"I'll say a special prayer that's guaranteed to get you a husband. Just 1,000 rupees. OK, 2,000 if you want kids too." Squeezed in the middle of a crush of worshippers, women in flame orange and peacock blue saris and men in shiny white shirts, in the temple's tiny inner sanctum that felt hotter than Satan's armpit, it seemed like a good time to move away from the priest trying to empty my wallet. But while I may have fled from the Kolkata temple supposedly devoted to the worship of Kali, the feisty Hindu goddess of destruction, over the next year, 750,000 Brits (1.2% of the population) will run towards India every year.

As the days get shorter, and our moods become as glum as the weather, many of those trips will be navel-gazing yoga retreats or spa holidays. The pursuit of happiness is stronger than ever, and now even Europe's politicians appear to be taking our psychological wellbeing seriously. Last year, both Britain's prime minister, David Cameron, and the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, said they wanted to measure their country's happiness.

Searching for inner peace in a world where the Earth and the economy seem to be screeching into apocalyptic meltdown is understandable, and finding that peace elsewhere seems the obvious answer.

India has long been an ad man's dream, with a spiritual brand firmly embedded on the global consciousness. But this myth not only reduces a complex, capable country to a giant spa with cheap food, people travelling there in search of salvation lose out too. It's time to set the record straight and let you in on a secret: Indians are no more spiritual than anyone else.

That religion doesn't always equate to spirituality in India has long been evident. India has a ghastly talent for crimes committed in the name of religion, and the centuries-long volley of attacks and counterattacks between Hindus and Muslims continues to play out in increasingly grim ways, whether its blowing up trains, or gunning people down in public.

Where the country's ancient temples were once gorgeously carved stone structures intended for quiet contemplation, its new temples are often heinous marble and gold behemoths that resemble giant shopping complexes – appropriate perhaps for a country that increasingly worships at the altar of commercialism.

The nation's naked economic greed isn't just visible in the dollar signs glinting in the eyes of corrupt politicians. It plays out in the increasingly brash behaviour of the middle and upper classes in big cities such as Delhi and Mumbai, all of whom desperately try to outdo each other in the number of cars they drive, the designer clothes they wear and the expensive cocktails they drink. Any criticism of this increasingly decadent lifestyle invariably invokes the tedious argument that Indians should be allowed to enjoy the joys of capitalism as much as those in the west. Well of course Indians have as much right to the basics (clean, running water; reliable electricity) and luxury (high-quality clothes, electronics and cars) as anyone else in the world. But the idea that coming later to economic prosperity means that Indians have the right to keep gulping down the planet's resources is utter madness, especially given what we now know about global warming. If nothing else, this delirious spending is pretty sickening in a country where a staggering half a billion people live on less than a dollar a day.

Now, in an awful confirmation of the fact that money doesn't buy happiness, all the signs are that Indians are increasingly scrabbling for ways to find inner peace themselves.

The ones who are really laughing in all of this are those peddling a ticket to India's patented brand of nirvana, and Indians have jumped on the bandwagon too. Yoga may have long been squeezed dry of much of its spirituality, but that hasn't stopped the new breed of super-lux spas from springing up around India. Ananda spa in the Himalayan mountains, supposedly a favourite of Kate Moss and Sadie Frost, those well-known spiritual mavens, has this on its website:

"In ancient India, holistic living was a way of life. People inherently understood the balance of nature, the ways of the Universe and how the elements affected not just their physical health, but their mental well-being … To seek harmony, to balance themselves again, to be one with their surroundings, Indians have been known to 'retreat' to the peace and quiet of the mountains … to the stillness of the hills and the natural flow of the rivers."

Where on earth are these Indians? Sure, some do visit the country's hill stations, but most Indians, if told that you were planning on hiking up the mountains, would laugh and ask "What for?".

Shreyas, an eye-wateringly expensive spa near Bangalore, describes itself as "a place where you can come in touch with the rich and vibrant Indian spiritual tradition that encourages us to search for meaning and purpose of our existence by looking into the depths of our souls".

This holistic hogwash may temporarily soothe the souls of those who visit, but surely people would be better off trying to find meaning closer to home? Without a doubt, many Indians are spiritual people who try to be good human beings and give to those less fortunate. There are also hundreds of temples that, unlike the one in Kolkata, are sanctuaries of stillness that even an agnostic like me can appreciate. But what should be blindingly obvious is that people everywhere, both of faith and without, are as capable of spirituality as anyone else. Indians don't hold the secret to inner peace. Nor does any other nationality for that matter. As with most things, the answer is a lot closer to home than we think. One Hindu mantra, that you'll recognise if you've ever been to a yoga class, is "om, shanti, om", which loosely translates to "peace everywhere". Amen to that.