The Tao of the Traveller

for ex-BKs to discuss matters related to experiences in BKWSU & after leaving.
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bansy

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The Tao of the Traveller

Post05 Mar 2008

Here, I do my part for the BKs for free ... announced on this forum before it is even announced release :P. Will be shown at cinemas.


Well, there has already been; The Fountain, The Celestine Prophecy, The Secret, Conversation with God, What the Bleep, Kundun ...

To be honest, I think I prefer the good old Indian-type BK movies rather than all this westernised New Agey BK stuff coming from Oz or UK.
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ex-l

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Re: The Tao of the Traveller

Post06 Mar 2008

new_BK_Ramsay.jpg

Ah, yes ... "the Beautiful and the Damned". The Ramsays are evidently part of the Islamicist wing within the BKWSU ... click to view.

So, producer/director BK Robin Ramsay, BK Clarke Peters, BK Lucinda Drayton of BK Bliss, and Robin Ramsay's younger daughter BK Tamasin Ramsay in the lead role, written by wife BK Barbara Ramsay. That is what you call 'keeping it in the (Double) family' ... Tamsin's other credits appear to include "Woman Victim" in 'The Queen of the Damned' and "Jane" in the 1985 flick 'Possession'. God's little joke? Tamsin also appeared as 'BB' (Larkin) along with Kylie and Jason etc in hit Aussie soap Neighbours.

I wonder who gets what split of the money if it is ever shown publicly or sold to TV/D~VD?

These people are professional business people in the field of the entertainment industry. Its no different from any other question of corporate ethics. TToTT is obviously laden with and intended to promote the BKWSU and Gyan; "The Traveller is a diamond spark, the soul ... 3 aspects make up the soul ... the Lord of Time puts the children ahead of himself ... the Lord of Truth ... blind worship end and kneeling finish, its not the way." Sounds familiar enough. Movie appears to be being shown at BK centers or sponsored venues worldwide alone so far. Can we see the contracts please?

No disrespect for Tamsin as a person ... unless they are all hiding the BK connection and connections to do service ... she is also an academic having peer reviewed articles such as, "The Missing Piece: The Unresearched Factor in Disaster Preparedness" (ahem, is that 'disaster preparedness' or 'Destruction preparedness!?!). She seems to cites 3 BKs at least in her professional references, director Jayanti, director Charlie Hogg and the director of Chasing God, de Vries. No references from the hunched up old mataji who works tirelessly and egolessly in the back kitchens of Abu ... so no good for me I am afraid.

Ha! But ... both bodiless and egoless Tamsin and Robin did the very uncool thing of editing his very own Wikipedia topic, here and here. Was Robin or was he not disowned as the heir by his super wealthy family ... and why did he remove reference to it? There appears to be a moneyed background. Wife Barbara, aka the 'Caged Women' in "Prisoner", also wrote the "Chasing God" movie for the Beakies, The Accidental Mystic, Traveller etc. For those that do not know the related significance, The Voyagers by now ex-BK, turned vedanta guru Robert Shubow was a seminal, if not first, piece of Western BK story writing which is still sold by the Brahmakumaris and features in particular Murlis/Murli songs.

Actually, little bit of disrespect to the lot of them ... I wish that the collective BK world would FO "the Tao" and leave it alone for the Taoists. An organisation cant go about copyrighting and trademarking God's spirituality or slapping about legal actions at one end and then go pirating everyone else's spirituality for its own ends at the other.

Oh, the movie looks really nice with a lovely sound track and involved flying around to beautiful locations such as Jordan, New Zealand, Italy, Switzerland, India and Australia amongst other places in order to save and serve humanity.
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ex-l

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Re: The Tao of the Traveller

Post06 Mar 2008

Interesting ... the only contact details and domain registration details given are;
taotraveller.com wrote:Registrant: Saligram Studios, 65-69 Pound Lane, London NW10 2HH UK

which may sound familiar as it is the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University's Global Co-operation House, aka London BK center.

Just a postscript on Taoism. Taoism is a collection of philosophical approaches to living derived from ancient China. Roughly translated, it is used to mean the flow of the universe, or the force behind the natural order and often very poetically describes a way of life in harmony with that flow which if practised well if claimed to lead to supernatural results. It is also connected to particular ethics and value systems. Perhaps its most famous book, and a recommended read for anyone, is the Tao Te Ching. Whereas BK might be about a final destination, Taoism is more about the immediate universal path in front of each and every one of us.

Taoism has pretty good press and is highly regarded in the West. It has not suffered public criticism or excessive behaviour of lustful, greedy gurus, it has not led to cults, it does not manifest in the tawdry fashion that many Indian religions do. Largely, it is very reasonable, non-materialistic and presented very well. I am absolutely sure that the Ramsays, inc have a very high regard and attraction to it ... but it is not BK Gyan.

It is also a reasonable spinner for many new agey types writing books etc and a few seminar guru. Stick "The Tao of ..." in front of your book title and it will be popular with a particular audience in a way that books on Nazis, sex or kittens will be popular to others. Indeed, so much so that I must sit down and write, "The Tao of Nazi Sex Kittens" and include a BK Jayanti meditiation commentary ... it will bound to make me rich, famous, increase my status and then I will be able to use it on my CV to gain other opportunities.

The arts are a very high risk, high reward speculative market in which many people have to invest their time and money for nothing in order to reap cumulative rewards in the future which are often valued on the basis of percentages if a project is successful. Value is very largely based on exposure not necessarily virtue.

Personally, I am upset at the BKWSU ... AGAIN ... latching onto and piggybacking on someone else religion, spirituality and credibility, using it as a guise to promote their thing. For me, they and their spirit guide (who ever he may be) have been doing so right from the beginning of the Yagya. Despite its claims to be the origin of all religions, it is has always been a parasitic, syncretic religion picking, choosing and accruing added values from others; Raja Yoga ... Shiva ... Krishna ... Brahma ... a bit of Sikh here ... a bit of Abrahamic monotheism there. For a religion that claims to promoting "being your true self", why does it not just be its true self? Words or actions, folks?

Taoism is the path of ignorance to these people. It is stumbling in the darkness. It is futile seeking with no god and no enlightenment at the end of it. It is Bhakti, and we know the condemnation that word is used with.

So why go hiding behind it to pull the crowds in because the hoodoo voodoo of rank Hindoo-ism is not good enough, or appealing enough to do so? Is Gyan not good enough by itself? BKs go to someone else's spiritual treasure island to pillage without paying respect to where there is no one else to defend with counter threats and attorneys.

For me, it also exemplifies a fetish and over-valuing within the BKWSU for worldy talents virtues ... where putting on a "good show" is what counts most and damn the ethics of it all. It seem the BKWSU business franchise system has latched onto this obviously expensive international production and it is being used as this season's core service tool. I wonder how much and where the money came from? I wonder if external money has been used? The job of a producer is to pull in investment, manage the finances and return financial rewards. In real terms, such a production would cost 100s of thousands of dollars.

Coincidentally to other posts regarding the start of Bhakti, it looks like the film starts with an ancient book found in the earth. So it is pretty much par for the course Western BK seva.
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ms orange

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Re: The Tao of the Traveller

Post07 Mar 2008

Hi. My goodness, how do I respond to these posts?! This is actually my first posting although I registered a while ago. I am Tamasin, but gave myself the username Ms Orange because of Mr Green. I thought it would be a nice balance. Anyway ... hello.
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ex-l

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Re: The Tao of the Traveller

Post07 Mar 2008

ms orange wrote:Hi. My goodness, how do I respond to these posts?!

With spirit and a lot of heart, I'd say ... engage and stand your own ground. Welcome on board.

How does the Ramsay, Inc respond to all this? If I am to be blunt, personally I am primarily interested in the contracting and finances as they relate to the BKWSU. I am not interested in the personal side. Reflecting on the recent changes in the BK corporate consulting wing (reports are that the SML license has been revoked by Brian Bacon), it appears to be area where the BKWSU is becoming both more sophisticated in its operations but also, possibly, starting to address its 'flexible morality'.

The whole Bliss thing (allegedly making money out of sales to "the family") has been documented and questioned on the forum before (I don't know the details as it was not an issue I raised but from memory it related to commission on sales and the patronage of the Seniors). So has the same leadership's historically discriminatory attitudes towards the creative arts and others artistes. In this case, I cannot see that you are selling anything to or through 'the family', (may be some DVD sales, I guess) but are you individually taking or would you and the others be making anything out of it if it was sold/distributed (apart from just on the CV)?

I have not seen it yet but the trailer does suggest that it is fairly thick with BK Gyan and yet not clearly labeled as such to non-BK. Personally, I am a little bit critical about the soft sell yukti. I like things to say on the box what they are. Others see the end justifying the means.

All the same, this forum does not comprise of me alone. I think you will find others here that are appreciative of this type of expression just as you will find others that are not only passionate about Gyan, Shrimat and the Maryadas but also able to back their position up with 'scriptural references'. An example of this nature raises very interesting ethical discussions and provokes churning from all sides. I am sure everyone will be grateful for your input.

Its great when BKs, or the BKWSU, actually deem to come forward and acknowledge our existence.
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ms orange

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Re: The Tao of the Traveller

Post09 Mar 2008

Hi. Thanks for your lovely welcome.

In response to your queries all I can speak about of course, is me and why I do things. Barbara and Robin will have to speak for themselves, if they wish to. I did the Traveller film mainly because I love the arts, and I believe in the power of the arts and their ability to give people an experience.

I understand people's concern about using 'Tao'. Everyone involved in the project discussed this a lot as well. The book was called simply 'Traveller: the Seven Keys of Enlightenment'. The reason we chose to use 'Tao' for the film was that we felt that most people were familiar with the term as meaning 'path' or 'way' which is what we wanted to portray (as opposed to purposely taking it from Chinese philosophy). Because the film is about a way of life/ being/ spiritual travelling rather than solely a physical journey, we felt using 'Tao' reflected the content of the film better. That's my understanding of it anyway,

I liked the idea of the Traveller film because it just presented The Knowledge in a plain, simple and (I think) beautiful way. It was also an opportunity to do something experimental, which is always appealing for people with a creative bent! I know what you mean about the arts - they've had to earn their place on the service field over time. The appeal of the project was also that, rather than trying to 'soft sell', Gyan, I saw it as a way to speak about spiritual ideas without it being heavily weighted with Indian stories, analogies and references which some people love but others find yet another hurdle they have to jump over. Also, I do absolutely believe that God is not the God of any particular spiritual community, including the BKs. God belongs to everyone as does knowledge of the soul, karma and time. The Traveller is a way of telling people that they're eternal souls and God loves with them and just leaving it at that without people feeling they have to join a group to be a child of God or to be loved or inherently beautiful.

I wasn't paid for the film and neither did I want to be paid or expect to be paid. I did it for the enjoyment of doing it and because I believe in the arts.

So that's it for now! I'll keep checking in every now and again.
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tete

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Re: The Tao of the Traveller

Post09 Mar 2008

actress Tamasin Ramsay

Tamasin Ramsay does an interview and mentions The Toa of the Traveller in passing.
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ex-l

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Re: The Tao of the Traveller

Post09 Mar 2008

Who put up the money and where does any of its return go if it is sold or distributed ... even if just amongst the BK family?

Thanks.
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ms orange

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Re: The Tao of the Traveller

Post10 Mar 2008

I am not sure. I am just an actor in it - don't know about the financial side of it.
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ex-l

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Re: The Tao of the Traveller

Post10 Mar 2008

Can you check with your Dad or the others? Did the crew not have to sign a waiver or contract? I would be surprised if an actor of the status of Clarke Peters would not HAVE to sign a disclaimer or have an agreement for his agent.

If The Tao of the Traveller was privately funded, e.g. from the Kiwi shoe polish millions, then fine. Your family has the right to do what they want with their own moneys and enjoy it. From the Gyani point of view, one might be tempted to consider the charitable cost-benefit analysis, e.g. how much benefit so much money would it have brought back if spent elsewhere, and what example this sets to new BKs, e.g. external show, VIP pumping etc

Given it is Gyan and seva, we enter back into that sticky arena the BKWSU so loves to drown in of 'rights and ownership' where, in my opinion, the ordinary follower has their intellect "kept free from the burden" of considering such ethical matters whilst the leadership does deals behinds the scenes generally bases on the individual's financial or social status.

Perhaps 'privileges and preferential treatment' within the family too. A dark area I am struggling to understand as it does not appear to be written up in the constitution and by-laws, as in some folks get to do stuff where others are discouraged or not allowed to on a seemingly ad hoc basis. This is a good opportunity to explore these issues. I wonder if the film houses etc know what it is all about. How is it presented to them, as personal work?

But, anyway, I don't want to offend the individuals involved on a personal level. If it was an independent movie, I could wholeheartedly enough this type of media ... but it is all sucked into the mire of the Brahmakumaris' MO.

Is there an internet version we can all watch for free? Or do we have to attended morning class before we get copies ...
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ms orange

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Re: The Tao of the Traveller

Post10 Mar 2008

Tao of the Traveller is not a profit making enterprise, but if you want to find out the details you would have to contact the producer of the film. The filming was done in Australia, New Zealand and India, not all the other places you mention so it wasn't as expensive as you may think. I am guessing you haven't seen the film yet ... ? This film is a creative experimental attempt at doing something spiritual that can bring an experience of peace to people. It's certainly not a high profile whizz bang feature. Cost/benefit analysis wise - I think the film will bring peace and understanding to people. If it does that to one person, it will have paid for itself, in my view.

Also - just in the spirit of openness - who are you? I've told you my name. What's yours? Looking forward to chatting some more ...
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tete

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Re: The Tao of the Traveller

Post10 Mar 2008

ms orange wrote:Cost/benefit analysis wise - I think the film will bring peace and understanding to people. If it does that to one person, it will have paid for itself, in my view.

Considering the fact that there is no ...

provided by the BKs. Someone of great character sent this proverb to us in light of the work done at this site:
Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if they destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if they saved an entire world.
-- Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin 4:8 (37a)
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ms orange

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Re: The Tao of the Traveller

Post10 Mar 2008

The Australian BKWSU has had a Duty of Care since 2003, which was recently updated further. I like the Jewish proverb.
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ex-l

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Re: The Tao of the Traveller

Post11 Mar 2008

Regarding the movie, please stick a copy on a server for download or streaming so that we can all take benefit from it freely. Is it copyrighted or does it have a Creative Commons license?
ms orange wrote:The Australian BKWSU has had a Duty of Care since 2003, which was recently updated further.

Can you also post a link to where the BKs have this on their website and copy of it here on this forum?

Does it go as far as informing newcomers to the BKWSU about all the historical re-writes, failed predictions of Destruction etc?
Also - just in the spirit of openness - who are you? I've told you my name. What's yours?

"My name is Legion, for we are many."

Personally, I have never played the celebrity game. I am not a VIP, not even within the BKWSU, and have always avoided public recognition for the service I do (... despite the best efforts of some fetid quarters of the BKWSU). This forum afford one one's anonymity and I respect other's wishes to enjoy that.

For many members, to disclose who they are or have it disclosed would bring about condemnation, sanctions even punishment from within the BKWSU in the same way PBK members suffer. One pro-BK member mentioned his Murli supply being cut off. I am sorry. The usual gossip is one thing but there is an element within the BKWSU that operate like a spy-ring. I advise everyone on this forum to protect their identity until there is an external system of accountability that binds these people.

It is correct to say you actually sponsored or donated a center to the BKWSU or did it come from your family? I like to check details. Do you feel that your family is subject to preferential treatment from the leadership (access to Seniors, allowances etc) because of that or because of its IP status?

How do you feel it fits to use the title of one religion, e.g. "Toaism" to promote "Brahmakumari-ism" when at the same time the Brahma Kumaris are trademarking "their" titles and seeking to exclude others from using them ... such as by the domain dispute the BKWSU? I would argue that any BK service is not about "promoting spirituality" it is about promoting Brahmakumari-ism". Of course, we also know from the Gyani point of view that there is no benefit in Bhakti ...

For me, the most important thing is that individuals like you can come here and take benefit from the work we are doing and then, hopefully, feed it back into the machine of the BKWSU. And, obviously, we bring benefit to the wide community by informing them. I'd appreciate if you took a look over the historical revision forum and started encouraging the leadership of your zone to consider how continuing to promote a false history to newcomers fits in with its legal duty of care. I mean, it is not a question of having a policy or not, is whether it is implemented or not that counts. Each zone does have its own flavor.

Personally, I would extend our duty of care to protecting newcomers, and their friends and family. We had a really nasty case recently of an Australian family being broken up under the influence of some center-in-charge, a wife left with children to look after alone etc, documented on this forum. It was obvious that the BKs were not being honest to the non-BK and it was probably only thanks to this forum that she was able to make any sense of her own, her husband's and family's experience.

So, at least the public ought know the general agenda by which the Brahmakumaris operate projects like this. Its just well trod marketing really; "The Tao of Physics", "The Tao of Pooh Bear" ... now "The Tao of Gyan". I prefer the original one, the Tao that cannot be spoken.
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ms orange

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Re: The Tao of the Traveller

Post11 Mar 2008

I appreciate your desire for anonymity and, as such, I think I will take the same opportunity and resign from this forum. I wish you all the best.
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