moreclearnow
ex-l wrote:India is India and Hinduism is Hinduism and money corruption are part of the system ... but it is fair to say the temples do have a long tradition of using donations to do some social good rather than just build properties and promote themselves to VIPs like the BKs.
I still cannot understand why, if Destruction was in two to three years, they are building such huge and luxurious complexes and buying freehold properties. It strikes me they don't believe what they teach.
'End of the World -ism' (millenarianism) is a wonderful tool of mental coercion and the BKs have learned from direct experience it is a good way to get money. Remember in 2000, Didi Manmohini was actually telling people to take money out of the bank ... where do you think it went? The same place as it did in 1976 ...
They don't because in a normal family it is just 'family versus family'. In a BK related problem, it is 'family versus BKs plus family' with the BKs giving advice and interfering from behind and filling the family member's head full of stuff about Golden Ages etc which distorts their decision making processes and alters their behaviour.
We've even had cases where BKs encourage and advice BK women how to divorce husbands and take property from them to give to the BKs. There's is both official and unofficial BK influence; Shrimat from Seniors and gossip level from adherents.
Of course, I have long made the obvious conclusion that when millionaire Lekhraj Kirpalani's money ran out, and they could not longer steal from their families and get grants from the government etc, they turned their cult to religion because they knew it was a huge source of income.
How else were the untrained, uneducated women going to survive?
Anyone handing over money and property to the BKWSU under the irrational belief that it is going to buy them a high status in Heaven, or Palace of God has been deeply and persistently coerced. They even say stuff like, Om Radhe had to come back in another life to do "service via money" because she brought none with her the first time around.
For every unqualified suggestion you make, we can give you numerous specific example of when, e.g. Janki Kirpalani rattled the class for donations because the mortgage needed paid and donations were low, or another senior lectured a class telling them to support their local center more etc.
Oh ho, ex-l you have simply no idea of the level of corruption in India in religious institues and temples - and the amount of property and gold they have. These are not rational arguments and just show a deep prejudice to use every argument possible against BKs.
As per a BBC report, in one of the temples it was claimed to have in their vault something like 450 golden pots, 2,000 rubies and jewel-studded crowns, 400 gold chairs and the statue of a deity studded with 1,000 diamonds. Apparently, all this amounted to some $20bn - more than India's annual education budget. Tons of Gold lie in Indian temples treasure vaults gathering dust and usually discovered after centuries. There are claims that if this Gold was to come out in the open market, it would crash the Gold prices globally and it can ofcourse remove majority of poverty in India or help improve education. You have to see it in your eyes and not difficult to spot this if you go to any of the holy cities for example in North of India. You have temples on every street and if you have money you are a VIP who can get to see the idol jumping all the queues. There are even temples that charge fees depending on how long you are allowed to see the idol, which is an innovative business model. There, opening temples is a business and if you need to own a property, build a temple on a Govt land and slowly cover the whole area surrounding it ... because of the religious sentiments, often these are disputed /illegal but Govt can not remove it easily and there are thousands of such sites
Large temples often run like corporates like the example I shared above from Tirupati. They sell, they export, they make profits and divert a tiny fraction of the profits to trusts running hospitals or other forms of social services (which is what corporates do as part of CSR) to avoid questioning and controversies about the money and property they own. It's not that all temples do it, there are places which do proper form of social services and free from money making business but that's unfortunately a minority these days.
Sure, that's what the BKWSU says. I know of cases where poor villagers were encouraged to donate their jewellery to buy/make some offering to the Seniors higher up
I know of a very poor BK who did not have anything to donate and couldn't even afford to pay for his train fare to Madhuban. The Sister in-charge paid for his travel to Madhuban through the centre.