Brahma Kumaris concept of ego

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

ex-l

ex-BK

  • Posts: 10661
  • Joined: 07 Apr 2006

Re: Brahma Kumaris concept of ego

Post08 Apr 2020

Pink Panther wrote:The BK teaching is all about identifying oneself as BK so as to realise one’s 84 birth immortality.

Something to remember, from reading what original teachings we have from the 1940s and 50s, is that from the beginning, all you were require to do, was to accept & conform. I cannot even write "believe". That is to say, all it took was a single class and you'd made it. You were pure, self-realised, and going to live with Lekhraj Kirpalani in heaven as a gopi to his Krishna ... Even though, at that time, their teaching were entirely contrary to what they are today, eg God Brahma & Aham Brahmasmi (I am Brahm).

Although they switched to God Shiva, and developed the 7 Day Course (partly inspired from external influences), they still work on the same principle, and are open to the same general criticism. That criticism being that they did not spend time "studying spirituality" but just working out ways to encult people.

Accept ... conform ... get busy marketing the cult.

There is no point refining intellectually and speculating over such things ... "accept ... conform ... get busy marketing the cult".

is not that just it? is not that what you experienced with them? Did you find any of the inner circle truly intellectual, well versed in scientific, religious or philosophical idea, or that "spiritually" experienced? Or wasn't it all just about nudging you back to the simple core ideas? They certainly did not encourage anyone to study up elsewhere but if you came in with some knowing all they might do at best is listen to it in order to cherrypick whatever might be good for the sake of marketing.

Anything NIH ... "Not Invented Here" ... was deftly sidestepped, not resisted but not taken on board either.

At best, whatever an individual might come out with would be re-interpreted back into a "corrected" form reflecting BKism. Which is pretty audaciously crazy considering how broad a spectrum of unexplained spiritual experiences the world is having (BK response ... dismiss with idea "fruit of Bhakti" and reboot feelings of superiority as only BKs have the most supreme experiences).

Wasn't that the sort of thing Janki Kirpalani used to come down heavily upon?

It wasn't about thinking outside of the box, it was about keeping people inside of the box they had created.

It's not clear to me when they developed the idea of having to purify this original and inescapable "perfect self" that they now have ... not one we have to aspire to but just once to automatically re-emerge. I assume after their predictions of the End of the World failed again and again and things appeared to be taking a lot longer than they first expected (End of the World in the Mahabharata War, aka WWII).

In Aham Brahmasmi there is no self, only the Brahm (aka Divine Light in early BKism) from whence we came and to where we will return.

As to "there is no evidence for an immortal unchanging individual personal being", what do you meant, no scientific evidence? I was surprised to learn recently how little scientific interest and consensus they still is in the area of consciousness.
User avatar

Pink Panther

  • Posts: 1885
  • Joined: 14 Feb 2013

Re: Brahma Kumaris concept of ego

Post09 Apr 2020

ex-l wrote: Did you find any of the inner circle truly intellectual, well versed in scientific, religious or philosophical idea, or that "spiritually" experienced? Or wasn't it all just about nudging you back to the simple core ideas?

At best, whatever an individual might come out with would be re-interpreted back into a "corrected" form reflecting BKism. Which is pretty audaciously crazy considering how broad a spectrum of unexplained spiritual experiences the world is having .. Wasn't that the sort of thing Janki Kirpalani used to come down heavily upon?

It wasn't about thinking outside of the box, it was about keeping people inside of the box they had created.

Many people had discussions about the Gyan, sometimes quite heated, or a person might go to a senior to try to understand something or check how ”accurate” what they had thought about was.

All of these came back to trying to reconcile the claims within Gyan and objective reality - and there’s a lot of discrepancies.

Consensus reality is an agreement of subjective views. We all agree to call everything that is a similar colour to the sky as ”sky blue" even though we cannot be sure that we each see that colour in the same way. We all agreed that the experiences we had in meditation as BKs were because of the Gyan or the connection to the Baba - although we cannot be sure we were having the same experiences.

Objective reality is partly consensus reality but it is more than people agreeing on their subjective views the way a superstitious community might. Objective reality needs us to recognise the limitations of both personal subjective and consensus realities and look for things that are independent of those, universal truths and concrete facts that do not rely on any person or group. You might call this a "scientific view”.

So all that ”churning” was mostly speculation and endless conjectures. Or emotive wish fulfilment to make things that were clashing or incongruous to ”fit”, to make sense.
It's not clear to me when they developed the idea of having to purify this original and inescapable "perfect self" that they now have ... not one we have to aspire to but just once to automatically re-emerge. In Aham Brahmasmi there is no self, only the Brahm (aka Divine Light in early BKism) from whence we came and to where we will return.

I am pretty sure these ideas were mainly developed by Mama Om Radhe.

The ego function in its basic dynamic is the process of memory and continuity, an ability to distinguish ”me" from ”not-me” so we can survive. This is the first ”duality”.

So the subtlest appeal to ego is the appeal to immortality, "I" always exist. Given that there is a dearth of evidence for this, endless conjecture and elaborate theoretical constructions ensue as we try to convince ourselves of how this is actually true.

So we are no longer living this life that is here to be savoured in all its flavours, bitter and sweet, but projecting bitterness over it all and living for an imagined future that is all-sweet. But we know that a tongue can be accustomed to certain sensitivities and if you go for sweets all the time, real food seems tasteless. This is what the BK identity does to our perceptions of reality.
As to "there is no evidence for an immortal unchanging individual personal being", what do you meant, no scientific evidence? I was surprised to learn recently how little scientific interest and consensus they still is in the area of consciousness.

Going back centuries, well before science and through to today, there is what is observable and verifiable, what we can be certain of and then there is what is assumed, presumed, believed — an interpretation.

For me, there are more than enough certainties to be getting on with, and if the assumptions and beliefs don't fit with what is certain, then it is a waste of time and energy. It is removing me from self-realisation, i.e. the relationship of self to reality. Otherwise I am in cognitive dissonance and I'll know that that from the "symptoms" that will manifest, a benign one being the constant effort to make my belief and ideology reconcile with pragmatic reality.
Previous

Return to Commonroom

cron