Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University’s activities in details

Prajapita Brahma Kumaris Ishwariya Vishwa Vidyalaya(Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University or BKWSU), is the headquarters of the Brahma Kumaris worldwide spiritual movement. The movement, which began in Hyderabad of Sindh district in 1939, focusses almost exclusively on the Raja yoga path of spiritual advancement.

The headquarters are located in Mount Abu, Rajasthan, and is also called as ‘Madhuban‘ by the followers.

The movement was initiated by Lekhraj Khubchand Kripalani, a wealthy diamond trader, who gave up his business after having spiritual experiences in 1932, having decided to start an organisation for spiritual development of people.

The Brahmakumaris headquarters in Mount Abu, Rajasthan, India

Since then, it has been expanding worldwide, and as of 2008, the movement claimed to have more than 825,000 regular students, with over 8,500 centres in 100 countries.

Lekhraj, now known as Brahma Baba, serves as the core inspiration of this movement. As we have already discussed about the origins of the movement earlier, we will restrict ourselves to only the activities of BKWSU in this post.

BKWSU spreads the meditation methods through conducting classes, publishing books, cds and dvds. Some of the Brahmakumari centres offer residential retreat programs, which could be one-day or weekend programs. There are 12 BK centres offering retreat programs throughout the world.

Besides the spiritual activities, the organisation has activities on education, healthcare, renewable energy, sustainable yogic agriculture. It enjoys consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the UN and UNICEF,and has a permanent office space in New York city for their operations.

Teachings

The Brahmakumaris primarily teach the Raja yoga form of meditation. It does not involve rituals or mantras and can be practised anywhere at any time. Their meditation method is practised with ‘open eyes’, which makes this method versatile, simple and easy to practice.

Insight Timer meditation app features meditation techniques from different organisations. It also includes the j-a-m meditation of Brahmakumaris.

Today’s man is willing to spend enormous resources for improving his external world, but wants to spend minimum resources for his inner world. People want to meditate for the least amount of time, and expect to lead a stress free life. To cater to this mindset of people, Brahmakumaris have started Just-a-minute initiative, which consists of various types of meditation methods which take just 1 minute each. The methods are available for free in the website, as well as in the Insight Timer app for iOS and Android.

The official website offers many free videos on experiencing meditation.

It is not a traditional guru-shishya disciplic succession tradition. It also does not give courses on scriptures. It is a course based spiritual organisation with Lekhraj as the inspiration source and Sisters as the interpreter of his teachings.

The different courses offered are – Foundational course in Raja yoga meditation, Overcoming anger, Positive thinking, Self-Esteem, Stress-free living. The foundational course in raja yoga serves as the starting point for beginners in the tradition. These courses are offered at the local BK centres. Besides conducting courses, BK also holds seminars, workshops, and residential retreat courses.

Although the Brahmakumaris donot refer to any particular scripture as a source of learning, they believe in vedantic concepts of Soul, Karma and Rebirth.

One of the basic practices followed by the disciples is the daily study of murlis. Murlis are the teachings given by Brahma Baba, which can be Sakar Murli (Words actually spoken by him when he was in human form) or Avyakt murlis (teachings given by Brahma baba through the medium of the BKs leader). The daily murli is telecast by the BKs headquarters and is listened and studied worldwide by the followers.

They focus on having purity of thought (Shubhawna) and emotions (Shubhkamna). A student begins in the tradition by doing the Brahmakumaris foundation course and then has to listen to daily murlis. The daily murlis are published in their official page, in 27 different languages.

Other activities

Besides providing spiritual guidance, BKs also works on Environmental (Brahmakumaris Environment Initiative) and Social issues.

Impacting the Environment– BKs approach to environment is two pronged – A shift in consciousness inside and a shift in our lifestyle outside. The outer climate is a reflection of our inner climate. Meditation causes a shift in consciousness and it will eventually manifest as a change in our environment. At the same time, actions are needed in the outer world to make it really sustainable. To achieve a sustainable environment, they highlight the importance of a vegetarian diet, sustainable lifestyle, meditation and peaceful living.

The BKWSU has setup WRST – World Renewal Spiritual Trust, to work for the environment. With the help of Indian and German govt, since the last 25 years, BKWSU in collab with WRST has been involved in training, research and development of Renewable energy technologies. In 2011 Brahma Kumaris and WRST were recognised as a Scientific and Industrial Research Organization by the Indian Ministry of Science and Technology.

It has built variety of solar energy systems in India- Solar steam cooking systems, solar steam generation systems, solar power plants, solar thermal power plant. It has also distributed more than 20,000 solar lanterns, 500 home light systems and 400 solar cooking boxes. BKWSU also organises various conferences, workshops and trainings on awareness, environment and solar technologies.

Brahma Kumaris & WRST are currently conducting research and training in the following technologies:

Solar steam cooking systems
Solar thermal power generation and thermal storage
Photo voltaic stand alone systems
Solar hot water plants

Sustainable Yogic Agriculture – It is an agricultural experiment in which the farmers practice traditional organic farming and combine it with their meditational practices. It is a research project being carried out by the Rural development wing of BKs. Farmers in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Goa have been involved in this project and there have been remarkable results. Which can be seen here – https://eco.brahmakumaris.org/what-we-do/yogic-farming/

BKWSU at the United Nations – The BKWSU holds a consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). It is an accredited observer organization to UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and is also affiliated to the Department of Public Information (DPI). The United Nations consults the affiliated organisations in its policy making process, holds conferences, seminars, briefings and meetings to involve the organisations in doing its work.

BKWSU has held general consultative status with ECOSOC since 1983, affiliation with the DPI since 1980, Consultative Status with UNICEF since 1987, Observer Status to the United Nations Environment Assembly of UNEP since 2014, and has been an accredited Observer Organization to UNFCCC since 2009. It is also a flagship member of Education for Rural People (ERP), Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO). The BKWSU runs different projects of the UN, promotes UN observances, publicizes UN activities, attends UN conferences, presents oral and written statements, hosts parallel events and exhibitions, and works with other NGO committees.

It helps the UN in the areas of Millennium Development Goals, Climate Change, Food Crisis, Gender Equality, Global Public Health, Humanitarian Emergencies, Human Rights, Women, Children, Youth, International Decades, Days.

Alliance with Panchamama – Together with Panchamama (an organization working for sustainable development of the world), it has created a 4 hour workshop which addresses questions like –

Where Are We? – looking at the environmental, social and spiritual condition of the human family
How Did We Get Here? – finding the root causes of our modern malaise
What is Possible Now? – examining the alternative scenarios for our future
Where Do We Go From Here? – finding a role to play in creating the future

Leadership – BKWSU organises COTT (Call of the Time) dialogues with various leaders of the world, on different topics, since 1998. The dialogues started as conversations on a variety of topics focusing on social and political issues of our times.. Two journals, Experiments in Silence – Points of Entry and A Mind that is Qualified to Serve, were created with the support of the Fetzer Institute, an organisation that supports scientific research into subtle energy, consciousness, spirituality and the mind-body connection. From 1999, meditation on silence became an important part of these meetings, which are held at the Mt Abu headquarters.

Choose, Change & Become (CCB) is BKWSU’s international programme for youth leadership. Its aim is to help young leaders develop their inner capacity to make values-based choices and decisions that lead to positive, constructive action for their societies and the world. It consists of meditators of the age range of 16-30, who organise events to help their peers to develop

An awareness of their inner peace and power,
A moral compass for living,
The practical spiritual skills and tools for expressing their potential.

Spirit of Humanity Forum – The Spirit of Humanity (SOH) forum, established in 2010, is a global network of organisations, communities and individuals committed to catalyse effective systemic change in governance and decision-making, based on core human values. It began as an initiative by 4 founding organisations – Brahma Kumaris Iceland, City of Reykjavik (Iceland), Education 4 Peace Foundation (Switzerland) and Guerrand-Hermès Foundation for Peace (UK/France).

The Forum creates a safe space for deeper encounter, exploration and dialogue among leaders to discover new ways to move forwards. Currently the initiative has 8 partner organisations (including Brahmakumaris Iceland), and 4 supporting organisations.

Empowering women and men – The BKs hold conferences, seminars and retreats for empowering men and women, where they give practical tools and insights for leading a peaceful and happy life. “Four faces of women” is a model for women empowerment, which contains tools and insights for enabling women to be their truest, most loving and powerful self.

B K Shivani’s TV show Happiness Unlimited is adapted into a book owing to its success. The book in India qualified into the Amazon Best-Reads List and went on to be the No.1 bestseller in the Religious and Spiritual section!

Nutrition and health – BKWSU educates people on the importance of eating healthy, by educating people on – wholesome ingredients, developing conscious eating habits, healthy recipes, organic farming and ‘ahimsa’ in diet.

Publications – BKWSU publishes books, videos and audios, online articles, free ebooks, blogs for spreading its teachings. It has atleast 50 different titles in English, Hindi, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish.