Experiencing God

for ex-BKs to discuss matters related to experiences in BKWSU & after leaving.
  • Message
  • Author

Wonieka A. Meuter

  • Posts: 29
  • Joined: 28 Dec 2012
  • Location: The Netherlands

Experiencing God

Post02 Jan 2013

Back of the bike with my mother, I seem to have loudly asked, "Mommy, does God exist?". In retrospect, I think I knew the answer as a toddler. To the religion classes at public elementary school I didn’t want. At the age of 10 I was sure that there are different religions, but there is only one God.

In my teens I wanted to know why people went to church and as so many people believed in God, then He surely had to exist. Then there had to be something. I had friends who were raised a Christian and who I felt sincere in their faith. On my own I cycled on Sunday to several churches in the neighbourhood. I did not feel welcome and the faith remained far from me standing.

In my student years I was taken by a friend to the Brahma Kumaris, where I did the introductory course and then also did follow some lessons. I had considerably lost myself, already had a few relationships and loose boyfriends and faced a choice at that moment. During the inter-rail holiday with a boyfriend, I ended up to the Greek sea, with whiplash in my neck, desperately cried out to God. Two months later, when I could not go on with that friend I took my decision: God, if this is not working, so I can now live celibate.

More than eight years I have followed the path of the Brahma Kumaris. Every day meditation, every day working with God to remember and to investigate myself. Although I had sometimes beautiful meditation experiences, I didn’t found God. I got stuck on the organizational structures and the lack of freedom that I experienced there. Precisely because I was thinking maybe I could found God only at the Brahma Kumaris and because I didn’t succeed, I felt a deep pain in my final decision to continue my path alone.

For years I have parked all the ideas of the Brahma Kumaris and I started looking for myself including through Osho meditations, emotional bodywork and intuitive development. Occasionally God came over on the sideline, but I was not really into it. The long process of transformation and healing resulted at one point to the observation that no old pain was present and that I had my personality at my disposal in freedom. Although it seems that how I live an enlightened life differs from the majority of those who call themselves Enlightened, I could find no better word for.

Now, a few years after the observation that I had achieved complete inner freedom, to me God came back in the picture, with the questions whom it is and why I would keep busy with God. To my surprise, the founder of the Brahma Kumaris, Brahma Baba, came to me during a meditation, which the eight years Brahma Kumaris came to stand for me in another perspective, and I went better understand what that period has means to me.

All answers I still have not and maybe that will come in the future. But I think I know what it's like to experience God and what that feels like. I can not only tell you. There are no words to indicate. You could maybe join me in meditation, as I recently did a toddler. Actually it is very easy to experience God, only there is too much come between. You yourself came between with everything that you've become unfree. Your images, ideas and beliefs about God have come to be between. And sometimes it's simply too crowded in your head. Then it asks you to make space inside to allow God and to allow the experience.

In life, live here on earth with the people and between people it is very nice to me to connect with God, as a source of love and silence. It is my wish to make it also possible for you to experience God and to express in your life and your personality.

Wonieka A. Meuter

I made an English translation for this blog. I am not very well in English, so excuse for the insufficient translation.
I published this article d.d. 22-2-2012 at http://ontwikkelennaarheelzijn.wordpress.com
User avatar

ex-l

ex-BK

  • Posts: 10661
  • Joined: 07 Apr 2006

Re: Experiencing God

Post03 Jan 2013

Do you think "God", and the god of the Brahma Kumaris are one and the same thing?

Do you think the Brahma Kumaris understand or portray God as it is?

Patzcuaro

BK supporter

  • Posts: 34
  • Joined: 03 Jan 2013

Re: Experiencing God

Post03 Jan 2013

It is good to read a post from someone that has been through BK and other spiritual practices, especially because you can see that the important and transcendent spiritual experiences come together with self compromise, patience and emotional intelligence.

Getting to know yourself is a great decision and could be the most exciting adventure, but this depends on each one's capacity to judge inputs along the path (and it's normal to receive thousands of them from many spiritual practices) but in a constructive way, because to talk and gossip about everything you find in this adventure does not help you in knowing you better. And the only way to experience God is by experiencing yourself before.

In spiritual life it is absolutely useless to spend any energy in criticising others spiritual path.

So, after reading most of the posts in this blog I keep this one as one of the few that joins self compromise, patience and emotional intelligence, the rest are only destructive and non-respectful thoughts against an institution that has given, as many others, essential clues to self finding.


Looking at most of the posts on this blog makes me think about my seven years as a very active BK in Mexico. I followed every routine and also went to Madhuban and Gyan Sarovar. I had many experiences in meditation following BK rules. I did not agree on everything but fortunatelyI was able to keep what it was helping me and avoid what it was not.


I owe BK a very important step on The Ladder, and very especially I owe BK a crystal clear set of clues to what today, after almost 20 years in the spiritual search, is my close and intense relation with God.
User avatar

ex-l

ex-BK

  • Posts: 10661
  • Joined: 07 Apr 2006

Re: Experiencing God

Post03 Jan 2013

I am still interested to know if both of you still consider the god of the BKs is "God", and vice versa.
Patzcuaro wrote:In spiritual life it is absolutely useless to spend any energy in criticising others spiritual path.

Do you think that a discussion of the value of ethics ... or lack thereof ... has no place in the development of a religion or its relationship with the rest of society?

I guess I gave up the idea that there was a "spiritual life", separate from real life, and upon which real life values like honesty and integrity did not apply. I guess we might also discuss what sort of a "spiritual life" one might have where there is a lack of honest and integrity as in the BKWSU.

I am glad to hear that you have outgrown it and moved on.
User avatar

howiemac

ex-BK

  • Posts: 215
  • Joined: 08 Apr 2006
  • Location: Scotland

Re: Experiencing God

Post04 Jan 2013

ex-l wrote:I gave up the idea that there was a "spiritual life", separate from real life, and upon which real life values like honesty and integrity did not apply.

What "real-life" world are you living in ex-l? Do you find honesty and integrity there? For me the BKs are very much "real-life" in their approach to such things! That is the problem!

Wonieka and Patzcuaro: I agree with ex-l (for once), that it is good that
you have outgrown it and moved on

The BK experience can be very helpful for some. Not everyone ends up a victim.

Wonieka A. Meuter

  • Posts: 29
  • Joined: 28 Dec 2012
  • Location: The Netherlands

Re: Experiencing God

Post04 Jan 2013

Thank you for your question ex-l, Patzcuaro for sharing your views and experience with the BK and howiemac for your reply.

As I wrote in this article, I think there is only one God. I regret that people are arguing about what God is more true. God is always true, it is only the people who give words to God. It depends on the degree of purity of the people, to what extent they can experience and understand God.

For me a pure heart is a heart that is healed of old pain. And if your heart is free and warm, you no longer think in right or wrong, in we and them. Someone with a pure heart has nothing to defend or hold or to prove.

With love, Wonieka

dany

  • Posts: 192
  • Joined: 11 May 2012

Re: Experiencing God

Post04 Jan 2013

Purity is beyond human nature ...!!
User avatar

ex-l

ex-BK

  • Posts: 10661
  • Joined: 07 Apr 2006

Re: Experiencing God

Post04 Jan 2013

Wonieka A. Meuter wrote:As I wrote in this article, I think there is only one God *.

This is a genuine query, not a trick question ...

* If so, do you believe that is God possessed Lekhraj Kirpalani and is sitting on the stage in Madhuban?

How have your opinions about God changed since before/during/after your BK days, and how did you come to terms with the various stages?

For example,
    Did you reach a point where you decided the BKs' full conceptions of God was not true, and they were misguided?

    Or do you think God is and always has been universal, and whatever the spirit possessing the BK mediums is something else?

    Are you still meditating on the BKs' God (Baba), or were you always meditating on your own God during the time you were with them?
I am trying to be direct and specific enough without wishing to guide your answer.

Thank you.

Wonieka A. Meuter

  • Posts: 29
  • Joined: 28 Dec 2012
  • Location: The Netherlands

Re: Experiencing God

Post04 Jan 2013

Dear ex-l,

In this reaction, I feel that you really want an answer and really wants to know what I think about. The tricky it is that I can tell you, but it still remains unsatisfactory for you because it is my answer. The answers that I have now, I have found after lots of research by myself. For me these are the best answers.

But I do not want you completely empty-handed.

God is for me God. Maybe that Brahma Baba in the beginning has experienced God in its most universal form. I was not there, I do not met Brahma Baba. And now when I look at the Brahma Kumaris and how the organization has developed, then I have doubts about their way of approaching God. Especially since I've read this forum etc. I think for example that you never can claim the monopoly on God. God is there for everyone and for everybody who opens up with an open heart. I do not think God imposes rules or any limitation whatsoever. God let you free. It is up to you what you want to do with your life.

The answer to your last question can be found in my blogs, also in that about meditation. And if your question is whether I still call God ‘Baba’, then the answer is no.

I have long sought answers outside myself and it has brought me inter alia to the Brahma Kumaris and not really to myself. I was confused, because it never became something of myself. I wish you that you gonna find ways to have your own answers and to have your own experiences to do.

With love, Wonieka
User avatar

ex-l

ex-BK

  • Posts: 10661
  • Joined: 07 Apr 2006

Re: Experiencing God

Post05 Jan 2013

Wonieka A. Meuter wrote:God is for me God. Maybe that Brahma Baba in the beginning has experienced God in its most universal form ...

I'll will explain a little more why I think these are important questions but, firstly, I'll just encourage you to look at some of the early 1930s and 1940s documents will have discovered.

Until after 1950, there was no "Shiva Baba" soul in the BK religion, "God" was a "universal divine light". The entire "1936 ... Shivoham ... Shivoham" history the BKs tell is bogus. False. Made up. A lie. Perhaps Lekhraj Kirpalani did have a "universal god experience" in the early period ... although I am not convinced. I think other things went on he could not understand.
    But what then do you make of the whole BapDada in Gulzar, Shiva Baba inside Lekhraj Kirpalani show?

    Do you believe there are spirit/souls involved, popping in and out of bodies as the BKs teach, and that they are God?
Why I think these are important questions is because I believe most Westerners attracted by the Brahma Kumaris are sincerely seeking some kind of God experience or God relationship but that, as you write, the BK confuse that "God" with themselves and misdirect or confuse people's "God" intentions.

We are sucked in by earnest seeking the highest but then the BKs re-label whatever it is they are and they have as that highest ... and give it to us instead. Our intentions and energies are gradually re-directed into them (and their bank accounts).

I see this happening the most, and am most unhappy, the BKs efforts in the "multi-faith movement" (groups where numerous religions meet to talk). Even as a BK, and more so since, I feel very much that the BKs are deceiving other religious people ... as I or we were deceived. Other religions are sincerely talking about "God being One" ... but the BKs are talking about "our God being that One". I feel that they are deceiving other religions in the language, misrepresentation, and withholding of information ... and that deception is not Godly.

Personally, I have no interest in anything remotely "of God" or "Godly" now. For me, basically all religions are just businesses to feed and clothe their priesthoods, and mostly the business of selling ghost (fear) and fairy stories. The best part of religions are better done by counselors and therapists. The worst of religions are parasites, including many within the BKWSU.

If the gods exist, which they may well do, they can get on perfectly well without me, and me without them. If I was a "god", the last thing I would want are the masses fawning over me as if I was Michael Jackson.

Funnily enough, even being godless I have not become an evil or depraved person.

If you care to respond more specifically, I would like to add something else about spiritual experience *after* the BKWSU.
User avatar

howiemac

ex-BK

  • Posts: 215
  • Joined: 08 Apr 2006
  • Location: Scotland

Re: Experiencing God

Post06 Jan 2013

Belief in God is not compulsory for spiritual progress. Look at Buddhism, for me the most switched on, and obviously effective, of mainstream religions. God is (generally) not involved at all. And, of course, religion is not necessary either for spiritual progress (in fact it is generally an obstacle to it).

That said, I think if one believes in God, and has any involvement with the BKs, then it is vitally important to retain a strict separation in the mind between your concept of God, and the BK's "Baba" (which Baba? any Baba). Otherwise they will program you into believing (in standard generic religious fashion) that God can only be accessed via their priesthood (in this case - for those that pay attention, and avoid Dadi-worship - via Brahma Baba).

Retain your own concept of God, and your own relationship with God. Do not allow "Baba" to be the middleman.

Then when you leave the BKs, they cannot fool you into thinking you are "leaving God" also. ("what happened to him?".." oh he left Baba")

You know better.

For this reason, I am glad to see Wonieka say she doesn't call God "Baba". I don't either.

I had a relationship (which may or may not be imaginary) with God before meeting the BKs, and I have that same relationship now. And I have tried doing without it, and that worked also, but just made things more difficult.

"My" God is for everyone, and accessible to everyone. Formless, nameless, unconditionally loving, and always there for you. I can replace "God" with "divinity", or "the light", or "my perfect self" and it makes no difference. But if I replace "God" with "Baba", then I am back in the BK control zone, where fear can be used to mess my head up.

Wonieka A. Meuter

  • Posts: 29
  • Joined: 28 Dec 2012
  • Location: The Netherlands

Re: Experiencing God

Post06 Jan 2013

"My" God is for everyone, and accessible to everyone. Formless, nameless, unconditionally loving, and always there for you. I can replace "God" with "divinity", or "the light", or "my perfect self" and it makes no difference.


Thank you for your reply. What you say above is how I also expeience. I still use the word God, because I have no better name for it, but I am always aware of the emotionally charge of that word.

An important part of my development was without me to connect with God. I find it more helpful with God. I have wondered why I could connect with God and what it gives me. I have a blog written about. If you like, you can find it at: http://ontwikkelennaarheelzijn.wordpres ... 09/28/god/

With love, Wonieka
User avatar

ex-l

ex-BK

  • Posts: 10661
  • Joined: 07 Apr 2006

Re: Experiencing God

Post06 Jan 2013

I take that as a "no" to my questions then ... you now consider the whole BapDada in Gulzar, Shiva Baba inside Lekhraj Kirpalani to be not "God".

Do you believe they (Gulzar/Lekhraj Kirpalani) are/were accessing *your* God to some degree, that other spirits exist? Or that something else/nothing is going on? Is there more than one, or many level of God?

I mentioned post-BK spiritual experiences. Howiemac asserted that his pre-BK and post-BK experience are essential the same. It's hard not to concur with his 're-direction theory'.

I have questioned in the past whether individuals still experience the god of the BKs, or whatever the BKs experience is, but re-conceive or re-label it to be different post-BK. As in, it is still "Baba" but now they go back to conceiving of it at the Universal God.

My own experience is that post-BK I was able to switch on or tap in BK-type experiences and found it an interference to other practises or non-practise. For example, I could go to a Buddhist meditation center but it was clear that I was slipping back into BK practise there. BKs would see this as evidence it was the most powerful but I found it unpleasant and distracting. Because the nature of the BK God and priest is so dubious and lacking, it is something I was not happy with and yet did not know how to rid myself of.

I've read others voice similar opinions. They want to or find it hard to break free from its influence (whether it is a thing, a being or a state), they feel blocked or want to be free of it. Indeed, we have heard even more extreme and negative spiritual experiences on this forum.

I think some also leave the BKWSU in body, but not in mind. Some are defensive and don't want to question the BKWSU. Others want to keep good relationships for the sake of New Agey businesses.

Patzcuaro

BK supporter

  • Posts: 34
  • Joined: 03 Jan 2013

Re: Experiencing God

Post07 Jan 2013

Atter seven years of full inmersion in BK, and even opening a small centre, I obviously keep a lot of essential lessons, and believe me, the BK idea of God is not in the first one hundred list.

One day, walking around Gyan Sarovar with Atan Prakash, one of the most fascinating members of the BK core, I asked him about his definition of love, and he only said:

"Love means not 'to expect', to stop expecting means real love and that is the only way to enlightenment"

He never mentioned God, but he gave me the clue to what, many years later, was the morning I finally experienced the most tender, intense and loveful hug. Very few times I call him God, most of them I just say "You"

Now I know what Atam Prakash meant. We was trying to tell me that it was not useful to ask for definitions or signs. He perfectly understands that is silence and inner own experience what brings you closer to your divine essence, and also that that is the only possible way to experience God.

It's clear that he feels the essence of BK and he does not stop on "details". If Gulzar Dadi lends her body to God, that is a detail. Any further research on this is useless.

clearernow

Re: Experiencing God

Post08 Jan 2013

Hello Patzcuaro

Very interesting perspective and again good to see few people on this forum that show derived benefit in their lives from BK association stay focussed on their self development and take responsibility for their choices. To me as well, the debate on my God, your God, BKs God and so on seems useless as there is a lot to learn and grow within and belief in who God is really an entirely personal choice and belief on the spiritual journey.

Best wishes
Clearernow
Next

Return to Commonroom

cron