The Hindu Bindi

Treating others with divine respect and love

03/24/2019

Exodus 3:1-8A Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. Leading the flock across the desert, he came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There an angel of the LORD appeared to Moses in fire flaming out of a bush. As he looked on, he was surprised to see that the bush, though on fire, was not consumed. So Moses decided, “I must go over to look at this remarkable sight, and see why the bush is not burned.” When the LORD saw him coming over to look at it more closely, God called out to him from the bush, “Moses! Moses!” He answered, “Here I am.” God said, “Come no nearer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. I am the God of your fathers, “he continued, “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.” Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. But the LORD said, “I have witnessed the affliction of my people in Egypta and have heard their cry of complaint against their slave drivers, so I know well what they are suffering. Therefore I have come down to rescue them from the hands of the Egyptians and lead them out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”

One of the most common questions I get asked as an immigrant from India is: “What does the dot on a woman’s forehead mean?” Someone sent me this excellent explanation by email last week. It said: “Hindu women have worn a dot on their foreheads for centuries.  Most of us have naively thought this was connected with tradition or religion, but the Indian embassy in Ottowa has recently revealed the true story. When a Hindu woman gets married, she brings a dowry into the union. On her wedding night, the husband scratches off the dot to see whether he has won a convenience store, a gas station, a donut shop, a taxi cab, or a motel in the United States. If nothing is there, he must remain in India to answer telephones and provide us with Verizon technical support.” Now you finally know what the dot means. By the way, only an Indian can tell that joke; don’t you gringos even think about it.

But with all due respect to the opinions of the Indian embassy in Ottowa, I would like to say a word about our famous Indian dot. It is actually called the Hindu Bindi and carries profound cultic and cultural significance, not only for Indians but for countries all over southern Asia. Let me point out two principal purposes of the Bindi, the dot.  First, the Bindi is considered the pin-point at which creation begins, or the sacred symbol of the entire cosmos in its primordial, unmanifested state. Astrophysicists, like the late Stephen Hawking, tell us that the whole universe was originally condensed into a single point – a dot – right before the Big Bang exploded, bringing everything into existence. That’s one meaning of the Bindi. Indeed, isn’t every human person initially conceived as a single pin point – a dot called a fertilized egg – that explodes into life and leaves his or her own Big Bang in life? And a woman’s womb is the cradle of life, where we all began, and that’s the first meaning of the Bindi.

Secondly, the Bindi is also considered the seat of wisdom, hence it is placed on the brow of the head, indicating the brain, where we think. Since it is traditionally worn by women, think of it like woman’s intuition, or as Pope St. John Paul II coined the phrase, “the feminine genius.” One of my favorite titles for the Blessed Virgin Mary is “Seat of Wisdom.” The Bindi, therefore, is not some scratch off lottery for a husband to see if he won a convenience store. Far from it.  Rather, it is an alluring invitation for everyone to draw near, to the cradle of all life and the seat of womanly wisdom.

In the first reading from Exodus 3, Moses is also called to draw close to the God of creation and wisdom. Moses sees a surprising sight: a bush on fire but not consumed by the flames. But as Moses draws near the bush, an angel warns him: “Come no nearer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.” In other words, Moses sort of saunters up to the bush casually and with curiosity, like the Indian husband who wanted to treat the Bindi like a scratch off lottery ticket. But the angel sternly reminded him that he stood on holy ground, in the presence of the Creator of cosmos, and the ground of all wisdom. I hope this will not sound sacrilegious, but I believe the Burning Bush is the biblical equivalent to the Hindu Bindi. Why? Well, because both the bush and the bindi, through created things, invite us to come closer to the source of all creation and to the author of all wisdom, namely, God himself.

I am so grateful to Fr. Mario and to you, the parishioners of St. Boniface, for the opportunity to celebrate the Masses here at St. Boniface, preach about Trinity Junior High, and take up a second collection for Trinity. Let me thank you in advance. There are so many good things I could say about the academics, the extracurricular activities, and the spirituality of Trinity, all of which could just as easily be said about St. Boniface School. But I believe our biggest blessing is we help students come closer to God through our weekly school Mass. In the Trinity chapel students, like Moses, stand on holy ground, hearing the voice of God behind both the bible and the Bread of Communion. They hear and see more than what meets the ears or eyes, and they grow into people of faith.

One message we have hammered home from the pulpit at Trinity is our students must treat people with respect and love. I am very proud of Dr. Hollenbeck and Mr. Edwards and our teachers who are quick to deal with bullying in class, or even on social media, the so-called cyber-bullying. In a sense, each person is like the burning Bush and the Hindu Bindi, and carries an image of the Creator and is filled with their own unique wisdom. I pray that no Trinity student ever graduates without a profound sense of the breath-taking beauty and blessing that is every human person, regardless of their religion or race, their country or culture, their name or fame, their rags or riches, whether an Indian with a dot or an Indian with a feather. All are children of God, in whose presence we should remove our sandals.

By the way, speaking of Indian customs, did you know that when you enter an Indian home you should remove your shoes? I used to think it was so your dirty shoes would not soil the carpet. But I learned that it is a sign of respect for the family and that you see their home as holy ground. It also has the added benefit of whenever you step on each other’s toes, it does not hurt as much.

Praised be Jesus Christ!