"Step Up Your Life" Public Program by Brahma Kumaris, Phillipines

STEP UP YOUR LIFE with BK Charlie Hogg and BK Ayako Ichimaru at  OnStage Theater, Makati City, Phillipines
About 500 professionals turned out for an evening program at the Onstage Theater in Makati City, Phillipines, for a Brahma Kumaris free public event about inner resilience, with BK Charlie Hogg, National Co-ordinator for the Brahma Kumaris in Australia, as speaker, and featuring acclaimed violinist Ayako Ichimaru.
The program, “Step Up Your Life,” opened with BK Ayako, former concert mistress of the celebrated Asian Youth Orchestra, playing a lively number, “Awakening.” She introduced the tune as an expression of the warmth and love that enfolded her heart as soon as she embarked on a spiritual journey.
BK Charlie went straight to the core of the subject at the start of his 45-minute talk. Many are worn down by the “tsunami of feelings” brought about by challenging times, he said, but every person has the capability to step up in life. In a nutshell: “Step into the person you want to be (empowerment), step out of conflict and hurt (vulnerability), and finally step up to loving relationships (resilience).”
“Stepping in,” he explained, is reconnecting with the true self from which most people have been disconnected. Everything we need is inside of us, he said by way of introducing meditation as the key to this authentic self.
Midway through his talk, to illustrate that process of reconnection, BK Charlie led the audience in a meditation experience.
Resuming the discussion, he then enumerated the ways that one is blocked from reconciling with the self, among them arrogance and lack of self-respect, “both stemming from ego.” One must first remove ego, he stressed. “As much as one has self-respect, he is able to experience true love, and then step up in life.”
Resilience, he said, is learning to flow in any situation, not being influenced by outside factors but, instead, “having the ability to control one’s thoughts” and, when necessary, transforming wayward thoughts into good wishes and pure feelings.
BK Charlie elaborated: “People respond to goodwill. When one gives love, people change. So good wishes and pure feelings purify even the atmosphere.”
Later, fielding questions from the floor plus a few sent via text messages, BK Charlie introduced the audience to basic Raja Yoga methods. “The best time to meditate is at 4 in the morning,” he said. “As soon as you wake up, you should feed your mind with positive thoughts.” To develop the habit and integrate it with all other activities, he suggested “meditation with open eyes, for at least three months.”
Ayako played two meditative pieces — “Remembrance,” about God, she said, who gives her unlimited and unconditional love; and “Going Home,” or being “reunited with God”— to launch the evening’s final meditation experience with a moving live commentary by BK Charlie.
Thus concluded a combined feast for the mind and heart through vibrations, music, and love-filled words, a practical illustration of yoga as a spiritual link between souls and The Supreme!