Two weeks ago I moved into a new family for a short period of time. They are a family of four active Rotarians and South Indian vegetarians, and as I discovered on my first morning, quite religious. They are Hindus, who have a religious practice which they follow for an hour and a half each and every morning. When I first heard this I thought, "Every day? What a waste of time!" But my host explained it as an hour and a half every day during which you see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil, which I thought was a great way of looking at it. They compared their Gods to children, which must be washed and fed every day, while listening to important mantras and chanting, some of which they sing along to.
The ritual begins by washing the previous day's decoration in water out of a copper bowl (everything is copper, because it is a metal which has cleansing powers). Then, he scrubs each of the four silver statues which represent Ganesha (the remover of obstacles), Shiva (the destroyer), a couple who I forget the name of, and one more of their family diety, the Goddess of Power. Then they are all bathed in milk which is considered very pure, and again rinsed with water. The cleansing process being over, they next move on to the decoration process, which begins with flower offerings and red and orange powder being put as a bindi on their forheads, hands and feet. From here commenses the personal prayers and sometimes prostration before the pooja area. It was a very... different lifestyle than what I have seen before, but so cool to be able to witness it.
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