American Dharma: Dharma Travels: Encountering Brahma in Sin City

A few weeks ago I went to Las Vegas with three of my friends as a post-graduation celebration. Although Las Vegas most likely would not have been my first travel destination choice (exactly one year prior another friend and I backpacked in Northern India), I decided to go anyway to have some fun with my friends, to go West (I had never been west of PA), and to enjoy the general kitchi-ness that is Las Vegas. I got a little more interested in the trip due to a lovely book that we read in my Spiritual Wandering class called Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit and an interested class project by this guy Daniel (who later gave me the wanderer's guide to Vegas via facebook message which I am thankful for). I was ready to see Sin City in all its glory: all of the reconstructed miniature, clean and safe replicas of the world's great cities. I thought I knew what to expect, especially after being there a few days before I did my own wander of the strip, however, what I didn't expect to find was some good old fashioned Eastern Religion smack in the middle of Las Vegas.

The day I wandered alone, I walked the three miles from our resort to Mandalay Bay at the beginning of the Strip and all the way down the strip to the other end at Sahara. (I think I walked a total of 10 miles, because I wandered the entire Miracle Mile Shops looking for a potential meal which I didn't find 'til I reached Paris, but that's a) another story b) fun to say). Somewhere in the course of my journey I came upon probably the last thing I thought I would find in Las Vegas: a shrine to Brahma. I say this because a) here was a Hindu shrine in the middle of the Las Vegas strip in front of Caesars of all places and b) Brahma is not really popularly worshiped now a days. However, there is was in white marble looking back at me. I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw it because I wasn't expecting such a thing. While I was looking at it, a small Thai woman came (the plaque I found later said this was a Thai shrine) and began placing flowers and oranges around the different spots of the shrine. In silence I watched her do this as tourists who had never seen a Hindu or Buddhist anything looked at the statue and moved on, as men directly behind me handed out pamphlets for prostitutes, and as the strip echoed a searing blazing noise of motors and horns in the hot Nevada sun. But amidst all of this a small Thai women made offerings of flowers, fruit, and incense to a shrine of an unpopular god in an unlikely city far removed from its culture of origin.

What does this really say about the nature of religion in America? Perhaps it is its adaptability. At least that is what struck me about this shrine most of all. Perhaps the most striking thing about this shrine to me was the ability for a clearly "spiritual" thing to be placed in what seems to be the antithesis of a spiritual place. But perhaps that was the point. I am not sure. I was quick to write it off as a gimmick when I first saw it (like the ginormous Buddha in the Tao restaurant and nightclub in the Venetian), because that is what Vegas was full of--I had seen it all day. Cheep gimmicks to ease you into spending money. However, the minute I saw this woman making offerings to this shrine I realized that this was still a place where people lived and worked and not just played and partied. This seemed to be a bit more than what people usually think of when they think of religion in Las Vegas: little wedding chapels with ministers dressed like Elvis. However, perhaps there is more to the story of American Dharma in Las Vegas after all (and I'm talking about the strip of course, I'm fully aware there is a living Las Vegas community outside of the strip in the other parts of town). I have to admit I just couldn't help but be intrigued by an operating shrine to Brahma in the middle of the Las Vegas strip. Life is full of surprises in that way I guess.