By Faz Zia
WE all looking and searching for some answer in life, this era has given us many comforts with technology and other materialistic things but for such ease we have paid a heavy price. We have lost our peace of mind, inner strength and happiness, comparing our lives to those on social media and being completed conflicted. Now is the time to get that inner power back and take control of our lives.
People are turning
to spiritual alignment through yoga, meditation and mindfulness. There is one
very prominent name which stands out which is Sister Shivani Verma from Brahma
Kumaris, they teach Rajyog meditation with centres all over the world in 140
countries and it is free of charge to learn.
A known personality and face of Brahma Kumaris is sister Shivani who is touring
UK and Europe. I was very fortunate to have time with her and talked about many
mental health issues and how positive thinking can change a life. She is a very
supportive and humble personality and when you sit with her you can feel the
positive vibes and peace illuminating from her.
She is a gold medallist
engineer so when I asked her about her transition to join the Brahma
Kumaris she smiled and said that “my life was perfect, everything was
going good and there was no stress;but my parents were started to going to
Brahma Kumaris centre and I was going with my grandparents in my childhood.
However after I lost touch but gradually I saw transactions in my parents and
in the house like you are emotionally strung owards things and situations in
life, so for me it was a gradual journey it was not a sudden change.”
Q: As a woman how do you manage your
personal and BK life?
Shivani:In life the most important
is thought management, not time management. If you decide the timetable but if
during this something happens then you can’t do it according to timetable
because there is no thought management. The right thoughts when you do
meditation and be on the spiritual journey then thoughts are less and not
tiring, the mind remains light then everything is easy to do.
Q: People think they are very
positive but as soon they face any turbulence in life their positive attitude
changes into negativity, how can someone remain positive?
Shivani: If they change, it means
they haven’t worked on theirselves properly. Positive thinking doesn’t mean
what I am going to do and what I am going to achieve, positive thinking means
whatever situation comes in your life you will be thinking positive. Such as
something doesn’t come according to your plan but you remain positive and not
going into negative thoughts, then you are a positive thinker in an unpleasant
situation. If you are a powerful soul then you will never get into negativity.
Let’s dedicate at least an hour in the morning for self care “Me
Time”, nourish your soul.
Q: Is Brahma Kumaris a religious
institution?
Shivani: Brahma Kumaris is a
spiritual institution where we study soul connection with Gods energy. This is
a study in our centre and people come from all faiths, religions and different
walks of life to study Rajyog meditation to connect to your God whatever you
practice.
Q: How can we take charge of our
happiness in life?
Shivani:What is happiness? Means in
any situation what comes in our life, how we think and how our mind is in a
peaceful place. For example, someone say something and your mind gets
disturbed, your happiness is finished, if you are stuck in traffic and late for
meeting, your happiness disappears, now in similar many situations if you stay
calm and kept and intact with your happiness and not losing in life small
situation then you are happy.
Q: Power of withdrawal from
negativity inside and outside, how can we obtain this?
Shivani:We need to replace the
negativity with purity, for this you need daily meditation and to study it;
such as if I have habit (Sanskar) to get angry easily then do meditation every
morning focus on peace and then it will be less day by day towards calmness and
peace. Get rid of sanskar of anger and replace it with peace, this is our
inside withdrawal, now outside people have their own energies and sanskar. When
two people meet they get energy exchange, if I am angry and you get upset, it
means my energy influences you, or if I am very angry but you remain calm and
peaceful, it means you are intact with yourself because of daily meditation
then my energy can’t influence you and eventually your peaceful energy can calm
me down. Nothing can disturb us if we are strong and powerful inside.
Q: What are the reasons for mental
health issues, stress, anxiety, is there no belief within?
Shivani: Mental health is depression
and what comes after that? When someone commits suicide, it is because of
depression which they didn’t know about and nobody else realised their
situation or they didn’t get help for their undiagnosed depression and they are
unaware that they are going through depression. We need awareness, people
should know, parents should know, because they need to make a change in their
behaviour and get them help. If they don’t talk, not eating properly, not going
out, not sleeping properly, they need to check signs and get help. It is very
important to have awareness and compassionate to people around us. Any
behaviour change which lasrs more than 15 days, check with professionals and
don’t delay. Most people we lose because they didn’t get help on time, so need
of the hour is to really be sensitise to behavioural change of the people
around you.
Q: What is one message you can give
to our readers?
Shivani: Most important is to look after your emotional health, so you can’t go into depression. We start talking that stress is normal, fear is normal, so we take all these things as normal and we do it collectively; then what happens the energy you feel gets lower then it effect us. On that time we are going through with low phases in our life, then the situation hits me and I shift from emotional health issues to mental health issues. So one person can start in the house who can radiate the positive power, so that person can get others out from bad phases. Here spirituality helps, if spiritual health is good your emotional and mental health can be perfect. So the seed is spirituality.
Her program “Awakening with Brahma Kumries “is a very popular among viewers and millions of people watch that show every morning.