Brahma Kumaris

The Brahma Kumaris, formally the Prajapita Brahma Kumaris Ishwariya Vishwa Vidyalaya, is a spiritual movement founded in the 1930s in Hyderabad, Sindh — then part of British India, now in Pakistan — that today operates as one of the largest spiritual organizations in the world run predominantly by women, with more than eight thousand centers across over a hundred countries, despite having been founded not by a woman but by a wealthy male jeweller in the final decades of his life.

A jeweller's visions at the peak of his success

Lekhraj Kripalani, later known to followers as Dada Lekhraj or Brahma Baba, was a prominent and prosperous diamond merchant in Hyderabad, Sindh, happily married with five children and well established in his career, when, around 1936, he began experiencing a series of intense visions that would upend the rest of his life. These visions included seeing himself as a point of light, a pure soul afloat in an ocean of bliss, encounters with the four-armed deity Vishnu and with the incorporeal God Shiva depicted as a point of light, and a terrifying vision of the destruction of the present world followed by a glimpse of a purified new world to come.

From Om Mandali to a movement led by young women

Following these visions, Lekhraj made the striking decision to sell his jewelry business and devote himself to a life of purity, simplicity and meditation, drawing a growing circle of followers from the local Bhaiband merchant community, particularly women and children who reported similar spiritual experiences. This early gathering, known as Om Mandali, took an unusual and, for its time and place, genuinely radical turn: rather than retaining personal control, Lekhraj handed over both the organization's finances and its administrative responsibility to a trust composed of nine young women — a decision that provoked significant social and legal opposition in a community where women were not expected to hold positions of religious authority, but one that permanently shaped the movement's distinctive character as a spiritual organization led predominantly by women.

Relocation to Mount Abu and the passing of the founder

Amid the upheaval of Partition, the young organization relocated across the border into Rajasthan, eventually settling at Mount Abu in the Aravalli mountains, which remains the Brahma Kumaris' international headquarters today. Following Lekhraj's death on January 18, 1969, the movement faced the uncertainty that has historically ended many spiritual organizations upon their founder's passing; instead, under successive women leaders — Dadi Prakashmani, followed by Dadi Janki, who personally established the movement's first international center in London in 1974, and subsequent chief administrators — the Brahma Kumaris entered a period of sustained, decades-long international growth entirely after Lekhraj's death, an unusual trajectory the organization itself highlights as evidence of the strength of its founding structure.

Raja Yoga meditation and soul-consciousness

The Brahma Kumaris teach a specific meditation method known as Raja Yoga — distinct from the classical Raja Yoga described by the ancient sage Patanjali — centered on the practice of recognizing one's fundamental identity as an eternal soul rather than as a body defined by race, nationality, religion or gender. In Brahma Kumaris theology, the Supreme Soul, referred to as Shiva or Shiv Baba, is understood as a similarly incorporeal point of conscious light, but one that, unlike embodied human souls, exists outside the ongoing cycle of birth and death, residing in a transcendent realm of light. Meditation practice is typically taught through structured introductory courses, offered entirely free of charge worldwide, followed by ongoing group meditation and study intended to be gradually extended into every aspect of daily life rather than confined to formal sitting sessions.

A significant institutional and humanitarian footprint

Since the 1980s, the Brahma Kumaris have built formal affiliations with United Nations agencies including UNICEF and the Economic and Social Council, and the organization has developed extensive programs in values-based education, healthcare and environmental sustainability alongside its core meditation teaching. Figures such as BK Shivani, whose recorded talks on practical spirituality and emotional wellbeing have reached a vast television and online audience, have extended the movement's reach considerably beyond its traditional ashram-based structure, helping the Brahma Kumaris remain, nearly a century after Lekhraj's initial visions, one of the most widely recognized Indian-origin spiritual organizations in the contemporary world.