April 24, 2025
By Marissa Cole

I haven’t told anyone this. Not my friends, not my partner, not even the random people on the internet I overshare with when I’m three drinks in. But here it is: I think I might be Hindu.

That’s such a weird sentence to write, let alone say out loud. Especially because I’m about as white as it gets—Midwest-born, Lutheran-raised, college-educated with a minor obsession for farmers’ markets and indie folk playlists. It feels… performative, somehow, like I’m trying to put on someone else’s skin. And the last thing I want is to look like I’m picking a religion the way someone picks a new aesthetic on Pinterest.

But it’s not like that.

It started small. I stumbled across a video—some swami giving a talk on non-attachment. His words hit me in a way no sermon ever had. Not the loud ones from my childhood church, not even the well-meaning, TED Talk-style lectures my mom sends me when she’s feeling hopeful about my “eventual return to the flock.”

That video led me to a podcast. The podcast to a book. And suddenly, I’m bookmarking verses from the Gita like they’re life preservers. I catch myself whispering little Sanskrit phrases under my breath when I’m anxious. I light incense—not because it smells good (though it does), but because it helps me breathe. Be present.

And then I stop. I shut the book. I delete the bookmarks. I push it all back into a digital folder labeled “Later (Maybe).”

Because I’m scared.

Scared that if I lean too far in, I’ll say something one day—by accident or bravery—and someone will call me out. “Cultural appropriation.” “Spiritual tourist.” I’ll get lumped in with the yoga influencers and their sun-kissed altars who don’t know the first thing about what they’re quoting.

And even more than that, I’m scared of what my family will say. They already treat my agnosticism like a prolonged rebellious phase. If I said the word “Hindu,” I think my dad might actually short-circuit. They’d smile and say they respect it, and then my mom would spend the next three months dropping Bible verses into every conversation like hints on a scavenger hunt back to Jesus.

So here I am. Somewhere in between.

I don’t know which school of thought I align with. I don’t even know if this pull I feel is something permanent, or just a season. But I know it’s real. I know that when I hear the word Atman, something in me perks up like it’s being remembered.

And maybe for now, that’s enough.