I have recently moved to a new state and I'm trying to get myself established in the religious community. It's a slow process to try to find a temple to attend or events within the Indian community. You sort-of have to be already tapped in. There's a temple some thirty miles away that I'm interested in, but I haven't yet gotten up the courage to go and check it out.
It takes a lot of nerve and a focus outside myself to show up someplace where I not only know no one, but will be the only non-Indian and what I do and say will be closely observed, if only for the novelty of it. I frequently find myself to be an object of curiosity and I'll explain more about that in later posts.
A less frightening way to start is the university Hindu students associations. There was one at the graduate school I went to and it was very helpful for having small services weekly and for getting me connected to other Indian events. I participated in Holi (the spring festival) with them and went on temple visits with them.
Now I am not in school, but I came across a website for the Hindu students association for a major university in the area. It said that they have a regular Aarthi (fire service) each Sunday. I don't know if this is still true, because the website hasn't been updated in more than a year.
So this Sunday I'm going to head over there and see if anything is going on. Hopefully this will be the first step toward connecting with a community. Practicing a religion all alone is not as satisfying as with a group.
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