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  • Essay / Religious Experience - 714

    Experiencing a new religion is opening your mind to an entirely new world. For my World Religions class, I was asked to visit a place of worship of a religion other than the one I was most accustomed to. When contemplating being raised as a pentacostal Christian, the first idea that came to mind after hearing this was for Billy and I to go with our friend Arjun's family to a Hindu temple - given that Arjun had recently moved to attend college, however, he was unable to attend. On Sunday, February 21, Billy and I joined Arjun's father on his trip to the Orlando Hindu Temple. We had to wake up earlier than usual for a Sunday, but it was for good reason. We arrived at the Orlando Temple just before 10 a.m. for a prayer service that's hard to describe. At the entrance there was a shoe area, certainly memorable, which is not the sort of thing you expect to see often in Western places of worship. On one side of the room we next entered were men sitting in almost silent prayer, while women did the same on the other side. I suppose the non-priests' dress was rather surprisingly casual....