Why the Brahma Kumaris Lost a VIP Follower

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ex-l

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Why the Brahma Kumaris Lost a VIP Follower

Post22 May 2020

An old story but one that I had not read before. Why a famous musician, frontman Kevin Rowland of Dexys Midnight Runners, left the Brahma Kumaris after objecting their apocalyptic teachings. The story is the same as ever ... BK exploit low point in individual's life, attracting them in with misleading marketing and dangling the "peace of mind" that they seek, then 'slow cooking' them with meditation and drip feeding indoctrination.

As an interesting aside, relating to a point Pink Panther has often made, Rowland speaks about his already guilt-ridden Catholic upbringing and and how the BKs "just doubled the load" ...
""I don't really want to talk about the Brahmas because they did my head in. I was already a guilt-ridden Catholic and this just doubled the load."
Kevin Rowland Left Religious Sect Because Of Apocalyptic Beliefs

Dexys Midnight Runners frontman Kevin Rowland left a religious movement after objecting to apocalyptic teachings.

The Come On Eileen singer, 62, battled drug addiction and faced bankruptcy after the break up of the band in 1987, and joined the Brahma Kumaris movement in 1991 in a bid to overcome his problems.

Brahma Kumaris, a religious sect founded in India in the 1930s espouses a strict regime of vegetarianism, meditation and celibacy.

However it has also attracted controversy as its teachings include the belief that a series of cataclysmic events will bring modern human civilisation to an end.

"It was 1991 and I was really down," he tells British newspaper The Times. "I was trying to give up drugs, I was trying to feel better, and then I saw a poster in Willesden (northwest London) offering meditation. I went to a stress management course in this building that seemed really peaceful and clean, which was appealing because I was living in a dump at this point. I was in trouble."

And Kevin says that although the group's focus on meditation was initially helpful to him at a time when he was struggling to quit drugs, he failed to embrace their belief in a forthcoming apocalypse and had to leave.

Kevin adds, "I got some help, and one of the ways I was trying to find help was the Brahma Kumaris. At first I thought it was amazing. I loved the meditation. But then they taught me all this stuff about the world being about to end.

"I don't really want to talk about the Brahmas because they did my head in. I was already a guilt-ridden Catholic and this just doubled the load."

In 2008 the group, whose leaders dub it a 'World Spiritual University', boasted 825,000 members in more than 100 countries.

Since overcoming his drug addiction and leaving the group, Kevin has returned to music, releasing a solo album in 1999 before reforming the band in 2003.

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ex-l

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Re: Why the Brahma Kumaris Lost a VIP Follower

Post22 May 2020

He tells his story in more detail here, Frocky horror, including reference to his Catholic upbringing. What he does not mention is the other side of the story, how the thrill of having a "famous person" appear to validates BKism for followers and encourages them on, hence all the BKs' focus on recruiting VIPs or IP (important people) and having them at their events.

He speaks very honestly about a reason BKism might gel for a lot of adherents ... prior difficulties with sex, the body, and intimacy.
In 1993, he saw a poster for a religious cult. 'I used to go there at six in the morning and put a blanket over me and meditate with them. They said there was a woman in India and God was talking through her. They told me the world was going to end and we were going to go into a Golden Age. We were the conscious souls, the chosen ones.' To Rowland, rudderless and adrift, this sounded like good news. 'I wanted to believe it so badly. I was not speaking to any member of my family. My friends had all gone. I was bitter. I thought about ending it. I did not want to live.

They had an idea of not drinking, taking drugs, eating meat, fish, eggs, smoking cigarettes. I stopped the lot. Before I knew it, I had been four or five weeks without drugs.'

He confesses: 'It did me harm going there. I was fertile ground after abusing myself for so long, the turmoil I'd been through, and losing everything and everybody.' The next day, out in the sunshine, he wants to add something. 'I found God there. I felt peaceful, better than I had for a long time. But it involved stopping everything, including sex, even thinking about sex.'

But he couldn't do it, and left. 'I thought I had turned my back on God.' He takes the next bit slowly. 'My attitude to sex and my own sexuality, my own body and nakedness, has been something I have had to struggle with and try to change. I thought sex was great, but it was wrong. I felt guilty, and thought low of a woman for letting me have sex with her. Women were either saints or prostitutes. Because of the way I was, I have not been able to have a fulfilling adult relationship.'
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Pink Panther

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Re: Why the Brahma Kumaris Lost a VIP Follower

Post25 May 2020

Kevin Rowland’s story is a good one, reflects what I think a lot of people experience in probably less dramatic ways when they encounter the BKs.
Kevin Rowland - I felt guilty, and thought low of a woman for letting me have sex with her. Women were either saints or prostitutes.

That sounds exactly like how BKs view women’s sexuality. Men can either rise above sex or just be the animals everyone accepts them to be, naturally dirty dogs but, hey, that's their nature, not as bad as women, who are either virginal saints; Madonnas preparing to give virgin birth in the New Age or are fallen women, complete failures, worse than men because they cannot just be women, biological creatures like every other creature on planet earth.

The Seniors the Dadis, ie older women, were very harsh with any young woman who showed even an inkling of expressing that intrinsic part of nature’s miracle, to be the bearer of children. That they venerated the metaphor, honouring their guru’s consort as ”Mama” rather than the actuality of motherhood, instead they shame that, shows how twisted they are.

They had obviously needed to be personally hard on themselves over decades, they had adopted, even become, the standard bearers of the oppressive patriarchal values they supposedly escaped. They weren't going to let anyone else enjoy life’s bounties.

Many BK women were put through hell mercilessly when they had any attraction or relationship to another. Many of us saw it, and the artificial and unnecessary shaming has even driven some to suicide.

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