Abode of God

I won't say that I never prayed. I prayed, very earnestly and very hard at times. Mostly in difficult times and they were plenty and really, really hard for one to go through. But even in those desperate moments, I was always unsure of, to who was I praying to and where my prayers were reaching? They were in real, my efforts to realign my shattering soul to bring some semblance to my very being, and not for that unknown, unseen power above or the so-called almighty! Again I might have prayed in the early ages when I was naive and did not understand the concept of God, but in the years to come when I started groping in the adult world with tiny steps to start with I always doubted the concept of God.

And thus abode of God! A place I always detested to visit to meet God

I have visited many temples, mosques and Churches. 
In fact in Europe if you take a conducted tour it's nothing but Churches, Cathedrals or Chapels all 'C's with some 'Convent' s or 'Castle' s thrown in for a change. The absence of sound in these places did not give me solitude but made me aware of my loneliness. The silence in the sanctum was/is just too much for someone like me, brought up in noisy Hindu culture, to absorb and then like it! I am always so bogged down by that eerie soundless ambience in these abodes of God that I feel scared, even to make the slightest whisper of a prayer. Maybe, he never was my saviour due to my faith, but always felt him to be distant and aloof, who might just not be staying there, in those heavily ornated, splendorously sculptured pieces of excellent architecture to listen to your unsaid prayers, as he always was the God of downtrodden who have nothing, 

Visited two great mosques. Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia. Both in Istanbul. Similar in designs architecturally both are beauty for the eyes. Sophia, in fact, was built as a church to start with but was converted into a mosque during the Ottoman regime. So from 537 AD to 1453 AD, it was abode to Christian  God.  In1453,  after it was taken over by Mehmed II, it was converted into a mosque so became abode to Islamic God. When winds of liberalization blew over Turkey under Attaturk it was converted into a museum and then it ceased to be the abode of God! Thus the same building became abode to different Gods when the realms changed. Blue mosque is simply a wonder, built in turquoise blue tiles, it's number one tourist attraction of Istanbul, so always overcrowded, and the crowd takes you away from God!

Though named similarly but vastly different in architecture Blue mosque in Kualalumpur is really a place where you feel you may meet God. Though having a huge praying hall, though being always crowded you neither have cacophony like in Hindu temples nor Pin drop scary silence of churches. You have humanity thronging the place but everybody just bows down to, well nothing in front and tries to connect directly with God!  Through the prayers without any mediator! Isn't it the way one would like to have an equation with God!

Buddhist Wats in Thailand are pieces of architectural wonders but show the vanity of kings who built them. If they are decorated with Gold films from top to bottom how could  God, possibly be residing in them and be the God of poor, who outnumber the haves. If God asks you to bring in a gold leaf to fulfil your wish, you better be poor than to bow down to [Gold thirsty ? ] God, who in all probability must not be living in such abodes.

At Rishikesh on River Ganges, on the other side of Laxman Zula, there are so many,  really so many temples from this small to huge 13 storied temple 'palaces', that it seems as if there is an entire city built for Gods to live according to their stature and affordability!  On a personal level, in my belief, Hindu Gods have deserted their abodes many eras ago. In spite of singing prayers in utmost voices, in spite of beating drums and bongos in full ear splitting thumping thunders, maybe, it's to call them back, they don't seem to answer the prayers of their disciples. Either, they have gone deaf or they just have left their biggest abode, India ! See her condition now! 

Huge religious structures do not have God residing in them, a small heart, filled with love and kindness is sufficient! In fact, they dwarf the human, the very creation of God [?]! In reality, it is the vacuous pride of its creators who want to show to the world, how pious they are! And how Great 'They' are by serving humanity, in the bracket !   

On the contrary, I feel as the man himself is the creator of God, it's natural that he wants his God to reside in these posh abodes, which he himself dreams of! In this case, it's definitely not, 'More the merrier !'