Baba says, ‘I make Bharat into a garden of divine flowers through the Brahma Kumars and Kumaris.’

Bharat becomes a garden of divine flowers when the residents of Bharat become divine flowers, that is, when I imbibe divine virtues and change from a vicious human being that gives and takes sorrow to a virtuous human being that gives and takes happiness. The principle is: self-transformation leads to world transformation.

Flowers are not all created equal, Baba reminds me. Most have color and beauty but lack fragrance and even if they do have fragrance, it is neither eternal, nor does it spread everywhere. To have color and beauty without fragrance means that I have understood the knowledge but it is in the form of points in the intellect. And so I know all the right things to say, I can give a great lecture and teach the course but because I haven’t inculcated the points within myself, the words don’t have much impact.

To bring about transformation, I need to first transform myself. Just as how people might come into a garden attracted by the color and beauty of the flowers, but if there is no fragrance, they don’t stay there long; they won’t want such flowers for their home or for their own decoration. In the same way, souls may be impressed by a great lecture but that’s about all that happens; they applaud and praise the knowledge but go back home the same. Baba says, ‘the sound from the head only travels as far as the head but the sound of the heart touches the heart; it’s what changes lives’.

Sound emerges from the heart when I have experience to share, when it’s not just information but when I have actually tasted it. When I have actually experienced peace, it shows on my face, in my demeanor. When I am genuinely happy, it shows in my smile, in my eyes. When I am living a life of victory with God as my Companion, it shows up as confidence, in the way I carry myself. Then, I don’t have to speak much at all. My very being serves, even from a distance. I walk in and the atmosphere changes from negative or wasteful into spiritual; it changes from hopeless to empowering. My mere presence or my vision or my smile is able to fill another soul with hope, or work as a balm to heal a wounded heart. And when I do speak the words, it no longer just bounces off the head, it pierces the other’s heart, they feel inspired to have what I have because they realize it’s real, it’s true.

Baba says, ‘people have heard enough words, they crave an experience‘. The souls that most need courage, strength and empowerment, that most need change, are not at the center or attending the lectures, they are sitting next to me at work, I run into them at the store or in the school, they are traveling with me in the bus or the train. They don’t need or care for a lecture, they need to see, feel and experience.

And so the way to become such an embodiment of virtues that inspires, the way to bring about self-transformation is by making the first lesson firm, says Baba, it is through becoming soul conscious. Just as how Baba comes into a corporeal body and yet remains beyond it’s influence, so too, you have to remember that you are an incorporeal soul in the corporeal body and remain detached from it, He teaches. Most times, I am either incorporeal or corporeal but hardly both at the same time. If I can practice remaining in the consciousness of a soul, an actor, playing a part in the unlimited drama, then, Baba says, it will only take a second to bring about self-transformation. How so? because my whole perspective changes- of the people, the situations, the circumstances, whatever else. Right now, I have the intention to change in many areas but I lack the power to actually bring change. Soul consciousness is what gives me that power. And so, says Baba, always consider yourself to be a foreigner that has come into a foreign land, in an old body, to bring about world transformation.

‘I make Bharat into a garden of divine flowers through the Brahma Kumars and Kumaris’, says Baba. His #1 direction for me is: consider yourself a soul and remember Me alone. It is how I change, that is, awaken my truth. And when I am awake, I can wake others.