You’ve probably been watching Never Have I Ever, Mindy Kaling’s teenage dramedy, on Netflix. Me too. I really appreciated the show. I love that Indian kids growing up will see themselves represented on a popular TV show. When I was growing up, I watched Friends and Gilmore Girls. Most TV shows and media centered around White people, White culture, and White actors. Not that I didn’t love that TV, I did. But I didn’t realize how much I was misrepresented and what that subtly told me about my value in society. My first Indian teacher was a professor in college. I was so in awe, and I’m pretty sure I sat in the front row to marvel at the fact that one of my teachers shared the color of my skin.  It was then I realized just what was missing from my upbringing. 

 

The show was also honest and raw, elucidating the truth about Indian-American kids growing up in America. They aren’t protected from the woes of public school because they visit temple every week. They aren’t immune from mental health issues and it’s valuable to address them. The show did justice in revealing the feeling of being an outsider in all circles, a feeling that so many of us encounter. We are constantly calibrating ourselves in every social situation with regards to the amount of culture or religion that might be appropriate. Both inside and outside my local temple community, I found myself struggling with peers who were sharing my experience. Getting too serious about religion was perceived as uncool, yet staying aloof was also frowned upon. Finding ourselves is complicated on so many levels. 

 

While I loved the show, it also bothered me. We live in an age where Indian-Americans are in mainstream media creating great dialogue about the Indian-American experience. Oftentimes though, the dialogue seems to stop at the difficulty of living life with the burden of the seemingly weird Indian culture. For example, in the show,  Devi prays to her Gods for her own well being, only to scoff and roll her eyes at the Ganesh Puja celebration she is forced to attend.  I get it. So many of our rituals and customs are often poorly explained leaving us often scratching our heads as to why we wave around fire, bow to the ground and put red dots on our heads. Our parents don’t always explain the deeper meanings behind these things. Our culture is so vastly different from American culture, that because we can’t figure out the relevance and the utility of these rituals, we often consider them less important only to then disregard and discard them; maybe even subtly disrespecting those that do take them seriously.

 

I remember leading the Bhakti Club at Rutgers University. The Western students loved the kirtan and embraced our genuine attempts to explain the practice of mantra meditation in an impactful way. The Indian kids? Their feelings of judgment made my insides shrivel. I hated feeling looked at by my own people as if I was less because I finally was doing the hard work of figuring out the value of my culture. But why do we have to live life like this?  It feels like we either embrace our Western ideals while disregarding our cultural and religious roots, or we don’t disregard our culture but just respect it from afar, engaging with religious practices in an uncommitted or lukewarm manner. 

 

Can there not be more to our story? Instead of resolving our feelings of outsidership and discomfort in our youth by distancing our cultural traditions, why can’t we become seekers and genuine explorers? I am personally grateful to those that encouraged me to choose seeking as opposed to merely living my life chasing personal aspirations while keeping my faith lovingly an arm’s distance away. 

 

Our tradition of Bhakti Yoga has so much depth and wisdom to propel us to become the best version of ourselves. Beyond the fire, red dots and weird stories, lies a deep philosophy that illuminates a transformative and progressive way to view the world. It shapes a lens that can propel us to live a life based on service, compassion, patience, tolerance and authenticity. For me, discovering the purpose of culture and ritual as a means to cultivate these profound values has given me a new inspiration with which to live my life. It feeds my attitude of service, not just within the walls of the temple, but every interaction with every human I meet. Actively practicing Bhakti Yoga means believing in values that can transform the world, create kindness amongst all humans, and ultimately provide a truly satisfying meaning for living life.

 

What’s funny is that because of the lack of communication, we miss it. The line between all the rituals we engage in and these profound values is as clear as white ink on a white page. Like, how does walking around a plant have anything to do with cultivating kindness? But you know what? The answers are there. We just have to look for them. Most of us are seeking them anyway. We seek them in motivational speakers, star athletes and celebrities. When they engage in meditation, or disciplined sleep, diet and exercise schedules, we applaud them and hold them as heroes in our eyes. Yet, we feel our regulations and practices in our culture equate to practices of suppression and therefore choose to not uphold them regularly. 

 

What we have isn’t suppression. It’s gold. The deep, rich, philosophical foundation of our culture has every potential to propel us to the greatest success of our lives. Our stories don’t have to stop at the sad commiseration of how hard it was in high school to figure out who we are. Yes, that was and will continue to be a critical part of our journeys. But our stories can end with empowerment, discovering that there is a link between our faith and the Western world that we live in. It’s not easy work to integrate the two worlds. I still struggle, often times quickly shoving my mantra meditation beads away if I encounter an outsider on a walk. Yet, the times where I am able to be completely comfortable in my own skin has given me a sense of incredible energy and freedom. The principles and practices that we grow up with can enhance our lives in ways that we could never imagine. But they won’t unless we really try.