Udupi ( Karnataka ): The air on the grounds of the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial (MGM) College grounds was resonating with peace and self-contentment as Brahma Kumari Shivani, a prominent teacher associated with the Brahma Kumaris and an ambassador for the World Psychiatric Association, gave two spiritual discourses: ‘The Key to a Happy Home’ and ‘Emotional Fitness and Meditation.’
BK Sister Shivani delivered her first discourse ‘The Key to a Happy Home’ on the evening of February 7. She began her talk by asking the audience about what causes disturbance in a happy home. Responses included arguments, expectations, ego, anger, desire, and misunderstanding. Over the course of her talk, she connected each one of these disturbances with each other.
BK Shivani emphasized the belief of difference rather than wrongness. She expressed her belief that two perspectives to a given situation are not right and wrong, but different. If we can acknowledge this, then our homes would be converted automatically to an ‘ever-happy home’. “It is completely natural for two people to have a completely different perspective,” she explained, “but instead of calling them different, we called them wrong. This is a word which we need to remove from the energy of our house.”
She spoke at length about desire. She called the current age, referred to as Kaliyug by many spiritualists, as the age of never-ending desires, and contrasted it with the so-called ancient Golden Age or Satyug, which she called the age when desire itself was unknown. She claimed that desires are not about what we have, but that of satisfying the needs of the soul with materialism.
She also articulated her views on what brings happiness to the home. She acknowledged that money is necessary for comfort, but for sukhoon or happiness (including ease/serenity), we need to find peace and good energy within ourselves. She believed that this could be achieved by working on reducing all the aforementioned things that cause disturbance to the home.
In her second discourse, ‘Emotional Fitness and Meditation,’ she spoke of emotional health and its importance. The crux of her talk lay in her belief that a situation does not cause mental ill-health, rather our thoughts and reactions to that situation cause that ill-health.
She gave the example of a child studying for an exam. While the parent provides for all their physical needs and restricts the child from going out or having fun until the exam is over, they do not care at all for the child’s emotional well-being. BK Shivani asserted that the parent’s constant worrying and fear takes a toll on the child by inducing bad energy into the home. If, instead, the parent showed more optimism and remained assured of the child’s success, often their confidence paves the way to the child’s success.
She also reiterated self-forgiveness as a part of emotional health. “There is no concept of forgiving others. It’s about forgiving ourselves. It means, ‘I am not going to create bad thoughts for the mistake that I did that day in that situation.” She also asserted the importance of forgiving and forgetting. She compared a person’s grudges to all the physical scars that are left on the person’s body due to injuries. She claimed that people remember only those injuries whose scars are still on their bodies. The same way, she pointed out, our minds are also scarred by our reluctance to forget a person’s transgressions.
At the conclusion of the event, Rehana, a local resident of Udupi and an attendee, said she loved listening to BK Sister Shivani speak about what way to live and how to look after loved ones. When asked about her favorite part of the talk, she replied, “I particularly loved the part where she spoke about children and eating satvik food.”
