Smells and Bells

It's crazy to think that this class is already over. At this point it feels like the entire semester has gone by so quickly. In my entire time at Wheaton, this was the only religion course that I have taken. It has also been the most discussion based of my courses. I think this was a refreshing experience in the sea of STEM classes that I have taken throughout my time here. While I thoroughly enjoyed most of my STEM classes, none of them have really been about developing new, thought provoking ideas concerning spirituality and the senses. It was a new way to think about the self and my relationship to the world around me. I honestly did not think this class would be as interesting as it has proven to be, nor did I imagine that it would make me think this much. Its sad that we had to spent the last part of the class doing stuff over video call, but I think being able to take the class from the comfort of our own homes allowed for a different atmosphere that we would not hav...

The act of seeing something is almost always depicted as an action taken by the observer on the item being see. To me, it was always about one person fixing their gaze upon something. When I thought about it, I know that it is just our interpretation of different wavelengths entering our eyes, but intuitively it seems more like an active thing on our part.  In Diana Eck's  Seeing the Divine Image in India , I got a sense that "seeing" is about much more than just what wavelengths the rods and cones in our eyes are detecting. The Hindu idea of d arśana  is a much more passive concept than the way I usually think of sight. Instead of something getting looked at by the observer, it is more like the sight is getting broadcast by the thing being seen. To quote Eck, "The deity presents itself to be seen in this image".  I really enjoyed this concept, because it can be applied to more than images of deities or people. One thing I have always tried to do is...