Visiting temples – Quite common among Indian born Hindus.
Wikipedia says, “The customs and etiquette when visiting Hindu temples have a long history and are filled with symbolism, solemn respect and veneration of Brahma's creation.”
Have you ever thought which would be the best time to visit temple and why ? Yes, you might have… and yes, we would have received a lot of unsaid traditional instructions.
I dismiss my mom’s repeated tutoring ( order or plea, whatever ) of visiting a temple on some occasion or festival .
I hate to move in the crowd. I like to visit temples when I have the privilege of seeing the deity for at least ten mins (whether I see or not , that is secondary) and when I can walk around the sanctum sanctorum as slow or as fast as I wish, unlike, waiting in long queues only to hear, ‘paathaachunaa nadathute irungo’ , on a day that is considered to be very auspicious.
Never mind, how much ever frowns I see in my mom’s face I avoid going to temple on the kubambhishekam day- Could I really survive in all those processes of pushing, ramming, pulling of every human being just to have a glimpse of the kumbha being kept quite a few meters high? I just could not.
One day, my sister called me up and said, ‘Today is panguni uthiram, Thindal murugana pathutu vanthom’ ,
Reply from me, ‘ oh apdiyaa, iniku apo nan adyar ku poi perumala paathutu varen’,
There was just a sigh of surprise on the other end, ‘??!!’ .
My mom asked an explanation for this, but on hearing what I said, she only pitied all the poor souls who are/ going to spend their time with me.
Yes, if it is a day when I have to visit a Murugan kovil, I go to a Perumal kovil. The entire crowd would have gone to the murugan temple, and the perumal kovil will be free of the mass.
These days, IPL matches steal the attention of every single responsible citizen of India who is equally responsible to cast his vote. The political parties whose campaigning should have been in full zeal in the evenings lost the tempo and they are finding ways if they can boost up the support by telecasting the matches before they start the campaigning.
Coming back to visiting temples, you could choose such times, when the roads look deserted with the number of moving cars and two wheelers being minimum, to visit a temple to which you have to travel quite a distance . Enjoy the travel , you need not wait for hours in signals, need not move inch by inch. I do that, I visit temples, which I would have dismissed due to such constraints earlier, sacrificing the pleasure that I would have got watching live the sixes and fours. No, not sacrificing exactly; I have the option of watching highlights, and no matter these days, you get almost every movement of the match in all the private news channels as highlights. For me, the match is just one or two hours later than it actually happened , other than that, there is no much difference.
And those one or two hours, I would have utilized it for a visit to a temple, when most people are devoid of mobility.
He he :) !
I avoid visiting temples on such days:
New years of all geographic calendars
Festivals like diwali & pongal
Shiva temple on Pradhosham
Perumal kovil on Saturdays
Devi temple on Fridays.
Now comes the question, with whom to go to temples? Most often, I avoid going with people whom I don’t know much.
Such times, when I could not go with my family or my close friends, I prefer to go alone. You see, everyone has his/her own way of praying and it is the personal space which should not be allowed to be intruded by anyone else. You should be in that comfort zone , where you are not asked to do anything by anyone. One might chant mantras, or someone else will close his/her eyes and pray or someone else will speak to the almighty..
So if you have someone whom you don’t know much, you will be forced to do certain things, for instance, stand before a God for more than ten minutes where you usually spend five min when u are alone or vice versa. Sometimes, you will have to receive instructions like, you have to come around the sanctum sanctorum thrice , you should fall only before the kambham ..etc.
I hate such …. I go to temple to forget my mortal existence, to realize my inner eternity and to receive subtle messages, often not consciously and to consciously drop off worldliness. When that is the purpose of my visit, I do not want it to be intruded by such kinds of constant nagging.
Visiting temples- they are rituals in fact… they give us the necessary peace and we become as celestial as we can.
Let it be as much as we like it !!
