The Architecture of an Inner Temple

The Architecture of an Inner Temple

Before I begin to create something – whether internal or external – I first need to have in mind a concept or vision of its purpose and how best to design it to serve that purpose. Then, I seek advice from someone who has successfully built a similar structure. With the help of an experienced builder, the general plans are worked out and the direction and scope of the project become clear. Next, I engage experienced craftspeople to put the detailed plans into motion. All of the raw material already exists, and the activity itself is a collaborative unfolding of an initial impulse carried out by a team of people. The process is more fittingly called a rearrangement or assemblage of raw material rather than a creation, which implies making something out of nothing.

The inner temple is analogous to a physical structure. Just as the raw material exists and is reassembled, so too, the building blocks of consciousness exist and an inner new man can be reassembled. While I would not try to build a temple without the help and expertise of a master builder and skilled craftspeople, in the same way, it makes perfect sense to me to seek out a master and be shown how to organize my inner world into a sacred space, designed to receive higher influence.

We must focus all our attention on this meek stirring of love in our will. —The Anonymous English Monk

In the Fourth Way, P.D. Ouspensky describes the need of students to borrow the conscious will of a Teacher. When first beginning to observe myself, I began to see that I had no will, or at least very little. The stumbling blocks of moving consistently on the path to awakening were numerous, and some obstacles needed to be pointed out to me by others who were farther along and more awake.

When I set a simple aim to self-remember – to be present – I often find myself back asleep and not able to bridge the intervals that invariably occur in the Law of Octaves. The phone rings, the dog barks, a smell evokes memories, an unreliable coworker calls in sick, a billboard on the highway stirs up associative imagination, and on and on self-remembering is interrupted by each distraction. By riding the coattails and seeing the example of a Teacher who has conscious will, a student is gradually able to assemble, reorganize and give more strength to work ‘I’s – the raw inner building material – which grow into a “ruling faculty” as Marcus Aurelius describes in his Meditations.

The Fourth Way explains this growth of will as development from a group of work ‘I’s strengthening into the deputy steward and finally, the Steward, all in preparation for the Master of the house to appear. My Teacher explains that I contain all of this inside already, but it is covered by the veil of the lower self. Self-observation is the starting point of assessing and seeing inner obstacles such as lying, imagination (uncontrolled mind activity), expression of negative emotions, unnecessary talk, identification, and inner considering. These are manifestations of the lower self that interfere with the will to be present. These hinderances are only “bad” in relationship to the aim of awakening. Redirecting or rendering the lower self passive – getting it out of the way – requires conscious will.

Through effort, I have been able to continue self-remembering more often through the countless interruptions of daily life rather than allowing the distraction to steal my attention. I see a rudimentary will developing as work ‘I’s become more dominant and less able to deviate my awareness.

The lower self is willful – the Higher Self is conscious will. —The Teacher

Through awareness, I see my task as reassembling or making visible an inner temple, a space that already exists, connecting with it and positioning it to receive and to resonate with higher frequencies. Defining and enclosing the expansive space with walls of a cathedral, temple, tabernacle, or mosque, is rendering what was invisibly there all along as a visible, sacred space.

Will is Self-remembering, and being present is will-power. —The Teacher

In his movie, “The Seventh Seal,” Ingmar Bergman describes that “There is an old story of how the cathedral of Chartres was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. Then thousands of people came from all points of the compass, like a giant procession of ants, and together they began to rebuild the cathedral on its old site. They worked until the building was completed — master builders, artists, laborers, clowns, noblemen, priests, and burghers. But they all remained anonymous, and no one knows to this day who built the cathedral of Chartres….”

There have been periods in my life where I felt “burned to the ground.” It takes even more will – awareness, constancy, commitment, and devotion – to renovate, rebuild and reawaken Higher Centers. Emperor Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal in loving memory of his wife. The construction project employed more than 20,000 workers and artisans and took 16 years to complete. It remains a mystery that consciousness is available at every moment and yet takes far more than 16 years, but a lifetime and conscious will to sustain its presence.

Spiritual heart is the Will. —The Anonymous English Monk

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Taj Mahal, India