Hindu Prayer for Peace

Oh God, lead us from the unreal to the Real.

Oh God, lead us from darkness to light.

Oh God, lead us from death to immortality. Shanti, Shanti, Shanti unto all.

Oh Lord God almighty, may there be peace in celestial regions.

May there be peace on Earth.

May the waters be appeasing.

May herbs be wholesome, and may trees plants bring peace to all.

May all beneficent beings bring peace to us.

May thy Vedic Law propogate peace all through the world.

May all things be a source of peace to us.

And may thy peace itself, bestow peace on all

and may that peace come to me also.

Ever since my adopted daughter arrived from India, I’ve wanted to understand Indian culture — which, my Hindu Indian friends tell me, is inseparable from the Hindu religion. So I’m going to visit the Durga Temple, a few miles north of Princeton, NJ. Before I go, my friends give me some advice: Wear trousers and don’t wear holey socks; you’ll be sitting on the floor for two hours, shoeless.

I know that Hindus have little congregational worship. In India, the temples are always open for individual prayer. Since that’s not always possible in the US, some groups have started to hold regular gatherings instead.

I arrive at the temple a little before three o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. The building that houses the temple is a modern construction of plate glass and concrete, marked only by a small sign. After placing my shoes on a rack, I enter the natmandir. It is a large assembly room, with wall-to-wall carpeting.

The altar at the far end of the room is low, several feet wide, and about a yard deep, draped with many red, white, and gold cloths and crowded with images of deities and flowers. Over it hangs a large picture of a many-armed god.

I notice the fifteen worshipers. Several children sit at the back, where a young woman is teaching them a Hindi song by rote. They laugh as she encourages them in English. A couple of men are arranging food on the altar; this food will be blessed and served to the congregation as prasad (blessed food). A few women sit before the altar, chatting.

I sit on the floor behind the others, waiting for a formal signal that the service is beginning. In fact, worship is already in progress. From time to time someone goes to the altar and bows. A dome of brown stone, a symbol of Shiva, stands in front of a large metal bowl. Worshipers anoint the image with milk and water.

The women are dressed in brightly colored shalwar-kameez (Indian trousers and tunics) and the men wear Western clothes — button-down shirts with no ties. The children wear dresses over slacks and overalls or tracksuits. I notice that women cover their heads with their large scarves as they approach the altar.

The children come to the front and sing. Then they return to the rear of the room for religious instruction. A man asks them, “How many know the Hindi alphabet?” A woman starts a music tape in the sound system that stands by the altar.

I’m starting to realize that the service will be unlike anything I’ve experienced. People continually come and go. They move about and greet each other, though they tend to sit in family groups. Newcomers bring food to place on the altar, rearranging the images and flowers to make room. Although no one speaks to me, I do not feel unwelcome. No one seems to notice me as an oddity or an intruder.

The children finish their lesson. Some join the adults. Others play tag. One boy stops and stares reverently at the images of deities that hang on the wall.

An elderly woman dressed in white becomes the focus of the worshipers’ attention. The others bow down on hands and knees, one by one. The woman makes a red mark on the foreheads of some. Others have red string tied around their wrists. Some receive both.

Two men remove a checkbook and a stack of papers from a desk that stands behind the altar. Kneeling on the floor, they proceed to reconcile their accounts, talking quietly.

Their care with this ordinary task reminds me of one of the tenets of Hinduism that I understand — every action is sacred. I am struck by the sense of community I feel. Here religion and culture are one. By living as Hindus, they worship as Hindus, sharing their faith and teaching their children by their actions and words. The sacred and mundane are not separated.

Lamps with naked flames are distributed and worshipers pass their hands over them and lift them over their heads. This is ardi, which should, with the blessing and distribution of the food, mark the end of the service. But when I rise to leave, people are still praying. I understand that for Hindus, the temple is always open in the sense that worship goes on continually, as they pray and as they live.