Talking to Mr. D.K. Thaker one of an estimated 5 to 20 million worldwide followers of Lord Swaminarayan and who worships at the Temple at 12147 Lakewood Blvd Downey, California.
“The Gods and Goddesses on the stage are consecrated through the chanting of Vedic Mantras. The Vedas are the ancient books of Hinduism. There are four Vedas. In the Vedas are the instructions on how to put souls into the idols. Once the idols are consecrated they are no longer idols but are incarnations of Gods. The God Shiva represents both destruction and construction because until destruction takes place their can be no construction taking place anew.
The pictures inside the temple represent Lord Swaminarayan during various events during the course of his life. There is the one picture where he is riding a mare and another where he is sitting in a chair with the monkeys. He was sitting in the garden of the temple in Lechmere and there were several devotees sitting with him. Bands of monkeys came down and he just looked at the monkeys and told them to sit. He ordered someone to get rosaries for the monkeys. Every monkey was given a rosary and then the monkeys started running the beads. Only God could command the monkeys to sit and do something like that."
That is is one picture. In another pictures he is depicted as meeting the British governor of Bombay Sir John Malcolm. Malcolm had come to talk to Swaminarayan and to thank him for his help in bringing order to the region. Among Swaminarayan's teachings that impressed Sir Malcom countering the practice of Sati where widows burned to death on the funeral pyers of the husbandsguing that it was suicide and that because a human life was given by God only God could take it away. He aided the poor by opening alms houses and distributing food to them and educating of women leading to an increase in the literacy rate among women. At the meeting Sir Malcolm was presented with a copy of the Swaminarayan's book the Shikshapatri (written in 1826) which is their code of conduct, and that book is now in the Bodleian Library at
"The main and cardinal principle of Hinduism is that every person and every living thing carries a part of God inside itself.” Mr. Thaker does have a question regarding the Christian religion and pertains partly to the presence of the actual Gods on the stage. “One thing that I do not understand about the Christian religion is that at their service they eat food and the bread is called ‘The body of Christ’ and the wine is called ‘The Blood of Christ’. I don’t understand that.”
I explain to him that before he died he was sharing the Passover dinner with his disciples remembering when the Jews came out of
So I asked him if there were any pictures of Swaminarayan and he replied, “These are actual paintings of Swaminarayan on the walls. There are no photographs of course because he died in 1830. There is an actual painting done from life when he met with Sir Malcolm. Sir Malcolm had a portraitist there to do a portrait. Swaminarayan was quite young at that time and had been asked to wear the dress of a nobleman and Sir Malcolm to do an actual painting of him. When he was finished Sir Malcolm asked Swaminarayan if it was an accurate portrayal. Swaminarayan answered that it was correct in every aspect but one. Sir Malcolm asked, ‘What?’ because the painter was a master painter and he didn’t see any mistake and as far as he could see it was an actual picture of his person. Swaminarayan said, ‘look at me.’ Then he created a halo around his head and told Sir Malcolm that that was what was missing. So Malcolm told him that they could not see this with their naked eyes and only he, Swaminarayan, could. That picture is also at the library at the Bodleian. I have a copy of that hanging in my home and a friend made a copy with his camera and copies of it are no on the internet.”
I asked him more about the principles that Swaminarayan followers practice and he replied, “Don’t injure anyone, don’t insult anyone in fact there are not many differences from what Lord Jesus Christ taught. I don’t know much about Christianity but all holy persons teach that you should not do anything injurious to others. That picture of him now shows him with a halo. The pictures here on the wall depict various instances n the life of Swaminarayan.”
I asked Mr. Thaker why his followers consider Swaminarayan ‘holy’. “Because he has shown by his actions some things that no other human being, or even a holy person, can do. Only a God or godly person can show this sort of knowledge. One day he went to a devotee’s house where there lived a grand old lady. She didn’t know that this person was God. He appeared to just be a boy. He said, ‘Mother, can you give me some food I am very hungry.’ The Mother said, ‘Who are you coming here at night time and demanding food from me?” He replied, ‘I only want the food in the third cabinet on the fourth shelf’ and he named the particular food. The woman said to herself that this man must be very wise because he knows what is in my cupboard. When he had eaten he said to her, ‘I need to sleep, can you give me a bed?’ She told him he could sleep on the floor and he told her that no he didn’t sleep on a floor and that he wanted a particular bed in a particular room. The lady again said to herself, ‘This is not an ordinary person he knows what is in the 3rd room and what bed is in the 3rd room.’ All of these things show that he was not an ordinary human, that he was God.
He went to a particular person’s house and they drew their water from a well on the property. There was a tree there that dropped its leaves into the well muddying it. He asked them for some water and they told him the leaves had made it unfit for him to drink. The lady there offered to get him some water from the river and he told her no he would move the tree. He put his foot on the tree and the tree was moved about ten or fifteen feet away. No human could do that and there are so many instances of that.”
I then asked him what the priest had been saying in Hindi when I was there the previous week. “He was narrating the story of a lady devotee of Swaminarayan who was not married. She was a sort of princess of a small state. Her father had received an invitation from a Moslem king of Singh who wanted to marry his daughter because she was very beautiful. I sent an invitation to the father asking him to send his daughter to him for marriage and he would send his people to escort her from your court to my palace. The Journey to Singh took three days and for those three days the girl neither ate nor drank. The king’s people were amazed that this young girl could live without food or water. They arrived at the palace of the king and when the king saw the girl who had neither eaten nor drank for three days and was showing the effects his mind was changed. He said, “You are the daughter of my friend and I respect you as my mother.” He had wanted to marry the girl but all of a sudden his mind was changed and he bowed down to her and said, “Mother you can stay as long as you like and if you want to return to your father’s place I will send escorts and send you home.” So Lord Swaminarayan protected her because he had told her in a dream not to worry, that she would return home as pure as she had left. There is a whole book that relates all of these stories.”
For Swaminarayan this is regarded his human form just as Jesus was the form that the Christian God took on earth and a man. He died on June 1, 1830. Mr. Thaker continues, “He lived in this world for 49 years and one month and his devotees believe he then left for his celestial abode. The mare on which he was riding and his pictured in one of the paintings on the wall didn’t eat or drink for three days and on the third day also died.” I ask if he is now standing out on the stage and again Mr. Thaker, “Yes he is. That person standing on the stage is as I have explained, by Vedic mantra he has been incarnated into that particular idol which after that is no longer an idol. It is the same way the other idols have also been incarnated by Vedic mantras. Those mantras have been designed to incarnate an idol. There are also other statues that have been incarnated all over the world and he is in each statue that is now him. That is what we believe in.”
Mr. Thaker further explains, “A religion is designed to incarnate the spirit into you. That you have a soul inside. This human body is not you. Your real self is in your soul and that particular individual soul, besides the universal soul that is God, lives in every animate or inanimate thing and is the person of God inside you. Even a grain of sand is made up of inanimate particles that stick together to make a grain of sand and like that God is in every person incarnate. There are three phases. Coming into existence, knowledge and destination. All of these things are in one image. Even a blade of grass if it did not have a soul in it would not grow. We look for God everywhere.
Swaminarayan incarnated himself in a human body here to prove he is all powerful and all in existence and that he operates in every creation.” Because he has proved his point to his devotees he does not need to return.
Their web site with more explanations is www.swaminaryan.com
Comments