Author Archives: esthefany

Last Friday I made my first official visit to my designated Hindu Temple. It is called Vedanta Society of New York, and it is affiliated with the Ramakrishna and Ramakrishna mission. Its headquaters are in Belur Math (Howrah district, West Bengal, India), but they have 171 branches in India and different parts of the world, including Japan, South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, among others.

The Ramakrishna order was found on the ideas of Vedanta, following the lives and teachings of Sri Ramakrishna (1836-1886), and his disciple Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902). Vedanta Society of New York is the first center started by Swami Vivekananda in 1894.

Vivekananda was the first teacher of Vedanta that came to the west. He participated in the World Parliament of Religios of 1893, and after the Parliament a group of American students interested in learning about Vedanta started their inquiries. The first Vedanta Center in the West started in New York City, at 33rd street in Manhattan.

Vedanta teaches that men’s real nature is divine, and how to manifest it trough every action and thought. Also they try to spread the idea of harmony of religions, because all religions lead to the realization of the same reality. Swami Tathagatananda is now the spiritual leader of the Vedanta Society of New York since 1976.

My visit to this temple was an unique experience, different from what I had in mind. First, I knocked on the door (not knowing if it was appropriate to just walk in), and a man with Indian features and regular clothes opened the door (I was expecting someone with costume Hindu clothes.) and invited me in. I explained who I was, and he invited me to come into the room. It was an appartment house, and the first floor was made into the worship place. I was so nervouse that I just walked fast and grabbed the first sit I found. After I was sitted, I started looking around. The first thing I notice was that I still had my boots on, while the other people were in socks. I didnt know what to do. I didnt see a place to put shoes in the intrance. I wanted to hide my feet so bad, but then I nocite there was another woman with her shoes on, so I felt better.

All the way in the back of the room there was an office like setting, with a desk and shelfs for the books. After that there was two rows of red chairs, and in the middle a long carpet that ended right in front of the altar. The room wasnt too big, I think it could fit up to 30 to 35 people. In the altar there was a picture of Sri Ramakrishna, sorounded by candles, flowers, and incense. On the right side of this there was a chair for the swami to sit down on Sunday services, and on the left a space to read.

On the right wall close to the altar there is a picture of the Holy Mother Sarada Devi (Sri Ramakrishna’s wife), and on the left side there is a picture of Swami Vivekananda.  On one of the walls there is a scripture from the Vedas:”Truth is one: sages call it variously.”, and on top of this scripture there are the symbols of the five major religions, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, and Christian.

There was about 10 of us there. I dont know if it is because Vedanta is open to all religions but only 5 of the people there had Indian features, the rest were White, and I was the only Hispanic.

People started singing a song guided by a monk in orange clothing, who was sitting on the floor on the first row. He was singing and at the same time playing an instrument that I couldnt identify, because I couldnt see it from where I was sitting. It sounded like a flaut, but I dont think he could have had been playing a flaut  and singing at the same time. I saw there was a book of songs in front of each chair so i grabed one to try to follow along. The song wasnt in English, so I couldnt understand what they were saying, but I tried to follow in the book. The only thing I understood was that the song mentioned Ramakrishna. After a little while a white man came and joined the monk on the floor. He took out some kind of drums and started playing them acording to the song. This new sound gave more life to the song, it sounded like those Indian songs you here on TV.

After the song was over the monk got up went down on the floor in front of the altar, got up and turned off the lights.  At the begining I dint know what was happening, but then I realized it was meditation time. Everything was so quiet, I didnt know what to do, so I just stood there. After a while people started getting up, and showing respect to Sri Ramakrishna, getting down on the floor in front of him. Not everybody did it, but most of them did.

I waited for most of the people to leave before getting myself together and getting up to go. It was a unique experience, and even though they were very nice a

I have contanted my temple and they agreed to let me do my research there. They didnt even sounded sorprise, they were just like oh ok, that was interesting. I thought they were going to start asking me questions, but they didntnt. They even invited me to the sunday service.