Smells and Bells

As we read these accounts of how different religious traditions and experiences are enhanced through certain senses, I’m reminded that each of these sensory avenues alone is not enough for a complete understanding of a religious experience. I find myself thinking, what is Islam like for a deaf person in Indonesia? And now, what would it be like to be blind in India? I know none of these readings advocate for one sense to be used and considered over all the rest, but the more they talk about how important images and sight is for Hindus in India, the more I think about how exclusive it could be for people who are differently able. I am exceptionally attuned to issues having to do with seeing because my dad is nearly blind. I find myself reacting when I read things like “Not only is seeing a form of “touching,” it is a form of knowing” (9). I know this to be true through my dad’s experience. He can’t tell when someone across a room is trying to make eye contact with him, and he can’t ...

Earlier in the semester I got to go to the sri lakshmi temple with professor Timm. This was the first time I had been to a hindu temple in a more formal setting. When I was younger I went to a few when  I was in india, but i did not look at them very closely, and actually found them very boring at the time. Now that i am studying religion, and understand Hinduism more the experience was much deeper. the most interesting thing to me is looking at the gods in the temple once you observe your mind of the duality between you and any particular god. When you look at the gods with an understanding that they are not really different or separate from you in any way their image hits you in a much more profound way. I was specifically drawn to Ganesh, as I think many people are. To witness him, and have him witness you really does give you a sense of empowerment, after being to the temple I felt much more able to overcome some of the stresses in my days.

Different religions relate to the sense of sight in different ways. In Diana L. Eck's book Darsan: Seeing The Divine Image In India  she compares and contrasts the difference between the traditions in the east and the west in relationship to sight. She writes that western traditions who have a propensity to hold God as something separate from what we can see condemn practices such as darsan that worship of a deity through sight. In contrast Eastern traditions tend to believe that one can see and be seen by the deity, a manifestation of God, because God is in all things. The investigation of worship through sight in Eck's book has been truly illuminating and inspiring. It is especially fascinating to me in the context of Buddhist philosophy. Hinduism and Buddhism have many things in common. For example, the concept of every person having the light of God within them as referenced by the greeting Namaste corresponds to the buddhist principle that all living beings have Buddha n...

After our class on Thursday I felt that I did not grasp the concept of Hinduism and its deities. After a fair bit of online reading I came to realize that there are several basic principles: karma, reincarnation, dharma, and all pervasive divinity. Karma is the idea that good intentions and good deeds contribute to good karma and future happiness, while bad intentions and bad deeds contribute to bad karma and future suffering. Reincarnation is the idea that the body may die but the soul is transferred or reborn, into another body until it is let out of the circle of death and rebirth and transcends.   Pervasive divinity was defined in the video A Short introduction to Hinduism posted by BhahavadGita: “All worship the one all-pervasive supreme being…God is unmanifest, unchanging and transcendent; the self-god: timeless, formless and spacelss . As pure consciousness, god is the manifest primal substance of pure love and light; flowing through all form, existing everywhere time ...