Daily Meditation: Sunday, June 19, 2005

Human being - the true temple of God

06/19/2005

It is important that the faithful have places of worship in which to meet and pray. But a temple, a synagogue or a mosque is only a building, and therefore a form. The purpose of this form is to house a principle: religion, this consciousness of the bond between man and God. Those who are fixed on the form feel the need to enter a temple in order to pray and be heard by God. Those who are guided by the principle, however, know there are temples which take other forms: all of nature, with its mountains, oceans and forests, is a temple in which they can pray. But nature is still not the best temple. There is a temple even superior to nature: man himself, and it is this temple we must purify so that the Lord will come and establish his dwelling there. This is the meaning of the words in the Scriptures: ‘We are the temple of the living God’.