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In this post, Jon Symes, International Outreach Director, shares some of his experience visiting India in October as a guest of our partners, the Brahma Kumaris.
I spent three weeks in India, expanding our relationship with the Brahma Kumaris (BK) and running public events too; both tracks of this strategy were successful.
Along the way we got to sit and learn from our BK partners, serve lunch with the volunteers at a school for kids from a large slum, visit Gandhi’s ashram, web-cast live to 900 universities and colleges, dance Indian-style, and take in the delights, surprises, and shocks that India holds for all her visitors.
A Timely Message
It really hit me, midway through leading an Awakening the Dreamer Workshop in Hyderabad.
As we talked about the opportunity to take a stand in our lives, the audience of 100+ people rose to their feet as one, calmly and implacably demonstrating the truly global nature of the message that is embedded in our work.
India stands with one foot planted firmly in their deep spiritual heritage, the other foot in the modern world.
As the influence of the latter increases and lures the younger generations into more Western lifestyles, these two worlds diverge, with possibly traumatic results. In these circumstances, the message of the Symposium is both relevant and timely.
Next Steps in India
The BK has already adapted our Symposium message in their own work in 13 countries; India is both home to the organization and its place of greatest influence. There are 8,000 BK centers in India alone. So our approach here will continue to center around empowering the BK and their huge existing network.
In addition, we will also return to train and inspire many of the other people who attended events in Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, and Ahmedabad.
And the bonus outcomes of the trip include connections with organizations keen to partner, the opportunity to deliver the Awakening the Dreamer message as a training course to companies, and a chance to blog alongside the spiritual masters of India on SpeakingTree.in.
I’m also working on a video stitching together some of the videos and photos from the trip – look out for that in future articles.
