Day 12

It seemed like today turned out to be dedicated to all religions? My dad rented a car and driver this morning so we could go around to a couple of spots I wanted to see. By the end of the day, I had gone to a Hindu temple, Sikh temple, Jain temple, Baha'i temple, and Muslim mosque.
The hindu mandir was a beautiful complex with different open rooms. All the walls were covered in mantras, lines from texts, or symbol meanings, like the om, swastika, lotus etc.
Then we went to a big Sikh gurudwara. the music and songs at a gurudwara beats all others haha they use tablas and accordians. every temple gives you some food thing after prayer, like an indian sweet, but gurudwaras give a full meal after prayer. I think the guy next to us ate like 5 breads no joke, but he was probably a hardcore laborer who needed it.
The Baha'i temple is called the Lotus temple. The baha'i faith started in Persia, and now they have "places of worship" around the world. Actually baha'i-ism? is illegal in Iran. The baha'i faith is interesting, but too conflicting for me. Here everyone calls it the Lotus temple, because it's a huge huge lotus shaped building, very pretty. the lotus is obviously an important symbol in many religions.
The jain temple was by far the most serene. At the very top of a hill was a 42ish ton marble statue of Lord Mahavir, the main guru of Jainism. Jainism is circled around the idea of ahimsa- sanskrit for nonviolence. Sure every religion says violence is bad, but Jainism is the most radical, it's THE base principle. as a group, jains are probably the most nonviolent and extreme in things like giving up material objects or vegetarianism. Jains are pure vegetarians, they don't even eat roots bc it does harm (no onion!, ginger, carrots etc). Some don't eat after the sun sets. There's an even more extreme devout group that don't wear clothes bc they are materialistic. They all live together in an ashram of course (that was the first thing i asked).
K im getting tired, this is long. But anywyas, I feel that India (well at least delhi) is one of very few places I can think where hundreds of tiny or big religions live all together in relative peace. how nice.