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In Europe the cathedrals where built of stone, solid and lasting and are now some of the oldest structures on the planet. In Japan the oldest and most sacred shrine (Ise) is even "older", and yet this wooden structure has been torn down and rebuilt every twenty years for over 1300 years! Keeping it fresh and "pure".
It has been said that the body is the temple of the soul. There are different approaches also to maintaining our "internal" temples.
In Hindu cosmology there are three aspects of the supreme being: Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. They represent, respectively: creation, preservation, and destruction; also the energies of Creativity, Love, and Truth.
The living manifest universe unfolds in cycles, in which these three aspects or phases are always present. Creativity is generally considered a good thing and is perhaps most closely associated for us with life.
The energies of preservation, nurturing, lovingly appreciating what has been created, are also something that we mainly applaud, even if they aren't quite as exciting or attractive to all of us.
When we come to destruction, however, we learn to be afraid, to judge this as "bad", "dark", something to regret or avoid. We associate it with death, with anger, with other things we think of negatively.
The heart of the matter is that we believe that the three phases are separate processes, that destruction is independent of creation. We think of destruction as the antithesis of creativity, rather than as an integral partner in the cycles of life.
Take a moment to consider how you conceive of your body on a day to day time scale. Do you relate to it as a fixed physical construct that may need maintenance and repair, but is essentially static? or do you relate to it as a dynamic pattern and system of energy and matter?
Scientifically our physical bodies exist as patterns do in the flow of a stream, the pattern persists, but the atoms and molecules flow through it continuously. If we stop these flows we die. Air, water, food, are flowing through us minute by minute, day by day. Energetically there are other flows that sustain and nurture us as well.
Life exists in flow, and flow consists of all three aspects, as elements move into the pattern, recreating it, sustaining it, and finally leaving it again.
We come to fear aging and change in the body that leads to, or is associated, with death or disease. When we resist destruction in life by rigidly focusing on preservation we close the door to creativity as well. The three aspects exist only in dynamic balance, and all three are necessary, inseparable. In seeking to hold onto "life" we often eliminate the space for it to enter in.
Even the great Cathedrals will crumble in enough time, but what of the Ise shrine? In another thousand years it will still be new and fresh. Is there a way to allow our temple to renew itself. I believe there is. Release the fear and mental energies that "see" the body as a rigid structure that we need to preserve at all costs, and open the door for the natural flows of energy and spirit to enter in.
The body is not a rigid object, but a living pattern of energy animated by our spirit or soul, it can heal itself and renew it self, just like the stream or the shrine.
When we release our fears and our mental efforts to avoid destruction=death=change=life we can open ourselves to integrating spirit and body in a way that sustains us, that keeps our temple fresh, and ourselves full of creative life energy. The body is meant to be the temple of the soul, not a static shell. Allowing for the three forces to rebalance in our being and our lives doesn't lead to earlier death, but to continued rebirth, growth, and evolution.
We become more alive, not less, and by letting go, we find what we were looking for all along.
(© 11/08)[read the full version @ http://www.wholebeingexplorations.com/spirit/writings.html ]
