Gyani Baile & Dolly Baile

Church, and Masjid. If any friend or relative went to a Mandir she
always was very happy to join them.
Prior to 1997, our religious practices were limited to bowing
every morning to the Hindu deities in simple china cabinet like small
mandir in our home. Once in a while, we visited the nearest temple
which is 60 miles away from our home but there was no regularity in
our visits to this temple. Due to both of us pursuing careers and
raising young children, we did not find time to even celebrate all
Hindu holy occasions. We just accepted that as a normal life style for
us.
However we were always able to make time for social life
which consisted of frequent dinner get together with a variety of
friend circles. Many of these parties were about wining, dining,
dancing, and joking around which we used to thoroughly enjoy.
The above description gives you a feel for who we are, where
we are stationed in life, what is our background (education,
occupation, family, religion, social etc.). We viewed ourselves as the
kind of people who did believe in God but it was all in the back of our
mind, and we did not follow any active religious discipline. Since our
background was more scientific and professional, we could not
explain or understand with a deductive logic all those questions that
arise around God. The questions like where is the beginning? How the
rituals can help us in day to day life? And what and where is the end?
Though the feelings and God thoughts were in the back of the mind,
they came to the surface once in a while either due to fear of
something bad happening, or it was socially right thing to do, or we
could relate to the rituals through our childhood experience. Once or
twice we got invited to attend a discourse about religion by some
Swamiji, somehow those discourses did not appeal to our logical
sense. That resulted in us shying away from committed participation
in any religious organization.
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