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A Wish Fulfilled I remember when I was little and I used to live in India and I lived around a lot of Hindus. I used to visit them and be so enwrapped in their tales of Lord Vishnu and other Hindu Gods. I used to want to go to the Temples with them. There was this river near my house and across from it was this great big temple, it was built on top of a rock and it was beautiful like a castle. Many evenings I use to go with one of my parents servants to the river and I would sit there on a rock and watch the temple. It used to burn my curiosity to know what they did inside, but I was not suppose to go inside because I was born a Christian and its controversy if a rich Christian girl went inside a Hindu Temple. So because of that I had never had an opportunity to visit the place of worship of a religion I knew as well as my own. I have an aunt who is Hindu who does pooja inside her house. She has a shrine in a corner of her room and I have watched her doing pooja before and it always made think back to when I was little watching the Temple. When this encounter was assigned it was pretty exciting. I felt like I could take care of a childhood wish. My aunt and I planned to go to the Rajdhani Mandir Temple. I actually have heard of it and even used it in my religious scavenger hunt. My aunt thanked me for giving her an opportunity to come to this temple because she had wanted to but never got around it. She has told me unlike other religions, Hindus do not have to go to the Temple and it is up to them when to go. I have done encounters before and usually I am nervous because I am unfamiliar with the place I am about to go. This time it was different because I was nervous in an excited way. We started out early in the morning and I was in a good mood because somebody familiar is taking me. My sister and cousin were with me, which left a bit more at ease. The one thing I was jittery about is the ritual you do in there. I did not want to do anything wrong and look silly. We had worn our Indian clothing to be respectful but you are allowed to wear anything you want. When we reached there, we went into a room where you are supposed to take off your shoes and if your hands or feet are dirty there is a little area to wash them. The one thing I learned is that you are not supposed to touch your shoes when you take it off because then your hands are dirty and you have to wash them, I think that explained all the slip on shoes in the shoe room. There is also a coatroom after we stopped in there we went into the holy part of the temple where all the idols of the gods are placed. We went in and on the left side there was a statue of different deities or representation of Lord Krishna. On the right side there was statues of Buddha and other related figures. Up in front was this great big altar. There were four sets of statues on the left was Shiva, Parvati their son Ganesh and Nani their beloved cow. In the middle were two different sets of statues; one was of Vishnu and Lakshmi and the other was of Lord Ram, Sita, Hanuman and Ram's brother Lakshman. Then there are glass cases of different deities from different parts of India. The first thing we did is go with our hands folded in prayer to each statue and deity and say a little prayer. Then we went to the front and put a offering in the box of whichever set off statues we wanted. My aunt, sister and I put it in Lord Shiva's. I said a little prayer also. Then all of us went around the alter three times. My aunt said that is very significant in a prayer. Then on the right side a priest sat giving everyone that did a prayer an offering back from the gods, which are fruits and nuts. First we went and received holy water from him, this is the water they gathered from washing the statues. We drink it then the rest we put on top of our heads. The priest then gave us some fruits and raisins and put the holy red powder on our foreheads. In conclusion, I could honestly say I learned something new from this encounter. I realized this when I was munching on the offering that I received from the priest and thinking about how fast the ritual was. I'm not used to such a quick ceremony because in my church the ceremonies lasts about two to three hours. This is what I found to be very appealing about going to a temple because there is one purpose, which is to pray and make an offering to the gods and when that is done you are free to go. And the one new understanding I have come upon is that it does not matter how long you spend praying as long as your prayer is heartfelt. |
| Created by Laura Ellen Shulman |
Last updated: March 06, 2005
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