Tampa, Hinduism and Maha Shivarathri

When I came over to US, I was told that there would not be much of a difference in terms of availability of typical Indian utilities and infrastructure. Specifically, I was told that there are too many temples out here and I wouldn't miss any religious portion of my life. Being quite (or should I say a lot) religious, that was a pretty good news to me but I wasn't sure about the authenticity of the information.

My doubts were shattered to bits when I came into Tampa, Florida. It had (and still has) this beautiful little temple that impressed me a lot. (There's quite something to talk about the general life style too but I'll do it in a separate post.) Situated at Lynn road, about 15 miles from my home, this temple has now become a part of my life here. The first thing that impressed me in this temple was the divinity in the vigrahaas (idols). I've been to other temples in US where the vigrahas are disproportionate or dull preventing you from concentrating on the Godliness aspect of the vigraha. After all this associativity is why Hinduism follows idol worship and once that is broken, everything else is gone!! But the deities in this Floridan temple are so divine that you feel like visiting some ancient traditional Hindu temple in TamilNadu. Save a few basic things like aahama shashtra or the strictness in rituals (which has to be compromised when building a temple in a foreign land under so many regulations and people adopting such a different culture), this temple has the positive spiritual vibrations that any divine source of energy has!

Mahashivarathri this time was a classic example for the in-home comfort this temple offers me. Staying there the whole night, blessed with the boon to watch the Abishekas and poojas done to Lord Shiva throughout the night with a scope to share some of my thoughts on the scientific backgrounds of Hinduism, and understanding the background of Cambodian temples was a blissful experience; not to mention the 2 hour quiz on Hinduism where the devotees were questioning each other on the interesting aspects of the lovely religion. In short, the Mahashivarathri this time in US was one of the most spiritually focussed moments in my life and it was not just a night where I stayed awake and discussed gossips and politics; but a night when I was given the boon to focus purely on Hinduism, spirituality and Lord Shiva!