Leaving BKSWU - out with a bang, or fading away quietly?

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

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Re: Leaving BKSWU - out with a bang, or fading away quietly?

Post09 Nov 2009

Yes, start here. You do not have to document them in name, if you do not wish to but you can at least document them in principle.

Towards my end with the BKWSU, I was woken up by the actions of one 'highly respected' Brahma Kumar.

He used me for the sake of earning money. He used connections gained via service for the sake of earning money. He used me as a free taxi driver to get back and forward to his work. When he got to work, despite being far more physical than I was he did half the amount of work and instead swanned around "being royal" (eating ice cream and being effeminate). Doing hard work was "not royal" as far as he was concerned, even though the company depended on it. He was supercilious and condescending in the negative sense.

I should have given a piece of mind, I should have confronted him and I should have spoken out ... I did not, and I could not, because I was in such an internal tangle trying to work out "what the Brahmin thing to do" was and internalizing it all. The BK conditioning was disempowering, whereas what I really need was empowerment and assertiveness training.

Later, I found out that he was the cause for another very intelligent and sensitive BK to leave, that he sold on a motor vehicle to another BK follower that was unroadworthy without disclosing it ... and, looking back, I am pretty sure that he was working in a foreign country illegally, i.e. without a proper visa. He was also a cowardly sneak, going about when he thought other people would be at meditation or class leaving anonymous notes on their beds, and the like.

I dare say that, on the basis of this experience, there was other wreckage left in his path that I do not know about. The Seniors used to call him "The Lord of Innocence". How many other low level abusers, because he was really only a low level abuser, do the Seniors and the system encourage because individuals are afraid to speak out even after they have left?

Compromises they choose to make, simply to keep up the numbers ...
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rayoflight

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Re: Leaving BKSWU - out with a bang, or fading away quietly?

Post09 Nov 2009

Dear ex-l and audacity,

Thank you for your input, support and advice. I am taking it all in and working on the issue that is still under my skin as well as I can.

Unfortunately, I have the type of character that forgives too easily and tolerates too much. I also tend to see every side of a situation and all possibilities. In some cases it is useful; in others, it keeps me in a state of stagnancy.

Someday, however, I will find it in me to say what I truly feel to this person without fear of any kind. It hasn't been very long since I made my break from the BKWSO, so some things are still being clarified.
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tom

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Re: Leaving BKSWU - out with a bang, or fading away quietly?

Post10 Nov 2009

It is easy to talk about other's wounds and resentments and to give advice. It is, however, very difficult to speak out one's own injuries. It does not depend how big objectively the issue is, it is how deep the hurt penetrated. If it is not processed properly, it hurts after decades. Fresh wounds hurt more and occupy our minds.

Even while watching the video of a professional, whose expertise is to advise the victims how to deal with resentments, I have seen, that when she recalls some memories how she was deceived together with other victims and has been taken advantage of, after decades she still shows signs of resentment and pain in her face. Because she is a real living being with feelings.

I think that I could get over the trivial issues happened to me in decades in the BKWSU relatively easy, thanks to my bitter experiences, which I am still processing, from my previous life before I met the BKs.

I assume that we ex-followers of the cult BKWSU had one thing in common. If we have not changed our minds afterwards, we believed that every being has (is) a soul and we believed in reincarnation. So, the following sentences are only for those who still believe in souls, in reincarnation and in Divine:

I have recently learned a simple method, which I am practicing every morning 5 (five) minutes, it helps me enormously.

I sit in a quite place and recall all souls of the persons from this lifetime and from my past lives (if appropriate - asking to the Divine) whom I have hurt or have taken advantage of or have violated their rights - with or without intention, into my Lower Dan Tian, (below the belly, the biggest space of my body and one of the most important energy centers). And I tell them that I respect them and ask them sincerely for their forgiveness and for their blessings. Then I thank them and send them respectfully back to their places.

Then I recall all souls of the persons from this lifetime and from my past lives (if appropriate-asking to the Divine) who have hurt me or have taken advantage of me, or have violated my rights, into my Lower Dan Tian and tell them that I respect them and that I am forgiving them for whatever they did to me, with or without intention. If I had an important issue with somebody, I talk to that soul clearly and openly from my heart and forgive them and speak out my blessings. Then I thank them and send them respectfully back to their places where they have come from.

Then I thank Divine for having this opportunity to pay off my issues with those living and departed souls.
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rayoflight

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Re: Leaving BKSWU - out with a bang, or fading away quietly?

Post10 Nov 2009

We help because we have been wounded and we spend our lives forgiving, over and over, everyone and everything that wounds us from small arrows to big ones. If we were insensitive, impervious people maybe we wouldn't be here today on this forum exchanging our experiences.

I visited the website you posted on the other link, http://www.spiritrelease.com/home.htm and found it very interesting.

It made me wonder if the difficulty in forgiving the "Brahmin" I spoke about was because I think there was a spook and a psychic attack involved as well. It has taken a long time for me to understand that the Brahmin wasn't responsible for some of the confusion I was experiencing per se. It was the spook that was working through him. I am pretty convinced that a person wanting to be an instrument for the BKWSO is going to channel spooks that will then create the confusion in others. This is what I am most hurt about. You cannot be an instrument of "God" if you are a Brahmin because the organisation is far from being Godly. But owning up to this is like admitting that you have bought into a hoax. In any case, most people do come around eventually when they hit bottom. I just have to bide my time.

I loved your five minute meditation especially because it reminded me that I used to practice this very meditation years ago to release old wounds around the time when I met the BKWSO. I guess I have to do it again now in order to release the new wounds left by the BK.

Thanks, tom :D .
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ex-l

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Re: Leaving BKSWU - out with a bang, or fading away quietly?

Post10 Nov 2009

Back to the question ... "out with a bang, or fading away quietly?", what do folks recommend? Going to their center-in-charge/senior and telling them that you are leaving ... and why you are leaving ... or just not coming back? I wondered how the center-in-charges are programmed now ... to let people go, or to coerce them to stay?

When I missed my first morning class, I got a letter telling me that I was going to "cry tears of blood come Destruction" and so on.

Regarding what I wrote above, it was no terribly big deal to me. It just underlined for me the state of mind I had been encouraged into, one of near complete submissiveness which was then easily exploited by an exploiter. A lack of a sense of boundaries too. I did not know myself, and I was not in touch with my own intuitions.
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tom

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Re: Leaving BKSWU - out with a bang, or fading away quietly?

Post11 Nov 2009

ex-l,

My departure is also relatively very fresh in memory like Ray's departure. Leaving a cult is not like resigning from a company. It is more like a reluctant divorce leaving your wife, beloved kids and home which you constructed with your own hands, behind. You take your bag and don't look back.

Worse part is you are saying goodbye to your dreams of saving the world from suffering. All of your efforts, years long sleepless days and nights have been for nothing.

One is so sad and frustrated, it is almost impossible to talk to anybody including the ones who are already on the way to leave.

When I recovered a bit, after some time, I accepted to talk to a responsible one and saw that they were not taking it seriously, and also not giving a damn, thinking maybe with their twisted mind that we have "earned to come to the Golden Age with our past efforts anyhow, maybe as a servant working in the crematory(!)", and or they are thinking that Yugya is so expanded now with their millions BKs, they are not concerned any more. They are sure that leaving of one or two would not harm to expansion any more. But they make you understand that you are missed.

You are asking, my response to the BKs on the way of leaving is, leave as soon as you see you are in a wrong place. Don't waste a valuable minute of your life there any more.

Don't push yourself into more stress by forcing yourself into a last talk with the center-in-charge, or whoever. If it happens naturally, it happens. If not, leave it to the time. First, try to recover and recollect your life energy again. This forum is a life saver, so was it for me.
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rayoflight

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Re: Leaving BKSWU - out with a bang, or fading away quietly?

Post11 Nov 2009

tom wrote:My departure is also relatively very fresh in memory like Ray's departure. Leaving a cult is not like resigning from a company. It is more like a reluctant divorce leaving your wife, beloved kids and home which you constructed with your own hands, behind. You take your bag and don't look back. Worse part is you are saying goodbye to your dreams of saving the world from the suffering. All of your efforts, years long sleepless days and nights have been for nothing.

Tom, such a poignant way of describing it. Very painful, but also very true.

audacity

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Re: Leaving BKSWU - out with a bang, or fading away quietly?

Post11 Nov 2009

Back to the question ... "out with a bang, or fading away quietly?", what do folks recommend?

Ex-I, a very good question indeed. I have been thinking about this aspect a lot over the past 2 weeks and I've come to some interesting realisations about the effects of ongoing fear-based subconscious programming and/or post-hypnotic suggestions after leaving a cult.

Basically I think, if you are the sort of person who has taken in the programming very deeply into your subconscious about how terribly you will physically and mentally suffer if you "betray" the cult by leaving, then if you leave suddenly that negative programming may be activated strongly. And from what I've read about post-hypnotic suggestions, experts say that even after 20 years a post-hypnotic suggestion will still be functioning - unless it is somehow removed. On the other hand if you ease out very slowly, it's possible that the fear-based negative programming, and guilt aren't triggered at all or as much.

Please note: I am definitely not advocating staying in a cult here - I totally agree with Tom:
leave as soon as you see you are in a wrong place. Don't waste a valuable minute of your life there any more.

I am just trying to explain how some ex-BKs like myself may inadvertently cause themselves many years of strife by not being aware of, or knowing how to deal with all the mental programming once they leave. Madelaine Tobias talks about this at length in her videos.

I know that there are so many different factors in each individual's experience of exiting a cult, but I wanted to illustrate the point by comparing the psychological damage and post-cult fall-out of myself (sudden exit, as a young woman) and my Sister (distancing herself slowly over many years as a middle-aged woman). In my case, I was recruited into the BKs as a very innocent teenager and must have unknowingly taken in that programming about "God's punishment" very deeply. I chose to leave the BKs of my own accord when I was nearly 21 but, due to my conditioning by the BKWSU, I basically had no friends or family to turn to for support.

Consequently, I ended up totally alone in a strange city trying to rebuild my life in a very messed up state of mind - MAJOR PROBLEM #1.
I wasn't even aware that I had been involved with a heavy-duty cult, so I just thought I would ignore it and try to get on with my life - MAJOR PROBLEM #2.


But even though my conscious mind was very clear that the BKs were full of sh**, and I just wanted to finish my college degree, start a profession etc. - it seemed like I just couldn't help unconsciously making all the wrong choices and being drawn to the wrong people - starting with being raped during the predicted "Destruction" in 1986, (the punishment promised to me by the head of the BK center) - MAJOR PROBLEM #3.

I then seemed to repeat these same kinds of negative experiences, reinforcing the pattern over and over again for the next 25 years - "cult-hopping" and getting sucked in by negative (often "spiritual" people). I seemed to be constantly struggling against some kind of unseen force that created "bad luck", even though I participated in a lot of therapy, self-help groups etc.

Actually, I don't remember ever dealing with the BK experience in therapy, or if I did mention it was skipped over in favour of childhood trauma - MAJOR PROBLEM #4.

It is only recently that I have come to realise that the BK programming is still strongly active in my subconscious mind even after 25 years, and I am now investigating ways of removing those toxic beliefs once and for all.

I sincerely believe that I can achieve this healing, now that I am aware of the problem - MAJOR HEALING FACTOR #1

On the other hand, in my Sister's case, she has distanced herself from the BKs by tiny increments almost imperceptibly over many (12+) years, always maintaining celibacy, sattvic diet and meditation - and never openly "defaming" the BKWSU (although who knows what she thinks quietly in her own mind?). As mentioned before, my Sister went from being a very committed BK teacher and center head for many years starting from the mid 1980s, but she is now living independently in a platonic situation with another independent BK Brother.

I have no idea what excuse she gave to the higher ups for her first little step which I think must have been moving out of the center and beginning to share a flat with a BK Sister, or if there were any confrontations. But knowing my Sister's fame in the BK circles for her "sweet" and helpful personality, and her excellent skill at the "art of concealing and revealing", I am betting the transition has been fairly smooth and that she has remained on the BKs "useful" list.

Looking at my Sister's life from the outside, I have to admit she actually seems more "functional" than me, if we were to judge this by superficial measures such as job stability, professional development, money in the bank, etc. And so I've been asking myself what are the factors involved here contributing to what seems to be a relatively trauma-free transition to at least some overt independence from the BKs, even if not a full exit?

My answers so far:

    a. My Sister was an adult with some life experience when she joined the BKs, and when she started her exit process she remained living in the same city.
    b. She kept at least some of her BK friends and thus had social support. She always remained in full employment in the "real" world and thus also had a work-based social network to fall back on (actually in the 1980s all the BKs in my country had to remain working in outside jobs).
    c. She probably did not trigger any hostility from the BKWSU or activate those destructive post-hypnotic suggestions by confronting the BKs or speaking out against them publicly or privately.
    d. She has also kept up the strict BK behavioural practices, and still leads a very controlled lifestyle, so I guess she has avoided a lot of guilt and fear and possible emotional trauma (and emotional healing) by staying safely within her BK "comfort" zone.
    e. She has also made an effort to reconnect with our mother in recent years (although not much with me).
Anyway, as mentioned in above posts, this may or may not be as far as my Sister will get in her process towards independence. And maybe that's OK for her as she seems to be quite comfortable with her life now. But for me, I want to be finally free of these chains and not be still feeling guilty all the time and somehow controlled by unconscious forces. I thought I had walked away in 1985, but the BK programming remained inside me, working its poison every time I have tried to change my life for the better. I even started kidding myself that I must be actually be "spiritually advanced" because I felt so uncomfortable with relationships or touching people and I couldn't seem to finish mundane courses or get a worldly career happening ... oh my.

So, my conclusion is that if you leave the cult suddenly like I did (which I totally support by the way - as every second in that cult environment will just damage your mind and soul even more), it's important to make sure you educate yourself about the cult process you have been involved in and:-

    a) have some support ready outside the cult
    b) get help with the psychological stuff from a trustworthy professional who is willing to look at cult programming/ post-hypnotic suggestions.
Regarding confronting the BKs in the center and telling them your reasons for exiting - my advice is don't waste your time and risk copping even more damage. These BK people are "enculted" - which means they are not capable of independent rational thought or any human compassion, no matter how many "world peace" projects they may be promoting. Even though you may have spent years of your life with them, BKs are not your friends. The BKWSU is an organisation whose center heads will threaten you very strongly with all kinds of vile punishments for "betraying" them (crying tears of blood, being raped etc), if you tell them you want to leave!

So, if you are reading this and you are thinking about leaving the BKs - please don't wait, don't waste your time trying to get answers to your growing doubts - there are none! Just get out as soon as you can. But make sure you have your support networks lined up and read as much as possible about cult recovery and you will be OK. No-one needs to go through what I did - please learn from the experiences of those who have exited before you and fly free.

And to Tom who said:
Worse part is you are saying goodbye to your dreams of saving the world from suffering. All of your efforts, years long sleepless days and nights have been for nothing.

Actually, your efforts haven't been for nothing - your sincere motivation still exists, and it's what got you out of the cult.

Lawrence Wollersheim has this to say on his cult recovery website http://www.factnet.org: How I healed the psychological injuries from my abuse in a cult

Lawrence Wollersheim wrote:Step 4: If you were in a religious cult and the religious abuse and spiritual betrayal has taken you away form your spiritual journey and spiritual quest it is absolutely critical to re-begin your spiritual journey and your inner more meaningful life again. Deep spiritual betrayal is among the hardest of the betrayals to overcome, but when you do you will heal faster and deeper than on any other step of the process.
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alladin

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Re: Leaving BKSWU - out with a bang, or fading away quietly?

Post11 Nov 2009

Wow! There have been so many good posts and interesting topics on the Forum, lately, that it becomes impossible to comment everything.
I really enjoyed your post Audacity! It must have been so tough to go back in the lokik world as a drop-out!!

Most ex-BKs have this feeling of belonging neither here not there, some try to be in the "Shudra world" and then cannot survive there, are lonely black sheep, and run back into the arms of the sect which they escaped from and in which they felt abused. So sad!!

When you mentioned about feeling sort of coursed and haunted by the wrath of the sect/spooks, the thing that came to mind and which I later found in the conclusion of your post
"Step 4: If you were in a religious cult and the religious abuse and spiritual betrayal has taken you away form your spiritual journey and spiritual quest it is absolutely critical to re-begin your spiritual journey and your inner more meaningful life again. Deep spiritual betrayal is among the hardest of the betrayals to overcome, but when you do you will heal faster and deeper than on any other step of the process.

Is that, mutuating a BK expression, we have to make sure we are" under the canopy of protection of God", fly with him, keep his hand, feel that current of power.

I realized, when I first joined this Forum, that the BKs had tried to hijack our love for God, our enthusiasm for spirituality and the hope to transform the self and the world. Let's claim what's ours! We have rights, we are not stepchildren, it is the other way around!

We can and must take it all back, empower ourselves, be with the Almighty, in our way and terms, not theirs. And then see who's stronger!!!!
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ex-l

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Re: Leaving BKSWU - out with a bang, or fading away quietly?

Post12 Nov 2009

audacity wrote:Actually, I don't remember ever dealing with the BK experience in therapy, or if I did mention it was skipped over in favour of childhood trauma - MAJOR PROBLEM #4.

Audacity makes a very pertinent point here (amongst many others including the BKs robot response to leavers).

I do not think most therapist have a clue about the depth of conditioning and influence that goes on within the likes of the BKWSU. I think it needs different tools to deal with it, tools similar to the tools used to implant it, e.g. hypnosis, perhaps NLP (I am not so sure but others recommend it helped them snap out), spiritual healing etc.

Of course, a lot depends on the integrity of the practitioner you go to see too.

It all makes me wonder again about the nature of the great CEO god spirit of the BKWSU ... with all the screw ups, with all the suicides, with the cover up of the child sex abuse, with all the dirty finances and funny immigration stuff, with all the material empire building, with all the amateur historical revision, with all the lies and manipulation, with all the broken families etc, etc, etc ... how come he (or they) never sit down honestly and say,

    "OK, look guys, this thing really is not working out as I planned it"?
And, for us, how much of the above do we have to sit and stare at before we wake up to what is going on!?!

Yes, I believe that the condition can "possess" us for years, or even decades, after leaving if it is not dealt with.
And, yes, it was true, they used to pump 1986 as the time for Destruction. Back then other equivalent non-BK, New Agey stuff like "cosmic alignments" and so on used to take the same place as 2012 is for young BKs now.

duty bound

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Re: Leaving BKSWU - out with a bang, or fading away quietly?

Post12 Nov 2009

The Brahma Kumaris are another layer of the onion, Godly Maya maybe. There is, it would seem to me and has been my experience, that the human element inserts itself inbetween the relationship between self and god. This is an age old problem which dilutes the experience and gives over one's power to the humans who see themselves as holier than thou. Is it not fading away but fading in - to one's own truth and relationship with their god.

Australians are pioneers of breaking new territory when dispelling the myths, discerning what is rubbish and Brahma Kumaris Bhakti, and what is valid and true. The Lunatic extremist elements will exist as long as there is a us and them mentality. Many go out with a bang because the fuse of dissatisfaction with getting the same old human problems because of the human element and on and on the problems persist. The Australian BK scene is advanced years beyond the rest of the world when it comes to throwing out the babble and rubbish that causes just more pain and confusion. Each to their own. Just being seen in whites and a badge does not make the yogi. Often people fade into a real experience and fade out of a quick fix.

audacity

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Re: Leaving BKSWU - out with a bang, or fading away quietly?

Post13 Nov 2009

Hi Dutybound,

I appreciate your comments. You raise an important point :
Is it not fading away but fading in - to one's own truth and relationship with their god.

I totally agree that meditation, study of spiritual literature, celibacy and vegetarian lifestyle can be conducive to spiritual development - but it seems that the hysterical, Nazi-like, personality cult approach of the BKWSU actually forces people away from true spirituality. It can also frequently leave BK followers so psychologically damaged and isolated that they are unable to function properly for years or decades.

I notice that you mention BKs "fading in" to find a relationship with "their" God - do you mean the disembodied spirit that speaks through the BK medium and purports to be God, or the seeker's own personal experience of God?

I am glad to hear that you think the Australian scene is somehow more progressive than the rest of the world now. It was pretty much like the Dark Ages in the 1980s with families being broken up, dire predictions of imminent Destruction, demonic possession and Catholic exorcists etc.
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ex-l

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Re: Leaving BKSWU - out with a bang, or fading away quietly?

Post13 Nov 2009

audacity wrote:I am glad to hear that you think the Australian scene is somehow more progressive than the rest of the world now. It was pretty much like the Dark Ages in the 1980s with families being broken up, dire predictions of imminent Destruction, demonic possession and Catholic exorcists etc.

Not to mention the rape ...
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alladin

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lager

Post13 Nov 2009

Jesus! If you put it that way, which is also the way I see it,
but it seems that the hysterical, Nazi-like, personality cult approach of the BKWSU

come on! would any concentration-camp prisoner have any other options but trying to get out unseen by those sentinels on watch towers, and slide through the barbed electric wire without making a fuss or announcing his evasion plan? Do you want to become a martyr, end up executed or in a cremation oven? No, thank you. I'd rather eat some Cicuta!

In percentage, I think most of those who left drifted away quietly. Some remained in good terms with no particular animosity, after all the programming about having to repent at the time of Destruction and going back, tail in between the legs to the only existent shop, "Baba's", and the curses, threats and predictions about our future statuses in case we "fall". Hypocritically enough, the Yagya too, like someone pointed out recently, has a list of "useful ones".

There are different roles and distances from the "core". Contact souls, cooperative souls, irregular students, pakka BKs, bhavan niwassis, center niwassis, wow ... what a pyramid! ... and also positions of backtrackers who, as long as they did not do much disservice whilst withdrawing their man, tan and ban (mind, body and wealth). I'd be curious to know how many come and go. They are "flexible", take leave and get re-admitted without causing a scandal.

You can even go on holiday and grab a partner. If you manage to convert him/her and generate some BK kids, they are useful in children's programs. Sure, virgin sisters-in-charge are better but more "wordly" adepts have a role too. If you have some skills, time or money for them, and have not openly defamed the family, you might be reintegrated and recycled at some point.

Anyway, "Baba says" the rosary will not be ready and definite until the end!
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