Please take off your shoes...
Doorways throughout the world, especially those with religious significance, have a special meaning inasmuch as they signify the movement from one level of consciousness or existence to the other. Often these are decorated with different symbolic motifs which have their own tale to tell. The door is usually two jambed exhibiting an element of duality, and one is often led to the unity or centrality of the destination (often the garbhagriha or the sanctum sanctorum).
The movement through the door also represents passage from one mental status to another, even as a snake casts off its skin to renew its life. The symbolism in Hindu marriages of the newly wedded bride either happily carried by the groom or kicking the cereals contained in a sacred urn into the house represents entry into a paradise in which they will happily ever after, and any stumble may spell impending trouble.
Taking off of the shoes has a larger meaning. The humble shoe, the protector of the foot, accumulates dirt and dust on the roads and humbly stays back as the master moves into a new world-whether it be a house, a temple or any other sacred place. The home is considered as a mini shrine, a place where God or goodness lives or the owner aspires that divinity should reside in.
This act also symbolizes seeking permission to enter the hallowed precincts. The door not only 'allows in' but also 'shuts out' the unwanted or the undeserving. The door jamb is literally a line dividing the past from the present, the good from the bad, the moist from the dry. The doors are usually guarded so that the undeserving and the unwanted are kept off or deterred from entry, whether it is by lions or guardian angels, the mountain sheep or the cherubim, the dvarapalas or even the evil eye. Even some libraries and historical monuments are flanked by lions as if guarding wisdom or intellectual or temporal power.
All sacred enclosures are places for divinity to dwell or make its home. The centrum or the core can be the Cross, the idol or some object of centrality, divine or otherwise, the sacred well or desired locus; which itself is a Door to the other world, wisdom, shift of attention, presence of God or the Kingdom of Heaven. The Vastu Shastra also recognises that the centre of any building or structure is the Brahmasthana which should not be loaded with any column or beam.
The one who has conquered his vices and aspires for reason, wisdom and virtues eminently qualifies to enter the Gate. The passage through the door is a middle way which bridges the past and the present, virtue and vice, yin and yang, day and night and various other contraries, and the person who passes the door is a Hero who is in the process of conquering the banality for the beatitude, shaking off his vices and his little ego. Christ said He was the door through which we have to pass. The contradiction between day and night can be well understood if night is taken to symbolise the body and the day the soul, and the human being lives in the dawn yearning for wisdom, cleansing of the soul, surrendering the spirit to God.
Doorways throughout the world, especially those with religious significance, have a special meaning inasmuch as they signify the movement from one level of consciousness or existence to the other. Often these are decorated with different symbolic motifs which have their own tale to tell. The door is usually two jambed exhibiting an element of duality, and one is often led to the unity or centrality of the destination (often the garbhagriha or the sanctum sanctorum).
The movement through the door also represents passage from one mental status to another, even as a snake casts off its skin to renew its life. The symbolism in Hindu marriages of the newly wedded bride either happily carried by the groom or kicking the cereals contained in a sacred urn into the house represents entry into a paradise in which they will happily ever after, and any stumble may spell impending trouble.
Taking off of the shoes has a larger meaning. The humble shoe, the protector of the foot, accumulates dirt and dust on the roads and humbly stays back as the master moves into a new world-whether it be a house, a temple or any other sacred place. The home is considered as a mini shrine, a place where God or goodness lives or the owner aspires that divinity should reside in.
This act also symbolizes seeking permission to enter the hallowed precincts. The door not only 'allows in' but also 'shuts out' the unwanted or the undeserving. The door jamb is literally a line dividing the past from the present, the good from the bad, the moist from the dry. The doors are usually guarded so that the undeserving and the unwanted are kept off or deterred from entry, whether it is by lions or guardian angels, the mountain sheep or the cherubim, the dvarapalas or even the evil eye. Even some libraries and historical monuments are flanked by lions as if guarding wisdom or intellectual or temporal power.
All sacred enclosures are places for divinity to dwell or make its home. The centrum or the core can be the Cross, the idol or some object of centrality, divine or otherwise, the sacred well or desired locus; which itself is a Door to the other world, wisdom, shift of attention, presence of God or the Kingdom of Heaven. The Vastu Shastra also recognises that the centre of any building or structure is the Brahmasthana which should not be loaded with any column or beam.
The one who has conquered his vices and aspires for reason, wisdom and virtues eminently qualifies to enter the Gate. The passage through the door is a middle way which bridges the past and the present, virtue and vice, yin and yang, day and night and various other contraries, and the person who passes the door is a Hero who is in the process of conquering the banality for the beatitude, shaking off his vices and his little ego. Christ said He was the door through which we have to pass. The contradiction between day and night can be well understood if night is taken to symbolise the body and the day the soul, and the human being lives in the dawn yearning for wisdom, cleansing of the soul, surrendering the spirit to God.
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