On Celibate Marriages: Conversion to the Brahma Kumaris

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

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On Celibate Marriages: Conversion to the Brahma Kumaris

Post27 Sep 2009

From 'The Margins of Religion' by Frances Pine', João de Pina-Cabral and others.

It includes, 'On Celibate Marriages: Conversion to the Brahma Kumaris in Poland' by Agnieszka Koscianska
On page 169, Agnieszka Koscianska wrote:'There is no menstruation, no sex in the Golden Age. Towards new forms of relation.'

My informants were very critical towards the contemporary world, which they viewed as full of qualities such as gree, anger and sex-lust:

    "In the Golden Age children are born without sex, as a result of Yoga. Menstruation is a result of overuse of sex. When a girl has her period for the first time she is terrified, she says that she is ill. That is a proof that it is not natural.

    Humankind has too much sex. It doesn't matter if you do it as a couple or during an orgy. This is an abuse ... violation against your own body and it causes numerous diseases like, for instance, breast cancer or prostate cancer.
    "
Although the practical dimension of the conversion of one member of a household to the Brahma Kumaris involves total separation, new forms of family life are worked out. One of my informations, who has not had sexual intercourse with her husband for nearly 20 years.

'She is not my wife any more: Conversion to the Brahma Kumaris'

Most of the owmen I interviewed claimed that their relations with their spouses had been tense even before meeting the Brahma Kumaris. However, renunciation of sexual intercourse usually brings or adds a discord between husband and wife. Often kith and kin also become engaged in the conflict.

Another woman ... recounted to me how through them she found proof that sexual intercourse is an act of evil and should not be considered a conjugal duty
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ex-l

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Re: On Celibate Marriages: Conversion to the Brahma Kumaris

Post28 Sep 2009

Thank you for that. I have been looking for this particular paper for some time. As a neutral third party and academic, she has matched John Walliss in accurately capturing the details of Brahma Kumari experience. The stories of the partners and families of BKs have been repeated the world through. What she does not pick up though is the question of people living such lives held under the false delusion that makes up their core philosophy, i.e. the false history and historical revisions, the "rolling" failed predictions of Destructions and so on.

There is another quote, that I cannot put my hands on right now, where it is stated that sex fits into the Brahma Kumaris path of Brahmacharya as long as it is mechanical and passionless. See below the Vedanti quote.

The quotes from these women adherents also make me wonder ... what sort of reality are these women making or themselves within the Brahma Kumari movement. Elsewhere, we questioned the effects of a Roman Catholic background amongst Brahma Kumari followers in the West. Here we have Poland, a heartlands of hard bitten, northern and easter European Catholicism.

Although the Brahma Kumari leaders might be sat on top of their Vaishnavic surfboards, surfing along on the financial wave of Western adherents and what 'they' believe (the BKWSU has, of course, parachuted in SIndi and Hindi Sisters to trademark and manage the white adherents), who is checking to see what reality the mainly women adherents themselves are making to sustain them? For example, all this stuff of sex being "sin" which is a big Catholic thing.

Here we have them encourage to not even cook for their family or attending family funerals (despite affording their own gurus full 'state funerals'. From the same paper ...
Agnieszka Koscianska wrote:Sharing food, cooking for somebody else, is an act of tying karmic accounts and according to the Brahma Kumaris doctrine is considered as 'an attachment' - a vice which makes spiritual development difficult.

(Vedanti) became a powerful spiritual leader and organised the activities of the Brahma Kumaris throughout Africa. Her teachings concern, among other things, gender relations.

However, she also broke all her earthly links with her parents - when they died she did not go to her family hometown to attend the funerals (attachment is considered to be a vice which makes contact with God impossible).

My apologies to Sister Vedanti of the BKWSU Africa, but it is another of their laughable constructions to suggest that the BKs teach "gender relations", as if it was come deep sociological or feminist subject. One can only imagine what that means ...

This "passionless and mechanical sex" quote is relating to advice the Brahma Kumari leaders give their woman adherents relating to how to "wean their non-BK husbands off" sex and them, so that the BKWSU can become the main focus of their lives. That is to say they allow their followers, in difficult situations, to be a sex object to their husbands but advise them just to lie back like a corpse, remembering Baba, and do nothing as their husband sexually penetrates them and uses their body to ejaculate into. The would be Brahma Kumari adherent practises being "bodiless" and "detached" in her mind as this happens and it all confirms the Brahma Kumaris worst prejudices that men are nothing more than "lustful dogs".

Obviously, after a few times of poking a corpse, the husband gets upset, gives up and ends the relationship ... the BKs win. In truth, the relationship dies as all the focus and attention of the woman is now going to be sucked up by the BKWSU. Elsewhere it was reported Dadi Janki giving one woman her advice to allow her husband to do so a few a month ... such spiritual advice is never put on the record ... but one can imagine that by confession such and portraying the details of her marital status, the woman also lowered her status within the BK movement to a "half-BK".

This is not widely spoken about. It is "Shrimat" (advice equal to God's) given by senior Brahma Kumaris during private counseling sessions ... but has been confirmed from other more open sources such as the PBKs. So this is an example typical BK "gender relations". It is all about power. Not just the re-negotiation of a couple in a relationship ... but the Brahma Kumaris, or their spirit guides, expanding their power and influence right through the medium of society and into individual's bedrooms and relationships ... spreading like a virus one contact at a time.

Of course individuals have some right to re-negotiate their relationship. But in the case of the Brahma Kumaris, it is not just two people. It is one person, the non-BK, versus a second person (the BK adherent) who is backed up by clearly focused senior Sisters with decades of similar experience, and their "Shiv-Shakti Army". It is not a "fair" or equal fight. The non-BK will be dealing with a partner whose thoughts and actions now are being determined by an individuals, from another culture entirely, whom they did not even know a matter of weeks beforehand ... and in the interest of the BK organization not either individual. I would argue that individuals, and the individual point of view, are entirely expendable within the BKWSU, if not seen as "bad".

What I ask is ... has anyone sat in, or does any one know, the conversations the BK leaders themselves (many of whom are virgins who have had no relationships at all) have about sex and partnerships? is not their motivation simple to advance the BKWSU and their vision of any ordinary human beings ... let along someone that confronts them ... as "demons" and impure?
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alladin

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shady misogynists

Post29 Sep 2009

Let me borrow this from another topic and, since these bossy guys pulling the strings are on top of the hierarchic pyramid, let me put them at the beginning of my post, so that I can hold them responsible
"the shady senior Brothers that really run the BKWSU."

For creating a chauvinistic and misogynist organization that uses thousands of free laborers, most of which are women with no better place to go, and uses women merely as a front ... "adversaries will not dare attacking, frontally, Kumaris and elderly women". You may realize that everything is just tactics, nothing pure or elevated, if you just dare asking yourself some forbidden, "Why?", use your own mind (manmat) or take the help of some friends (bad company and parmat) to find some answers.

Why would a feminist and New Age institution be obsessed with women having to cover their bodies up? Only the most backwards countries and societies impose such customs. They are countries where (like in the small BK society) women have no right to marry whom they want, they work like slaves and must produce children (students), are denied education (best and only school is the BKWSO, no need to waste time in lokik studies, Destruction is round the corner), familiarity and touching are a crime.

The same applies to professions and career: doors are closed. The BKs are also discouraged from taking on studies and pursue a career that would represent a useless distraction from spiritual studies. Elderly women oppress junior ones, and pass on to them the same rules that made their own lives miserable.

If a woman dares to disobey slightly, she will have to face questioning and an assembly of the elders, that will shame her. Which societies regard women, and menstruating ones in particular, impure and threatening? Most blatantly patriarchal societies. Who fears women's identity? Unenlightened men.

But the ugliest thing that I realized today after reading ex-l's post, is that the BKs learnt from politicians, a very efficient trick for disempowering women: do you want equal rights? OK, you can have them. Become like men, embody the same defects like competition and selfishness. And they have a brazen face talking about becoming Vishnu, the combined form where female and male qualities merge creating harmony and perfection!

A BK woman is stripped from her femininity both from the outside and from the inside. The BKs cannot conceive nor tolerate care and nurturing. Any maternal instinct of nourishing, unlimited acceptance of the other person, is eradicated. Each one has to be left alone to sort his own karma, no closeness or compassion is allowed.

If a woman is stripped off her psychological and physical attributes, what becomes of her? Instead of a shakti, a zombie that is totally disempowered and can be manipulated. The vital force, the "KI" is choked: just look at them! What feeling do you get? What happens to any male animal once he is castrated? He can be tamed more easily and will not fight, he will not pose any threat to the dominant alpha males (spooks, senior BK Brothers in the background?). So, the army of followers is made of sour frustrated spinsters and eunuchs.

If a man and a woman get together, that synergy can create something beautiful and powerful. The BKs forbid couples to be formed, because strength in a unit like a couple, represents a threat, means that 2 people are not depending emotionally from the sect, and the higher degree of intimacy and complicity, can lead to communication on a deep level, opening each other's eyes and unveiling the BKs' plots sooner, compared to the later or never awakening of an isolated gagged individual.

The whole story about sex being dirty and the "yukti" of just lying there like a corpse letting the husband rape you, is absolutely gross, it cannot possibly be the product of a woman's mind.

Who denies women the right to experience sexual pleasure? Sick, traditionalist control freaks, of masculine gender, or brainwashed prudish women appointed to guard some unhealthy anachronistic value.

The topic raised again about sex, deserves a separate post, or maybe some tantric healing, even better than words!
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ex-l

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Re: On Celibate Marriages: Conversion to the Brahma Kumaris

Post30 Sep 2009

It was from Celibacy, culture, and society: the anthropology of sexual abstinence By Elisa Janine Sobo, Sandra Bell page 163 and direct accounts of BK and PBK life.
... the Brahma Kumaris suggest that the category of brahmacharya may even expand to include sexual activity, as long as it is utilitarian and passionless.

bkti-pit

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Re: On Celibate Marriages: Conversion to the Brahma Kumaris

Post30 Sep 2009

Dear Alladin,

I am deeply moved by your post. I see so much Truth in it. I suggest it being added to the Classic Posts.
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alladin

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Re: On Celibate Marriages: Conversion to the Brahma Kumaris

Post02 Oct 2009

As I was pm ming with a friend, I started having some crazy thoughts I want to share. If it is not serious enough, this post can go in the jokes session, I don't mind! We were trained not to become attached to other BKs, to encourage our attractions, ordered to suppress any chemistry taking place between us because this would have destroyed our status and distracted us from Yoga with the spook (sorry spook, if I don't use capital S!).

To an ever increasing number of us, it is becoming clear that these disciplines were not to our benefit or to the benefit of the World, but part of brain washing and were in place in order to obtain total control over every sphere of our lives, even the innermost ones (if you broke Shrimat even in your dreams, you had to feel guilty, repent, confess ...). We all know how far this control went: what you wear, how you walk, talk, eat, laugh, whether you take a full shower after a poo ...

So, by many cunning means, we were kept under a spell which is very different from God's canopy of protection which is what I always felt and feel even now (thank Great Spirit for being always there!).

Ambush in the night ... protected by His Majesty. I think the lyrics from this beautiful Bob Marley's song are not out of place here!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABfGrB028-k

What would happen if BKs started deliberately seducing each other? What if this practise became widespread, a pandemic?
Only the guilty feelings and the many dogmas, act as a vaccination. Unfortunately that prevention seems to work.

Would the story of the Beauty and the Beast be recognizable here, in the fact that BKs are under a spell and the kiss of a knight, a king coming from a foreign kingdom would awaken them?

The prohibitions regarding compassion, affection and the rest , which are sins and all fall into the categories of disgusting vices called attachment and lust, made us totally unbalanced. On the physical plan, if you are unbalanced, you cannot stand on your own, you need a crutch, or else you will fall. So, an army of unbalanced people, is easy to control, no need to shoot a bullet. An inexpensive and apparently non-violent way to keep the mobs crippled and tamed.
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lokila

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Re: On Celibate Marriages: Conversion to the Brahma Kumaris

Post04 Oct 2009

bkti-pit, I do so much agree with you. This is absolutely a classic post. Thanks Alladin, for this stroke of insight.

duty bound

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Re: On Celibate Marriages: Conversion to the Brahma Kumaris

Post04 Oct 2009

Celibacy as a lifestyle choice is a personal one and is important on a spiritual path, though not essential. I have witnessed how suppresion of natural attraction to another leads to all sorts of problems. If we thought that our children were ugly when we had them, we would not be inclined to take care and love them. Nature has these inbuilt mechanisims to insure our survival.

If the university of the BKWSU is promoting this as a part of being yogi, then where are all the classes about how to practice this effectively? How do the deities conceive?

Often where there is not the open and mature discussion about the very real physical needs of people on a path of self discovery, it leads to unhealthy and debilitating consequences. It is easier I think to be celibate when your sixty, have no libido and are a spent force, it is a lot easier. Why all the embarrasment about what is a very real and natural need to be close and affectionate to another? The pedaling of fear with talk that lust is equal to murder is fear based madness and leads many to become sick and cold and distant from loved ones.
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ex-l

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Re: On Celibate Marriages: Conversion to the Brahma Kumaris

Post07 Oct 2009

duty bound wrote:I have witnessed how suppresion of natural attraction to another leads to all sorts of problems.

And that "attraction" could be as simple as a strong intuition, personal guidance, a touching to follow up for some other reason entirely than "dog like" sex lust. Some "destiny" or another ... even a last ditch, angelic rescue FROM the BKWSU.

Jannisder gives us an example from a recent message from "God".
Question: Whose company do you children have to be very cautious about?

Answer: You have to remain cautious of the company of those who do not have remembrance of the Father in their intellects, and whose intellects continue to wander here and there. You should not sit next to them, not even touch them, because those who do not stay in remembrance spoil the atmosphere.

Everything depends on purity. Therefore, you have to take care not to sit next to and touch an impure person. Do not remember anything other than the sweet Father and the sweet kingdom.

IF ... big if ... the Brahma Kumari way was always 100% true and beyond question, as one should expect from "God's" own religion, then perhaps one could accept such advice.

But it is not true and and has not been true. So get on with your own life. Follow your own intuitions. Learn your own lessons, in your own time.
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tom

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Re: On Celibate Marriages: Conversion to the Brahma Kumaris

Post07 Oct 2009

BKs God spoke wrote:Therefore, you have to take care not to sit next to and touch an impure person.

How can an 'elevated being' make a distinction between pure and impure human beings, and give orders to the so called "pure ones" not to touch the impure ones?

This can be, IMO, a poor earth bound spook hooked to his memories from his last incarnation in a country with caste traditions.

Being human means for me taking care of each other, touching and loving his/her beloved ones and having compassion, love, mercy and friendly feelings to all others.

Whoever thinks that he/she is pure and others are impure, is mentally sick and blind and needs help.
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rayoflight

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Re: On Celibate Marriages: Conversion to the Brahma Kumaris

Post07 Oct 2009

tom wrote:This can be, IMO, a poor earth bound spook hooked to his memories from his last incarnation in a country with caste traditions.

Yes, precisely. God does not engage in separatist behavior. There is no such thing as dualism for God.

This spook has obviously not evolved from whence he came from, where human beings treated each other with disgust because of social status and called it "purity." How shameful, really. Nothing short of the snobbery found in societies rich in money but poor in humanity and spirituality.
ex-l wrote:And that "attraction" could be as simple as a strong intuition, personal guidance, a touching to follow up for some other reason entirely than "dog like" sex lust. Some "destiny" or another ... even a last ditch, angelic rescue FROM the BKWSU.

Wow, how beautiful and truly wise. I can totally relate.

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