Daaji's Travel Diaries - London, May 16 to 18, 2024, part 1

2024.38 - Friday, 28 June 2024

Dear brothers and sisters,

On Thursday, May 16, nearly 300 abhyasis from the United Kingdom made their way to King’s Cross Station in London with flowers, signs, gifts, and eager anticipation as they queued up in a long line to welcome Daaji to London. Daaji had traveled via the Eurostar from Paris, where he had just spent two days engaging with Parisian abhyasis and meeting with ministers and dignitaries.

After exiting the platform, Daaji went down the line of abhyasis welcoming him, shaking hands, accepting gifts, and patting babies, clearly surprised by the number of people who were awaiting his arrival at the station. Daaji left King’s Cross and was escorted into a car outside of the station, after blessing prasad handed to him by six-year-old Kashyap Lakshman, before setting off to the InterContinental London – The O2, his residence for the duration of his stay in London.

While taking time to relax from his journey and to enjoy lunch, Daaji was introduced to several local London leaders and businessmen, including Mahesh Liloriya from ABLP, and Gujurat Samachar, the first British-Asian publication in the United Kingdom, on behalf of C.B. Patel, its Editor-in-Chief and Chair. In 2023, C.B. Patel honored Daaji with the UK-India Triumph Award.

London is also the city where a few friends and classmates of Daaji’s live. After a much-needed rest following lunch, Daaji had a wonderful time with these friends, full of laughter, warm memories, and reminiscing about how things were in the past. His friends were also very eager to know about his journey of meditation.

May 17, Signing a Memorandum of Understanding

On the second day in London, while abhyasis started arriving in the city to attend Daaji’s sessions at The InterContinental, Daaji prepared for the first and most important meeting of the day. He was visiting the Commonwealth Headquarters, Marlborough House, for the 22 nd Commonwealth Education Ministers meeting, as well as a special Memorandum of Understanding signing. At the Global Spirituality Mahotsav, held in Kanha in March 2024, Daaji was conferred with the award of Global Ambassador of Peacebuilding and Faith to the Commonwealth by Her Excellency, Rt. Hon. Patricia Scotland, KC, Commonwealth Secretary-General. In January 2024, Her Excellency was awarded the inaugural Heartfulness Changemaker Award.

The Commonwealth Secretary-General welcomed Daaji with a warm hug at Marlborough House. Their hearty chat was followed by the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding, confirming a lasting partnership between Heartfulness and the Commonwealth around the areas of wellness, education, and environment.

After singing the MOU, Daaji was escorted into the Commonwealth Education Ministers meeting, where he was invited by the chair to provide his perspective on the theme, “Beyond 2030: Towards a Resilient Future through Education.” During his talk, Daaji highlighted thought pollution as the root cause of all problems currently affecting the world. Daaji did a small Brighter Minds demonstration and many ministers laughed as they struggled to get their fingers moving in a consistent rhythm. He encouraged all ministers to try meditation as they work together to achieve their goal of building resilience in young people around the world.

After this, the next event in Daaji’s busy schedule was the seminar at the InterContinental London – The O2. The theme of the seminar was “Neither Here Nor There.” Around 1,500 abhyasis gathered to meditate with Daaji, meet him, and listen to him on the first day of the seminar. Abhyasis began sitting in the hall at least an hour before the start of the seminar to prepare for the meditation. Lynn Geddes and Monique Divanach warmly welcomed everyone to the seminar, introducing the theme and the flow of the seminar while also underscoring how special it was for everyone to be together after such a long time. Daaji entered a hall filled with love and welcome for him and conducted the first group meditation of the seminar. After the meditation, Daaji left the hall and all the guests retired for the evening.

May 18, Message for the Seminar

On the third day, in the morning, Daaji shared a message for the seminar, titled “Neither Here, Nor There,” which was quickly translated into French and disseminated amongst all participants.

At 9 a.m., guests began to arrive at the InterContinental for Saturday morning’s Outreach program, an opportunity for the general public to engage with Daaji and learn more about the benefits of Heartfulness and how to apply it in everyday life.

At 10 a.m., the program began. Two emcees, Caroline Ravenall and Arshya Lakshman, guided nearly 3,000 people present at the hall through an introduction to Heartfulness, a video showcasing Kanha Shanti Vanam and its magnificence, and an introduction to the Heartfulness relaxation technique before Daaji and Dr. Nader from Transcendental Meditation arrived for a meditation session. Daaji led everyone through a short meditation, and afterward a video was shown introducing Daaji and highlighting his immense contributions to society. Dr. Nader then spoke, expressing his gratitude to be with Daaji and explaining his experiences with meditation and how it has changed his life. He then passed the mic on to Daaji, who talked about the importance of experiencing meditation, not just reading about it.

While talking about how Heartfulness can empower humanity and why the focus is on heart, Daaji said, “When you fall in love with someone, isn't it the most beautiful thing? And who inspired you to fall in love? Your brain? It’s your heart. Whenever you describe an individual, you say, “It’s such a lovely person, has a good heart, soft heart. When he is arrogant we say, his heart is like stone, cruel- hearted. Then there is a divine heart, motherly heart. So the quality of an individual is ascribed by the heart, very rarely the mind. The great research done by the HeartMath Solution also says that even before the mind perceives, the heart perceives it. It has a greater electromagnetic field than the brain itself. It has its own nervous system. I would like to bring consciousness to your attention, since Shri Tony Nader mentioned consciousness. What is consciousness after all? Simply put, it is the degree of awareness and to that extent the degree of unawareness, plus the ability to respond appropriately. This is my latest understanding because, through my consciousness, I can perceive things perhaps.

“So the heart is all about responses, and when we listen, if the intent is going to be from here then you'll be also struggling to respond from here. If you're struggling to respond while listening, don't do that. Listen completely from your heart, and resonate with the person. You know in Hindi we say, ‘bhav, abhav and prabhav.’ When someone approaches you with bhav, you perceive it, bhav means with affection. Someone approaches you with affection, with love. How should your response be? Affection and love. When someone approaches you with abhav, meaning some level of deficit, some help they seek, how should I respond? Fulfilling that deficit means helping the person. When someone approaches you with prabhav, because they are so impressed, be grateful to God. So these are a few signals of an evolving heart. How we respond and this response is always from the heart.

“Often people ask me, ‘Daaji, why do you recommend meditating on the heart?’ I say: would you try to feel something with your feet? Of course, you can feel something with your feet when there’s a thorn or something, you know, the physical object. Can you feel something with your liver or kidney? No. You can see things with your eyes but the heart is the only instrument through which one transcends all senses.

“When we refer to holy scriptures like the Bible or Gita, there’s so much praise of heart, the value of the heart. I do like temples, and you can go there and worship, but don't think God exists there only. This morning, one counselor met me and said, ‘I'm writing a book, Sick Within.’ I said, ‘Why are you writing this book? The indwelling entity in your heart is nowhere else. In the Vedas and Upanishads, of which we are so proud, there was not even one mention of temples. Try to read it. You may not know Sanskrit, so refer to the English translation and search the word temple. You will find not even one, but more than 180 times there is the mention of the heart.

“Gita talks about a similar thing. When Arjun asks Lord Krishna a fundamental question, ‘Lord, you have shown me this Vishwaroopa, how will posterity know you?’ Lord Krishna says, ‘Look for me in your heart.’ And where are we looking for them today? Outside. When the direction is wrong, how in the world will you perceive the presence of the Lord? We bow before entities outside. Those are objects, not the subject. The subject is within the atman, within the heart.”

Answering a question about the new book, Spiritual Anatomy, Daaji said, “Why did I write this book? There were too many questions. Babuji wrote a few pages, it was a concentrated dose and hardly anyone could understand him. Babuji was my Guruji, he gave a few hints here and there. So I have tried my best to ascribe in a mundane way. How can we move forward? What can intensify our journey? How can it become accident-proof? And there are a few warnings on the way. Somehow my Master hesitated to give warnings because he thought it was interfering in people’s lives. He was very generous. He would not make us feel guilty. So I have tried my best to make you feel guilty.”

On the same day, Daaji also visited the BAPS Swaminarayan Temple in Neasden, where he was invited to speak at a fireside chat and conduct a meditation for over 2,000 BAPS members. Daaji was first given a tour of the temple by BAPS volunteers was then interviewed by two young gentlemen, who asked him questions about faith, service, and the importance of meditation. Daaji spoke to the audience in Gujurati for nearly the entire time. After the group meditation, Daaji was led offstage and joined several BAPS members for dinner.

In the next part of the London Bulletin, we will bring you the next few days of Daaji’s stay in London and his interactions with the abhyasis.

For day-to-day updates on Daaji’s life and his tour, visit - www.daaji.org/glimpses