Spiritual Awakening Series for Chicago with the Brahma Kumaris

Chicago IL: A yogi from India inspired an audience of over 4,000 Chicagoans on June 29th and July 1st to wake up their authentic selves. It’s time to understand that love and forgiveness are natural human energies, Sister Shivani said. Anger, resentment and revenge are unnatural. These are the culprits that make us suffer.

The guest speaker, Sister Shivani, is on a 20-day tour of North America. Her message is that we need to understand what really makes us happy. Two things definitely don’t work: One is absorbing hurtful words or actions from another person, as if we are obliged to accept whatever a person puts out. The second is “copying” – giving people back the same energy they give us. Both of these strategies make us behave as victims. Victims are never happy.

Then what makes us happy? When we “do the right thing,” that is, treat everyone with love, kindness and respect, we ourselves receive that good energy first. With this practice we can maintain a constant state of peace and power, which is the basis of a happy life. Sister Shivani invoked the audience to exercise their power of choice by sending kind thoughts every day to people who have hurt them. Over time, this will increase one’s self esteem and diminish hurt feelings.

Sister Shivani was working as an electrical engineer in Pune, India when she started studying Raja Yoga Meditation with the Brahma Kumaris 20 years ago. Now a teacher of Raja Yoga meditation, she inspires people to awaken their spiritual awareness through her TV show “Awakening with Brahma Kumaris” that airs in 160 countries across 5 continents and a YouTube channel that has registered 180,000 subscribers and over 34 millions views. On Saturday July 1, she was presented an award from YouTube for having achieved over 100,000 subscribers.

Saturday’s program opened with a musical invocation of peace and love by Sister Elizabeth Padilla, a singer and Brahma Kumaris teacher from San Francisco. The program was emceed by Eric LeReste, a TV news producer for CBC in Montreal and National Coordinator of Brahma Kumaris for Canada. Consul General of India in Chicago Ms. Neeta Bhushan was in attendance as well as Swami Shardananda of Chinmaya Mission of Chicago and Shiva Singh Khalsa of Spirit Rising Yoga.

Sister Shivani’s tour of North America includes programs in 11 cities and a culminating celebration on Sunday, July 9 at the Peace Village Learning & Retreat Center in upstate New York. For more information on this and other upcoming programs on Sister Shivani’s tour, visit bkawakening2017.org. Free meditation classes and workshops are offered in Chicago, West Suburbs & North Suburbs. For more information on programs offered by Brahma Kumaris contact 773 698-6339 or [email protected]

Candle lighting signifying the awakening of our inner potential

Audience at UIC Pavilion

Sister Shivani at Jain Temple

Sister Shivani with Neeta Bhushan (Green dress)