Osho answers the importance, meaning, symbolism and significance ringing bells in Hindu Temples.
When you ring the bell of a temple – not half asleep but with alertness – that creates a discontinuity in your thoughts, a sort of break in the chain of your thoughts, and you become aware of a changed atmosphere. There is a similarity between the sound of the bell and the sound of OM; in fact there is some inner relationship. The sound of the bell continues charging the temple all the day long and the sound of OM also charges the temple with its vibrations.
When you ring the bell of a temple – not half asleep but with alertness – that creates a discontinuity in your thoughts, a sort of break in the chain of your thoughts, and you become aware of a changed atmosphere. There is a similarity between the sound of the bell and the sound of OM; in fact there is some inner relationship. The sound of the bell continues charging the temple all the day long and the sound of OM also charges the temple with its vibrations.
No one should enter the temple through that door of
doors without ringing the bell, for only through the sound itself can you
enter. The uniqueness of a bell is that it keeps resounding long after you ring
it, so the resonance keeps sounding as you enter the main entrance. In that
sound alone is the key to your entry into the temple.
Through the sound, as it were, you enter into God's abode.
The temple is a symbol of God's dwelling. When it is sounding constantly you
need not ring the bell, but we have formulated a method with the symbol. When
you return from the temple ring the bell again. You have to
journey back amidst the reverberating sound. All worship, all prayers
start with the ringing of the bell.
The bell in every temple in India or Tibet or China or
Burma, is meaningful in the sense that it reminds you that if you can become as
silent as the bell slowly becomes, after you have hit it – first it
is all sound, then slowly the sound dies – then the soundlessness enters in.
People hear only the sound; then they have not heard the bell. You should hear
the other part too. When the sound is dying, disappearing, the soundless sound
is appearing, coming in. When the sound has completely disappeared, there is
utter soundlessness, and that is what meditation is.
OSHO
OSHO