global travel shot: baha’i temple, a marble lotus in full bloom

Image

Posted on by

Be like the Lotus. Be the Lotus.

The Baha’i Temple in New Delhi, a gigantic 27-petalled blooming lotus in concrete and marble, is a gentle reminder of a key life lesson at the core of religions that have birthed in India. A life lesson which repeatedly states the importance of rising above the chaos of life and to bloom, like a lotus, unblemished. A popular term being: detachment. Lofty life goals, but one can try.

It is also one of my favourite places of worship in the world. A masterpiece in modern engineering. Peaceful and meditative. Four times a day, brief excerpts from Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, and the Baha’i scriptures are read out, together. In tandem with the essence of the Baha’i faith that all religions are equally worthy.

There are over 7 million followers worldwide of the 19th Century Baha’i religion which was founded in Iran and has its holiest site in Israel. Its largest number of followers are in India. No surprises, since India is no stranger to syncretism, at times willingly, at times reluctantly, and often unconsciously. Another lofty life goal—syncretism—but one can try. 🙂

8 thoughts on “global travel shot: baha’i temple, a marble lotus in full bloom”

Comments

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.