Growing Your Soul

© 2009, Rev. Barbara Hamilton-Holway

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"Life is just a chance to grow a soul." That’s life’s purpose according to A. Powell Davies, minister in the 1940s and 50s of All Souls, our Unitarian Universalist congregation, in Washington, D.C.

Sometimes do you find yourself just going through the routine of your life, taking care of who and what you need to take care of, then feeling exhausted and just dropping at the end of the day?

Sometimes do you look around at all that’s going on in the world, all the suffering, and feel insignificant and just want to run off to the woods and live a simple and secluded life?

Other times are you looking for something to energize you, for people and a cause with whom to align yourself in a quest for the beautiful and the good, for meaning and purpose and spiritual significance?

This desire leads Buddhists to take the Bodhisattva vow, the promise to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all beings, to follow a Bodhisattva way of life—of generosity, ethics, patience, zeal, meditative concentration and wisdom.

It’s human to want to band together in groups with a moral code and a calling to do good.

On census forms, over half a million people declared themselves as Jedi. In the Star Wars universe, the Jedi began as a philosophical study group and became guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy. They live by an ethical code, practice patience, commitment, and take decisive action when necessary.

This same desire has led to the formation of the Brahma Kumaris. I’d never heard of Brahma Kumaris until Bill’s and my sabbatical last spring.

On a pilgrimage to grow our souls, we traveled to Mt. Abu in Rajasthan, India. We toured the world headquarters of the Brahma Kumaris. That would have been that, except an Indian gentleman walked up and told us he was formerly in government service but was now in God’s service. He used his handy dandy pocket guide to tell us about the philosophy. That would have been that, except he invited us to view films in English which introduce their philosophy.

The gentlemen left. We watched one film, and he reappeared and said, “There’s a second film.” The Brahma Kumaris have zeal. We watched the second film. Then Kristina appeared.

Kristina grew up in Ohio and Florida and found the Brahma Kumaris while she was traveling in Costa Rica. She was living in a Brahma Kumari village in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York and was at Mt. Abu for a two month visit. She was easy to be with and talk to and she invited us to return to learn more about the Brahma Kumari philosophy. So we made plans to meet her the next day.

The next day, we found ourselves sitting at BKU, Brahma Kumari University, by the Tower of Peace and the tomb of their founder. At age 60, after life as a successful diamond merchant, the founder in 1937 dedicated his remaining 33 years to the growing his soul.

Kristina taught us with plenty of room for conversation, comments, and questions. She then led us in a meditation and set up a time to meet the following day.

At BKU, at intervals during the day, music is broadcast throughout the campus. People stop whatever they are doing or saying to come back to remembrance of the soul.

What would it be like if during our Sunday morning coffee hour, a song, like Spirit of Life, was suddenly sung as a reminder to stop all talk and business for a moment to remember the spirit?

Kristina is 28 years old. She told us that after college, she was lost. The BKs helped her become clear and purposeful. We didn’t feel in agreement with all of the BK philosophy, but Kristina is definitely centered, calm, and luminescent. We decided to keep taking the classes, learning what we could, discerning what is true for us.

Kristina offered us teachings each day for a week or so. She gave attention each day to us, and she taught a next lesson. Before and after the teachings, she led us in meditations outside in the sunshine and gardens of BKU.

When one morning we said we’d awakened around 3:30 and had a hard time getting back to sleep, she said, “You’re waking up because you don’t need more sleep. 3:30 is a perfect time for meditation.” She said the BKs call that time the hour of nectar, a sweet time of quiet. She meditates each morning at 3:30, reminding herself that she is a soul at peace which is the meaning of the BK slogan Om Shanti.

Several days we were guests for lunch in the big BK dining hall. We ate in silence with Kristina suggesting we eat in remembrance of the soul. The meals were satisfying. When we went for walks with Kristina, she suggested we walk in silence in remembrance of the soul.

Much of the teaching went along with our own thinking and with Unitarian Universalism. Each person can have a direct connection to divine energy. Choosing to make the connection and the time for the connection can burn away ego, anger, greed, and jealousy.

They teach that as those qualities burn away virtues can grow.

We can choose to face what is—in the world and in ourselves, and cooperate with others in physical work or in growing spiritually.

We can discern what is coming from ego and what is coming from soul and consciously pack up wasted thoughts, unnecessary worries about the future or rehashing of the past. These thoughts, which are of no benefit, we can let go.

Kristina likes to write letters to God and then write the response. She says she trusts the response when it is simple.

Kristina introduced us to their current world leader 93 year old Dadi Janki. Dadi Janki offered us almonds, lemon cakes and roses and a sort of horoscope/fortune cookie/angel blessing.

The BKs love to give little gifts—coconut cookies, chocolate, notebooks. They invited us to attend their evening meditation in a hall holding 3000 and with translation facilities for sixteen languages. One of the BK “sisters” and one of the “brothers” were offering drishti, silent meditation focused on the eyes. Then Dadi Janki arrived and offered drishti. Everyone meditated on her eyes. Dadi Janki’s dark face stood out among all the white light. She would raise her eyebrows as she gazed at each person.

After meditation, Dadi Janki gave a teaching on giving our attention to sweet sights, sweet sounds, sweet smells, sweet tastes, sweet words, sweet touch and letting go, not "feeding" bitterness. She told us to travel lightly and cultivate our joy.

I thought about G.K. Chesterton’s words that angels can fly because they don’t take themselves seriously, but lightly. The BKs all dress in white. They want to be angels, intervening in lives, to bring goodness and beauty.

What would it be like to look up to our elders and have them gaze upon us showing attention for the worth and dignity of each of us? What if individuals took turns just looking at the rest of us with love? What if this was how, more and more of the time, we all looked at everyone?

The BKs invited us to a field day in their Peace Park. I joined the sisters only in dancing and in musical chairs. Sisters and brothers played a kind of blind man’s bluff and a ball toss. Bill won. We sang together and ate a great picnic lunch, sweet simple pleasures.

Kristina read to us sermons called murlis, flute songs for the soul. We found them long, but she was so obviously moved by them.

One evening we joined a hundred BKs for a hike up to a mountain top where we each sat in silence, with barely any movement, for an hour and a half, watching the sun set. The sun put on a beautiful show. Intermittently, one of the brothers played a flute. What a sweet and powerful last evening at Mount Abu, sitting with these one hundred people all dressed in white, meditating to radiate peace to the whole world.

The next morning Kristina took us to the BK hospital and nurses training facility. Health and dental care are free for all BKs from around the world and for all local people. They treat strokes and Parkinson’s, offer cardiac care, ICU, hip replacements and perform many cleft pallet surgeries for children. All their physical treatments always combine healthy diet and meditation. She introduced us to the Chief Administrator who was gracious, his eyes shining. I felt badly taking his time and said, “You must be so busy.” “Not so busy,” he said. “I always have time for walking and meditating and you.”

Bill and I were dressed in clothes for sleeping on that evening’s overnight train ride. We didn’t look at all professional, but the hospital staff treated us as visiting dignitaries, like the doctors who were there visiting from around the world.

From the hospital, on our way out of town, we visited another BK facility with dorm rooms, the largest solar kitchen in the world, a hall that holds 30,000. The place was alive with the energy of thousands of people.

The BKs simplify things a little too much for me. They see the body as in the way of the spirit, where as, I see the body as a way to experience the spirit. They believe in a cyclical nature of time. They believe 5,000 years ago Bill and I sat by the Tower of Peace taking lessons from Kristina. They believe in 5,000 more years we will sit there again.

I’m not going to become a BK, but you can hear how much there is to appreciate: their hospitality, their generosity, their good service in the world. Unitarian Universalism invites me on a quest for truth and goodness, encourages me to look to many sources for growing my soul.

The BKs are energized by their spiritual practices of silence and of looking at one another with love, by their desire to serve, and by the power of their numbers.

We can learn from them. Have a regular spiritual practice. Be ready to do good. Follow a way of life of generosity and zeal.

I firmly believe we are the company we keep. We become like the people, images, stories and words with which we surround ourselves. Our spirits are influenced by their presence.

We human beings are energized by one another. The more people who gather in spiritual community, the more enlivened we are.

You can spark energy here. Invite your church friends to come on Sunday, tell them you want to sit together, learn how their lives are going, and after the service hear what moved them.

You generate energy when you get to know people you don’t know, whether they’ve been coming for 50 years or one day. Discover what excites people and what they are doing with their lives. Introduce people to people, help them find their common passions.

Come to 9:00 and 11:00 services to meet people and create energy, continue the Sunday energy by coming to Thursday night suppers and worship services.

Create energy by increasing our involvement in the larger community. If you are going to a health care reform rally, or to witness for peace at the site of a death by gun violence on the streets of Richmond, or if you are going to serve a meal at a shelter, invite people to go with you. Keep multiplying the energy.

Live your life with a fuller awareness of its spiritual significance. It’s human to want to feel seen for who you are, encouraged to be your truest self and to band together for greater good, love, and justice in the world.

This is how we grow our souls.