If you have ever taken Professor Einhorn’s Cultural Anthropology class, you are familiar with her unique assignments. All of them require stepping out of your comfort zone and experiencing something completely different from what you are used to. For example, the assignment where she asks to visit a spiritual service of any kind—just not the kind you already know.
Terrible procrastination of this assignment on my part almost made me miss out on a wondrous experience. One day before the paper was due I frantically searched the internet for ANY kind of service in the area that was offered the same day. The Hindu Temple in Sunnyvale came to the paper’s (and my) rescue…
Please read in the following about my one-of-a-kind first encounter with Hinduism—and chai for that matter!
My first impression of the temple was rather sobering. While most Christian churches are recognizable as such from the outside, this temple looked at first glance like a mixture of a single-story office complex and a warehouse. If it wouldn’t have been for the signs in Sanskrit and large shoe racks in front of the entrance, I may have missed it. The shoe racks were another surprise. Everyone who enters the temple is asked to take off their shoes. This made sense as soon as I entered and saw that the floors were carpeted throughout and there were no chairs or pews. The main room was huge, with a wide open space in the middle and altars of different sizes along the walls.
I looked around the altars, each of which had several figures, and sacrifices of fruit, honey, sugar and milk positioned on them. The icons were very colorful and adorned with necklaces, flowers, and golden hairpieces. Many of them also had incense sticks affixed to their bases that effused a sweet smell. The temple was nearly empty, with only the priest, who was busy making phone calls, and a janitor who was vacuuming with an extremely noisy vacuum cleaner. The priest was dressed in what looked like a white sari with a few golden emblems embroidered on it. He had shoulder-long hair that was combed back with quite a bit of gel or oil. I decided to ask the janitor about the Puja that I had hoped to attend, and he informed me that it had started earlier, before I had arrived. I felt quite frustrated and somewhat at the wrong place, so I was getting ready to go home.
However, things changed quite rapidly. The janitor had a hard time speaking English but made a real effort to communicate with me. Eventually he gestured me to follow him into another large hall, just adjacent to the one we’ve been. He offered me tea mixed with milk [my first CHAI!!]—very good, very sweet, and spiced with what tasted like cardamom and ginger—and pointed to a table with chairs, while getting some traditional Indian sweets for me to taste. Several other people came in, sat down with a cup of tea and had some sweets. Among them, an Indian woman in her fifties, who started talking to me in very good English. She introduced herself as “Banu.” It turned out that she was a music teacher from Mumbai, who was visiting her daughter in Sunnyvale. She said that she would come to the temple every day to sing Hindu hymns, and asked if I’d like to stay and listen, which of course, I was delighted to.
I followed her back to the other hall where Banu started singing hymns. She had a strong and clear voice and sang for a good hour, one hymn after the other, every now and then stopping to explain the lyrics to me, which were mostly tales that explained the virtues. While Banu was singing, more and more people entered the temple. After entering the building, each came forward to the main altar of the god Vishnu where a bell was attached about six feet above the ground. Most of the followers rang the bell right as they came up front. Banu explained that this is to make contact with the gods, to let them know “you are here.” One elderly woman in particular drew my attention. She was too small to reach the mallet of the bell with ease, so she took several attempts stretching and jumping until she finally was able to ring the bell loudly. After ringing the bell, every visitor seemed to have his or her own ritual, touching different parts of the altar, alternating with different parts of their face and head. They ended the ritual by bringing their forehead to the floor in a kneeling, some in prone position. Then they sat down somewhere at the edge of the carpet and prayed, meditated or talked to each other.
I was lucky enough to have stayed, as at noon another daily ritual, Aarti, took place which I was able to observe. There were about 20 persons in the temple, mostly older and middle-aged adults, as well as two toddlers. Goal of the Aarti, as most of Hindu rituals, is to receive purification from the gods. The priest started with a hymn. Everybody got up from the floor and came closer to the altar. People took turns ringing the bell very loudly throughout the ritual. The priest took the tray with the oil lamp from the altar and started moving it in circles in the air to the rhythm of the hymn. He sat the tray down and one by one everyone picked up the tray and did as the priest had done. Banu gestured me to follow her up front as she picked up the tray to have her turn. This made me quite uncomfortable, especially when she leaned over to pass the tray to me. She must have seen the slight horror in my face, and offered to do it along with me. I had not expected to be more than a silent observer in the temple, and there I was—an active participant.
Interesting enough, it seemed as if I was the only one who thought that I was somewhat misplaced. Everybody else treated me like I was a regular at the temple. Nobody gave me strange looks or tried to exclude me from any part of the ritual. The service was said and sung completely in Sanskrit, so I had no idea what the hymns and the sermon meant.
Then everybody lined up to receive a teaspoon of water mixed with oil and safran in their hands, as well as a piece of fruit that had been offered to the gods at the Puja before and that were now regarded sacred. Banu prompted me to get in line with her, and so I received those goods as well. People dispersed soon after they had received the fluid and fruit. Some were headed to the adjacent hall for tea and sweets, some went to their cars. I stood outside with Banu for a while and she patiently answered all of my questions before we said good-bye.
During this 2 1/2-hour visit, not only did I learn quite a few details about Hinduism, but I actually experienced one of the key values of the Hindu worldview—acceptance of every living thing. Although I was a total stranger and felt misplaced first in the temple that looked and felt so different, I enjoyed hospitality and inclusion without any further expectations towards me. As I was leaving the parking lot, an elderly woman in her traditional sari was waving me good-bye with a big smile on her face, as did the janitor who was standing on the sidewalk.
I wished all learning would be exhilarating like this!
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