Why Do We God? with Professor Leela Prasad

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "Why Do We God?"

Alive with Steve Burns – Lemonada Media
Guest: Professor Leela Prasad
Air Date: October 15, 2025

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Main Theme & Purpose

In this highly reflective and candid episode, Steve Burns sits down with Professor Leela Prasad (Brown University scholar of folklore, comparative religion, and ethics) to explore the biggest existential question: Why do we “God”? Instead of discussing traditional conceptions of God, the episode centers on humanity’s universal impulse to reach for something greater—using stories, imagination, rituals, and community to grapple with the inscrutability and vastness of existence. The conversation traverses belief, pluralism, sacredness, religious conflicts, and the fundamental human yearning for connection and meaning.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Human Impulse Toward God and Mystery

• Steve opens by differentiating between “capital G” God (anthropomorphized deity) and “small g” god—the idea, impulse, or story at the heart of spiritual engagement. (01:00)

• Professor Prasad frames religion as a way “to acknowledge the vastness of the universe and our place in that vastness, to make sense of it.”

  “We construct something, we breathe life into it, we tell stories about it, but it's really our attempt, it's the human attempt to comprehend the grandeur and the vastness and the inscrutability of things.” (Leela Prasad, 04:37)

• The act of “God-ing” is, in Prasad’s view, “our best attempt to comprehend mystery and to engage it, to find the language for it,” through ritual, beliefs, and storytelling. (05:56)

2. Stories as the Vehicle for Encounter with the Sacred

• Steve asks why story is the chosen instrument to grapple with mystery, rather than empirical approaches. (06:24)
• Prasad explains humans are inherently narrative beings: “We tell stories. We must. It's an attempt to find meaning, to give a form to this engagement... It's our most imaginative foot forward.” (07:12)
• Even belief in an external God requires imagination: “I don't see religion or godness... to be about doctrine alone. It's about breathing life into mysteries. It's situating ourselves.” (Leela, 08:15)
• The similarities in religious stories emerge because all humans seek to relate to the past, record it, imagine futures, and connect with each other and the environment. (09:13)
• Repetition of personal stories is an attempt to “express something that hasn't been fully articulated,” suggesting ongoing work in meaning-making. (10:27)

3. The Line Between Story and the Sacred

• Steve questions what makes a story religious or sacred, instead of mere art. (11:42)
• Prasad suggests sacredness can arise in anything imbued with meaning, especially when affirmed by community:

  “If it is sacred to you... then what is stopping it from being sacred?... If there's a community ratification around that, then... you're participating in the vivification of that.” (Leela, 14:12)

4. The Power of Place, Ritual, and Community

• Steve recounts witnessing a transformation at the Golden Temple in India, detailing how his skeptical friend became solemn and focused amid the communal spiritual energy. (22:00)

• Prasad describes a similar experience, identifying the essence of sacredness as:

  “…finding the center of gravity and dwelling in it.” (Leela, 23:19)

• Communal experiences (like the Sikh langar meal) deepen sacredness and foster moments of stillness and exchange, accessible even to non-believers or outsiders. (23:39)

5. Is There a Universal “God-Shaped Hole”?

• Burns asks if all people are born with this impulse. Prasad responds affirmatively, noting that creative efforts in art, poetry, and architecture across cultures and epochs speak to the same longing. (25:18)
• Sharing and retelling stories in communities amplifies their transformative power:

  “There's something about the collective that is a different order, emotion... that has the power to effect a transformation.” (Leela, 27:46)

6. Religious Storytelling and Conflict

• Steve expresses his struggle reconciling how religions aiming for love and mercy often result in profound conflict: “How do we get from a helpful story to a holy war?” (27:57)
• Prasad attributes such violence to “a breakdown in storytelling”—when plural stories cannot coexist, division takes hold.
  • She shares a story of Hindus and Muslims attributing a mysterious event (a leopard sighting) to their respective religious shrines—both communities accept differing explanations without conflict. (28:44)

“It was the gesture of accommodating the two stories to sit alongside each other that allows for pluralism...” (Leela, 30:30)

• Steve and Leela reflect on rituals (like the India-Pakistan Wagah border ceremony) that both enact division and gesture towards reconciliation (the handshake). The loss of reconciliatory rituals points toward lost opportunities for peace. (34:33, 36:41)

7. Is Pluralism Possible?

• Steve asks if anywhere religious pluralism truly flourishes. Prasad: “I see moments. I see possibilities... America is one place. India is another... But it's also a question of lost opportunities.” (39:55)
• Real religious pluralism demands a generous, imaginative, and humble orientation, which is often lost in history’s divisive legacies. (40:54)

8. Religion as Both Antidote and Source of Division

• Burns notes that religions with the most similarities often generate the greatest conflict.
• Prasad names it “a fundamental failure of imagination.” She connects this again to a breakdown in storytelling—the inability to imagine coexistence. (42:35, 42:47)
• Prasad closes with a South Indian folktale: Three people seeking God must make space for one another during a storm; when they finally stand together in discomfort, the divine appears. She interprets this as a parable about the necessity—and reward—of accommodating difference for collective flourishing. (43:21–46:50)

“Think further, take the question further. What do we stand to gain by being a little uncomfortable in the short run? Is there a collective flourishing that's possible that actually benefits every single one of us?” (Leela, 45:45)

9. The Ongoing Nature of the Question

• Both agree that perhaps the “God shaped hole” is not one to be filled, but a question to be continually asked—a work in progress.

  “Maybe we God, because it's not a hole that we'll ever fill. But it's just a question we need to keep asking. It's a poem we need to keep writing... a story we need to keep telling.” (Steve, 47:47–48:06)

10. Tools for Navigating Difference: Listening & Humility

• Steve asks for practical tools in navigating difference respectfully.
• Prasad offers:

  “It's cheap. You can get it without paying anything. It's a lifetime tool... It's simply called listening.” (Leela, 49:02)

• Listening, humility, and attention are the core practices she recommends for respectful engagement with the sacred and with difference.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We construct something, we breathe life into it, we tell stories about it, but it's really our attempt...to comprehend the grandeur and the vastness and the inscrutability of things.” (Leela, 04:37)
• “Even belief in an external God requires imagination, doesn't it?” (Leela, 07:55)
• “I don't see religion...as being about doctrine alone. It's about breathing life into mysteries.” (Leela, 08:15)
• “If it is sacred to you...then what is stopping it from being sacred?” (Leela, 14:12)
• “It's about finding the center of gravity and dwelling in it.” (Leela, 23:19)
• “There's something about the collective that is a different order, emotion...that has the power to effect a transformation.” (Leela, 27:46)
• “Maybe we are not allowing stories to coexist...it was the gesture of accommodating the two stories to sit alongside each other that allows for pluralism.” (Leela, 30:17–30:30)
• “Religion is also about divisiveness...it's a question of lost opportunities.” (Leela, 40:15)
• “There's a fundamental failure of imagination.” (Leela, 42:47)
• “It's simply called listening.” (Leela, 49:02)
• “Maybe religion is really about noticing things, about attending to something...” (Leela, 50:44)

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Important Timestamps

• 01:00 — Steve’s framing of the central question: “Why do we God?”
• 04:37 — Leela on religion as engaging with mystery
• 07:12–09:13 — The role of storytelling in religion
• 14:12 — Sacredness as personally and communally constituted
• 22:00 — Steve’s Golden Temple story
• 23:19–23:39 — The sacred as a “center of gravity”
• 27:46 — Community and the transformative power of collective ritual
• 28:44–31:40 — Story of the leopard: plural stories coexisting
• 34:33–36:41 — Wagah border ceremony as ritualized division and reconciliation
• 39:55 — On religious pluralism (or its absence)
• 42:47 — “A fundamental failure of imagination”
• 43:21–46:50 — Parable of three seekers and the virtue of accommodation
• 47:47–48:06 — The God-shaped hole as unfilled, ongoing question
• 49:02 — The power of listening

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Tone and Style

The conversation is warm, reflective, sometimes playful, and often profound. Steve maintains an honest, “still-figuring-it-out” vulnerability, while Leela offers nuanced, scholarly perspectives rooted in personal and cross-cultural insights—always inviting, never dogmatic.

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Conclusion

This episode invites listeners to ponder not just why humans “God,” but how we might do it better—through pluralistic storytelling, imaginative humility, and, above all, deep listening. The longing for connection, meaning, and sacredness is portrayed as a universal, unfinished story—one that is continually made and remade in every person and community, and never finally resolved.

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End of summary.

Transcript

[Leela Prasad]

Lemonade.

[Steve Burns]

Hey, there you are. Come on in. It's good to see you. Welcome to Alive. Okay, take a deep breath. This is a big one. Do you believe in God? Yeah. Okay, fair. That is. That is a huge question. Right. But we. We tend to talk about these things. Death and sex and taxes and. It's almost like we're dancing around the biggie, the big cheese, the OG God. I'm making tea. You want tea? Instead of tea? And I don't mean the capital G. Intercedent. Anthropomorphic God sitting on a cloud somewhere smiting people and, you know, painting sunsets and inventing the platypus or something. I'm talking about the small G God. The idea, you know, the. The impulse, the story, really. Because if you step back far enough, it's pretty easy to see that all cultures, across all ages of humanity have some story of something larger than themselves to worship. There you go. To blame, to barg with, to. I don't know, it just seems that we do have some sort of God shaped hole at the center of our existence that we are compelled to fill with all of the very big things like love and fear and hate and mercy and hope. And my question is why? Why do we. God? Yeah. Come on. Okay. All right. Our guest today is Leela Prasad, and she has a PhD in folklore and folk life from the University of Pennsylvania. She's a distinguished professor at Brown University, was a Guggenheim Fellow, and the sitting president of the American Academy of Religion. She's a scholar, really, of comparative religion, ethics, folklore, storytelling, with a special focus in South Asia. She's basically spent her career exploring how those stories that we tell ourselves shape just not what we believe, but also how we live and how we connect to the sacred, really. And I think she's fluent in at least five languages. I'm not sure. Oh, she's. Hang on. She's here. All right. Hello. How are you?

[Leela Prasad]

Hi. Hi, Steve. How are you?

[Steve Burns]

I am great. Now, do I call you Leela? Do I call you Professor? What. What should I call you?

[Leela Prasad]

Please, Leela.

[Steve Burns]

Okay, Leela. And I'm. And I'm Steve. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here with us. We've. We've been grappling with a big question, a big one. And it's about religion. It's about why. It's about what that is and why do we reach for it And. And why God? Why do we God? Does that make sense? What to you. What is religion as an overview and why is it so important?

[Leela Prasad]

What A great question that is. Steve, first, thank you for having me on this show, but I'm excited, too. It's a big question. You've asked and thought a lot about it, and depending on who you ask that question, you're going to get very, very different answers, as you know. Yeah. I think in the basic way, we could start by saying that we do God to acknowledge the vastness of the universe and our place in that vastness, to make sense of it. We reach out to something to grasp in order to understand this vastness, its mystery, its profundity, and simply not knowing answers to. So we. That I think is your. Is why. Is the way I look at why we do God. You know, there's. We construct something, we breathe life into it, we tell stories about it, but it's really our attempt, it's the human attempt to comprehend the grandeur and the vastness and the inscrutability of things.

[Steve Burns]

The inscrutability of things. I like that. So would you say it's sort of our best attempt in a way to comprehend mystery?

[Leela Prasad]

I think so. Comprehend mystery and to engage it, to find the language for it. You know, whether the language is through ritual, whether it's through beliefs, whatever it is, it's our way to engage the mystery and to participate in the wonder of it and the awesomeness of it, but also a way to, I think, confront the fear of the unknown. So, I mean, whatever people want to call it, it's that engagement. It's that moment of engagement.

[Steve Burns]

So. So God is a moment of engagement that. That feels true. You know, you said stories earlier, and I'm really interested in this. If. If we God to engage in this inscrutability, this mystery that we have a sense of, even if we don't understand, we have a sense of this mystery and we're drawn to it and we are drawn to engage with it. Why do we use story to do that instead of, say, you know, empirical investigation and evidence? Why story? Why. Why do we try to bottle God in stories and myths and lore?

[Leela Prasad]

Because I think we must. You know, part of us, part of being human is a narrative thing. You know, we tell stories. We must. It's an effort to find. It's an attempt to find meaning is to give a form to this engagement that we talked about. It's an effort to. It's our way of understanding who we are and who we were and who others are and who others can be. And I think it's our most imaginative foot forward.

[Steve Burns]

I see. It's an Imaginative foot forward. So God, I mean, would you say then that God is imagined?

[Leela Prasad]

Some will not say that. Yeah, but it depends on how you look at what imagination is. I think it is always an imaginative effort. You know, even the proposition that God is out there or goddess is out there is real, is tangible, is touchable. Even that takes imagination, doesn't it?

[Steve Burns]

Yes, of course.

[Leela Prasad]

I mean, what I'm trying to say is that I don't see religion or godness or God thingness to be about doctrine alone. It's about breathing life into mysteries. It's situating ourselves. We tell stories because we're trying to situate ourselves in the vastness of things, in the unknowability of things.

[Steve Burns]

Yeah, yeah. I have to assume then if every culture is doing this always, if it is sort of a primary motivator of all cultures. It's an organizing principle of most cultures.

[Leela Prasad]

Right.

[Steve Burns]

This desire to participate in this mystery, that we don't know what is the role of story and why are so many of the stories so similar?

[Leela Prasad]

It's another great question, Steve. I think the stories are similar. They're also very different. The stories are similar. If you think of the common ground of storytelling itself. Don't we all, as humans want to relate to the past? Don't we all, as human beings want to record the past? Don't we all want to imagine the future? Don't we all want to play with things? So story becomes the ground on which you actually do those kinds of gestures. It's a way of relating to one another, I think. You know, it's a way of relating to one another, to the environment, to trees, to the grass, to the mountains. And stories allow you to expand beyond yourself in time and space. So it becomes really a very meaningful two way process. You know, you and the story. I mean, think of why we tell, you know, you and I probably tell some of the same stories over and over again.

[Steve Burns]

I do. All the time. Constantly.

[Leela Prasad]

Yes, I, I do too. And I think that story hasn't exhausted itself.

[Steve Burns]

My friends would disagree with you.

[Leela Prasad]

Mine would too. But it's, it hasn't exhausted itself. You, you're grasping because it, it's a fountain of something that hasn't spent itself.

[Steve Burns]

Oh, I see what you're saying. I hadn't thought of that. So maybe I repeat, I have a couple stories that I do repeat. I find myself repeating. I'm even aware, and I'm actually, Leela. I'm even aware that I'm doing it while I'm doing it. But I Still do it because. Yeah, maybe there's something there that. That has remained unexpressed, that I haven't actually gotten it out yet. That I'm still working on that story.

[Leela Prasad]

That's right.

[Steve Burns]

In some way. So maybe. Maybe we got a little. For that reason that there's a story that we, as you say, we want to participate in and we want to sit inside of that we're trying to express.

[Leela Prasad]

And it's also a story that we want to shape.

[Steve Burns]

That's interesting. So we wanna have some agency over this idea.

[Leela Prasad]

Exactly. It's a kind of interesting understanding of agency. You know, you and story. What's the relationship between you and stories and God and all of this stuff?

[Steve Burns]

Yes.

[Leela Prasad]

Right. You know, and it's. It's. There's something infinitely creative in that engagement and storytelling. And storytelling around religion and within religion is about that creativity. You know, the need to express oneself, the need to make things, the need to sculpt, the need to paint is all kind of. I see it as all connected.

[Steve Burns]

I'm familiar with this idea of storytelling. Right. It's kind of what my career has been based off of, is participating in narrative, whether it's in theater and film, in television. I've even done, like, stand on stage and tell stories. I've even done storytelling. Right. So I hear a lot of what you're saying, but I don't think the storytelling that I've ever done or participated in meets the criteria for religious thinking or belief. Right. Or even religious storytelling. So when does a story cross that line into something that. That is a myth or that that becomes myth or becomes fable or becomes religious in nature?

[Leela Prasad]

You know, I think it all comes down to what you understand religion is. If you think of it as a bunch of doctrines, yes. If you think of it as a bunch of practices, sure. If you think of it as a set of ideas around some idea of divinity, sure. But if you think of religion as, you know, a reaching out into a distant time in a distant past and a distant future and a distant time in the future, I think it begins to cross over into domains of the unknown.

[Steve Burns]

I hear you, but I might say I could come up with a story that does all the things you just said that reaches out beyond my knowledge. Right. And tries to throw my arms around something that I feel but cannot explain. And I could work passionately toward that goal and come up with a poem, and the end result could be a short story that is a work of fiction and not be religious in nature. So I hear a lot of what you're saying. And I relate it to the realm of art, not necessarily religion. I see that there's a Venn diagram and these things will all overlap. But what I'm getting at, I think, is when does it become sacred? When does the subject of the story become a matter of the sacred? Like what. What is the germ in the story that that gets to God? You know.

[Leela Prasad]

I would put the question back to you, Steve. I think if it is sacred to you, if that poem, which is utterly so called secular to you, feels sacred, then what is stopping it from being sacred? I suppose at one level you could say, you know, if there's a community ratification around that, you know, if there's a whole bunch of people who say, you know, this place is sacred because such and such a thing happened here, or that ritual is sacred because it. It commemorates some event or some moment and there's more than you participating in the vivification of that.

[Steve Burns]

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[Leela Prasad]

I feel.

[Steve Burns]

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And we're going through India and he's texting the whole time and he's making ridiculous jokes at every sacred site and, and whatever until we got to Amritsar, until we got to the Golden Temple, which for those who don't know is, I think at this point, the center sort of of Sikhism. Right? And he changed. He completely changed. His demeanor changed. I mean, it was, it's a beautiful place. And it was at night, and it's this golden Temple all lit up, and there's thousands of other people there. Right. As. As you were saying, there's this powerful community there. And they all had juggies. His name's Juggie. They. They all had juggies vibe, which was. I wouldn't say solemn, necessarily, but it was focused and calm. And he seemed connected to something.

[Leela Prasad]

Yeah.

[Steve Burns]

And I'd never seen him like that, ever. And it was kind of startling. And I gotta say, Leela, I was a little bit envious in that moment, because if you had asked me at that point in my life, I would have said, oh, I'm an atheist, 100%. But I cannot deny that that was not nothing. That was something. There was something there that I also wanted to connect with, that all of these people were connecting to. And I wanted to stand where they were standing. And I was wondering if you could help me. Just based on what you had said before, I was wondering if you could help me unpack what that was. What was I feeling? What do you think that was?

[Leela Prasad]

A few seconds ago, you asked me what the sacred is, and how do you come to the sacred? I think what you've just described is precisely that it is really finding the center of gravity and dwelling in it.

[Steve Burns]

I'm writing that down. Yeah, that's great.

[Leela Prasad]

And I think that's what was going on there. You know, I've also been to Amritsar, to the Golden Temple, and I went with, you know, a bunch of my students from another university that I worked at. And I felt the same way. What you described is a feeling. And none of us were six, but we walked around the water and we hung out with people, with strangers. We joined people we don't know from and we are not going to know down the road. We sat and had a communal meal with them. Yeah, it's called the langar. And there was something so profound about sitting together on the ground, eating the same meal with hundreds of people, all on a volunteer basis. Something so moving and so beautiful. And to me, that that constitutes religion. You can call it what you want, but it is, you know, it's an expression of something quite profound. It's that center of gravity that it connects to something that an impulse that we all have. Whether you're an atheist or agnostic or whatever it is, it hardly matters. But there's always that search for a moment of stillness, a moment of exchange.

[Steve Burns]

Do you really think. Do you. But do you really think that's true? Do you think that is a universal condition? Do you think everyone has that impulse? Do you think that all people, human beings, are born with the God shaped hole? Or do you think there are people who are just like meh, eh, whatever. Or is this an impulse that we all have?

[Leela Prasad]

I think it is an impulse that we all have in some shape or form. Just look at the art work around the world, look at the poetry, the literature, the architecture. All of that across centuries and millions of years has spoken to something. And I like to identify it as that impulse to engage with something within and without.

[Steve Burns]

Wow, that's very beautifully said. So, so what I'm hearing is we have this instinct to connect with this mystery that we perceive, but remains inscrutable. And it become, it can be personally sacred. But would you agree it becomes more sacred in community, it becomes more sacred in consensus. Like we had a similar experience at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, right? Neither of us are Sikhs. I am so far removed from that culture, you know, and yet the force of that community, whatever vibe it was generating by nature of community, made something that I felt that I couldn't deny that was palpable. So I'm wondering, I guess what I'm wondering is, do these stories that attempt to embrace these ideas become more powerful when they're shared? Is the sharing of them through community, through generations, through cultures, is that what makes them eventually what we would call religious in nature? Or is that just part of it?

[Leela Prasad]

That's a very fair way to put it. That's, that's a very, that's a very good way to put it. You know, it's interesting that you would put it that way because I'm thinking, I don't know if it is more sacred or less sacred, but I do think it is that it, it has the power to effect a transformation. You know, community has the power to effect a transformation both within the community and within oneself. There's something about the collective that is a different order, emotion.

[Steve Burns]

Say that again.

[Leela Prasad]

There's something about the community about doing stories and doing God or doing just stories within the community that has the power to effect a transformation.

[Steve Burns]

A lot of these stories that do attempt to connect us to this mystery, which, which I think is fair to say is benevolent, full of love and mercy. And certainly when we get to parables and fables, these are lessons to help us be better people, right? And then eventually those get calcified into entire religions that have the same aim. But yet very often it creates some of the worst conflict the world has ever seen. So that's a disconnect for me that I've never understood. And I'm wondering if you can help me get from here's a very helpful story to here's a holy war. Like, how does that happen?

[Leela Prasad]

I'm going to connect it back to storytelling. Interestingly. It's a very interesting, challenging question out there. Maybe one way to look at, you know, the transition, you know, what. What's going on from, you know, we tell all these wonderful stories, or we tell all these good stories, provocative stories, to really, you know, wartime. Right? What happens? And that's what you're asking. And I think there's a breakdown in storytelling. Maybe we are not allowing stories to coexist. Maybe we are not allowing stories to sit alongside one another. Let me illustrate this with a story, if I may. Remembering, you know, the place where I did my field work in South India, I ran into a very interesting, illustrative story just to this point. And there was this, you know, so the townspeople decided that one of the sacred icons in a. In a Hindu temple needed to be renovated because it was old and it was cracked. And they started this renovation. And just when they started this renovation, a leopard appeared in town. Now, this is in a forested area, and, you know, the town is in a forested area. But leopards are uncommon. They don't just show up in town. Okay, okay. But this leopard. And there was panic in the town, and everyone was worried, and people wouldn't go out. And so they consulted the spiritual teacher who was the head of the monastery out there, and he said, let me think about this. Maybe, you know, there's something about the way in which we are disturbing this timeless structure up there on this hilltop. Let's pause that and see what happens. Okay. The leopard disappeared. Just. I'm just going to put that out there. The leopard went away. And so he had connected dots in a particular kind of way. Okay. I shared the story with someone who's not from that community. He happened to be Muslim. And I said, this is what I've heard. He said, that's interesting. You know, the leopard, right on the same hilltop where the temple is, where the Hindu shrine is, is also a Mazar, which is a Muslim Shri. There was some disturbance at the mazar. You know, there was some architectural disturbance, and we decided to stop that, and the leopard went away. And I said, do you know that those guys tell the story differently? He said, I know. And I shared the story with the Hindu. So Hindu narrator. And I said, do you know that this is what that community sing. He said, I know they didn't see it as a problem that two communities are telling the same story, you know, are narrating the same episode in two different ways. It was the gesture of a. Accommodating the two stories to sit alongside each other. That allows for pluralism, allows people to be alongside. So I think the turn towards conflict and hostility, you know, its roots are in the breakdown of fundamental storytelling, community based storytelling that we could use. We could use. We could turn to, if that makes sense.

[Steve Burns]

It does make sense. I love the idea that the conflict arises when there's a breakdown in the storytelling. It's almost as if we forget that they're stories and we think that they're walls instead. You know, we forget that we made these things up, you know, and we interpret them as ways to divide us, as ways to point to differences. I'll tell you another really quick story about that trip to India. We went up to the Wagah border ceremony between India and Pakistan. And it's actually pretty wild, right? It's. It's essentially a big flex between these two countries. Right? On one side you have India, on the other side you have Pakistan. And there's a gate right in the middle, and India comes out and the Indian guard comes out, and it's so fun. And they're like playing music and they're doing this big. These big high kick steps. They're like kicking over their head, and it's really kind of intense, but there's flags. And it kind of had a party vibe, you know, and it reminded me of my experiences that I had had in New Delhi and everything. It was kind of fun. And then. Then it was Pakistan's turn. It was the exact opposite, right? It was really serious and very impressive and regal. And, you know, the women were on one side, the men were on the other side, and the Pakistani guard comes riding up on these black horses with these flags. And they were intimidated, right? And they're doing their kicking stuff and Indy is doing their kicking stuff, and they're just kind of like puffy and like. Like peacocks at each other. And it. For a second, it felt like they're. That this could spill over and that there could be a fight. At least that's the way it felt to me. And then at the end, they folded a couple flags and shook hands and they went away. And I thought, this is wild, because what they're doing is performing their difference at each other aggressively. And they've made a ceremony out of it, you know, And I turned to Juggie and said, this is pretty wild. He's like, nah, I've been over there. They eat all the same food. They're basically the same. You know, like, they've got the same problems. They tell each other the same stories. You know, this is an arbitrary line. It's kind of new in the world. And I thought, yeah, this is another. I'm bringing this up because this is another story. This is. This is using story to calcify difference as opposed to bringing us together, you know? And I'm wondering, why do that? Why. Why is a people. That was 70 years ago exactly the same? Why invest in stories that divide?

[Leela Prasad]

You know? One thing. I've also watched the Atari Wagah border ceremony and philosophically felt, wow, you know, look at what we do. You know, look at the whole performance of this division. And so I'm with you there, you know, and it struck me, and it was kind of disturbing in some way. And, you know, then you have to have a sense of humor also about it. And, you know, you have the border security force and the Pakistan Rangers, and they're doing this whole performance as you described it. And then. But what I found, on reflection, really interesting is that this whole ceremony that is the performance of some aggressive gestures, also includes the possibility of friendship because there's a handshake, however performative it is. There's a handshake and there's a smile, and there's just that hint of, you know, the possibility of a better future coming from perhaps a time when there was a better past. And I like it that the ceremony included, gestured towards that possibility because we need that. And it's very interesting that in the recent month after the India Pakistan conflict, that ceremony was suspended for some time, and it has restarted. But they don't open the gates. There's no handshake and there's no smile, which, again, to me, affirms the possibility of it being, you know, that there can be friendship. Yeah. So why do we invest in ceremonies that. That play out the. The hostility and kind of solidify the hostility? I don't know. I wish I knew the answer for why we do that. But I do note that, you know, all of these ceremonials come from a place of fear, come from a place of resource anxieties, old, historic carryover hatreds and accusations. So there's all that baggage that gets translated into rituals of display.

[Steve Burns]

Yeah. Rituals of display. Yeah. You know, you're absolutely right, Leila. I missed the end of that story that I was being told at the border ceremony because it did end in a handshake and it did end in peace. So while they were deliberately, explicitly performing their difference, the end was. And that's okay, you know, so it actually bums me out to hear that they're skipping that part now.

[Julia Louis-Dreyfus]

Well, hi everybody. It's Julia Louis Dreyfus from the Wiser Than Me podcast. And I'm not gonna talk about food waste this time.

[Leela Prasad]

I'm.

[Julia Louis-Dreyfus]

I'm going to talk about food resources. All that uneaten food rotting in the landfill. It could be enriching our soil or feeding our chickens because it's still food. And the easiest and frankly, way coolest way to put all its nutrients to work is with the mill food recycler. It looks like an art house garbage can. You can just toss your scraps in it like a garbage can. But it is definitely not a garbage can. I mean, it's true. I'm pretty obsessed with this thing. I even invested in this thing. But I'm not alone. Any mill owner just might corner you at a party and rhapsodize about how it's completely odorless and it's fully automated and how you can keep filling it for weeks. But the clincher is that you can depend on it for years. Mill is a serious machine. Think about a dishwasher, not a toaster. It's built by hand in North America and it's engineered by the guy who did your iPhone. But you have to kind of live with mill to understand all the love. That's why they offer a risk free trial. Go to mill.com wiser for an exclusive offer.

[Steve Burns]

Hey, it's me, Steve Burns. And I'm so glad you're here because you and I go way back, right? Yeah. And look at us now, like we're all grown up. We've got this new podcast where we talk about all this grown up stuff and there's special guests like Jamie Lee Curtis and Bill Nye, but for the most part, it's about you. I mean, it's always been about you. From Lemonada Media Alive with Steve burns is coming September 17th. Wherever you get your podcasts or you can watch every episode on YouTube. Where in the world can you point to pluralism of religion that works? That where everything's working, where everyone is just a thousand fingers pointing to the same moon and everyone's getting along.

[Leela Prasad]

Are there places in my utopia I.

[Steve Burns]

Want to go there? Let's go there.

[Leela Prasad]

Me too. Me too. And I don't want to come back that I think is a placeholder.

[Steve Burns]

Yeah. Oh. Oh, I love that you're smiling, but I don't love that answer. Oh, boy. Yeah. So you don't. You don't really see places where that's working?

[Leela Prasad]

I don't see. I see moments. I see possibilities. I see all the resources in lots and lots of. America is one place. India is another place that has all the resources to. For pluralism to flourish.

[Steve Burns]

Yeah.

[Leela Prasad]

But it's also a question of lost opportunities. It's a question of, you know, making choices that take you towards, you know, religion is also about divisiveness. It's not just the happy story, you know, it's. It's. So much of it is about, you know, the differentiation between you and me rather than the common ground, you know, and so I think we'll have to have a placeholder for the perfect place that has it all together. But every place, I think, has the potential for that to flourish. It takes a certain generous orientation, a certain shift in perspective to make that possible.

[Steve Burns]

Yeah, I think so.

[Leela Prasad]

So I haven't given up on it. There are times when I feel deeply skeptical and disenchanted. Same deeply disenchanted. I mean, you know, 6 million Jews, 56 million indigenous peoples, transatlantic trade, genocides all the time. I mean, there's plenty to feel disenchanted about. This is what we've done to one another. But at the same time, there have been great moments of, you know, the benevolence that we talked about earlier.

[Steve Burns]

Yes. And this is why I'm so conflicted about it, Leila. This is why I think about this stuff so much, because it always seems to me that God, religion is the problem and the answer in the same pill. And I don't know how to get around it. You know, so many religions are so similar. They're so fundamentally similar. They're so often the same story in a different font. In my mind, I think, oh, well, shouldn't that be the antidote for religious conflict instead of an accelerant of religious conflict, which it usually is. And it seems to me that almost the closer two versions of a religion are, the more conflict there is. Right. If two religions are 95% the same, it seems that that 5% results in the worst of holy wars, in the worst of conflict, in the most violence, and yet they share the most similarity. What is up with that?

[Leela Prasad]

Is there to know? I mean, I don't want to be naive about that question. It's a big question, and it's not a question that one can answer easily that I can answer. But there's a fundamental failure of imagination.

[Steve Burns]

Yeah, that's. Yeah, it's the fundamental storytelling problem again. Right?

[Leela Prasad]

Yeah. And, you know, I think here, when we think about imagination, we have to really sort of expand what that is. You know, it's not this kind of fluffy little facility that produces songs and poetry. It's a facility that can make things happen. Right. And the failure of that facility to make things happen results in all these. All this craziness around us. So I think there's a failure of imagination. I'm reminded of a story that I actually, I'm gonna share with you. You.

[Steve Burns]

Please.

[Leela Prasad]

It's about, you know, how what do we stand to gain if we yielded a little, if we gave a little, you know, what. What. What comes off it? And why. Why bother, you know, because someone might well ask me, you know, why bother to find out how your neighbor lives? Why bother to educate yourself? And, you know, the story is told in South India of a long, long time ago, of three saints who wanted to go out in search of God, their particular favorite God. They all set out, they didn't know one another. They were from the same. Different hometown, same region. And they all set out, and they set out and they journeyed. And then they came to a little, you know, individually, came to a little. A little town on the banks of a river, you know, in the dead of night, okay, a storm takes place. You know, there's torrential downpour, and it's thunder and lightning. And so one of the first one who landed at this, who arrived at this. This town, rushed into a little cottage and took shelter in a hallway, you know, a narrow hallway. And he showed and he said, let me lie down here, you know, let the storm abate. And so he's lying down there. The second saint comes along. At this point, they're not. They're not acquired sainthood or anything. And the second one arrives and he too takes shelter. He runs to the same cottage, and he says, you know, let me take shelter here. So he comes to the same hallway. Now, the first guy who was there says, you know, well, the two of us can't lie down here. There isn't enough space. So let's sit. So the two sit down. They accommodate one another, and they sit down. The third guy comes along, the storm is still raging, and he too, rushes to the same cottage, and he too, finds himself in the same hallway. And now the two of them, you know, now there are three of them. There's not enough room to sit. So they say we'll have to stand. So three of them stand and the night wears on. And suddenly, you know, just before the break of dawn, they find a fourth presence squeezing into their midst. They can't see it, they can't. They feel it, but they can't identify what it is. And so one of them lights a lamp. Lo and behold, they sense this other presence there. Okay? And each of them breaks forth into poetry, into hundreds and thousands of verses, which then become the inheritance of that tradition, you know, so what do we stand to gain? You know, that little discomfort that we endured, you know, has left us an inheritance that today to this day, we sing and emote with and draw some comfort from, guidance from. So I sit with the story a lot. I tell it a lot because I think it hasn't found its mileage yet because it really is saying something about, you know, you are going to be uncomfortable when there's strange, strangeness in your midst. But think further, take the question further. What do we stand to gain by being a little uncomfortable in the short run? Is there a collective flourishing that's possible that actually benefits every single one of us? It seems like that this question and this answer have been articulated a million times before. But the fact that we haven't quite made good on its promise means that perhaps it still bears a little more telling, you know?

[Steve Burns]

Yeah, for sure. I love that story, Leela. Thank you for sharing that with us. And I agree that, you know, I think that there is a sense of incompleteness to being alive. Right. There is an inherent unsatisfactoriness always. And maybe that's the God shaped hole actually in some way. And I, I love that story because it feels to me that the good stuff is on the other side of after. You learn to accommodate that fact.

[Leela Prasad]

Right. You know, one can lie down, two can sit, three stand, and then there's so much to be gained. Yeah, but I don't, I don't think we ever reach the end of that story, which is why we are a work in progress. You know, there's a lot to be done.

[Steve Burns]

Maybe that's why. Maybe that's why we God. Maybe we God, because it's, it's not a whole that we need that we'll ever fill.

[Leela Prasad]

Right.

[Steve Burns]

But it's just a question we need to keep asking. It's a poem we need to keep writing, you know, it's a story we need to keep telling.

[Leela Prasad]

Right? And over time, maybe the metaphors need to change, maybe the, the end needs to change. Maybe the beginning needs to be different, the middle needs to be seen, but it's. It's, as you say, a work in progress. It needs to be one.

[Steve Burns]

Yeah. You're awesome. I could talk to you forever about all this stuff. You're just great. This is so much fun. So last. A last question or really just some advice? You know, can you identify any tools that. That people can have for sort of. I almost don't even want to say religion, but. But can you identify some tools that. That people can use to navigate all of this difference with respect and dignity and compassion?

[Leela Prasad]

It's cheap. You can get it without paying anything. It's a lifetime tool, and it's. You can get this anywhere. And it's simply called listening.

[Steve Burns]

I'm familiar. Yes.

[Leela Prasad]

Yeah, it's. It's just. I think we need to take the time to listen. I'm sorry to sound as if I'm pontificating and sort of, you know, giving.

[Steve Burns]

Speaking my language. Leela. Yes, I agree with you. I think it's our best bet. I think it's our best bet.

[Leela Prasad]

It's our best bet. It's our best bet. It's. I think, the acknowledgement that you don't know enough. The constant acknowledgment, you know, that you know this piece and then you actually don't know that piece, so then you move on to that piece. And so this, this. This is sort of an agreement that you make with the world that I don't know everything.

[Steve Burns]

You know this guy, Socrates? That guy.

[Leela Prasad]

Yeah, yeah.

[Steve Burns]

That was his deal, right? He went to the oracle and they said, you're the smartest person that there is because you know that you don't know. Right. And I love that story because there's. There's humility there.

[Leela Prasad]

Right?

[Steve Burns]

Humility. And I agree. Listening and humility, those are the things my. My hero, Fred Rogers, Mr. Rogers, he always said that listening is among the greatest gifts a human being can give to another human being. And. And I think that is so apt. Because it's so easy to think of listening as getting something right, receiving information. But if you're doing it right, you're giving something, you know, you're giving something.

[Leela Prasad]

Yeah.

[Steve Burns]

You're giving the humble gift of your attention, you know.

[Leela Prasad]

You know that. That's a great word, Steve. You know, attention, maybe religion is really about noticing things, about attending to something, whether it's the environment, whether it is other people, whether it's the natural world, whether it's an elephant, a dog, you know, I mean, dogs yeah, it's about. It's about attending to something and noticing. Yeah, certainly. And maybe we need to notice a lot more.

[Steve Burns]

Well, thank you for being here. You've been so generous with your time, and I have so much to think about now. And Leela Prasad, you are the best. Thank you.

[Leela Prasad]

Thank you, Steve. I enjoyed this very much. Bye. Bye.

[Steve Burns]

Bye. Well, that was awesome. I loved her. I could talk to her for three hours. And I mean that. That was fun. Okay. You said lots of really amazing things. We tell stories about the sacred, about God, to find our center of gravity and dwell within it. I'm not entirely sure what that means specifically, but I have to say that that just feels true to me. Right. Religious intolerance and division are caused by a failure of imagination that I like. Because if we can imagine something as complex and wild as an intercedent God, don't we also have the capacity to imagine a world where we don't create divisions around it? I think so. And I think my favorite thing she said is that as it relates to all this conflict and division, listening is our best bet. I agree with that. I really do. Deeply listening to each other's stories about the sacred. Deeply listening to each other. Yeah. Yeah. Let's go outside. So I wonder, maybe God, whatever it is we mean by that word, is just a name for the mystery. Mystery that we feel such longing to connect to. Or. Or maybe we create that mystery so that we have something we can connect to. Either way, I think that longing part, I think that's real. Here's a question, though. Why is it it so much easier to worship a God we cannot see than it is to coexist with a neighbor we can. Yeah, it's pretty. Good question. Oh, that's getting pretty. Check it out. Alive with Steve Burns is a Lemonada Media original. If you haven't subscribed to Lemonada Premium yet, now's the perfect time. You can listen to the show completely ad free, plus you'll unlock exclusive bonus content from me as I reflect on this episode. Just press subscribe on Apple podcasts. Head to lemonadapremium.com to subscribe on any other app, or listen ad free on Amazon Music with your prime membership. That's lemonadapremium.com Alive is hosted by me, Steve Burns, and produced by Jeremy Slutskin. Our editor is Christopher Champion Morgan. Our associate producer is Akshaz Tharabailu. Audio engineering by James Sparber. Lemonada's SVP of weekly programming is Steve Nelson. Executive producers are Jessica Cordover, Kramer Stephanie Whittles, Wax and me. We'll see you next week. And you look great, by the way.

[Leela Prasad]

Every caregiving journey is unique. But the isolation, guilt, and exhaustion we all feel, that's universal.

[Julia Louis-Dreyfus]

It's reality. It's life. You know, I wish it could all be happy and joyous, but sometimes times it's full of rage. And that is what it is.

[Leela Prasad]

That's why this show exists, to be a safe place for caregivers to land. Listen to Squeezed. Wherever you get your podcasts.