DEredita 1

Matthew DEredita
Mrs. Lucarelli
Comparative Civilizations
9 November 2015
Religious Ceremony

When I arrived at the temple, large statues and an extravagant

pole of gold greeted me. There was a large flight of stairs that led to
the large wooden door at the entrance of the Hindu Temple. The
temple was called the Sri Guruvayurappan Temple. We were required
to take our shoes off before going into the main room as a sign of
respect. After that, we entered the enormous room that housed
multiple shrines of different gods. I was introduced to men who wore
Lungis, which is a cloth used as a piece of clothing, and spoke to the
multiple gods of the Hindu. As I walked around, I saw people praying
to their various gods for their different beliefs. I drank holy water given
to me by one of the worshippers and experienced a Hindu ritual called
Aarti. Aarti is a ritual where you put your hand over a blessed flame
and touch your eyes and then your head. That way the blessing is
passed on to you.
From this experience, I learned that the people who believed in
Hinduism are given a choice on what god they want to believe in. They
show the various gods great respect by decorating their shrines with

DEredita 2
tons of gold. This is because the shrine is where gods figure is placed
so they are celebrated with gold. In addition, I also learned that the
reason for drinking the holy water is that god is giving back to the
people for their donations in the version of blessed water. In addition, I
found out that there is a reason the temple makes you take off your
shoes before entering. It is so one does not bring dirt and uncleanliness
into the house of god as well as a sign of respect. The Hindu temple
was a very interesting place to attend to and gave me a better
understanding on the Hindu people and their beliefs and gods.