Devi Temple – Dhyanalinga Temple – Spanda Hall, A Whole System
The Devi temple is only an appendage to the Dhyanalinga. When we consecrated Dhyanalinga, the southwestern corner [of the temple premises] becoming the Devi temple was always on my mind. I think I spoke about it a couple of times but at that time, we neither had the means nor the time on our hands to do it; but it was essentially planned this way.
The Dhyanalinga is like a womb; it is the yoni of the Devi. When we say yoni, you must understand the word yoni is describing a womb. In Sanskrit language and in most indigenous languages, there is no equivalent word for vagina. It is only when somebody’s intelligence gets hijacked by his hormones and he starts thinking sexually, that he thinks of a vagina as a separate part. Otherwise, yoni means, it is a womb. It was seen as a sacred space that all of us have to inhabit in the most crucial part of our making, when we having nothing in our hands. At that time, when everything is in the hands of nature, that space protects us and makes us. So, this was held as the most sacred space.
Always, in the Shakti and Shiva principle, wherever linga and yoni are presented, it is the inside of the womb that you are seeing. That is why the female part, the avudaiyar, is at the base and the linga is inside. So, when you enter the Dhyanalinga space, you are in the inside of the womb and the linga is inside the womb; that is how it is shown.
So, the Devi temple was always a part of this triangle. It is just that we had not created an official space yet. Right now, this is where Bhairavi is. This is a complete system now, in some way – not in terms of Dhyanalinga, he is complete by himself – but as a space, this has been slightly incomplete. This triangle [the Devi temple] is the pubic triangle of the Devi and this [the Dhyanalinga dome] is the inside of the womb and the Dhyanalinga is inside of it.
The first, life-generating reverberation that happens out of this is called Spanda, and that is why the Spanda Hall is here. The Spanda Hall and the Devi temple are exactly in the same direction. At the time when we built the Spanda Hall, I had not spoken about building this temple. I had to do lot of convincing to tell them, “This is the angle I want the Spanda Hall in.” They said, “No, this will look better, that will look better.” I said, “No, this is the way we want it because this is a whole system.” So, now this is the yoni; the linga is inside. The first reverberation is already on. Actually, if we had had the time and means and the necessary social maturity, we should have started from this end [the Devi temple]. We should have first established Bhairavi, then gone for Dhyanalinga, then gone for Spanda Hall – that would have been the natural order of things.
Maybe I don’t look it, but, you know, I’m very happy today. Human faces are not engineered to truly express what the inner spaces are capable of, what could happen within a human being. In making the Devi temple, we have had so much more freedom in terms of time; time has been on our hands; and in terms of money, because all of you have contributed in so many ways to make this happen. Any number of people here have been constantly contributing to make the temple, which we did not have when we built Dhyanalinga Temple. Yesterday morning, when we went into the Dhyanalinga Temple for a certain process, suddenly I felt “Oh, it looks so stark compared to this.” We did all that in such a hurry, and after that, there has not been a single day’s break because it is open every day and every day it is full. Many things that we thought we will do there to make the temple better, we did not even do in all these 10 years of time because it is seven days a week open; there is really no room to work.
I think in the next year, we are going to beautify his abode also a bit.