Another journey has taken me to Philadelphia where I attended the ceremony of the anniversary of a Jain temple, and the breaking of the fast of a good friend. The temple ceremony took up a whole morning. The temple was full of people, laypeople all, and they themselves conducted the whole ceremony. The anointing of the images and statues of the Tirthankaras, the reciting of prayers, the community singing, the silences and the bells and the gong that parcelled out the spaces of the spirit, the joining of the hands, the bending to the ground… all that was a joint prayer, a community worship, a visible witness of faith and devotion in the midst of a busy western city.
Even the anointing was done by laypeople with devout skill. A young engineer conducted the whole liturgy from the mike, explained each ceremony, intoned the songs, quoted Sanskrit by the yard, told each one at each moment what they had to do. At one moment he said: “After having thanked the actual president and office holders, I’m going to call now on the future leaders of our association: let all young men and women here come forward, as they are the future presidents and office holders to carry on the management of the temple.” The young people came willingly forward, future and promise of the ancient Indian religion in American lands.
The flag ceremony was particularly touching. It was brought out folded on a tray and placed in front of the altar. There it was unfolded in all its length. It was half a meter high and four meters long, so that it would ride the winds when placed on the flag-pole on top of the highest tower of the temple. It was white with golden edges, and religious symbols and prayers were embroidered along its length. It was blessed, anointed, consecrated, worshipped. Then we all went out to see it fixed on top of the pole on the tower. The MC explained how there it would remain as a permanent symbol, as a blessing on all the buildings around, as a constant prayer said by the wind that would unfold it and make it wave its contemplation over the daily landscape, as a sacred presence in the midst of an urban environment, as an eternal sacrament of ancestral rites. That is the essence of the temple: a place for prayer and worship in the inside, and a witness to the presence of God in the city on its outside. Jain temple of ancient India in the midst of modern America. Example of a live religion, and reminder of its open secret: the whole organisation and management of the sacred heritage is in hands of its laypeople. There are, to be sure, Jain monks and nuns of great virtue and knowledge, who devote themselves to leading an exemplary life with their five vows (truth, non-violence, non stealing, celibacy, detachment), to study, preach, publish, practice penances, counsel the faithful. But monks and nuns do not run the institution. Planning, financing, organising all that belongs to the faith is in the hands of laypeople. Hence its vitality. Good example to follow.
Another ceremony on the same day was the termination of a long fast a member of the congregation, and good friend of mine, had undertaken. I’ve always said that Jains are the Olympic champions of fasting. They practice it from the atthai at the Paryushan to the santharo or sanlekhna near death. One of the hardest practices is the varshitap, which consists in taking no food at all one day and normal food on the next, and so on alternatively and uninterruptedly for 13 months and 13 days with no food at all on the last three days, and, of course, keeping up throughout the long year one’s professional, personal, and social activities as usual. That was what my friend had done for a long year, and now had invited me to share in the ceremony at the end of his fast. He ended his fast by taking spoonfuls of sugar-cane juice at the hand of his friends in the temple.
They asked me to speak, and, among other things, I explained to them the difference between Jain and Christian fasting. A practical class of comparative religion. Jesus says in the gospel that when we fast we should wash our faces and anoint our hair so that nobody may notice that we are fasting. If we make our fast public, we lose all our merit for it, since we are doing it to be seen by others, and so God will not give us any recompense for it. On the other hand, if we do it without anybody noticing it, God will reward us (Matthew 6:16). This fosters humility and avoids showing off, and that is the value of this attitude. Maybe this has caused fasting to be almost forgotten among Christians. The only prescribed fasts for Catholics are Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and even then the fast consist in making “a main meal at noon, and two other, morning and evening, such that when summed up they do not amount to the main meal”. No need of sugar-cane juice to come out of that “fast”. It is almost an abuse of the word, as fasting means not eating.
Something similar happens with the “abstinence” from meat. No meat on Friday. I once spent a summer in the Jesuit University of Georgetown in the US studying comparative linguistics, and when the date of our father and founder St Ignatius Loyola, which is July 31st, approached, my companions told me: “You are lucky. This year July 31st falls on a Friday.” Then they explained: on the day of St Ignatius the menu was turkey, as the most appreciated dish; but since that year the feast fell on a Friday, and meat is forbidden on Friday, the menu for the day would be… lobster! Liturgical gastronomy. We don’t get even a bronze medal in the Olympics of religious penance.
On the other hand the Jain (as well as the Muslim) approach to fasting is to make it known in order to give thus public witness of the observance of religion and to strengthen the faith of the community with the good example of its members. This is the value of this approach, and we should know and appreciate all approaches. The fast of Ramzan in the Muslim religion is considered one of the five pillars of Islam (together with the proclamation of the faith, prayer, almsgiving, and the pilgrimage to Mecca), and as such it is observed, and as such it strengthens the Muslim community in its faith as it is well-known.
Curiously, and just to complete this ecumenical overview, there is a religion that forbids fasting, and I also mentioned if before my Jain friends. These are the Parsees. Zoroaster forbad fast, celibacy, and any kind of penance, and his argument was that God has created the world and all good things in it, in particular food and sex so that human beings could live and propagate on earth, and so it would be a slight to God if we would not accept from his hands what he has so lovingly given us. To forgo food or sex is for them “anathema”. Parsees are well loved in India, and they have never quarrelled with any other religion.
My friend was surrounded on that day by other members of the Jain congregation who had performed the same fast on previous years. Not all do it, as it is only voluntary, but quite a few of the people present there had carried out the same kind of fast, and they stood up and bowed to us. This, again, strengthens the community. I ended my speech quoting a Gujarati saying we use when we have not actually performed the action in question, but have shared in its celebration: “I’ve not married; but I’ve attended wedding parties.” We have not fasted, but we have attended this celebration of fasting, and something of the merit of our friend’s penance will wash down on us. They all laughed.
By the way, I almost missed the festivities as I was in danger of not being admitted into the USA. Bureaucracy. On boarding the plane at Madrid airport I had to fill a form where, among many other things, I had to give the address of the place where I was going to spend my first three nights in the US. I told the officer I didn’t know it, as my friends would be waiting for me at the airport in Philadelphia to take me to their home, and I had only a phone number just in case. He explained: “I understand you and I believe you, but the computer does not. The computer is a robot and it requires that you fill in that line, and, if you don’t, it will mark your form as defective, it will be received there as such, and you’ll be barred from entry. You have to fill it.” I scratched my brains and wrote: Hilton Hotel, Philadelphia. I entered Philadelphia gloriously. I told my friends there about my experience. They told me there was no Hilton Hotel in Philadelphia. For once I beat the computer.
