Save Innocents wrote:Shanti is right, one thing that drives BKs crazy is the insecurity. They are always in fear of their boss Dadis who can anytime declare them unauthentic, ignorant & unsuitable for their type of Yoga. And can even instruct the BK to get out of their system. Insecurity in BK system is very high. It rises with age, as they grow older they are bound to stick to the system's beliefs or if they are expelled, where would they go & get food for free? It would be shameful to show up to their lokik family whom they rejected during teenage.
This is all very true. BKism is built not on love but on 'total insecurity'.
I am particularly talking about the majority in India here, not the "luxury BKs" in the West who are required to have a job and allow a little independence, a Brahma Kumari has no security whatsoever. No rights at all. They can be chucked out on the whim of an elder at any time and outcast from the community they may even have built up.
For the low ranking Brahma Kumaris, it's a form of slavery ... servitude for life under the promise of rewards -
ho ho ho - in the next. No pension, no shared ownership, no democratic rights, not even any holidays.
Talented Westerners, like Anthony, are just a facade ... as someone recently said to me, like a puppet show the BK masters can perform in front of an audience to attract new followers.
Westerner BKs like Anthony willingly played this role in India. The BKs used to literally say it ... "Look at us, we've even got White people following us" to impress dark skinned Indians. And, in my opinion, some Western BKs used to enjoy it, swanning around as if they were elevated gurus dressed up in mufti.
Others were a little embarrassed by it, and the generousity despite the poverty of many Indian who were thrilled to have foreign guests ... but I never heard any standing up to question and challenge the inequality of it all. It was just accept as "their karma".
And this is a point I always made about the elite BKs. They say, "Oh, we don't accept donations". The followers say, "oh but Dadi lives so humbly" (cue picture of BK in that white Rolls Royce) ... which is fair enough to fool the Western mind ... until you see what poverty for the elderly in India *really* looks for those without family or a proper trade or profession.
But now the BKs are so big in India, so well financed and able to buy in so much technology etc, that I am thinking Western BKs are no longer a big thing for them and they have become more dispensable. That they have gone back to being what they pretty much were in the first place, for the most part pretty penniless, low in status, and eccentric.
As for the trances ... I don't know. Yes, especially for individuals who have died, a large part of it does come across as staged. We have read of examples where "BapDada" has had to be prompted as to who is who and Gulzar has "forgotten" to keep up the act or come out of trance for some reason and confused everying ... but I think something does happen in some of them. I just don't think it is anywhere near a god, reliable or that meaningful.
Trance and mediumship is really no big deal, especially in India etc. The only thing that is reliable about it is that it is absolutely unreliable.
However, I am still interested in how it is use to denote rights and rank and what values system it manifests within the BKWSU.
40 years of fairly faultless servitude and not rocking the boat and Strano still did not even make it into the club.
Open your eyes BKs ... what does that suggest for you newcomers?
All the first generation Western BKs are now approaching retirement age. A few have already reached it. Destruction has not saved them ... what have they got?
If they are lucky, their Shudra lokik parents will have left them some money and may be a property, which the BKs will be eyeing up, but what will they get for a life time of service to the Shiv Shakti Army? Is there the income to support them in their old age?
Phew ... even during their 'official holiday' in Mount Abu, they still have to get up 4 am in the morning every day.