Co-ordinator, Inner Space, Brahma Kumaris Australia
Maureen Chen is a native of Sydney, Australia, where she joined the Brahma Kumaris in 1977. She has been studying and teaching raja yoga meditation for almost 40 years, conducting retreats and lectures in over 50 countries.
In 1981 she moved to Hong Kong to establish a meditation centre. Whilst in Hong Kong she was also the Moderator of the Hong Kong Network on Religion and Peace, Chairperson of Unity for Peace, Secretary of the Living Values Education and Secretary of the Asian Business Leadership Exchange, ABLE. She was deeply concerned with wasted resources in such an affluent society, and she helped to establish Food link, an NGO linking hotels and restaurants with social welfare organisations.
Maureen has also helped to establish and sustain meditation centres in Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Cambodia. Maureen was the Brahma Kumaris representative in Cambodia from 2006 – 2010, teaching various courses of meditation and self-management in hotels, spas, hospitals and the social welfare sector as well as the Buddhist University in Phnom Penh. She was instrumental in setting up Living Values Education programs in Vietnam and Cambodia. She helped to establish social enterprises for victims of landmines, the Khmer Independent Life Team (KILT) and the Peace Cafe, a vegetarian community cafe offering values and environmental training.
In August 2010 she moved to India and exclusively devoted her time and efforts to ‘the Future of Power’ project, which brought leaders from a wide range of professions together to explore the use of power. She was involved in organizing and facilitating over 50 programmes throughout India.
After 30 years in Asia, Maureen has now returned to Sydney to coordinate the Brahma Kumaris National Office in Five Dock.