Anjali Kumar - Stalking God: My Unorthodox Search for Something to Believe In

In 2010, when my daughter Zia was born, I decided that I needed to find God. I told myself that she would eventually ask me questions that I couldnt answerand that completely unraveled me. I was senior counsel at Google at the time, and, as a lawyer, when people asked me a question, I was used to giving them an answer backed with certitude. And precedent. Or if all else failed, at least I could Google a satisfactory answer.

I also found that having a childactually creating a lifehad changed me. It didnt help that I had struggled to get pregnant, enduring multiple, heartbreaking miscarriages, or that right after Zia was born, my doula commented, She is from another time, after pointing out that Zia was holding the fingers of her left hand in gyan mudraa prayer position used in yoga and meditation. Then a few days into Zias life, when my father asked me when I would be taking her to our temple, my spiritual skepticism, complacency, and lassitude abruptly ended. I felt what could only be described as a newfound sense of spiritual curiosity.

Curiosity sparked by a new and completely unanticipated sense of spiritual urgency. And perhaps a touch of panic.

Now that I had a child, I wantedneededto believe in something bigger than myself. Not just to believe in the possibility that there is more but to know with a degree of legal certainty that there is something deeper and bigger than just this. So as the months following Zias birth unfolded, I made a firm commitment to myselfand to herthat I would make a valiant effort to find us a comfortable spiritual home. It became patently clear that my somewhat eclectic multicultural upbringing had given me deep spiritual footings but not the structure they were intended to support.

I had the foundation but not the house.

AT THE ONSET of this missionwhich I didnt embark on in a serious manner until Zia was one year oldI knew that I wouldnt be looking for God in the usual places or in the traditional sense. Growing up, I had been exposed, first-and secondhand, to a broad sampling of both Western and Eastern religions. I was born to Indian parents and raised in America, where my family was culturally Hindu and practiced a strict and relatively unknown (at least in the West) Indian religion called Jainism. Incongruently, I was educated by Catholic nunswell, at least until I came home from school one day in fifth grade and announced with confidence that Jesus would save us all, after which my parents promptly enrolled me in the local public school.

As a child I spoke both English and Hindi; by the time my daughter was born, I was reasonably fluent in French and Italian as well. I was well educated, well traveled, and worldly. To add to the religious and spiritual mix, my husband, Atul, an interventional cardiologist, is Hindu. As a man of science, he finds comfort in research and data and doesnt share my spiritual thirst or my anxiety about the unknown. But for me, science wasnt enough. And religiously and spiritually speaking, nothing I had experienced thus far was a perfect fit. I was walking barefoot, so to speak. Not because I wanted to but because I had a closet full of uncomfortable shoes.

SINCE I HADNT been able to find Godor a satiating spiritual connectionin any of the obvious places, I decided to widen my net. This wasnt an out-and-out rejection of the traditional religion that I grew up with; rather it was a deep, spiritual curiosity that left me yearning to find out if theres more. So when I headed out to find Godhim or her or itI was looking elsewhere and everywhere. And I went all-in. I wanted to experience each of these belief systems and practices in the flesh. Nothing was off-limits or too unorthodox.

WHAT I FOUND was unexpected, to say the least.

Early on, what I encountered was somewhat encouraging, at times even bordering on the spiritual. That inspired me to keep looking.

But more often what I experienced was perplexing. Or hilarious.

Other times, what I unearthed could only be described as shocking, intellectually discordant, or downright baffling. Or just plain-old disappointing. What I observed ranged from the very profound to the stunningly dumbfounding.

And it was crowded. I had to wait in a lot of lines. It seems everyone is looking for Godor at least one of his spiritual bedfellows.