We visited a few temples which were wild. It's definitely different to experience these temples when you have an idea of what's going on. Most of it is still way over my head, but at least I can now explain why people bring money and coconuts and whatever else to offer the deities at these temples.
The second temple we visited was a bit out of the ordinary. Its purpose is that it was some sort of a "guardian temple" for all the other holier temples in the area. Somehow that means (symbolically) that it's filled with thousands of bells, notes from people with their personal wishes, and oh yes live goat sacrificing.
Let me preface the following by saying that Swami G did not know in advance that this temple subscribed to the branch of spirituality which involves physical sacrificing of animals. He explained later that the school of sivananda which we are studying has branched far away from the school of thought that the folks at this temple were following. Had he known about the goats, he wouldn't have taken us there.
However, we did go there, and yea there were goats, and when I saw a dude come out sharpening a scythe, I realized...holy shit this is going down! Initially I thought they were just going to slice the goat right there on a dais in the middle of the temple grounds, and there was a great deal of commotion, so I just waited but nothing happened. Finally I realized they were taking the goats out back through some side door and bringing the bodies out in bags dripping blood.
Finally, my curiosity got the best of me an i mosied out back following an unfortunate goat. There were about 6 dudes there. I kinda posted up 20 feet away while they lined the goat up. One guy held the head forward while another pulled the body back. Third dude just got up next to it with the scythe, said a prayer, and took a hack. Like a hot knife thru butter. Gruesome. Both ends of the goat kept sputtering long after the blade went thru it. One dude took the head with him an carried it towards a hill and just tossed it off into some pit. And that was it. I didn't take a video and kind of happy I didn't. Because I would have share it and people would have got disgusted with me. So therefore I hope this description keeps that disgust level down.
After I relayed the story to the other folks who didn't go out back with me, they were surprised I had the balls to do so. Hey you only live once, right?
We ended the trip swinging through a beautiful hill town called Almora which seriously looks like the Hollywood hills or san Francisco from a distance (see pic). Amazing sweets are made there and I went to town on these chocolatey caramel things. It was not a very healthy day.
We eventually made it back to the ashram where we did our evening satsang and then I hosted an impromptu talent show which went over very well. All the staff including swami said it was the beat executed talent show they had ever seen in any TTC they had ever done before (and just after the first week, nonetheless)...I'm not gonna lie, I was on point with my jokes, but we had some really awesome singing and dancing performances which made my job easy. A really fun ending to a pretty busy wild day.
Just about finished up with Sunday now, which has been the best day so far. I will elaborate later.
2 comments:
Lol awesome.
Animal sacrifice? I would expect nothing less!
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