XBK Chat (unofficial archive)

isabel · Joined: 24 Mar 2004 Posts: 39

Hello everyone!

I just stumbled accross this site, never expecting to run into something like this! By way of introduction I'll share a bit of my story.

I feel a bit as if I'm in some sort of netherworld -unable to give my heart fully to the BKs and yet continuing to follow many of the B.K. edicts including daily meditation.

Why have I distanced myself? I missed being human. I missed feeling sadness, I missed being able to share my deepest thoughts with others. As a BK I always felt very alone. I told myself this was good, I was independent, I had Baba, who else did I need? It didn't feel right though. At some point I could no longer deny that the lifestyle was not nurturing an important part of me.

I treasure my humanity. Shouldn't there be a way to grow spiritually by delving into and accepting that humanity rather than by trying to banish it?

I was also disturbed by what seemed to me to be the elitism of the Brahma Kumaris. As a B.K, we are taught that we are a superior order of being and that the rest of humanity 'doesn't quite get it'. Yet this seems to me to fly in the face of true humility.
I feel I have grown a great deal since I gave up the notion that only b.K.s had accurate insight into God.

I do miss the certainty and the blissfulness of life as a BK. But I feel as if I've arrived at truths that go against B.K. teachings and there's no turning back. I wish one could somehow be part BK, but I think it's a practice you have to do whole hog or not at all.

Any of you in a similar place?

Guest · Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2004 1:34 am Post subject:

Dear Isabel,
Omshanti. Your views are frank and nice. But I would like to add something from my experience that, your experiences with BKs is not due to any fault with the knowledge that is being preached by Baba but due to its implementation. The knowledge being given by Baba is not to isolate anyone from the world but to turn the entire world into one family. It is the narrowmindedness of the human beings and their trend to create physical attributes of religion, which binds the Godly knowledge into limits. Baba has said in murlis that after you undergo the seven days course you can live in any part of the world and remember me and follow me, without being bound by any physical rules and regulations. The only requirement is purity of thoughts, speech and action. Baba's knowledge helps us in accepting the humanity as it is and even in transforming it.
With regards
arjuna

mitra · Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2004 4:07 am Post subject:

Dear Isabel,
As a BK i think the aim in life is to become happy. If some one feels sadness and if I too become sad , then how can I make the other person happy?. So there is no point in crying by seeing the other person crying.
As a BK how can one become ALONE? The supreme teacher is ALWAYS present with everyone who ever follows his DIRECTIONS.
We are actually accepting HUMANITY ie why we are living in cities . {we are not going to forests to do our meditation} we are "Pravrithi marg"
_________________
OH! I have miles and miles to go before I become PERFECT !

Paul · Joined: 13 Mar 2004 Posts: 72

mitra · Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2004 11:51 pm Post subject:

You are dealing with people who know and have experienced the BKs from the inside
[I know that each soul has got his/her own experience. But we have to look into each matter positively]

"untouchable"

[Here the inner meaning is that we should not touch the vices. Even if a person is from a good, royal , elevated family, if he has some vices, then we should not touch them THROUGH OUR MIND.]

The BK God is highly discriminatory. He is stepfather to billions!!! Even by BK estimates, the 900,000 chosen ones - the souls who will take birth at the begining of the Golden Age - represent less than 1/10 of 1 percent of the world's Hindu population. So where does this leave persons of Christian, Muslim, Buddhist etc background?

[We have members from other religion also]

Oh, we know the dogma about how such souls could have belonged to the diety religion and can now get a chance to "reconvert" or "transfer" back to the diety religion.

[your above point is absolutely RIGHT] Laughing

Do you think that BKs really see Westerners that way?

[We are seeing the SOUL not the BODY] Smile

I can tell you that the significance of one's "bodily" background is well understood and taken note of by them....in spite of all the talk about "soul consciousness".

[No body has become PERFECT YET. SO there may be weakness in some souls. We are all trying to become perfect. We are studying for that purpose.] Smile

There is a murli which actually states that the souls who remained Hindu in this last confluence age birth will have the edge in the new world of paradise.

[It is also said that All souls are given the same teaching regardless of their caste, creed, religion, country etc. So there is no sense in that point . If at all the murli states like that kindly refer the date so that I can confirm it.]

Westerners need to wisen up.

[Not only them but also indians . Actually Indians will wake up only after hearing from their western brothers. Cool

]
_________________
OH! I have miles and miles to go before I become PERFECT !

isabel · Joined: 24 Mar 2004 Posts: 39

Wow Paul, your post was like a breath of fresh air. It feels so good to talk honestly and openly my doubts. Arjuna and Mitra, thank you, I know as b.K.s you are only trying to do what is best for me and I send you warm wishes. Right now I feel the need to speak my thoughts though and voice the concerns I felt I could voice to no one for so long.

Even posting is scary. For so long I felt that to voice qualms would bring punishment, that I wasn't being faithful to Baba if I said anything about the B.K.s that could possibly be construed as doubt. But I think God requires that we be honest and give voice to our doubts. Let me make clear to the b.k.s reading this that I know this path has been wonderous for many of you and I'm not seeking to take away from that. I honor that. It's just not the right thing for me right now.

Back to the issue at hand. Excellent insights, Paul. You're right, about how the elitism contributes to that wonderful, wonderful feeling of being God's chosen one. I will admit to having reveled in that intoxication. Yet I am bothered by exactly the issues you raise. The part of me that I try to listen to for truth says we all are fundamentally equal. Other peoples inner voices may tell them differently, but this is what mine is telling me. I just couldn't manage to quite swallow the notion of a hierachical Golden age. This notion that somehow people would be satisfied to have a destiny as servants and that this would be a perfect world. In my perfect world there are no masters and there are no servants.

Okay, I'll stop here in case you are still logged in

Paul · Joined: 13 Mar 2004 Posts: 72

isabel · Joined: 24 Mar 2004 Posts: 39

Yes, I think fear is used to encourage compliance. And I think this links back to our earlier discussion regarding the elitism of the B.K.s One establishes a link with Baba, the experience is truly wonderful. We are then told we are special and unique because we've had that experience. Then we are told of all the things we cannot do if we want to avoid becoming inpure or dishonoring the B.K.s and the list seemed to grow with every murli. You treasure that feeling of specialness and you don't want to dishonor that being that has brought so much joy. Out of fear of endangering that relationship and losing that specialness you follow the directions in the murli. You think, this joy I have can't be explained by reason, therefore although to not speak my doubts aloud goes against reason, perhaps I need to trust. That thought process is what I think actually goes on when 'the opening of the intellect' is said to take place. You stop listening to your doubts and start taking what is said in the murlis on blind faith. For me this was a huge step, I'd never been able to have faith like that before. Yet there was one conversation I had with another B.K. that began to weigh heavily on my mind. This was shortly afterthe woman in Germany, someone who lead a splinter group from the B.K.s, was arrested for trying to lead her groups' members to mass suicide. The B.K. I was speaking with commented that the members of the cult had obviously not used their powers of discernment. At that time I thought, jeesh, I've had to suspend all my powers of discernment to 'imbibe knowledge', I'm in no better shape. I often wondered, what would I do if for some reason I was called to Mt. Abu because we were given the message that the world was about to end...

What I felt to be the use of fear to encourage blind faith disturbed me. I wanted so much to enter into a real dialogue with someone about the fact that I felt God should be pure love, why would God teach fear? Why would God threaten? Wasn't the experience of bliss enough of a carrot? Why was it necessary to drag out a stick? It didn't seem like God should spend so much time chastising...

Paul · Joined: 13 Mar 2004 Posts: 72

Isabel, that German woman's name was Heide Fittkau-Garthe. She was a bit of a flake....to put it mildly...and (talk about irony) a psychologist by training. The attempted suicide fiasco happened in Tenerife, a Portuguese island in the Azores. You can read more about it here:

http://www.trancenet.org/groups/news/rogers/9801.shtml

Of course, the BKs cannot be blamed for what she did.

Anyway, back to elitism. This time, I will address it from the aspect of "VIP service". I am sure you know this is a big thing with the BKs. And you probably know the rationales for it. I was told that they emphasize this because:

(1) People look up to, take note of, and are influenced by what leaders do. In a similar vein, celebrities are good to meet and mingle with, as they attract attention and crowds.

(2) The way to kill a snake (so to speak) is by getting to its head.

Now, (1) and (2) may be true. But do the ends justify the means? The thing is this: what may have started out as an innocent tactic (or "yukti") in doing "service" has now become deeply embedded in the culture of the BKs. They love nothing better than to show photos of themselves with this Minister, that celebrity or this millionaire. These "worldly" VIPs may be as vicious as ever (by BK definition) but the red carpet is rolled out for them and they are given royal treatment. On the other hand, sincere BK followers who may be simple, of moderate means and undistinguished are given short shrift.

To his credit, SB will sometimes chime in and say "I am the Lord of the poor". However, the focus on the powerful, wealthy and influential has become so strong that it is sometimes difficult to accept that this is a truly spiritual organization. I am sure that I am not telling you something that you don't already know. The question is, when will the kowtowing to the "worldly" powerful end?

isabel · Joined: 24 Mar 2004 Posts: 39

Your discussion of ends justifying means really strikes a chord - and it's helping me think through some things.

It seems like one of my main 'beefs' (hah coming from a vegetarian! Smile

) with the B.K. movement is exactly the issue you raise, the willingness to have ends justify means. The B.K.s set out two tasks for themselves, which I think are at loggerheads. The first is to be a pure movement that nurtures the spiritual growth of its followers and remains above human pettiness. The second is to manage an organization that MUST grow if it is not to violate the murli's declaration of how history is to proceed.

That's how I think I justified a lot that I was uncomfortable with to myself. I reasoned that God must operate through human beings & the only way to orchestrate a spiritual movement among human beings is to ask them to build an organization with all the human trappings. Because this organization must reach as many people as possible, in a falliable world, it must behave as organizations seeking to add members in an impure world do ie kowtowing to VIPs, squelching dissent, encouraging service. Therefore to me Brahma Baba could remain infalliable and whatever the B.K.s did was okay even though it seemed at adds with the very values they preached. Also things in the Murli that seemed off color to me, such as the threats of punishment for dissent & the whole VIP service thing, could be justified because the B.K.s were an organizational entity where members needed to tow the line if they were to grow quickly.

Yes, where does it end? To be honest I wish there was a way to be a b.K. without all the organizational propaganda nonsense, without the assumption of a less-than-ideal (and less than believable!) sounding Golden age , without the notion that B.K.s are the only ones who have the true experience of God, and with a true emphasis on equality. I experienced tremendous spiritual growth with the b.K.s. I didn't need a Golden age to make my sacrifices worth it, but I needed honesty and I needed to not be part of a propaganda machine.

Thanks so much for putting the time into this Paul, it's really helping me think through this stuff. If there are other XBKs out there that would like to sort through stuff, even if and especially if you see things differently, please, hop on in!

Atma · Joined: 26 Feb 2004 Posts: 98

mitra · Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2004 2:06 am Post subject:

. Let me make clear to the b.k.s reading this that I know this path has been wonderous for many of you and I'm not seeking to take away from that. I honor that. It's just not the right thing for me right now.

[Isabel- this is the right time for you to become SOUL conscious. Once a soul becomes SOUL conscious then all the problems will disappear]

In my perfect world there are no masters and there are no servants.

[You are right -IN Golden age there may be servants and masters but there is no feeling that this person is a servant or that person is a master etc. In that period, every body treats every one with love and respect Smile

_________________
OH! I have miles and miles to go before I become PERFECT !

joy · Joined: 23 Mar 2004 Posts: 9

Very interesting reading these replies - however, one point stands out - everyone seems to agree that the meditation and basic teachings (apart from detailed murli teachings as per cycle, etc) make people feel fantastic or least much better than they had before meditating and learning a little bit about their true nature. As Jesus said "judge a man not by the fruit of his mouth (or words) but by his fruit of action (or what he does)". The fruit here would appear to be, at least initially, evidence of improvement of experience. Soo, as so many seem to be saying also, how to reconcile the ambivalencies. Because, I for one, do not want to let go of that wonderful connection to God and simple solution of returning to one's pure spiritual self. Smile

It definitely works! Exclamation

mitra · Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2004 12:13 am Post subject:

The latter may be less "blissed out", may even show some angst, but their thinking is logical and they speak straight from the heart.

[No body is "OUT" from the sea of Knowledge Surprised

Because it is ETERNAL and another point is -THERE is only ONE shop which is selling this knowledge. So every one has to come to this shop at the END Laughing

]
_________________
OH! I have miles and miles to go before I become PERFECT !

gyaniwasi · Joined: 22 Feb 2004 Posts: 167

Paul wrote: