Some thoughts about the experience of clothing the temple

Be aware of the facts that all things happens for a reason -because casualty does not exist-, and that everything is ruled by the Principle of Cause and Effect, bring us the chance to recognize that part of the work is to throw away the illusion of assign power to luck. This is one of the first steps in the quest for the truth.

In this particular case, a simple and apparently isolated detail of being earlier on the lodge, before the arriving of my brothers, has let me obtain a close and personal contact with the spiritual and physical place where every Thursday night we make our work meetings to the glory of the Lord.

The labor of dressing the temple begins when you go through the two columns of the front and take notice that this is the one and only way to enter or leave the "place". This particularity recalls the fact that our presence in the sensible world begins with birth and ends with death, situations that -both- constitutes under the idea of the immortality of soul, a unique gate for entering and leaving this existence, and suggest that the Principle of Polarity exists, as long as it reveals that: "... all manifested things..." have its pair or opposites, and the extremes touches themselves"

Furthermore, this entrance located on the occident is the starting point for the profane that carries the wish and the urge to see the light, and receive the opportunity to rebirth to a new existence, entering the temple, which constitutes an excellent representation of the universe.

Right after fitting the apron and take a general look it is possible to see that this first sight symbolizes that other one that begins in the interior world, the collective and atavic one that is shared with mankind, that grants the option "to be" in the universe, or put in another way, to posses a cosmovision, referring to this word, as a way to see and interpret the world. Besides, this idea lets us get closer to the understanding of the Principle of Mentalism.

Come to my mind in this part of the essay, the Principle of Rhythm, because everything fluxes and refluxes and is showed into a back and forth movement. In fact, on one side we have the journey that is to be made by the brother, starting at the darkness reign (in occident) and finishing at orient (place where the Salomon's Chair is located) which represents the spiritual elevation that guide his day to day activities, and on the other side, this living experience into the world of effects, will let him -symmetrically- support his personal growth.

Under this idea of a double flow, the Ara location in the centre of the temple, let us see that this come and go must be made with the truth in ourselves, that is revealed in the Volume of the Sacred Law which is placed at the top of it.

Being the temple an exact representation of the universe, and considering its body as the physical world, the fact that the Volume of the Sacred Law is placed here show us that divine's presence surround us and that it was revealed as a gift for us.

Following the job, a fence is detected between the valley and the altar, when our banner, on the left of the Worshipful Master is placed, telling that our mother lodge symbolized by it, and we as his sons -that born to masonry from her entrails - have the sincere intention to take our souls to divinity. Moreover, the fact that orient is elevated with three steps, demonstrates that each time we climb to that space, it is necessary to fight against the law of gravity, which reveals that any kind of personal progress is to be done by hard work and not with a passive behavior, and with some patience, little by little, step by step.

Other element we put in its place is the Beneficence's bag, which brings to mind that Biblical passage regarding the Widow's Offering (Mark 12, 41-44), who as a sign of generosity gives the little she had to the temple treasury, and lives under the certainty that her attitude in front of the life she had to live must be active, on the contrary to the other character of the Antique Testament that adopts a passive behavior, like you can tell if you read the Book of Rut.

July 24, 2003

Q:.H:. Miguel de Pomar