Lived experience of religion: Hindu Americans in Southern California

Abstract

How and where do Hindu Americans of Southern California conduct their religious lives? Using Naturalistic Field Research as a method we examine some of the locales for religious practices. We document the ways in which religion and the sacred can be fixed, permanent, and formal (as with temples), and also informal (as in homes, businesses, and ethnic enclaves), temporary (as in home events), transportable and mobile (carried by an individual in a vehicle and on the body). We point to the importance of œordinary spaces, such as homes, businesses, and gardens as settings where the common and periodic practices of lived religion occur. Everyday activities such as food preparation and consumption can take on religious significance and sacredness especially when religion influences food choices, establishes boundaries through taboos, and promotes discipline through fasting. The symbolic significance of food and the need to grow the food to be offered emerge as an important sub-theme. We also show that religion can be closely linked to the arts through music, ritualized drawing and painting, cooking, and home aesthetics. Hinduism is practiced and experienced using all five senses, requiring eating, hearing sacred music, singing, chanting, bells and other instruments, seeing the manifestations of the divine in the form of images and sculptures, touching these sacred artifacts, and becoming aware of the smells of the offerings of flowers and incense. Emphasis is on experience of, and individual communion with, the divine. The geography of religion could gain from expanding into examining the various ordinary settings of religion, and the ways religion is practiced and experienced.