The Hindu Religion

By: Maninderjit Singh

I have had the honor of being able to
participate in a Hindu church, well a religious
gathering at that. I have been fascinated by the
fact that they had so many Gods, they had a
God of destruction, they have God of creation
and so forth. To me, being a Sikh, my religion
says that that is false, and that there is only one
God. I didnt want to be biased so I thought Id
get the story form both sides rather than just
knowing one side.
I have a friend that is Hindu, and I called
him up one day to ask on what day they
worship. He was kind enough to let me attend
their own private gathering, held in their own
home. So on the day of the gathering, I arrived
at my friends house and they welcomed me
sincerely. As they led me up the stairs, and to
this room. As I walked in I was astonished. The
floor was covered in a white cloth, the room
was quite big. In the middle of the room they
had a makeshift worshipping stand that had the
statues of some of the Hindu Gods, they had
Ganesh, Krishna, Vishnu, Hanuman, and so
forth. They were basically thanking the Gods for
giving them their existence, and how the
superiority was unsurpassed.
Next to the status they had burning
incense which smelled thick and sweet. As the
session started, their father began by thanking
some of the major Gods like Ganesh, Vishnu,
.This part went on for about 10 minutes before
he finally closed. I tried to understand what
they were saying but I only speak Punjabi.
This is when they began to sing, it was
really interesting if fact that they had a thing in
their family that everyone had to sing some
hymn, or lead it I should say. It was a wonderful
sound, the harmonious tunes of the family
combining into a single note was really
extravagant. The hymmys seemed familiar but I
couldnt make out the notes. Once that was
complete we them moved on to what they
called Arti.
Basically what this is, is as the prayers
are coming to a close, each member in the
family takes a turn and blesses the rest in the
family. Now how this is done is by a metal plate
that has sweets, incense, candles and so forth.
How you bless someone is like this. You take
some of the red powder off the plat and press
gently to the forehead of the family member. I
couldnt really get this done to me, for my Patka
was in the way.
Once that was completed, the father
poured some milky substance into our palms,
and as we all stood there with milk in hand,
they shouted some words and we drank. This is
what they call Amrit. After the process was
finished the whole family went to the dining
area we had a grand feast with several kinds of
curries. It was a bit spicy but it was really
delicious, there were an assortment of foods.
This experience was really rich, I hadnt
realized their side of the faith. I was secluded to
my religion. After going to this event my view
on religion quite frankly stay the same. I feel
that worshipping statues is quite false. The fact
that they had so many Gods was a little
overwhelming for me, the practically had a God
for almost everything. In the end if I had the
chance to get to a Hindu church again I would
kindly decline. However the overall experience
was really interesting and I recommend others
to go through the same.