1/22/12 6:27pm Allegheny College, Meadville, PA
- Vyasar Ganesan
I am thinking about the drive up.
It is Friday, December 23rd, and Texas is marvelously warm compared to the rest of the country. The rolling Hill Country is still a little green, clinging to summer in anticipation of spring. As the car takes the sharp turns and deep drops, bits and pieces of buildings rise and fall in the windshield. A ranch here, a gas station there. The only constant bit of man-made edifice I see are chicken wire fences.
Then, at the crest of the highest hill, with a grand parting of the trees and flourish of the sky, the topmost bit of the shikar flies into view. Radha Madhav Dham, one of the largest Hindu temples in America, a beacon in the hills and in my heart.
It has been a long time.
I was here more than four months ago, mumbling a hasty prayer in the hall the day before my flight back to school. The night was hot, an oppressive force on my back, pushing me wherever I went. I remember feeling rushed in my thoughts, mentally weighing the clothes, snacks and books I was taking with me to school. My whole memory of summer, in a way, feels somewhat like this: rushing to pack away good feelings, good memories, to take with me to college.
But in winter, things slow down. The trees behave less like living, breathing organisms, and more like statues left out in the cold. Animals and insects huddle together for warmth, lowering their heart rates and taking their time in foraging, nesting, surviving, understanding their environment. Winter is a season that gives us all pause, room to feel out our sense of self in relation to the larger world. And for our spiritual guidance, nothing is more important than having the time to actively practice faith with that tempered mindset.
I am traversing the hills to Radha Madhav Dham to attend the 2011 winter Hindu Family Camp, something I have done since I was sixteen. Every year, more than 100 people from across the country do the same thing; old and young, rich and poor. Some have been coming as long as I have, but many of the attendees this year are coming for the first time. Not all of them are families, either: some single adults and, in my case, college students, come without their families. But from everyone, I have heard the sentiment expressed multiple times that "if you can't be in India, you should be here."
Attending a Family Camp at Radha Madhav Dham is not accurately comparable to being in India, but it is certainly an experience you're unlikely to have anywhere else in America. Who else spends their day after Christmas lost in prayer, dreaming of God? Where else are you going to find a tightly massed crowd crammed into a temple on New Year's Eve, chanting until noon the next day? What people do you know who spend the days in between learning about scripture, religious festivals, and the path of devotion?
What pushes a Family Camp beyond the normal temple experience, though, isn't just the prayer hall. It's what people bring into the prayer hall, the totality of the divine experience they have at Radha Madhav Dham. We remember staying an extra half an hour outside to finish a seva project, of our own volition; the smiling faces of children as they perform heart-wringing leelas of Radha and Krishn; the smell of prasad being cooked in the community kitchen; kabadi being played on the front lawn of the temple; adults and kids alike running out of breath as they are surrounded by hugging arms. When you have all of that to take into the prayer hall, and you look at the loving forms of Radha and Krishn, you are transformed, transported to place you didn't think existed.
The temple is just around the next bend, and I find myself thinking of all the work that needs doing, in preparation for the next semester, and even in preparation for the Camp. The weight is very sudden and swift, and I can feel the gears beginning to heat up and spin in my mind. I smile as I pass through the gates. I have to remind myself that it's winter.
[Registration for JKP Radha Madhav Dham's Summer Hindu Family Camp is now available. Visit www.HinduFamilyCamp.org for details]
