I have not had much experience with other religions besides various denominations of Christianity, so the recent visits to the Sikh and Hindu temples were eye-opening experiences for me.\u00a0 My lingering feelings and perceptions of the two are strikingly different, even though I associate the two closely in my mind.\u00a0 Because I don\u2019t know much about Sikhism or Hinduism, their doctrines seem similar: live peacefully, teach future generations in a moral and religious way, and maintain a relationship with God.\u00a0 The services, though, spurred entirely different reactions for me.<\/p>\n
I found the Sikh temple to be comfortable and enjoyable.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t feel as though a lot was expected of members of their particular congregation (or me).\u00a0 So many religions spend so much time outlining and detailing every aspect of how to be a \u201csuccessful\u201d follower of that particular sect, but this one felt much more relaxed.\u00a0 More of a focus seemed to be put on finding a personal feeling of fulfillment rather than following specific doctrine or dogma.\u00a0 For example, even though I am not Catholic I do attend mass frequently and help lead a Catholic youth group.\u00a0 I know that part of being Catholic (for most parishes) involves carefully following a certain timeline: baptism as an infant, a CCD program during elementary\/middle school, communion as a child, and so on.\u00a0 In contrast, our guide said that there is no specific time to be welcomed into the Sikh family; rather, a child may join the congregation when he feels that it is appropriate, whether as a child, teenager, or adult. I enjoyed the personal emotion and experience that our guide shared in the talk, and I think it was wonderful that his job is not specifically that of a tour guide because it made him that much more believable.\u00a0 Instead of a series of memorized facts, it felt much more individual and real.<\/p>\n
That said, I felt a bit strange as a visitor in the temple.\u00a0 I completely support going for the sake of learning and reflecting, but if I was a member of the congregation, I think I would look at our group almost as if we were mocking them.\u00a0 Since they don\u2019t normally do tours, I think having such a large group dressed in regular street clothes with scarves tossed on haphazardly outside the temple to cover our hair was borderline disrespectful.\u00a0 I feel that smaller groups would have been more effective, since we would not be making such a spectacle of ourselves.<\/p>\n
Again, the following is simply my personal reaction and is not meant to offend: I found the Hindu temple creepy and bewildering.\u00a0 The most striking aspect, to me, was the ornate dolls (is there another term for them?) scattered throughout the temple. Given the nature of my religious upbringing, I looked at them as a form of idolatry.\u00a0 I don\u2019t understand the significance of them, nor do I understand how anyone has the authority to \u201cput the spirit of God\u201d into them.\u00a0 I felt that the concept of one main guru to govern the entire Hindu population was strange and didn\u2019t make sense.\u00a0 How does he objectively know who the next authority should be?\u00a0 If it is subjective, how can he be chosen by God?\u00a0 What if a detrimental ruler is chosen?\u00a0 How can people blindly trust one man when they do not know the logic behind his decisions? \u00a0I\u2019m sure his followers find reasons to unquestioningly follow his choices, but I\u2019m not sure that I would be able to.\u00a0 Even a matter as small as the cost of the temple, shrouded as a secret, makes me uneasy.<\/p>\n
Overall, I learned a lot but I think that my experience was certainly affected by my own religions upbringing and spiritual opinions.\u00a0 I hope to learn more about the aspects of each temple that I did not understand, and am glad I had the opportunity to glimpse the way that such a large portion of the world\u2019s population worships God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have not had much experience with other religions besides various denominations of Christianity, so the recent visits to the Sikh and Hindu temples were eye-opening experiences for me.\u00a0 My lingering feelings and perceptions of the two are strikingly different, even though I associate the two closely in my mind.\u00a0 Because I don\u2019t know much […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[731],"tags":[1484,1483,1123,1485,1122,1486],"class_list":["post-1476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-amy","tag-catholic","tag-discomfort","tag-hinduism","tag-mockery","tag-sikhism","tag-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}