When Design Deepens a Spiritual Experience

I have often wondered how much the space around us really matters when we are seeking a spiritual experience.

One could argue that it shouldn’t matter at all. If the teacher is profound, the prayer meaningful or the meditation deep, surely the surroundings become secondary.

And perhaps, at some level, they do.

But over the years, working with spaces and experiences, I have begun to feel differently.

I think our surroundings affect us much before we consciously notice them.

You enter a room and somehow you know whether you want to stay there. Sometimes you feel comfortable immediately. Sometimes you feel restless without really knowing why. It could be the light, the sound, the temperature, the way people are seated or simply too many things competing for your attention.

The same must be true of a spiritual space.

If I walk into a room for a discourse and the lights are harsh, people are moving around, doors keep opening, cables are visible and there is constant background noise, I can still listen to the teacher. The teaching hasn’t changed.

But perhaps my ability to receive it has.

On the other hand, when you enter a space that somehow slows you down, something happens even before the discourse begins.

Maybe the light is softer. Maybe there is less to look at. Perhaps the sound of the outside world has gradually disappeared. Nobody has told you to become quiet, but you naturally become quieter.

That, for me, is where design becomes interesting.

Not as decoration, but as something that can gently influence our state of mind.

And this doesn’t necessarily mean designing more.

Quite often it means doing less.

We have a tendency, particularly while creating events, to keep adding things. Flowers, screens, graphics, lighting, branding, installations, technology. There is always one more thing that can make the space look impressive.

But does a spiritual experience really need to be impressive?

I’m not so sure.

There are times when a nearly empty space can feel far more powerful than an elaborately decorated one. A single lamp can sometimes do more than an entire lighting installation. Natural light entering at the right place can create something that technology simply cannot reproduce.

Even silence needs space.

I have also started looking differently at something as ordinary as seating.

We tend to think of it functionally—how many people can sit, whether they can see the speaker, whether circulation works.

But the way people sit changes the relationship between them.

Sitting in rows feels very different from sitting in a circle. Sitting close to a teacher feels different from sitting at a distance. And interestingly, there isn’t one arrangement that is always better.

Somebody may feel connected in a circle. Somebody else may feel exposed.

Someone sitting quietly in the tenth row may actually need that anonymity.

So perhaps good design isn’t about deciding how people should feel. It is about being sensitive to how a space might make different people feel.

Technology raises a similar question.

I enjoy technology and I think it can add enormously to an experience. Projection, sound, lighting and immersive media can create extraordinary environments.

But in a spiritual gathering, I would probably ask one additional question:

What do we want people to remember afterwards?

If they remember the projection more than the discourse, perhaps the projection was too powerful.

Sometimes technology works best when nobody talks about it afterwards.

And then there is our own sacred space.

This is something I find even more interesting because here there is no audience to impress.

Most of us have some place at home that has gradually become personal to us. It may be a proper puja room, a small mandir, a meditation corner or simply a particular place where we sit every morning.

How much thought do we give to that space?

We usually think about what should be in it—which deity, which image, which lamp, which objects.

But perhaps we should also think about how the space makes us feel.

What do I see when I sit there?

Is there too much around me?

Is there natural light?

Can I hear the television from the next room?

Does my phone come with me?

Is the space comfortable enough for me to sit for some time without becoming conscious of my body?

And perhaps the most interesting question: does everything in my sacred space actually need to be there?

Over time, these spaces have a tendency to accumulate things. An image from a pilgrimage. A gift from someone. Another deity. Another diya. Another object that carries some spiritual association.

Each one may be meaningful.

But eventually even sacred objects can become clutter.

I sometimes wonder whether a sacred space should actually become simpler as our practice deepens rather than more elaborate.

Perhaps we need fewer things, but things that mean more.

A lamp.

An image.

A flower.

A piece of stone.

A window.

Or perhaps simply an empty wall.

There is something else that happens with a personal sacred space which design alone cannot create.

Habit.

If you sit in the same place every morning for years, that place begins to mean something to you.

You don’t have to tell yourself to become quiet anymore. The act of entering that corner begins the process.

The space and the practice slowly become connected.

I find that quite beautiful.

It also makes me think that we may sometimes misunderstand what makes a space sacred.

It isn’t necessarily marble, elaborate iconography or expensive materials.

Think of the spiritual spaces that have stayed with you.

Very often what you remember is not the decoration.

You remember the coolness of the stone under your feet.

A shaft of morning light.

The smell of incense.

The sound of a bell somewhere in the distance.

A tree in a courtyard.

Or simply an unexpected silence.

None of these things announces itself as design.

Yet together they change the way we experience the place.

Perhaps that is what good design should do in a spiritual setting.

Not try to create spirituality.

Certainly not try to compete with it.

Just make it a little easier for us to arrive, settle down and become present.

Whether that is for a thousand people attending a spiritual gathering or one person sitting quietly at home, the principle may actually be the same.

Create the space.

Remove what is unnecessary.

And then allow the experience to take over.