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- Joined: 23 Aug 2015
GuptaRati 6666 wrote:Thank you for your extended and valid account of Janki.
Yes, that one memory, the "Good Soul" one, is probably the most outstanding of my BK experience. Of course, I am pretty sure *she* did not believe what she said to me either!!! It was just so empty.
We've documented & discussed Janki's history in more detail elsewhere on this forum. Briefly, as I understand it, her parents were Om Mandli attendees but married her off anyway to an much older man. She was impregnated and, hence, unique among the inner circle that she'd actually had some sort of sexual relationship, albeit unlikely to be a wonderful one. She was long criticised at least in her early Western days as being a bit of a 'man disliker' with an aversions to beards (?), and "antiquated" views towards Black people, who she considered the most impure.
She had a child but "conveniently" it died in infancy, circumstances of which we will never quite know. Not once did I ever hear her speak about the love of it, or the tragedy of the loss of it. Someone else may have to fill in details here but, clearly, its death allowed her to escape back to the Om Mandli. From memory, I think they portrayed her husband as a bad man who physically abused her. We don't know is that is true or to what degree.
Without condoning domestic violence, I can imagine she was as equally unreasonable as other cases of those women who were infatuated with Lekhraj Kirpalani. History records the unrest, unhappiness & unreasonableness the Om Mandli caused.
She got back there late. The BKs say 1937. Bearing in mind it was said in original books to have started as early as 1932, it's hard to believe anything they say. She was certainly not on the list of the original founding members. She does not exist in the history of the early days. The BKs, for the sake of the Janki Foundation, cast her in the mould of being their "nurse". That's not quite true, however, her job at one point was in their sick bay. By all accounts, in the early days, she was a background figure.
After they ran out of Lekhraj Kirpalani's money, she was sent out on service in the early 1950s. This interests me because it was prior to the announcement of a God Shiva (Post-1955). At that time there was only God Brahma Lekhraj Kirpalani. She never spoke about this and presided over the Grand Fraud, the lie, that was the Ad Dev book in the early 1980s that established the "official" but falsified history of the cult.
I wondered if that was when she came to equate bring in the cash, with gaining the love and attention of Lekhraj Kirpalani?
She had a distinct infatuation with Lekhraj Kirpalani. There can be no denying this. He rescued her. The story goes, when she was sent to the West, to save a dying centre in London that another BK had not managed to make work, she demanded to bring the "Trance Light" practise, ie the backlight, life sized transparency picture of Lekhraj Kirpalani.
Many of us, and those that became the PBKs, found consternation in this as the Murlis were full of "no photographs, no remembering Lekhraj Kirpalani" exhortations. Yet she denied them and instituted the practise, that in the last 20 or more years have developed into full-sized, deification and guru worship not just of Lekhraj Kirpalani, but also the inner circle Dadis.
By far, young women and teenage girls, got the worst of Dadi Janki's attentions and many feared her but I have no idea what that was all about as I don't speak Hindi. We did, however, see translated classes of her exhorting them to be so "pure" that they remained even alert in their dream to any sexual or emotional feelings.
You could argue she practised gross hypocrisy as I have seen her split up and divide young, essentially, poor and worthless (to the BKs) couples on one hand' while feting and tolerating wealthy, potentially beneficial couples. As in what you were worth to them in material benefits determined how you were treated, not any degree of "spiritual" enlightenment ... or even personal needs and personal spiritual growth, of which having relationships is an important part.
Personally, I accept that badly managed arranged marriages are little more than community sanctioned rape for the business & monetary benefits, albeit "practical" in a time like 1930s India where there were no women's rights or social welfare. One has to wonder why she was married off and what additional load her sexual experiences led to as regards her attitudes towards love, sex and emotions.
The other shame I think is that no one really ever discussed what Lekhraj Kirpalani taught as far as running the business of the Yagya. He had been a successful businessman, surely he must have given more guidance than what was in the Murlis?