Mindy Kaling Opens Up About Spiritual Connection With Her Late Mother

The Mindy Project star still feels her mom's presence.

During a new SuperSoul Sunday interview with her A Wrinkle in Time co-stars Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling explained her spiritual connection with her late mother, Dr. Swati Roysircar, who passed away the same day Fox gave Kaling's comedy series The Mindy Project the green light in 2012.

"I always say, 'When you lose somebody you love, you gain an angel you know,'" Winfrey told Kaling, calling it "divine timing" (via E! News). She added, "I do believe in the connection between the spirit life and our own life."

Kaling replied, "That is the perfect expression of what it was, because it was such a long shot. My show had been passed over at NBC, where I had worked for eight years. I'd written 26 episodes of The Office and I wrote this pilot for them. They passed over on it. It was such a long shot that it would travel to Fox and they would even be interested in it because they had their own development going." 

"I was keeping my mother abreast of this right towards the end, because she loved asking about it and wanted to know," the 38-year-old continued. "It was as though when she passed away, there was something she was able to help me [with] in another way. It was within the hour, actually. It was very, very strange. But I 100 percent agree with you that she had something to do with it."

The former The Office actress added, "I have been surprised at how my relationship with her has continued even though she's not here....If something comes up in the news, or even if I'm trying on an outfit in the morning, I can look in the mirror and know what she would think. Sometimes, I will have the most vivid dreams. I'm very skeptical as a person, but I will have the most vivid dreams of her talking to me; even in my dreams I'm skeptical! I'm asking her, 'Mom, how can this be? I know you're not here.' And she's like, 'I know — but I am here.'"

As Nicki Swift previously reported, Kaling recently revealed that she named her first child, daughter Katherine Swati, in honor of her late mother. She welcomed her baby girl on Dec. 15, 2017.