The Way Begins at Dawn

India is a land where people of many races, colours and classes live. There are black-skinned and fair and everything in between; there are high-caste, low-caste and untouchables; there are monks and magicians, princes and beggars. And no other people in the world have so many different ways of thinking of God and practising religion, as do the Hindus. So it is very difficult to describe exactly what a "typical" Hindu does. Yet throughout the country, from one corner of the triangle to another (see map) there is a common attitude towards life and how to live it. It is this which helps to bind Hindus together and make them one people.
If you are a Hindu, you find religion everywhere, in everything. From childhood you learn that you are a traveller towards God, and every day is thought of as a step on the pilgrimage. It begins even before sunrise, which in the tropics is very early. Rising at four or five a.m. you would first of all give reverence to God, to a picture or symbol kept in your room, which brings God to your mind. A Hindu may make namaskar, bringing the flat palms together before his breast, fingers pointing forward; or he may do pranam, going to the floor on his knees and touching it with his forehead. You would then go to Mother and Father and do the same, honouring God who dwells within them.
This feeling of reverence you are to carry throughout the day, into everything you do. As a well-loved Sanskrit hymn says, "O Lord, may we feel that You are the Soul of our soul, may our bodies be your home, and may everything we enjoy be an offering to you; may You rule our lives; may our every word be a hymn to you, our every act Your adoration, our every step a pilgrimage to Your shrine; may we see the whole world as lighted by Your light, and may we know You as our very own Self."