Yesterday I got the opportunity to go a temple, which ended up being a completely different experience than I expected to be. The temple was an amazing piece of architecture and art. It was massive and seemed to go on forever, and the fact the fact that it was all done by hand 600-700 years ago blows my mind. It's truly amazing when you think about it, the number of structures that are inspired by religion, wether it be Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Christianity or one of the many other religions that have existed throughout our history. I've come to notice as humans, we are a very visually stimulated species(which I guess is a good thing since you know it's kind of one of the most used senses), and with that stimulation comes an artistic side, and from that have come many beautiful things created. But I believe that it is also a downfall, because we are so visually stimulated we are not content to have a something that we cannot see most of the time, we feel a need to bring everything about so that we can see it, which through this unintentionally goes to a lack of faith. I think God designed it this way on purpose so that we have to work in order to get faith, so that it's not something that" just happens."
Due to one of the hospital employees named VijayKumar, knowing one of the temple priests. We got to go through with a guide and avoid all the lines and fees that normally go away with it. While we were in a inner chamber looking at one of the gods one of the priest caught me off guard and put some kumkum on my forehead( Kumkum is the powdery substance that they put on their forehead that makes that dot you see many Hindus wearing). Kumkum is used to show that a person has been to a certain temple. It also represents the third eye, Hindus believe that if you don't cover your third eye someone can steal our power away from you. After it happened I felt horrible, because I'd been warned that they would do it and I wasn't really paying attention. The reason it felt so bad, was that it felt like a betrayal, it was as if I had blasphemed God by just allowing something that is a sign of devotion to another religion to be on my body. I also had the opportunity to ask a hospital employee named Ramachandraiah(who lived as a hindu until march of 2011) and he told me that it was a sign of devotion to a certain God. After hearing this I felt even worse for allowing it to be put on my body.
Many things have happened since the last time I posted. I had Christmas, which was amazing to experience in a different culture where the emphasis isn't all on giving present. I experienced new year in a really different way than I ever have before. What happened for new years here was with a church service. It started at 9:30 P.M. and went until 2:30 A.M. While it was amazing to get to experience this with believers thousands of miles from my home and believers there, I would be lying if I said that it was easy to stay awake for. It was 5 hours of preaching and signing of which I only understood maybe 45 minuets worth. I got to see my first monkey which was alot bigger than I had expected it to be. on all 4 it was about 4 inches higher than my knee and if he had stood up he would have been to about my armpit. At the time I was too dumb to realize that this could be potentially dangerous so I kept trying to get closer until he ran away.
I got to do some exploring in the grounds behind the Hospital which was really neat because all the bush is about is at least a foot taller than I am and sometimes more than that even. I had got a ride from the hospitals jeep about 700 m down the road hopped off and started walking. It was about an hr before I encountered anyone, the only people that were out there were shepherds who didn't speak any english, so in Telugu greeted them as best I could, which was asking them if they were having a good day. The first couple were very happy and smiling the whole time. The last one though kinda scared me. I was lying on the bank of a creek taking pictures after a few minuets I looked up and there was a man standing on the bank which was about 6 feet above me. He was standing there staring at me with an almost angry look on his face. But that's not what bothered me it was the giant machete he had in his hand that freaked me out, I waved to him and tried to greet him, but he just stood there and kept glaring at me so I packed my camera jumped the creek and onto the hospital grounds as fast as I could, which luckily was only about 40 yards away.
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