This article is courtesy of Miri Piri Academy

Each year the students of Miri Piri Academy are blessed to participate in an annual forty days of ishnaan seva at the Golden Temple.

Each morning as we walk down the stairs of the Golden Temple complex, we’re blessed with the vision of the golden Harmandir Sahib before we bow our heads on the cool, white marble.

Here is a little known fact about Harmandir Sahib, the Golden Temple, so that the next time you visit, your own experience will be enriched.

A Union of Sun and Moon

The Harmandir Sahib itself, perched in the middle of the healing sarovar, is built of marble and gold. Maharaja Ranjit Singh rebuilt the temple in marble and copper in 1809 and overlaid the sanctum with gold foil in 1830. As the Siri Singh Sahib Ji explained,

…The temple is a balance of sun and moon. The gold represents the sun, while the marble represents the moon. It’s a union of Sun and Moon; Ha and Tha; Ra and Ma. It’s a yoga. (September 14, 1971)

The inclusion of cooling marble is important. “Marble gives you mental cool. It gives you mental cool like a moon, full moon. That’s why Golden Temple is in marble, not that they could not build it of gold, they could” (Yogi Bhajan, December 31, 1985). “Remember what moon is, moon is that which reflects the sun to expansion energy…sun by itself has no expansion energy. If we would not have moon on this earth around, our everything from the very day of seed will remain as a seed, period… Sun by itself is the mightiest energy by which we all live, okay, agreed, but without the moon, nothing. By sun we will be spermatozoas, with perfect brain, talking capacity, sixty eight years and die as spermatozoa or an egg, whatever the case you want to be. There will be no expansion, nothing will hatch, nothing will grow” (Yogi Bhajan, July 9, 1985)

It is our prayer that you too will be blessed to bow your head on the cool marble and expand your consciousness in the light of the Guru.