So, since we’ve all been given the post topic, I feel as though I don’t need to go into the simplistic description of our travels. We saw Sikh and Hindu places of prayer. They were both gorgeous. What is their differences and how are they reflective of the two cultures attempts to integrate into British culture? Looking at the Sikhs, I would say they were looking for acceptance, where as the Hindu guide was trying much more to impress. Both are devices used to gain positioning within a society.\u00a0 I distinctly remember our Sikh guide saying something along these lines: I hope one day people will not stop us at the air port, rather they will say ‘oh hey, he’s a Sikh, he’s ok.’\u00a0 Sikhism in general is a younger religion than Judeo-Christian faiths and Hinduism. With this, it is often forced out of public eye and understanding. For this reason, they are often left to get whatever cultural capital charity they are able to get.\u00a0\u00a0the Naara\u00a0Mandir was also looking for a piece of the British-cultural pie, but they have gone about attaining it in a very different way, despite the fact that they came to England initially around the same time.\u00a0 Almost like the girl who punches you when she likes you, the temple seemed to me to be attempting to out do British structures in order to gain their respect. If I heard another comment about Italian marble or how amazing the whole thing was, I may have just laughed. Further, I thought the way that the temple was presenting Hinduism was simply a way to cater towards Judeo-Christian understanding. Hinduism comes from Vedic traditions, and by nature is not a singular religion. While they are all relatively accepting of each other, there are many distinct traditions far beyond what the Mandir was expressing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Possibly too bold: the Sikh’s looked to intergrate through submission\u00a0(BBC mentions cutting their hair,\u00a0putting down their sabers) while the Hindus looked to intergrate without compromise. Strangely enough, it has worked for the Hindus. Overall they have gained respect\u00a0much more far reaching than that of the Sikh.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
The few other Hindu temples I have been to have been quite a bit less opulent. This may simply be because of the focal-point nature of the Mandir. Ali\u00a0and I both went to a small\u00a0Hindu farm where monks lived and worked together to\u00a0live and\u00a0pray. At the farm, the only sign of riches at all was a small pillar\u00a0filled with\u00a0donated trinkets. And even then\u00a0the trinkets were out of sight.<\/p>\n
The one thing I noticed about both\u00a0religious\u00a0groups, Sikh and Hinduism, is that\u00a0have both been greatly affected by globalization (not necessarily from an English influence).\u00a0Comparing the Mandir to an Indian village, where there may only be one TV for the whole community, is quite startling. Also, the concept of a global leader is also a fair new concept– relative to the existence of Hinduism that is. But I think the world requires that of religions these days; the Other needs\u00a0a Dahlia Lama or Pope. The Other needs a hierarchy to categorize and compartmentalize. Even the name Hinduism, is silly. Hinduism was the name given to the people of the river valley, an umbrella term that described hundreds of tribalistic beliefs.<\/p>\n
Onto the articles… Sikh’s using the Internet to find\u00a0mates makes perfect sense.\u00a0What better way to cut\u00a0away the physical\u00a0attraction than through having emailing dates.\u00a0 You get all the perks of talking to someone and learning about them, without the issues of false attraction and dating. The concept of sexual abuse in a religion preaching sexual suppression is not unimaginable.\u00a0 Look at Rumspringa in the Amish community. When you push and ignore any aspect of a person’s psyche, it just enforces a person’s need to let it out. Why do Amish kids go out and drag race, do coke and who know what else? I would wager it is because they know they can’t otherwise. In many conservative religions, people are more likely to go to extreme sexual lengths when they do actually go about having sexual experiences.<\/p>\n
Anyway, cheers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So, since we’ve all been given the post topic, I feel as though I don’t need to go into the simplistic description of our travels. We saw Sikh and Hindu places of prayer. They were both gorgeous. What is their differences and how are they reflective of the two cultures attempts to integrate into British […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[734],"tags":[1214,1123,1190,1192,1191,1157,1193],"class_list":["post-1533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-andrew-r","tag-bbc","tag-hinduism","tag-mandir","tag-online-dating","tag-sexual-suppression","tag-sikh-gurdwara","tag-vedic-traditions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1533","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\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}