KIM LAWTON, correspondent: The festival of Eid al-Adha begins with sacrifice. Those participating in the hajj, and all other Muslim families with the financial means, slaughter a sheep, lamb, goat, camel, or cow.

DAWUD WALID (Council on American Islamic Relations Michigan): This sacrifice is in remembrance of what the Qu’ran says, as well as the Bible, of when Abraham was inspired or he had a dream that he was to sacrifice one of his sons, and then God told Abraham that he did not have to sacrifice his son, and a ram came, and Abraham then sacrificed the ram.

LAWTON: American Muslims typically buy meat slaughtered according to Islamic requirements from a market or grocery store. The immediate family eats one-third of the meat. Another third is shared with the larger community of friends and relatives, and the rest is donated to the poor.

WALID: It’s a religious obligation for us to give to other people. We would not be good Muslims or following our religion, because the third pillar of Islam is charity, so we’re obligated to give charity.

LAWTON: In the United States, recipients include places such as Gleaner’s Community Food Bank of southeastern Michigan. They partner with over 400 outlets in their network of feeding programs to distribute thousands of pounds of frozen lamb meat donated by the Muslim community annually.

JOHN KASTLER (Gleaner’s Community Food Bank): It’s a high-protein item, and it’s certainly the type of food product that we really like to provide during the winter months where you get a nice, hearty meal out of the donation. Groups like the Salvation Army, the Cabbage & Soup Kitchen, the Saint Vincent de Paul Society, and different feeding programs around town will be able to enjoy this blessing.

LAWTON: Through the soup kitchens they operate, mosques and Islamic centers also serve as distribution sites. Those who come in to pray are offered bags of lamb to take home, as are all non-Muslims seeking food assistance.

I’m Kim Lawton reporting.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO (guest anchor): Earlier this month in France an annual event took place that has been described as perhaps the largest public expression of traditional Catholicism in the world. It is a three-day, 72-mile pilgrimage from Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris to the cathedral at Chartres. A history professor from New York City who has made the pilgrimage several times describes the experience.

Dr. JOHN RAO (Associate Professor of History, St. John’s University, New York): My name is John Rao. I’m associate professor of history at St. John’s University. I’ve done the pilgrimage to Chartres about six or seven times. The regular preparations involve making sure you’ve got the right footwear more than anything else. Being a New Yorker and not owning a car, I walk a lot.

You’ve started from a point, Notre Dame, which has this extraordinary impact on you because of its beauty and because of the fervor of the people praying and singing in it. And what the architecture of the cathedral and the light passing through the windows does is it makes it clear that God, the Father of lights, provides us a world which was incredibly more diverse and beautiful than anyone might think.

The route to Chartres begins the first morning mostly in Paris and the surrounding areas.

When we’re talking about the people who make up the pilgrimage, the first thing to note is that probably about 70 percent of them are young people — people in their late teens and in their early 20s. There are people from all over Europe. The majority are French, of course, but from every country that I can imagine, from Africa, from Asia, from the United States.

A lot of these chapters are groups that stick together at home, and they have a lot of their own particular songs, which are not specifically religious but more focused on just subjects involving history and culture of the country as well.

It’s so clear, it’s so sunny. By the afternoon people are going to start suffering from heat. The big thing for people who haven’t done it before is to get them to drink water.

The Mass on the first day is usually in a field. The Masses that are held during the pilgrimage and at Chartres itself are the traditional Latin Mass. In other words, the liturgy before the reforms that are associated with Pope Paul VI.

You have, perhaps, certainly at least 100 priests who are hearing confessions during all of this, and they’re scattered all through these lunch scenes and in the woods and in little deserted areas.

Their Catholicism is a fervent Catholicism, traditional in the sense that it’s very much focused on a spirituality that uses the traditional liturgy of the Church, takes that very seriously, the traditional devotions, the traditional Latin liturgy. And then they have to give communion to as many as 10,000 people.

The pilgrimage began in the Middle Ages. Chartres was always an important place and had great meaning in the life of the Christian world in the kingdom of France in the Middle Ages. Joan of Arc made this pilgrimage. Louis XIV, I believe, made the pilgrimage. After Vatican II there were — there was a lot of confusion that developed in Catholic believers’ minds about what they ought to be doing, what they ought not to be doing, whether they were putting too much of an emphasis on particular practices that somehow or other had become outmoded, and as a consequence things like pilgrimages ended up suffering. It resumed precisely due to the concerns of groups that, by this point, were calling themselves traditionalists who wanted to commit themselves to maintaining practices which they felt to be, spiritually, extremely beneficial.

The second day of the pilgrimage, the Mass is in the woods — same kind of Mass, beautiful music, priests hearing confession.

MICHAEL MATT (speaking to pilgrims): My name is Michael Matt. I’m the head of the American contingent, the American chapter for the Chartres pilgrimage.

It’s definitely a youth movement. They very easily, in many instances, can really tap into this whole tradition, the foundation of the Catholic faith. It doesn’t matter that they don’t understand every word of the Latin. They’re attracted to the centrality of the liturgy. They’re attracted to the rubric and the ritual and to the idea of suffering for what you believe in.

PILGRIM: Can you smell the grass? Can you feel your feet? This is the real world, especially when you put rosaries into it, traditional Masses, allegiance to the Holy Father. This is the real world that we’re all seeking for.

Dr. RAO: The entire pilgrimage is of an impact that’s hard to describe. A pilgrimage is a microcosm of what life is. Life, from a Catholic standpoint, is a pilgrimage—from birth to death, from our birth to our ultimate, eternal experience with God—and what the pilgrimage does is it takes you, for a short space of time, to a time out of time. You’re out of your ordinary daily experiences. All of the ordinary things that bother one during the course of a day just disappear, even to the point in a physical way that, after a couple of days, you don’t care what you look like.

PILGRIM: I’m pretty tired, but other than that it’s invigorating. Spiritually lifted, that’s for sure. It’s amazing to be with tons of Catholics — thousands of them.

Dr. RAO: I find myself thinking about everything that I ought to do in life — everything that I have done wrong. I go back through all of the experiences of my life and where I thought that I should have done something better.

The third day, the last day of the pilgrimage, everyone is exuberant, because if you’d made it to that last day you know you’re going to make it. You know you’re really going to make it. You’re in forests, you’re in fields — endless, endless fields. You at least get to see, after a certain point, the spires of Chartres in front of you. It can become particularly grueling because it takes a long time for that spire in the distance to really get truly bigger.

There was more of a, maybe a penitential spirit yesterday, but today it’s joy. It’s just joy. When you get onto the roads, in the real suburbs of Chartres, then you can see it looming more and more, and then you begin this walk, which is a last torturous walk up this long shaded path that takes you up into the town itself. That’s when you see it there, you know, in all of its glory.

What most stirs me up is the fact that you’ve managed to do it. You’ve managed to do it. You’ve finished it. When we’re at Chartres we have a solemn High Mass, and all of this is surrounded with a great deal of ritual and ceremony.

You could see 10,000, or 15,000 fervent Catholics, most of them young people, deeply committed to this traditional rite of Mass. These people who are part of the pilgrimage, and then who finish the pilgrimage with us as well, their spiritual fervor is accompanied with, again, a great love for music. By the time it’s over, the feeling of exaltation is hard to describe, just hard to describe.

The newer generation found what that old rite had to offer — spiritually satisfying, spiritually uplifting, and in a way that you could see almost in no other event that took place in the annual life of the church. The entire three days is emotional.

What to do in the future? This spirit of pilgrimage should be continued on the day-to-day basis for the rest of your life.

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: The beliefs and practices relating to Jewish prayer shawls called tallit. The elaborately braided fringes, the tzitzit, on the four corners of the shawls, represent God’s 613 commandments to the Jews. We discovered a synagogue with a class in which boys and girls preparing for their coming of age ceremonies, bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs, make their own tallit. Our guide is Rabbi Greg Harris of Congregation Beth-el in Bethesda, Maryland.

Rabbi GREG HARRIS (Congregation Beth El, Bethesda, Maryland): The tallit is a ritual garment. It is a prayer shawl that is composed of a large piece of cloth that has fringes on the edges. The tradition of wearing fringes dates all the way back to the time of the Torah, the time of the Hebrew Bible. In the Book of Numbers, in Chapter 15, we are given the commandment, one of the 613 commandments in the Torah, that tells us to wear tzitzit, to wear fringes on our garments. When we recite the verses from the Book of Numbers, we recite it during a prayer called the Sh’ma. The Sh’ma is a central prayer within Judaism, and we literally gather our tzitzit together, and each time we say those words, we give it a kiss.

SUSAN KANTER (Congregation Beth El, Bethesda, Maryland, speaking to class): And once again, watch the lipstick.

Rabbi HARRIS: A kiss is something that you give to someone that you love. It’s not the cloth that we are showing affection for, but it is what they represent — the 613 commandments. To be able to select the colors, select the material can be personally meaningful and, I think, a very powerful way to access a tradition that is as ancient as Judaism. It’s the best example of hands-on Judaism. It is not uncommon for a couple that’s going to get married to build their wedding canopy, the chuppah, to include a grandfather’s tallit because he can’t be there himself.

An atarah is the neckpiece, the top piece of the tallit, and anything can go on there. Sometimes, if you go to a synagogue you will see that it has the blessings itself written on. We say “L’hittatef ba’tzitzit” — to wrap yourself in the tzitzit. But anyone can choose a verse that’s meaningful. The 613 commandments are all represented by the tzitzit.

AMANDA FORD (Congregation Beth El, Bethesda, Maryland, speaking to class): These are kosher tzitzit. They’re made out of pure wool, out of a twisted string, and there’s enough in here to do all four corners.

Rabbi HARRIS: We know that in Hebrew, every letter has a number. Aleph is one and bet is two. If we add up the numerology of the word tzitzit, it adds up to 600, and that combined, the word tzitzit for 600, five knots, four strings that are folded over to make eight is 613, which are the commandments.

The prayer we say when putting on the tallit ends, “L’hittatef ba’tzitzit” — to wrap yourself in the tzitzit. I always tell the bar mitzvah boys and the bat miztvah girls that when we say L’hittatef ba’tzitzit that we are wrapping ourselves in everything that it means to be Jewish: Jewish law — halachah — and Jewish customs, Jewish music, Jewish food, Jewish books. And we are being embraced by thousands of years of tradition. It is a highly spiritual, powerful moment.

Whether they are Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist or Reform, whether they gather on a California beach or in a New York City synagogue, Jews share at least one common element at their Rosh Hashanah observances: the shofar.

“It’s such a powerful Jewish symbol,” said Rabbi Aaron Panken, vice president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. “It is the specific symbol of repentance.”

Repentance is a central theme of the 10-day period starting with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which begins at sundown on Sept. 12 and culminates with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, beginning at sundown on Sept. 21.

The sound of the shofar connects these important days in the Jewish year. Elul, the month preceding Rosh Hashanah, is a time of preparation, and the shofar is blown every day. Its reverberations are at the heart of Rosh Hashanah services, and it is also blown at the end of services on Yom Kippur.

“The main way it’s used is to remind us that this is an alarm, a wake up call,” Panken said. “It reminds us to think about the way we behave and the kinds of things that we do, and to move us to act better.”

The shofar’s symbolism is rooted in its history, which begins in the Torah. “When the Ten Commandments were given at Mt. Sinai, the voice of the shofar was heard,” said Sylvia Herskowitz, director of Yeshiva University Museum.

The shofar is invoked at critical moments in the Bible and serves many purposes.

“It’s used for everything — from processionals of kings, as a call to war, to induce fear,” Panken said. “If you think about it, it’s sort of the air raid siren of its day, the way that people would communicate alarm or concern.”

The biblical commandment is that everyone should hear the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, Herskowitz said. It is so important that if someone is hospitalized or too ill to come to the synagogue, a shofar blower will visit and sound the shofar for them.

There are thousands of years of Jewish commentary on the shofar — on how it should sound and how it should be made. It is fashioned from an animal’s horn, most often a ram’s horn. The Talmud says it may also be made from the horn of a sheep, a goat, a mountain goat, antelope, or gazelle, Panken said.

“The horn of a cow is not acceptable,” according to Herskowitz. “Tradition says at the time of asking God for forgiveness, we don’t want to remind him of the sin of the Golden Calf,” referring to an idol worshipped by the Israelites during the Exodus from Egypt.

The shofar must be whole. It should not be made from two animals’ horns that have been glued together, and it can’t have any breaks or holes in it.

“One of the requirements of the shape of the shofar is that it’s supposed to be bent, because we are supposed to be bent in subservience to God, in penitence,” said David Olivestone, who blows shofar at Congregation Ohab Zedek in New York City.

Olivestone learned to blow the shofar when he was a child. It can be difficult because there is no reed or valve, nothing to help make the sound. There is always an element of uncertainty about how the sound will come out, said Olivestone.

That uncertainty is not limited to the person who blows the shofar. The synagogue congregation also has a sense of anticipation about the sound the horn will make.

“I say it’s probably the most dramatic part of the Rosh Hashanah service, when the shofar blower comes up there,” Herskowitz said.

Before the shofar is blown during the Rosh Hashanah service, there is a blessing giving thanks for the commandment to hear it. Then, in many synagogues there are 100 blasts of the shofar and three distinct, mandatory sounds.

“You’re not allowed to interrupt anything, in Jewish law, between saying the blessing and doing the action,” Olivestone said. “So you cannot talk until the last note is sounded. Theoretically at least, the synagogue is very quiet. It’s all one long mitzvah,” he observed, using the Hebrew word for commandment or good deed.

The first mandatory sound for the shofar blower is the Tekiah.

“The Tekiah comes from the verb which means to blow the shofar,” he said. “The sound is in itself a sound of alarm. It’s a straight, simple note. The rule is that the Tekiah, which brackets other sounds, has to be at least as long as they are.”

The next mandatory note is the Shvarim.

“The word comes from the Hebrew word for something being broken. It’s a three-part sound. It sounds like somebody crying. Then the cry proceeds to a more intense stage. The next stage of somebody crying might be when they’re actually sobbing, and that’s the sound of Truah. It’s at least nine staccato sounds, rapid fire,” Olivestone said.

The last sound is the Tekiah Gedolah, which is really an extra long Tekiah, used to denote the end of the series, he said.

“There are loud blasts that come out of it, and there are these subtle, quiet sounds,” Panken said. “What’s interesting to me is that could mirror in a sense what repentance is like. There are these great moments when you have an incredible understanding that really strikes you and changes your life. Then those subtle, sort of small, yet still important moments.”

For all that has been written about its power and meaning, there is something about the sound of the shofar that is difficult to describe.

“When you think about it, it’s just an animal sound,” Olivestone said. “It’s just as basic as you can possibly get. One of the traditions in connection with the shofar is that there are prayers which can never be verbalized. There are prayers that are deeper than language. The shofar can somehow express the prayers that words are inadequate to express.”

Ansley Roan is a freelance religion reporter in New York.

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: We have a Belief and Practice segment today about the Chinese Buddhist tradition of honoring deceased family members at the place where their ashes are interred. Harry Leong of New York City was our guide as he and his mother remembered his late father at the Chuang Yen monastery in Carmel, New York. He spoke to us about the Buddhist belief in reincarnation and the hope that prayer and good deeds will help the deceased achieve better and better lives, until eventually they’re reborn in the Pure Land.

HARRY LEONG (at memorial service, Chuang Yen monastery’s Great Buddha Prayer Hall, Carmel, NY): Over 30 families are here today for the spring memorial service, and they’re from all over the country and even from overseas. The families are here together because for traditional Chinese families, it’s considered very important for them to be present at the time when the ashes are interred, because it’s considered their filial responsibility.

We chant the mantra for rebirth in the Pure Land because it creates merit. And then, when that merit is generated, we share and we dedicate it to the deceased, which helps the deceased achieve a positive rebirth, or even better, rebirth in the Pure Land.

In Buddhist literature, the Pure Land is described as this very beautiful and perfect place where everything that you see gives you this longing to achieve rebirth there — this place created by Amitabha Buddha as a means for us to achieve enlightenment quicker, because the mind is pure. The mind is purified of defilements and the mental afflictions so we can practice without distraction, without suffering.

In Buddhism we believe that all beings are bound to samsara. Samsara is what non-Buddhists understand as reincarnation. So long as one doesn’t achieve spiritual enlightenment, one’s continually reborn in samsara, over and over again, and for Buddhist practitioners, the goal is to escape from this cycle, to achieve supreme Buddhahood, which is nirvana.

Buddhism makes us understand that death is a natural progression of life. Even though we understand that death and impermanence [are] inherent in all things, I think it’s still difficult for us to let go of our loved ones.

I think about impending death all the time. When you remind yourself about your own mortality, it gives you motivation to have diligence in spiritual practice, because you feel like time’s running out.

My goal in this human realm is the same goal as for all Buddhist practitioners, which is to practice compassion and try to benefit other living beings. And then, hopefully, at the end of this life, to achieve rebirth in the Pure Land.

Monsignor Charles Pope

TIM O’BRIEN, guest anchor: Catholics of a certain age grew up hearing the Mass only in Latin. But since the 1960s, priests have been allowed to say the Mass in Latin only with the permission of their bishop. The Vatican is now loosening those restrictions, so the Latin Mass — also called the Tridentine Mass — may soon become more widely available, although few of the world’s Catholics understand Latin. And yet over the years some Catholics have remained committed to a Mass they consider more historically authentic. At St. Mary Mother of God Parish in Washington, D.C., Monsignor Charles Pope says the Mass in Latin one Sunday a month, and it is well attended.

Monsignor CHARLES POPE (Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.): The Tridentine Mass is a form of the Mass that existed prior to 1962. Things began to change in the Catholic liturgy probably in the mid-1960s, and certainly by 1970 whatís known as the new Mass was fully in force.

There tends to be a religious tendency for the language used inside the churches to be more ancient, and I think that’s largely why Latin remained. It was the main language of the Church even after the Latin language had ceased to be spoken.

The priest always faced the altar. In fact, the priest and the people all face one direction. Some people say the priest had his back to the people. But the reality is that the priest and the people were all facing one direction, an eastward orientation — at least theoretically eastward — and everyone was looking for the risen Christ.

Tonight ís liturgy is referred to as a Solemn High Mass. There is a priest, a deacon, and a sub-deacon who all take part in the liturgy, and it adds solemnity to the liturgy. And they each have proper roles to fill. We also have a lot of extra servers. And itís just a more solemn form of the Mass, with an opening procession and, of course, the use of incense and so on, which is all unique to either the sung or the solemn high form of the Mass.

People of all age groups attend and that ís, I think, a little bit surprising. It was always thought that if we were to go back to the Latin it would mostly be the older folks. But one of the things that’s been discovered just about everywhere the Latin Mass is celebrated, there is a huge number of young people as well. And they didn’t grow up with the Latin, but there is something attractive about this ancient form of the liturgy — its dignity, and its sort of very just lofty quality, especially in some of its forms.

I’ve been saying this Mass for 18 years now, for all my years as a priest. There is a part of me that loves to sort of step back into time and to be part of something ancient that goes way, way back, all the way back hundreds and hundreds of years, even thousands of years, into the ancient past using an ancient language. This is a Mass that most of the saints knew. 

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Also today, Belief and Practice. This past week has been the Hindu festival of Diwali, celebrating the end of the year and many events in the lives of the some of Hinduism’s most important deities. Hindus believe in one ultimate God, but also worship and ask for help often at home from the many thousands of more familiar gods and goddesses. Last weekend we visited Monu Harnal in Burke, Virginia, as she helped prepare her parents’ home to welcome the Goddess Lakshmi.

Monu Harnal

MONU HARNAL: Diwali, Deepavali are one of the same thing. It means “the festival of lights.” During Diwali, we want to illuminate our house so that the Goddess Lakshmi can find her way.

The whole family gets together. We celebrate in our homes. Everyone gets to wear new clothes. It’s similar to Christmas plus New Years all at once.

In our house, we have the puja room, the prayer room. My Dad, he chants and we follow him. First, we pray to Lord Ganesha, who is the removal of all obstacles. And then, we pray to the Goddess Lakshmi to bring in both material and spiritual prosperity.

In Hinduism, the nice thing is all the gods like are your board members in your life. They act like board members. And you can call on one of them whenever you need something for a certain problem or issue or whatever it is. You can call on them to say, “Okay, Goddess Lakshmi, I need a little cash here. So help me, give me some energy to remove this problem for me.”

We don’t see prosperity as anything negative. It’s actually very fortunate that you’re prosperous. You’ve done good deeds and you’re being rewarded with prosperity.

Because the coins are a symbol of Lakshmi, the goddess of abundance, we wash her in milk and decorate her with vermilion, the red what’s on my forehead right now.

It’s called a “tika.” It’s a confirmation of us performing puja – the actual prayers that we do to evoke the goddess.

I’m striving to eliminate ignorance, become more spiritually awakened. That’s my goal as a Hindu.

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: This weekend, Hindus around the world celebrate Diwali, the Festival of Lights. For some Hindus, Diwali coincides with a special worship service for the powerful goddess Kali, who represents opposites such as life and death, creation and destruction. We spoke about Kali with Kamanashish Chakraborty, a founding member of the Washington Kali Temple in Burtonsville, Maryland.

KAMANASHISH CHAKRABORTY (Washington Kali Temple): Goddess Kali we consider to be the prime cosmic energy. She is the creator. She is the sustainer. She is the destroyer.

We Hindus believe, our philosophy says that creation comes out of destruction. And, what is created is destroyed again. The prime example would be the seed and the tree and the seed. The seed destroys itself to be able to germinate and sprout, which evolves into a tree, bears fruit, and you destroy the fruit to get to the seed. That’s the cycle.

The basic image that we worship — she has four arms. The right side, two arms that offer fearlessness to her devotees. The left deal out death and destruction.

Her garland is 50 severed demons’ heads. Each head represents a letter in the Sanskrit alphabet.

She’s standing on her divine husband, Shiva — with her right foot on his chest; left, on his thigh. Shiva is very white; she is stark black. It’s the perfect union of the opposite.

The puja includes certain rituals. The priest, the Pujari, has to invoke the divine within himself. He has to become the divine to be able to offer to the divine. He has to think of himself as the god and then offer himself to the prayer.

The deities are taken care of with utmost affection, like one would for one’s own child.

We would wake up the deity in the morning, as any one of us would wake up after a good night’s sleep. We’ll give her a bath. We’ll give her fresh clothes. We’ll give her food. We’ll comfort her, allow her to rest for a while. And then again in the evening, we’ll offer the final of the day’s prayers and let her go back to bed.

We prostrate before her who is most gentle, as well as most terrible. We salute her who is the support of the world. We pray, “May the Devi, the Mother, bring forth benefits for all who sing her praises.”

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Finally, as people of faith learn more about each other’s religions and wrestle with inter-religious differences, a visit to a Hindu temple where worshippers are accustomed to seeing many forms of one god. Deryl Davis reports.

DERYL DAVIS: Some things are still done the old way in one of the world’s most ancient religions — like the fire ceremony, offering gifts to divinity.

And the ritual preparation, bathing and feeding of numerous deities — several times a day.

Hinduism and its rituals go back thousands of years. Now, one of the world’s oldest religions can be seen in the New World.

Like this temple outside Washington, D.C., with its 56-foot tower, or Rajagopuram. It’s built, as are all Hindu temples, in the shape of a reclining human being.

Dr. SIVA SUBRAMANIAN (Sri Siva Vishnu Temple): To us, the temple itself is God. It is as though God is in a lying-down form. And the feet represent the front towers, or the Rajagopuram.

DAVIS: But Sri Siva Vishnu is different from most Hindu temples. It is dedicated to two major gods, Siva and Vishnu, who represent rival Hindu traditions. Dr. Siva Subramanian is one of the temple’s founders.

Dr. SUBRAMANIAN: It is not common in India to find a united Siva and Vishnu temple under one roof. And so, one of the things that has been accomplished here in Sri Siva Vishnu temple in Maryland is to bring the concept of unity in this diversity here.

DAVIS: One side of the tower depicts Vishnu, preserver of life, and his many forms. On the other side are the forms of Siva, destroyer and re-creator. At the top of the tower, both gods become one — illustrating what worshippers here say is their religion’s fundamental monotheism.

Dr. SUBRAMANIAN: Hinduism believes in one god, called Brahma, and all the gods and goddesses are reflections of this one god.

DAVIS: Many of these “reflections” illustrate human ideas or attributes. Ganesha is the remover of obstacles. Dancing Shiva represents the endless and recurring cycle of time, part of the Hindu concept of reincarnation.

Many Hindus worship more than one “personal deity.” Salvia Giridhar says this helps her see the divine in everything.

SALVIA GIRIDHAR (Hindu Devotee): If I can look at the books and look at people, look at money, look at trees, and look at animals in the form of lords and gods and goddesses, it helps me to realize that God is all around me, whether it’s man, woman, Christian, Muslim, Hindu.

DAVIS: Matoin says the concept of numerous deities enables Hinduism to transcend regional differences.

MATOIN (Hindu Devotee): The different gods are specifically set up for the purpose of identifying with different cultures, different ethnicities, different groups of people.

DAVIS: With its altars to many different deities, Sri Siva Vishnu temple has become a meeting place for American Hindus of all traditions. And with no weekly services or set liturgy, adherents are free to worship when and how they choose.

MATOIN: We give everybody an opportunity to see God the way you like it, or like God.

DAVIS: Dr. Siva Subramanian says that idea extends to other religions too.

Dr. SUBRAMANIAN: We believe that all religions are different paths to the same god, but also within Hinduism there are multiple paths to reach God.

DAVIS: Hindus here say when they escape the cycle of reincarnation, there’ll be no need for words, chants, and outer forms of worship. But until then, they’ll keep their doors, like their altars, open.

I’m Deryl Davis in Lanham, Maryland.