Editorial July 2026

A Month of Reflection, Celebration, and Resolve

I’ll admit this issue took me longer to put together than most. Not because the stories were difficult to locate but because they kept pulling me in different directions—celebration, historical reflection, and personal memory—and I had to sit with all of it before I understood how it fit together. Eventually I realized it didn’t need to be reconciled. It just needed space to grow, as community life often feels.

Twenty-Five Years of the BAPS Mandir in Miami

The story kept coming back to me while editing this issue: the Silver Jubilee of the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Miami. To every volunteer, devotee, and spiritual leader who built it—thank you, and congratulations.

Twenty-five years doesn’t sound like much set against the age of the civilization it draws from. But I think about the families who arrived in South Florida decades ago with little more than faith and a willingness to work and what they’ve built since—mandirs, cultural organizations, thriving businesses, and an entire community infrastructure—and it stops me every time.

I should be honest about something here. I’m not someone who’s at BAPS Mandir every Sunday. In this community, some sevaks attend every week, year after year, no matter the weather, and I’m not one of them. But I’ve been to the Mandir enough times over the years—for festivals, for events, and for stories I was covering—to notice something. Every single sevak I’ve encountered, without exception, carries an utmost faith—a shraddha—in Pramukh Swami Maharaj and also in Mahant Swami Maharaj that goes beyond anything I can fully explain from the outside. It’s not performative. I’ve watched a sevak spend an entire day preparing prasad for hundreds of people, and when I asked why, they didn’t talk about the Mandir or the community. They talked about Pramukh Swami Maharaj and Mahant Swami — about wanting to live in a way that would make their guru proud. I’ve heard the same sentiment from a teenager who is taking arti thali to devottes, a grandmother reciting bhajans, and a doctor running a free health screening. Different generations, same undercurrent.

That, I’ve come to think, is the actual engine behind everything else—the schools, the disaster relief, the health fairs, and the mentorship that turns kids into doctors and community leaders. It happens because thousands of individuals have anchored themselves to something they trust completely, and that trust translates into service without anyone having to ask twice. Twenty-five years in, the true story behind the anniversary is not the growth of a building but the profound faith that quietly unites an entire community, one sevak at a time.

A Debt of Gratitude to Brahma Kumaris

BAPS isn’t the only spiritual organization I’ve closely followed over the years, and this feels like the right issue to express my feelings about publicly, because I owe a real debt of gratitude to the Brahma Kumaris community here in Florida.

For those less familiar, Brahma Kumaris is a spiritual organization built around raja yoga meditation, self-reflection, and a return to what its practitioners call “soul consciousness”—the idea that we are, at our core, peaceful spiritual beings temporarily living a physical life. It’s an entirely unique tradition from BAPS in its structure and practice, but I’ve found the same quality of sincerity in the people who carry it forward.

I want to publicly thank Sister Waddy Ben, who leads the Brahma Kumaris Miami Center, for welcoming me so warmly into the Brahma Kumaris family and for trusting me to help organize spiritual events across South Florida.

Her leadership doesn’t come with a lot of noise. She leads quietly, humbly, and with a kind of steady dedication that inspires people far beyond just me. Because of her, the center has become a place where people from entirely different backgrounds show up and discover meditation, peace, and real personal growth. I’m grateful for her friendship, her encouragement, and honestly just the trust she’s put in me over time.

Any events I’ve helped put together were never really about me. They were my way of giving something back to a community that’s shaped my own spiritual journey more than I probably realize. If anything, they’re just a small reflection of how much this organization has meant to me and to so many others trying to find more peace and purpose in their lives.

Here’s what I keep coming back to about our South Florida Hindu and spiritual community: it’s strong because of how many different groups contribute to it, not because of any one organization. Brahma Kumaris, BAPS, Akshya Patra, Ekal Vidyalaya and plenty of others all do things differently, but they’re built on the same foundation—humility, service, compassion, integrity, and self-discipline. Values that honestly feel harder to find these days.

These organizations are quietly doing important work. Stronger families, better citizens, more compassionate leaders — that’s what comes out of their spiritual education, volunteer efforts, youth programs, and community service, often without much recognition.

I feel lucky to have been part of the Brahma Kumaris in South Florida, even in a small way. So thank you, Sister Waddy Ben, and thank you to every volunteer out there—you’re proof that real change begins within.

Looking Ahead

I contemplate what I want to leave behind, professionally and otherwise, and it usually comes back to a few things.

It starts with our kids. Academic success matters, obviously, but so does character — the kind of grounding that outlasts a diploma.

It also means staying invested in the institutions that got us here—mandirs, meditation centers, cultural groups, and professional associations. I worship, meditate, or believe differently. Think of these as sentimental extras. They’re the infrastructure that keeps a community connected to itself while it grows into the wider world.

And it means building real relationships outside our circles — and honestly, outside our traditions, too. I don’t think the strongest communities are the most insulated ones. I think they’re the ones willing to connect with people who don’t worship, meditate, or believe quite the same way they do.

As someone who helps decide which stories are published in these pages, I feel that responsibility with each issue. I try to make room for the quieter stories—service, resilience, everyday people doing meaningful work without expecting anyone to notice.

That’s really what I hope this issue holds together: celebration, memory, and gratitude toward more than one spiritual home. A Mandir turning twenty-five, anchored by a faith I admire more than I can fully grasp. A Brahma Kumaris community that opened a door for me I didn’t expect. And a community still writing its next chapter—with more confidence than fear and more purpose than doubt.

Raj Shah,
Managing Editor,
Deshvidesh Media Group.