The Brahma Kumari Tradition in Canada

This paper studies the Brahma Kumari tradition in Canada and in global space. The focus is on the issue of globalized identity and female religious authority of the followers. I examine several aspects of the globalization of Brahma Kumari in Canada and its complex links with South Asian religions in India. It seems that the tradition is at crossroads, just as the devotees’ cultural identity is at crossroads – being simultaneously Western and at the same time South Asian. What happens when traditions and identities are at crossroads? Do globalized traditions produce globalized identities? Are there any other transformations that happen in this cultural mobility? By means of analysis of texts and data from interviews with Brahma Kumari followers, this paper seeks to reframe the Brahma Kumari tradition in a global context, a truly global movement, which has made home in Canada while maintaining links with the spiritual homeland in India. 

The Brahma Kumari tradition originated in the 1930s in Sindh, North-Western India (nowadays on the territory of Pakistan). It has since spread with great success to Canada and all over the world. The Brahma Kumari tradition has challenged the status quo in Hindu traditions from the early 20h-century onward by re-interpreting the roles of women in the family and in Hindu society, by pleading for equal rights and equal education for women and by appointing women in leadership positions within the Brahma Kumari organization. The Brahmā Kumārīs “daughters of Brahma” (given without diacritic characters further on) refer to their tradition as university, the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University, and to their centers worldwide, as museums of gyān/jñāna, or knowledge. Thus, the Brahma Kumaris have founded spiritual centers and universities in India and around the globe, where the followers practice a form of elaborate meditation, which they call Rāja yoga, bhakti “loving devotion” and sevā “service”. The Brahma Kumari ideal involves celibacy and a new vision of society and religion, as expounded by the founder of the tradition, Dada Lekhraj Kripalani (1876-1969). Although Brahma Kumari is predominantly a women’s movement, there are also many male members, and there are many affiliated members. The leadership of the movement is predominantly female.

Not surprisingly, as a result of the globalizing process, many Brahma Kumari followers have moved to North America and have settled on the continent over the past few decades. In Canada, there are several Brahma Kumari centers, the major ones are in Toronto and Vancouver. The Brahma Kumari followers in Canada represent successful intellectuals and entrepreneurs in these countries, who are fully integrated in the host society and who make an important contribution to the success of the social, economic and cultural life. At the same time, they are also deeply involved in the spiritual life of their religious community in India and they travel to their homeland to attend seminars, workshops, ritual activities and to receive guidance from the Brahma Kumari governing body in India.

The founder of the Brahma Kumari movement, Dada Lekhraj (1876-1969), was a Sindhi merchant from the Lohāna caste, who had a jewelry business and was of a Vallabhācārī religious backround.  He was fluent in Sindhi and Hindi, and could read the Guru Granth Sāhib in Gurmukhi script and English newspapers in English. He was influenced by the philosophical systems of Sāṃkhya yoga, bhakti, tantric yoga and the esoteric teachings of the Nāth yogis, as revealed in the Guru Granth Sāhib, which he knew well, and by philosophical discussions in the Mahābhārata, the Bhagavadgītā and the ideas of bhakti and dharma in the Rāmāyaṇa. Moreover, he was familiar with 15-16th and 18th-century devotional poets, such as Kabir, Nanak, Ravi Das, and by current esoteric teachings, as revealed in the Guru Granth. He delivered his teachings, which came from his “visions” orally, in his discourses, which have been recorded later on and which represent the Brahma Kumari teachings nowadays. 

The Brahma Kumaris believe in loving devotion to Shiv Baba, the Supreme Soul, paramātmā (the absolute form of Dada Lekraj), in sevā (service) the community and to humankind, in the empowering role of education and in equal rights for women. According to the Brahma Kumari doctrine, the Brahma Kumaris or “daughters of Brahma” are ātmās “immaterial selves/souls.” Dada Lekraj believed that human beings are immaterial selves and not the material bodies that they seem to be. In 1937, he established a Managing committee of several women followers with his principle disciple, a woman called “Om Radhe” at the head of what was to be known soon as the Brahma Kumaris. 

Asceticism and celibacy is part of the Brahma Kumari doctrine and way of life. Asceticism is important in South Asian traditions as part of jñāna mārga, or the path to mokṣa “liberation” through knowledge, which involved the study and practice of yoga and other traditional texts and disciplines. Traditionally and historically, this path has been the privilege of men from the upper castes. The Brahma Kumari new interpretation of women’s roles in Hindu society and the fact that female leadership was the norm in the movement brought about a lot of resistance and even backlash, as traditionally, in Hindu society, rules and roles for women involved marriage and motherhood, not celibacy or leadership.

With the migration of many members of the Brahma Kumari to Canada, the Brahma Kumari community encountered a major challenge, namely the physical absence of the governing body in India, the need to recreate the centers and museums, and to create sacred space and time under the new circumstances. New media and advanced internet technologies enable the Brahma Kumari followers to participate physically in religious activities in Canada, and virtually in the meditation sessions in India, and to maintain contacts with the community in South Asia. Thus, it is important to explore the role of media in shaping the migrants’ sense of community, space and time, and to study the changes in ritual practice, belief system, as well as the quest of Brahma Kumari followers in Canada for cultural identity in a new globalized world.