Am I a Hindu?

Many, I realized, had lived as Hindus in past lives, and now, born in the West, were merely rediscovering the religion of their soul. Having found it, they would be content with no other religion.

~Granthakara Bhumika

I have had a moment of clarity last night as I read Deepak Chopra's Life After Death: The Burden of Proof. I knew within the first chapter that I had found what I had been searching for my whole life. I cannot describe the feeling welling up inside of me...one of joy, relief, wonder, peace...and even  passion. As a young girl growing up in rural Arkansas with fundamental Christianity shoved down my throat, somehow I always new what karma & reincarnation was. I had never been told about it or read about it or really knew of its existence any other way but internally. Now I've been on this religious journey for some time with great frustration. The one religion that had eluded my quest was Hinduism despite the many opportunites for me to embrace it. While working at a country club in thespa/gym when I lived in Ohio. It was Easter and I was greeting the members as they came in to work out. I would say "Happy Easter" and ask what they did to celebrate. I was around 21 or so then. I had this assumption that EVERYONE celebrated Easter because that's all that I knew. An Indian man came in and I was making small talk with him. I asked if he went to church and he was offended. He said "I do not go to church, I go to Temple." I didn't even know what that meant really. Two years later, I had suffered the worst loss of my entire life...the death of my boyfriend. I was in such a state of despair...I cannot even describe it. I was waiting for my friend to finish up her shift at the restaurant where she worked. While I waited, she wanted to introduce me to a man who wanted to talk to me. This was just days after the death and I was in a state of not wanting to live...the pain was just too unbearable. This man was from India. He had a gift of seeing the future. I didn't really believe in it and just let him say his piece. He took my hand and read it to me. He told me things that were going to happen in my life. The number of times I'd get pregnant, that I'd suffer a loss for my first pregnancy, that I'd meet a person who loved me more than life itself and other things that I just didn't believe because I had it firmly in my head that life for me was over. He was not a paid palmist or anything like that. He told me that he was engaged to a woman and saw her future. He knew that she would die and broke off the engagement to protect himself from the loss. She did pass the way that he saw. I really thought he was a bit crazy until everysingle thing he's told me has come to pass. I wish I could remember more clearly that conversation and the things that I've forgotten over the years. Fast-forward to 2007. My husband & I get married and go to the Riviera Maya for our honeymoon. We happen to be there at the same time a Category 5 Hurricane, Hurricane Dean, decides to visit the Yucatan Peninsula. We were told that we could not check in to our resort but insisted until they had no choice but to let us stay. During that time we got to know an Indian couple (Born in South Africa, raised in England with a British accent). Everywhere we went we'd run into them...even more than an hour's drive from our resort. The universe seemed to keep putting us together. We had dinner with them one night and found out they were vegetarians. They had learned that we were animal lovers and, therefore, could not understand that we at meat. They were Hindu and vegetarianism was one of their religious practices. My answer was that we always had. We were raised this way. It did stick in my mind...I had been a member of PETA about age 19 and tried Veganism out for a while, but decided it was more hassle than it was worth to me at the time. In 2008, my husband and I purchased our first house. I later found out it was the same neighborhood Louisiana's first Indian Governor, Bobby Jindal, grew up. He was raised a Hindu and later converted to Christianity (I suspect this had everything to do with his political aspirations in the Bible belt of conservative Louisiana). Yesterday, America's Independence Day, I am at the bookstore buying a birthday gift for my nephew and decide to browse the bargain books. This is where I was drawn to Chopra's Life After Death. He talked about his Vedic upbringing in India, which I had never heard of. Today I did a Google search and learned that this was Hinduism's predecessor, as well as Buddhism's. (After the death of my boyfriend, the only thing that gave me comfort was the entry on death and dying in The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Buddhist Wisdom: A Complete Introduction to the Principles and Practices of Buddhism. I had purchased it years before, but never really read it). I decided to see if there were any Hindu temples nearby and did a Google search...there is one in my very subdivision!!! I said to my husband, no wonder there are so many Indians who live in this neighborhood. I have three Indian families on my street alone. Twice I have had a yard sale and twice an Indian lady has came to my house and acted interested in being friends, saying where she lived and that she's home all day too. I don't know why I was so dismissive...maybe an unconscious racism???Now, in retrospect, I realize that the universe has been pointing me in this direction. My co-teacher last year was Hindu and we'd talk about it every once in a while, but for some reason I had disregarded the religion...I am really starting to wonder if I closed my mind to it because of an racist stereotype embedded in my brain...I don't know why, though. We also had a little boy join our class whose parents are Hindu and his mother insisted he not be given meat as it was against their religion. She invited my son to his birthday party attended by their family wearing their saris and serving vegetarian foods. It seemed a bit exotic and uncomfortable...I wasn't sure how to talk to these older ladies. All of these signs did not wake me up to the idea that I really should pay attention to this religion. I guess I'm a slow learner. As I've heard many times before and I believe wholeheartedly now: Nothing in life is a coincidence.