The
Golden Temple of the Sikhs.
The driver
taking me to the temple warned me that it was going to be busy as it was the
“Half Moon” (I thought he said) festival and there would be great crowds. When
you join the throng heading by foot the last few hundred metres through the
narrowing streets of Amritsar individuals approach you with orange and other
coloured handkerchiefs. These, of course, are for the men to put on their
heads, for a price of Rs 10, because you cannot enter the golden temple without
your head covered and your feet bare.
The narrow
street gives way to a huge marble plaza with a line of businesses and a gate.
After receiving a numbered metal disk in exchange for your footwear, you wade
through a cool foot bath into an entry way to the pool and temple itself.
Imaging an ornate marble open air rectangle with a beautiful marble floor
surrounding a clean lake. In the centre of the water is the Golden Temple, a
place where the God of the Sikhs resides. There is an atmosphere of cleaning,
bathing and preparation before joining the queue to enter the temple across a
bride walkway.
I
wandered around being a respectful tourist, taking photos with some of the
other pilgrims and exchanging a few words with those who speak English. I was
not sure what the eating arrangements were so I stayed away but believers are
able to make a food offering as part of the ceremony.
Most
Indians are arrogant and self-focused. The cannot understand who they cannot go
somewhere or do something just because it inconveniences others, sometimes
many. The Sikhs are very different. They are dignified, respectful and have a
tolerance and acceptance of others which forms a part of their very egalitarian
religion.
I
decided to join the group lined up (I hesitate to use the term queue as it was
more a gentle, well organized and safe throng of males and females in separate
lines. The line moved forward in a shuffling wave every new and then. There
were four people all in close tough with me on all sides yet I felt extremely
safe as there was no pushing or trying to establish position or to forge ahead
of others as in the usual Indian crowd. Once I got towards our goal after about
an hour I realized who the crowd moved forward in waves. There were two men
with a velvet covered stick blocking the progress of the pilgrims. Once a group
had moved through, and there were thousands there, and a space became vacant
they lifted the stick (like a limbo dance) and allowed a group through. When it
came down again there was no disappointment or argument. Everybody accepted the
decision of the stick. The whole experience was incredibly well organized and
regulated. There were men in tailored coats with little curved daggers at their
side overseeing everything in a gentle but firm way. I was chatting to a man
from Canada as we approached the temple and a man nearby just raised his
eyebrows and said a word in Punjabi and we both understood that we should be
silent and respectful, prayerful even.
Inside
the temple there was an official, call him a priest, standing over and fanning
with a white swish stick a lump of something covered with carpet. A small
ensemble was playing and people were placing offerings of money through the
railings. Once I had done the same I was politely ushered out and crossed the
bridge back to the rectangle of marble with a huge sense of peace and
acceptance. I am not becoming a Sikh but I am becoming more accepting of the
rightness of a devotion to a God such as they believe in.
In a
small bookshop near the entrance as I was leaving I had a discussion with a man
selling me books about what Sikhs believe. He told me that as we approach death
and the meeting with God we have to be zero. This took me back to my dad and,
as Michelle described it, an emptying of self in preparation for the end of
this life.
There
are lots of details which I have omitted but which combined and interwove to
form the tapestry of the experience; the photos with other pilgrims, the peanut
butter clump of dough in my hands after leaving the temple, the speakers all
around, with devotees sitting glued to their words, the men bathing themselves
and their sons in the pool, the women in their secluded bathing spot, the
variety of people from many places in the world, born in the Punjab but making
their way in many parts of the world.
What
have I learned from the Golden Temple:
The
need for humanity to seek the beyond, a sign of the beyond itself.
The
capacity of people to be confidently different from those around them.
The
rightness of going to places and experiencing things. (Contagious from your children.)
I came
to the Golden Temple in Amritsar and discovered a beautiful place and people
with a fervent belief in a wonderfully loving God. Not a bad find if I do say
so myself.
