Our human capacity—body, mind and heart—is designed to be the Temple of the Living God. Through this amazing capacity, we create a field of consciousness and energy that has profound implications for the world around us. This is true for each of us individually, and it is all the more true for humanity as a whole. The quality of conscious awareness determines the quality of energy that moves through a person. And the quality of energy moving through a person affects not only personal well-being but the well-being of the people and forms of life around them.
The Temple of the Living God is often thought of as a building or some other place separate from human beings. It is seldom thought of as the person themselves; and, for most people, they certainly wouldn’t think of their own flesh as the Temple of the Living God. However a person may think of the dwelling place of the Divine, usually it is thought of as a place to visit, either by entering a building or by journeying to a place in consciousness through pure thoughts and feelings.
In religious or spiritual circles, the dwelling place of the Divine is often worshipped as something separate from the person, and the remarkable human capacity is cursed. The body, the mind and the emotions are often considered coarse, as if there was something fundamentally unspiritual about them.
These words from John in the Book of Revelation speak about the collective temple that humanity is designed to be, and the personal transformation that allows a person to play a part in that experience:
Him that overcometh will I
This description involves people. Whole people, bodies included, make up the pillars of that temple. All parts of being human are holy in the temple. It all serves and it all belongs. It is that simple.
“I will write upon him my new name.” What is the new name of a person who is a pillar in the temple? I don’t think it is necessary to change my given name, but can my name be spoken in a new way? Can your name be heard and spoken in a new way? There is a passage from the Easter story in the Bible, in the Book of John, which takes place in the garden on Easter morning. Mary Magdalene is concerned because Jesus’ body is not in the tomb and she is looking for him. And while she’s standing there looking, he speaks her name: “Mary.” She knows who is speaking. Her name is spoken and she knows who is speaking it by the way in which he says her name. He was standing there, mistaken by her for the gardener. Yet when he says her name she sees him and knows who he is.
That passage has always touched me deeply, because somewhere along the line someone spoke my name, and when they did I not only recognized the person speaking to me but also experienced myself in a new way. In my case, it was Bill Bahan. He just looked at me and spoke my name, and I knew he knew who I was. He’d known me for a moment, and I’m not even sure he said “Jane.” But he gave voice to that quality of consciousness and energy that evokes who I am. I believe it is our job to speak that same tone, so that everyone hears their name. Everyone remembers that they are an integral part of the temple that we, as humanity, are made to be, if they so choose.
We don’t have a choice about who hears our voice—the quality of consciousness and energy that we bring to the people around us. Do you ever feel a little concerned that you’ve been speaking and nothing seems to be happening? It’s important to remember we don’t have the right to determine whether or not someone chooses to notice. In speaking the invitation to hear your true name, I don’t have the ability or the right to determine who’s listening, or who’s interested in hearing. But I do have the responsibility to stay in the temple so that when someone hears their name, they know where to go; they know how to find their way. There’s a sounding tone that provides a lighthouse and a clarion call to the substance that does ring in a person when they hear their name spoken.
I know many people—I’m sure we all do—who have changed their name in a desire to have it ring more true for who they are, who they feel themselves to be. They see it as one of the ways they could shed an old identity. I think that can assist, though, as I said, I’m not up for it myself. But I know that when someone changes their name it is usually done because of a hunger to be seen differently, to have that which is in them that’s thriving and longing to come out be seen and heard by someone. And it won’t be seen and heard by those people who see them the same old way.
We see differently when we let our own temple personally be filled with a fresh awareness and fresh energy, and when our words carry that experience. Then we speak with the voice of one who is a living pillar of the temple. And we hear differently when we speak with the tone of that experience. Everything looks and sounds different when you are in the atmosphere of the temple.
A friend told me once that he said to his spiritual teacher, “I really am glad you didn’t give that speech when I was younger, because I would have walked out.” The teacher said, “I did; you just couldn’t hear it.” Truthfully, my friend hadn’t had the capacity to hear at the level he was currently hearing. It was not that the truth wasn’t being spoken. There is grace involved in the process, so that we hear one step at a time. For a person who continues in spiritual emergence, they understand that they are the pillar in the temple, responsible for speaking that same tone, that same vibration.
In the temple there is a holy experience, a sacred experience that can be known. It is not all about being in silence and stillness. It involves being at home in your temple and “going no more out.” We can be boisterous and full of lustful passion in our temple, and nothing is defiled as long our passion is for the Divine. In the human experience, particularly for religious or spiritual people, lust and passion can have a bad name. They say that is what takes you off-track, out of holy experience. What if exactly the opposite were true? What if lust and passion for the Divine were exactly what brings a person into holy experience?
There has been a strong message to me throughout my life that I had to be careful because I was such a passionate person. It is true that misdirected passion can be disastrous, and if you bring a lot of passion and you don’t know what you’re doing, you could do damage. I know that through experience! As a pillar of the temple, passion and lust are not a problem. They belong, as does everything that serves the Divine. If you are going to serve as a pillar in the temple, your passion has to come with you. It is part of you. It is sacred and welcome in the temple.
Who you are is perfectly designed to be in the temple. You are designed to create and manifest. Those things happen because you’re there, not in spite of you being there. After every act of creation in the story of Creation in Genesis, God says that it was good. When did that stop? It’s still good when we manifest in service in the temple. The temple is our true home. We don’t have to manifest grass and birds and clouds and skies and stars and things. That part is done. We now have the opportunity to be in this garden, this temple, and keep creating. At the end of our day we can say, “It was very good.” It was very good, what we created individually and together.
The power of manifestation is in us. It is what we were designed to do. Our creation is holy when our passion for the Divine fills our temple, transforming the quality of consciousness and energy in us. And then, the vibration of the Divine creates a new world.