Brahmakumarisresearch.org closed down by BKWSU?

Ah, the "Master Almighties of the Ocean of Truth" (a title the BKs give themselves) are at it again, not that they told us, nor have kept us up todate.

Truth™, yes ... but not the same definition of truth as the rest of the world it seems.

Brahmakumarisresearch.org has been closed down by BKWSU and, as of today, the site is a secured pages saying only ...

Brahma Kumaris

History and Research

Over the past eight years there has been an honest endeavour to discover, authenticate and celebrate the earliest days of the Brahma Kumaris, ‘Om Mandli'.

Om Mandli was a revolution in the North West Frontier of the 1930s, particularly with regard to its role in the liberation of women and recognising their capacities as true spiritual leaders. The spiritual teachings are profound.

Due to ongoing disagreement between historians and researchers, and senior organisational administrators regarding documented events and philosophical developments within the Brahma Kumaris history, this site has been closed.

My hope is that - in the near future - the history of this remarkable community will be given the open anthropological deliberation it deserves.

All primary source materials used in this website are still available here.

Om Shanti

Which is quite funny as on her Linkedin page, Tamasin Ramsay lists herself as an official Historian at the BKWSU.

Now whether Tamasin's efforts really amount to an "honest endeavour", I would question. As a PhD level academic but also a BK adherent used to privileges within the cult, she has not only plagiarised research from this website and not credited us, but also used her "academic" work to attack us falsely. In the past, her work has been guided by revelations here and, in truth, has been factually inaccurate to the point of being just skilful publicity and damage limitation in my opinion.

And, as with the Brahma Kumari World so called University, she has been allergic to the ideas of peer review and collegiate sharing with those most informed about BKism. Indeed, the BKWSU has been active in shutting down sources of independent information to other researchers and burying bad news, sweetening potential critics and disappearing condemning material.

However, having said all that - and standing behind it (Tamasin joined this forum whilst writing her PhD and made false damaging claims about it afterwards) - Tamasin, and especially her BK funding Father Robin, remain the best hopes within the BK world of a greater truth about them emerging.

What would be equally interesting would be if she was only to document these secret struggle and the troubles the self appointed Masters of God are having with the simple truth.

Tamasin Ramsay: Historian

Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University
October 2011 – May 2015 (3 years 8 months) Global

I was appointed to continue the work commenced by sociologist Dr Wendy Sargent ( - 2010) exploring the social, cultural and theological history of the Brahma Kumaris. This study is part-time and ongoing, and has given rise to further social research within the Brahma Kumaris. As someone with a long-term connection with the organisation, a previous role at the UN with the Brahma Kumaris, and also training as a social researcher and ethnographer this role is quite a complex one requiring negotiation between history, relationships, and culture. The findings are being disseminated primarily through the website: http://www.brahmakumarisresearch.org.

Representative to the United Nations
Brahma Kumaris

February 2010 – January 2015 (5 years)Manhattan, New York

I work with a small team at the UN, and we collaborate with civil societies, UN agencies and diplomatic missions in areas of broad concern to the UN Economic and Social Council, such as environment, disaster, women, and social development.

As an environmental anthropologist representing a spiritual organisation, I look at the way in which attitudes, thinking and behaviour impact on the choices we make and that ultimately create our lives and our bigger social, political and economic worlds. Our focus is on incorporating spiritual values into UN discussions and ultimately inter-government policy.

My area of expertise is understanding and illuminating the spiritual laws that underpin the relationship between people and the spaces they inhabit, or human beings and their environments.

Responsibilities and tasks include participating in committee meetings with representation from governments and civil societies to identify and address hurdles to current global concerns. We engage with representatives of affected communities and communicate their concerns and findings to the United Nations. I author, co-author and present papers in formal and informal environments within the United Nations network.

What a load of icky huey.

I remember her on here.

I am reading new website of BK in Australia. No history of BK or even Brahma Baba can I find there, so bkresearch site not admitted. Maybe the new BK Australia site is to celebrate the new building in Sydney. But reports say local council only allowing maximum of 80 public or BKs to attend, not more than 200 as BK tells. And only on Sunday for class. Even less can be seated, that is to say only 30 visitors is the council rule for other times.

It's all an inconvenient, ugly, backwards mess that relative reasonable Western BKs recognise and want to disassociate themselves from. Even the historical re-invention is not working any more, the cracks in the facade are spreading.

But they still treat us, and the PBKs who are even more responsible for the actual revelations, like impure untouchables.

It's bizarre. They won't acknowledge us, they won't support or link to us, they won't share with us their findings, and they won't update us with their latest findings or development. But apparently, it's perfectly "pure" and spiritual to rip off our work and upload it as theirs?

If anyone has any inside information as to what's going on, who is objecting and calling the shots, who ordered the site to be removed and so on ... please let us know and we will out them.

The Ramsays, especially the Father, might be our best hopes within the BKWSU but, boy, the BKs are so tiresome and silly. How can they really believe their actions are "divine"!?!

The amount of energy they put into hiding and covering up the truth, and their inability to admit or perceive it, amazes me. Can they really not see how oppositional to "truth" and spirituality it all is?

Brahma-Kumari-cover-up.jpg (77.4 KiB) Viewed 25085 times

Hi. New to this forum. And have been around the BKs for a long time but seriously neutral. I don't consider myself a BK any more. But also still have many old friends and participate from time to time. Just so you know where I am coming from. Anyway, I know Robin and Tamasin both. I also know that they have really tried to get some action on this history stuff from within the organisation. As far as I am aware it was Tam who closed the site down because there were so much hoo ha and legal going backwards and forwards (like you can see on Robin's MABK site), and never any agreement or support... it was a lot of work that was going nowhere. Not sure where she's at now BK wise. She hasn't really called herself a "BK" for many years I don't think. I know she does Buddhist retreats and - like so many - doesn't go to the centre much these days. Is very involved in other things. I saw your post from her LinkedIn page but she must have changed that shortly after taking the site down - it no longer says anything about being a historian. I think she just gave up. I saw her a few weeks ago. I don't think she would mind me saying she was exhausted, drained and disillusioned. She was just over it. Anyway, that's my contribution. Hope that helps.

I am not surprised.

Yes, even I'd say they were the best (of a bad lot). And you can tell them/her from me.

She was a bit of an a-hole but I know she/they respect the work I and others did here (some PBKs get more credit than I do), and I respect them for their efforts within the BKWSU matrix.

I don't think badly of her/them, but she did need her ass kicked once or twice though.

As I always say, "joining BrahmaKumaris.Info is not as easy as going to your Aunty's house" ... ha!

Actually, it is easy as long as you are honest, sincere and straightforward.

Welcome.

I also heard through third parties that Tamasin recently attended a Vipassana retreat - they do a 10 day complete silence program. It is (from a Thai Theravadan angle) only a touch closer to the heart of Buddhism than ETS* is. ETS a Western, corporatised version of Zen which also does long intensives to ‘break through” .

Not saying they are good, bad or indifferent. Whatever the ‘student' is ready for determines the ‘teacher’ they'll identify and learn from. But if you sit for 10 days for the purpose of ”vipassana” (lit. translation: really seeing clearly) but your bring your previous paradigms and thought patterns to what you ”see”, unless you are a self-iconoclast, you are likely to reinforce what you already think. A BK alone with their BK thought will keep thinking BK thoughts, or, as they say for data analysis " rubbish in, rubbish out”. One thing to look in the mirror, another you know what to do about what you see.

That said, no ”pukka’ BK would go to a 10 day non-BK meditation retreat, so it seems that Tamasin has the intellectual and intestinal fortitude to challenge herself. She is a trained actor, and if anyone understands that identity is ”prescribed”, i.e you become as per the script and your interpretation of the script, it should be an actor.

What Shakyamuni (the silent sage of the Shakya clan - an epithet of the Buddha) basically taught was that all "scripts” (all dharmas , all samkaras) are impermanent, thereby enabling people to be free of the illusory scripts and scriptures they buy into, including the vedantin conjecture of atman. I think Tamasin and Robin are ‘intelligent' enough to ”crack” it.

I also heard recently that another long term BK who is an actor has returned to Christianity. For all Christianity’s theological claptrap, at least that Rabbi put the golden rule, forgiveness, charity, acceptance at the heart of his teachings.

*(ETS - Erhard Seminars Training, an organization founded by Werner H. Erhard -> Breakthrough Foundation -> Landmark Forum workshops etc. Erhard was inspired by Alan Watts. I suggest people save their money and just study the late, great Alan Watts)

honest endeavour to discover

What honest endeavour?

Copied all from us and after claimed - found in New York?

What honest endeavour?

Copied all from us and after claimed - "found in New York"?

That's a fair comment. I have emails from Robin about it from a year before it was "found".

But let's cut Tamasin some slack as perhaps she has now accepted the limits of BKism and the Kirpalani Klan and is now moving on ... rather than going on a Buddhist retreat to 'borrow' some ideas to use in BK service! We should support her in that and embrace her.

Perhaps she can now wholeheartedly embrace a non-BK Taoism too!

Looking back at my correspondence, I found information going back to 2008 where Robin was presenting our findings (as his) to an official BK meeting ... and yet how far forward are they now? 7 years later, numerous valuable sources already dead ... they have made zero progress.

I think "Group 7" was part of one of those show piece meetings they put on from time to time to make it look as if they are listening or changing, but which go no where.

Poor Robin and Tamasin. Surely they have got the message by now? The Kirpalani's ain't interested if it upsets their apple cart. I think they are just deliberately playing for time and waiting until all the old folk have died out, and perhaps us too, so they (the BKWSU) can go on faking their history and spinning their PR without criticism.

I know nothing of the BK discussions - no one keeps us in the loop or requests our peer review - but, strategically, I can see why they took us out of the picture to remove our "negativity" and BK resistance to the source of revelations.

Pink, do you mean the guy who acted in the The Wire?

This was sent to Group 7 Information. It was presented to the full meeting, about 100 I think, without the DJ section, which I agreed to ...pending further discussion. None of it is news to you ... but much is news to many
NCO's and others.

Regards

Robin - 2008

Pink, do you mean the guy who acted in the The Wire?

No, an australian female actor, formerly known as an actress !
Won’t mention names as it is so far only hearsay/rumour and it may not be completely true, you know, chinese whispers, exaggerations or errors in transmission..

No, an australian female actor, formerly known as an actress !

Note: In these culturally fluid times, I understand that it may have been implied the actor is transgender.
No, she is not transgender. She is an actor who is female and as I was writing I was 'playing with' the change of terminology. Sorry to confuse anyone.

For those unaware of the 'culture wars' going on in the West, it is now considered politically incorrect to split the profession of acting into actors and actresses, so all are now called actors, given it is actually a gender neutral term - the one who acts is an actor. The word ”actress” is an affectation and secondary construct. It is important when trying to develop gender equality in the industry e.g. equal pay, lessening age discrimination against women actors.

"Political correctness” is about altering accepted values by ensuring language and behaviour do not sustain any prejudices inherent in them. Another example - within the BK polity, it is politically incorrect to talk of a BK males and females as a ”man" and a ”woman", instead you say ”Brother” and ”Sister”. By determining language, you determine the mindset and the possibilities that can arise. Where this contradicts instinct, biology and what is bleedin’ obvious, it creates cognitive dissonance, a split between what is undeniable and what is wanted to be believed.

So where is Robin at regarding his lawyers and debacle with the BK elite?

It's amazing that there is no one in the whole of the BKWSU that wants to come forward and sort it all out.

I think a few try, and then realise it's not going to work, give up a little broken, and then leave.

The word ”actress” is an affectation and secondary construct.

Yah, it basically became synonymous with prostitutes of one kind or another.

"Political correctness” is about altering accepted values ... Another example - within the BK polity, it is politically incorrect to talk of a BK males and females as a ”man" and a ”woman", instead you say ”Brother” and ”Sister”.

For all their "women up front" marketing, the BKs have pretty orthodox values as far as their 'neutered' males and females, don't they?

”Brother” and ”Sister” is sort of de-sexed, is not it, i.e. you would not/should not be sexually attracted to your Sister.

I know some cultures do adopt such nomenclature but it would be interesting to see how it applied where they don't. I never felt comfortable with it. It's basically a sort of repetitive coercion into accepting what you may not feel.

I don't know where the BK supporter and actor Clarke Peters (The Wire) is at now.

Fame whores that they are, the BKs wheel him out for their big events to attract "bums on seats" (a theatrical expression). He first joined the BKs in 1986 but he has a new, younger wife and a 19 year old son now, so he "on/off" in more ways that just his BK affiliation.

Remembering their exploitation of steamy sex idol Priyanka Chopra, that's another mixed message the BKs are sending out. In the old days, it used to be about creating a "pure" vibration using their Raja Yoga. Now it seems to be all about pulling in as many "bums on seats" as they can using "VIP Yoga".

What message are they really sending out? Something between it's cool to compromise and hypocrisy based on an individual's social status.

In truth, BKism is really not that cool a religion and, technically speaking, using tarts* to promote it is surely self-defeating?

* (I am thinking of some other VIPs the BK associated themselves with, more than one of whom ended up being exposed for some tawdry sex scandal ... and now we have Priyanka doing a movie where she has casual sex with a stranger and then arguing there is nothing wrong with it and everyone knowing. Too weird. ).

The word ”actress” is an affectation and secondary construct.

Yah, it basically became synonymous with prostitutes of one kind or another.

That was the case many years ago, although today, the euphemism of ‘actor’ is more appropriately interpreted to mean ”cafe waiting staff”, ”kitchen hand” or "shop assistant”, i.e. their actual jobs while they wait for a successful audition. ”Massage clinic” was a euphemism for ”brothel” - today, even in places where brothels are legalised and registered, that hangover still affects therapeutic massage therapists!

As for Clarke Peters - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0676370/

So where's Tamasin at, what happened and what is to befall effort to resolve the Brahma Kumaris history.

I found her published work lacking. It was far too biased and compromised by her loyalties to the BKs. I am sure she's not stupid ... and I know she can kick ass ... perhaps she was just trapped by her role, and the fringe benefits of it? Networking around the UN etc?

Or, ultimately, Western intelligence and values (truth, integrity, academic rigour, objectivity etc) does not stand a chance against the BK elite and the way the Indians do things?