Visiting a Hinduism Church

     My faith is Christianity. I choose to go to the BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha in Bartlett IL.  The faith of this church is Hinduism. They call their religious structures Mandir. This one is called Shri Swaminarayan Mandir.

     When I first drove up, the structure was awe inspiring. It is a large white building made out of marble. In front of the Mandir is a beautiful body of water that is dyed blue with a large fountain. There is a marble overpass in front of this fountain that completes the entire look of elegance around this building.

     You have to enter a side structure that houses where people get ready prior to entering the Mandir. There is a dress code for women and men. You cannot have bare shoulders or bare legs when entering the Mandir. I did not read this prior to coming there so I had on a sundress with bare arms and bare legs. To accommodate when people come to visit this Mandir, they provided me with what looked like square table cloths so I could wrap one around my waist to cover my legs and one to wrap around my shoulders to cover my arms. There is a place to put your shoes. No one is allowed to wear any covering on their feet when they enter the Mandir. Everyone is barefoot.  Now I understand why women of Indian decent wear the kind of clothes they do.

     After I was clothed appropriately, I descended down a flight of stairs and proceeded through a hallway that had wall hangings that explained this Mandir, what the Hinduism faith was about and various past people that the Hindus attributed to discovering various subjects like Astronomy, Biology, Medicine and a variety of other subjects. It was interesting how they believe that people from many centuries ago started or discovered these subjects. Some of these areas of discovery we as non-Hindus claim others have discovered.

One of the wall hangings described the Principles of Hinduism. They are:

• Monotheism and concept of Avatar
• Karma and Reincarnation
• Concept of Moksha
• Murti Puja and Devotion

I realized through reading these wall hangings that Hindus strive for Spiritual perfection (brahmarup) through coming to the Mandirs.

     I moved on to the main Mandir and was overwhelmed by the simplicity of the inside. The craftsmanship of all the carvings in marble was beautiful. Each different pillar depicted a different god like body. It was amazing. Everyone just either sat or stood and said their prayers to the god/goddess of their choice. I asked someone what the gods were and they came back to me and explained there is only one god. I finally understood what they meant. They may have 35 million different gods but they are representative of different areas of life. Like wisdom and health. They would be represented by different looking statues but in reality they represent only one god. I also talked with someone regarding Karma and Reincarnation. This religion goes under the premise that you will have karma each life you live through. If you choose to be bad, your next life or lives will represent that. If you choose to be good, you will benefit with karma in your next lives.