My non existent relationship with God.

There's personal and there is deeply personal- this is the latter!

I’m not big on God.

Like, I don’t really believe in the bearded man sitting above the clouds, deciding what we should be doing and whether it’s right or wrong. I don’t believe in the four- or five-headed goddess wreaking havoc on evil in the name of justice. (though a strong woman getting justice is up there for me)

Growing up, my household had a mandir room. My grandmother would do actual havans—morning and evening, before sunrise and sunset. She was diligent in her prayers. She would tell us stories of Krishna and Ram and Ganesh every night before we fell asleep. The mandir was filled with statues and framed pictures of every God and Goddess you could think of.

It always smelled of camphor and fresh flowers.

That part I liked.

My father would do puja every morning too. Diwali meant a big puja at home, with all of us expected to sit through the aarti and pray together. We had a family temple we’d visit on auspicious days. My brother had his mundan ceremony at 13, his head shaved, becoming a “true” Brahmin.

My mother, on the other hand, wasn’t religious at all. But she did everything to support my father and grandmother—setting up the puja thalis, decorating the house, making the appropriate foods, making sure we were bathed and dressed properly for every occasion. She made us touch elders’ feet and pray to the hundred statues and photos my father had arranged.

The fear of God instilled in us was real. (Case in point: I still struggle to write ‘God’ without a capital G.) Also I may not believe in a God but like an atheist friend once asked me— if you see a paper with the picture of a God on the ground would you be ok stepping over it? I wasn’t. But mainly because I felt it was disrespectful to people who do believe.

I was also sent to a Hindu school where we did havan every week and were taught about dharma, (which I didn't mind strangely) There was no statue of a God to pray to but actually taught you to be a good person. They taught you to respect nature and people and believed everyone to be equal.

Anyway as kids we followed everything to the T… until I didn’t.

At some point—honestly, I don’t even know when—it changed. There wasn’t a grand moment of rebellion, no dramatic epiphany. It was gradual and seamless.

At some point, I just knew I didn’t believe anymore. I knew a God didn’t exist.

I believe in a universal consciousness (even though I find that word hard to spell!!). I believe in energies and being a good person to simply be a good person. I don’t believe in afterlife or rebirth. I don’t believe in karma per se, but hey if you’re gonna be an asshole at some point you will have to deal with the consequences of being an asshole.

I believe the universe, this beautiful planet all have scientific explanations for being with a touch of cosmic play!

I feel religion is the worst thing that has happened to humanity and that it does exactly the opposite of whatever it originally set out to do.

My brother still believes, he still prays. He tries to install similar values in his kids.

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My husband? He has had a mad history with his relationship with God as well. He was the victim of the “God men” who I feel are even worse than religions.

People with God complex are dangerous.

And unfortunately his youth was shaped by two of them. So his relationship over the years with God and religion was extremely warped.

Now, he’s found balance. Like me, he believes in the universal consciousness (thanks again spellcheck), in energy, in intention. But he’s also far more spiritual than I am. He reads a lot, always learning more. I don’t—I’m happy in my beliefs.

You know I wrote here that I’m ‘stuck in my beliefs’ and actually paused to re read it.

Honestly, I’m not stuck. I have gone through the process of understanding my relationship with all things spiritual and I feel like I’m happy with where I am today.

I’ve had moments that felt… connected. Like the first time I visited the Golden Temple. I was walking the parikrama with my mother-in-law when I suddenly stopped and asked her if we could sit for a moment. And in that moment, I knew I was pregnant.

This was after a miscarriage. And that surety—just knowing—I can’t explain it. We came back, I took the test, and I was!

So, the Golden Temple will always hold a special place in my heart. But do I think it was divine intervention? No. For me, it was the energy of that space—so clean, so pure, so powerful—that it made my connection with myself and my body just become so clear.

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My son was taught to pray in his second school. Simple prayers to thank God for their food and health. And he would come home and tell us about God. Being from a Sikh family he knew we didn’t follow any of the usual Gods and Goddesses he heard of.

So the husband and I sat him down when he was maybe six I think and talked to him about Gods. I told him about my beliefs, the husband told him his and we both told him that he was free to believe anything he wanted.

That he had the freedom to choose the ideas and practices that made sense to him. (Except God-men. That’s where I draw a firm line.)

But apart from that, if he wanted to believe in the bearded man in the sky or the hundred of Gods and Goddesses we have in India or the 10 Gurus of Sikhism or the teachings of Buddha or any other religion he found he connected to— we were ok.

If he didn’t want to believe in a God at all? That was ok too.

A few months ago, he had a school project where he had to study a religion and make a presentation. He chose Sikhism—and fell in love with it.

To be fair, it’s not like he’s read the scriptures. But he loved that Sikhs were a warrior clan. That they were brave. That they protected people. He asked for a kada and a khanda pendant, and he wears both proudly, every day. He loves visiting the gurdwara, so we take him as often as we can.

I think, somewhere along the way, seeing a friend proudly wear a taweez and speak about his Muslim faith sparked something in him too. A desire to connect with his own heritage.

And I love that.

I love that, within our little family, we’ve created space for different beliefs. We support each other. We don’t judge. My husband doesn’t mind that I don’t believe in God, and I don’t mind that he still yo-yos between belief and skepticism. We both love that our son gets to explore and discover his faith on his own terms.

Now if only the rest of the world could do the same.