For almost half a century, Dadi Janki has traveled widely, reaching out to people from all walks of life in scores of countries. She has taken with her a message of peace, happiness and hope. Now aged 104, this remarkable Dadi (elder sister) continues to visit centers for meditation that she was instrumental in founding or inspiring. In the past two years, she has traveled extensively around India and to the USA, Russia, Hong Kong, Germany, Spain and the UK.
It is all the more extraordinary given that Dadi left India for London in 1974 with only a small piece of luggage, nowhere certain to live, and no English. What courage and faith it must have taken for her to follow the instruction of Brahma Baba, founder of the Brahma Kumaris, and set out alone into the unknown!
From an early age, Dadi sought answers to the perennial questions, “Who is God?” and “How can I find Him?” Luckily, her family, from Sindh province in pre-Partition India, were sympathetic. The situation for many women in India in the 1920s would not have been so favorable. Still, they expected her to marry and made sure she did. Dadi Janki, however, pursued her spiritual quest with determination. Only 19 years old when she first encountered Dada Lekhraj (Brahma Baba), she immediately recognized his strong connection with God. The meeting transformed her. Devoting herself to Raja Yoga meditation, study, and service with the early group around Brahma Baba – she was the nurse for the whole community – Dadi Janki developed a close relationship with God. She understood that the apparent attractions of the material world, with all its complexities, entrap us, taking away from our true freedom.
This ability to pass on her energy of peace, love, and happiness has been integral to Dadi’s life and work, in which service to God and service of humanity has been paramount. They are core values in ancient Indian philosophy, appearing in the Upanishads and in the Bhagavad Gita, where the purity of intention is a central theme.
During the upheavals of Partition in India after 1947, the community focused on meditation and building their inner strength. Following this, during a period of expansion across the subcontinent, Dadi Janki was a key teacher and teacher trainer, working to empower women, honing her own communication and leadership skills. She feels that her close connection with God brought her the authority she needed at a time when women did not normally take on the position of leaders.
That such happiness is within reach of everyone was surely an uplifting message for people in 1970s Britain, caught in a prevailing atmosphere of frequent industrial action, changes of government, the Cold War and the general malaise that followed the overheated ‘60s. Those who met Dadi at the time – and they came from all over the world – attest to the influence of her presence and teaching.
Dadi’s companion and right hand since she came to London has been Sister Jayanti, whose parents, from the same Sindhi community, settled in London in 1957. Now European Director of the Brahma Kumaris, Sister Jayanti attributes her final decision to choose a spiritual path at an early age to Dadi Janki. This second part of Dadi Janki’s life was a time of expansion of the Brahma Kumaris into a global network of organizations. Now, there are some 4,500 centers in over 110 countries, from Australia to the USA, Denmark to South Africa, and more than a million students. To have built up a team – all volunteers – and to have achieved so much in less than 50 years is nothing short of miraculous.
On the world stage, Dadi has created and championed initiatives to further the causes of equality, with the Young Women of Wisdom and the 100 Women of Spirit initiatives; educational reform with the Living Values partnership program now implemented in some 60 countries; and a holistic approach to health, with the Janki Foundation for Spirituality in Health Care. She has spoken at countless international gatherings for peace and human development, and has played an important part in promoting inter-faith dialogue. In the field of the environment and sustainable development, her role has been pivotal, and in 1992 she was appointed by the UN as one of Ten Keepers of Wisdom, tasked with advising political leaders on the spiritual dilemmas underpinning environmental issues. Yet Dadi Janki is mindful of the challenges facing humanity in this first part of the 21st century. Her approach, both practical and founded on the strength of her spiritual understanding, is to have the courage to face them and the judgment to know how to do this.
