Sister Jayanti of Brahmakumaris on self-transformation through meditation

[Ajay0]

Insightful article by Sister Jayanti of the Brahmakumaris on transforming negative patterns to positive ones using meditation as a tool.

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“What really drew my attention and interest towards meditation was the astute focus on understanding the self — our thoughts, our emotional patterns, our personality,” says Sister Jayanti, who practices the Raja Yoga form of meditation.

“People come to us having experimented with many things and what they find here is that there’s a body of knowledge about the self. For me, that is what’s most exciting about meditation. It helped me discover that you can actually understand your thoughts and where they’re coming from, so you can channel them in the right direction.”

Understanding who you are is fundamental to getting rid of your negative patterns and enhancing your positive attributes, believes Sister Jayanti. For instance, you may tend to get impatient quickly or you get angry very quickly. Doctors are telling you to watch out for your blood pressure or else you may have to be on medication for the rest of your life. You feel like you can’t do anything about it. You get angrier, you react and you become part of a vicious cycle. You know you need to change but how do you get to it? “If you keep giving way to anger, it becomes a pattern of behaviour, which keeps getting stronger. It’s almost like an addiction, which gets worse each time you repeat the behaviour,” she explains.

“Through meditation, you can bring about a change in your personality in a way that you want, instead of feeling helpless about your situation,” says Sister Jayanti. Elaborating further, she adds, “Meditation also allows you to explore these patterns and behaviours. There’s a moment from which impatience turns into anger and if it persists for longer, the anger explodes. Meditation allows you to recognise these signs and patterns,” she adds. “So, you can catch yourself in that moment before it turns into anger and start a dialogue with yourself. Being mindful enables you to utilise the power of that moment.”

 

[Ocean]

Thank you very much for sharing. I haven’t heard of Sister Jayanti before and I really enjoyed reading the article about her insights and her take on problems of young people and of our modern societies. IMO she is very much on point, and a great spiritual teacher.

Here’s is another interview with her I’ve just listened to:

I love the clarity she speaks with, no confusing spiritual woo-woo, but a lot of clear explanations and practical advise for everyday life situations and issues. It’s great how she can understand life in our current (western) societies and how she applies her spiritual wisdom and experience to problems of average modern people. She really speaks from my soul so many times.

According to her spirituality is:

- being able to connect with one’s inner self

- being able to connect with the Divine/the Source

- on the basis of the two above, using this inner potential in the world around us, in the work we do and in our relationships with others

A bit of a background:
She was born in India and moved to the UK as a small child, where she grew up. She also lived in South Africa during times of great political changes. I guess, that’s why she is not out of touch with the modern world, unlike some other spiritual teachers out there.

In the video above she talks about the importance of looking at things from another perspective and the need to keep up a positive attitude in order to find solutions and change things for the better in our lives.

She touches on topics like health and illness, politics and discrimination, and on the consequences of fear, anxiety and anger, both in our individual lives, as well as in society.

I can especially recommend listening to her for those who are concerned about the future of mankind and the current state of society, as well as for those who feel stuck in the circumstances of their personal life.

@fireflydancing This might also be interesting to you regarding your recent thread about compassion.

 

[fireflydancing]

@fireflydancing This might also be interesting to you regarding your recent thread about compassion.

She is much nicer than I am, haha. Such a sweet lady.

Thank you for both links. I went through them and saw that there are more recordings of her on YouTube. Listening to her words is a meditation practice on its own.