It is human nature to worship god, and the place he worships is called a temple. Temples are not necessarily big expensive buildings, but could be anywhere from a small place under a tree or an ordinary shed. A place where people meet to serve one single purpose: to worship God.

God has said that wherever there are five devotees, "I am always present." God is pervading and therefore the universe is a temple. The educated, intellectual, and spiritually advanced man has always known that. Everything in this universe is a temple and all the life in it is a representation of God. Such is the vastness of the truth that our saints have said, yet humans do not feel this or execute that everything is God. Man is a very forgetful creature, and to remind him of divinity, he has to be assigned a place to worship.

A temple has a deep meaning, but due to the idiosyncrasy of man its true value has been forgotten.  Today huge, expensive buildings have become an instrument for feeding the egocentric ways of the builders, the donors, the sect, and the people who follow them blindly. An ideal temple is one which does not propagate pride either of an individual or a group of people who discriminate according to their beliefs or sect of religion.

By going to the temple or a holy place one does not necessarily become holy or pure. It is up to each individual. If you are good recipient then you will take advantage of the divinity the temple has to offer. A thief will verily go to the temple to meet his demands and remains a thief only.  If one goes with an attitude of merely fulfilling his duty towards God or himself and does not attain any peace with himself -- overcome pride, jealously, greed, lust -- then he is deluded and wasting time.

-- Swami Radhanandaji