Incidentally I spectacularly failed at speaking with the holy men of each house.....for various reasons, including: the Muslim mosque being a little intimidating in its seriousness, the Buddhist temple being in the middle of what appeared to be a service/prayer, and the Hindu temple not seeming to have any holy persons that I noticed.
Sobriety List Item #8
First was a Muslim mosque on the corner of Mosque street (strangely enough), and while it felt a little too rude to take pictures inside the mosque, it was quite interesting to wander around and read the articles that they had posted on the walls (clearly aimed at non-Muslim visitors to the Mosque).
The inside of the mosque was quite simple and far less adorned than the houses of worship of most other religions that I've visited, which I suppose would be a good thing if you wanted your focus in the house of your god to be on humble praise and prayer, rather than on opulance and astheticism, although it still had a simple beauty to it. The focus of that building was clearly on praise and learning, with several grown men sitting, each with a half dozen or so young boys, in what appeared to be "Sunday School" type groups.
There were two truly interesting things that I read in the Islamic information posters on the walls. The first was the "5 Pillars of Islam":
1. Testimony - To testify that there is no diety except God, and that Mohammad (peace be unto him, as Muslims say) is the messanger of God
2. Prayer - To establish ritual prayer
3. Charity - To give charity (to the needy)
4. Pilgrimage - To perform the pilgimage to the house (of worship in Mecca)
5. Fasting - To fast during the month of Ramadam
It really doesn't sound that dis-similar to Christianity, and until today, I was unaware of the links between Islam (who recognise Christ as a holy man within their faith) and Christianity. In fact Islamic faith holds that Abraham, Moses and Jesus were also prophets and holy men. So it would appear that the Christian and Islamic Gods are in fact the same God, just worshipped by slightly different means, in different buildings. My apologies to those of you who already knew this.....I find this quite stunning, because none of our stereotypes about Islam tell us that they worship the same God as the vast majority of the western world!
The other great quote I found within the mosque was supposed to have been spoken by the prophet Mohammed:
"He who hurts a non-Muslim citizen of a Muslim state - I am his adversary, and I shall be his adversary on the day of judgement".
It tends to undermine the stereotypal red-neck opinion that all Muslims are extremists and trying to destroy every other faith on the planet, which seems to be the idea that our very own western society extremist groups would have us believe. Although I'll grant that it has the small print of "of a Muslim state", but I think we can agree that the intent and meaning is one of tolerance.....not unlike that preached within most sections of Christianity.
Sobriety List Item #20
Next, we walked the epic 25 metres to the Hindu Temple (bizarrely located on the corner of "Temple" street). I haven't had time to google the Hindu faith yet, so my recording of that visit will be pictorial......as follows:
The front of the temple had such busy and complex art to its beauty
Then the main entry was quite stunning to look at, and was just a taste test of all the other beautiful art within/without the temple.
and the ceilings were awe inspiring.
The detail that they put into the roofs of their architecture is outstanding....although the lady in the purple robes does appear to be somewhat surprised at having her picture taken, and might easily be saying "don't, don't, don't you be taking that picture young Sir!".
Another amazing example of Hindu ceiling art.
This was also a good example of ceiling art.....and then I realised that the picture shows the god's doodle, so couldn't help but put it in for purile humour purposes!
Sobriety List Item #7
And finally we walked down the (same) street, and found ourselves at a stunningly beautiful Buddhist temple. It was a fantastic example of everything that I love about Chinese architecture, and the aesthetically stunning inside of the temple have me some insight into how much beauty Buddhists find in their chosen way of life.
We arrived at the temple in time for what appeared to be the Buddhist equivelant of mass, and the interior of the temple was beautiful in a way that only the Chinese could master, with red and gold combining beautifully to set the scene.
I was previously un-aware that there were actual deities/gods within the Buddhist faith, but there were idols to various gods, which the information cards beside told me were tied to the Chinese zodiacal signs. I hadn't considered that there were actual gods within the Buddhist faith, and had always just assumed that the whole religion was based around the spiritual perfection of Buddha (but as a man, not a god).
Below are some of the pictures from the temple.
Ok, so this was one of two statues standing guard at the front of the temple.
This one was just a nice angle of beautiful architecture.
This was the nice view into the temple from the front entry.
This was one of the goddess idols in the back of the temple.
As vulgar as it felt taking this, it is a picture of the Buddhist folk at prayer.
More stunning Chinese architecture.
And a picture of the side of the temple.
Within the temple, I found a great quote in the temple, which read:
"However, even if we have a particular personal deity, we have to actively work on purifying our negative tnedancies and increase our store of merit and wisdom".
And finally, After finishing up in the Buddhist temple, we went to grab some lunch from a burger house, which unfortunately didn't open for a while, so we stopped by a cafe of sorts called 'Spennelli Coffee Company San Francisco', of which Macca asked...."Is this an Australian company?"......far and away my favourite question of the day :)
So that is the first three of my 100 list items finished. And tonight......off to Sky Park at Marina Bay Sands, to check out the view and check off item #3 from the list.
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