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A meeting place for past members of Brahma Kumaris
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ex-london
Joined: 18 Jul 2005
Posts: 131
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 Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2005 12:50 pm Post subject: Brahma Kumari Spinoffs |
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Hi
I just wanted to give this one a heading of its own because there might be a few others to document for folks to be aware of.
| flipper wrote: | Oh really, somehow I've become suspicious of this site!
Whilst looking at ways to increase my modest income, in an ethical way, I came across , RelaxKids.com, and low and behold its a company started by a BK, I enquired as to how much the training is, where the training is held, and is Relax Kids affiliated to any religeous group? I had telephoned a local teacher who advertises inthe local press.
well guess what, costs over £500, courses held at Oxford global retreat, em and their stating its not affiiated to any religeon, come clean, why don't you. |
That is interesting, I say that site once and wondered if it was a B.K. Lite affair. I never realised there was money involved.
In the old days it was such a big taboo to mention money. In fact, it was a published Principle [ Maryada ] NOT to discuss business when in the community or to exploit your Knowledge [tm] or contacts made through the centre. Although I can name names of those that did despite holding themselves up as example B.K.s
I always thought it one of the great hypocrisies that if you came into Raja Yoga as a " nothing ", e.g young, you were to stay as a " nothing " and stick to menial service.
But if you were a " something ", e.g. a " Dr " like Heide Fittkau-Garthe, then you were on the Guddi, they were all over you AND it seemed quite acceptable for the individual to use what they were taking for their own professional and financial benefit.
Does anyone know what is " founder " Mike George up to with this thing ;
http://www.relax7.com/welcome.htm
Is it is business or is it covert B.K. programme?
Mike George used to be some sort of " management consultant " or something but then got into the conscious industry. One of the individuals very much responsible for re-marketing and de-Hinduising Raja Yoga in the West.
He has taken off his badges but he might still be hiding his ring under that hidden hand.
And, of course, if he is not teaching a B.K. sponsored Raja Yoga Lite, then is he not by their definition teaching bhakti?
ex-l
Quote from Room 7, see below. Does this seem a little familiar to anyone?
| Quote: |
Affirm your true self-identity as a point source of radiant light...
Create a point of consciousness...
Gather all your attention and awareness into a point...
Focus that point on the centre of your forehead, just above and behind the eyes...
Think of yourself as a point of light, as a radiant star...
You are emitting and radiating light into the world around you... |
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howiemac
Joined: 18 May 2005
Posts: 142
Location: Scotland
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| Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2005 6:03 am Post subject: Re: Brahma Kumari Spinoffs |
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| ex-london wrote: | Does anyone know what is " founder " Mike George up to with this thing
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I don't know what hes "up to", but I do know that this site is promoted by him from within BK programmes that he does, on leaflets handed out etc ....
Shades of the "blissful music" thing, whereby Bliss use their own label to sell their music, and the BKs help with promotion of these CDs - in this case, as I understand it, BK Publications sell the CDs extensively through BK centres etc., paying Bliss for the physical merchandise, and Bliss are thereby financially supported by their BK connection. I know that this troubles other BK musicians whos work is published directly by BK publications, with no royalty or fee of any kind - ie the BK organisation helps Bliss make a living, but other poorer musicians are expected to donate their work freely to Baba..... (incidentally - this is why Bliss CDs cost more than other BK distributed CDs). It does appear that if you are "in with the in crowd" then you are aided by the BKWSU to line your own pockets. Personally I don't have a problem with what Bliss are doing, as music is their vocation and they should be able to pay the rent from it, but BK Publications are on dodgy ground when they use one rule for the "goose that lays the golden egg" and another for everyone else....  |
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ex-london
Joined: 18 Jul 2005
Posts: 131
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| Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2005 3:20 pm Post subject: Re: Brahma Kumari Spinoffs [ http://www.blissfulmusic.com/ ] |
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| howiemac wrote: | | ex-london wrote: | Does anyone know what is " founder " Mike George up to with this thing
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I don't know what hes "up to", but I do know that this site is promoted by him from within BK programmes that he does, on leaflets handed out etc .... Shades of the "blissful music" thing, whereby Bliss use their own label to sell their music, and the BKs help with promotion of these CDs - in this case, as I understand it, BK Publications sell the CDs extensively through BK centres etc., paying Bliss for the physical merchandise, and Bliss are thereby financially supported by their BK connection. |
Ah, these guys ;
http://www.blissfulmusic.com/
Interesting. Do they do guided meditations during their public performances too? That would have to be commecial use of " godly " trademarked property. They certainly reference it ontheir website.
Well, at least the music is more digestible than the " plunkety-plunket-clank- AYEEAYEEAYEEAYEH ... " Bollywood film scores of yore. I can remember the days when to listen to *anything* beyond the prescribed bog music was considered nigh heresy and, the shame of it, body conscious.
But, yes, it raises the usual issues of status games and inequality and an unwritten rule that if you were doing it before you got into gyan you can keep doing it but not if you thought of it after.
Like living with a member of the opposite sex.
ex-l |
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ex-london
Joined: 18 Jul 2005
Posts: 131
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| Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2005 3:36 pm Post subject: Re: Brahma Kumari Spinoffs [ http://www.blissfulmusic.com/ ] |
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just had a look around their site. amazing ... they use clear and overt Brahma Kumari symbolism such as animated and radiating Shiva " stars " on deep red Brahmand backgrounds.
straight out of the 7 day course.
... and God obviously has a thing for blondes when it comes to public faces. |
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howiemac
Joined: 18 May 2005
Posts: 142
Location: Scotland
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| Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2005 5:52 am Post subject: Re: Brahma Kumari Spinoffs [ http://www.blissfulmusic.com/ ] |
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| ex-london wrote: | | ... and God obviously has a thing for blondes when it comes to public faces. |
in diaphanous clothing.....  |
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kyra
Joined: 19 Apr 2004
Posts: 66
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| Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2005 6:39 am Post subject: Re: Brahma Kumari Spinoffs |
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| ex-london wrote: | Hi
I just wanted to give this one a heading of its own because there might be a few others to document for folks to be aware of.
| flipper wrote: | Oh really, somehow I've become suspicious of this site!
Whilst looking at ways to increase my modest income, in an ethical way, I came across , RelaxKids.com, and low and behold its a company started by a BK, I enquired as to how much the training is, where the training is held, and is Relax Kids affiliated to any religeous group? I had telephoned a local teacher who advertises inthe local press.
well guess what, costs over £500, courses held at Oxford global retreat, em and their stating its not affiiated to any religeon, come clean, why don't you. |
That is interesting, I say that site once and wondered if it was a B.K. Lite affair. I never realised there was money involved. |
Interesting you should mention that company. I saw Relax Kids on TV just a few weeks back, she was on a TV show where people pitch for investment. She reminded me a BK, that spaced out air, they were interested in her product until she claimed she actually didn't want to make any money.
Quoting one of the potential investors "Could you explain to me why I would want to invest in a company, that does not want to make money".
Needless to say, she didn't win any investment in her company and they all thought she was rather "cukoo". |
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flipper
Joined: 03 May 2005
Posts: 14
Location: england
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| Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2005 5:20 am Post subject: email from mike george to flipper. re. bk spin-offs |
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| Quote: | hi flipper
some answers to your questions. |
OK that amidst all the peace and love is the desire for mass destruction.
| Quote: | I speak for my self (as only I can) here when I say have no 'desire' for destruction - spiritual maturity has no desire for anything, which is challeging in iteself - however you may perceive those less mature on their spiirtual journey talking as if they desire destruction - it may simply be a misplaced immature enthusiasm - they havn't quite worked out what is really happening so to speak.
However, if you were to ask me about dustruction, my answer would be that to me it's so obvious there is a huge transition / transformation somewhere up ahead in time and space - there has to be when you truly understand the workings of the ego - and it seems pretty obvious that something will have to give on a large scale sooner or later
As I say, this it may sound like just another belief belonging to another belief system but for me its just something I sense will inevitably happen -it's not something I get excited about it's something that you sense is inevitable what informs that sense of inevitability - 23 years of spiritual exploration/study/practice |
and, then there is recruiting people to take the 7 day course,
| Quote: | well I'm not sure 'recruiting' is the best word, but it may seem that way to someones perception - the motivation of most people who study and teach at the BK university is one of service - which basically means helping people to awaken to who they are and the absolute truths which can sustain the awakening precess - yes, for me there are absolute truths and relative truths - otherwise I wouldn't still be practicing.studying and writing books - happy so share that if your interested but that may take you beyond the boundaries of your enquiry.
But yes, you may find some a little over enthusiastic - still in what has sometimes been called their 'space cadet' stage, who seem to be 'out there' trying to get people 'in here' - but most students and teachers are beyond that kind of thinking - but do challenge me more on this if it's not clear |
not being transparent as to where the money's going, ie to fund a religious group.,
| Quote: | | As far as I am aware, the accounts of the organisation are available to be seen - I've never looked myself so I don't know for sure - I don't in how much detail - at some stage I'll check it out |
Im interested to know if there is a record kept on people who develop mental illness, during their association with the BK's?
| Quote: | | Again, i'm not sure but I do know that if someone comes with mental illness they are pretty much recomended to see a psycholigist / therapist etc - sometime they are seen by students or teachers whose paid work is in this area - but I don't know of any specific records - there are no records kept on anyone as far as I know - I might be a bit suspicious myself if there was - and then of course there is the idea that from a spiritual point of view we are all mentally ill - I still am but slowly getting better !! |
Are statistics important , surely figures are to the BK's, all that numberwise stuff !
| Quote: | | Yes, some statistics are important and some appear to be more important than others, but I think the only statistics that are kept and gathered are student numbers, programme attendee numbers, centre numbers etc - nothing more than that. |
I consider you to be a senior and a public face of the BK's, that's a lot of responsibility and I thank you again for finding the time to email me.
| Quote: | I don't actually hold any official position within the university - it has very few 'official' positions - and I am way an official spokesperson for the organisation - but yes I do participate in various aspects of the university's work and still attend as a member of the regional co-ordinating offices group meetings so please do ask me anything you want and I will endeavour to answer - I may have to refer you on occasionally.
Do we know each other, have we met? Forgive me if I can't remember.
Hope that's useful.
Best wishes,
mike |
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flipper
Joined: 03 May 2005
Posts: 14
Location: england
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| Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2005 5:23 am Post subject: |
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The above transcipt is a copy of an email I had received from mike george, asking him for clarification. relating to BK spin-offs, and the accountability of being transparent, (honest) to the public .
Flipper |
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Joel
Joined: 09 Nov 2004
Posts: 102
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| Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2005 11:29 am Post subject: |
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| flipper wrote: | The above transcipt is a copy of an email I had received from mike george,
asking him for clarification. relating to BK spin-offs, and the accountability of being transparent, (honest) to the public .
Flipper |
I'm interested what people here make of his answers. I actually know Mike George slightly, having seen him in Madhuban a few times and had him visit our center when I lived in Tokyo. He's quite likeable, a real bloke, so to say.
In my experience, the BKs aren't oriented toward scientific monitoring of the results of their educational and social experiments. In general, their mission is to:
1) find members of their original family -- those who will be strong BKs
2) give the message of soul and god to others, in Baba's words, to give the father's introduction
3) purify themselves through adhering to BK practices such as study, meditation, karma yoga, service and BK lifestyle.
Giving the good news, or introducing the self and father, are in BK philosophy intrinsically positive acts, especially if the person is good-natured and tactful about it.
Baba did not direct the yagya to monitor people for signs of mental distress. Remember, the group is an extension of the original pattern of mystical knowledge, ecstatic religious experience and spiritual family communion of the founders. It is only now that the group has grown that is no longer possible to wave away the issues of mentally disturbed people by saying, "such is their karma." Having faced realities of people going off the deep end after accepting BK knowledge and practices, intelligent leaders such as Sr. Jayanti and Dr. Nirmala direct teachers to guide mentally ill toward psychiatric care--not to take responsibility for them or to assume that god will cure them because they accept BK knowledge or like meditation.
But since the mental-health aspect is peripheral to the aims of the institution listed above, we wouldn't expect teachers selected on the basis of their faith and charisma to become mental health scientists. Indeed, during the Million Minutes of Peace program the BK launched in 1986 (in which Mike George and others built their skill-set as social-spiritual activists) it was nearly impossible to get people to total up minutes of peace donated. As with McDonald's the number of people served is considered among the most important statistics by category: mothers, VIPs, children, prison inmates, tribal peoples, professionals, teachers. And number of students at the centers.
That the senior sisters guide the lives of hundreds or thousands of dedicated BKs, dealing with their myriad problems is taken as evidence that they are competent.
However in the more common case, a person with a few months or a couple years of experience is not necessarily qualified to deal with a person's deepest problems, which one encounters in dealing with the person on a daily basis in the context of social life in a BK center.
The difficulty is that soul and god consciousness are supposed to be able to heal the soul. Which, according to BK knowledge is true except for the souls whose fate it is to not follow and to be punished in the final judgment (dharamraj) because of their particular karma.
So we have a cognitive dissonance: something that is supposed to work for everyone--the souls of all religions--except for those sinfully insane souls it doesn't work for, who stand to defame the institution by splattering it with the emotional blood of their psychotic breaks.
At best, the organization functions as a kind of sieve of activities in which people self-select themselves to be members or friendly participants.
Mike George is a good spokesman for the public face of the organization. However the public face is distinct from the messy details of the lives of its members and its processes of sustaining itself socially and financially. More objective information is more likely to come from academic research, the more balanced accounts of people such as Lawrence Babb and Stephan Nagel (also called Surya-bhai; his work is published in German, but not yet in English last that I heard.)
An aside: Having gotten this far, I wanted to search the site for posts relating to characteristics of cults. Is there no kind of text-search facility in this web-BBS software? It might help, for example, to be able to search for stuff such as the list of BK principles (maryadas) or perhaps murlis, or a list of characteristics of cults, etc. |
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administrator
Site Admin
Joined: 15 Nov 2003
Posts: 48
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| Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2005 10:15 am Post subject: Searches |
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Joel wrote:
| Quote: | | I wanted to search the site for posts relating to characteristics of cults. Is there no kind of text-search facility in this web-BBS software? |
This site has an excellent search feature. If you look above, between FAQ and Memberlist, you will see "Search". We tried it and it actually works quite well. For example, a search for keyword "cult" yields about 30 listings. These are all posts made on this site. Of course, not all would have the information you seek, but everything that has been written about cults on this site would be found there.
The good thing about this search feature is that it only scans the posts made on XBKchat, not the world wide web. So, by using the search function, you can quickly see if a word, topic, person etc was discussed on this site. One does not have to be a member, or logged in to the site, to use this search function. Members of the public can therefore use our search function to quickly look up information and topics which may be of interest to them. However, topics discussed in the exclusive and private "XBKs ONLY" forum will not show up in a search, unless the search is done by a member who is logged in to the site. So your privacy is protected by the search engine.
Admin |
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Joel
Joined: 09 Nov 2004
Posts: 102
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| Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2005 11:33 am Post subject: Re: Searches |
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| administrator wrote: | Joel wrote:
| Quote: | | I wanted to search the site for posts relating to characteristics of cults. Is there no kind of text-search facility in this web-BBS software? |
This site has an excellent search feature. If you look above, between FAQ and Memberlist, you will see "Search". |
You've opened my eyes!
I found what I was looking for: Carol Giambalvo's post pointing to http://www.refocus.org/ particularly characteristics of destructive cults http://www.refocus.org/charcult.html .
Of course BKs have constructive elements, otherwise we wouldn't see such conflicted feelings among *BKs (*: X | P | null | N ). But for me, interesting to review Mike George's characterizations of the group with respect to these criteria.
btw, a happy new year to you all from this part of the globe, where new year's has already arrived. |
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Tete
Joined: 26 Jan 2005
Posts: 169
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| Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2005 8:13 pm Post subject: Thanks for coining the NBK TERM! |
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Joel,
Happy New Year to you! Thanks for NBK and for asking about the search feature. I am still working on the Quote feature my self!  Much to the surprise of the Admin who is very kind and understanding.  Happy New Years Admin! 
Regards,
Tete |
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Joel
Joined: 09 Nov 2004
Posts: 102
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| Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2005 9:27 pm Post subject: Re: Thanks for coining the NBK TERM! |
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| Tete wrote: | Joel,
Happy New Year to you! Thanks for NBK and for asking about the search feature. I am still working on the Quote feature my self! Much to the surprise of the Admin who is very kind and understanding. Happy New Years Admin!
Regards,
Tete |
Yeah, thanks Admin. We respect your anonymity, even if you are a group of dophins living in the Crab Nebula. Thank you for providing a forum for us *BKs to rant, argue, cheer, and occasionally, link arms in linguistic dance.
Tete, Happy New Year to you, too. Nice to know I'm not the only one who loses track of the 253-odd icons showing up on the web-page and in the browser tool bar, launch pad, menu bar, etc. (btw I had trouble finding the quote button, too.) |
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Mr Green
Joined: 08 Sep 2005
Posts: 41
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| Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2006 1:26 pm Post subject: |
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I knew mike very well, having shared a 'bhavan' with him for a few years, I'd say most of his personel directions are born out of frustration with the bks, not allowing him to express himself the way he'd like to, and he does indeed profit quite nicely from the books he's written, whether bks think this is wrong or not I don't think he really cares  |
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uddhava
Joined: 20 Jan 2005
Posts: 142
Location: Paramdham
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| Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2006 1:23 pm Post subject: Re: Brahma Kumari Spinoffs [ http://www.blissfulmusic.com/ ] |
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| ex-london wrote: |
the " plunkety-plunket-clank- AYEEAYEEAYEEAYEH ... " Bollywood film scores of yore. |
I used to like some of the Bollywood boy-girl duets. If anyone still has any, please send me an MP3. |
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