The inner temple. It may seem hard to believe that this is anything more than some sort of poetic or abstract notion, but I offer that it’s very far from such a thing. Today I will not talk about how to find or create an inner temple, you already have one, instead we will focus on how to recognize this and work with it.

The basic purpose of a temple was to serve as a locus of the sacred. The sacred being anything that culture found especially meaningful. Some misinterpret the practice of creating temples or shrines as a form of fetishism, declaring some physical object as being somehow more sacred than any other in the world, but more often than not this was not the case. Where there were exceptions would be in those situations where the sacred space was also associated with tribal territory.

We all get touchy about our homes do we not?

I guess so or at least my privacy. Indeed. There is evidence in neolithic European cultures that some sacred sites were even shared between tribes either because they took turns using it or because they also served as meeting places between the tribes. So it would remain a diplomatic issue one way or another. But let’s get back to the notion that the sacred and the meaningful were the same thing.

World wide peace. The worry being that outsiders would violate the peace. What would be the most meaningful idea? The most sacred thing?

Love. Philosophical concepts of love only arose later in human history. Prior to that love was just a given notion. In those cultures that developed written records earlier in human history, like the Egyptians, there wasn’t even a word for religion or spirituality, it was just “law” and what do we commonly call law enforcement? Keeping the peace?

So what does this matter to the inner temple? Well, the first thing we seek and the one thing we seek to preserve above all else is our inner quiet, freedom from disturbance. On some level we all despise change, any kind of change for any reason. Is this fair to say?

Like “rocking the boat”? Indeed.

Why do we preserve traditions? Do we value traditions for their utility? Do they contribute to our health or well being?

A sense of continuity.

Sort of makes things easier to have a routine. So not only do we value peace, we also value ritual.

I’ve never been much on traditions or rituals. I would argue that perhaps that is not so. Perhaps you reserve the right to set your own rituals, but I suspect you do have them and create them. Do you brush your teeth in a different way every night?

No. Neither do I. We value a sense of the day having predictable elements even if we refuse to enshrine what we consider to be outsider views and values in our minds and hearts. Have you heard scientists talking about the mental work space?

I think so, yes. It’s been established as much as science can establish these things.

Laboratories of the mind. Yes. It has no real localized section of real estate in the brain. It’s more of a broad network that touches on every region of the brain, and well, it makes the reason why tricks like the “memory palace” work so very well. You may feel yourself an iconoclast, and in essence you may genuinely be one, but I offer that you have accepted more ideas and symbolism than you may be consciously aware of, and well… Shall we bring it down to experience?

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~