Lekhraj, Brahma Kumaris & Sathiyana: to be sixty years old

The BKs are fighting philosophical border skirmishes on two fronts; primarily with the growing, reformist PBK movement in India and, secondly, with us in the West.

In truth, "disgruntled ex-BKs", as they like to demean us, are probably little more than irritating mosquitos to their elephantine corporate body; and the BKs consider the PBKs to be nothing more than small vermin trying to nibble on the spoils of their harvest. However, time and time again, the BKs are being forced to have to respond to their critics, internally and externally of their organization, in order to try to stop the damage to their credibility which the truth seeping out keeps causing.

This is especially true in the West where their primary market and targeted sphere of influence is more ethically and intellectually developed and might raise questions about such inconsistencies ... and where they cannot use lathis to beat the opposition.

Unknown to me, the PBKs have made a big point about Sakar Murli quotes describing "Brahma" as being aged sixty when Shiva first possessed him for decades. Why? Because Lekhraj Kirpalani was not 60 years old when God Shiva possessed him, and certainly not in 1936 nor how and when they claimed he did. How and when did Virendra Dev Dixit discovered this? I am not sure. I've never studied their religion. But I do know the BKs have been involved in attempting to discredit and suppress the PBKs since the late 1970s and early 1980s, when they first started reaching out to BK centers all around India and the world, and they try and keep would be impartial academics away the PBK from right up until today.

The PBKs' position is that they accept what the BKs teachings (that the Murlis are the words of God and contain deep significances) and so therefore, logically, the 60 year old "Brahma" or "Chariot" (medium) must refer to someone else in the movement who was 60 years at that time. The PBKs use this as the basis for the claim of the spiritual authority of their leader Virendra Dev Dixit, suggesting that he is the reincarnation of that other individual. It is believed we can now identify that character.

Lekhraj Kirpalani was not 60 years old until 1944 which throws all of the BKs official history out.

It is a historical lie which the BKs have repeated 10,000 times, and fed into academia, so as to make it 'received wisdom' about the BKWSU. They have copied it in their books, magazines, onto websites and propaganda videos and it appears they have re-written, more than once, Murlis referring to it. The BKs have kept lying, ignoring and suppressing dissident voices, as much as they have persisted in misleading their adherents and making efforts to effect the first and deepest impressions upon them and non-BK others.

All of the BK Seniors ... even Janki Kirpalani who publicly claims never to have told a lie ... have sustained this coordinated lie and false history over a period of decades, and are very well practised in doing so. In fact, by their own philosophy, they have developed the sanskar of doing so. But it appears that we are finally having so much of an influence that they have decided they must try and address it now. Not with truth, but more fudges.

Lekhraj Kirpalani was 52 in 1936, and 47 or 48 when he first planned to start his satsang in 1931/32. 47 ... 48 ... or even 52 is a long way away from "about 60". Why would "God Shiva" keep saying in the Murlis that the first Brahma was 60 ... when he was not 60?

To explain this, the BKs are now twisting themselves in knots. The latest one is a sort of symbolic re-definition of the word 'sathiyana'.

In 'Custodians of Purity: An Ethnography of the Brahma Kumaris',* skilled Brahma Kumari propagandist Tamasin Ramsay is used to claim the word sathiyana means "gone sixtyish", suggesting that it is colloquially used as such in north Indian dialects. She does not start to question if or why "God" might speak colloquially. I suspect most people would expect God to speak quite formally and be objectively accurate.

To do so Tamasin misquotes, 'No Aging in India: Alzheimers, the Bad Family, and Other Modern Things' by Lawrence Cohen which takes from the 1987 'Samksipt Hindi Sabdsagar' dictionary the following definition.

Sathiyana

1: To be sixty years old
2: To be old [burrha]. Due to old age, to have diminished intellect.

Sath is the word for sixty; 'sathiya jana' is, literally, 'to go sixtyish'. Other textual definitions mention a loss of discrimination or of judgement.

It would seem the dictionary is fairly emphatic. Sathiyana means to be 60 years old. "Literal" etymological translations are not necessarily how words are actually used. I argue that Tamasin is again stretching her credibility to breaking point here.

Cohen goes on to write that it is seldom used as a descriptive term in third-person terms and is used more commonly about specific old people, humorously or derisively, and marking them as being wilful or stubborn.

He says that, "in a second-person context, it is used to describe the irritable and often hot-brained behaviour of a known elder (younger people might call friends of the same age sathiya if they were acting like a stubborn old person). It also connects 'hot brained-ness' to struggles of authority within a household or public arena."

"To go sixtyish" means getting angry, confused or obstinate.

Was the god of the Brahma Kumaris calling Lekhraj Kirpalani wilful, stubborn, irritable and hot-brained? Was he being derisive towards him? There is a good case to argue he might have been ... for more than 20 years Lekhraj Kirpalani ignored him and claimed he himself was God Brahma!

As sixty is the age at which the height of control over "kin, household, hearth and other resources" is achieved, its use also expresses resentment against the perceived mindset of those who hold power. It is also an age at which "consciousness declines, intelligence declines, leading to a loss of mental balance and irritation."

Again, it's not made clear why God Shiva would refer to Lekhraj Kirpalani in such a manner ...

Tamasin, on behalf of and no doubt supported and guided by the BKs, then claims God Shiva's use of the word "sathiyana" was symbolic and referred to the age at which individuals traditionally start to retire from society ... but that is Vanaprastha (retired life), so why did not "God" use it instead? Traditionally, Vanaprastha was practised at the age of 40-65 ... after the completion of one's householder duties. It was a time when one gradually withdrew from the world to freely share one's wisdom with others and prepare for the complete renunciation of the final stage of life (Sannyasa). They claim that that was what Lekhraj Kirpalani was doing at the age of 48.

Except, historically, he wasn't.

The BKs themselves actually claim he refused his wife's encouragement to do so ... even if it's very hard for us to know if *anything* they write is true now ... and, although he had the wealth to do so, his children were still too young. He had not fulfilled his life as a Grihasthi (householder life).

Why "60 years"?

BK Tamasin Ramsay is not the only academic the BKs are using and working through. One question to ask is, is she aware of it and willing to deliberate use her position and contacts to deceive?

Although they failed in their threats to obstruct and control Dr John Walliss, they succeed through sweetness and subtle feminine guidance of long time BK supporter Dr Frank Whaling who, in his book on them 'Understanding the Brahma Kumaris', presents what the BKs want people to think of them rather than what is. Whaling also writes, "Up to the age of around sixty, he [Lekhraj Kirpalani] was seemingly a devoted practising Sindi merchant". The BKs' false history and lies were unquestioningly repeated by BK Dr Stephen Nagel, BK Binny Sareen and others who were rewarded by the BKs for having done so, and still have their books sold by them ... and fed into the academic system to corrupt it.

Unfortunately, the 'information warfare' has become such that I cannot discuss the latest findings but they will embarrass any academic who has stuck their neck out for the sweet Sisters. The BKs are coordinating internationally, spending their donors money to suppress the truth and shut down avenues of revelation. Whether they will be successful or not, who knows?

Like the Americans in Vietnam, they may have the biggest budget and a huge "Shiv-Shakti" army to call up ... but who knows.

(* the BKs argument is copied again into 'Brahma Kumaris: Purity and the Globalization of Faith' by Tamasin Ramsay, Wendy Smith & Leonore Manderson in 'Flows of Faith: Religious Reach and Community in Asia and the Pacific' edited by Lenore Manderson, Wendy Smith and Matthew Tomlinson, 2012)

BK enablers Wendy Smith, Lenore Manderson and Matthew Tomlinson

Wendy_Smith_Lenore_Manderson_and_Matthew_Tomlinson.jpg (41.07 KiB) Viewed 4444 times

Prof Frank Whaling (BK Microphone soul), Binny Sareen (BK PR Wing) Stephan Nagel (BK since 1970)

Frank_Whaling_Binny_Sareen_Stephan_Nagel.jpg (14.72 KiB) Viewed 4425 times

Is honesty and accuracy too much to ask from "God's own University"?
Is it ethical to use non-BKs in this way?

The significance of this is not so much about whether Lekhraj Kirpalani was 48 or 60 and although it appears to be a minor issue, it is central to the BK/PBK debate; and is something one should be able to expect a "university" or PhD academic to get right.

The issue is about what it exposes of the way in which the Brahma Kumari leadership and following works; how they can take a falsehood, manipulate it, tell it 10,000 times in public, disseminate it to all their indiscriminating adherents who then willingly accept it unquestioningly, and even deliberately mislead outsiders ... or how perfectly intelligent and reasonable outsiders fall for and accept what they are told by the BKs.

Where a PhD is seen as the pinnacle of academic pursuit (one step away from an tenured position as a professor) and has its own value system based on scientific method and other principles and practises such as logic, empiricism. It shows how the Brahma Kumaris are willing even to corrupt them for their sake of their propaganda and benefit.

Expedience, not truth, I would argue is the BKs' over riding principle ... meaning that which is a useful is more important that that which is accurate, and that others integrity are easily sacrificed on their pyre of social climbing ambitions.

It also demonstrates the gullibility and acceptance of ordinary human beings are, how easily the Brahma Kumaris are able to manipulate them, and how skilled at doing so they are directly and working through others.

One could go on to argue that it shows how much they really care about truth, even the facts of their own god man and religion, and how religion itself works and what components go to successfully making one; for example, a good 'persecution myth', a mythologised leader, a romantic cause, highly exaggerate self-values, a "sympathy vote", and so on.

You see how happy and important this makes people feel, and how well it can be turned into a business.

I suspect outsiders fall into it because the BKs, for them, symbolise a value they hold dear, e.g. for women defending them becomes a feminist's issue. For other religionists, who would be shocked at the BKs' real beliefs, it is mutual self-defence of equal fanciful religions, a mutual back-scratching and preening ritual in which neither party examines too closely the others faults ... manus manum lavat.

Expedience, not truth, I would argue is the BKs' over riding principle ... meaning that which is a useful is more important that that which is accurate....

... and how religion itself works and what components go to successfully making one; for example, a good 'persecution myth', a mythologised leader, a romantic cause, highly exaggerate self-values, a "sympathy vote", and so on.

Indeed!

Taking this as one small example of many oft-told mistakes, it does raise questions as to what is considered important by a group aiming to set the world aright (as well as alight!)

As Tamasin and many others do now acknowledge the evidence that Lekhraj was not literally 60 in 1936 but "getting old", it is incumbent on the PBKIVV to, when each edition is reprinted, edit and revise its literature and other material to correct these errors. They can do it with the Murlis (for opposite reasons) and they have the resources, so why not with biography and history?

To not do it validates your charge that, for the BKs, expediency and hagiographic mythologising overrides truth.