{"id":2278,"date":"2016-06-29T02:38:11","date_gmt":"2016-06-28T21:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/finding-faith-religion-india-atheist\/"},"modified":"2016-06-29T02:38:11","modified_gmt":"2016-06-28T21:08:11","slug":"finding-faith-religion-india-atheist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=2278","title":{"rendered":"Finding Faith: How I Discovered Religion When I Left India"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I<\/span>n the 1995 neo-noir film, <\/p>The Usual Suspects<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Kevin Spacey\u2019s<\/span><\/a> character tells his interrogators: Keaton always said, \u201cI don’t believe in God, but I\u2019m afraid of him.\u201d Once upon a time, I agreed with that sentiment entirely. <\/span>\n\nI used to be one of those people, who told people at parties that I didn\u2019t believe in <\/span>organised religion<\/span><\/a>, but that I did believe in some higher power, even though I didn\u2019t know what it was. It\u2019s like avoiding a route after a black cat has crossed your path \u2013 as a rational human being you don\u2019t believe in it, but you don\u2019t want to offend it, whatever \u201cit\u201d is. <\/span>\n\nIt was a comfortable position to be in, especially since my family and social circle never really immersed itself in <\/span>religious life<\/span><\/a>. My friends shrugged off religion with the same level of antipathy you reserve for a cup of Starbucks latte, or spoke with disdain about God. The peak of our religious participation would be at <\/span>Diwali<\/span><\/a>, when my grandfather would tell us to do the pooja and bhajan-kirtan. Even then, the goal was to try finish it as quickly as possible and rush to the celebrations and chaos outside. <\/span>\n\nOf course there is a twist in this tale. <\/span>\n\nThings took a turn when I moved to Edinburgh to study a couple of years ago. Within a couple of weeks of moving to the new place, I became friends with a group of people who were smart, funny, and incredibly fun. We organised dinners and constantly cooked for each other, spent long hours in the library together, and spent our weekends at <\/span>local Scottish pubs<\/span><\/a>. Most of the folks in my group were older, pursuing PhDs or masters programmes. <\/span>\n

The last thing anyone could have expected, when I moved to the west, was that I\u2019d somehow discover religion.<\/blockquote>\nMost of them were also \u201cpracticing Catholics\u201d, by which I mean that they took an active role in Catholic religious life. To my Dilliwala mind, this was a whole new world. In my entire time at Delhi University, I hadn\u2019t met one person who spoke with enthusiasm about being religious. No young person I knew willingly attended religious ceremonies or valued it in their personal life. For so many of us, religion and all its attendant paraphernalia of ritual and ceremony, was tolerated at best, derided at worst. <\/span>\n\nBut here I was, in the west, hanging with a bunch of university students submerged and <\/span>excited about religion<\/span><\/a> being an active part of their lives. <\/span>\n\nMy closest friends belonged to a Catholic movement called Communion and Liberation (CL). In my experience, CL played out as weekly meetings called the School of Community, where CL members in a particular area met to discuss a prescribed religious text and reflect through its lens on their own life and experiences. They discussed and debated, sang songs, and through it all, attempted to <\/span>find some answers<\/span><\/a> to philosophical and moral questions we face during everyday existence. The meeting ended with a prayer, and in the case of my friends, led to dinner and beer before calling it a night. Other aspects of the religious life mostly included going to the church for mass on Sundays, weekly charity work, and going on spiritual retreats. <\/span>\n\nThe last thing anyone, including me, could have expected when I moved to the west was that I\u2019d somehow discover religion. \u00a0<\/span>\n\nHungry for new experiences, I decided to participate in the CL life and educate myself. I found a sense of community and belonging that I\u2019ve rarely found at any other point in my life. Even though most Indian religions are premised on the idea of community, I\u2019d never actually experienced it back home. With my CL friends and their community, I truly experienced the feeling of kinship. I never attended mass but was always welcome to the Sunday dinner that followed it; I wasn\u2019t a regular at the School of Community, but if I chose to talk, my views were always respected and no opinions were forced. I was never asked to contribute or participate in any way than I felt greater than my reach, and mostly always went because my friends did, and in turn discovered something even more beautiful. <\/span>\n
I used to be one of those people, who told people at parties that I didn\u2019t believe in organised religion, but that I did believe in some higher power.<\/blockquote>\nCL has a beautiful tradition of sitting together and singing, and that pumped life into spaces we would occupy. Food would always be an essential accompaniment (but I mean most people were Italian). Homes were always open, help extended even before one could ask for it, and a love without conditions pervaded. <\/span>\n\nAt one point, someone who shared my earlier <\/span>indifference to religion<\/span><\/a>, told us, \u201cIt\u2019s nice, but still weird to see you so into it.\u201d <\/span>\n\n\u201cInto what,\u201d my friend asked, \u201cinto believing in something?\u201d <\/span>\n\nThat\u2019s when the penny dropped. <\/span>Belief in something<\/span><\/a> \u2013 anything \u2013 is what undergirds our lives. It anchors us to an idea, offers us an understanding of the world that goes beyond our immediate selves. <\/span>\n\nCommunities are formed on the basis of shared belief, and hence the \u201cbelonging\u201d is bound to shine. How then did faith become something that is so highly idolised, yet so deeply misinterpreted and misunderstood? Growing up in a world where religion has been used to spread hate and terror, bag votes in politics, used as an excuse to <\/span>maim, murder, and kill<\/span><\/a>, how do we understand it in a context apart from that, to love and be loved? Where do we draw the line? <\/span>\n\nThat said, maybe organised religious life is beneficial to a community \u2013 maybe it isn\u2019t. Heaven knows it\u2019s <\/span>caused enough trouble<\/span><\/a> in the past. I only know that in my small experience of it, it has only led to harmony and calm for everyone involved. To try and open up our minds. <\/span>\n\nI found that to simply say that I believe in something was not enough. But reminding myself through certain practices and a sense of rigour of a faith I would like to hold on to \u2013 and in turn finding love and belonging \u2013 was much more than enough. I can say with assurance now that faith can be a positive lens to see my life through. <\/span>\n\nNow back in India, I <\/span>visit the temple<\/span><\/a> every Tuesday and, surrounded by grandparents of all shapes and sizes, stay for the entire prayer. I\u2019ve no special affinity for the Gods or the idols they are represented by, and neither do I buy the boondi ka prasad. But it just acts as a reminder of an idea: I set aside a special time every week to remember that I am being looked after and am grateful for my life. I\u2019m nowhere close to an answer, and don\u2019t think I ever will be. But part of the charm is that it\u2019s always going to evolve. \u00a0<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Belief in something \u2013 anything \u2013 undergirds our lives. It anchors us to an idea, offers us an understanding of the world that goes beyond our immediate selves. As a person indifferent to ritual and ceremony, I discovered religion only when I moved to the west.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":220,"featured_media":2279,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[4588,4589,4590,4591,4592,19,520,4593],"class_list":["post-2278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pov","tag-belief","tag-catholic-friends","tag-communion-and-liberation","tag-finding-faith","tag-god","tag-india","tag-religion","tag-religious-life"],"yoast_head":"\nFinding Faith: How I Discovered Religion When I Left India<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Belief in something \u2013 anything \u2013 undergirds our lives. 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