Why Temples ??

This summer my niece and nephew visited our home. Its good to have kids around you sometimes.They look at things in an uncomplicated way ; sometimes even you get a fresh perspective into mundane stuff .. My niece is known for her repository of questions. She can virtually exhaust a person with her barrage of questions. So one fine day, it was my turn at the receiving end. " Why do we need to go to temples?Can't i pray from whichever place I am in?". Now that was a tricky question. I pondered over as to how do i answer this kid so that i do not make a fool of myself ..
"How many rooms you had in your house back in the states?".
"Five"
"What are they?".
"Hall, Bedrooms, Kitchen, Dining Room and the bathrooms".
"Where do you sleep usually?"
"In the bedroom."
"Well, why don't you sleep in the hall?"
"Coz silly, my bed is put up in the bedroom and moreover we are supposed to sleep in the bedroom only !!"
"Well, similarly, temple is a place where people go and use it for worshiping the Gods. For eg, you can sleep in the hall also , but you usually sleep in the bedroom, as every room in your house has a purpose. Likewise, you can pray wherever you are but you are supposed to go a temple, atleast once in a while, as they too have a purpose - to let people come and congregate together to pray and worship the God of their choice.".
After this , my niece became quiet and she did not ask questions for some time. Guess, atlast I made some sense !!!!

Also, at the end of the day, God does not have any form , etc etc .. However, it is very difficult to explain a formless God to a person . Hence, the temple, idol worship, rites, rituals etc etc.. so that he can start to identify God with that. (It's like teaching alphabets to kids by showing their corresponding objects. A- Apple, B-Biscuit etc...) But once he forms the idea of God, he is supposed to go beyond these. The sad part is , however, he gets stuck in those practices ......The idol worship , rites and rituals are not be denounced - they are an important aspect to reach Him - but while one is doing these stuff one should be aware that these are only means to the End and not the end by itself !!!!