The Temple, an Allegory of the Creation
At the beginning men and gods lived in harmony, and the heaven and the earth were a single thing. When discord appeared, chaos took possession of the earth, man was expelled from paradise and the gods returned to heaven.
In spite of all, there exists a place where it has always been possible to contact between heaven and earth. This place, sacred and secret, is symbolizing through the temple.
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Beginning the process The Temple, an Allegory of the Creation
At the beginning men and gods lived in harmony, and the heaven and the earth were a single thing. When discord appeared, chaos took possession of the earth, man was expelled from paradise and the gods returned to heaven. In spite of all, there exists a place where it has always been possible to contact between heaven and earth. This place, sacred and secret, is symbolizing through the temple.
The temple, visible from an inner experience, alludes to a subtle geography that, if it coexists well with the outer forms, it still doesn't pertain to the same level of reality. The temple symbolizes the hidden place that reveals itself when the superior and the inferior are indissolubly united. For this reason man, the prophet, is the living temple through excellence, so in him the divine presence on earth resides.
In the temple one contemplates three fundamental symbolic processes: the primordial temple, the destroyed temple, and the reconstructed temple in eternity. The Jewish tradition relates these processes to Jacob's dream, when he exclaims "How terrible is this place". "This is, the rabbis say, in order to teach that the Saint, blessed may he be, showed him the temple built, destroyed and resurrected" ( Midrash haGadol) A similar process occurs with mankind. First an image of God was created, afterwards, he survived the fault, and the consequential expulsion from Paradise , and finally the new Adam regenerated in his glorious body, which comes to judge the living and the dead.
The Lord's temple is his grace within of our hearts, and the sacrifice is his love for us and our love for him."( The Message Rediscovered 19, 47').
An emblem of the French lodge, "The Nine sisters", XIX century.
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3 of 12. The Beginning of the Return
Just as man, through redemption, may return to Paradise, the temple can be rebuilt. The place where it ought to be rebuilt was revealed to Jacob in a dream. Then he contemplated the terrible locus or location when and where heaven and earth united, called it Beit El, that is to say the "House of God". (Gen. 28, 10). The image of Adam Kadmon, a primordial man, shows it as a receptacle of the energies of heaven and earth represented by the triangles of fire working in harmony inside his body.
Jose de Ribera, "The dream of Jacob", 1639. Museo del Prado, Madrid.
Engraving by Robert Fludd, Utriusque Cosmi Historia, Oppenheim, 1617-19.
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12 of 12. The Reconstruction, the End
Buddha and all the wise ones who have known the mystery represented by the lingam are living temples of divinity. They represent of the golden body of the regenerated man. In him, as he in the rebuilt temple, the heaven and the earth find a place in order to be able to unite themselves and each other.
The oasis represents the regenerative action of grace, the water, in the desert land.
Bronze statue with a gold wash, in which the seven chakras appear to be represented, south of India, XVIII century.
Oasis in the Sahara desert.
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