Veramayana

After being too intimidated to visit the previous Hindu temple I went to, I decided to join a fellow student and see a different kind of temple. The Vendata Society of New York is the temple we chose to visit in order to witness a Hindu event. Located on the Upper West Side, the temple is just steps away from the park, literally, as you must walk up to the first floor of the brownstone that it is in. Before entering the main room, or actual temple part of the building, I decided to pick up a brochure and schedule for the month of May. The event we had come to see was entitled, “Enlightened Life Through God.”

The temple resembled more of a church, especially when in comparison to the previous temple I went to. There were rows of chairs and a small altar located on top of a platform at the front of the room. On the altar was, as seen previous times before, a few candles, flowers, and a picture of the man which the temple is dedicated to. Many people began to show up and routinely made small gestures towards the photo of this man.

More and more people began to fill into the small space, while an older man was playing songs on a keyboard. Noticeably the crowd was made up of a majority of caucasian senior citizens, however not everybody fit into that category. At one point, the man playing the keyboard stopped abruptly in order to change the sounds from an organ to a setar, or some instrument closely associated with Indian music. After what seemed like 20 minutes of music playing, the man switched off the keyboard, bowed down to the image on the altar and took a seat.

Now, a man dressed in all orange (even socks) began to walk down the aisle and comfortably took his seat to the side of the stage, relaxed, and adjusted his microphone. He began with an ‘om’ then a prayer, then a long pause- or as I was afraid, a small nap. As the man named Swami Tathagatananda began to talk, flashbacks of being in temple as a young girl started flowing through my mind. He talked slowly and quietly; exactly like those who are supposed to impart wisdom are expected to talk. I listened with open ears and an open mind and was surprised to find him talking about many secular issues. I appreciated this approach- combining religion and belief with real world issues. Acknowledging the fact that even those who are devoted to God still must face troubles, sadness, and loneliness. I began to get inspired and the thought crossed my mind that I should probably be a better Jew.

However, the direction I had expected him to go in had taken a decidedly different turn. For that hour that I had sat and listened to this man the only mention of religion I heard was one reference to Rama. If there were a list of things I had expected him to talk about, nothing on that list would be checked off. In contrast, if there was a list of things I hadn’t expected to be mentioned during his service, they would all be checked off; namely: iphones, Jesus, Newtons Theory, and Tolstoy. Perhaps this may sound harsh, but if I had wanted to listen to nonlinear stories that were seemingly unrelated, I could have visited my Grandfather.

I tried to make sense out of his talk, but it seemed as if he was just talking for the sake of talking- or because people showed up to listen. He then began to discuss how Americans are saying “om” and taking yoga classes, but still unhappy. He talked about enjoyment being a trap, and repeated the phrase, “God is your blank” each time the blank being filled in with a noun. Everything related back to God, yet nothing in the room or in this service seemed to justify that. There were no statues, no relics, nothing brought back from pilgrimages to India, no altars to any Gods learned about in class.

My cynicism is partly due to expectations that I personally had when hearing “Hindu temple” and then being let down. It is also partly do to the fact that I am not religious, wasn’t brought up religious, and in many ways turned off by the idea of organized religion. Yet, for some reason I don’t blame all of my negative views on myself. The entire ordeal seemed so Westernized, that I’m surprised it can even be called a Hindu temple at all. The stories being told weren’t like the epic tales read about- where each person needs to derive meaning for themself, because that is usually where the lesson lies. Instead, this older man was preaching about the young, the changing of the world, and devotion to God, in a room of people his age- or older. It must be said that a few members of the first three rows actually fell asleep.

With that being said there is one last thing that I took away from this experience. It is easy to preach to people about things they already know. It is easy to sit in a room full of people who have lived (in some instances) more than three quarters of their lives and to tell them about pain and suffering and how devotion to God will enlighten them and make the end seem more bearable. And, it is easy for these people, who only have a small amount of time left, to choose to come here once a week and listen to speeches that they want to hear. But what is difficult is to know the reality of the matter- which is that in some places of the world people don’t have the luxury or the time to sit and be told how devotion will save them. They are poor, hungry, segregated from their community, and lack any hope despite the hours they spend seeing themselves in God’s eyes. But when they do visit temples it is for a purpose, it is selfish-as it ought to be, and it is personal. This event was none of those things, and was far from enlightening. It doesnt matter what one wears or what religion or cultural identity they subscribe to, because in the end if their going to expound the same rhetoric as everyone else theres no reason to differentiate.