I find the use of Raja Yoga in conection with the BKs tends to be very misleading.
I understand that the BKs in the past marketed themselves as 'Raja Yoga', and that the promotion of the name Brahma Kumaris is a more recent thing, and that thus many "older ones", such as primal.logic above, persist in referring to the teachings of the BKWSU as 'Raja Yoga'.
This is a misuse of terminology - check your dictionary, Google the net, just look around you - Raja Yoga is an ancient form of Yoga, widely practiced for centuries before the BKs ever appeared, and still practiced worldwide by a great many people who have never had any connection with the BKs.
The majority of BKs wouldn't know Raja Yoga if it jumped up and bit them (which of course it wouldn't..). Even within BK teachings Yoga and Gyan are separate subjects. But, more fundamentally, Raja Yoga is not synonymous with the BKs or BK teachings.
The BK understanding of Raja Yoga tends to be at best sketchy, there is very little practical information about it available from them, and almost no information on the higher stages of it, beyond a few, generally misunderstood, terms like 'seed stage' and 'third eye'. They claim to teach Raja Yoga, but in fact they are teaching BK Gyan ('knowledge'), or, increasingly these days, BK dogma.
The BKs claim (of course) that their stripped down version of Raja Yoga is the real one, and the original. If you don't believe the 5000 years, then why believe that? Especially as most of the BK Yoga "teachers" clearly know next to nothing about it!
I say it is misleading and bad practice to blacken Raja Yoga with the weaknesses of BK teachings and practices, by confusing the terminology.
I understand that the BKs in the past marketed themselves as 'Raja Yoga', and that the promotion of the name Brahma Kumaris is a more recent thing, and that thus many "older ones", such as primal.logic above, persist in referring to the teachings of the BKWSU as 'Raja Yoga'.
This is a misuse of terminology - check your dictionary, Google the net, just look around you - Raja Yoga is an ancient form of Yoga, widely practiced for centuries before the BKs ever appeared, and still practiced worldwide by a great many people who have never had any connection with the BKs.
The majority of BKs wouldn't know Raja Yoga if it jumped up and bit them (which of course it wouldn't..). Even within BK teachings Yoga and Gyan are separate subjects. But, more fundamentally, Raja Yoga is not synonymous with the BKs or BK teachings.
The BK understanding of Raja Yoga tends to be at best sketchy, there is very little practical information about it available from them, and almost no information on the higher stages of it, beyond a few, generally misunderstood, terms like 'seed stage' and 'third eye'. They claim to teach Raja Yoga, but in fact they are teaching BK Gyan ('knowledge'), or, increasingly these days, BK dogma.
The BKs claim (of course) that their stripped down version of Raja Yoga is the real one, and the original. If you don't believe the 5000 years, then why believe that? Especially as most of the BK Yoga "teachers" clearly know next to nothing about it!
I say it is misleading and bad practice to blacken Raja Yoga with the weaknesses of BK teachings and practices, by confusing the terminology.