bkti-pit wrote:I recently heard from a BK friend who lives in the USA that before going this year he was given instruction on how much he had to give to Madhuban, that he had to put it into an envelope and give it to a specific person.
Yes, our groups have been for decades given the instruction - exactly as you are describing - how much to bring for Baba's Box in Madhuban which is collected by the 'group leader' = center-in charge at arrival in Madhuban at the first group meeting, and is put into a nice purse or envelope and offered to Dadi Janki by the center-in-charge at the first meeting of the group with her in Dadis' cottage.
Sister Jayanti gave some years ago a morning lesson in Gyan Sarovar at the begin of the BapDada season, she said that we should give our contribution to Baba at the first day of our arrival, afterwards we get involved in shopping this and that and have nothing left for Baba.
rayoflight wrote:I think Madeleine Tobias' videos should have a thread of their own. They need to be seen because she confirms many of our topics in a professional and non-judgmental way. Plus she has nothing to do with the BKWSO so the information can seen objectively.
I agree. Madeleine Tobias' videos are worth than countless cult-exit books and bitter experiences.Thanks to
Audacity.
It can be possible, that Madeleine Tobias leaves deliberately the fact of spooky influence or the spiritual factor under which IMO most of the cults are created and controlled, out of topic, maybe to make her statements clear and categorized under one topic,or most probably she does not believe in spiritual beings at all and explains some cult leaders' claims that they are under the guidance of some entities as illusions. I don't know, I have to read her books to understand her point of view to this topic.
Madeleine Tobias describes shortly a profile of cult leaders in bold outline as evil and/or psychopathic which, IMHO, is not a comprehensive definition of all cult leaders.
My close friends were involved in two different cults in different times. In both of them the group was under the guidance of entities who claimed to be from higher realms of Heaven and very close to God, and were claiming that they were bringing messages from God to save the humanity from Destruction.
Now, while I was with greatest interest watching Madeleine Tobias' videos, I remembered that in both of the cults to which my very close friends were once involved, the cult leaders, both in their mature age before they found the entities by random or were caught by the entities, both of them were respected and charismatic professionals with acknowledged expertise in academic circles and with excellent yearly income. Both were described by all friends and family members who later became followers of their cults, as a life long very good person with great care and love for humanity. Both were happily married with grown up children.
One of the cult leaders became under the obsession of the entity or spook, year after year totally controlled by the entity. Surrendered himself and his career to the orders of the entity, lost his dignity in academic circles, was labeled as a sort of idiot. A happily married family man, after he was promised by the entity to be in the near future Messiah, become a sort of chaser and had with the support of the spook with most of the women in his group love affairs in front of the eyes of his wife who was consolidated from the spook to be patient.
After some time the cult leader and his wife, as well as many of the families in the cult, became divorced because this entity in the name of God allowed and supported all members' love affairs even when they were married and their husbands and wives were active members in the group. But these comments and orders were given in private sessions from the medium in trance to each one of the cult members in absolute secrecy, so nobody knew what was ordered to the other one. In the collective session, the so called "Knowledge" was given and orders to different research groups was given by the entity. The cult leader was just one of the members sitting in the audience and obeying to the detailed orders of the spirit.
All big promises and predictions of the spirit were null, years long workshops on different issues were without any result, very big quantities of money were collected in the private sessions and nobody knew where the money was gone. One day, after a suicide attempt of a member, some members in leading positions started to ask questions to the entity in the sessions while the medium was in trance which, of course, were not answered. And so these leading members started to question close members to them about all orders of the spook which were given in private sessions.
One confession followed the other. And one day all of the many thousands of cult members got in their post a confidential folder full of testimonies, with nicknames, of what sort of orders they have got years long from the medium in trance in private sessions. And in few weeks, 95 per cent of all members resigned. The cult collapsed, the cult leader shut off the organization's legal body. Only a handful of them remained around the previous cult leader, meeting in a small room without the medium.
The other elderly cult leader, also a very charismatic and successful professional with a good mental health and happy marriage with grown up children, after he totally surrendered to some entities became an entirely different person. He left his family who were very concerned about his mental health but took care of them, and became celibate. A sort of Messiah. He became totally obsessed with getting written messages from the highest realms of Heaven. Many thousands of pages full of nonsense has been published.
Very educated cult members have spent years blowing their heads off to interpret these messages full of contradictions and crazy stuff (just like the crazy stuff of the Murlis we tried to understand in the BKWSU).This cult is very organized and very conservative in ethics. We have not heard any complaints from the thousands of followers, amongst them close friends of mine are since years going to the sessions, no records of any abusive behavior in many years.
I cannot identify these both cult leaders as evil and psychopathic but as gone mad and became idiopathic under the influence of some spirits to which they willingly surrendered themselves believing they could save the world together. I think Dada Lekhraj became also lunatic in Om Mandli days as he was obsessed by the entities who were first coming the girls in trance, and later through the girls to him.