The Golden Temple

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January 8th 2006

Published: January 8th 2006

Unedited and not proof read....sorry!

January 7 .... evening ceremony at the Golden Temple.

Things to be considered:
1. It is unusually cold here and in Delhi ... 0 to -2 cegrees celcius
2. Shoes and socks must be removed when visiting any Sikh temple.
3. The Golden Temple is a work of art wrought in marble, cement, and
stone ... all very warmth absorbing in the summer sun.
4. There are hundreds of visitors doing the promanade around the
reflecting pool in the middle of which the "Golden Temple" (covered
totally in gold leaf) "floats".
5. To step into the Temple one must avoid the marble sill ... a mistake I
made only once since people touch, kiss and carress with hands
foreheads and lips.
6. Inside the Temple chanters continuously recite and sing prayers.
This has continued non-stop for hundreds of years and the sound
vibrations are part of the spiritual power. Only in 1984 was this
disrupted when the Indian Army dessicrated the Temple. This fact is
mentioned more than once on placards inside the Temple.
7. Worshippers everywhere; old, young, families, rich, poor, sikh and
non-sikh, Punjabi sikhs and foreign sikhs. Everyone lined up in the
causeway that leads to the entrance of the Temple. Once inside
one can see the live chanyers. There are other men chanting
prayers in small glass rooms that can be seen reciting
the prayers.
8. When the red blankets have been folded and all have participated
in reverent prayer the Guru is put to bed. This means a golden
sedan chair is carried in and the blankets are placed into it and with
sounding horn and much shouting of prayers the Guru is carried out
of the temple and then carried a bit of distance and then doubled
back to enter the Temple through another door after much polishing
and dusting and covering with a fine grey shawl.

Wendy and I stood very close to the sedan chair and once the Guru
had entered the Temple a man came out distributing sweets
covered in edible silver tasting of sugared milk and having the
texture of soft fudge.
9. To walk around the whole square of the reflecting pool, to wait in
line to get inside the Temple, to wait for the Guru to be put to bed,
and to walk back to the enterance where we once again walked
through a water trough and then retrieve our shoues for which we
had a token, took over and hour.

AND WE DID THIS ALL IN OUR BARE FEET !!!! it was darned cold...

There were indoor-outdoor carpets to walk on but they did not help because some of the carpet was wet. And to get to our shoes we had to walk on cement where people straight from the street also walked. The inside of my runners are contaminated and I will not be able to wash them until I get to a pace a bit warmer.

Last night it was so cold in Delhi that frost was scraped from windshields..... -2 the coldest in 71 years and we are HERE!!!

Here in Amritsar it is also very cold but here we have an electric space heater and hot running water for a shower. Srinagar is still in a deep freeze with electricity off and pipes frozen.

January 8 Golden Temple for lunch

Things to be considered:

1. Four thousand people are served food every fifteen minutes three
times a day.

We had lentil stew. small chapati breads and cocnut boiled in milk with sugar. You can eat as much as you want. Wendy and I hacd one serving ... we could not sit cross legged longer!

2. When entering each person receives a partitioned Thali plate, a spoon and a bowl for water all made out of stainless stel.

3. We followed the crowd upstairs and everyone sat in straight lines in the huge room. Luckily we got a space with a wall to ean on.

4. We waited. Men in bare feet came along with pails of lentils, pails of sweet coconut, watering can with drinking water and baskets filled with chapatis.

5. One man was chanting a prayer. Everone waited till the prayer was ended then we all ate using the bread to scoop up the lentils and the spoon to eat the coconut.

6. When finished we got up and walked out of the room avoiding the spills of food. The watering can man came around and sprinkled wateron the floor and a young boy came behind him with the biggest squeegy I have ever seen . And so the floor was cleaned.

7. Back downstairs the spoons were collected and then the plates and bowls. Volunteers washed the dishes in disinfecting water. Other volunteers( by the hundreds) were dicing potatoes and preparing other vegetables which would be cooked in pots bigger than a top load washing machine for the evening meal.

8. One more look around the pool where men were immersing themselves and drinking abit of the same water, drying themselves of and changing wet underwear under towels ... men old and young and even young boys .... the women went in with their feet and some people only washed their hands and face in the water.... and we were on our way out.

9. We retreived our shoes .... I used a handi-wipe ... with not much effect and put on the runners. Some parts of the marble were warm today because the sun shone brilliantly. There was not one garbage pail in which to deposit the wipe and it was too dirty to put into my pocket ... so ....you guessed it...I dumped it at the side of a building into a pile of other garbage.

10. We found our bicycle rickshaw driver. He had been waiting for us. We took a very scenic route the best of which was the old houses with wooden overhanging balconies, new houses that looked like mansions, and a trip to a part of the market that sold wool.

I bought 1 pound of wool (synthetic I'm sure) for 170Rs divide by 39 for $CAD. AS the rickshaw ride continued we stopped for a huge papya and then beside a beautiful Hidu Temple I bought some almond sweets. These purchases were shared with the five other people who are staying here at Bhandari"s Guesthouse.

A lovely discription about this pace will follow tomorrow.

Now it is time to pack, sleep and then at 09:00 Jan. 9 off to Dharamsala by car. Also it is so cool here I am continuously having to warm my fingers. Its a good thing we are Canadian and used to cold ness .... it will not be warm in Dharamsala either because it lies north of here five hours by car..

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