The Hindu tradition contains rivers that are goddesses, mountains that are deities, and a philosophical framework — Brahman as the ground of all being — that makes the separation between self and nature not just unnecessary but philosophically confused. To see the divine in the river is not superstition; it is the recognition that the river is doing something you depend on entirely and will never fully understand. Nasreddin would have waded in anyway, which is also a form of reverence.
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