Understanding of god
God, to me, is not a person, judging us from far above. God is the divinity within each of us and all around us.
Spiritual beliefs
I believe that each one of us is spiritual, but we can choose to harness it or ignore it. We need to connect with our deeper selves to lead a meaningful life.
Spiritual practices
Having grown up with a father who is more rational than ritualistic and being married to someone of a similar nature, I’m not ritualistic by default. I believe my spiritual practices should be joyful and something to look forward to and not something I do just because I’m told to. So I enjoy the festivals for the sheer positive energy around them, but I shy away from stuff which involves suffering, like fasting for instance.
Pilgrimage sites
For the past two years, I’ve been going to Shirdi and I feel a lot of positive energy when I’m near Baba’s samadhi. I return recharged. I also feel a lot of divine presence in art. The dance festival at Kalakshetra is one such ‘pilgrimage’ if you can call it that. A group of us were a regular there year when we were kids, and I returned to it after almost a decade and it was beautiful.
Take on miracles
I believe in miracles. I’m a big fan of Deepak Chopra and he says in a book that we’re surrounded by miracles every day. We just have to open our eyes to it.
I must say my son is a big miracle to me. To see him as a tiny dot in the prenatal scans and to see him now as an active eight-year-old is indeed a big miracle to me. I guess in that sense, all of us are nature’s big miracles!
As told to Sonali Shenoy
(Padmaja Venket Ram is an advertising professional and entrepreneur)