The Brah­ma Ku­maris Ra­ja Yo­ga Cen­tre is cel­e­brat­ing 40 years of ser­vice this month in T&T.

To­day, a pro­gramme for all mem­bers of the pub­lic will be host­ed at the Ch­agua­nas cen­tre at No 1 Ed­in­burgh Gar­dens, from 5.30 pm to 7.30 pm. Fly­ing in for the oc­ca­sion is Brah­ma Ku­mari Jayan­ti Kir­palani, Eu­ro­pean di­rec­tor of the Brah­ma Ku­maris and its Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Unit­ed Na­tions, Gene­va. She is an ad­vis­er to the coun­cil for the Par­lia­ment of the World's Re­li­gions and an Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee mem­ber of the In­ter­na­tion­al In­ter­faith Cen­tre.

Sis­ter Jayan­ti first vis­it­ed Trinidad in De­cem­ber 1975 and was fa­cil­i­tat­ed by the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS). Med­i­ta­tion cen­tres were es­tab­lished in 1977.In 1989 the group was in­cor­po­rat­ed by an Act of Par­lia­ment. Lo­cal cen­tres have as­so­ciate sta­tus with the uni­ver­si­ty in Mt Abu, In­dia.

The vi­sion of the cen­tre is to re­vive virtues in the lives and ac­tiv­i­ties of all there­by giv­ing re­lief from men­tal and phys­i­cal dis­tress­es. One of the main prac­tices rec­om­mend­ed to achieve this goal is med­i­ta­tion or re­flec­tion.

Med­i­ta­tion is the jour­ney in­wards, a jour­ney of self-dis­cov­ery or, in fact, re-dis­cov­ery of our in­ner virtues. It is time tak­en for qui­et re­flec­tion and si­lence, away from the hus­tle and bus­tle of dai­ly liv­ing.

There are five cen­tres in Trinidad. They are safe and sa­cred spaces where peo­ple can find peace, rest and an­swers to life's most pon­dered ques­tions. In pur­suit of the goals of world peace through self em­pow­er­ment, the Brah­ma Ku­maris have or­gan­ised nu­mer­ous projects over the years that high­light the in­trin­sic good­ness of hu­man­i­ty.

For the last 27 years, the group has ac­tive­ly served with­in the prison sys­tem, touch­ing the lives of thou­sands of in­mates. Vol­un­teers make week­ly vis­its to sev­er­al of the prison sta­tions to work with the in­car­cer­at­ed in de­vel­op­ing their life skills.

This year, the Brah­ma Ku­maris will fa­cil­i­tate its sev­enth an­nu­al art show that will take place at the Long Cir­cu­lar Mall, to show­case the artis­tic tal­ent of the pris­on­ers

Last year, in re­sponse to the grow­ing sit­u­a­tion of crime and oth­er so­cial is­sues in the coun­try, an MOU was signed with the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies.

Ear­li­er this month, the In­sti­tute of Crit­i­cal Think­ing in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Brah­ma Ku­maris host­ed a se­ries of work­shops with Judy Rodgers a US-based con­sul­tant, com­mu­ni­ca­tions strate­gist and coach who has worked ex­ten­sive­ly with thought lead­ers in busi­ness, ed­u­ca­tion and me­dia. She re­vealed that mind­ful­ness and self-aware­ness are crit­i­cal com­po­nents of suc­cess­ful team lead­ers to­day.

The Ra­ja Yo­ga Cen­tre has strived to reach peo­ple from all walks of life and have reached out to the pop­u­la­tion through sev­er­al in­no­v­a­tive out­reach ef­forts.

In June 2015, un­der the aus­pices of the High Com­mis­sion of In­dia, the Brah­ma Ku­maris part­nered with oth­er lo­cal yo­ga or­gan­i­sa­tions to cel­e­brate the Unit­ed Na­tions' In­ter­na­tion­al Day of Yo­ga at UWI's Daa­ga Hall.

A year ear­li­er in June 2014, in a col­lab­o­ra­tion with the In­ter Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion, a con­fer­ence was or­ga­nized at the Hy­att Re­gency that at­tract­ed the par­tic­i­pa­tion of Ela Ghan­di, grand-daugh­ter of Ma­hat­ma Ghan­di, Prof Clement Sankat, Cam­pus Prin­ci­pal of UWI, St Au­gus­tine, and oth­er lo­cal dig­ni­taries. In 2012 the pan­el dis­cus­sion, "Break­ing The Cy­cle of Vi­o­lence" was or­ga­nized at UWI.

This trend of pub­lic of­fer­ings be­gan in the late 70s. From 1980-1989, Mr Garfield King de­signed, pro­duced and host­ed the pro­gramme: Dis­cov­er Your­self Trans­form Your World" on Ra­dio 610 and lat­er on Mu­sic Ra­dio 97's "Mo­ti­va­tion­al Minute." A stu­dent-run Ra­ja Yo­ga Med­i­ta­tion so­ci­ety has been ac­tive since 1981 at UWI, run­ning sup­port groups and or­gan­is­ing events for stu­dents of the uni­ver­si­ty.

Dur­ing the ear­ly 1980s, part­ner­ing with the Bi­o­log­i­cal So­ci­ety of UWI, an en­vi­ron­men­tal project was un­der­tak­en that saw mass­es of garbage be­ing re­moved from the Ma­yaro beach.

In pur­su­ing the goal of up­hold­ing the hu­man rights of all peo­ple, the Brah­ma Ku­maris work with Unicef and Un­esco at the UN head­quar­ters and with­in na­tion­al com­mit­tees and com­mis­sions, pro­mot­ing val­ue-based pro­grammes and ini­tia­tives through our lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al cen­tres.

Each one of our lo­cal cen­tres con­ducts a month­ly in­tro­duc­to­ry course to Ra­ja Yo­ga med­i­ta­tion to sen­si­tize the in­di­vid­ual about the pos­si­bil­i­ties and ben­e­fits of de­sign­ing a self-de­vel­op­ment rou­tine as a sup­port for the self as one ex­plores and pro­gress­es through life. The cen­tre al­so of­fers cours­es in stress-free liv­ing, over­com­ing anger, pos­i­tive think­ing and time man­age­ment.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, spe­cial pro­grammes and pub­lic talks geared to women, men, youth, pro­fes­sion­als and gen­er­al pub­lic are reg­u­lar­ly host­ed at their var­i­ous venues. The ser­vices are free of charge.

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Con­tact your near­est cen­tre at 653�9642

(San Fer­nan­do), 665�6933 (Ch­agua­nas), 662�3406 (St Au­gus­tine), 625�9642 (Port-of-Spain) or 691�3520 (San­gre Grande). You can al­so ex­plore their new­ly launched in­ter­na­tion­al web­site: www.brah­maku­maris.org.