What do you value most in life? For Indian spiritual leader, it is time. Here’s why we should all spend it wisely
- ‘Every problem comes to teach us a lesson,’ says Didi Krishna Kumari, whose upcoming Hong Kong talks aim to help people shift from chaos to happiness
- She outlines three principles to shape a healthy mind and body, and explains why most of us are looking for happiness in the wrong place
What is your most precious possession? It is a question that means different things to different people. Some might say a sports car or their handbag collection. The less materialistic might answer their health or family.
For Indian spiritual leader Didi Krishna Kumari, who heads the Sadhu Vaswani Mission, a nonsectarian, non-profit and humanitarian organisation focusing on education, medical care and social welfare, the answer is time.
“With an inch of time, you can buy an inch of gold. But with an inch of gold, you cannot buy time,” says Kumari in a video call from the mission’s headquarters in Pune, a city in the western Indian state of Maharashtra.
“Nature teaches you so much – it energises you,” says Kumari. A quiet walk in a park is all that is needed. But leave the headphones and step counter at home. To connect, she says, you must first disconnect.
The third is to spend some time each day doing something positive. “It may be helping people, it may be reading and listening to something that is positive.”
“We look for happiness outside, we are looking for success outside, we are looking for appreciation outside. When we are looking for it outside, we are unhappy, and when we get what we are looking for we find that that same thing no longer gives us joy, then we want something else.”
Happiness, she says, comes from within. And struggles along the way are normal. Every mistake we make is not a stopping stone – but a stepping stone.
“Imagine a butterfly and its difficult journey from breaking a hard cocoon so it can become a butterfly. We all can fly over our problems if we learn to accept our problems in the right spirit. Every problem comes to teach us a lesson.”
Kumari’s life has been shaped by spirituality. Her parents and grandparents were followers of the spiritual leader Sadhu Vaswani, who was a great believer in the power of education and female empowerment.
“To me, spirituality came naturally,” she says. It also started at a young age. “I was three when I was at the mission and just refused to go home. I liked the vibrations of the place and wanted to be there. Sadhu Vaswani heard me saying that and said, ‘OK, you stay here’. That’s how my journey began.”
“We first cultivate the soul, which we do with meditation classes and spiritual camps,” Kumari says.
Education is key. “We believe that if you want to build a new world, you must begin with the child.”
