'In the Gorgeous East: The Entrance to the Golden Temple, the Glory of Amritsar',
1906 Photograph, Herbert G. Ponting (1870-1935). Toor Collection.

Forget that the Golden Temple, Amritsar, Punjab is the most beautiful building beyond the imagination.  Forget that it is considered the Heart Chakra of this planet, probably the only place in the world where there is constant recitation of sacred texts and the name of God on everyone's lips 24/7.  Forget that this thread of daily, nightly, minute-by-minute devotion has been spun unbroken for centuries.  Forget every photo you've ever seen of it in your local take-away.  Forget all that.  

From that moment when you first arrive at the whole Golden Temple Complex, leave your shoes in the 100% reliable filing system, wash your feet in prayer saturated water, and then walk through the thought-bleaching, nirvana (beyond colour) inducing, glaringly white marble and down the steps to bow, head down, everything begins to shift.  Then the moment.  Slowly raise your eyes to behold there, nesting like a golden goose floating on a vast expanse of inky black water, is the very essence of spirituality, the inner sanctum of the Golden Temple, the embodiment of prosperity on earth: the perfect harmony and balance of the sun-gold and the moon-milky white floating in the infinite universe.  

This is not a building you enter; it enters you - at a cellular level.  It is the material manifestation on earth of prayers and meditation, the alchemical transformation of thoughts into the collective psyche.  Come to walk, sit, pray, meditate, serve; it doesn't matter, the outcome will be the same.  Here is the place of self-transmutation.  

Originally this was, way back when, a pond in the middle of the forest.  Over time the word got out about its healing powers and meditational frequency.  Pilgrims - once in a lifetime or daily -  plied it with reverence and devotion until finally we have the gold and marble complex we see today.  The foundation stone for this Sikh temple was laid by a Muslim.  There are four entrances symbolising that all are welcome from all four corners of the earth and all castes.  It's inclusive, casual, intimate, immaculately clean.  Actually it's home. 

Its journey through time is revealed in a wonderful new show at SOAS, London, called The Golden Temple: Reflections of the Past, the first such exhibition on this important building vital for our future.  It raises some very significant questions which only you can answer.  How do you approach somewhere sacred?  

We've become immune to the sacred somehow in this country.  Stonehenge is inaccessible, either encased in barbed wire or overpopulated with bingeing students on key astrological dates.  Our grand cathedrals and abbeys are probably some of England's greatest tourist attractions, ranked in lists which include Alton Towers, regularly filled to overflowing with gawping rubber-neckers who would no more genuflect than leave without a souvenir from the gift shop, conveniently positioned near the exit.   We've become used to big draw exhibtions at our museums where we shove, stand and stare to marvel at the workmanship of natives, then gossip about those bizarre rituals over coffee and a slice of that-will-do-nicely-thank-you in the cafeteria.   

49_Golden_TempleThis question was the one that nearly floored me when I was living in Anandpur Sahib, a small village renowned as the home of the 10th Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh, on the far side of Punjab from Amritsar.  I was teaching a large class of 16 year-olds at the local school when I, somewhat bravely or foolhardily, told them they could ask me any question they liked, as long as it was in English.  Finally, rearranging their three desks and chairs and the one dictionary so that they could discuss it, after 15 minutes the most pressing question on their minds was put to me: "is it true that in England people wear shoes in Church?"  

Your feet are your most powerful tool in prayer.  They carry your intention; they receive the Earth.  How you walk defines you and your relationship with the world.  These young people knew that, in fact they had known it since before they were even born because their mothers walked and prayed barefoot daily in the local Gurdwaras.  It is those very prayerful feet which have cleansed the marble around the tank of the Golden Temple until its surface is as soft and giving as royal icing.  

The organisers of the Golden Temple: Reflections of the Past have produced a stellar exhibition which is the next best thing to a visit to the real McCoy in India.  They have represented here the past, the record of the building's travels through time.  How do you present yourself to be a reflection of that?  

As luck, or rather happy coincidence, would have it, the Brunei Gallery at SOAS is similarly lined in white marble.  Of course, it's entirely up to you what you do (just as it is at the Golden Temple - although do remember if you visit in Amritsar that it's a general sign of disrespect to leave your head uncovered and to point your feet at the Guru Granth Sahib).  But everything changed for me at this exhibition when I simply removed my shoes, felt that marble and gazed lovingly at these utterly beautiful images of beauty beyond words.  

"Visit India" poster showing the Golden Temple of Amritsar, c. 1935-40The Golden Temple is notoriously difficult to photograph well.  Herbert Ponting's one here is particularly eye-catching taken a few years before he went off with Scott to the South Pole.  Then there are watercolours filled with the dreamy headiness of the place, evoking its ethereal music (always better during the night when that fiendish tinny loudspeaker is defunct), the splash of carp-tails, and the rustling of the starlings, by eighteenth century visitors who - and you can just tell from the lightness of their brush strokes - were uplifted from being tourists to pilgrims.  There's also one little gem of a small golden picture of one of the Sikh Gurus, over three centuries ago, meditating in that opulent little building in the centre of the womb-like tank which held me captive.  How deeply it sang in my soul.  

Lest you think that this is just art on the walls there's lots of other stuff in the cabinets which illustrate what lengths the Sikhs have gone to to defend this sacred site.  The model of the kneeling warrior most summed this up for me.  I recreated the posture on the floor next to it when I realised that its left knee is raised instead of the more traditional right.  Intrigued I asked Nidar Singh Nihang, who was of course there for the opening, why this was.  What then followed was the most fascinating impromptu demonstration, not an intellectual pontification but a physical experience, of the relationship between our warrior and spiritual selves.  That was an immense privilege, the sort of unexpected thing that happens when you're around the Golden Temple.  He's one of many speakers at the lectures which are running in parallel with this exhibition; if I were you, I'd definitely be coming along to those too.  

Back in the day of our great-grandparents, visiting the Golden Temple was one hell of  a journey from here.  Even when I first visited in 1995 it was a two day slog from Heathrow via a hotel in Delhi, culminating in the long never-on-time train journey north.  But how I loved that final leg as I sat on the running board with the paradise of the northern fertile plains unfolding before me, punctuated by farmers tilling the soil with their ox-drawn ploughs.   

Now though you have other options: either come to SOAS, or wait until September when BMI, one of this exhibition's many sponsors, start direct (and hopefully that means non-stop) flights to Amritsar.  Either way you're going to need the book written by Amandeep Singh and Parmjit Singh to accompany this exhibition.  To date I've yet to find anything which approaches a guide book to the Golden Temple.  The only guide you need is where it and you come from, and how you will be on leaving it. 

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