From another topic ...
One of the interesting things you documented here, terry, is how you convinced yourself about the importance of "The Knowledge" by your own ideas on numerology. Ideas the teacher had no knowledge of at all.
The question "how did I ever get involved ... how did I ever believe all this stuff?" often comes up with ex-BKs. A certain stage in becoming ex-BK is a bit like sobering up after a large alcoholic binge with a hangover and asking oneself how on earth one could have done all those things ... like writing to the Pope about Destruction (on the forum we have one such letter of an otherwise entirely intelligent individuals (trained lawyer) "giving a vision" to the President of the United States).
I think Terry provide us with one insight into this. Essentially, we as humans are prone to fooling ourselves into believing in things ... I supoose to fit into a group that wants us ... and Brahma-kumarism is full of these symbolic archetypes. Like the stor of The Emperor's Clothes, we fool ourselves especially when we want to appear superior.
Perhaps, one could argue, Brahma-kumarism is even designed to be that way with all the Krishnas, Vishnus, Mothers, Fathers, angels, numbers, elements, end of the worlds ... key motifs from most of the world's religions. If anything is going to set off anyone's bells, it is in there somewhere. We are encouraged to believe, at first by "suspending disblief" by people that, in truth, are not that educated or deep, merely single mind in their intent.
But to this, one might also ask, who put them there and how knowingly so?
I would guess that the majority of BK followers became hooked when they were, in fact, pretty naive or "seeking" about these things. We expected to hear about them and when we did it was a magical confirmation.
To put it bluntly, where x percent of people on earth are naive, gullable and easily manipulated, y percent become skilled in this. Of course, having spiritualist leanings, I even suggest that part of y-factor are not just humans but also disincarnate spirits. Just as the Murli tells they are.
What sense do we make of the "divine visions", meaning actual trance or psychic visions and experience that BKs have generally at the state of their commitment (they tend to dry up and never return). "Baba holds the key to divine visions", the BKs say. So are these divine vision "given" to us, e.g. not of us but projected into our consciousness? Why does a white Christian BK stundent have a vision of Hanuman, for example? Are those visions 'out there', as in our psychic vision is opened and we see what is, or 'in here', as in simple chemistry firing off in the brain. Either way, how do they happen?
We start following BK-ism disbelieving ... often hugely disbelieving ... The 5,000 Year Cycle ... God's coming on earth ... all other religions being partial memorials of BK-ism. In truth, we may never actually believe half this stuff but supress that disbelief. None of it is "provable". But, yet, we allow ourselves to become sucked right into the machine, on the conveyopr belt, processed and packaged as a Brahma-Kumari follower, sometimes enduring terrible and embarrassing things all whilst paying for the privilege of being done to.
Now we know that some of it is undeniably false ... the historical and philosophical revision, the Murli re-writing (more of it than we actually know about) ... and that many of the Brahma Kumaris leaders neither have great knowledge, intelligence or even integrity, how can that which is not true create true experiences?
terry wrote:There' s lots of numerological meaning that can be invested into Gyan too (Which is what I did when I took the 7 day course way back when. In one lesson I was being told of The Ladder and the 84 births, and the number of lives in each age etc. This was after other lessons on The Cycle and the Kalpa tree, and I just had to ask the woman giving me the lesson "why these definite and particular numbers kept coming up?". She could not answer, so I, the student, proceeded to explain them to her in terms of numerology! - I have always had a didactic streak, Moon and Uranus in Sagittarius) You can look up the numerology behind the numbers of 8, 108 etc.
One of the interesting things you documented here, terry, is how you convinced yourself about the importance of "The Knowledge" by your own ideas on numerology. Ideas the teacher had no knowledge of at all.
The question "how did I ever get involved ... how did I ever believe all this stuff?" often comes up with ex-BKs. A certain stage in becoming ex-BK is a bit like sobering up after a large alcoholic binge with a hangover and asking oneself how on earth one could have done all those things ... like writing to the Pope about Destruction (on the forum we have one such letter of an otherwise entirely intelligent individuals (trained lawyer) "giving a vision" to the President of the United States).
I think Terry provide us with one insight into this. Essentially, we as humans are prone to fooling ourselves into believing in things ... I supoose to fit into a group that wants us ... and Brahma-kumarism is full of these symbolic archetypes. Like the stor of The Emperor's Clothes, we fool ourselves especially when we want to appear superior.
Perhaps, one could argue, Brahma-kumarism is even designed to be that way with all the Krishnas, Vishnus, Mothers, Fathers, angels, numbers, elements, end of the worlds ... key motifs from most of the world's religions. If anything is going to set off anyone's bells, it is in there somewhere. We are encouraged to believe, at first by "suspending disblief" by people that, in truth, are not that educated or deep, merely single mind in their intent.
But to this, one might also ask, who put them there and how knowingly so?
I would guess that the majority of BK followers became hooked when they were, in fact, pretty naive or "seeking" about these things. We expected to hear about them and when we did it was a magical confirmation.
To put it bluntly, where x percent of people on earth are naive, gullable and easily manipulated, y percent become skilled in this. Of course, having spiritualist leanings, I even suggest that part of y-factor are not just humans but also disincarnate spirits. Just as the Murli tells they are.
What sense do we make of the "divine visions", meaning actual trance or psychic visions and experience that BKs have generally at the state of their commitment (they tend to dry up and never return). "Baba holds the key to divine visions", the BKs say. So are these divine vision "given" to us, e.g. not of us but projected into our consciousness? Why does a white Christian BK stundent have a vision of Hanuman, for example? Are those visions 'out there', as in our psychic vision is opened and we see what is, or 'in here', as in simple chemistry firing off in the brain. Either way, how do they happen?
We start following BK-ism disbelieving ... often hugely disbelieving ... The 5,000 Year Cycle ... God's coming on earth ... all other religions being partial memorials of BK-ism. In truth, we may never actually believe half this stuff but supress that disbelief. None of it is "provable". But, yet, we allow ourselves to become sucked right into the machine, on the conveyopr belt, processed and packaged as a Brahma-Kumari follower, sometimes enduring terrible and embarrassing things all whilst paying for the privilege of being done to.
- How does this happen?
Now we know that some of it is undeniably false ... the historical and philosophical revision, the Murli re-writing (more of it than we actually know about) ... and that many of the Brahma Kumaris leaders neither have great knowledge, intelligence or even integrity, how can that which is not true create true experiences?