One of the best things of traveling is that you get to discover cultures and customs that are so different from what you know or are used to. By getting used to seeing such diversity, and understanding in mind and soul that our ways are not the ways of the world, which has so many different ways unknown to us, we naturally become more tolerant in every aspect, and thus improve as human beings. That's why as a Westerner I prefer traveling around Asia than around any other place in the world. Not because I think Asia is better, but because there is where I personally feel more in awe and learn of more new ways and traditions that ultimately inspire me in different ways.
In mid September I went backpacking to Ho Chi Minh city as part of a bigger trip. Personally I liked Ho Chi Minh very much. Since I didn't want to spend more than 8 days in Vietnam this time, and I heard that Ho Chi Minh had much more to see than Hanoi, I went there and added some days around the Mekong Delta, which was an amazing experience. But here I just want to focus on Cao Dai, that is a relatively recent religion that is unique to Vietnam, and of which the main temple is in the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh city, about two hours by bus from the city center.
Only about 3 - 6% of the Vietnamese total population adhere to the Cao Dai religion. This represents about 3 - 6 million followers.
Cao Dai is a syncretistic monotheistic religion that was officially established in 1926, in the city of Tay Ninh, south of Vietnam.
Caodaism, as it is also called, believes it has been God Himself you communicated His will of founding a new religion of the new Third Era to the founders of their religion.
The refreshing feature of Caodaism is its focus on moral and ethical practices that include prayer, veneration of the ancestors (which is common throughout most of the country, mainly buddhists), nonviolence and vegetarianism.
As brahmanic based religions, Caodaism aims towards freedom from the cycle of birth and death as its main goal, and rejoining God in heaven.
Among their revered saints it include such different characters as Confucious, Victor Hugo (the French writer), Sun Yat-Sen (the Chinese republican hero from the XX century), Joan of Arc, and other universally famous figures. Each one of these has his celebration day of worship.
Cao Dai's religious structure includes a pope, cardinals, bishops, priests, etc., like the Catholic Church. But it also has an organizational structure that resembles that of many states, counting with a legislative, an executive an a judicial branch.
During the First and Second Indochina Wars, members of the Cao Dai religion (although not only Cao Dai) became political activists against the French colonial forces and against the South Vietnamese government. Because of this they were persecuted for many decades, and their number reduced considerably, since they outlawed for a long time. Nowadays they are officially accepted again like an official religion, although there are still complains showing that Cao Dai still is look at by suspicion by the Vietnamese government, which is practice is quite harmful for it.
Their beliefs can be seen as a combination of Daoism, Buddhism and Catholicism. For Cao Dai, before even God existed, there was the Tao, as understood in the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tsu's work.
It's hierarchy of individual development goes from Human, to Angel, to Saint, later Sage, and the highest being Buddha. Only the Buddhas are freed from the cycle of birth and death. Confucious and Jesus are catalogued among the Saints; Laozi or Lao Tsu is catalogued among the Sages, and the Buddhas Skakyamuni and Dipankara are Buddhas.
I happened to visit the temple during their main annual festival, and I saw thousands of devotees and pilgrims stationed in a sitting meditation positions all over the place inside the temple (on both levels), and outside the temple, sitting, kneeling, meditating, chanting, and praying for hours non-stop. all dressed in white garments except a few inside the temple that were in groups of all yellow, all blue and all red garments, representing Laozi, Confucious and I don't remember who else.
Do get inside the temple people need to get barefoot, so around the huge beautiful temple you can see thousands of shoes, sandals and Vietnamese hats scattered around in what seems to be a caos of shoes impossible to recognize (you can see that from a couple of the videos I posted below).
The ceremony was one of the most colorful and beautiful I've seen so far, and it left a strong impression in me. Therefore I took several videos, where I'm not actually saying anything very interesting, but I'm mainly trying to capture the weirdness and solemnity of the place and the environment.
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