Interview and Report about Hinduism
A. I was born Hindu and been practicing the religion for as long as I can RememberQ. Are you a serious practitioner of your faith or are you just a nominal believer in your religion?
A. I am a serious practitioner and believer of my faith.
Q. What are your main beliefs and practices that are important to you?
A. I believe in the power of the deities and that they are represented by various phenomena in the world.Q. What misunderstandings do you think others around you have about your beliefs and practices? Clarify.A. Other people believe that we worship gods and that there is no superior being but that is nit trueQ. What part of being a Hindu seems hard for you? How do you adjust to that?A. Conducting worship anywhere and everywhere because people give us a bad gaze. But I ignore them telling myself that it is my religion and I owe them no apologiesQ. What is your understanding of sin and salvation?A. sin is unacceptable before god and salvation only comes through repentance6. What do you find surprising about your religion? Why?A. What is surprising is that I do not have a specific day of worship because I can go to church every day. All the other religions have a day of worship except only us.Q. If given the choice, what dimension of your beliefs and practices would you never change or compromise?
A. Worshiping of deities8. How often do you worship? Corporately in a place of worship? Privately?A. In a place of worship I do so twice a week but privately, I worship everydayQ. Tell me some of your rituals and symbols in your faith.A. We have rituals like Yagna and Puja.Q. Is there something that you would really like me to know about your beliefs and practices?
A. they are committal and self expressive. One is either worshiping or not worshiping.
Different religions have different doctrines beliefs they subscribe to and when I got a chance to interview a person from a different religion from mine, I was eager and determined to know more about it. In order to get more insight about Hinduism, I interviewed a fellow student in order to determine their faith and how they ended up in it. My subject subscribed to Hinduism and because I do not subscribe to it, I was interested in knowing more about it. In fact, none of my friends or anybody close to me is a Hindu and all I have known about this religion is just from hearsay and a little bit of knowledge acquired from my learning endeavors.
The interview was a face to face encounter and this gave me the chance to ask several questions in an effort to understand and know the religion better, because I was receiving answers directly from the most reliable person. In order to make the environment calm and the interviewee at ease, I chose to do it in the student cafeteria, over a snack. I believe the environment and surrounding made the experience awesome because we had a lot to catch up on before the actual interview took place. I got to ask more direct questions and I got candid answers in return, thus, making the exercise successful. I must admit that that there is a lot that I learned from the interview
I must admit that before the interview I had mixed feelings and a lot of unanswered questions about Hinduism. First and foremost, I had always believed that Hindus just worship gods in the form of carvings and animals. Through the interview, I came to learn that in Hindu, the presence of the divine is manifested in various forms, and that is why they have many representations of the dive, which unfortunately many people consider idolatry unknowingly. I also learned that there are many activities involved in worship some of which are dance and drama. They do not have to go to the temple to worship but can do so from the comfort of their homes. Aside from that, he stated that there is no single day that is designated for worship, they can worship any day and that all the days of the week are associated with some deities. Their religion is all involving because one cannot be termed as a passive believer or an involved one. As long as they worship anywhere and anytime, they are good to go.
My perception about Hindu has been positively influenced greatly because from where I am standing now, I understand why there seems to be a lot of drama in their worship. Now I know that they value worship and believe that it can be done in a warm, joyful and affectionate way. One does not have to be very serious with worship. Just as it is with singing in Christianity, so it is with the activities they engage in during worship. They treat their gods as friends or loved ones, and this is the reason they make their worship look like one is communicating to somebody they have met. A person can worship alone at home in the morning, when they are on their way to work they can pass by a temple for some specialized prayers. But as one chooses, they can dedicate a single day of the week when they can go to the temple for worship.
