BKWSU Living Values Course $7,500 for one month in Bali

BKWSU started a service programme called Living Values which was highly successful form of subtle evangelism for the organization. It was then cut off as an "independent" organization, albeit that the majority of directors were all Brahma Kumari adherents of some degree or another. This seems to be a further development of the slide towards the commercialization of their religion ...

I have no idea how it operates, or what has gone on behind the scenes to allow this, but now "Living Values Courses" are being done in Bali for $7,500 per one month offering "Immersion in Living Values program by trained LVE facilitators". Full time supervision by the program leaders – Raj Miles and/or Suzanne Stallard from Australia. "Focal Points for LVE in Australia".

The programme is held at the "Karuna Bali Foundation Centre" where, of course, the BKWSU has a center. Ubud has been a Mecca for rich hippies for a long time. The Foundation Centre does the usual thing of blowing the UN trumpet ... but not the Brahma Kumaris ... unless they are the so-called "university trainers" mentioned below. It also offers a "HUMANITARIAN MANAGEMENT
& LEADERSHIP PROGRAM".

ALIVE is the international UNESCO endorsed program already established in 80 countries with some 8000 volunteer trainers. Karuna Bali in conjuction with c and others involved as facilitators has taken on the challenge of reaching into the 7000 odd inhabited islands and 46,000 towns with this beautiful and effective education system.

It may go partly at least to financially support the Karuna Bali Foundation Centre trust. I don't know. It is not clear. There is notably no mention of the BKWSU. You see elements of Brahma Kumarism taken from or incorporated by Relax Kids, e.g. here.

Nine o'clock sharp and we began the morning with a song, "I am a peaceful star, I am." It was sung with all the open-hearted enthusiasm that I so loved about these kids.

They also now offer a Homestudy Living Values programme for $130 with a monthly phone class for an additional $110.

Again, I am not condemning the idea of "virtues" or "values" per se, I am just bewildered at the transformation of it from a BK service programme to a commercialized operation. I see much of this as a desire on behalf of BK followers to do something practically positively which the leadership actually risked for years, if not decades.

But does not such a high prices set it as 'elitist only'. How many people can actually afford $7,500 to stay in Bali for a month? That is more a 4 Star hotel.

That's the tendency. Catering for VIPs and holding spiritual retreats in fancier places, often unaffordable to most BKs, BTW. Don't we all remember the song, "we, BKs are all poor, usually BKs don't have much money, because we are old souls, Kaliyug is paradise for new souls, not for us, "blah, blah, blah ...?

Not only, if a young person is suggested by his/her spiritual leader to neglect his education and instead surrender to Baba, make good use of his time, insure himself with God and give body mind and $ to God, the bones in service, to be unambitious re jobs "a manual job is better because it leaves your mind free to remember Baba ...". The result is that such devotees are trained to feel gratified and proud of "serving" in the ShivShakti Army as unpaid volunteers, whilst enabling people attending courses, etc.., to also take a sip of the divine knowledge.

Correct me if I am wrong, but AFAIK, all retreat centers, and courses, are run according to this principle, "pukka BKs" give free labour and even pay for their own expenses, and participants pay fees, either fixed ones, like in the case described in this topic, or as "donations', or a mix of the 2.

We also have grown accustomed to the fact, that some facilitators (deities' time is precious, time IS money) do it as a job, just like any coach from any of the thousands of trainers who set up a spiritual development business. I wonder if the people involved in other organizations, the "staff", also do so in terms of volunteering.

BKs don't have the expense of paying people for the jobs they do for them. Clever system, eh?

One last thing: this gradual metamorphosis or distortion of its fundamental principles the BKWSO has been going through, is one of those things that cannot be discussed openly, one of the taboos that you better not question. In my experience, every time I tried, even just commenting how a retreat was a bit beyond my yogini budget, the reaction I met was "don't be a nuisance, take it or leave it".

Maybe others can confirm this New Age trend?

In Kaliyug, no one does something for free: except for brainwashed zombies.