Minesh wrote:On a related point, it also seems there are also less 'hardcore' young BKs now - that era in which Hindu parents became BKs and expected the same from the children has gone which could mean that the pressure to surrender etc is probably not a big issue. Any thoughts?
I cannot speak for India, and that is the big missing components in our understanding, but guess the majority of Indian parents in the Western BKWSU back then had much less in life, including education themselves. They had just arrived in the UK, some with very little. They were mostly of the lower castes. The BKs provided some kind of new, improved Hinduism Lite™ for them ...
I think the BKs have specifically targeted Sindi ex-pats and emigrant Hindu communities ... what would they know?
My impression is that they were mainly a Gujerati and trusted what the Sindis told them God's word was. How were they to know it had be revised many times? I suppose it was just exploiting their natural instinct to want the best for their child and for their child to get ahead ... and if ahead led to Golden Palaces and high status in the Golden Age, which was benefit their "karma", then push their daughters into surrendering they would.
Oliver, you raise a good point about the absolute audacity and insult of the Brahma Kumaris calling themselves a "University", the translation they chose for "Vishwa Vidyalaya". "Oh, we're not a university, we're a "Spiritual University" they say ... what does that mean? Just because it is a "Spiritual University", does it exempt it from doing all the things a university does? No, it just sounds expansively impressive.
I remember it was said in the Murlis by Lekhraj Kirpalani, "
call yourself a University then no one will complain" ... it has worked for them. They have gotten away with it despite the law in most countries requiring any "university" to be formally recognised. Interestingly, what I did not know back then was that they had widely been accused of being a cult based on hypnosis before then.
A question for both of you ... how can BK kids be brought up and *not* be told about Destruction?Minesh, you also mentioned earlier you were grateful for their introduction of concepts such as virtues and values. Of course, we would have to discuss which virtues and values and how they interpreted them. Couldn't a dictionary, and perhaps some classic literature, given you just as good an introduction to them without any of the additional overheads?
How was the real university for you? Did you have fun or did you stick it out, and stick out, as a BK and serve them instead? I know others for whom it was difficult.Yes, I was of a generation who were encouraged to get a low paid, demeaning and brain dead job, and gave up further education/university. I am suffering from it until now. I was actually in a first year when I encountered the BKs and it became obvious that I could not follow the career/professional that I wanted and be a BK at the same time. At that time they did not take many surrender individuals at all ... they needed income more and so you were pressed to work.
They not only encouraged individuals out of educations but also encouraged them away from enterprise/business ... and, of course, at that time (
unlike now it seems) BKs were not allow to discuss or develop business ideas together.
Looking back, I have no idea what they thought we were meant to be doing. As I often pick up, their system was and still is hugely abstract and unequal. Someone in business was allow to do business but someone not in business was not allow to start it. No BK was allow to help another BK up. If you had a profession or were an "-ologist", you were some kind of super star and used for VIP service ... but if you did not have one you were not allow to become one even if you were perfectly capable of doing so thereby excluding you from the cushy "service" jobs.
I've been reading about you Enlightened ... now I am thinking of my own experience, how bizarre their environment was and how much I lost.
We were also not allowed to be on the dole either which really should have been none of their business if one was or was not, according to whether one could find work or not ... or whether one was using that time to work out one's mental and emotional issues.
I am a great believer that young people straight out of school or university should take a "gap year" or two, travel, unwind, widen their perspectives ... see a bit of the rest of the world away from their crazy families and to do as Enlightened is doing now ... find out who they are and what they want to do. An utterly alien idea to our the BK overlords.
They even owned, as En wrote, what we wore, how we moved, how we spoke, when we cut our hair, what belongings we had etc ... any alternative hobbies or interests were out. Even health and exercise. It was a total invasion if you let them ... and the teachings absolutely encouraged you to do so.
What makes it more bizarre was they they were ruled by an educationally stunted, Janki Kirpalani, who had only two years of school or something (basic arithmetic) and never held a job, and a university drop out called Jayanti Kripalani who only did a couple of terms as pharmacy school (
correct details if required).
Jayanti Kripalani is obviously gifted intellectually. With her memory, she could have achieved greatness. In her biography, she blames her dropping out on British Universities for being racist and sexist ... but there has to be more than that. I think it is a politically correct sounding pose. If I remember right, her grades were not good enough to get in to London University ... but she could have re-sat or tried to get into a different university.
I suspect Jayanti just really did not want to do either medicine or pharmacy and her BK mother and Father would not let her leave their home or do/find what she really wanted to do in life. As Liz Hodgkinson wrote, "her natural bent was not to sciences but arts" and what she had was a "burning desire" to be financially independent and have status. Her mother had been a BK since 1957 when she was 8 years old ... possible before there was even a god Shiva in their religion.
Sudesh was another non-starter in the education department. Not stupid by any means (
well, OK, stupid enough to stare at the Sun until it blinded one eye) but not developed either.
Given their degree of influence in shaping the Western BKWSU, might it be worth discussing them within this context?