India 2012 ~ Day 10

This morning we are headed out to see temples.  Naraynan is coming to pick us up at about 9:30 and we’re off!  I’m excited to see parts of the culture that I’ve never seen before.  On Kaila’s last trip, she took a day with some folks from the office and visited several small temples and really enjoyed it.  At this point, I’m going to admit my ignorance to eastern religious practices.  I don’t know all that much about Hinduism or Buddhism or Islam, but I believe they all have sincere pieces truth and divinity to them.  All of us need something to believe in.  Be it one God or many gods, symbols or idols, saints or supreme beings who can help us find faith in ourselves and hope in this life and (for some) their lives yet to come.  I believe that all religions are based in a need for something that provides a sense of self, a sense of purpose, a sense of direction and a sense of belonging.  Everyone has their own version of what this means to them.  Whether we label ourselves as Christian, Hindi, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, Pagan, Atheist or something else entirely, we all believe in something—and that makes all our views and opinions important and valuable.  Sometimes I think we allow our differences (be they religious, political, cultural or otherwise) to drive us apart.  I wish more people could see that it’s our differences that make each of us so special.  It’s our differences that are supposed to bring us together.  It’s out differences that should help each of us to find a better appreciation for who we are, where we came from, why we’re here and where we’re going.  We should be seeking out and looking for the differences in others and finding value in them, not passing judgment because they differ from our own personal beliefs and understandings.  Life is too short and there’s far too much to see and learn and appreciate in this world for any of us to stay confined to the arm’s length reach within the comfort zone of our own personal bubbles. 

Anyway—enough of that.  Back to travels! 

Disclosure:  For anyone who is knowledgeable of or practices the Hindu faith… please forgive my ignorance or anything that may be offensive in the following paragraphs… I really have no idea what I’m talking about.  Just recounting my experience.  I am however, interested in learning more just for the sake of feeling smarter. 

Temples!  Today we have a new traveler with us.  Her name is Lori and she’s a friend of a friend of Shali’s here in India for business.  Very nice lady.  Apparently she’s had somewhat of a traumatic experience thus far on her trip and the colleagues she is traveling with have pretty much left her to her own devices so we’ve adopted her for the day cuz we’re nice like that.  :o)

As we leave White Field heading into Banglaore I notice a sign on the left side of the road that says “This property belongs to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”  Just past the gate of the property I can see the very familiar shape of a chapel being built.  The building is all concrete; white with tan trim.  It is a very small chapel by US standards, but it’s definitely there all the same.  It’s extremely odd to see walls surrounding the structure and a gated entrance (every LDS chapel in the states has a sign posted either on the building itself or somewhere on the property that says “Visitors Welcome”).  Its existence is absolutely undeniable.  I’m reminded that no matter how far away from my family I am; I’m never far from my roots.  And it doesn’t matter where in the world I am, the presence and foundation of those roots are exactly the same.  I feel a little hug in my heart and I know she pointed it out because she wanted me to see it.  Ok—stop it—there’s NO crying in baseball… if you cry then I’ll cry and we’ll all just be wet and it’s already raining so the tears are truly unnecessary.  J

The first temple we come to is ISKCON Temple.  ISKCON stands for International Society of Krishna Consciousness.  It’s HUGE!  As I understand it, the largest temple in Bangalore.  Gated entrance, security, guided parking; clearly a common stop for many visitors.  No shoes allowed on the grounds at all, so we take them off and leave them in the parking lot with the car.  It’s been raining all morning. Once we cross the street the grounds are all tiled in white marble or granite; I’m sure it’s native stone of some sort.  We make our way through the maze of touristy “Disney-esque” railings to the place where we pay for our tour—slipping and sliding all the way.  I almost died more than once… I’m still impressed that we made it all the way through without any of us falling or breaking anything.  I think it’s a Hindu temple.  There are lots of stairs and a couple of smaller buildings leading to what looks like the main temple.  I’m guessing we are about to wander through a progression of worship to various gods.  We made 2 stops on our way up the stairs.  I wish I could have taken pictures or that I had thought to bring paper and pen to write down their names as we looked at each one. 

There were two stops on our way to the main temple.  There were people praying in both of the pavilions.  We kind of felt like we were intruding a bit… Once we got to the top they guided us to a mat on the right side of the room.  We sat and observed all of the people moving through who were there for worship.  Very cool to just sit and watch everything happen.  There were ‘monks’ if that’s what you want to call the… men in what appeared to be ceremonial orange toga-ish style apparel with monkish kind of haircuts; shaved all over except for one patch at the crown of the head about the size of the base of a 20oz coke bottle that had been kept long and tied in a ponytail-ish kind of moment. 

We observed for about 15 minutes and then we were invited over to a table where they had us hold our hands over a pan of flower blossoms.  We were each asked our name and then the ‘monk’ guy said a chant/prayer.  When he was done he said we and our families had been blessed.  He was talking so quietly that I couldn’t really understand much of what he said in English.  Only reason I know he asked for my name was because I wasn’t the first person to answer the question… lol  Once he was done, we were guided over in front of the ‘main stage’ area where the main statues were displayed and where another of the monk guys was chanting.  We sat and watched for another short while.  Not gonna lie—we were all making comments about the costumes on the statues; i.e. which one we liked best…  lol  we couldn’t help it.

Anyway, we were finally invited to come up right in front of the monk guy who was chanting on the ‘stage’ in front of Sri Radha Krishna-chandra (I remember that one because chandra is very similar to champa which means “sandalwood”... I bought some sandalwood incense in Mysore and the box says ‘champa’…  lol  don't judge me or my methods of remembering things... it doesn't have to make sense to you... lol).  Mr Monk Guy repeats another chant moment and then we are excused.  We end the ‘service’ by walking past a torch-type-moment-thingie and waving our fingers over the flame three times.  After each time you reach over the flame you touch your face, once to the forehead and once to each eye.  This is the part where we should have just booked it to the exit, but we did as we were told and walked around to the back of the ‘stage’ area.  There was another monk guy there—three of them, actually.  They sat us down at a table and started talking about the ISKCON organization, and I immediately knew it was a sales pitch for donations.  I don’t think any of us wanted to be rude and just get up and leave.  What they do to further awareness about Hinduism and hunger in India is great.  But it totally threw off the groove of the whole meditation/spiritual experience for me.  I was disappointed.  They did give us a chant card.  It’s a mantra you’re supposed to repeat 108 times every day to help achieve inner peace and get rid of stress in your life.  It goes like this: 

Krishna Hare Krishna Hare (‘Hare’ is HAH-ray, you’re supposed to kind of roll the ‘r’)

Krishna Krishna Hare Hare

Rama Hare Rama Hare (‘Rama’ is RAH-muh, again rolling the ‘r’)

Rama Rama Hare Hare

Then from there, we go back around through the area in front of the stage and to the sales area where they had all kinds of books and stuff for sale.  Part of the ticket we bought included a free or discounted copy of a book written by His Divine Grace Mr Too-Many-Letters in his name to remember or pronounce.  We got stopped for another 15 minutes for another explanation of how the Science of Realization something something would bring absolute inner peace and contentment.  I might have been ok with the message, accept that it seemed like he repeated himself 16 times.  So we get past preacher man with our one copy of the book and we start through the maze of counter after counter of concessions and souvenirs.  At the end of all that, there was a meditation room where they invite you to sit and chant.  They give you a string of wooden beads to help you keep count.  There’s a red tassel and 108 beads.  You start at the tassel and chant once for each bead.  I did it for a few minutes… kind of helped me get back some of the groove from before the sales pitch. 

Ok—so we’re done at ISKCON.  It’s now late enough in the day that all three of us are starving so no more temples for us.  We head to the mall for some food and a little shopping which was fun.  Malls are a great place to people watch… and anyone who was watching us was probably fairly entertained.  LOL

Later that night, I met up with Shali.  We went to Lakshmi’s house for dinner.  So yummy and so fun!  Good food, good people, and good laughs!

Tomorrow is the wedding!  Should be a blast!!!  Definitely looking forward to it.  :o)

It's been raining for a couple of days... so much water everywhere!

very cool parking lot moment... all these cars are parked on the same 'level' but the ones on top are on lifts.  Thought it was kind of cool.

And then I said "Kaila-- Give me you're best 'Surfin U.S.A.'"  and she did... cuz she's awesome like that.