Harmandir Sahab – God’s Own Temple !
Wednesday, October 15th, 2008
Golden Temple, the holiest place of Sikhs in the world, is also know as Harmandir Sahib or Darbar Sahib. The best place to enjoy photography.
Golden Temple is a unique building, which hypnotizes any photographer or visitor of any religion or nation; its mesmerizing, bewitching, spellbinding, magnetizing, enthralling – I can go on till I exhaust my own vocabulary and that of the entire universe. Trust me, a visit to Golden Temple is a soul stirring experience of life time. Whenever I go there and I see any `first time visitor’ to Golden Temple, I see them gasping with reverence at the main entrance gate itself. Where almost all first timers just stop and love to absorb the first glimpses. Trust me, it’s that life time moment and experience, which is hard to forget. Once you have entered the Golden Temple complex, then you are disconnected with the outside world, most people wish if they could spend all their lifetime there and would be very happy to involve with `kar seva’ (anykind of service for cleaning of floor, utensils, Langar – the holy kitchen). All visitors, known as Sangat at Gurudwaras, sit around the holy Sarovar (water tank) `parikrama’ (the banks and the path to complete a circle around Golden Temple) and listen to Shabads of Gurubani. The tranquility is spellbinding for the soul.
The regular visitors, mostly local Sangat, who visit Golden Temple, everyday before they begin for their daily chore, stop at the entrance point after descending the first flight of steps. I see God on the faces of the Sangat which stops at this point, they stand with their eyes closed and hands folded, murmuring words to endorse their wishes and repentance for their sins. I think, they beg to God to forgive them for the sins they did the previous day, lest He punishes. How silly we are, majority of us forget the right way, I think, its to ask for `Satbudhi’ (wisdom to think the right way). If we are blessed with `Satbudhi’ then we will not do anything wrong and no fear of punishment by God. I am sure, this world of `devotees seeking blessings and making wishes’ must be having quite an amazing spectrum of desires of human beings. Most of us, go there and beg for all the niceties of life, comforts, blessings for anything which can make people comfortable and happy and leaders to make other jealous and envious of us. May be, I am no exception to join this practice, I do beg to Him. I do not know whether my wishes are right, I ask to bless me with plenty of `Satbudhi’ to be a good human being, give me work, will to work, keep me honest, keep me healthy to do my work, I assure You that I will work and I am sure You will take care of me. A good religious preaching by spiritual teachers is that if you have faith in Him and yourself, then no need to even utter a word, He will take care, He knows. The root cause of all the troubles to our own life is that we do not have faith in anything, we are always worried and keep making calculations and make wrong projections to ourselves and thus majority are utterly unhappy.
My experience as a photographer at Golden Temple, has been unmatched by any other place on this earth. What I enjoy, apart from the solacing atmosphere, is no restrictions of any sort on anyone, can you believe this! Anyone can enter anytime of 24 hours, no restrictions as long as you respect the basics of visiting any Gurudwara i.e. cover your head, no shoes or socks, etc. Its such a free world at the Golden Temple – total freedom – as long as you are within `maryada’ – the norms. There is no pressure of anykind on anyone to make anykind of offerings, if wish to make then there is no specifications on miimum or maximum. On my travels, I have experienced some nasty things about offerings at religious places. At the Golden Temple, you are free to visit any place of worship, no bar based on caste, creed, colour, religion, etc. Whenever, I have requested any devotee to consent me for a photograph, they happily agree.
How lucky are the denizens of Amritsar! We all may think that they all visit everyday. Alas, we all falter!
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