Thank you for answering! I really appreciate it!
Would you be able to worship in a BAPS temple no problem as an Original Swaminarayan temple?
Well there's sort of a sectarian conflict between the Original and BAPS sects. The Original sect has the Acharyapad. During Swaminarayan's time, he established two Gadis or seats which would help maintain the Swaminarayan temples. The Gadi in Ahmedabad is the Nar Narayan Dev Gadi which maintains the temples in the Northern part of India (and random places in the West lol) while the Gadi in Vadtal or Laxmi Narayan Dev Gadi maintains those in the Southern part (and random places in the West too).
The first Acharyas were Swaminarayan's nephews, so they are blood related to Swaminarayan. The problem is that the Acharyas were chosen by Swaminarayan himself so all other sects are considered false or breakaways. The Swaminarayan temples are also gender segregated, men on one side, women on the other. The job of the Acharya is to initiate the men and give them diksha. The Acharya's wife (Gadiwalla) initiates the women and gives them diksha. The position is hereditary as in the Acharya has to be from the family. Gadiwalla is the wife of the Acharya.
The BAPS sect broke away in 1907 because of some philosophical differences and some issues involving Swaminarayan and the Acharyas. I don't if this is true or not but I think they believe that Krishna is considered a deva while Swaminarayan is the only one that can give moksha (I could be wrong though). BAPS is the more well known of the Swaminarayan sects.
Anyway, to answer the question, generally the Indians tend to gossip about those that go to BAPS or Original (although intersect marriage can occur in India), but as far as I know no one would say anything if you went to both, but it's not really considered favorable.
Are there converts who are non-Gujaratis or non-Indians to Swaminarayan Vaishnavism? I mean, because of preaching I am a Gaudiya Vaishnava today, lol.
Well nowadays Swaminarayan Hindus don't really preach like ISKCON. But yeah there are non-Gujaratis that follow Swaminarayan. There are a few non-Indians, but I haven't really met any. There was a white guy who came to our temple, although he was married to an Indian woman. I don't know if he was a Swaminarayan Hindu or if he just visited out of respect for his wife.
And why can women not wear urdhva-paundra? Actually, Vaishnavis wearing tilak have only been in the Gaudiya sect, as far as I know. No other Vaishnava denomination has women wearing tilak, and I still wonder why not.
This I don't know.
Maybe it is BAPS that say that both Shiva and Vishnu are supreme... the Wikipedia page is lying to me, lol. Because to make the claim that Lord Shiva is the same as Lord Narayana Himself is quite outside the Vaishnava norm, lol.
Well, actually BAPS also believes that Narayana is supreme lol.
How does a Swaminarayani practice his or her faith? What is the goal?
Mainly through bhakti (devotion) I guess. Same thing other Hindus practice their faith, prayer, japa mala, meditation, bhajans, etc. The goal is to attain moksha (or Akshardham).
Do you follow Swaminarayanam yourself?
Simply put yes . I'm not really that religious since I'm pretty busy with school. I am 16 by the way, so I don't do a lot of stuff lol, just minor things.
I may be moving in a few months into an area where there is no Gaudiya Vaishnava (ISKCON or SCS Math) temple or large sangha at all, but a Swaminarayan temple (probably BAPS) is there anyways. I thought that I would and should rather go to a Vaishnava temple than the local Hindu temple, especially when they have so many deities of different gods!
Well, the Swaminarayan temple I go to also pictures of other deities, but they are sort of put to the side lol. The pictures of Swaminarayan, Krishna, are larger. Well see how it goes at the BAPS temple .
