The mountains are calling us back to ourselves

But the Dehradun I arrived in now was tight—tight with traffic, tempers, towers, and a shrinking of generosity. Humanity felt hemmed in. This was the land of sages and seers, yet it seemed smothered by its own speed, its hunger outpacing its harmony. The mountains, once moral mirrors, now reflected our madness.

I had come from Ahmedabad’s Food for Thought Festival, where the air was softer, conversations generous, almost Gandhian. But in Dehradun, the hunger was different—not for food but for oxygen—oxygen of empathy, openness, ease.

And there, under the banner Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, I felt the force of irony. The world outside did not feel like one family. Yet as I looked deeper, the audience reminded me that even tightly packed cities can host expansive hearts. Many were turbaned Sikhs, instantly bringing Guru Nanak into the room.

Guru Nanak, who walked across continents to ask one disarming question: What is religion without humanity? He urged us to question rituals, challenge fear, rise above dogma, embrace clarity over conformity. His Ek Omkar is not a chant—it is a consciousness, a compass, a covenant.

Earlier that day, as I descended from the mountains toward the festival, I had been speaking with Parabjot Bali, reflecting on the sanctity of true faith. Guru Nanak’s teachings, I told him, were never about religion but about liberation—from narrowness, from noise, from spiritual suffocation. Little did I know I would walk onto a stage carrying those truths on my tongue.

And as I sat down, Ek Omkar flowing through me, Vedantic Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam glowing above me, another lineage rose like incense inside my ribcage—Ajmer Sharif. I thought of my friend Salman Chishty, descendant of Khwaja Garib Nawaz, whose dargah has, for eight centuries, shown India what the world keeps forgetting: that the shortest road to God passes through the heart of another human being.

At Ajmer Sharif, religions melt. Egos dissolve. Differences drown. Hope hums like a hymn in every corner. That is the Rumi way. Rumi who wrote: “The lamps are different, but the Light is the same.”

Standing there, I felt the profound kinship between Sufism and Advaita Vedanta, two mystical rivers that have flowed across our subcontinent for millennia. Both begin at the same liberating truth: There is no “other.” There is only One.

Shankaracharya declared with thunderous clarity: Brahma satyam, jagan mithya — The Absolute alone is real; multiplicity is illusion.

The Sufis sang the same truth in whispering ecstasy: “I searched for God and found only myself. I searched for myself and found only God.”

Advaita says the world is a shimmering of Brahman. Sufism says the world is a shadow of the Beloved. Advaita dissolves the seeker into the Self. Sufism dissolves the lover into the Beloved. Different metaphors, same merger.

In Advaita, ego—ahamkara—blinds us. In Sufism, ego—nafs—blinds us. Both ask us to polish the heart until it becomes a mirror of the Real.

At Ajmer, when thousands bow their heads, they bow not to doctrine but to the dissolving of distance—between human and human, between human and divine. This is non-duality lived as atmosphere.

Advaita says: Tat Tvam Asi — You are That. Sufism replies: “You are the soul of the soul of the universe.”

Advaita says the divine is the Self. Sufism says the divine is the Beloved. Both insist the divine is in everyone. And standing under that tent in Dehradun—Ek Omkar on my lips, Ajmer Sharif in my memory, Rumi in my marrow, and Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam above me—I felt them merge into a single voice: Dissolve division. Remember unity. Return to the One.

It was at that moment that lines from Earth, Deepa Mehta’s masterpiece, returned to me with a shiver — lines that have haunted me since I first heard them: “Gunj rahi hai kitni cheekhe, pyaar ki baatein kaun sune. Toot rahe hain kitne sapne, inke tukde kaun chune. Dil ke darwazon par taale, taalon par yeh zang hai kyu? Ishvar Allah tere jahaan me nafrat kyu hai, jang hai kyu? Tera dil to itna bada hai — insaan ka dil tang hai kyu?”

Why indeed? Why is the divine heart vast while the human heart grows small? Why are dreams breaking faster than hands can gather their pieces? Why do the songs of love grow faint while the screams of hatred grow loud? These questions are older than war, older than politics, older than borders. And yet they are our questions still.

As the festival conversation deepened, people leaned in. Breath slowed. Hearts softened. The mountains outside seemed to exhale with us. Toward the end, someone asked me about the India I believe in. What rose wasn’t policy—it was memory.

As a student, I sang at Birla House: “Call Him Ram or Rahim… the truth is one, only tongues differ… Why then do you fight, foolish heart? The One who lives in you lives in all.”

That truth echoed again in the valley. India is having a luminous moment—loud, global, undeniable. But its truest strength is ancient: the ability to see the divine in the different; to match progress with presence; to hold technology in one hand and tenderness in the other. The world is fractured, fevered, frightened. But India has walked through shadows for millennia and still chosen light. If any nation can lead with healing, it is India— not through might, but mindfulness. not through power, but philosophy. Not through dominance, but depth.

As I left the festival, I rolled down the window. Cedar drifted in. Dehradun felt a little less tight, as if remembering itself. As if the mountains had whispered to it, too. And I heard that whisper again—not from above, but from within: Return to oneness. Return to each other. Return to yourself.

Because Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam cannot be a banner. It must be a becoming. And perhaps the mountains are simply reminding us: The divine is not somewhere else. It is within us. Always was. Always will be.