Shri Swaminarayan Mandir

We chose an incredibly hot day to take the train out of central London to the North West and the Borough of Brent.  It was a strangely less grand sight than the crowded metropolitan streets that Michael and I had become used to, waiting at a bus stop scarcely a few blocks away from Stonebridge Station under the defeated façade of a commercial building long since past its prime, all broken windows and cardboard remains, I wondered what we would find.  This was no longer a place of high culture, this seemed more like the sprawling west of Sydney, all discarded hopes and cheap real estate, only without the transversal of the natural world that exists in country Australia.

The bus dropped us off next to the sort of highway overpass that people get stabbed to death beneath, or else are thrown off by hoodie-clad youths looking for trouble and, despite being no stranger to that particular subculture, I think we were both relieved that we had chosen to make this particular jaunt in the height of the day, despite the sweat and dust thrown up from the highway.

Wandering up the suburban streets, it was some time before we could see what we had come for.  Coming along a gradual bend in the road and saw what we were looking for on the horizon.

The Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, is a Hindu Temple, sometimes noted as Britain's first, but in truth it is the first of its type in the whole of Europe and indeed, the largest Hindu temple laying outside India itself.  We would, of course, only come to learn these things once inside, but its grandeur was not lessened as we passed the seemingly benign neighbourhood of Neasen before it.

After depositing all sensitive belongings in nearby storage, most notably our mobile phones and camera meaning that all photographs here were taken, with permission kindly granted, from the outside of the temple.  We passed from the roiling heat, through the ornate doors of the learning centre into the cool annex to the main temple and removed our shoes in respect of traditions that neither Michael nor I fully understood.

We were, however, about to be educated.   To preface what I will say about the Mandir's interesting 'Understanding of Hinduism' exhibit.  The construction of such a remarkable and authentic place of worship, is in itself a holy thing.  Carved from 2,828 tons of Bulgarian Limestone and 2,000 tons of Carrara Italian Marble, in India by 1,500 craftsmen and masons in the ancient tradition, before being placed atop the largest concrete pour in the United Kingdom, the structure itself is flawless, and a thing of inestimable beauty.  The care paid to the precise detail of religious iconography and architectural brilliance honestly made almost every building in we would encounter in England only mildly noteworthy by comparison.

That said, the exhibition, whilst comprehensive, was strange to me.  This of course reflects more upon my state of mind, than on the genuine desire to convey an honest truth about the beliefs of the community that built this place of worship as a force of economic and artistic will.  It was funded by the Hindu community, faithful men and women (and children who as more than a few stories tell collected and recycled aluminium cans to do their part)   In that space though, surrounded by such subtle but deeply spiritual meaning, I wanted nothing more than to speak to the things that I had read, section by section by somebody who held them as words to live by.  The fault is all mine of course, there would have been many willing to lend their perspectives had I asked.

"A mandir is a centre for realising God.
  A mandir is where the mind becomes Still.
  A mandir is a place of paramount Peace.
  A mandir inspires a higher way of Life.
  A mandir teaches us to respect one another"

So writes Pujya Pramukh Swami Maharaj, the spiritual leader who prophesied and led the construction of this site.  We walked out from the main temple, onto the balcony overlooking the tired roads that we had traversed.  A world of the lower-middle class, inhabited by those who, whether by choice or necessity had shunned the grandeur of one of the most notable capitols in the world and found a place of their own, no less human, no less holy. A hot wind savaged its way across suburbia, but upon passing the threshold of the temple proper was immediately lessened, becoming cooler even as it mingled with the flowering scent from the garden below. Almost as if it too, had found some measure of peace.