Temple Experience

I will be sharing my India temple experience in relation to Levy Bruhl’s notion, the Law of Participation, where people or objects form part of a collective representation. It was evident in the temples we visited, that gods and goddesses represented a large part of Indian cosmology and mysticism.

Although I am of North Indian origin, I was born and bred in the UK. Therefore, South Indian culture was new for me, and I did feel a little disorientated at the beginning. At the first temple we visited there were many shrines within the complex and we moved swiftly from one to the other, giving offerings to the deities, emulating the locals with folded hands, bowing down and taking offerings from the priests. It felt strange, the actions were unfamiliar, I could tell I was performing them with a little awkwardness. Which made me think of what Levy-Bruhl said, that you will never know the inwardness of the natives’ mind and their mystical ways.

However for me, it didn’t take long before the spirit of the place started to take a hold of me. I began to enter the temples with a knowing excitement, I would rush towards the first god Ganesha to pray and receive blessings before moving onto all the other deities. I joined the locals and was elated when the puja was conducted in the dark shrine rooms. When the candles that circled the deity illuminated the gods and goddesses faces there was an excitement and exclamation amongst the devotees when they caught a glimpse. I felt the reverence when placing the white and red sacred ash on my forehead and receiving flower garlands from the priests. Lighting the candles with intention became a ritual that I cherished and looked forward to. It all became a part of me, I began to realise the importance of ritual and have added some of them to my own practices.

The temples and deities had come alive, no longer were they just stone structures and statutes. As Levy Bruhl mentioned, I was participating with the prelogical mystical powers and properties of places and objects. I was communing with the visible and invisible spirits of the place, the myths and the deities. With closed eyes and hands together at my heart, I was totally surrendered and had faith that my inner voice was reaching the gods and goddesses.

One such experience was with the goddess Kali, she hit me deep in the core of my being! She is a fierce goddess of destruction and never lets you down. She calls you from afar and burns all the burdens you carry. At this temple there were two forms of Kali, one that was upset from being defeated by Shiva in a dance competition and then there was the fierce Kali, peering into my soul, with a strong penetrating power and energy that shook me. Her deep black eyes spoke directly to me, saying I can see the true you and I’m ready to tear you apart and destroy you. She set me a challenge – now am I brave enough to take her on!

Another experience that touched me was at the Mercury temple. We were going to sit down and do a longer prayer session but before that the junior priest asked us to circle the shrine 17 times. We usually went around once after giving and receiving offerings, so this was a bit of an odd request, and he didn’t give us a reason. I started circling, dodging people as I went, the more I circled the more I felt shifts were occurring within and around me. There was an emptying of my mind, thoughts had disappeared. The faster I circled, the more I was feeling a lightness and agility to my body. No longer was I trying to dodge people, a way was just appearing for me. It’s as if I lit up, a silence engulfed me, the temples, the people, the deities and animals all took on a new form. When I look back, I think I understand why he requested us to circle so many times. I’m not sure if the number 17 had a significance, or if he plucked it out of thin air. But there was a significance for me, the more I circled, the greater an inner stillness and peace was being created.

In each temple, when the priests did the puja for us, we would listen to the chanting which was magical in itself. However, at the last planetary temple, Ketu/South Node, we actually participated and repeated the chants after the priest. I think he took some liberty as it was night time and the temple was empty, so there was no-one around to object! This was a humbling experience, I felt myself totally absorbed in the vibration of the sound and felt it creating a hollowness inside of me. I felt expansive, as if I was spiralling upwards, towards the heavens. I was oblivious to whether I was pronouncing the words correctly, it just didn’t matter, as I was in total bliss.

By participating in the temples, I experienced some of what Levy-Bruhl conveyed. It was truly a transformational, prelogical experience, it also went  beyond logic and reason, into the mystical realm. The more I took part in the rituals, heard and understood the myths and communed with the deities, the more the world came alive, the more I came alive, and I began to see differently, with mystical eyes.