What Is The Reason Behind Covering Our Heads During Religious and Spiritual Traditions?
Different types of head coverings are worn in many religious and spiritual traditions, including Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and Sikhism. Covering your head is said to be very auspicious, even brides and grooms cover their heads for the wedding ceremony. But why do we cover our heads during religious or any auspicious work?
The answer lies in Garuna Purana, the one of 18 'Mahāpurāṇa' texts in Hinduism. The Garuda Purana text is known in many versions, contains 15000+ verses. Its chapters encyclopedically deal with a highly diverse collection of topics. As per the Garuna Purana, the head should be covered while performing religious puja or any other auspicious work as it helps to maintain mental peace and attention. It is also believed that your mind is not distracted anywhere, and you can fully concentrate.
It is also believed that covering the head focuses the energy at the third eye. Yogi Bhajan, the father of Kundalini Yoga in the West, emphasized the importance of head coverings during practice as a means to focus and contain your energy and clarify your thoughts, creating a meditative focus at your third eye or Ajna Chakra.
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In Sikhism, men and women both cover their heads before entering Gurudwara. According to Sikhs, our energy is located in the centre of the body. As per beliefs, if individuals don’t cover their heads during worship, the negative energies might enter their heads.
In the early years of Christianity, both men and women were supposed to cover their heads while entering their place of worship. But, this tradition got amended by the Apostle of the Gentiles and then only women were supposed to cover their heads at their place of worship. Although, this tradition of covering the head inside a Church faded away with time. Now, only a few people can be seen covering their heads inside a Church.
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Islam religion requires both men and women to dress up appropriately while visiting a mosque. Women are required to cover their head and most of the skin by wearing long and full sleeves clothes. Men should wear proper full sleeved shirt and pant or kurta pajama and are also required to cover their head with a round white cap called ‘Taqiyah’. They do so because all this is mentioned in their holy book ‘The Quran’.