Awareness of one’s true self is the key to making the right decisions in life, which lead to constant progress and freedom from sorrow, said B K Jayanti, head of the Brahma Kumaris Environment Initiative (BKEI) delegation to COP18.
“We live in a world where there is an explosion of information, so much so that we are unable to hold on to all of it.... but we see that values are the missing factors in our life,” B K Jayanti said at an event titled ‘Honouring wisdom, strengthening commitment’, at the Birla Public School here.
Spirituality fills this lacuna. “When I start the journey of spirituality, the first understanding that comes is, who am I? The self is beyond the physical identity.... Knowledge of who I am, the divine, and karma philosophy are the three aspects of knowledge. When I start applying them in life, it moves me towards wisdom.”
“We feel uncomfortable in anger, and sorrow. We feel heavy. In an atmosphere of serenity, peace, love and happiness, we can spend hours together easily. We do realise that there is goodness inherently within us. But we haven’t been using it in practical life.”
Linking the decline in values to the current state of the planet, Golo Pilz, who is part of the BKEI delegation here, said “degradation of inner values is related to the degradation of the outer environment. Values and technology have to go hand in hand. Our thoughts and ideas are the keys to saving the planet. If I look for clean technology, I need a clean mind.”
And bringing about such change at the individual level is the first step to transforming the world, he said.
Narrating his own experience as a businessman, Anthony Phelips, another BKEI team member, said he had found that spirituality could be applied in practical life, and it enables one to overcome fear and greed, which, he said, were the biggest obstacles to growth.
The Peninsula