Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Meditation - a way to discover one’s full potential

Batswana are being offered a chance to lead a peaceful existence as well as a way to discover their full potential through the art of meditation. Meditation has been described as a two-thousand-year-old cultural process of looking inwards, rediscovering, enjoying and using the positive qualities that are latent within one’s self.

Brahma Kumaris, a spiritual centre based at Naledi Townhouses, Village, has recently decided to reach out to Batswana who are looking for an effective antidote to stress or relaxation in the simplest form.

The Centre was founded in 1936 is an international university with around 8000 branches in over 130 countries. It currently has 80 centres in different African countries, including Botswana.
According to the Brahma Kumaris team, meditation enables one to create a new response to life and gives one a clear spiritual understanding of themselves. Their meditation techniques include step by step questions through the simple techniques of meditation; they said that they could provide insight into many of the questions asked universally about spiritual dimensions of life.

Of late, The Botswana chapter has been visited by Kenya-based Sister Vendati, Chief Head of the Brahma Kumaris Centre in Africa, who has dedicated 46 years of her life to the mediation cause. Vendati was in Botswana to address a public lecture about how to open awareness and create positive attitudes in life.

Born and bred in India, Vendati has been in Africa since 1974; she came to Africa to help establish the 80 centres that are now in existence.

Vendati came to Africa when she was 30 years old and she describes her first encounter with Africa as eye-opening for she had never seen a black person before boarding the plane to Zambia.
She said that wherever she went in African countries, the people who responded to her calling were mostly busy businessmen and women who were trying to find focus in life. She said that a number of them are now prominent business people who have learnt how to develop their full potential through the art of meditation.

Vendati said her mission in Botswana was to make Batswana recognise their own inherent qualities and abilities. She also wants to help them find peace as was insinuated in her public address, entitled Freedom from Fear.

“The people of Botswana are too relaxed; it’s difficult to give them zeal. We are here to offer them the reality of life, we also offer them enthusiasm and ambition in everyday life,” said Vendati.

Vendati was quick to point out that meditation was not a religion and that it could be practised by people from different religious backgrounds.

The success story that she remembers that defines her purpose was the case of one young man who had come to her seeking answers about his life. He said that he was tired of taking care of his large family, which comprised of about 30 people, he was the sole breadwinner and he was struggling to keep up with family politics. Apparently he wanted to leave them all and live in the jungle by himself. Vendati said she advised through providing insight about his question and asked him to go back to his family, start a business to provide for his family. She said he took her advice and he is today a millionaire.

Meditation at Brahma Kumaris is free of charge and anyone who is interested is allowed to join. She guaranteed that taking some time off one’s busy schedule to meditate a little every day soon becomes a habit, which generously rewards people for the little effort they made to attain relaxation.

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