Ye
Are Temples
8/4/7
I have a confession. When I lived in the backwoods of Montana I
would send out an inspirational newsletter called “Higher Ground Good
Newsletter” each month as my only source of communication to the outside
world. I could have called them “letters
from the edge” or “a voice crying in the wilderness” as it was my way, my only
way, of giving voice to the passionate feelings deep inside me for the outside
world to hear. I can’t believe I’m
inspired to do this again—now through today’s amazing technology of
e-mail. Please forgive me but today I
found old copies of my Higher Ground Newsletters and one really caught my
eye. I’m going to use some of its
content for this week’s Church of the Hot Springs or The Church of the
Gathering of What is Real message.
If man were asked the question,
“What is man’s greatest quest in life?” what would his answer be?
I believe it would be the quest
to know and become one with God—his creator.
I know for certain that this is my greatest quest in my life. Is it yours?
I would love to know.
As a child, I loved to lie on
the grass and gaze up at the heavens through billowy clouds and azure skies
thinking that perhaps if I stared long and hard enough I could behold the face
of God. At night I would contemplate the
stars wondering which star God existed on.
In springtime, watching the budding of trees and flowers, birds building
nests, and butterflies emerging from cocoons, I couldn’t help reminiscing upon
the poetic Psalm: “What is man, that God is mindful of him? And the son of man, that thou visitest him?”
I have since come to realize
(real eyes) that God is indeed mindful of man and, in fact, is anxious for man
to find his way back to him and his oneness relationship with him/her. God is, in a sense, courting each of us every
day—entreating us to come back to him/her.
For he loves us immensely and our quest for him pales in comparison to
his quest for us as he beseeches us to come unto him/her. Like a lover anxious to reunite with his lost
love, God romances us with sunrises and sunsets, perfumed flowers, cool breezes
on hot summer days, delicious fruits of the field—all created and prepared
especially for his lover—each of us—in mind.
Each day God is courting us,
preparing us for the ultimate marriage with him/her—and yet so few of us are
even aware that this courtship is taking place.
How dull we have become to our sense of romance. Every day we receive sentimental gifts never
acknowledging the giver—our lover—God.
We admire his sunrises and sunsets, we delight in the perfume and beauty
of his precious blossoms; we bask in the warmth of his sun and appreciate the
coolness of his breezes; we feast on his delicious food prepared for us daily;
and yet do we give thanks or praise to his/her name—or even acknowledge the
giver of these exquisite gifts? I
wonder.
God gives us these fine gifts
for the sole purpose of courting us into a oneness relationship with
him/her—the marriage—which reciprocally is man’s greatest quest for
himself. It is this uniting of man’s
soul with the Spirit of God that is the greatest dynamic drama going on in our
existence. It is this love relationship
being played out by both God and man as lovers that precipitates all thing and
all actions. Everything comes into
existence and has its being for the sole purpose of this unity or oneness with
God. One of the greatest of all gifts
God has designed to bring us into this marriage relationship with him is the
love generated within the heart of man.
This love given from God through man to be used to bless and bring joy
to his fellowman is the greatest gift God uses to bring us into that oneness
relationship with him/her.
In the book Kabbalah by Z’ev ben Shimon Halevi is a beautiful allegory which
depicts this concept. I would like to
share it with you.
A certain young man once saw the figure of
veiled girl at the window of a palace.
At first only curious, he went each day to catch a glimpse of her. After a while she would look in his direction
as if expecting him. Slowly he became
involved in what appeared to be a relationship if only at a distance. In the course of time the girl lowered her
veil to reveal something of her face.
This so increased his interest that he spent many hours at the palace
hoping to see the fullness of her beauty.
Gradually he fell deeply in love with her and spent most of his day at
her window. Over time she became more
open with him and they conversed, she telling of the secrets of the palace and
the nature of her father the King.
Eventually he could bear it no longer and wished only to be joined with
her in marriage so that he might experience all she spoke of. The man in this allegory is the soul, the
princess, the spirit, the palace existence, and the King—the King of Kings.
What a beautiful analogy of our
courtship with God! He is the romantic
bridegroom courting his beloved—each of us—into that oneness relationship of
marriage with Him/Her. He brings us
bouquets of flowers each day with the message: I LOVE YOU! BE MINE!
We are those flowers in those bouquets.
We are the courtiers and the courtesans.
We are the dancers in God’s grand courtship dance.
Only when we’ve experienced the
true joy of marriage, can we even begin to comprehend the true joy that awaits
us when our souls are inseparably united with God in the marriage of the
Bridegroom to the Bride. “For as a young
man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bridegroom
rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.” (Isaiah 62:5)
“For man is spirit. The elements
are eternal, and spirit and element inseparably connected, receive a fullness
of joy. And when separated, man cannot
receive a fullness of joy. The elements
are the tabernacle of God, yea man is the tabernacle of God, even temples; and
whatsoever temple is defiled, God shall destroy that temple.” (D&C 93:33-35)
We are temples of the most Holy
God! The question is how can we make our
temples holy enough so that the Spirit of God can dwell within and be one with
that tabernacle or temple. “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that
the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If
any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy, for the temple of God
is holy, which temple ye are.” (1 Corinthians 3:16, 17)
The word “holy” comes from the
Anglo Saxon word hal, which means
“whole, sound, healed.” Also in Greek it
has the same root word kalos which
means “beautiful.” Webster’s definition
of the word “holy” is: Free from sin and
sinful affections; pure in heart, pious, godly, hallowed; consecrated or set
apart to a sacred use; having a sacred character.”
Now that sounds like a “whole
lot to swallow” or something unattainable by mortal man. I prefer to use the first definition of the
word “holy” as being “whole, sound and healed.”
Or simply something which is “beautiful.”
We all know deep down in our
truest selves what condition our temples are in and what repair work needs to
be done on them. Whether it’s our
plumbing system (digestive system), electrical system (chakra system), it’s
structure (bones and muscles) or it just needs a good house-cleaning (physical
or emotion cleansing) or a new paint job (cosmetics), we must determine what
needs to be done in order to set our temples in order and make them beautiful
and worthy of God’s Spirit.
In conclusion to this
insightful newsletter I wrote July 1996, I would like to add something out of
Gregg Braden’s book, The Isaiah Effect
which I feel goes right along with all of this.
Secrets
of the Essenes
An excerpt from the Dead Sea Scrolls offers
insight into why the ancient Essenes separated themselves from the urban areas
of their time, forming their own communities in the desert: “Always have the
children of light lived where they rejoice with the angels of the earthly
mother: near rivers, near trees, near flowers, near the music of the birds,
where sun and rain may embrace the body which is the temple of the
spirit.” Nature and natural laws were
key to the Essene way of life. The path
to understanding their worldview may be found in their beliefs regarding the relationship
between the human body and the elements of the earth….
In the language of their time, the authors
of the Dead Sea Scrolls offered a worldview that considers a holistic and
unified relationship between the earth and our bodies. Through eloquent words and poetic reminders,
the Qumran texts remind us that we are the product of a very special union, a
sacred marriage between the soul of the heavens and the tissue of our
world. The principle states, without
exception, that we are a part of, and intimately enmeshed within, all that we
see as our world. Through unseen threads
and immeasurable cords, we are a part of each expression of life. All rock, each tree and mountain, every river
and ocean is a part of each of us.
Perhaps more important, you and I are reminded that we are a part of one
another.
Essene traditions refer to this union as
that of “our Mother Earth” and “our Father in Heaven”: “For the spirit of the
Son of Man was created from the spirit of the Heavenly Father and his body from
the body of the Earthly Mother. Your
Mother is in you, and you in her. She
bore you: she gives you life. It was she
who gave to you your body…even as the body of the newborn babe is born of the
womb of his mother.” We are the
genderless union of these forces, the masculine of “our Father in Heaven”
merged with the feminine of “our Mother Earth.”
This unified view invites us to consider
that through the common thread that binds our bodies to the earth, the
experiences of one are mirrored in the other.
As long as the marriage is honored, the union between the earth and the
spirit continues and the soft temples of our bodies live. When the agreement is dishonored, the union
ends, our temple dies, and the forces of earth and spirit return to their
respective places of origin.
Essene wisdom containing such subtle
concepts was among the loose collection of texts that would become our biblical
traditions of today. Those very texts,
among other documents, were removed by the Nicean Council during the
fourth-century edits. The elegant
simplicity that weaves the great teachings of the Essenes into meaningful
elements of our lives today was rediscovered, preserved in very good condition,
in the great libraries of the royal German Hapsburgs and the Catholic Church
during the early part of the twentieth century.
The Vatican manuscripts held for over 1,500 years, were key in the
documents that led Edmond Bordeaux Szekely to publish revised translations of
the rare Essene texts. In 1928 he
offered the first in a series of works that would become know as The Essene Gospel of Peace, offering new
insights, and a renewed respect, for this lineage of wisdom that predates
nearly every major religion of today.
In Edmond Bordeaux Szekely’s The Essene Gospel of Peace, is mentioned the three “angels” which are given
unto man for the cleansing of his temple.
The angels of air and of water and of
sunlight are brethren. They were given
to the Son of Man that they might serve him, and that he might go always from
one to the other.
Holy, likewise, is their embrace. They are indivisible children of the Earthly
Mother, so do not you put asunder those whom earth and heaven have made
one. Let these three brother angels
enfold you every day and let them abide with you through all your fasting.
For I tell you truly, the power of devils,
all sins and uncleannesses shall depart in haste from that body which is
embraced by these three angels. As
thieves flee from a deserted house at the coming of the lord of the house, one
by the door, one by the window, and the third by the roof, each where he is
found, and whither he is able, even so shall flee from your bodies all devils
of evil, all past sins and all uncleannesses and diseases which defiled the
temple of your bodies…
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