XBK Chat (unofficial archive)

primal.logic · Joined: 02 Mar 2006 Posts: 16

Before I create a discussion on ADHD I would just like to throw in a footnote here - I do not consider ADHD a disorder at all. I call it 'wide spectrum'. This reflects our capacity to be better or worse than typical (normal) people. (Normal = common. Abnormal = uncommon, that's all). The medication they put ADHD people on is pure amphetamine (ie: speed). But it slows us down! I don't need it or want it. They generally only give it to ADHD kids because they won't sit still in the classroom. As for reading, I can read volumes - I was reading books (fiction at an adult level) on a regular basis by the age of 8. But don't ask me to read a book that I'm not interested in - like any wide spectrum person, we can only concentrate when or if we want to. I am sure that it was because of my ADHD that I could meditate so successfully. I loved amrit vela and was there everyday for the first 14 years of my Bk life - I may have missed it 4 or 5 times in all those years, and I had brilliant experiences almost everytime. I thought it was yoga. Now I understand it very differently, but more on that later. And just lastly - an interesting twist that some may find interesting: to cut a long story short I know 5 guys who were in the SAS (special Air Service - probably the most highly regarded military specialist unit in the world). They are all ADHD. I think the army actually seeks it for that level of specialisation. It also demonstrates the love ADHD people have for structure and codes. The Bk's are the 'spiritual army' (reference from the murli), and it is all about structure (mariadas) and code (shrimat).

Tete · Joined: 26 Jan 2005 Posts: 169

PL,

Well I am glad that we are in agreement on the medications.

PL,

gyaniwasi · Joined: 22 Feb 2004 Posts: 167

Tete · Joined: 26 Jan 2005 Posts: 169

Gy,

Perhaps higher authority was not the word but rather respected/love for/of in the BK family way. You know that bonding thing you all seem to do. I don't know what all was said but I know it helped. They spoke to one another. I try not to poke my nose too much in the details as I know you all tell each other things that only you understand. I was just glad that the love of brotherhood was there and that what ever each told the other helped.

So, I guess in a way I am proving some ones point here... Ay Caramba. I can relate in an unrelated way. When I had some one die suddenly and violently many people would try and comfort me by telling me “I know just how you feel”. I knew they didn’t, how could they? When my friend’s husband was killed my husband without warning threw me a curve ball right in front of her “She knows what it is like…ask her anything…she is here to help you”. In a way I had forgotten…but it all came rushing back. I could see in her eyes it was a comfort to know that some how she too was going to be OK. We smiled in an odd way at each other…we were now in an exclusive club where one doesn’t particularly run around announcing membership.

I guess in a way I knew this and sort of communicated this to the other one who was most gracious. Please let me say it isn't a thing of one being superior to the other...it is a trust factor. As I remembered one BK person coming to seek mine out in dire need, many moons ago. The SS had told this person some thing and this person was so troubled. Mine listened and gave this person his thoughts. I can recall the person looked lighter...as if some burden had been lifted. I wondered why this person traveled so far to see him. Basic idea I suppose...he was the respected one, the person to trust, the bond thing had happened.

Just like when I learned some thing from you and went back and said Ah HA....I know what this is. Same basic truth...you knew...he knew I knew. Recognizing it is part of undoing it. That is why I am still here learning all I can, as this isn't a simple thing...

I call it the your a duck I am a duck thing...when you recognize some one that is like you, understands you etc.

One hand reaching out to guide the other one out of the cave into the light. I am lucky in that many here have offered me their hand when I needed it.

Regards,

Tete

P.S. Gy thank you for your guidance...

Sam · Joined: 18 Feb 2006 Posts: 47

OK my friends. Can we start to set up the resource list for XBKs we talked about earlier? There are many resources known to you folks, and you have all been very helpful. At present the different resources are scattered all over the web site, and it would be a good idea for them all to be collected together in one place. That way it will be easier for someone like me to find what I need. A sort of “First Aid Kit” for leaving BKs, XBKs, and non-BKs affected by the issues we work with.
There will definitely be books, and web sites. There is Eromain’s Report. Maybe there are even some people who would be willing to help personally with ‘phone calls, mailing of books to help or whatever?
I am very new to this so I don’t know how to start. Do we need to send a message to the administrator to suggest this idea? Let us get it done as soon as we can because there are many folks out there needing help.
My friend, the XBK sister whose plight first prompted me to start this topic, is doing very well thanks to all your help. She is well on the road to recovery, but as you know these process takes a long time.
Tete – I forgot to mention, do not worry please, you have not given away her identity or location, and thank you for all your kind support.
So – how do we make it easier for the next new person, and get all the resources listed in one place as soon as we can. I do not know the procedure. So, once again, Help Please!
Sam.

Laughing

Sam · Joined: 18 Feb 2006 Posts: 47

Some ideas that have been proved for me by my recent experiences with my friend here may throw some light on the matters we are dealing with.
Personally I had a lot of problems when I was younger, and I went through a lot of therapy of various kinds. I am mostly free from those problems now, or I know about them, have strategies to deal with them, and am in the process of working with them.
My point being, I did a lot of work on myself before I ever knew about the BKs.
In contrast, most BKs I have met have not done much psychological work on themselves before becoming BKs. Their personal problems have been put on hold while they have been in gyan. They do not work on themselves in a positive way while in gyan, quite the reverse in fact. When they leave gyan all these problems come to the front again and they have to deal with them. Gyan has been a sort of “security blanket” for them during their time as BKs. What I have seen is that the post traumatic stress syndrome we see in people leaving gyan can come from stress and trauma that happened BEFORE they went into gyan and was made worse or at best kept stable while they were in gyan.
This seems, from my experience, to be true for a large range of disorders. Some I have come across personally are:- Manic Depression, Addictive Personality, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. I have learned from posts in this thread that others are:- Attention Deficit Disorder, Attention Hyperactivity Deficit Disorder, and others on that spectrum.
Spectrum is a good word, because none of us is completely fitting into a category.
Gyan, or rather the BK institution, acts as a magnet for people with these and other personal problems.
This is not unique to the BKs at all. In many work places and institutions I have been involved in the situation has been similar.
To give a specific example, I once worked in an office with a friend who has obvious problems with obsessive compulsive disorder, and she is also a severe workaholic. This fitted in nicely with the culture of the company, which is a charity and loves to employ people who are addicted to work and are compulsive and obsessive about every little detail of their work. My friend was so stressed but she would not slow down or give herself any peace. She worked long hours for no extra pay, she worked right through her lunch hour, she drove herself into exhaustion. Unfortunately I did not feel at the time that I could help her by myself, anyway she did not realise she had a problem. She still refuses to see a doctor or psychiatrist but she has stopped working. How? She was in a car wreck. Literally. Rushing to work and obsessed with work and not focussed on driving her car.
I have seen so many BKs who drive themselves in this way. The problem is that they are rewarded for it. The worse their condition becomes the harder they push themselves. So they are seen as making more effort, or doing more service. So they must be better BKs. The cycle continues, the stress gets worse, and finally the crash happens. Not the literal car wreck, but the personality breakdown and mental illness. Then all the problems that gyan seemed to magic away when they took gyan come back full force. So we have an individual who has been in denial about their personality problems, whose problems are made worse by being encouraged by the institution, and who finally crashes and burns out. They are then left to pick up the pieces of a life that should have been worked out perhaps decades ago.
Sam.

Tete · Joined: 26 Jan 2005 Posts: 169

Sam,

Your post pre-gyan post is a HASTY GENERALIZATION!

Sam,

Sam · Joined: 18 Feb 2006 Posts: 47

Hi Tete

You say:

Sam · Joined: 18 Feb 2006 Posts: 47

Tete,

Looking back at my post I see that I have not generalised as much as you seem to see. I have not said all BKs have problems, I have said MOST BKs I have met had problems. I have not said the stress is always before entering gyan I have said it CAN be so. Believe me, I am trying to help here. If I make a mistake then it is a genuine mistake, and I mean the information to be for the best interests of people reading my posts. The information I relay in this post comes from my own personal experiences of living with and conversing with BKs and listening to their life stories. The idea does not of course apply to every BK, but is is real experience that I have had and, from where I stand, it looks to be very prevalent indeed.

Sam

primal.logic · Joined: 02 Mar 2006 Posts: 16

Hi Sam and Tete - you are both absolutely right and I really respect both of your well thought out opinions on this matter. The thing that struck me was, if you take the process Tete describes - of deconstruction and indoctrination - and then apply it to a person who has psychological issues, we really have a worse case scenario developing. And I relate to the matter Sam raised of how the real issues someone should be dealing with are subordinated to the belief system until they crack and fall out of gyan. They then find themselves having to deal with the real issue, something that has been repressed for years, growing like an emotional cancer, waiting for its time. Grief! As with my ADHD - I had taken gyan as an explanation for my ADHD. I didn't realise that was what I had done - I really thought I had the solution, and so went about vigorously trying to applying it. (This is what makes Raja Yoga so dangerous - this is a recipe for impending trauma). Of course it wasn't the right solution at all, and so when I left gyan my ADHD emerged from the dungeon it had been consigned to and completely spun me out. Without mariadas and shrimat I had no structure. Without the philosophy, I didn't have any explanation at all for either myself or the world, or even life. It was like being 10 all over again (on LSD)! So I agree with both of you. I will add, that for a westerner to engage fully in the Bk's, to really take it on and be intense about it, there is a strong possibility that they have something going on. Like ADHD, or OCD or whatever else I don't know about. It takes a degree of obsessiveness to really live the Bk life 'accurately', especially for any period of time. The Bk's that I recognise as being ADHD have all been in gyan for a long time and are fundumentalist about it for sure. This includes some of our best known senior bro's and sis's.

Sam · Joined: 18 Feb 2006 Posts: 47

Primal.logic wrote

- I had taken gyan as an explanation for my ADHD.

That is what I am trying to say. thank you for putting it into a nut shell.

zhukov · Joined: 10 Apr 2004 Posts: 86

howiemac · Joined: 18 May 2005 Posts: 142 Location: Scotland

Tete · Joined: 26 Jan 2005 Posts: 169

Sam and Joel,

It would appear that our ever wise Admin has listened to us and our needs once again:XBKchat Index and External Resources List

Joel,

primal.logic · Joined: 02 Mar 2006 Posts: 16

Firstly, let me say that I am more than okay about being 'ADHD'. I have never seen it as a disorder. It is estimated that more than 1 in 10 people are. But they don't know it. They only know that they see the world differently to everyone else. And, if they are lucky enough to meet other ADHD people they realise that they share a similar map. A friend of mine was telling me that when he was still living at home his sister gave him a card with a picture of an alien on it with his name on it. This represents a lot of things - one, how much 'normal' people resent difference, how antgonistic the world is to people who are ADHD or different in other ways, and how much one feels like an alien as a result! ADHD is a difference in conciousness, not a disorder. The problem is in the disordering effect of the collective contempt of difference. This difference is nothing more than a difference in maps, it has nothing to do with diability. As Sociology puts it so nicely - 'reality is a social construction'. Reality is NOT a fundumental truth. The majority of people have constructed a collective reality, a collective map of life. ADHD has a (slightly) different map. For me, this is the essence of the conflict. And because a majority exists, they can declare themselves 'normal' and everything else 'not normal' and therefore wrong, or disordered. So what is 'normal'? It is nothing more than 'typical'. So I am not typical. For that I am grateful. ADHD people, as has been mentioned in this thread, are of above average intelligence, creative, original and lateral thinkers. And we are smart enough to argue against the dominance of a majority who are collectively as dumb as sheep. (my apologies if you are 'normal' - no offence intended). Sheep, lead by media and marketing into collective consumer behaviours, dominated by government and corporations, and blind to the whole process. Bleeting their way through life, running on the endless cycle of the treadmill they were vortexted into by their own unquestioning, unthinking typicality. So much for being 'normal'. I amy sound a little jaded, but hey, I am pretty sick of having to tolerate the imposition of their map over mine. And I find anyone who is switched onto ADHD feels the same. When I was 'diagnosed' I looked around and realised that my small circle of friends were all ADHD. Unconciously we had been drawn together by the similarity of our maps. Since then I have made something of a mission out of helping others who are ADHD but don't know it. To help them understand it a to create a justifiably positive attitude towards it. Some are very open and find freedom in knowing and acknowledging their difference and focussing on the gifts that come with that difference. Others resist because they have been diagnosed ADHD before and deeply resent being told that there is something wrong with their brain and themselves. Well, there is nothing wrong with being different, especially when ADHD brings such interesting and creative abilities. The most signifiant disappointment in my life is that the potential I have has been squandered trying to survive in society - because their map says that they are right and everyone else is wrong, and ones life gets wasted trying to establish ones own value. I think this is why I embraced gyan so actively - I gained value, I was no longer an alien and I had a purpose and a destiny. I achieved my high function state and then went and established significant service, doing new things that became standards for the organisation. I was on a roll, busy, busy busy, achieving and achieving. Sound familiar - many have noticed how frenetic the BK life of service can be. Well, my excuse is that I am hyperctive by nature. As for our beloved seniors - well I can say with certainty that many of our seniors are too - they created the benchmark of 'busy'. This is the first sign that many of them are ADHD too. Gyan is a honeypot for ADHD. I know all of our seniors intimately. I also have a clear understanding of the ADHD profile. I have no doubt that they are ADHD. Which is why those who are normal have such trouble keeping up or just staying with the program. A simple example is in the translation of the murli. ADHD people have a tendency to be black and white thinkers, 'absolutists'. We tend to be 'all or nothing'. This features strongly in the translation of the murli (and we all know who is ultimately responsible for the english translation so I won't mention any names) - for example Baba says 'children, you must become pure'. The english word pure is actually 3 different words in Hindi - the one westerners most identify with is 'satopradhan'. This is the absolute state of purity that we all aspire to. So every morning in murli class westerners stress about becoming absolutely pure. Struggle and strain. However the word that translates to 'pure' in the murli comes from the hindi word 'pavitra'. This means to be pure in the sense of following mariadas, especially celibacy. And actually we were doing that. So instead of having the satisfaction of doing what Baba was asking ie: following mariadas, we were stuck with the stress of not being satopradhan, or completely (absolutely) pure. This is what you get when someone, who is clueless about their own ADHD, translates the murli (and I am not refering to Alka or whoever does it these days, they were all instructed by one of our most known seniors).
Anyway, I am out of time, but more later. Thanks for your interest.