I have been reflecting on a poem I came across yesterday by Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1841) in his classic spiritual volume, Gitanjali, verse 88. Gitanjali is known as "Song Offerings", devotional verses that flow from the poet's spiritual journey. The book was Tagore's way of sorting through his relationship to God following a time of devastating personal losses.
Verse 88 (see link below) speaks of spiritual neglect in an abandoned temple where flowers and prayers are no longer offered, although flowers still bloom outside as festival days pass in silence. One lone devotee, who must enter the daily world of weary work, returns nightly with unmet longing. While the poem belongs to a larger context of verses, reading that specific one has me reflecting on the 21st century dynamic of spirituality and the world of work and material necessity. That is of course a timeless dynamic: the pull of the worldly life of commerce, of basic needs that morph into the desire for more than what is needed with the pressure to fulfill social expectations and/or achieve personal prestige and power. Urbanization, global economies, increasing technology and 24-hour nonstop "days" of availability, communication, shipments and deliveries, inflation and shortages, chip away at a rhythm of life that no longer supports time to nurture a spiritual life.
While ancient temples still offer a sacred space, even when abandoned (I am thinking of the moments I entered tourist-filled, exquisite cathedrals in Europe, and small abandoned neighborhood shrines in Japan and almost primordial cave temples in India), the real temple is the one we carry with us. We each have our own private place of prayer in our heart/mind, built of both intention and necessity. Today, if even for a few moments, stop to enter there. Bring your offering of gratitude and a new trust. The wearier you are, the better. This is where you truly rest and where you find there are not two worlds, the material and the spiritual, but one Source that supplies all. (Susan Nettleton)
for Tagore's verse 88, follow the link: https://project-tagore.blogspot.com/.../gitanjali-verse...
for a reminder that nature also provides it's own temple experience:
https://poetry-chaikhana.com/.../SecondPoemth/index.html
for Larry Morris' take on a Visionary Heart:
https://hillsidesource.com/dail.../2018/5/25/visionary-heart