Welcome to the forum Searcher and great to see the balance you seek. its probably an individual journey at any rate. My comment here is that if there is a connection' available to whatever or whoever we decide it to be when practicing BK style meditation/Yoga, then that connection should be fully maintainable away from a BK centre too.
I'd hazard a guess here is that many ex-BK members have certainly tried that route themselves thinking, "I can do this at home by myself, no need to go to morning class" etc etc only to find that connection you talk about changing and altering and in many cases, other spiritual connections being made (we may need to ask others of their experience too here?). If this is so, then I'd say that the morning class, Amrit Vela and the whole BK system is simply set up to keep the connection to one thought-stream, one way of realisation only, going strong. After all the power behind the BKWSU theory is "One Life-One Baba" or something like that, not allowing in any other thoughts or experiences.
So, in essence, I see it as a state of constriction, not expansion. Expansion would be "all-allowing"or "all-encompassing" surely?