments, it’s through just being, being in the present moment especially without intentions, just be. Building monuments is of intentions but being just in the now, in this present moment, is of no intentions; it’s free of any expectations or disappointments because there is only the now.  It is quite clear how people, who have a disabled vessel, can be still expressive of the inner temple.  

There is no right or wrong way in expressing this inner temple, there is only a more or less destructive way to exist!!