There is a famous slogan among Christians that: A Christian without Church is bee without a hive.1 There is some truth in it if it is understood from the Muktivedic point of view that the Church is the body of the Lord. But when the importance of the Church which means body of the Lord having fellowship with each other to grow in our bhakti is interpreted from the point of Christianity as the Organized religion then it might distort the Muktivedic view. As I often say we might have personal fellowship with the Lord but we don’t have any PRIVATE bhakti. We either sail together or sing together as the followers of Muktinath—in spite of our differences on every level, including theology. This does not mean that I am against Christianity as an Organized Religion or against Church [particularly building] as part of it. Without having minimum discipline, rules and regulation leaving the Organization, even normal human life will become mere chaos and confusion. So naturally any Organized religion needs a structure, rules and regulation and discipline to implement them. So I am not against the Church as part of an Institutional religion. And particularly for the Christians who born and grew within that Organized Religion, who cannot survive without it as it meets their social needs like birth, marriage and death. So they have every right to have their Church [buildings] and even to have some kind of special emotional attachment with it as many Hindus have towards their temple structure, though it has a completely different role to play in their life. But to emphasize its importance when the life and teaching of the Lord is twisted to endorse such a view it surprises me. Of course when I read the following points from a Bishop I am not surprised as he lives, moves and his being is with an Institution. But when he wrote that, ‘These facts modify considerably the notion that the Evangelist was an ecclesiastically-minded person,’ I have to register my own reservation against such interpretation of Muktiveda by the process of Text Torturing to emphasize one’s favorite view, particularly ‘ecclesiastically-minded’ means approving organized religion.
Of course if ‘ecclesiastical here means’ only as the body of the Lord as the church or mandali, there is truth in it. But as we know well, for a Christian Bishop the structure is also part of this kind of ecclesiastical mind.
However, I got proper help from another Muktivedic scholar who helped me to understand the role of Temple both in the life of Muktinath and in Muktiveda. So I am simply giving a few points from N.T. Wright who helped me to understand it clearly.
First extract is from A. J. Appasamy, A Bishop’s Story, CLS, Madras, 1969 and next is from N. T. Wright, Paul A Biography, San Francisco: Harper One, 2018,
For this our authority is the Fourth Gospel. This, the most mystical of the Gospels, places the ministry of Jesus mainly in Jerusalem. No mere ecclesiastical bias leads the writer to lay this emphasis. He mentions many facts which a biased writer would have found it natural and advantageous to suppress. Jesus commends Nathaniel who prays under a fig tree. The cleansing of the Temple, an act which a mere love of ecclesiasticism would have found hard to understand, is placed at the beginning of the ministry thus going against the Synoptists, who place it at the end. Again, here occurs the great utterance, ‘God is Spirit: and they that worship in spirit and truth’ (John 4:24). These facts modify considerably the notion that the Evangelist was an ecclesiastically-minded person. The same Jesus who loved solitude, who passed over the sea of Galilee to the other side for quiet, who agonized among the trees on the slope of the Mount of Olives, also loved the Temple and prayed in it with others. His ministry finds its centre here. He who took such an independent attitude with regard to the interpretation of the Law and the Sabbath could not be said to have prayed in the Temple simply because the Jews were in the habit of doing so. His attendance at the Temple must be as significant as His other acts; it must mean that He puts His sanction on institutional religion as well as on the mystical religion that seeks God in the depths of a forest or a cave.—Bishop A. J. Appasamy p. 39 [Emphasize added.]
Now from Wright:
…the Temple in Jerusalem was regarded as the focal point of creation, of heaven and earth coming together….—N. T. Wright, Paul A Biography, San Francisco: HarperOne, 2018p. 224
….Creation as a whole is a Temple, the heaven-and-earthy reality in which God wants to dwell, and the mode of his presence in that Temple (as anyone in the ancient world would have known perfectly well) was the “image,” the cult object that would represent the creator to the world and that wider world before the creator. Complicated? Yes, but it only seems that way to us, because our culture has done its best to unlearn this kind of thought. Complex but coherent, a bit like creation itself, in fact, or indeed like a human being.—ibid. p. 289
…Jesus would come from heaven to earth not—as in much popular fantasy—in order to scoop up his people and take them back to “heaven,” but in order to complete the already inaugurated task of colonizing “earth,” the human sphere, with the life of “heaven,” God’s sphere. God’s plan had always been to unite all things in heaven and on earth in Jesus, which meant, from the Jewish point of view, that Jesus was the ultimate Temple, the heaven-and-earth place. This, already accomplished in his person, was now being implemented through his spirit….—ibid. p. 401
Temple as per Prof. Wright is ‘God’s sphere’ but not definitely any Church building however it is an essential part of an Organized Religion. When this reality which is ‘already accomplished in his [Muktinath] person, was now being implemented through his spirit’, thus giving space for anyone to remain part of the universal mandali as body of the Lord without being part of any local church which belongs to the ‘human sphere’. However, though Bishop insisted the importance of church as part of Institution I am happy to know that he also endorses the sanction of Muktinath that, ‘He puts His sanction ….on the mystical religion that seeks God in the depths of a forest or a cave.
Gurukulam
23-11-2021
Notes
1 Attributed to Scottish theologian and pastor Thomas Chaimers (1780-1847). from ChatGPT.
Though temple buildings came very late in Hinduism and now play an important role in Hinduism, still there are so many songs and references which clearly point out that God preferred to dwell in the heart as His temple and not in any structure. About this Tirumular wrote one beautiful song:
உள்ளம் பெரும்கோயில் ஊனுடம்பு ஆலயம்
வள்ளல் பிரானார்க்கு வாய்கோ புரவாசல்
தெள்ளத் தெளிந்தார்க்குச் சீவன் சிவலிங்கம்
கள்ளப் புலனைந்தும் காளா மணிவிளக்கே–திருமந்திரம், 1823
Heart is the big temple; the physical body is His abode
Mouth is the entrance to the temple
Atman is the Lingam for those attained knowledge
All the five senses are the oil lamps.—a free translation by me.
We know the famous story of Pusal Nayanar [In Periya Puranam, songs 4171 ff] who built a temple in his heart for Siva got preference when he invited Siva to come and dwell when he arranged for the consecration of the temple that he constructed in his heart and not to the King [Kadavar Kon] who actually constructed a big temple and invited God on the very same day to come and dwell, by pointing that He prefered the one that his bhakta built for him in his heart and not the stone structure built by the king. And instructed the king to postpone his temple consecration for the next day.
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