Google to God: A Tech Exec Searches for Answers
Warby Parker Exec Anjali Kumar in New York City this year
They say having a child changes everything, and for Anjali Kumar that was true in ways she never anticipated. When her daughter Zia was born four years ago, Kumar was Senior Legal Council at Google, a self-described pragmatist who liked proof and concrete answers. In the weeks after Zia arrived, Kumar’s father suggested bringing the new baby to the family’s temple. When he said, “She should know what our beliefs are,” it sparked a flurry of questions and self-examination for Kumar. “I realized I didn’t really know what I believe.”
Kumar grew up in the U.S., exposed to a broad sampling of both western and eastern religions thanks to her Indian parents. Her immediate family is culturally Hindu and practices a relatively unknown Indian religion called Jainism, and she attended Catholic school until fifth grade, all of which left her unsure of what it all meant. “Spiritually speaking, nothing I had experienced thus far was a perfect fit,” she says. “My somewhat eclectic multicultural upbringing gave me a deep spiritual footing, but not the structure that footing was intended to support. I had the foundation, but not the house. Now that I had a child, I wanted—needed—to believe in something bigger than myself.”
Kumar with her daughter Zia
The lawyer in her still wanted proof, concrete answers about faith, god, religion, and all aspects of spirituality that she could share with Zia. Her journey is captured in the memoir she’s currently working on: From Google to God. Kumar’s quest took her across the globe where she met with healers, gurus, and saints. She met with an Upper East Side Shaman, a downtown medium, and a spiritual leader named Hugging Amma who has given over 32 million hugs to date. When Kumar traveled to Brazil to meet with medium and psychic surgeon John of God, she was told to bring the wishes of those closest to her as well as her own intentions. Reading the hopes and dreams of her friends and the people she met on the trip gave her insight into how the human connection. “Their wishes were about health, love, and security,” she says. “We all think that we are so unique and what we want is so unusual, but we are really not. We are all pretty much searching for the same things.”
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The quest to learn about different people’s beliefs changed Kumar in profound ways. “It has made me a less cynical person and a more open person,” she says. “It made me feel like I am part of something bigger, but that I am a very tiny little spec in a big eco system.” The woman who wanted concrete proof about God and spirituality realized that sometimes you have to simply just believe in things you truly cannot understand. “I now see the world in a very different sort of way. I was OK with seeing things I just couldn’t explain.”
Kumar with her husband Atul Sharma
There was one thing, however, that had science to back it up: meditation, a practice she now does regularly. “It is a moment of stillness that appeals to my spiritual longing,” she says. “It is not necessarily religious or spiritual, but it feels like it has an element of both.”
So has Kumar found answers for Zia? “What I found was that she has to go on this journey on her own. It really is an individual journey,” she says. “All parents want to know everything for our child, but ultimately she will have to figure out what it all means to her.”
