Belonging Through Spiritual Identity: Drishti as an Experiential Practice of Inclusion and Transformation Experiencing Inner Virtues Through Art and Shared Awareness
Publication information:
Abstract
Drishti (Vision) is a lived and experiential practice of belonging expressed through contemplative art. Human belonging is often shaped through layered identities formed by culture, demographics, belief systems, and personal experience. While these layers provide familiarity, they can also create friction and exclusion. Drishti offers a contrasting mode of connection grounded in soul consciousness, where belonging arises from shared inner qualities like peace, love, calmness, and power.
Each artwork in the Drishti series is created while the artist is actively experiencing a specific inner virtue, allowing that state to shape the gaze, color, and presence of the work. In a contemplative gallery setting, participants encounter the artworks and are invited to notice and share the qualities they experience. Viewers report inner shifts and a sense of belonging across differences. The eyes, understood as windows to inner awareness, become sites of shared perception through which inclusion and transformation are experienced. This practice is situated within the Brahma Kumaris spiritual practice.
Presenter Biographies
Monika Kalra is a Rajyoga teacher and spiritual artist who has practiced Brahma Kumaris Rajyoga meditation since 2001. She is the resident spiritual artist at Peace Village Learning and Retreat Center in New York, where she guides individuals toward inner stability and clarity through contemplative practice and leads the center’s spiritual art gallery. Her artistic work emerges from sustained meditation and is expressed through oil painting and digital media, exploring inner virtues and states of being. Her recent series Rosary of Victory, examining self-mastery and inclusive inner transformation, has been recognized by Harvard Divinity School, Adirondack Lakes Center for the Arts and View Arts. Originally trained in fashion design in India and the UK, she founded the artistic fashion brand Monaara, a background that informs her refined visual language. https://www.instagram.com/theeternalexpression/ www.theeternalexpression.com
Abhishek Kalra is a creative technologist, AI practitioner and spiritual facilitator, with over two decades of experience across technology consulting, product strategy and go-to-market. He currently works full time in the field of artificial intelligence, focusing on practical applications of generative and agentic AI, while exploring how emerging technologies intersect with human values, awareness, and inner transformation. He is constantly seeking ways to synergize worldly and spiritual lives helping individuals live purposefully, grow sustainably, and align external success with inner transformation.