The God I Met In India
It started when I was teenager—I think.
At 15 I felt this desperate inner urge to know God. I went to the first place I was taught to find Him—church. Learning from my childhood, I knew I wasn’t going to find him in the Catholic Church. Too many patriarchal rules, memorized prayers, and rigid rituals. I found it boring and uninspiring.
When my peers were starting to experiment with liquor and sex, I started to experiment with God. I spent my Friday nights at “youth night” and my Sunday mornings worshipping. I wasn’t consistent with my attendance, just whenever I felt called.
I was drawn to the big evangelical style churches, mainly because they were dramatically different from the cold, quiet Catholic Church I grew up in. I loved the concert style song and dance. I was constantly moved to tears at each and every sermon.
But there was something about a church that didn’t quench my thirst for God. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
That didn’t stop me from my search. I read the Bible—the entire bible—at 16. I read religious texts and books like Jesus Freaks and every single Chicken Soup for the Soul I could get my hands on.
I went away to college and thought about God—sometimes. I never went to church in college. And I stopped reading religious texts. My search wasn’t over, it was just temporarily on pause.
The casual crushes, Tuesday-Sunday party nights, all-day tailgates—it’s what American college dreams are made of. God gifted me four fantastic years of fulfilling every young girl's desires. I had to get all of that out of system if I ever wanted to get serious about God.
Then Atlanta happened. It quickly went from party girl central to reality check central. I was just a little recently graduated baby with no real world experience, but a determination to make it on my own. I found myself in Atlanta, just because it wasn’t Miami. I worked four part-time jobs in one of the worst economies this country has ever seen, lived with two strangers that stole from me, and was completely and utterly directionless. My lowest point was when my card was declined for a $1 cheeseburger at Wendy’s.
I guess it’s time to start that search again.
I went back to the drawing board and picked up where I left off—a big evangelical church. Within minutes of stepping in, I was bawling. Can’t breath, can’t see, can’t feel type of bawling. Strangers were hugging me and passing the Kleenex. No one said anything to me after service. Thank God.
These churches always had a way of making me cry like someone died. And in a way, a piece of me was dying, slowly, slowly, slowly, until I was reborn. But that wouldn’t happen until years later.
A one time, dramatic visit to a big southern church was all I needed for a while. Things started to get a little better after that.
Life went on. I moved back to South Florida, landed a dream job, got the cutest little townhouse with my boyfriend, and all seemed well in my world.
“Janelle, you really REALLY should come to yoga with me!” My friend's dad insisted. At every gathering she held, he made a laser shot at me and pleaded with me to go to yoga with him.
“Why do you always ask me to go to yoga with you, and not anyone else here?”, I asked.
“Because you’re so anxious.” He was so blunt.
Me, anxious? No, that’s not a word I would use to describe myself. I had no idea what he was talking about, but to get him to stop asking me, I agreed to go to yoga with him and his wife the following week.
That first ever yoga class changed my life forever. To this day, I credit my friend's dad for showing me MY way to God. He knows.
I didn’t understand the correlation between God and yoga at the time though. All I knew was that I felt this inner peace I never knew was possible after each and every class. I guess I was anxious, after all.
But like most things in my life, I wasn’t consistent with yoga. The mat replaced the evangelical concerts for those temporary reliefs I needed from time to time.
And then. And then. And then. 2016. The year the little perfect world I knew collapsed. It started with a lay-off from said dream job, which you’d think, “No big deal, get another job.” But that’s not what I heard. I heard, “Get away, come find Me.”
The search was back on and in full fledged panic mode.
I HAD to find God. I HAD to leave my home, my safety net, my everything and find God. At this point in my life, it wasn’t an option, it was a necessity, one that came with a mental breakdown, a nightly sobfest on my bedroom floor, and a depression that left me unhealthily skinny and frail.
Let me tell you, the search for God begins with a complete and total breakdown. You just gotta breakdown before you breakthrough.
I had no idea why I felt so sad (it was just a job, afterall), or why I HAD to find God, but as soon as I made the decision to commit my life to finding Him, he said “India.”
His nudges don’t come with detailed, step-by-step manuals. They are subtle. Subtle enough to suggest the right direction. Subtle enough to have just the right amount of faith. Subtle enough to help you illogically decide.
India? Alone?! Oh dear God. Scared shtless and hopped up on faith, I boarded a one-way flight to India to find God.
It was in Rishikesh, 3 weeks after arriving, at my first Ashram, in my bare, simple room that I found Her. This time, She wasn’t subtle. She came in loud and crystal clear. It was the reunion I couldn’t have dreamed of. The God I had been searching for all these years, these lifetimes—in the evangelical churches, in my bedroom floor, in the Bible—THIS was Her. I had never been more sure of anything in my life.
The God I met in India was nothing like the God I knew in the West. For starters, She’s a woman. Sometimes Father, but mostly Ma. She is the definition of unconditional love. I don’t have to perform for her, follow commandments, dress a certain way, eat a certain way, speak a certain way, do anything a certain way. She doesn’t care about any of that. We do those things for us, not for Her. She loves us regardless.
She doesn’t JUST live in the sky. She lives in me, in you, in the ladybug, in the sofa, in the apple—in every single little and big thing. She is everywhere. She is perfection. Duality. Dark and Light. Sadness and Joy. She is all things at all times.
The God I met in India is my best friend, but She’s so much more than that. She is my everything. I think about Her day and night. She is the first thought I have in the morning and the last thought before I go to bed. She is my North Star, my only purpose in life. I have never felt such love or devotion as I do for the God I met in India.
“May your love shine forever on the sanctuary of my devotion, and may I be able to awaken your love in all hearts.”
I pray you, too, will meet the God I met in India.
Meeting God came with the worst case of food poisoning, a physical pain I had never known. I was alone, 8,000 miles away from home, an amateur traveler. Turns out, I had to die so that I may be reborn. For those who have met God, you know all about the shattering process. It is painstakingly brutal and necessary.
Since that day in Rishikesh, I have dabbled with many a God realization techniques. All very lovely in their own way, but none compare to meditation.
I quickly realized the only way to Self-Realization was through yoga. Yoga wasn't something I did on the mat every now and then. I’m not referring to the body contortions we obsess over in the west. Yoga is meditation, the ultimate goal being Samadhi, communion with God.
Throughout the years, I have deliberately placed additional tools in my spiritual toolbox, all handy and useful when needed. But meditation is unmatched when it comes to communing with Ma. It is my most sacred, powerful tool. A difficult one for my inconsistent self, but a vital one.
Years have passed since India. At times, my mind wants to find an easier way, a temporary relief, feel-good moment after feel-good moment. But my pilgrimage in India keeps me grounded and connected to what my soul needs, which triumphs any of the mind’s desires.
This year I was reminded of the power of deep meditation. I was reminded that when I sit still, in silence for long enough, the God I met in India isn’t only in India, She is forever and always in me—and you.
Hi! I’m Janelle, celery juice junkie, solo-traveling soul-seeker, over-sharing storyteller, healing foods expert, chronic deep thinker, spiritual self-help bookworm, sober Miami girl, papaya eating fanatic, eager grocery shopper, and free spirit foodie, sharing my journey into awakening and love for conscious food, kinda like Anthony Bourdain meets Oprah.
I created The Free Spirit Foodie in 2016 as a way to process a lay off, a year-long solo trip around India, and a search for God. It evolved into a sacred digital space to share everything I was experiencing and learning.
We’re talking solo-female traveling, plant-based living, holistic healing, and all of the AHA moments in between. Thank you for joining me on this journey. May you be reminded you are not alone and that living an authentic life is our only purpose.
Want to learn more about me? Click here to read my full story. It’s a crazy one.
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