Publicity stunt or is Julia Roberts for real?

If Richard Gere can be a committed Buddhist who shows up in Dharamsala to throw his celebrity behind the Tibetan cause, then is it that far-fetched for Julia Roberts to discover Hinduism during filming Eat, Pray, Love in an ashram in India? The jury is out. The US media chewed over the news while Hindu organisations in America rushed to own Roberts as one of them.

The 42-year-old actress, who married cameraman Daniel Moder in 2002, tells Elle magazine that she is now a practicing Hindu and the couple goes to a temple to “chant, pray and celebrate.”

Since Hindus believe their souls can be reincarnated, where does Roberts think she’ll end up next? “Golly, I’ve been so spoiled with my friends and family in this life,” she says. “Next time I want to be just something quiet and supporting.”

Roberts, whose parents are Baptist and Catholic, was born in Georgia’s Bible belt. Not surprisingly, some critics took their disapproval to the blogosphere. There were rants about how Roberts was toying with Hinduism to create an early buzz for Eat, Pray, Love which opens in US theatres this month.

However, websites like PopEater.com were more charitable — suggesting the star’s “religion may also play a part in her grounded opinion of appearance.”

While talking to Elle about being a practicing Hindu, Roberts had pilloried superficial appearances. She condemned Botox saying: “It’s unfortunate that we live in such a panicked, dysmorphic society where women don’t even give themselves a chance to see what they’ll look like as older persons. I want to have some idea of what I’ll look like before I start cleaning the slates. I want my kids to know when I’m pissed, when I’m happy, and when I’m confounded. Your face tells a story... and it shouldn’t be a story about your drive to the doctor’s office.”

The star’s Hindu inclination is in synch with religious trends in the US. A million-plus Hindus live in the US, a fraction of the billion who live on Earth.

But Newsweek said that recent data shows that conceptually, at least, Americans are slowly becoming more like Hindus and less like traditional Christians in the ways they think about God, themselves and eternity.

A lot of Americans are shifting to the Hindu belief that there are many paths to God and seeking spiritual truth outside church. At least 30% of Americans call themselves “spiritual, not religious,” according to a 2009 Newsweek poll, up from 24% in 2005.

According to a Harris poll, 24% of Americans say they believe in reincarnation. And, more than a third of Americans now choose cremation, up from 6% in 1975.

When you sift through all that data, why can’t yoga-loving, India-inspired Roberts be going Hindu? Remember Roberts also re-named her production shingle Red Om Films from Shoelace Productions many years ago. Of course, some will point out that she didn’t really have Om on her lips as Red Om is “Moder” spelled backwards, after her husband’s last name.