Before coming to India, I've been to a few Hindu ceremonies. I didn't realize it at the time, but I guess I never took them seriously. Even at the temple, I never got the feeling that people took the ceremonies seriously. It seemed more like a chance to get together and catch up with people. It was great, I'd see people I wouldn't see that often, get some good food and feel proud of myself for being open about religions.
So now, in India, I'm exposed to people who really take it seriously, everywhere. A few examples:
- When coming home one day, we were held up in traffic due to a huge ceremony walking down the street.
- When I went to Thanjavur (for a different reason) we visited a lot of temples. The people I was with all went around and did all the prayers. I stood around awkwardly.
- My cousin's dad prays every morning. He has a special room to do his prayers. The door to the room has bells on it and as he closes the door each morning he carefully rings the bells many times.
Let me be clear. If someone has asked me directly "do you think Hinduism could be correct" I would definitely have said yes. Intellectually I considered all religions to be be "possible" and insofar as I could tell, no other religion seemed more likely. But when I spent time thinking about religion, Hinduism never really entered my head.
So, I guess I wonder, why didn't I take it seriously before?
A part of the answer definitely lies with the nature of Christianity. Christians are definitely more apt to talk about their religion (since conversion is an important part of the religion) and as a result I observed more Christians than members of any other religion. Even without that, a lot of American culture involves references to Christianity and an assumption that people know about it (see for example: http://www.vidoemo.com/yvideo.php?futurama-robot-hell-song=&i=UWl1V000cWuRpSUxPOGM).
However, another part of the problem has to do with Hinduisms similarity to other old religions that we generally don't take seriously anymore (how many people really still pray to Zeus?). Polytheistic religions with extraordinary stories of the gods coming down and fighting in great battles seem overly strange. Stories of the kings talking to gods, getting boons, using them for greedy purposes, etc... don't fit with the way we think about god. God should be at a level above us, not favoring once side, all loving, etc... At least, thats the feeling I got in the US.
So how many of you in the US have really seen Hinduism as a serious religion? Am I alone in this? Is it possible that I'm over analyzing this and this is a residual feeling from when I felt weird being the only Indian kid in school and as a result rejected all things Indian or am I on to something?
(Yes, I realize the questions at the end imply that people actually read this, which I have no evidence of, but oh well).
