Yesterday we went to the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir Hindu Temple in Lilburn. Despite its proximity to us, we hadn’t heard about it until John’s brother suggested meeting there.

When we drove in, there was a small gatehouse. We stopped at the gate, and a man stuck his head out and asked, “What’s your name?” John told him his own name. Ben and I were silent. He opened the gate. So, already, things were a little surreal. Why would he ask the name? How did we know that only John’s name mattered, or were we wrong about that? Was he checking against some sort of list? Or just making a note of it? Why?

The Wikipedia description:

The BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir Atlanta is the sixth BAPS traditional Hindu stone temple built outside of India. It is also the largest Hindu temple of its kind outside of India. It is currently open to the public. The 32,000-square-foot (3,000 m2) temple, officially called the Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, sits on 30 acres (120,000 m2). With hand-carved stone spires that tower 75 feet (23 m), it is the the tallest building in Lilburn, Georgia, dominating the intersection of Rockbridge Road and Lawrenceville Highway. More than 1,300 craftsmen and 900 volunteers dedicated their time in putting this 34,450-piece stone marvel together. More than 4,500 tons of Italian Carrara marble, 4,300 tons of Turkish limestone, and 3,500 tons of Indian pink sandstone was quarried and shipped to the craftsmen in India. Then, all of the nearly 35,000 pieces were shipped to the United States. It serves members of the Swaminarayan branch of Hinduism, which originated in India more than 200 years ago. The traditional design features custom-carved stonework, a wraparound veranda and five prominent pinnacles reminiscent of the Himalayan hills.

The Lilburn location is the largest temple in North America for BAPS. Built at an estimated cost of $19 million, the temple complex is only the third of its kind in the country, surpassing BAPS temples in Houston and Chicago. A similar mandir was recently opened in Toronto as well. The temple’s sanctuary is open to all, as it is in Chicago, Houston, and Toronto.

The organization’s current spiritual guru, Pramukh Swami Maharaj, came to Lilburn in 2004 and blessed the first foundation stones. The guru, who celebrated his 86th birthday in 2006, returned to Lilburn in August 2007 to sanctify the completed temple. Upon completion, a keystone weighing more than 5 tons was twisted into place on the ceiling of the central dome inside.

It really was very beautiful, and I loved the recurring patterns everywhere. However… and I know I’m being a little snarky here, but there is something very postmodern - in the bad way - about standing between a reflecting pool and an ornate temple, then looking over to see a huge Publix supermarket across the street. That’s somehow so very wrong. It would be better in the middle of a crowded city, where it could be like a hidden jewel (like Buddhist temples in Taipei) or dominating the landscape on a hill (like Sacré-Coeur in Paris). Alternatively, it could have been given a little more elbow room a little further away from the stripmall road (like the La Salette shrine in my home town). Something about the spirit of the place reminded me of that awful replica of the White House near my house. For all it cost to build, I think they missed something essential - or maybe that was somehow the whole point?

I also felt a little let down because I had imagined it to be much larger than it was.

We took off our shoes in the entryway and placed them in little cubbyholes. There were women everywhere, cleaning all the bits of stone. A couple of men were making fine adjustments to the carvings on the central columns. Unfortunately, no photography was allowed inside, or I would have tried to capture the inner room.

What struck me most forcefully were the ceiling mandalas - very fractal and trippy and just beaming with great energy.

Everyone was silent - by decree of the signs - but that seemed wrong to me. There should have been chanting, bells, singing, dancing! Perhaps it was just because we were there on an off hour - I don’t know. I also missed the smells of incense and candles.

I just couldn’t shake the feeling that things were somehow slightly off - it was all too clean and pristine. There were plexiglass shields around the carved columns, when there should have been encouragement to touch them. What kind of temple is this, really? I don’t know much of anything about this particular flavor of Hinduism, but there should be a sense of age - and at least a little grime - in a temple.

There was a guestbook inside, and that was strange to me too. John had given his name at the gate, so I signed the guestbook with mine.

Our timing was off, and all the internal alter doors were closed and locked, so I’ll probably go back sometime soon to see them.

Still, the little lights against the stone inside made it seem like you were in some sort of sandcastle. There was a place-based zing-moment or two in the middle of all that, looking up at the ceiling mandalas, especially the one right near the (locked up) alter. It was also noted (no names) that some of the carvings boasted rather nice breasts (hey, not every religious tradition is closed off to sacred sexuality).

Just before we left, a man came inside, sat down on the rug on the floor - dead center of the mandala, and listened to his iPod, eyes closed. He looked like he was going to be there for some time. For some reason, it struck me as very funny. I wonder how long you can do that before someone taps you on the shoulder. I mean, you’re basically hogging the entire vertical ley line - or maybe that concept doesn’t apply here. I kept thinking of the whole process of creating, sustaining and destroying that is so inherent to the Hindu vision. This temple didn’t seem to be about flows and movement and process, but more about a museum-type static series. It’s an interesting, even fascinating, monument, but… well, again - we were seeing it at an “off” time. I’ll go back and see the differences when the alter doors are opened.

It was fun to visit the place. Despite my critical reaction, I will probably go back.

Patterns, though - patterns. I kept thinking luminous interconnections - the making and unmaking of Tibetan mandala sand paintings, zooming the Mandelbrot set, resonating synchronicities, crunchy neutrinos, birds and flutterbys, staring squirrels, dream voices, tingling toes, free-associations from a tarot card spread - or a painting that calls to you - or a book that you’ve got to pick up although you don’t really have much interest in it…

We came back to the house for a cup of coffee and some conversation, then went over to Houston’s for some mighty fine ribs and a couple of margueritas.

What really mattered yesterday wasn’t anything about a temple but just being together, relaxing, and enjoying one another’s company. It had been a while since we’d seen Tom and Pam, and it was a warm loving snuggly sort of get-together.

Next time, maybe I’ll bring a bell and we can make a “temple” wherever we are.

When I was young and in love, an older person gave me a piece of advice. Wagging a finger at me, he quoted from Kahlil Gibran: “Let there be spaces in your togetherness.”

It angered me. I thought to myself, “He remembers nothing of love. He doesn’t understand anything.”

Ever since, I have intensely disliked that quotation. “Spaces in your togetherness?” That’s the last thing I’ve ever wanted. I’ve longed for merging, interpenetration, the intense presence of love, lover, beloved. Completion and annihilation - at a certain point, aren’t they almost completely indistinguishable?

Looking back, I would have to say that my anger and frustration about this quotation had also sprung into being from a very fundamental insecurity. I feared absence because I suspected that I wasn’t lovable enough to return to, that I lacked sufficient gravitational pull once someone was on the outer edge of the orbital… and… gone?

Separations can function as an intensifier. In a mature love relationship, it does seem somehow inappropriate to lose myself completely as I have always wished. In periods of separation, appreciation and gratitude have a place to build up. One has the chance to miss the beloved, and thus appreciate the relating afresh. Reunion can be more powerful than constant companionship. I believe that. And I don’t.

Still, my perspective on this has changed over time. I have less fear of abandonment now, perhaps I’m a bit more trusting. And maybe I’ve seen that it’s possible that I’m a little bit lovable (not for any reason, but just for being me) after all.

Of course, that whole drive toward complete merging and constant mutual attentiveness is propelled by wild infatuation, the semi-insanity of overwhelming desire, the apprehension of and longing for the thing withheld - whatever that may be. There’s always something, somehow.

Strangely, this had something to do with my ideas about the God toward whom I had many of the same feelings and fears. Even in presence, there is absence - and in absence, presence.

What is Kierkegaard’s dash, the spirit within, the internal temple, the fire and water and air and earth, the reflexive meta transcendent, the between - that finally unnameable THIRD thing, or FOURTH thing, or is it an infinite regress - progress? Is it iterative? Are there strange attractors?

Who hasn’t been haunted by thoughts of the beloved? Physical separation and distance allow dreamtime - daydreams and fantasy. Holding the hand of the beloved - in mind and heart and spirit - can be more powerful than holding hands “in person.” Not always, but sometimes.

Both togetherness and separations will happen on their own, in their own rhythms and syncopations and in all kinds of ways.

Physical distance is only one manifestation of this. One may feel absence in presence far more keenly and with a sharper edge. Even after periods of intense intimacy, cocooning away from one another seems to follow rather naturally - even if only to bask in the glow. There is a time to every purpose…

There can never be too much love. There is always more than enough love. So how is it that there is not enough love either? How are these simultaneous?

My fantasy is that if, somehow, I was in the garden (woods, clearing, path, moonlight, embrace…) with my beloved, then we would attain that mystical state of union and attunement with the entire cosmos - by a kind of participatory law. But only in authentic resonance, only in truth. And what does that mean? Total reciprocal and unified resonance is elusive through and over time/space. Episodic events are in some sense eternal - I really think so - but synchronicity works, it seems, in tiny bits, bracketed moments, flying fleeting trails of dots. It’s not fundamentally narrative in structure - linear history disrupts it somehow.

It can only be an illusion to hold on to the ego while mind-creating a universe for its gratification (and pretending to have let go of it!). On the other hand, trying to disappear into the universal mind/spirit won’t work (not even for a mystic). There has to be a there there. There has to be a vector. There has to be something, someone, that experiences - but without owning or having. My place in the cosmos turns out not to be a matter of self-negation, not entirely.

Be here now. Right. But WHO is? What is IS? WHAT is here? WHO is here? What is HERE? What is NOW?

The quotation was shorthand, not legalism. Not authority, but encouragement. It’s less a proscriptive rule and more of an opening to respect, honoring, even the beauty of longing. To drown in someone’s eyes, you have to step back a little.

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when white wings of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.
- Kahlil Gibran

With the exception of not eating from the same loaf (all right already, we get it), there is a compelling set of metaphors here. Actually, that’s an interesting bit… considering the communion that it rewrites.

This is the time of separation and revelation - the time of life and movement and process and gaps and complexity. There’s always the space between, there’s always what is created there. But the two create what is there. The space is necessary to that, like paint and canvas and light and vision and body memory. And the time of the collapsing of that space is always very temporary. To try to hold on to the moment and drag it into history doesn’t work, and if it did, that moment - static - would fade and erode like a photograph, an old scratched album, losing its vitality.

Yet here we live in this time, with uncontrollable points of infinity breaking in and out and through it. Once in a while, a sliver of it touches us.

To stand separated and unique - but resonating together, harmonic and even dissonant sometimes.

A moving sea between the shores of the souls, like oceanic temple pillars (although I prefer moongates).

Sacred space alive, in relation, fullness AND emptiness.

The winds of heaven dancing in the between, like jumping synapses.

A beautiful, haunting sound, like eternity.