The Body is a Temple
By Franco Minatel
I remember a commercial on television from when I was a youngster. It had a lean muscular man sitting in the lotus position and the voice over said that the body was a temple and that you should be careful what you put in it. I believe it was a commercial for milk. That made sense to me even as a pre-teen, not that I followed the instructions, but still, it made sense.
At that time I was a good Catholic boy and I was sitting in church one Sunday and the priest who was giving Mass must have seen that same commercial. He went on to say in his homily, in a very angry tone that the body was not a temple and that the only temple was the church of God or in other words the building we were sitting in. At that time I sided with the priest because I was raised believing that he was a messenger of God and that I had to listen to what he said. As I drifted from the church and reorganised my belief system I since came to realise the commercial was actually right and that the priest was mostly wrong.
In order to understand how the body can be a temple, we must examine what is man made and what is Divinely made. I think it is fairly conclusive that men built that church that the priest was preaching in, and that man built his pulpit and the altar from which he celebrated mass. That exact same building could be a bowling alley if the Archdiocese decides to sell it. So, unless we believe bowling is a spiritual act, we can safely conclude that the building is temple only in that people gather to worship their god in it.
On the other hand, when your mother and father joined in union many moons ago, it was with a spark of Divinity that you were created. When you were born, your soul was given a home to live in. When we die our body decays and our soul is re-absorbed into the Divine. If you follow the logic that we are all children of the Divine then we in turn are divine or at least have the Divine within us. Therefore, here on Earth, our bodies are truly the temples of God, Goddess or whichever deities we believe we are part of. Thus, any thing that is a house for God is a temple, then our bodies are all temples.
Let us take this train of thought one step further. If each of us is "God's creation" and our bodies are merely temples for the Divine then we should not defile someone else's temple since we will then defile ourselves and God as well. Can you image what kind of world we would live in if everyone would follow this thinking? Honouring each other as if "they" were "us" and we are God?
In the same way we take care of our structural temples, we need to take care of our own temple - our body. As that commercial said we need to watch what we put in it and how we adorn it. There is no need to lose weight for the sake of trying to fit some fashion magazines ideal nor is there a need to gain weight because of poor dietary choices. Exercise, if your job is not already physically taxing, is necessary to keep your mind and soul strong. Our bodies (and minds) were not designed to sit in front of the television for hours on end and nor does this mean you have to pump iron until you can see every muscle but rather enough to circulate blood and oxygen so you feel revitalised.
In the same way we need a mirror to see our bodies, in order to see our divinity we need other people. All our interactions expose us to the beauty of our universe. One method of connecting with the Divine in a perfect mirror is to make love with a consenting partner. The monotheist religions of western society have ingrained into our consciousness that the body is dirty and in particular sex is a deplorable act unless it is used to propagate more followers of that particular religion.
Talk of sex has become "talking dirty". Having sex has become the "dirty deed". How ridiculous! In the ancient sexual practice called Tantra, one can learn how to connect with God/Goddess through his or her partner. The beauty of intimate contact with another is unrivalled such that there is no need for mind expanding drugs because it happens right there if it is done properly. Opening one's self to another individual such that the two merge and connect to meet the higher power is a phenomenal beautiful act. There is nothing degrading or vile or unclean of enjoying someone else's overall beauty because their body is a temple.
Reflecting back on the priest, I realise that, yes, he was divine and a messenger. Had he not been so angry about that commercial so long ago, I would probably not have formulated my conclusion that be it in love making or in dialogue or helping someone out or even by simply smiling at a stranger on the bus, the act of acknowledging that the other person is alive, we acknowledge that the other person is a home for God, Goddess or the Divine. Also, at the same time we acknowledge that we too are a home for the Divine and that our body is a …..temple.
Peace.
Franco
May 2006
