This Broken Temple

Please bear with us for a while if we continue to gush about the new Temple of Light at Ananda Village. That the temple stands today, filled with divine light and joy, is a testimony to the omnipresence of God’s grace. Each step along the way has been filled with miracles: from the conception, to planning, interior design, fund-raising, construction, and final completion. They all testify to the power of such grace.

Now the weeklong celebration is over; our guests have returned to their homes around the world; and it’s time for each us who attended (whether in person or online) to absorb the blessings and inspiration that showered down. The new temple is beautiful beyond what we had even imagined, but now we might ask ourselves the deeper question, “Where does the true Temple of Light reside?”

The temple of light resides within our own hearts.

“Within my own heart,” is the answer. It took many people a great commitment of energy to create the new temple. If we put the same kind of dedication into our own spiritual development, we can create a sacred space within where God’s light can enter and illumine our whole consciousness.

There is an inspiring true story that Yoganandaji told about a man who was diagnosed with advanced diabetes and given only a few months to live. Believing that his life would soon be over, he thought, “I will dedicate every possible moment I have left to finding God.”

At first, due to physical discomfort, he could only meditate for a short time, but nevertheless every day he persisted. Time passed, and gradually his meditations grew longer. The three months became six months, then a year, and finally several years. Meditating most of his waking hours without any thought of himself, he increasingly felt God’s presence.

One day as he sat in meditation, he became enveloped in divine light, and in that instant he realized that his body was totally healed. With tears of devotion flowing freely, he prayed to God, “I didn’t ask You to heal my body, but only that You come to me.”

From within the radiance, he heard the voice of God speaking to him: “Where My light is, there no darkness can dwell.” The saint—for he’d become one—then wrote in the sand, “And on this day the Lord came into my broken temple, and made it whole!”

For two years members of Ananda have been doing the following affirmation to draw God’s blessings for the creation of the new temple: “God’s light is within us, around us, and everywhere. With His grace, we are building a Temple of Light—a beacon of blessings for all the world.”

Now we offer you this new affirmation to transform your own life, and that of others:

“God’s light is within us, around us, and everywhere. With His grace, I will make my heart a temple of light, that I may become a beacon of blessings to all I meet.”

May God enter the broken temple of our limited awareness and with His own hands transform it.

Wishing you the gift of His grace,

Nayaswami Devi

Watch videos from the 50th anniversary week as they are released online here via Ananda.org. 

Subscribe to the Touch of Light podcast. Download the audio recording of this week’s blog by right-clicking here. Or listen to it here (4:14):