How was your experience, overall?
Overall, it was great. I appreciated the structure and routine. I was a temple priest and really enjoyed that work and the opportunities it granted. (Example, I was able to move to Germany to become a head priest at a temple there. I was able to travel to India several times for priest training.) I found the rituals and ceremonies to be beautiful. Maintaining them was a full-time, likely overtime, job. It felt nice to have a clear place in a community.
Here is an example of a temple altar at a place I lived:
The downsides came primarily from misuse of power. The group I was in was very homophobic, so I was closeted most of the time. When I came out I was told to get married and have children, as a solution. (I thankfully avoided the children part.) I'm also still highly affected by the negation of the body - "you're the soul, not your body." This effectively made it difficult to develop the sensitivity to bodily signals. For example, you slept and ate at when you told you could. As a temple priest there was an emphasis on ritual purity, so I feel I've become uncomfortable and kind of stressed with bodily functions that are seen as impure - like going to the bathroom.
In recent years I've learned that I'm autistic, which gives me some insight to how I have been affected by the experience. Looking back I can see how religion became my primary special interest. Many of my former peers where not so adversely impacted.
As I write all of this out, it feels like there was more negative, but I still look back on a lot of it with fondness. It's complicated. Thanks for asking ^__^
