By: Shantanu Mandal 
Source: The Daily Guardian https://epaper.thedailyguardian.com/view/2223/the-daily-guardian/15
Dated: March 29th, 2025

Hope is a self-evident truth – imagine a world without it; no looking forward to tomorrow, no endeavours to better oneself, just a long dragging on of living, one day after the next. Hope is a powerful energy and is based on optimism; that there is something meaningful and important in any situation – we just have to look for it.

We all start any initiative with hope. However, we sometimes forget to factor in that it is in the nature of things for stumbling blocks to come along once in a while. Some of us can come to a standstill when we encounter them. We forget that they are there to test our resolve, to show us new ways forward, to strengthen our determination. Stumbling blocks are not meant to stop us in our tracks – they are there to move us forward and find new perspectives. Hope needs to continue to burn brightly. It is a law of life that everything changes, nothing stays the same, and how boring it would be if it did. 

Dadi Janki, the late Administrative Head of the Brahma Kumaris, once told me that there are three values you must have in order to master the art of meditation:

1. Patience
2. Patience
3. Patience

I have never forgotten this. Patience leads to peace, and peace leads to love. When I am in peace I can reflect on situations and make big things small. Love gives me the ability to respond with grace and not rush in to a knee-jerk reaction.

In my spiritual journey, that is the first value I try to live. We are all on a spiritual journey and I must make sure I have patience with my endeavours. Then I am able to have patience with others. Challenging people are also on a journey of transformation, it is just taking them time to climb - I must have hope in my own efforts and hope in theirs. Difficult people are not really difficult, they are just at a difficult point in their journey – let me have compassion.

The second thing I do is to make sure I strengthen my mind and spirit. There is no alternative to powering up the soul each day for hope to thrive and for success. If we do not charge up our mobile phones for an hour or so each day, they simply run out of energy and stop working. I need to charge up the spiritual energy of the soul each day so that my energy will be full and able to do what I need to do. Meditation is the way to charge the soul, the being, the self. When people meditate, they have a variety of focus points. In Rajyoga meditation, I, the meditator, connect to the highest form of energy, the Supreme Source, God, Bhagwan, Khuda, or any of the other names that Supreme Being is known by. When I focus on that source, I start to download pure energy. To give the power of hope, I must be fully charged with that power, and all the other spiritual powers.

The third key for my own spiritual endeavours is trust. Trust in the ancient wisdom and laws of spirituality. The trust that day always follows night. After every dip in the road, there will be a rise, after every period of darkness, however long, there will be light. Degradation of the human spirit will not endure – there will be elevation, growth, and beauty. Faith is powerful, but trust is even more powerful. The wonder of daily meditation, focussed on the Supreme Being, followed by spiritual study of truth, is that the soul is filled with power. This power gives rise to a deep trust in the beauty to come. With that kind of trust, there is nothing but hope in the heart.

Shantanu Mandal has a background in Design and
is based at the Brahma Kumaris International Coordinating Office, London, UK.