Jim Brady, on August 18, 2005 in the "ex-BK discussions" forum on XBKchat.com mentioned in his excellent post on "Anomalies and Inconsistencies":
In my own recent 4 years of 'being a BK', I did not find much understanding there about our 'true home'. I shared my own experience of the Soul World a few times (usually receiving ridicule or dismissal), but found nobody who had any similar experience, or indeed alternative experience to offer...
I refer to the most profound experience I have had in this life, a visionary experience of being a soul in the Soul World. This happened in 1989, some 12 years before I got involved with the BKs, and several years before I had even heard of them. I was at an emotional low point in my life after a love affair that had gone very wrong. At the same time I had been working on myself spiritually for over a year, following intuition I had become vegetarian and was striving to be very temperate in all habits, and (I now know) was meditating regularly, though I thought I wasn't 'doing it right'. So I was struggling towards 'purity' and seeking help from 'beyond'. I was also living in a remote place with a spiritual history (15th century Celtic/Christian monastery).
I received over a few months a number of experiences, the last two of which were very powerful and changed my life, forming the basis of my spiritual understandings and beliefs ever since. Both happened when I was asleep, but were very real and very vivid and detailed.
In the first vision (which I may describe in depth in another post) I went to the Subtle Region of white light and met an angelic being (now known to me as Brahma Baba/BapDada) and was shown the world cycle in a vision, and also given a taste of judgement day (or Dharamraj in BK terms), and finally a brief experience of being in earthly paradise (the garden of Eden, so I assumed, aka the Golden Age).
In the second vision I was an egg shaped being of light in a region of orange light, interacting with several other egg shaped beings of light. The eggs were translucent orange with golden light eminating from the centre. The experience was of absolute bliss and comfort, warm, velvety, the best I have ever felt. One of the most interesting aspects to me now, is that I did FEEL, and I did SEE the other souls - we all floated around and had control over our movement, and there was a telepathic awareness shared between us: this may have been from me being in a trance state whereby I was experiencing the Soul World from a non-soul-world perspective, I don't know, but my perception was that I WAS that egg shaped being, and my consciousness was within the egg looking out. The golden light emanating from each of us seemed to merge into the element we were floating in: we were floating in golden light. When I came out of the experience, I was high as a kite and radiantly happy, the opposite of what I had been before it. I knew I had experienced something divine. I believed then that the golden light was pure spiritual love (and still think so).
So twelve years later when the BKs appeared in my life with their logo of a golden egg shape of light emitting from a point.... and when the meditation course and subsequent Murlis explained the contents of the first vision clearly, and when one Sakar Murli described the form of the soul in the Soul World as an orange egg (did not stop certain Sisters from still rubbishing my descriptions), and when I experienced occasionally similar feelings of golden bliss (but not visions) when deep in Yoga, I 'knew' I had found my spiritual home. After all I had spent 12 years in a wilderness of confusion seeking explanations for the two visions I have described, and finding very little to help me.
The Brahma Kumaris filled in the gaps in my understanding, to the extent that I just accepted the extra details they offered. It took four years or so to fully realise that most other BKs had little or no experience of the type I have been describing. I still find it difficult to fathom why one would accept BK 'knowledge' without strong spiritual experiences to back it up.. it does seem that those who do have Yoga experiences, or other psychic or dream experiences, are the ones most likely to have problems with the BK religious practices and organisational strictures. My experiences made me feel like an outcast, a fish out of water, at the same time as they validated for me the essential authenticity of the core BK beliefs, and exceptional Godliness of the organisation.
I now keep away from them in general, as I cannot stomach the dogma and ritual and cult religious behaviour, which have already been described by several others in this forum far more eloquently than I could (eromain, jim, atma, and several others, thanks to all of you).
It may be that we all experience different realities, I don't know, but in my reality, there is a great deal of truth behind the BK 'knowledge'. I have done much occult and religious and psychological research over the years since experiencing the visions described above, and its seems that the essence of the BK beliefs (throw out the (in?)exact numbers) are identical to ancient Hindu and Buddhist secret traditions. Brahma Baba did not invent this stuff, but he did/does broadcast it clearly (unlike secret occult or religious groups), if over-simplistically.
Anyway, there is no substitute for experience. The intellect and words can only take you so far, but please, if anybody else out there has had experiences similar to mine, perhaps they would like to share them?
JimBrady wrote:Could never understand or get information and insight into the Soul World
In my own recent 4 years of 'being a BK', I did not find much understanding there about our 'true home'. I shared my own experience of the Soul World a few times (usually receiving ridicule or dismissal), but found nobody who had any similar experience, or indeed alternative experience to offer...
I refer to the most profound experience I have had in this life, a visionary experience of being a soul in the Soul World. This happened in 1989, some 12 years before I got involved with the BKs, and several years before I had even heard of them. I was at an emotional low point in my life after a love affair that had gone very wrong. At the same time I had been working on myself spiritually for over a year, following intuition I had become vegetarian and was striving to be very temperate in all habits, and (I now know) was meditating regularly, though I thought I wasn't 'doing it right'. So I was struggling towards 'purity' and seeking help from 'beyond'. I was also living in a remote place with a spiritual history (15th century Celtic/Christian monastery).
I received over a few months a number of experiences, the last two of which were very powerful and changed my life, forming the basis of my spiritual understandings and beliefs ever since. Both happened when I was asleep, but were very real and very vivid and detailed.
In the first vision (which I may describe in depth in another post) I went to the Subtle Region of white light and met an angelic being (now known to me as Brahma Baba/BapDada) and was shown the world cycle in a vision, and also given a taste of judgement day (or Dharamraj in BK terms), and finally a brief experience of being in earthly paradise (the garden of Eden, so I assumed, aka the Golden Age).
In the second vision I was an egg shaped being of light in a region of orange light, interacting with several other egg shaped beings of light. The eggs were translucent orange with golden light eminating from the centre. The experience was of absolute bliss and comfort, warm, velvety, the best I have ever felt. One of the most interesting aspects to me now, is that I did FEEL, and I did SEE the other souls - we all floated around and had control over our movement, and there was a telepathic awareness shared between us: this may have been from me being in a trance state whereby I was experiencing the Soul World from a non-soul-world perspective, I don't know, but my perception was that I WAS that egg shaped being, and my consciousness was within the egg looking out. The golden light emanating from each of us seemed to merge into the element we were floating in: we were floating in golden light. When I came out of the experience, I was high as a kite and radiantly happy, the opposite of what I had been before it. I knew I had experienced something divine. I believed then that the golden light was pure spiritual love (and still think so).
So twelve years later when the BKs appeared in my life with their logo of a golden egg shape of light emitting from a point.... and when the meditation course and subsequent Murlis explained the contents of the first vision clearly, and when one Sakar Murli described the form of the soul in the Soul World as an orange egg (did not stop certain Sisters from still rubbishing my descriptions), and when I experienced occasionally similar feelings of golden bliss (but not visions) when deep in Yoga, I 'knew' I had found my spiritual home. After all I had spent 12 years in a wilderness of confusion seeking explanations for the two visions I have described, and finding very little to help me.
The Brahma Kumaris filled in the gaps in my understanding, to the extent that I just accepted the extra details they offered. It took four years or so to fully realise that most other BKs had little or no experience of the type I have been describing. I still find it difficult to fathom why one would accept BK 'knowledge' without strong spiritual experiences to back it up.. it does seem that those who do have Yoga experiences, or other psychic or dream experiences, are the ones most likely to have problems with the BK religious practices and organisational strictures. My experiences made me feel like an outcast, a fish out of water, at the same time as they validated for me the essential authenticity of the core BK beliefs, and exceptional Godliness of the organisation.
I now keep away from them in general, as I cannot stomach the dogma and ritual and cult religious behaviour, which have already been described by several others in this forum far more eloquently than I could (eromain, jim, atma, and several others, thanks to all of you).
It may be that we all experience different realities, I don't know, but in my reality, there is a great deal of truth behind the BK 'knowledge'. I have done much occult and religious and psychological research over the years since experiencing the visions described above, and its seems that the essence of the BK beliefs (throw out the (in?)exact numbers) are identical to ancient Hindu and Buddhist secret traditions. Brahma Baba did not invent this stuff, but he did/does broadcast it clearly (unlike secret occult or religious groups), if over-simplistically.
Anyway, there is no substitute for experience. The intellect and words can only take you so far, but please, if anybody else out there has had experiences similar to mine, perhaps they would like to share them?