I Discovered a Great Yoga Sect Run by Women!
Over the years I have been to many yoga ashrams for my personal spiritual development. All of them have been terrific places, but one thing they all have in common is that the top swamis running the organizations have uniformly been men.
So it was a pleasant surprise for me to recently learn that there’s a spiritual movement in the yoga tradition run by and largely populated by women. Called the Brahma Kumaris (BKs), which means daughters of Brahma in Sanskrit, women are front and center. This was a conscious decision by its founder in India in the 1930s, in large part because the core values long attributed as feminine — kindness, love, patience, tolerance, and the like — were seen as vital to both individual spiritual growth and humanity’s evolution. (Men can participate in all BK activities, but women run the show.)
I stumbled upon the BKs accidentally a few months back. (Or, more precisely, I discovered them without consciously planning to, because I don’t really believe these things are accidents.)
In the course of doing promotion for my award-winning mindfulness women’s novel Warrior Won, my publicist arranged for me to speak on a radio show called America Meditating.
I hadn’t heard of the show before (although as a longtime meditator I was smitten by its name), so before appearing I listened a few times. I was enthralled by its host, a prominent BK member called Sister Jenna. Jenna’s loving energy readily comes through her program, which often begins with a beautiful guided meditation spoken in her lyrical voice. I loved Sister Jenna even more when I discovered that her BK center is named The Meditation Museum. Located in Silver Spring, Maryland, small displays about meditation and different faith traditions are the lure to entice people to learn how the marvelous practice of meditation might benefit them, or to just sit in silence.
I filed the information about the Silver Spring center in the back of my brain, figuring I’d check it out the next time I traveled to the Washington, D.C. area. But the universe had other plans for me to immerse myself before then alongside this amazing group of women.
Sister Jenna shares my belief that people on a deep spiritual path who know this is how we better the world enjoy joining forces with other like-minded individuals. Each year she invites those who have appeared on her show for a weekend gathering at a BK retreat center in upstate New York. When I got the invite, I decided to go. As soon as I walked into the center and was greeted by the intense love (and hugs) of Sister Jenna and the other female BKs dressed in white who had come to serve us that weekend, I knew this group was special.
The Brahma Kumaris use “Raja yoga,” or the path of practice and self-discipline, to encourage people to connect with their spiritual core. Practice, of course, means meditation, and the BKs do plenty of it. (At the retreat I went to, we had the option of joining BK members at their daily 4AM meditation. I passed! But we did plenty of other meditation throughout the weekend.)
Like me, they view meditation as the way we come to understand that our true nature is as spiritual beings. And like me, they hope people will take this knowledge out into the world, treating others with love, respect, and nonviolence, with the result being world peace, care for the environment, and other beautiful outcomes.
During the retreat, I learned that the leader of BK internationally is a tiny 103-year-old Indian woman named Dadi Janki, who has been at its helm for decades. The BKs revere her in the way every other ashram I’ve been to reveres their prime teacher, because that person models a way of being to aspire to. From what I gathered about her deep connection to Source, this woman rightly deserves that adoration.
One teaching I learned at the yoga retreat that Dadi Janki has espoused especially stuck with me: “The awareness I hold in my mind, creates an attitude. This attitude is expressed through my vibrations, my vision and my actions. Attitude… creates the atmosphere around me.” And all of this leads to our right action in the world.
Like Catholic nuns in the best tradition, the BK sisters believe in doing great works. I was super impressed when one of the attendees at the retreat told me she knows Sister Jenna and other BK members through her job at the United Nations, because the BK yogis regularly team with the U.N. Specifically, the organization has been involved with U.N. efforts around climate change, food crises, equality, global public health, human rights, women’s rights, children’s rights, and humanitarian emergencies. (I chalk this admirable list up to this being an organization of women. The founder was right in this regard.)
I left the weekend brimming with love, but again figured I wouldn’t have much contact with the BKs until I could get to that Meditation Museum. But it turns out that that while the group is based in India, they have dozens of centers all across the U.S. (and around the world). And three of them are located within an hour’s drive of my home.
I’ve already been to one of the centers for a lovely discussion about inner peace, along with a meditation, which the BKs do eyes open. This was odd for me at first, being steeped in traditional yoga practices that close the eyes. But I learned that their aim in open-eye meditations is to encourage people to meditate wherever they are throughout the day — right in line with my own preaching about the value of sprinkling mindfulness throughout our day. (Check out my 3-minute video on this here.)
Regular offerings at the BK centers include group meditations and lectures about the universal truth of who we really are. You can also meditate on your own in the beautiful “Baba’s room” in every center which oozes with fresh flowers and the energy of love. Their website also has meditation instruction as well as online videos.
I hope the BKs are right that if enough people take to these teachings the world will inevitably overflow with happiness, love, peace, and purity. What I can say for sure is that the times I’ve been with them, I certainly have.
Meryl Davids Landau is the author of the mindfulness/yoga novel Warrior Won, which won first place in the Living Now Book Awards for inspirational fiction. Midwest Book Review calls it “one of the strongest spiritual women’s fiction pieces to appear in recent years.” Learn more at MerylDavidsLandau.com
