Millenarianism and the age of transition

for ex-BKs to discuss matters related to experiences in BKWSU & after leaving.
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jann

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Millenarianism and the age of transition

Post06 Mar 2014

Neville Hodgkinson wrote:Millenarianism and the Age of Transition

When I first met the BKs, in 1981, I was attracted by what seemed to me to be a rare generosity of spirit. I felt this had become depleted in myself, after years of living in what I was beginning to realise had been a rather narrow, self-centred way. I loved their “giving” ways of doing things, and became a regular student because I wanted to be more like that myself. The peaceful atmosphere in the centres uplifted me and I felt great joy whenever I visited.

As I followed the recommended lifestyle, the battery of my inner being developed a positive charge, increasing my own ability to be more appreciative and accepting in my relationships in the home and at work. This reinforced my determination to continue with my practice of Raja Yoga. When someone asked me, soon after I had started, why I was a BK, I replied that it was to improve my character.

It therefore came as a surprise to me when I read in an internet posting some years later that the BKs were a “millenarian cult”. I was not even sure what millenarian meant, but it was clear from the context that the writer did not intend to be complimentary.

Wikipedia says the term comes from the Latin millenarius, “containing a thousand”, and is “the belief by a religious, social, or political group or movement in a coming major transformation of society, after which all things will be changed. Millenarianism is a concept or theme that exists in many cultures and religions.” Well, I have now faced the fact that BK teachings are definitely millenarian in character, and in this article I set out some of the reasons why I think such ways of thinking not just hold appeal to many, but have real value for humanity.

Visions of a forthcoming global transformation were a central motivation of Brahma Baba’s in taking the dramatic steps that brought the Brahma Kumaris into being. He saw “end times” of mass physical destruction, though he was clear that the human soul is eternal and never dies. Those apocalyptic scenes were followed by glimpses of a Golden Age of humanity – of heaven on Earth. He developed the conviction that time runs in an ever-repeating closed loop, and that these were prophetic visions of a period soon to come. He felt that the urgent call of this time was to restore the pure consciousness that would fit us for the return of paradise, and that women – God’s “Shakti Army” – would take the lead in this task.

Thus it was that he sold his prospering diamond business, gave the proceeds in trust to the founding Sisters, and incurred the wrath of many in his community by advocating sexual abstinence as vital to the renewal of spirit that would bring about a renewed world.

During the first 14 years of the movement, from 1937-1950, a group of 300-400 lived in a semi-closed community in Karachi. This period spanned the violent partition of India as well as the terrible events of the 1939-45 War, and they sensed that every year could be their last.

The Sisters felt that by sacrificing their material consciousness in a fire of love, they were releasing a divine power that is in us all. As this spiritual fire grew, it would be accompanied by the death of the old world, with all its sorrow and imperfections, making way for numerous generations of unbroken happiness.

The founding members tried to alert others to their beliefs. A 1943 document sent to many prominent people, including the King and Queen of England as well as Indian political and religious leaders, declared: “Practically the whole world has to face annihilation in the conflagration ignited through the power of this Divine Yagya.”

This and other detailed and elaborately worded documents of similar tone survive to this day in the British Museum and elsewhere. They probably became something of an embarrassment to the leaders of the movement as it grew in strength and respectability, and were only brought to light in recent years by BK researchers in lands outside India.

The founders were a small and embattled group, facing many obstacles. But the power of their belief motivated them to make huge efforts in detaching from their physical identity and renewing awareness of their own divinity. The resulting joy that they experienced brought about a profound desire to help others grow spiritually, and this has powered the movement in its work across the world ever since.

Nearly 80 years on, and with a few predicted dates for the final transformation having been and gone, a number of observers have expressed skepticism of the millenarian character of the movement’s origins and beliefs.

Nevertheless the idea that we are in end times remains a core understanding, shared on an almost daily basis among regular BK practitioners. It acts as a spur to spiritual effort, though individuals differ greatly in the intensity of their faith and acceptance of this aspect of the teachings.

In India, where there are now nearly one million adherents of BK understandings and practices, the huge social benefits the lifestyle brings are widely appreciated. Though relatively few in number in other lands, regular practitioners share with hundreds of thousands of others the spiritual love and wisdom they have brought into their own lives.

Why is it that the “end of the world is nigh” impulse can produce such positive, life affirming effects, yet can also lead to a bunker mentality – the “doomsday cult” – that is anything but socially constructive? The difference may lie in how the impulse is used. If it supports teachings and a lifestyle directed towards knowing the divine dimension of reality, which has love at its roots and is essentially non-violent, there can be profound benefit. If however it is used as a psychological ploy to inflate the ego, and support a sense of self divorced from spiritual growth, the consequences can be dire. I believe this can happen at both the individual and group level.

A second question that haunted me for years in my own spiritual journey concerned the factual validity of a millenarian outlook. Major faiths have long foretold the coming of a pure world. Had I embraced an understanding that despite helping me develop spiritually, was in truth a fantasy to which human beings are prone?

The fact that millenarianism has such a long history of failed prophecy could well be taken to support that view. However, the BK understanding of an eternally repeating cycle of time allows for an alternative explanation. This is that an awareness of the upheaval accompanying the transition from the old world to the new is deep within all of us. It has probably surfaced throughout history at times of crisis, even though these were not actual end times.

That leads to a third question, namely: even if there is an apocalyptic turn of events at some time in human history, what are the grounds for thinking it could be now? Here, there tends to be a divide between those who hold a spiritual outlook, and those with a materialistic world view. The former allows for the continuity of consciousness and a sense that God, or Nature, constantly brings benefit from seeming disaster. This optimism allows one to face the possibility that the massive expansion of the human population over the past 80-100 years is unsustainable; that environmental degradation, climate change, pressure on water and food supplies, huge nuclear stockpiles, and pandemic levels of sorrow and depression really do signal the approach of an era of transformation, from old to new.

To the extent that one defines reality in material terms, however, the idea of leaving this old world, even with all its imperfections, could seem intolerable. One might feel scorn or anger towards those suggesting there could be value in “letting go”, like a person suffering terminal illness but in denial about their impending departure. Such are the complexities of ideas and feelings surrounding millenarianism.

Dadi Janki, head of the Brahma Kumaris, has quite often spoken of not being “date conscious”, but of having accepted from the earliest days of the movement, in the mid-1930s, Brahma Baba’s insight that we were entering an age of transition. Towards the end of his life, he spoke quite often of this “confluence” between the old and the new worlds lasting about 100 years.

To me, looking at the current state of the world, that seems credible…but if it turns out to be yet another failed prediction, and a different solution to our problems is found, such that the intense and increasing sorrow and peacelessness already prevalent are removed by some other means, well…that will not be the end of the world!
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ex-l

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Re: Millenarianism and the age of transition

Post06 Mar 2014

Neville Hodgkinson wrote:This and other detailed and elaborately worded documents of similar tone survive to this day in the British Museum and elsewhere. They probably became something of an embarrassment to the leaders of the movement as it grew in strength and respectability, and were only brought to light in recent years by BK researchers in lands outside India.

No, Neville ... they were brought to light in recent years by ex-BK researchers in lands outside India.

But that's not a complete picture either, as the PBKs appear to have aware of some it in India beforehand.

More of the usual soft spoken, "oh so reasonable sounding" damage limitation avoiding any of the ethical issues ... such as BK adherents giving over their wealth and property to the cult on the basis of the prediction ... from the Kirpalani Klan's leading English language PR spin doctor.

Where would the BKs in England be without Neville?
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Pink Panther

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Re: Millenarianism and the age of transition

Post06 Mar 2014

Neville Hodgkinson wrote:Why is it that the “end of the world is nigh” impulse can produce such positive, life affirming effects, yet can also lead to a bunker mentality – the “doomsday cult” – that is anything but socially constructive? The difference may lie in how the impulse is used. If it supports teachings and a lifestyle directed towards knowing the divine dimension of reality, which has love at its roots and is essentially non-violent, there can be profound benefit. If however it is used as a psychological ploy to inflate the ego, and support a sense of self divorced from spiritual growth, the consequences can be dire. I believe this can happen at both the individual and group level.

Question for Neville - Why is the “end of the world is nigh impulse” needed at all?
    - given the acknowledged harm it does to so many, and the deceptions, distortions and damage to other people’s lives that follow in its wake?
What does the acknowledged failure of the God's Revelations to come to "fruition" - not once, twice or thrice but repeated and ongoing - say about the self-declared title and qualifications & authenticity of the author"?

The equivocations about how it can be used ”positively’ do not cancel out any of the damage done to vulnerable people, nor explain the conundrum, that this core belief runs parallel with an ongoing policy of material acquisition worldwide.

An unpleasant truth is surely more beneficial in the long run than a delusion sustained, for innocent or other reasons?

Is the "feel-good about yourself therapy" that helped some (to their own minds) to feel their lives are better for it, really OK even if it led to so many others finding their families sundered, or their kin suiciding, or family estates pillaged? Especially as it’s not just the "end of the world" impulse we’re talking about in isolation here, but the whole package that it reinforces, the extraordinary claims and demands made and lives affected.

There is a lack of intellectual honesty here, it is guided by ulterior motives.
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The topic heading "Millenarianism and the age of transition” coincides with something I was thinking to post.

A biblical scholar the other day was saying how another millenarianist cult, the early Christians, did not bother with recording and keeping their history because well, who as going to read it or need it if the world was ending?

It was not until it became clear that the early predictions weren’t happening - Jesus Christ's second coming was to be within a few years, then within 100 years, the great Temple is destroyed by the Romans and the Jews exiled, over a century later that Christian thinkers began to research, collate and examine their own history, looking for clues as to what they were about.

They got serious about organisational longevity, identity and orthodoxy (consistency), they started writing down what had been oral transmissions along with new ”inspirations” that eventually became the New Testament.

This all drastically changed what had been a Jewish messianic sect into Paulinism. That is, what we call Christianity was not the teachings of Jesus Christ but of Paul of Tarsus, who never met Jesus Christ but who had a revelation when he fell off his horse and had a vision; whose writings are the earliest written books of the New Testament and were the most influential, affecting the four gospels and the rest of what was written later; and whose ideas defined ”Christianity”. He too, like many BKs today, purported to explain what God really meant to say!!

Is the BKIVV going through this process now?

The End did not eventuate, their raison d’etre is lost, sustaining the "brand identity" and perpetuation of the species (the collective ego of the group) demands reconciling the past with the future, finding a new narrative and possibly putting God back into the clouds eventually, as the christians managed to do, assimilating the myths and legends of their contemporaries, so they can grow and prospering as a distinct group.

Who is going to be the St Paul for the BKs?

I think the world is a different place to the Roman Empire 2000 years ago. There is no new world religion that can emerge in this ever more secular environment to usurp the place of the older religions. The BK will remain a sub-culture, i.e. a cult, a pimple on the arse of hinduism, until they gradually mutate into something else or merge into the Brahm of Hindu nationalism.

Maybe 2036 marks the end of the BK world?
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ex-l

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Re: Millenarianism and the age of transition

Post10 Mar 2014

If they had any integrity, 2036 should certainly be the end of the Brahma Kumari world and when they hand all their property and wealth back to the government of India to be used for the benefit of the people ... just as Lekhraj Kirpalani wanted in the 1976 failed prediction of Destruction.

Have the Brahma Kumaris got such integrity ... OF COURSE NOT!!! Don't make me laugh.

They'll be sucking cash and real estate out of vulnerable individuals for as long as they exist. They are money sucking parasites, like leaches or mosquitos who have lucked out and found the main artery of their hosts.
Neville Hodgkinson wrote:Millenarianism and the Age of Transition

To the extent that one defines reality in material terms, however, the idea of leaving this old world, even with all its imperfections, could seem intolerable. One might feel scorn or anger towards those suggesting there could be value in “letting go”, like a person suffering terminal illness but in denial about their impending departure. ...

"One might feel scorn or anger towards those suggesting there could be value in "letting go".

Let's be a little more honest ... what the Brahma Kumaris have been teaching for 80 years - and attempted to do directly in their earlier years - is directly inspire the death of 7 billion plus human beings through "vibrations" and "giving courage to the scientists" to use the nuclear arsenal to annihilate all of humanity and civilisation as we know it. In their early days, they wrote to military marshals exhorting them to enact military law and practised "scorched earth" tactics on, presumably, their families and homelands.

Note how Neville Hodgkinson attempts to tilt the balance between the Brahma Kumaris appearing "oh so loveful, reasonable, and spiritual" and anyone questioning their god spirit's previously failed predictions and demented ideas as being "scornful or angry".
... [if] the intense and increasing sorrow and peacelessness already prevalent are removed by some other means, well ... that will not be the end of the world!

What is the term for this logical device ... he makes a proposition of how they see the world and then offers the final solution they want (death for all others, the destruction of other religions, and an exclusive heaven on earth for them)?

Is the world really that hopeless and bad?

As we've noted before, historically speaking, it's actually become more peaceful. There's more education. More healthcare providing far better treatment for more people. Far better technology ... and there's even more food than could feed all of the world's populations if it was a little better managed. And there's plenty of goodwill to attempt to do so, and resolve other problems.

Part of the BKs mantra is just that ... "The Fag End" of time is what they god calls it.

And, of course, he falsely represents the Om Mandli adherents as there was no "God Shiva" amongst them until years after the second failure of their End of the World, in 1950. There was only God Lekhraj Kirpalani. Should one not question the state of Lekhraj Kirpalani's mind and why he was so obsessed with the encouraging the Destruction of the humanity around him ... really just the tiny community which had rejected, mocked and ridiculed him?

A child-like but grandiose mind having a massive tantrum at the world who thought he was mad and found his rantings ... endless calling them devils, demon, deluded and "crow ****", calling temples brothels and so on whilst claiming only he was self-realised ... insulting?

An essence of love?
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