How does the Hindu son of Indian immigrants wind up as a leader in one of the most liberal faiths in the country? The story is involved, but the pieces fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. "Life is a journey that never stops, no matter where we are in our learnings about life. There's always more to learn and figure out about ourselves and everything around us. It's one of the things that makes life interesting and exciting." says Manish Mishra who, at age 35, has experienced more than many people twice his age, yet the tenets of his faiths (yes, faiths) compel him to respect the wisdom of his elders.

Mishra is a Unitarian Universalist minister in Westport, Conn. Unitarianism is a religion based on pluralism, or the idea that every religion has inherent truths, as well as untruths. Unitarianism teaches respect for all life and all beliefs, taking from other faiths that which feels fundamentally right and reverently disregarding that which may contradict the basic teachings of Unitarianism. Mishra was raised Hindu and still considers himself Hindu. "For the most part," he says, "Unitarianism is completely compatible with Hinduism."

Mishra was born in Pittsburgh, Pa. His parents had emigrated from India to the area in the late 1960s when his father was hired by Westinghouse, headquartered in the city. The family lived in Squirrel Hill, a predominantly Jewish neighborhood.

"Everyone I met was Jewish, so as a little kid I just assumed that everyone in America was Jewish," Mishra says. "I distinctly remember in fifth grade social studies when we were talking about World War II, and a classmate mentioned something about Jews being a minority. I raised my hand and said, 'Jewish people aren't a minority - everyone here is Jewish.'" Upon being informed that most of the country was actually Christian, Mishra was fascinated by the idea of there being many religions in the world.

Like many children of Indian immigrants, Mishra and his younger brother were raised in a very strict Hindu household---his father in particular held fast to the practice of Hinduism and traditional Indian customs. His mother, however, while expecting that her children would adhere to a traditional Indian lifestyle, "believed that God is everywhere and truth is everywhere," says Mishra.

Around junior high school, Mishra became aware of attractions he had to his male friends. When his father was made vice president of Westinghouse's New Delhi office during Mishra's senior year of high school, the family moved to India. Mishra attended the American Embassy School in Delhi, where he had the opportunity to study Indian culture and religion. He happened upon a line spoken by Krishna in the Gita, which essentially advised one to turn worries and concerns over to God. "I thought 'okay, I need to do this right now,' so that last year of high school I tried to be the best Hindu I thought I could possibly be," he says. "Imagine a 17-year old doing weekly fastings. My whole idea was that if I was a good enough Hindu and if I keep praying and turning this problem over to God, that God would fix it and make it go away."

After a year of keeping up this strict regimen and finding that nothing had changed, Mishra became disheartened, and then angry.

By the time he entered Georgetown University, Mishra had pulled away from Hinduism as he was extremely confused. After his first gay experience in a club one night, he confided in some close Indian female friends (or as he calls them, "didis" - big sisters) and received a devastating reaction.

"What [one of them] said to me was that this is completely unacceptable, you are psychologically screwed up, and if you don't go seek help for this, I will have nothing to do with you ever again. And she kept her word. She embodied my worst fear, which was that my culture would completely reject me and abandon me because of something I have tried to change and can't change."

To escape his constant thinking about what seemed like an unsolvable problem, Mishra turned to drinking heavily. After about four months and an increasingly desperate situation that culminated in a near-suicide attempt, Mishra reached out to a friend who introduced him to a social fraternity for college-aged gay men. "They walked that path with me," Mishra says. "The people that I met there helped me come out of the closet and stayed with me through the pain and the struggle. It was the exactly right thing coming along at the right time. I was blessed."

As his confidence increased, his ties to Hinduism weakened further. When he was 27, Mishra attended the Hindu wedding ceremony of a college friend. "I was so moved by all of the people who came there to be there with her from India, from her temple, from everywhere. As happy as I was for her, it got me thinking, 'Where would I celebrate important life events?' I realized I had lost all the benefits of a religious community---social support, moral support, courage, inspiration---I lost all of that."

The following day Mishra shared his troubles with a friend who recommended looking into Unitarian Universalism. "I looked it up online, read their section on their beliefs and I said, 'this is too good to be true---they believe everything that I've always believed. How can that be? They must be a cult.'" However, he and his partner at the time attended a worship service the next day. Wary that they would be shunned as a gay couple, Mishra and his partner were instead warmly welcomed into the congregation. At the end of the service, he says, "these two women in their 80s stopped us at the door, hugged us and said, 'we're so glad to have you in our community.' To have my assumptions blown aside in the space of a hug---that was phenomenal. It was enough that I was willing to keep coming back."

At the time, Mishra was working as a diplomat with the U.S. State Department. One of his assignments was serving on the human rights delegation to the United Nations. Though he had chosen this career with the hope of doing good in the world, he became quickly disillusioned by the fact that the government was "placing human rights and dignity on a lower platform stacked up against trade benefits or military benefits or political benefits."

As he became more involved in the church, Mishra had been invited several times to speak about Hinduism during services. He was also moved to tears on a regular basis by the sermons he heard from a particular minister. "I had a revelation one day," he says. "I thought, 'Look at all the good [the minister] is doing - that's the type of influence you've always wanted to have. What are you doing in a bureaucracy writing memos nobody reads?'"

Fighting the engrained notion that "religion is not a real profession," Mishra decided to enter divinity school. Trepidatious about telling his parents about this switch in vocation, as their reaction to his coming out as a gay man had strained their relationship severely, he was surprised to find that they were more open-minded.

While Mishra himself is a bit of an anomaly in the world of Unitarianism, he does have colleagues and congregants who are also Hindu. As far as his own embracing of the faith, he says, "It forced me to go back and reclaim those aspects of my religious heritage that have always appealed to me. I found myself reconnecting with Hinduism, and feeling like a better Hindu because of it." Notions like the religious congregation being an extended family, respect for elders, and even the ideas of karma and dharma are all pieces of the Hindu that play a part in his beliefs and teachings today. "One of the main principles of Unitarianism is the inherent worth and dignity in every human being," he says.

Mishra is the interim associate minister at the Universalist Unitarian Church in Westport, Conn. Says Rev. Frank Hall, the church's senior minister, "[Mishra's] career path leading to the Unitarian ministry, combined with his racial and ethnic identity as well as his personal attributes create a sense of warmth; he shines in interpersonal connections. He's lovable, affable, bright and eager to grow in his new vocation."

Mishra will be moving to St. Petersburg, Fla. in September to head his own church.
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This article originally appeared in INDIA New England dated August 16-31, 2006 and is reprinted here with the permission of the Editor and Joy Mazzola, the author.