My visit to Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in New Jersey

Visiting temples is not and was never a priority weekend activity for me, but that doesn't mean I don't visit temples. Most of my family is very religious and prefers to visit famous shrines and temples. I have visited many places out of curiosity or to enjoy the architecture and the general feel of the atmosphere. I really liked it when I visited the Ganga ghats of Varanasi, the temples in that city are also good. They can be maintained in a much better way and turned into very prominent tourist attractions of that city, but somehow state and local governments don't think like me. Even without much support and management many of these temples attract millions of visitors every year and help the economy of that place. A few days back I visited the Shri Swaminarayan temple in Robbinsville, NJ. My wife really wanted to visit this place as she heard a lot about it from some of her friends and also saw some spectacular pictures of the temple on social media. 

The temple is really beautiful, situated on very spacious land, with an ample amount of parking space. There is still a lot of construction going on, so I think they are still in the process of building more structures there as there is a lot of empty land around and I am sure temple authorities would like to use it all. People at the temple are very nice and polite, they allow photography everywhere except inside the central part of the main temple. If you are wearing shorts or sleeveless or something like that they will give you a cloth (something like a lungi and shawl) to cover your body. I was happy to see that this rule was not just for women, but for men also. I didn't understand the logic behind this rule, but at least it was not a gender-discriminatory rule. I wonder what will happen if someone enters the temple in shorts or a sleeveless top? This rule was not applied to kids, which made sense as parents would have struggled to explain to them why they had to wear lungi or shawl inside the temple. Inside the temple right in front of deities, there was an empty space for devotees and visitors to sit and pray. The area was divided into two sections, the front section belonged to men and the back section to females. My daughter was not happy to see the females being given a back seat, she was (and even I was) wondering, why didn't they divide the section into two halves which would have allowed each side to get a chance to sit in front of the deity. There was no prasad after aarti, I couldn't believe it, such a posh temple and no prasad after aarti? I love the taste of Prasad food offered at many temples, and most of them give it free after their pooja or aarti, but here it was different. It seems one has to buy Prasad from the temple cafeteria. I liked this business idea, after all, whether it's a temple, church, mosque, or any other religious place, they all are also business centers and have to generate income to maintain themselves. If you understand this simple basic thing, many of their policies make sense.

Our visit was short and sweet. We attended aarti and left for our next destination. My wife was really happy to visit the place and it made me very happy. The kids were also happy to see a beautiful structure and learned some mythological stories while we were at the temple. In general, it was quite an enjoyable trip.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Links:

1. http://www.baps.org/Global-Network/North-America/Robbinsville.aspx

My favorite scene from movie OMG

A few weeks back, I wrote a post about the movie Oh My God (OMG). I really liked this movie and watched it multiple times as I do with so many other movies which I like. There are many scenes that I like from this movie and I feel that they are really funny and at the same time, they comment directly or indirectly on current malpractices, superstitions and fears associated with almost all organized religions. The story of this movie is set in a Hindu family and mainly uses Hindu characters,. This is one of the reason why some people think that this movie was trying to insult, criticize, or make fun of Hindu culture or Gods while conveniently ignoring other cultures and faiths who also have many superstitions associated with them. I think this is the limitation of the medium it seld and not the film. The movie makers intend to comment on the general misuse of religion and the use of God to exploit people but due to time constraints and to add some entertainment value to the movie (after all it's a business and they have to recover their money), there are certain limitations on how much a movie like this can accommodate. Hence one should not see this movie as an attack on any particular religion or culture but should be taken as a general comment about several malpractices that are rampant among all organized religions today. 

The movie delivers a heavy blow on cult movements and all those so-called gurus who try to use people's emotions to sell their own ideas and beliefs in the name of religion and God. Nowhere in a movie script writer or director directly attack or question the existence of God. They only question the methods or the rituals which are used in the name of God. My favorite scene in the movie is towards the end of the movie where the main character Kanjibhai (Paresh Rawal) wants his family to meet with Lord Shrikrishna (Akshay Kumar). He wanted to show them that in spite of being an atheist, God himself came to visit him and helped him to come out of all his problems. By the time he takes his family to the spot where Krishna was with him just moments ago, Krishna disappears leaving that fancy key chain as a token that he used to rotate with his forefinger (like Sudarshan chakra). Kanjibhai realizes the futility of his efforts to show his family members that he indeed met with God. He collects that key chain and starts thinking of keeping it as a souvenir of God. While he is thinking about keeping that key chain with him, the voice in the background tells him to throw that key chain away and not to make the same mistake that many others did, that is, making different idols out of their own imaginations and turning them into God, forcing their own concept of God on others, worshiping idols or that invisible supreme entity rather than showing sympathy and love towards their fellow citizens. Kanjibhai realizes that this is against his principles and also against what he practiced as an atheist throughout his life. He throws away that key chain without any remorse and returns back to his normal life.

This scene delivers a very powerful message. Why search for God in temples, idols, churches, mosques, holy books, or any other place? Why not search for that power within ourselves? It also comments on how all these cult movements turn their founder into another deity and start worshiping him or her. All these leaders of various cult movements might have been very knowledgeable, they found something that gave them peace and happiness, tried to share that philosophy with people around them but their followers created a holy book out of their teachings and made them God and turned them into something divine. They started worshiping them and formed very exclusive groups with different names. In India we have so many of them, in every city, village, and town wherever you go you will find some Guru, Baba, Maharaj, or Prabhu who is being worshiped. This all sounds very crazy but many uneducated as well as educated people are actively involved in these types of movements. I hope that many more movies like this will come in future and try to comment on these type of superstitions in our society which may help us to come out of these cult movements. Movies like this and many documentaries related with this subject try to show us the mirror but only very few of us are willing to look at the image that they show. Most people like to live in denial mode and reject reality. Hopefully, this will initiate some change and we will move towards a more kind, loving, and accommodating world.

Thanks for reading and please share your views about this topic.

(Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing)