Jayanti Kirplani is the Director of the Brahma Kuamris World Spiritual Organization, London and is based at their Global Cooperation House in London, UK. The BKWSO, headquartered in India, is an international family of individuals from all corners of the world that seeks to bring out the best in people through offering courses in meditation, spiritual and moral values. As a non-governmental organization in consultative status with the United Nations, the BKSWO has coordinated many international projects aimed at creating a better world for all. All offerings and events are always presented free of charge to the public. A New England BKWSO center is located in Brookline, MA.

CAROL BEDROSIAN: I would like to talk about the topic of women in world leadership. Can women be effective world leaders at this time in our history?

SISTER JAYANTI: It is interesting that, about a year prior to Mr. Koffi Anand's election to the role of Secretary General of the UN, one of the suggestions being tossed around was that it would be appropriate to have a woman Secretary General. A couple of women were proposed. I know the story of one of them quite intimately because she is a good friend of mine, a meditator, Leticia Shahani. She's the sister of President Ramos of the Philippines who finished his term of office earlier this year, but she's a senator in her own right. And she has held other positions of leadership, like heading the Nairobi Women's Conference in 1975, when the Year of Women became the Decade for Women. When they commemorated that with a series of events in Nairobi in 1985, she was Secretary General.

Ultimately, the politics didn't quite work out and, as we know, she did not become the next UN Secretary General. That has always seemed to me like a lost opportunity. It would have been quite magnificent to have moved into the 21st century .with a woman as the head of the UN. Actually, I'm a bit perplexed over that incident as many countries have been making a very conscious effort to encourage women to take up roles of political leadership, to run for office in Parliament and other areas. I think that a very major problem for women comes when they are expected to do all those things and to look after family responsibilities as well. If a man decides to run for a position, he isn't expected to look after the household. But a woman really always has to look after two jobs - the professional job plus the work at home. There's been a little bit of a shift toward feeling it is a joint responsibility but not to the extent that women are actually heed up to do the work that they could be doing.

CAROL: How do you think things would be different if a woman were the Secretary General of the UN?

SJ: I think that women are generally more sustaining and caring, more naturally concerned with justice, equality, and a humane approach. However, I would also like to say that I think Mr. Anand's style of leadership is making a difference. He has a great deal of compassion. I want that statement to be made. Men also can have compassion, and I think that we are quite lucky with Mr. Anand.

CAROL: Given the way the planet is now, can sustenance and compassion be introduced into the world and still be powerful and effective?

Sit I think that actually there isn't another way. We have been pushed to the point where we have to care. The world can't ignore 75 or 80 percent of humanity just because the rest are comfortable. If we don't care and share and have compassion, it's not going to be possible to have a civilization. In 1995, at a conference in Denmark called the Social Development Summit, world leaders pointed out that unless the next century holds values and more spirituality, there's a danger that there won't be another century.

CAROL: Do you see a push toward sharing happening in the United States?

SJ:

CAROL: I don't see enough movement toward sharing. Our stock market is going back up. The feeling is to protect what we have, keep the market up, do what we need to keep our own economy moving. I haven't heard of or seen movements toward more sharing.

SJ: I don't think that things will continue like that. For one thing, the natural disasters that are happening across the planet are making people everywhere more aware of our interdependence. I don't think it's an accident that there are more hurricanes and other natural calamities than there used to be 30,40, or 50 years ago. My understanding is that we're experiencing the rebound from having destroyed an entire environmental system through our greed and our aggression. In other words, the upheavals are happening because of our own actions toward the environment.

CAROL: Many people feel that positive thinking on a mass consciousness level can divert those kinds of disasters and calamities.

SJ: I understand the whole question of positive thinking and being able to create the vibrations that can bring about positive change. However to set in motion transformation in the world, more is going to be needed.

It's true that this country isn't seeing the kind of chaos and death that come from natural disasters. But other problems are very visible. There's an enormous spiritual crisis, for instance, and it's apparent in almost every arena. Look at the situation of families. I don't know anywhere else in the world where there is such a breakdown in family structure. Look at religion. Religion is said to be one of the pillars-of civilization; but if that's true, what's happened? Where's God? Where are the values you can call the bedrock of civilization? Look at politics; it has become a charade, more like a form of entertainment. There might very well be enough to eat in this country, but is there enough spiritual sustenance? People used to hold a vision of America as a world of happiness and freedom, where you could achieve everything you ever wanted. We're very, very far away from being a place where such dreams get realized. 

I feel that women are remarkably able to develop and nurture these qualities in their own lives, and that therefore leadership by women will be the means to restore values in the different arenas of life - religion, politics, and even business. In all three areas, you don't usually find a lot of integrity in leadership. This is how to create an environment in which spiritual values are again given the lead.

CAROL: Is it possible that political systems are so corrupt that women cannot enter them and make effective change?

SJ: Possibly. I heard exactly that point of view just a few days ago from Senator Shahani, who was with me in New York at a program that looked at the different facets of womankind. Her comment was, "But why do we want to get into the mainstream? The mainstream is collapsing." Ifs true. All the institutions that used to seem so solid and stable are now very, very fragile. So maybe it is time for women to create new institutions.

CAROL: What kind?

SJ: Institutions based on integrity, nurturing, and cooperation.

CAROL: But what form could these institutions take?

SJ: In every single field, in every single area in the world where women are employed, let's see women working with the values that they think are important and essential for humanity, like compassion and cooperation. Let women nurture and reveal qualities of leadership based on these values. This is the effort that can produce something really stable.

CAROL: The political system in this country seems so ineffective that it may be beyond repair.

SJ: Making changes in the framework of a structure is not necessarily the first step that moves us toward something better. I would say that, first of all, you have to do whatever it is you need to be doing for your own inner development. The power of inner transformation is what allows us to start having a real impact on things out there.

Whether we are given positions of responsibility or not, we can do what it is that we need to do through awakening our own spirituality and emerging our own inner dignity and strength. I think that women don't realize their own power and strength. For a long time, they have been told to sit on the sidelines and mind their own business. Part of the process of allowing women to come into the foreground so that they can make a difference, involves self-education to awaken one's self and restore one's own dignity and independence. Then, women's voices can be heard.

By way of example, until recently women haven't been given an opportunity to play a leadership role even in religion. The Anglican church recently started allowing women to take on the responsibility of priesthood, but the Catholic church still denies them that right. Yet I don't have to be ordained a priest in order to serve people spiritually. With my own spiritual authority, I can just share with others whatever has been of benefit to me. And that will bring others into closer alignment with the Divine so that they also can begin to work with their own strength.

CAROL: Can you give me some examples of how inner transformation works?

SJ: A little while ago, I met a person in Italy who was working with the government. They had sent bags of rice to Africa for free distribution. My point then was that giving is not just a question of handing over food or grain; you need to work on a deeper level. In other words, the problems of the world will never be sorted out until the greed, ego, anger, and other negative traits of human beings get sorted out. Actually, this rice program was encountering difficulties. The rice wasn't reaching the people who needed it. Somehow, somewhere along the line, the rice was getting diverted. So the rice, and all that money, were just being wasted. In this situation, the deeper aspect of the problem was greed. We were looking at the need to eliminate greed. So this is one little example.

Where there is anger, where there is greed or attachment, the problems of the world cannot be resolved. So where to start? You have to start with yourself. It's not that you can turn to other people and expect them to change just by your saying, "Okay now, you go and get rid of your anger." That's not possible. It doesn't happen that way. So the starting point is yourself. If you maintain this thought, "I have a commitment to transformation," then your attention will be on maintaining peace and nonviolence in your own life. And that practice will have an impact on 10,100, maybe even 1,000 others around you. All revolutions begin with one. They don't begin with 1,000.

CAROL: How do you manage these transformations in your own life?

SJ: I keep asking myself, "What is the most important thing for me?" For instance, am I accumulating? And if I am, what will be the benefit of this? If I find myself acting selfish or greedy, I do an inner check: Is it more important that I hang onto something, and ultimately suffer the negative consequences of hoarding, or that I share and enjoy the benefits of that? I'm dealing with personal greed in a very intimate way, by knowing what my basic needs are. Another thing I check is: What is the root of whatever I am greedy for? I believe that behind every negative habit is some spiritual need that is not being fulfilled, and so I pay attention to serving myself spiritually, to make sure that I am addressing my root needs accurately. For example, I practice the awareness that allowing myself to get into greed will prevent me from enjoying what's really important to me—the qualities of contentment and happiness—as there will never come a moment where I think I have enough.

CAROL: What about the belief that God wants us to be happy and comfortable in this life and has givien us technology and all those sorts of things to make our lives better and more comfortable?

SJ: No problem, I actually agree with this. I think that it is our natural, divine birthright to be happy. Yet there is a huge amount of pain in this world that is caused by our own negative habits. And God doesn't want that. God wants us to be happy and to share that happiness with others. Technology is a tool. If I use technology witht he right value, technology is wonderful. But when technology is being used consistently for negative things like control and power over others, that's where the danger comes. It's like money. Money isn't bad; it's not wrong of evil, but it's the intention with which we use it. 

CAROL: We have the greatest media system in the world to produce positive or negative images. But 95 percent of the communication that goes out from that, not only in America but around the world, is marketing. It's not geared toward positive values. Do you see change in the media?

SJ: I think you've touched on a very important factor

On another level, I attribute a large proportion of the growth of violence we've seen in society to the influence of the media. "Rank even about the amount of violence in cartoons like Tom and Jerry, where a little child sees someone bam someone else over the head with a hammer, for instance. There's no awareness that this is something dangerous or wrong. Then just imagine the child picking, up a hammer and bam, bam, bam. Violence, sex, and greed are the values being promoted by advertising. And so we have created a very dangerous kind of influence.

My hope is that there will be individuals within the media who begin to think and to say, "We have a great responsibility. Our responsibility is to educate, not just to entertain and play to the lowest denominator." And that they will start doing something to promote values, and find entertaining ways to do that. I think it will be a few individuals who will start this movement. I am in contact with a group of journalists called Journalists for Tomorrow. They're based in Amsterdam and meet regularly to talk about how to promote ethics and values in the media, and to be able to share that with different individuals and at different levels. Hopefully it will be decision makers, people who are at the top of the tree, who begin to understand this and start making changes. It is possible, very possible.

I am a believer in the power of the individual. I have seen things. A door closes because one person doesn't look at things from your perspective, and that same door opens again because one other individual feels that it is important.

I'll give you an example. In 1996, one man at UNICEF headquarters in New York said, "Let me bring together a team of educators from across the world who are working with values." He had been working with us in different capacities and so asked if we could help him with this. In the space of just two weeks we managed to get people together in New York. And in the space of three days an initiative was formed, called Living Values Education. I think we had about 12 countries, from all of the continents, represented with those 20 people there. Today, 1998, Living Values has changed in just two years from an initiative into a program and it is already working in about 70 countries across the globe. And one man's vision inspired all that, so doors kept opening.

My hope is that individuals who may have no authority today at an external level will be able to influence others who are in a position of authority, because that's when things will start making headlines. At the moment, there are such individuals who are maintaining a low profile. It's now a matter of waiting people really begin to develop a relationship with God, to have a positive experience of that, they will also begin to see how that relationship actually develops their trust in human beings as well.

CAROL: I appreciate your optimism.

SJ: We are responsible for the world around us, the people around us, too. The connection with God should teach us how to collaborate and cooperate with other people. My hope is that people really begin to develop a relationship with God, to have a positive experience of that, they will also begin to see how that relationship actually develops their trust in human beings as well.

One of the distinct changes that has to happen in society is a movement away from competition and conflict and toward collaboration and cooperation. We are approaching December 31, 1999 and there is this whole business of having to deal with the so-called millennium bug. We've been told that it really isn't possible to have a technological answer for this in time - 9/9/99 is the date that many microchips are connected to. That's this year. What is going to carry us through all of that? Cooperation, faith, respect, trust. It is not going to be possible for us to go through all of that upheaval in technological connections and interconnections unless there is that trust in each other, and the spiritual cooperation of working together. We are preparing for that today if we are working within our own consciousness and learning how to give cooperation and take cooperation. When you can feel that you're okay, that inside you everything is all right and there's no weary about your own needs, then you car start directing your attention to others. We need others around us. We need to be able to work with others and give of ourselves. That way, no one name is glorified but the work is accomplished as a team. Together we work through the troubles to create something better.

CAROL: And you feel that one of the key things that will help to bring about this change is women who are awakening within themselves and acting differently, whether they're in positions of authority or not?

SJ: Our institution is thriving because the woman who has been at the helm for the last 30 years believes in collaboration, cooperation and giving people an opportunity not just to have a place but to do whatever is highest in them. In this way, each one can fulfill her or his potential. Yes, I believe women with spiritual power are going to be able to work together and create a new environment for everyone.

For more information about the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual Organization, please contact the Brookline Center at 617-734-1464. 

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Carol Bedrosian is the Publisher and Editor of Spirit of Change Magazine which is located in Grafton, MA. To contact Carol call 508-839-2228, fax 508-839-1173 or email her at SpiritPub@aol.com.