The Thing It Landed OnAt the back2 min
Words from the tradition
Three words in this book are not the author's pictures. They belong to Raja Yoga as taught by the Brahma Kumaris, and the book has used the idea without ever using the word.
| Deh-abhimani | देह अभिमानी | Body conscious. Taking the body and its positions for the self. It is the machine of chapter four and the price of chapter three |
| Dehi-abhimani | देही अभिमानी | Soul conscious. Not a feeling and not a mood — a position you stand in rather than a proposition you agree with |
| Swaman | स्वमान | Self-respect. Their word for the opposite of the first one, which is why chapter eleven says that thinking less of yourself is going the wrong way |
A note on the spellings. The Brahma Kumaris publish these names in Devanagari and in English translation, but they do not publish a standard Latin spelling of the Hindi. The romanisations here are the author's own and should not be quoted as theirs.
And three sentences, which are theirs
The daily teachings are called murlis. These are from the published English texts, and they are given here because each one is behind a chapter of this book and says it better.
"This body consciousness is the biggest illness you have." Sakar Murli, 10 March 2026
An illness. Not a sin, not a failing, not something anybody chose — which is the whole register of chapter four, and the reason this book never asks the reader to be ashamed of it.
"Where there is self-respect, there cannot be body consciousness." Avyakt Murli, 30 January 2010
This is the one that stops the commonest misreading in a line. The cure is not thinking less of yourself. The two cannot occupy the same place at the same time.
"The sign of being extremely detached is that you will be extremely loved by the Father and the whole family." Avyakt Murli, 25 October 1987
And this is the test in chapter eleven, which is not the author's invention. They are saying that the detachment they teach shows up as being more loved, and the sentence is built so that it can fail. Chapter eleven uses the second half of it, because the second half is the half a reader can check on an ordinary Tuesday: if what you are doing has made you harder to be near, it is not the thing they are teaching. Nothing else in these books has a better guard built into it than that.
A note on the dates. Sakar murlis are cited by the date they were published for reading, which is how they are referred to. Avyakt murlis are cited by the date they were spoken. All three sentences are quoted whole, from the Brahma Kumaris' own published English texts.