Personal Narrative: My Experience At A Hindu Temple

When I decided to attend a Hindu Temple I thought that it was going to be a really great experience, but I was really nervous and scared. I am a very shy and I do not like to get out of my comfort zone that much. Before attending a Hindu Temple, I decided to do a research on how I was supposed to dress. Based on my research, I decided to go business casual and I did not show skin nor did I use leather or animal print clothes. Wearing leather or animal print is disrespectful toward their culture. When I got to the Hindu Temple, I was really nervous. I did not know where to go. So, I decided to ask the first person that was next to me a couple of questions. I told her that I have never gone to a Hindu Temple and that I wanted to learn more about their culture. She was a really nice person, and she told me that attending a Hindu Temple would be a great experience for me and a good opportunity to learn how their culture is different in many ways. Before everyone entered the temple, I noticed that they all started to take their shoes off, so I did the same thing. We all placed
The ceremony took about two hours and it was on a Sunday. The men and women sat separately. We sat on the floor and we were supposed to put our hands together (like a praying position). This was a really tiring and uncomfortable position, because the floor was really hard and I got tired from sitting on the floor really fast, but I tried not to move as much and to keep myself sited. Everyone prayed and the priest performed a short puja to a particular Deity. But two questions I asked myself were; what is a Deity and what does puja mean? At that moment I did not know what Deity or puja meant, and I couldn’t ask someone because it would be disrespectful. But at the end of the ceremony someone told me that Deity means God and puja means a ritual to honor a God. Everyone there were really nice with me and really kind to explain to me certain terms of their