Just Let Me Adore You

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Reading about darsan reminded me a lot of my experience with Adoration. According to Christian tradition, Adoration is defined as "a​​ sign of devotion to and worship of Jesus Christ who is believed to be present in body, blood, soul, and divinity, under the appearance of the consecrated host, that is, sacramental bread" (wikipedia.org). It was and is difficult for me to understand how a piece of bread (a wafer, really) is supposed to encompass all of this. Additionally, adoration didn’t make me feel great because it is actually pretty awkward. Typically, people sit or pray in silence which can make it hard to think. I still have trouble looking at Jesus on the Cross in church even though I was an altar server because, in my upbringing, this statue was neither defined as a visual tool nor as an embodiment of the divine, so it really never “did” anything for me during mass, and I just looked at the priest. 


The current and common view/thought/reaction among most religious and non-religious Westerners is that Hindu devotion is wonderful because it is so sensory, colorful, interesting, and exciting. I agree. The only pleasant experience I had with Adoration was similar to this: there was strobe lights, music playing, hand-holding, etc, (this was at a religious conference, which I mentioned in an earlier blog post titled “Jesus Camp”). One of the two main attitudes that Hindu worshippers have about the images they use is that these images are merely devices to help focus concentration because without a visible, sensory form, how can God be meditated upon? From experience, I agree that it’s hard to meditate without anything to stare at, or with just a wafer. It’s much easier to meditate when your senses are active, so I now see these idols as a useful tool to the devotee which has changed my connotation of the word. 


Although this new perspective has confused me about what I have been taught, it also makes me happy that I am taking a religion class to expose me to the ways that different religions use sight and senses in their daily experiences.

Comments

  1. Amanda WellsMay 6, 2022 at 6:51 PM

    I agree! I don't have many experiences within the Christian tradition, but a lot of my family follows the tradition so I've been subjected to many awkward graces before dinner. Just standing there, awkwardly in a circle, listening to grandpa drone on about whatever he'd saying and figuring out whether to close my eyes (which everyone else is doing) or just kinda looking somewhere (when everything is awkward) is agonizing. I couldn't imagine trying to do it in a church.

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