Let us come to today’s satsangh. First thing I wanted to tell you guys, the more and more I am studying about this Cambodia temples to explain to all of you, the more and more I am getting addicted. I have to use the right word – “intoxicated”! I am just getting intoxicated, overwhelmed, just by reading about those temples! See, Cambodia is not new for me. Even in this body I visited just a few years before and spent a lot of time. But, now, when I am sitting and studying to present to all of you guys, this is the word I have to use: It is “intoxicating” even to read and study! It is overwhelming! I am basically a temple guy. I don’t need anything for my life other than one temple and one pillar for me to lean on it. That’s all! I will be sitting and leaning on that pillar in any one corner and go on chanting ‘Shiva! Shiva! Shiva! Shiva!’ Nothing, nothing much is required for me in my life. When I feel I sat too much, I will just walk, go around the temple. When I feel I have walked enough, I want to sit, I will sit in the corner again and chant ‘Shiva! Shiva! Shiva!’ I don’t actually need anything other than one corner of a temple. I can spend my whole life just sitting in one corner of a temple, because I am a temple person. Even this Bidadi temple that is why I am building! I am not building for anybody. I am just building it for me! So, whenever I feel like walking, I will just go round, go round, go round, go round. When I feel like sitting, I will just sit and gaze at the deity. That’s all! If some temple allows me to spend my whole day whenever I go to the temple, I will not build even my temple! Because nearby there is no other temple whenever I want to sit, I am building my own temple! That’s all! I am basically a temple person, understand, who lives in temple, loves temple. So, it is almost like a feast for me when I am reading about this Cambodia. I tell you guys, it is not just a feast for me, for all of you guys too it is going to be a feast! It is not just a feast for me, because, I mastered the science of: anything I enjoy, how to make others also enjoy that! If I am enjoying Advaitha, I know how to cook that and serve to you, how to make you enjoy it. Same way, these temples! I wanted all of you to know, just the knowledge of architecture, construction, is not enough to build a temple. It needs tremendous inspiration, excitement, enthusiasm! Please understand, architectural knowledge and one person’s greed is enough to build palaces. If that person is able to pay you or frighten you, you will build palaces, pyramids. That is how the pyramids are built. Pyramids are built by people who are frightened. Palaces are built by people who are greedy. Palaces and pyramids and all can be built just by one king who is able to pay money to workers or frighten people to work with a little architectural knowledge. But temple cannot be built like that. Because, in building temple, every person who is working needs to be convinced about the ideology, because, the whole structure is involved with artistically expressed ideological conviction. Please understand, I am using a long word – “artistically expressed ideological conviction”. The person needs to be an artist. He needs to have the skill to express his artistic visualization capabilities, his visualization. And, above all, he needs to be convinced about the ideology from which those visualizations are coming out. I will tell the example of Angkor Wat temple, where, around 3.8 kilometres length, Mahabharata whole scenes are carved, and 3.8 kilometres length, the Ksheera Saagara, Ksheera Saagara Manthana, means, “churning of the milky ocean”, is carved. Let us take the example of those sculptures. 3.8 kilometres means, based on the way you are working with machinery, in those days without machinery, at least at a time two-thousand people should have been carving that one carving! Please understand, because the nose structure and lip structure, all that has been done by one team. Otherwise, there will be major differences; the whole sculpture will not look like symmetrical, will not look very logical. You cannot say in Ramayana time or Mahabharata time, one group was having nose different, or another group was having two heads. So, a lot of things have to be aligned. May be two-thousand people were carving, “at least”, I am saying, that 3.8 kilometres. So, all two-thousand people have to be artists. All two-thousand need to be artists; means, who can visualize and express what they visualize in their carving. And all two-thousand have to be educated about the story. Please understand, if all of them are not educated about the story, the carving will not come perfectly. You cannot say, ‘This bit you carve, this man should look like this; and this bit you carve, this man should look like this.’ You cannot give job like that to all two-thousand. You can see the 3.8 kilometre long Ksheera Saagara, the “Churning of the Milky Ocean” sculpture. (Video of the sculpture is shown). All two-thousand have to be educated about the story. And, be very clear, artists are cranky fellows! No....artists are cranky fellows! May be, Xerox machine (photocopier) will not be cranky, but the printer will always be cranky, understand! Artists are not Xerox machines; they are printers! So, artists need to be convinced about the visualization. So, the acharya, or the leading sthapathi (traditional temple architect), whoever is responsible, Devaraja, Devendra, whoever is building, please understand, he has to convince all the two-thousand people about that sculpture. And people will have questions: ‘Who knows whether it happened or not?’ ‘Why are you wasting our time?’ And, one more thing: Carving is a very difficult job. Not like sitting and doing Completion or doing some Advaithic visualization or doing some puja. That is very easy. Just like this take a flower....and while you are offering, you will have a sweet smell! For a person who is doing this job (puja), believing in Advaitha is very easy; because, believing in Advaitha is only going to make him live with the perfume and scent and happy, comfortable life. But, for a sculptor, that is not the case. Please understand, even now, the people who work in stones, the stone sculptors, I have seen, don’t live more than fifty years! Their average life is fifty years, because of constantly the dust going and settling in their lungs. Now there is so much of protection. In those days their life span is surely less than thirty years! Average life span! They all know, they are going to die! And each time carving, it is physical hardship. Whenever you have physical hardship and pain, you will question your very existence. Not just ideology, your very existence! ‘Why am I alive?’ ‘What am I doing?’ ‘Why am I doing what I am doing?’ Now even the pujaris (temple priests) who are offering flowers are thinking, ‘Why am I doing? ‘What am I doing?’ ‘Why am I doing?’ ‘What am I......?’ I am just talking about one wall sculpture! What all can happen! So, two-thousand people need to be ideologically convinced about this visualization of churning the milky ocean. Is it an easy joke convincing two-thousand people at a time? As I said, slaves cannot build this temple. It is not a dead pyramid. It is a living temple! Slaves cannot build it. So, all two-thousand, when they express the artistic intelligence from emotionally convinced ideological space, so all two-thousand first need to be convinced about that Advaithic truth, then about its purana (history); then the visualization has to happen in all two-thousand in the same way, because there is no other model from which they can carve! I saw in Facebook, photograph of the first camera. Then, which camera took the photograph of this camera? You cannot take a photograph of the first camera, because, which camera took? No! Same way, here there is no model! All the two-thousand have to be made to visualize something similar, same! You can see, the video of that “Churning the Milky Ocean” of Cambodia Angkor Wat temple, where the demons and gods have a distinctive, but identical..... See, the demons and gods have different dress; but all gods have the same dress, and all demons have the same dress. And the whole scene is described: above, the angels; below, the fishes and ocean animals, including sharks and everything. I am wondering, first of all, for two-thousand people they should have had a classroom. Without mike (microphone) how did they speak to all those two-thousand? Was it a batch-by-batch training? What was the mode of payment? How was the cooking (of food) happening? What was the entertainment if they are tired and bored? If somebody falls sick, how were they given medical attention? Even if there was a misunderstanding or fight between them..... Because one side wall carving means two-thousand men, there should have been at least 3,000 people working. If there was a fight, problem, what was the legal system through which it was solved? What was happening? Oh, God! And, some of the researchers who are in this field are saying, at least fifty-thousand people were working at a time on this temple. Understand, it means they will have to create a Sangha first, community, where this ideology is experientially lived....this ideology is experientially lived! God! I am just trying to visualize how the whole community would have been. It is just a feast! Largest religious structures ever built! This temple building was going on as a “spree”! That is the right word I will use. I think, that kind of an Advaithic experience was showered on people, Advaitha was the lifestyle. I can say, surely Cambodia would have been an enlightened civilization! Just an enlightened civilization! I will continue, I will continue expanding on the wonder called “Cambodia”. It is a wonder called “Cambodia”. swami NITHYANANDA
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 08:12:04 +0000