Conversation with Sister Gayatri Naraine

Call is on 2025-03-15 08:00 Pacific (90 minutes). RSVP Now!

Speaker: Sister Gayatri Naraine

The Call of Our Time: Integrating Spiritual Transformation & Sustainable Development

Have you experienced a moment of soul recognition that has led you to pursue a particular path of service, spiritual journey, or relationship as a kind of “unfinished business”?
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Gayatri Naraine’s spiritual curiosity about “soul consciousness” first awakened after a visit by a Hindu nun early in the morning, followed a few hours later by a cousin’s sudden death in a road accident. It was 1975; she was 20 and living in Guyana, her birthplace in South America. The Hindu nun was visiting the nation, where Gayatri’s father served as Vice President, and was welcomed by Gayatri’s British-Dutch Hindu family. At a time of grieving a young cousin’s death, where the family was uniquely open and curious about what happens to the soul of the departed, the nun came to stay with the family for an extended time in furtherance of the nun’s deeper soul recognition. As Gayatri began to take the nun’s classes, she experienced her own awakening. She saw people of different races and backgrounds concentrated on a point of light, and thought “If there is a God, this is how God will be. God will have a form that every single individual could identify with. There wouldn’t be ‘this is my God, and this your God, and this is someone else’s God’ because of the physical images.” As she deepened her study, she realized she had met this particular vision of the divine in another life and had unfinished business.

She has been pursuing that “unfinished business” ever since. For the past 50 years now, Sister Gayatri Naraine has been a student and senior teacher of the Brahma Kumaris, a global women-led spiritual movement (of which the visiting nun was a member), with over a million members across 120+ countries. A spiritual educator, writer, and speaker, she has served as the primary representative of the Brahma Kumaris (BKs) at the United Nations in New York since 1980. Curious about the deeper meanings of United Nations tenets, her work focuses on fostering upstream pathways to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through spiritual transformation.

Central to her views about creating a world of peace is her belief that sustainable outer change flows from inner change. Even before mainstream awareness about the power of contemplative practices, she spearheaded global campaigns to shift consciousness. She recounts an experience while representing Million Minutes of Peace Appeal and speaking with a senior official heading the “International Year of Peace” celebrations (1986). His remark shocked Sr. Gayatri. “It’s all right, but there can never be peace in the world…because human beings by nature are violent.” She returned disheartened, on the verge of giving up. But through support and reflection, she found renewed conviction—turning doubt into determination and a deeper commitment to peace. Just in 4 weeks, the peace appeal ended up encouraging 1.2 Billion minutes of meditation (~ 2344 years!) from participants in 88 countries.

Sr. Gayatri serves as a spiritual resource within the United Nations on the inner roots of global transformation. She co-authored a concept paper “Enhancing Human Flourishing Within the 2030 Development Agenda: The Spirituality of Global Transformation”, resulting from a 3-year dialogue held with UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund). She is also a founding member of Call of the Time, a global leadership dialogue on social and political transformation that over the past 20 years has incorporated “experiments in silence” in the design, believing that because “dialogue is, at its essence, about a deep listening to what is trying to emerge, it can benefit significantly from being more disciplined in quieting the mind." In her current position of Vice-Chair of the UN Yoga Day Committee, Gayatri is active in bringing together practitioners of contemplative, reflective, and meditative practices from the inter-faith community at the United Nations. She serves as a member of the Interfaith Women Council, UNEP, advocating environmental stewardship inspired by various spiritual traditions. Gayatri also serves as a consultant to the Core Group of the International Initiative of Shiv Shakti Leadership, dedicated to empowerment of women.

Reflecting on the current state of the world, Sr. Gayatri says: “At this time virtually everyone understands that there is something enormous in motion that is threatening to destroy our way of life. What we need to understand is that there is also something enormous underway that is creative. It is generating a new way of life, a new era on the Earth. … It is a time of transition on a scale unparalleled in the history of time, a movement of the world from an old age to a new age, a new beginning, a renewed creation – a time when the Divine Energy is active in the world and engaged in creation. … What is possible at this time is to understand, experience, and support this emergent world, beginning with a shift in awareness.”

Sr. Gayatri was educated in the United Kingdom in Public Administration, and she currently lives in New York City, USA. She has authored or co-authored a number of books and articles that have been published globally. “For the past 50 years, my zeal and enthusiasm for life have emerged out of the study and practice of Raja Yoga that has kept me in a curious place, a place of profound realization of the importance and auspiciousness of time,” she gratefully reflects.

Join us in conversation with Sister Gayatri Naraine, a seeker of truth, a beacon of light, and a dedicated servant of humanity, moderated by upcoming guest, Susan Bauer Wu, and former guest Charles Gibbs.

Five Questions with Sister Gayatri Naraine

What Makes You Come Alive?

Central to the core of my being is curiosity. As a child, I was curious about my father's engineering drawings.As an adolescent, I was curious about life in other countries.As an adult, in the early stage, I was curious about God, the Divine.As an adult, in the middle stage, I was and still am curious about meanings of United Nations tenets such as 'reaffirming dignity and worth of the human person,' 'all human beings are born endowed with reason and conscience,' and 'peace begins in the minds of men.'As an adult, in the present stage, my curiosity has matured into fascination, as I observe and witness the spiritual phenomenon of transformation of consciousness in relation to trust in a changing world, the future of power, and leaving no one behind in a world in turmoil.For the past 50 years my zeal and enthusiasm for life have emerged out of the study and practice of Raja Yoga that has kept me in a curious place, a place of profound realization of the importance and auspiciousness of time.

Pivotal turning point in your life?

The unforgettable moment in my life was in 1979 in Mt. Abu, Rajasthan India. I was saying goodbye to the founder of the Brahma Kumaris, and as is customary in the BKs culture there is the exchange of 'drishti' a vision of love that comes from the awareness of being souls and having a spiritual relationship. As I was looking into his eyes and lost in a very special kind of spiritual love that transcends in a limitless way, he asked me what was I planning to do. I said that I was returning to New York. His response to this very simple answer was the turning point in my life and connected me to my purpose of this birth. He said 'serve as an instrument of a Higher Source, for a greater good; serve as a way of being, that is from the heart of the soul with elevated thoughts, pure feelings and benevolent wishes; serve without selfish desires. I realized that true seva was creative altruism and a poetic act of love. In 1979 I was a young and innocent aspirant on a spiritual path. In 2025 this moment not only defines the seva I am dedicated to but it defines the need of our times.

An Act of Kindness You'll Never Forget?

The New York City Subways are environments where the most incredible acts of kindness occur. It is the place where I have witnessed the most extraordinary small acts of kindness. Such acts that could easily be dismissed but yet that carry the most profound impact and are forever remembered. I have myself have been the recipient of a few of these and am amazed at the indelible imprint they have left on me. But the one I would like to share that perhaps was the most astonishing was when I was working on the book "Something Beyond Greatness." This story was featured in the book and goes like this:"Who has ridden along New York's 656 miles of subway lines and not wondered: "What if I fell on to the tracks as a train came in? What would I do?"And who has not thought: "What if someone else fell? Would I jump to the rescue?"Wesley Autrey, a 50-year-old construction worker and Navy veteran, faced both those questions in a flashing instant yesterday, and got his answers almost as quickly.Mr. Autrey was waiting for the downtown local at 137th Street and Broadway in Manhattan around 12:45PM. He was taking is two daughters, Syshe, 4, and Shuqui, 6, home before work.Nearby, a man collapsed, his body convulsing. Mr. Autrey and two women rushed to help. The man Cameron Hollopeter, 20, managed to get up, but then stumbled on the platform edge and fell to the tracks, between the two rails.The headlights of the No. 1 train appeared. "I had to make a split decision," Mr. Autrey said.So he made one, and leapt.Mr. Autrey lay on Mr. Hollopeter, his heart pounding, pressing him down in a space roughly a foot deep. The train's brakes screeched, but it could not stop in time.Five cars rolled overhead before the train stopped, the cars passing inches from his head, smudging his blue knit cap with grease. Mr. Autrey heard onlookers' screams. "We're O.K. down here," he yelled, "but I've got two daughters up there. Let them know their father's O.K."He heard cries of wonder, and applause.Power was cut, and workers got them out. Mr. Hollopeter, a student of the New York Film Academy, was taken to St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital Center. He had only bumps and bruises, said his grandfather Jeff Friedman. The police said it appeared that Mr. Hollopeter had suffered a seizure.Mr. Autrey refused medical help, because, he said, nothing was wrong. He did visit Mr. Hollopeter in the hospital before heading to his night shift. "I don't feel like I did something spectacular, I just saw someone who needed help," Mr. Autrey said. "I did what I felt was right."What I value from this story was that acts of kindness are all about being in the right place at the right time and doing what is kind.

One Thing On Your Bucket List?

To visit the place where Brahma Baba, the Founder of the Brahma Kumaris did 14 years of intense raja yoga, tapasya and created a foundation of 'shakti' which is still core to the Brahma Kumaris' understanding of transformation.