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As to the celestial room, any TR holding member can ask for admittance without doing a session. Just wear your whites. SilentDawning wrote:I never really bonded well with the temple…I realized recently that I don’t like the feeling of being one of the identically dressed people there, all treated the same, following the same ritual. I like the feeling of the celestial room, but I would like to have a room like that in my house so I can just go into it to meditate. I once thought of a little structure in my backyard, even 10X10 which was serenely decorated on the inside, possibly all in white, with the feel of the temple in it, scriptures handy, some very quiet spiritual music — used for no other purpose than meditation away from the world. That would satisfy my spiritual needs.
in my impression, repeated ritual and uniformity serve to remove the ritual and differences among people from the worship.Not too long ago, I had a chance to go to a very important shaivite temple in Thiruvannamalai, dedicated to the worship of the shiva-lingam through fire. I was invited by a close friend, a very devout hindu, to participate in a puja in the innermost sanctum of this temple. Without going into any detail, the shiva-lingam is a phallus, and there is a bit of symbolism in the ritual that could be construed as having some very interesting origins. Those who wish to condemn hinduism for its pagan roots would relish what I experienced as evidence. I have seen this among christian critics of hinduism.
I can assure you, however, that for my friend and his family in this puja, there was nothing inappropriate, and for them it was deeply spiritual. Because I was tripped up by the symbolism, I didn’t bond well with the experience. I’m not sure I ever would; but I don’t think i need to. It gave me a renewed understanding of how the LDS temple rites can be alarming and different at first. The key, in my opinion, is to see what lies beyond. My hindu friend sees beyond his lingam-worship to the divine oneness of self-with-god. That is what i see beyond the symbols of the temple is the oneness of entering into god’s presence. then, when we realize that the temple is a metaphor for the body (and not the other way around), we come to a realization of how and where we can enter god’s presence, day by day.
What has helped me most is temple service — working in the temple in some capacity. the repetition of certain things leads to a process that goes from initial discomfort, to comfort, to boredom, to re-evaluation, then onto deep spiritual significance.
hawkgrrrl wrote:As to the celestial room, any TR holding member can ask for admittance without doing a session. Just wear your whites.
Really???? This was one of the main reasons I used to find it so hard to go — I have a terrible time with repetition, and at times, just wanted the spiritual atmosphere. Are you sure this is Churchwide, or just local to a temple you are close to? Given the tendency for the Church to attach immediate consequences to things in order to encourage certain behaviors they deem important, wouldn’t they discourage this? For example, wouldn’t they see it as allowing you dessert (celestial meditation) without taking the main course (the endowment session?)
wayfarer wrote:What has helped me most is temple service — working in the temple in some capacity. the repetition of certain things leads to a process that goes from initial discomfort, to comfort, to boredom, to re-evaluation, then onto deep spiritual significance
See, I can’t seem to get past a cycle of boredom to re-evaluation to boredom to re-evaluation. Now, a personality test I took recently put Ideation (a love of ideas and creativity) at the top of my list of dominant thought patterns. Consistency, on the other hand — the love of routine and repetition — is in the bottom quartile. I see this as one of the reasons I have had so much difficulty staying active over my Church life. I’ve been semi-active, or outwardly active/inwardly less active for about 9 years of my 28 years in the Church. The lack of creativity which the CHI brings to callings, the repetition, the drudgery of the same old thing every week really takes its toll with me. And when I hit roadblocks that go beyond drudgery, the experience seems hardly worth it given the lack of stimulation it provides. I wish I could break the cycle.
SilentDawning posted:
Quote:…I can’t seem to get past a cycle of boredom to re-evaluation to boredom to re-evaluation. Now, a personality test I took recently put Ideation (a love of ideas and creativity) at the top of my list of dominant thought patterns. Consistency, on the other hand — the love of routine and repetition — is in the bottom quartile.
I too have a love of ideas & creativity but there are times I get really burned out. For me, the Temple calmed me down & gave me a chance to relax, focus & contemplate more spiritual issues that I couldn’t on the “outside”. Especially in the Celestial Room. Everyone is dressed the same. There is very little talking. There are no sounds from the outside world. There is no distinction or rank between members.
For a moment, at least, we’re all the same.
I miss it.
Mike from Milton.
As a single woman….when I used to go through the temple, I would say to myself, does not apply to me..no husband. It’s easy to obey a husband, when you don’t got one, and that’s how I have always thought. I’m aiming for administrating angel to the dogs. I like them better than most humans anyways. I like to be alone, so threatening me with eternal aloneness doesn’t work.
Meh most of the time I think I was just over visiting you all and am actually a Child of a Lessor God.
Arwen wrote:As a single woman….when I used to go through the temple, I would say to myself, does not apply to me..no husband. It’s easy to obey a husband, when you don’t got one, and that’s how I have always thought.
I’m aiming for administrating angel to the dogs. I like them better than most humans anyways. I like to be alone, so threatening me with eternal aloneness doesn’t work.
Meh most of the time I think I was just over visiting you all and am actually a Child of a Lessor God.
All of that made me smile. Thanks.
🙂 I’m becoming partial to cats, mostly because they clean up after themselves. But one or the other
isusually preferred to human company. SD: Quote:Are you sure this is Churchwide, or just local to a temple you are close to? Given the tendency for the Church to attach immediate consequences to things in order to encourage certain behaviors they deem important, wouldn’t they discourage this? For example, wouldn’t they see it as allowing you dessert (celestial meditation) without taking the main course (the endowment session?)
I was told this in Utah. I have friends who have done it in other temples also. It may not work in a temple where you need an appointment (that is not always open), although if it is open, they are perhaps the most flexible. Either way, if you explain you don’t have time for a session, and you just need some time to meditate over a personal matter, that should be enough for anyone who asks. They may not openly advertise it, but I believe it’s universal. There is no temple here in Thanagaria, though.
That’s interesting! So, when do you think the Thanagarian temple will open? And will there be restrictions on whether part-humanoids/part aviary entities will be granted the blessings of entry therein? wonderingcurrent wrote:Okay I thought it would be good to review and have everything I feel in one place about the Temple. Right now its spread across two or three different discussions that I have participated in (possibly more). I will try to do my best making everything cohesive. Please add to this discussion.
The following are my own feelings on what I have been thinking upon during these Discussions:
1) The Name Symbolism: One of the reason stated why the man needs to know the woman’s name, and the woman does not need the man’s name is that resurrection is an ordinance, therefore it is the man who will resurrect his wife. And the wife will not ever resurrect the husband, it will always be one way. But when I studied the second anointing, and looked past its very patriarchal terminology I realized, as I also read that passage of Mary washing and anointing Christ’s feet, that this was something very essential to be done. Christ did not stop her for he understood it as an exercise of her priest(ess)hood and he had really no authority to stop what she was doing, because he saw the necessity of it. For now the second anointing is done on an invitation bases only for those who are in the top leadership positions of the Church. As a side note: I highly doubt the second anointing as currently practiced, with the men initiating it in the Temple, and the Woman finishing it at home, is the way it is supposed to be, but evolved to be this way due to the Colored glasses and sheet of paper as discussed Either in my post on Women and the Church or in my post in Another Feminist (my introduction post).
2) The Viel in the Temple that women wear: Its See through, so people can see me, but the physical act of putting it on, feels depowering, and though I have looked for empowering views of this, like the whole “denying the head (husband)” to commune with God directly, I feel that it is still overall very sexist, and very much the symbolism of it is so up to interpretation, that it would be just better if this practice just disappeared.
3) The Initiatory (washings and anointings): These seem empowering, except for the line which puts women as being priestesses unto their husbands, with no hint or sign of them doing that for God, just simply because they have to be priestesses to their husband who holds the Priesthood. I do like the fact that the woman performs these ordinances on other women, I hope my Temple experience On Tuesday in this portion can carry me though the rest of it.
4) That there are a million interpretations of these things, That everything is up to what God wants to give as a message. Well for me, the only message I am getting right now as I review it, (after already have read it twice online).
#1. Name symbolism is just that, symbolism. “Tokens” and “signs” are also symbols. The important thing is not to focus on the symbol, but seek to understand it.
The husband is
representingthe Lord when he brings his wife through the veil and he will not use the name she gave him to resurrect her. All of us will be resurrected using the name we assumed at baptism. (Mosiah 5:9-14 and D&C 18:23,24) We are all metaphorically, “the bride of Christ.”The second anointings have ceased a long time ago, as they should have. There is no higher order of knowledge accessable through more symbolism. Your point on females and priesthood id well taken, and I couldn’t agree more. How else can a woman place her hands on another womans head in the initiatory without it? http://www.signaturebookslibrary.org/women/chapter17.htm#Woman #2.All clothing is also symbolic. It may be helpful for you to imagine that ALL of us in the session should be wearing this, since symbolically we are ALL the bride of Christ.
#3. We are ALL Adam & Eve. Adam was created first, (Spirit) and Eve was created out of Adam. (the body) Adam was tried by Satan, but cannot be deceived, because pure spirit never can. Eve succumbs, because we are ALWAYS led astray by our 5 senses and the flesh. Eve now becomes Satan’s helper and gets Adam to partake. (The flesh always drags the spirit down with it). Adam also partakes because he and Eve are “one flesh.” When has any couple literally been “one flesh”? Unless this is metaphor/parable.?
#4. Women sometimes feel slighted by ‘Eve’s failure.’ When viewed as parable and metaphor, we have ALL failed, since our flesh as led every one of us into sin.
I’m glad you are looking at these things. Keep it up!
p.s. This is a guy writing this.
now that I have gone through the temple. I must say as much as I have heard the Eve as body, Adam as Spirit thing, I don’t get it, and never will. That explanation just doesn’t ring true for me. It still uses Women as signifying that we all failed through flesh, that a woman’s flesh then becomes used as something that is unclean. The whole bride of Christ, thing. Honestly would the metaphor have been different had women been writing scriptures rather then men? I think it probably would have been. We are all bride’s of Christ, the Husband stands in for the Lord, has been taken way too seriously, and not one person has ever though that the Woman could stand in for the Lord as well. I personally think after everything, that though I have said this in my introductory post, there are some things equal. All in all, I feel our explanations of things are lacking. Every interpretation I get, I turn over a million times. The only one that ever makes any sense, is the answer I recieved in the Temple. “The first shall be last, and the last shall be first”. This Adam (literal or figurative it matters not), was created first, so last to take the fruit, Eve was created last, so first to take the fruit. Adam first to get knowledge of his spiritual power, while Eve labored and had children, and that was practically the only thing she knew of her power. I wonder if we ever will ever ask the question “If Eve would be last to get her spiritual power, when did Eve know? She did live almost 1000 years of mortal life. Surely she must have found out sometime during the course of her life.”
I go back and forth on this. I look at the temple, and know that with in two years, I won’t be able to go back, if I keep going on the road I am. So I have to go back, and curb my temple experience, and let others do the endowment for my ancestors, because I can’t. I will do the initatories. Its the only place I feel whole in the entire ceremony. Or I can do sealings for couples with my husband. Those two things are probably what I would do.
My thoughts and my feelings, are still very much a roller coaster. Though I feel with each passing day time is healing myself about this. I just hope that God will hear the prayers for change. I do not know how that change will happen. But our church is notorious for it. It will. And hopefully it is for the better.
Have you talked with a professional about sometihng like OCD issues? I have NO idea if that is the case (literally no idea, when it comes right down to it), but, if you haven’t pursued it already, I think it wouldn’t hurt if you can do that. (You don’t need to talk about specific temple-related things – just the tendency to not be able to let things go but, instead, to roll them around constantly in your mind.)
I strongly believe it is just a story, wonderingcurrent. The nice part of personal revelation is opening our minds to finding things in that story that can inspire and lift us. I think it can if we open our minds to it. But I respect you if that story doesn’t do it for you, your points are valid and I can’t argue with it. But my point is, it is not literal, and there are multiple ways to look at it. Just sayin. wonderingcurrent wrote:Honestly would the metaphor have been different had women been writing scriptures rather then men?
most assuredly!
You know. This conversation can be locked too. Really. I am going around all the threads I started barely getting any traffic anymore and asking if it can be locked.
There comes a point where these conversations just need to end.
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