A recent trip to the hills reminded me how easy it is to access the sacred amidst the ordinary and the mundane. Walking in the hills on paths that wind through forests or down to streams, one often comes across small shrines by the wayside. A few pieces of stone, a small roof and an entrance just big enough to admit a worshipper’s hands.
The deity in question is usually a roughly hewn piece of stone or metal, perhaps placed at that spot for protection, perhaps for invoking blessings upon wayfarers. There might also be vermillion, some flowers, a handful of coins and a spray of fragrant agarbatti ash.
What is it about these tiny temples that invoke a sense of the sacred more powerfully than huge concrete structures? I think it might be in part because they are symbolic of an easy access to the divine, a sort of an intimacy that testifies to the divine’s “everywhereness”. If God, or divine energy, or brahman, or higher consciousness, is everywhere, logically speaking there is no part of the universe that could be deemed non-sacred.
The other aspect is that these shrines appear to be one with nature. There is no attempt to dominate nature with large-scale construction. Like the mountain dwellings of old, these temples too are emblematic of a co-existence, an endeavour to create space in harmony with nature, rather than gouging out and taking by force.
These little shrines are so much a part of their surroundings that they appear as commas — brief pauses of sacredness in the larger continuum of life that swirls around them.
It is a rare place of worship these days that is not outfitted with loudspeakers that blare out messages or devotional music set to film songs. As I absorb the sacred silence that envelops the little hill shrines, I am reminded of an incident that happened not too long ago. A temple situated in the midst of a residential neighbourhood had a loudspeaker turned up to ear-shattering levels.
People living around it could not hear themselves speak, or think for that matter. Their objection to the loudspeaker was met with an incredulous temple committee member saying, “This is our tradition. After all, what is a temple without a loudspeaker? Have you ever seen such a temple?”
Indeed, what would such a temple be? Under the vast dome of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, deep within the carved caves of Ellora, quiet, save for the flutter of bats’ wings, in the “empty” sanctum sanctorum of the Thillai Nataraja Temple in Chidambaram, and before these nondescript hill shrines — one glimpses an external silence which for a moment seeps within. If our places of worship are loud and garish, one can only wonder about the inner reality they reflect.
I’d rather drop out of the noise and drop in at my inner sanctum, sanctified by mountain air, consecrated by forest sounds.
Swati Chopra writes on spirituality and mindfulness.Blog: swatichopra.com
