i'm a person of hurried prayers...muttered somethings...particularly in moments of dire needs. my sojourns to temples are few by far but i've felt awe and reverence...now the question is, is that because of conditioning or does it have to do with the shared experiences one grows up with?
here's an epiphany i had...that the faith, the reverence one feels in such an environ...maybe thats not got so much to do with the godly idols in front of you, as it has with the millions of prayers, long and short, from around you, from before you, long before you. Imagine, if prayer was a physical quantity and you could map concentrations, what would such concentrations be in a long worshipped temple, church or mosque?! maybe its the senses you know, the devotees you see, the incense and soot you smell, the whispered paens you hear but i just somehow feel that if i could, if i were able to, block out all of this, i would still feel no...sense the colossal weight of faith gathered over the ages. it has been palpable to me when i have touched pews in the notre dame or the door sill at puri...a resonation of faith, of shared reverence...a bounding of feeling, a sense of i am here...to atone...to whisper my fears...and my hope to be free of them...to be at peace

and the idols and symbols, just punctuation marks so that i step in tune in the grammar of faith with my fellow men (which of course then alters the need state to one of identity as most after-the-fact defining attempts do...and which is yet another story)