Divine Seeing: Darshana

In Hinduism you may hear the word darshana. People will often speak of going to a temple or mandir to have darshana or to do darshana of the sacred image. Ask them what they mean and they will say “to do prayers” in the temple. But darshana does not mean to pray, it means to see. Darshana comes from the verbal root drish meaning to see, so goes to a temple to “see” God and in the course of that seeing one may prayer and bow down. And not only does darshan mean to see God, but also to be seen by God. So in a temple people go not only to see God, but also to be seen by God. In a somewhat different context darshan is also the word used for philosophy in Sanskrit. Through philosophy one is able to “see” more into the meaning of life and into the world around us. This is Darshana, divine seeing.