Wandering Toward a Whisper

O Munni, Where Do You Find God?

I went to temples.
I went to churches.
I went to synagogues.
I stood on the steps of mosques.

Yet I couldn’t feel the presence of God.

I listened to the Quran, the Gita, the Bible, and the Torah.
I listened to the chants of Buddhist monks.
Still, I didn’t hear God’s voice — only echoes of human longing trying to make sense of silence.

Morning after morning, I woke with a sadness in my stomach.
A longing I couldn’t name, yet felt in every part of me.
When the restlessness became too much, I begged for something — anything — to appear and show me the way.
The Guru never appeared. God never showed up.
Or perhaps they did, and I simply didn’t recognize them.

When my mind tortured me without mercy,
when my body ached with pain,
when my emotions swallowed me whole,
I still found the strength to face the day.

For a while, I fought against the current.
For a while, I drifted, aimless.
I chased mirages of happiness — glittering things, bigger dreams — that vanished the moment I reached for them.

And then, somehow, I found my feet on a path.
Not just one path, but many.

I remembered my childhood, the way I explored different routes home from school.
How I loved the adventure of it.
And I understood: I want to explore many paths, in my own way, at my own pace.

I tried blind faith and learned its rhythm, how it worked when it worked.
Later, I tried spirituality, and realized I wasn’t there yet.

I started traveling, savoring every moment.
When I climbed the mountain, I felt a fleeting cure, a brief connection.
But when I descended, I carried my baggage — tangled feelings, insecurities, disappointments — back with me.

Then something shifted.

I noticed the tender green of newborn leaves.
The purity of spring flowers.
The warmth of the sun on my skin.

I remembered how much I loved the rain.
The cozy gloom of gray days.
The smell of earth just before it rained.

I saw the brilliance of fall,
the colorful carpet of leaves underfoot.
White forests in snow, stunning and silent.
Moonlight sparkling on ice like diamonds.

Suddenly, I felt connected.
I began to love my own company.
I began to fall in love with myself, just a little.

One day, I was washing dishes.
AirPods in my ears.
Tapping my feet to an old song.

I caught my reflection in the window glass.
A question rose silently:
“Are you there?”

And an answer came from within, soft, certain, unmistakable:
“Yes.”

In that moment, I heard and felt God. Not as something found, but as something recognized, a quiet presence that lingered in every part of me.

It wasn’t that I found God.
It was that, for a heartbeat, God and I recognized each other.