It is hard to believe that the Spiritual Leader of the Brahma Kumaris is celebrating her 100th birthday this year. Dadi Janki has dedicated more than 70 years of her life to service to spiritual and social causes all around the world.

As part of her birthday celebrations, Dadi Janki visited the Brahma Kumari’s Harmony House Centre in Leicester. In front of over 500 people she talked about her work and what keeps her continue to lead the organisation which is based in more than 120 countries.

To commemorate the 100 years of dedication, journalist and author Liz Hodgkinson has published Dadi Janki biography titled ‘A Century of Service.’ HMB caught up with Ms Hodgkinson and her meeting with Dadi Janki:

Dadi Janki with biographer Liz Hodgkinson

“I wanted to try and get underneath exactly who Dadi was, what she had achieved and how she achieved it, namely, arriving in London in the 1970s, already quite elderly and never having been outside India before, to try and interest Westerners in a brand-new type of spiritual movement.”

Ms Hodgkinson has a close relationship with Dadi Janki and her movement since her first encounter with them in 1981 when she wrote a piece for She magazine. She feels that Dadi Janki has done much

“to close the gap between the Hindu and Western communities.  I doubt that even she could imagine in 1974 (when Dadi Janki came to the UK) how Indians would become central in British society, holding many high posts and becoming extremely successful in business, law and medicine.  There was a lot of racial prejudice against Indians when she arrived, and she had to combat this as well.  She has seen it almost disappear within the last 40 years,” added Ms Hodgkinson.

Dadi Janki’s message is essential that the teachings and knowledge of the Brahma Kumaris are open to everybody, whatever their race or religion and now there are people from Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, Muslim and Buddhist backgrounds who are either Brahma Kumaris themselves or are very close to the movement.

Dadi Janki scanning through her own biography

Internationally acknowledged as a great spiritual leader, Dadi’s lifelong focus has been to align her mind and heart to God’s will and purpose. She experiences God as a source of pure love and wisdom, and has made those qualities the foundation of her life. This spiritual strength enables her to be a beam of light in the lives of others.

Resham Singh Sandhu congratulating Dadi Janki

Dadi is deeply and compassionately aware of the selfish tendencies that currently afflict human relationships and affairs, and that put our world in peril. However, she is a visionary, with an unswerving optimism.

“In the winter, we foresee the spring”, she says. “Those with a positive vision of the future give us an image of a world on this planet where all things are given freely, where the highest human potential is fully realised.” That future world is guaranteed, in Dadi’s eyes, but to reach it, our consciousness has to change.

HMB wishes Dadi Janki a Very Happy 100th Birthday.