Women of Other Faiths
Using common values contained in their respective teachings, women of all religious traditions can work together and collaborate in many areas especially peace building and women’s empowerment. Collectively women of all faiths can learn from each other’s struggles and histories, while showing support for women’s religious leadership roles worldwide. Please contribute to this archive by suggesting women of all faiths to be featured through our recommendation form.
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Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati
Known For: Founder of Kashi Ashram Interfaith Community and Kali Natha Yoga
Faith: Other
Country: United States
About
Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati is a celebrated spiritual teacher from Brooklyn, New York who founded the Kathi Ashram Community and Kali Natha Yoga, branches of the Kashi Foundation. Known for helping people who are suffering, she passionately promotes the importance of service in spiritual life.
Ma Jaya grew up in an impoverished Jewish family. In 1972 she had a spiritual awakening by an experience of Christ who instructed her to “teach all ways, for all ways are mine.” The course of her personal journey led to her teacher, the great Indian saint Swami Nityananda of Ganeshpuri, who greatly inspired her current teachings. In 1973 Ma Jaya’s guru Neem Karoli Baba, appeared to her, deepening her spiritual realization.
Following the theme that all religious or spiritual roads originate from and lead to God, Ma Jaya’s teaching is a comprehensive blend of the spiritual wisdom of the ages. It resembles Eastern traditions in the message that God is formless, but appears in various ways to guide to liberation from suffering. Students of Ma Jaya cultivate their individual path through creativity, love, service, and the rituals of different faiths, but are not required to follow any specific doctrine.
Ma Jaya developed Kali Natha Yoga as a transformative path to God, named after the Hindu goddess Kali, the all-embracing Mother who exemplifies ultimate self-sacrifice for humanity. A practice of prayer and worship, it consists of an innovative flow series that includes classical Yoga positions, mantras, and meditations.
Ma Jaya teaches internationally and delivers monthly spiritual lectures by “audio darshan,” to which her many U.S. students tune in. Her efforts to unite people of diverse faiths were recognized by her nomination as a trustee in the Governing Council of the Parliament of the World’s Religions.
