I write to you from on board a flight to Amman, Jordan. I always wanted to see the great temple built into the wall at the ancient city of Petra. You will have seen it in the Indiana Jones film. I have also just come from visiting the grand Akshardham Temple in New Delhi.
I can tell you having seen Akshardham that Petra will be a disappointment. The Taj Mahal is not as magnificent as this modern wonder with its carvings. Whilst the Taj Mahal is of romantic love, and mausoleum for a dead woman, Akshardham is of the greater devotional love of mankind for their creator – of the humility that comes from devotion, the necessary selflessness that devotion requires.
The love of which the Gita, the Torah, the Bible and the Koran speak is of devotional not romantic love. Man serves society out of devotional love, not the selfishness between a couple that is romantic love.
So, in what it symbolises, not just in its beauty, the Taj Mahal has been eclipsed by this new wonder of the world.
But does India need another temple?
I was told of the workforce, that they were paid, and fed, and housed within the complex. Their children now schooled as a result of the fees they earnt. Those workers, some previously with addictions to drink and drugs, overcoming their weaknesses within the purity of their lodgings.
So what is the point of such a temple? Is it not ego? Does it create pride in ones heritage that leads to self-destructive egotism?
Not so. Of stone and marble and gold it is made for sure. But it serves other purposes so sorely needed in India, and in the world.
It reminds Indians the greatness of their heritage, but more importantly, it is for them to lead the world in the highest ideals. They cannot sit back whilst others step forward. If there is not to be a destruction of the world, then the wisdom and knowledge to be found in our ancient culture will have to be the saviour of all mankind and it will have to be down to Indians to do it. For surely temples such as this teach us – it has always been us who have been the most advanced. It is us who must step up.
Too often are we too afraid to say who and what we are, what we know; happy are we to stand in the shadows. And now look at the state of the world. Too happy to bow to the louder, the brasher, those who claim to know more.
A temple, as well as reminding us to have faith in ourselves, also provides a focus. A focus for a community of workers to serve at the time of crisis, to come together as an army of helpers, and volunteers, to be an organised nation in service to others.
Surely, India needs toilets, but they alone cannot lift a nation. The values that our temples teach, and remind us to be our greatest possible self, comes from such feats.
And of values the world needs, where else but in a Hindu temple could I have spoken at length with a Hindu priest about the greatness of Islam and the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed and the Koran. Yes the world needs temples, only because it needs the values such temples bring. One day, there will be no need for temples.
