Faith In Motion
I find myself nestling on my usual wooden bench 10-feet across the temple on a mundane Tuesday evening. As I make myself comfortable, I allow my gaze to wander around and it chooses to settle on a kid walking in. He removes his shoes and neatly places them on the shoe rack, adjusting them until they’re perfectly parallel to each other. Pleased with himself, in one motion he skittles up the stairs and absent mindedly clasps his palms together and closes his eyes for exactly one milli second.
On the opposite end, a middle aged man with a thick moustache, swiftly walks in with his hands tied back behind his back. Just as he crosses the entrance, his hands instinctively find their way up to his chest and he murmurs a short prayer under his breath. I wonder what each of them prayed for.
I come to this temple quite often, not to pray really but to watch people pray? As a spectator of their faith in motion, I have come to realize that the act of being religious inherently involves a disproportionate amount of give and take. A sense of comfort engulfs me while watching these people emotionally strip themselves bare and surrender completely to God.
We live in a world which functions on negotiations, compromise and reciprocity, so finding unquestioning solace in something is just aspirational for a lot of us. I catch myself feeling guilty about being envious of their unimpeachable conviction in God in those few fleeting moments.
My gaze blurs out of focus and I am mentally transported back in time. Through the bedroom window, I watch my 7 year old self unquestioningly reciting mantras and slokas line by line with my mom just before drifting off to sleep. I neither understood the meaning nor the significance of those mantras, but I’m glad I learnt them. Because now at age 20, ever so often when we sit for a pooja and the words to some of those prayers subconsciously tumble out of my mouth, a piece of myself falls back into place.
All my life, I’ve felt a deep sense of connection with all different places of worship. Firstly, the high vibrational frequency of the location makes itself known. Secondly, I think there are certain emotions which carry a lot more energy in them than other emotions and I believe that faith is one of them.
The sound of the temple gong snaps me out of my internal monologue and I suddenly become aware of my surroundings again. I look around and the display of the range of different expressions of the same core sentiment catches my attention once again. For the young devout in orange, it is laying down on the ground with his hand stretched out in front of him. For the old lady who struggles to climb up the stairs, divinity is just in touching the stone at the entrance. For the women in her 40s, holding her ears and asking for forgiveness gives her strength. For the nonchalant teenager sitting beside me, abandoning her phone for a few minutes itself is an emblem of faith.
The orangish-yellow of the setting sun reminds me that its time for me to leave. As I make my way back to the footwear stand, I see two men standing on the footpath tossing open a packet of biscuits. A pack of ecstatic dogs come charging at them out of thin air wagging their tails vigorously. With a half smirk on his face, one of them cheekily tells the other- “Mera toh yeh hi dharam hai” which loosely translates to: “This is my only religion”. The ambiguity of his statement gives me enough mental fodder to chew on my walk back home.
