English composition (ENG 111) class was part of my course work at the Northern Virginia Community College and the course load involved writing numerous essay assignments. Most of the essay assignments had to be two pages in length keeping with the MLA format, the exception being the the final thesis which had to be seven to ten pages in length.

In the coming weeks, I plan to share a couple of the essays I wrote on the blog. I hope you enjoy this one. *find all ENG 111 essays posted

My Journey: Faith and personal realization

I woke up at 5:00 AM every morning and proceeded to the puja (prayer) room after having a bath. In the puja room, I sat cross-legged in front of statues and framed pictures of deities, burnt incense, and performed arathi, (also spelled aarti, is a light from burning wicks soaked in ghee (purified butter) or camphor, and is offered to the deities) and chanted mantras invoking blessings from the various gods. The next step was to read verses from the Bhagavad Gita (Hindu Scripture). This usually lasted until 6:00 AM, which was around sunrise.

The morning rituals were all that my parents asked that I do before tackling any other activity for the day. My parents were Brahmins (learned caste) belonging to the Hindu religion and as modern as they tried to be, they held close to their hearts the remnants, and altered simpler versions of the many traditional rituals that were still performed by orthodox Brahmins.

I lived in Bengaluru city (India), in a community densely populated by Brahmin families. Attending a catholic school was my first exposure to another faith. The morning assemblies at the school began with singing out verses from the bible. It did not matter what faith the students who attended the school were from, we all sang together.

One of my friends at school was a Muslim boy, and interacting with him and his family exposed me to the ritualistic nuances of yet another faith. I found out that his family prayed five times a day and the women in his house covered their heads with hijab, and covered their faces with a veil, especially in front of men who were not their husbands.

Pursuing further education, work and travel gave me opportunity to meet and interact with people from various other faiths. There were many differences in what each faith preached, which I call the ‘fine print,’ I also found many similarities, especially when viewed in a broader sense. The more I got exposed the less I paid attention to the fine print. The commonality of the various faiths stood out and stared at me; my own beliefs started to change and evolve.

I felt believing in a higher power was just another way of asking for humility. All the things that were beyond my control as an individual could be attributed either to chance or to a higher power. Both would work, as there lacked a clear logical and provable explanation that could be universally accepted. It occurred to me that there could be as many explanations as there were people, each with its own set of fine prints that held its believers to either a moral standard or a way of living.

I realized that I was free in my mind to believe in whatever I wanted. I could either choose from the various faiths and explanations out there, including my parent’s or come up with my own version taking from personal observations, experience, rational thought, logic, magical thinking, or specific aspects of other faith.  It was an exciting and terrifying thought—  I was free to hold anything sacred.