BKs use Texas University Claim Again

for ex-BKs to discuss matters related to experiences in BKWSU & after leaving.
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GuptaRati 6666

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Re: BKs use Texas University Claim Again

Post22 Mar 2016

Pink, Bkti-pit, Ex-I, and Friend you have made some valid points. With respect to longevity, the study of telomeres, the ends or tips of chromosomes and biological clocks are very hot topics in life extension sciences. Telomeres and biological clocks are linked to the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis an anatomical site associated with the seat of the soul or psyche. The zebra fish has been demonstrated to be a useful animal model for life extension studies at the molecular level.
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ex-l

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Re: BKs use Texas University Claim Again

Post22 Mar 2016

Friend wrote:On a different topic, you have been honest about not knowing other kinds of meditations that produce the effects Raj Yoga does ...

Not sure I actually said that ... can you link to the quote?

What I have said is that I accept people do have unpredicable strong experiences ... it's just that I don't think it's of any particular value because the unreliable effect of it, and the lack of effect as far as making the BKs more moral, ethical or even intelligent.

Strictly speaking, from the Murlis, it's said the psychic experience BKs have are "the fruit of their Bhakti" and related to it, and of little value. We could explore what that might mean and how it might happen ... in a different topic.

Back to Janki ... this is not to diss Erol's or Gupta's efforts, as I am sure he himself known perfectly well what a good scientific experiment/publication/claim is, the BKs certainly pitched themselves as they are with the decades worth of milking a false and exaggerated self-promotion of themselves, mainly to indiscriminating, vulnerable and impressionable people, on the basis of the false claim that the University of Texas has proclaimed her, "The Most Stable Mind in the World".

And they probably still are doing so.

The Kirpalani Klan has milked the excitement of Janki's health issues for decades. I'd want a second opinion on them. As a university dropped out ... heir apparent Jayanti Kirpalani is not a reliable and ever self interest to inflate Janki's status to,
    a) ride on her coat tails, and
    b) step into her seat after she dies.
It's all just like White House or Vatican politics ...

Janki's is personally responsible for distorting the BK movement and knowingly misleading the Western BK movement AWAY from the truth. Janki's truth is that she was infatuated with Lekhraj Kirpalani and remained so even after he died. I have no idea why they worship her, and never question her.

Friend

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Re: BKs use Texas University Claim Again

Post22 Mar 2016

I am too lazy to go looking for the post in which you say that. I remember it was in response to a post by Pink Panther. I am almost sure you said something pretty close to what I wrote, if not identical.

I think you mistake the "Connection to God" experiences with the visions, which are, in fact "the fruit of their Bhakti" although, yes, *some* "Baba" experiences can be the result of intense devotion in past lives, if I recall correctly. But the intensity of the meditation experiences supposedly have to do with how many waste thoughts you have, your diet, your sex life (or lack of one), engagement in service etc.

Re: Dadi, many have said that the amount of love she conveys is tear-inducing. And I trust the people that I've heard talk about this. Not saying that that proves anything more than just that, but it' not negligible. I knoe you did not have that kind of experience with her, but she might easily have progressed since the last time you met her.
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ex-l

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Re: BKs use Texas University Claim Again

Post22 Mar 2016

Friend wrote:... many have said that the amount of love she conveys is tear-inducing ... I know you did not have that kind of experience with her, but she might easily have progressed since the last time you met her.

I spent a (approximately) couple of years sat at her feet from when the class fitted into a suburban living room.

How do you explain John Lennon and Paul McCartney's tear inducing effect? (I could have posted numerous alternatively powerful religious tearfulness, but I deliberately chose a non-religious induction).

I think the answer to both questions is closer than you're ready to consider (something like hysteria, or the self projection of the tearful one). Yes, I had "tearful experiences" during the BKs ... but I've also had them watching movies, looking at nature or art, thinking about tragic events, or when my dog died etc. It's good to release your emotions from time to time. It's all just part of being human ... to which I could also add, "some kind of inexplainable psychic unblocking, transference, or experience". But people sure as hell project all sort of stuff on Janki Kirpalani. Including fear.

I'd look into some of the effects of hypnosis and 'even hypnosis at a distance'; and, from a BK point of concern, be concerned about your attachment to "bodily gurus" (as per the Murli).

Supposing "love" is a particular frequency or vibration as the BKs posit, can it be "sent"? There's so many variables to the equation ... "charisma" and pre-suggestion being the first two.

I am sorry but I am short of time to answer (and I think we should split this topic as it's going off topic). No, Janki has absolutely declined in recent years. And she definitely not "One of the 8" top human beings in existence, ever.

leonard

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Re: BKs use Texas University Claim Again

Post23 Mar 2016

Hello there. Perhaps more clarity on topic can come from short report by Dr Karen Naifeh of Langley Porter Inst. where Dadi tests were made.

Report is 'Psychophysiologic Measure on Dadi Janki'

Report was sent by BK Australia Muslim lawyer, colourful Ms Zali Burrows well known for representing bikers, drug dealers and Muslim terror suspects.

To find out more about Ms Zali go to: http://www.moreaboutbrahmakumaris.org/414893659.

GuptaRati 6666

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Re: BKs use Texas University Claim Again

Post23 Mar 2016

Was Janki Dadi in the seed form stage when the delta waves were recorded on her EEG? A descriptive investigation would have been able to provide answers to the question as part of the qualitative data generated from such an investigation.

Errol did indicate to me that several BKs were the subjects of the EEG studies at the Langley Porter Institute in San Francisco. I will also check the publication list of Dr. Naifeh to determine whether there were any peer reviewed publications on the BK studies and share the information with this site.

Any published papers will indicate whether qualitative methods, qualitative and quantitative (mixed) or quantitative or randomized control trials were used in the investigations of the BK meditators.
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Pink Panther

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Re: BKs use Texas University Claim Again

Post23 Mar 2016

Remember that EEG as used in the late 1970s early 1980s was a quite basic measure. Much more useful even back then was measuring bio-chemistry, neuro-chemistry which has much more variation and subtlety than electrical activity.

Instrumentation today is far more sophisticated. But let's examine this philosophically. So what if one individual has peculiar EEG results? Are you that person?

It only becomes meaningful if
    a) others show the same results who
    b) used only the same technique and training and not other ones, and
    c) if it can be taught to others.
Then, the question would arise - is it everything in that technique that is doing it, or is there one aspect or two that can be isolated?

Could an agnostic imagining himself as a point of light produce the same results as someone who’s believing in immortality and God, or is the point of light enough?

Is it more of a measure of the one person’s ability to imagine over anothers?

So many ways to slice this.

As for Janki’s love, yes, I have seen it - people can be very kind and loving. I have also seen her tear shreds off people and leave others in tears of humiliation. She is quite, umm, human in her good and bad characteristics.
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ex-l

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Re: BKs use Texas University Claim Again

Post23 Mar 2016

I think I remember Dianne being part of that ... no word of how well she scored. I actually think such objective investigation, and some kind of way of measuring their practise, would be a very good thing for the BKs. Even those who want to be BKs.

A "yoga-o-meter" as I called it.

But would they want to look into such a mirror?

After the time I left the BKs, I played around with a simple computer controlled brainwave receptor kit and that was 20 years ago ... I have no idea how detailed or sensitive they are now.

A "bhakti-o-meter" would be a good device to develop too.

I'd like to know if 'being stupid' was an advantage in having less brainwaves and like to see Janki tested outside of her comfort zones, like learning a real job or skill. Or English language.

I am fairly sure the BK position would be to dismiss it as irrelevant and put it down as "Brothers' Maya" but, in truth, what they would be trying to avoid is the harsh light of sincere, truthful investigation.

GuptaRati 6666

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Re: BKs use Texas University Claim Again

Post24 Mar 2016

Ex-I and Pink you have many valid and interesting points. I'll comment on a few. There are some questions on the sample population used for the study at the Langley Porter Institute. The sample seemed skewed. Pink with respect to one individual demonstrating a predominance of delta waves during meditation, there is the question of replicability. Can other experienced Raj Yogis in the BK system demonstrate delta wave predomance during their meditations? With respect to slices, functional magnetic resonsnce imaging (fMRI) has been demonstrated to be a highly reliable technique for investigating mindfulness of yogis or meditators. The EEG technology has in recent decades undergone radical advances. I have seen papers on BK Raj Yoga in peer reviewed journal. However, I am concerned about bias and the validity of some of the published investigations. I will cite some of the papers in another post.
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ex-l

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Re: BKs use Texas University Claim Again

Post24 Mar 2016

"ex-l's razor" - it's an upgrade from Occam's razor - states, "what is the point in being 'the Most Stable Mind in the World', if you still lack basic honesty, morals and integrity ... and tolerate conscious and deliberate manipulation and exploitation in the organization that you lead ... whilst being 'the Most Stable Mind in the World'?".

And is it really that "spiritual" to brag, or accept other bragging about yourself?

Shouldn't she actually be 'unstable' with concern about what she was leading?

I'd rather be less "stable" ... but more morals and integrity.

The same too would apply to other parameters such a professional skillsets and educational ones, e.g. who's "better" and having more positive effect on the world, "'the Most Stable Mind in the World", or a pediatric surgeon working as a volunteer in a developing nation?

PR value aside, what's the actual value of "stability", and is investing one's self into achieve it worth the effort?

May be if you are a poker play, or a con merchant, and want to keep a "straight face" ...

GuptaRati 6666

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Re: BKs use Texas University Claim Again

Post25 Mar 2016

The BKs have always placed a high premium on the power of Raj Yoga to neutralize or eliminate negative sanskars or the sins of many births. The powers of Raj Yoga can be investigated by mixed methods of scientific investigation. However, the subjects of the studies will have to be honest when participating in the research.

I have had meetings with Janki Dadi. One of the best ways to protect yourself from the negative energies of authority figures, including spiritual authority figures, is to be one's authentic self.
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ex-l

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Re: BKs use Texas University Claim Again

Post25 Mar 2016

GuptaRati 6666 wrote:... the power of Raj Yoga to neutralize or eliminate negative sanskars or the sins of many births ...

Referring to a recent topic on research into memories passed on by DNA, if one was to strip away all the institution and its needs, all the intrigues, fabrications and embelishments, all the cultural inducements and bhkati, and reinterpret that in a neutral fashion ... e.g. something like, "the effect of ameditational practises on neural pathways and brain chemisty to remove past traumas, even those passed done genetically" ... would it be a more reasonable, scientific consideration?

Or would you still invest BKism with the faith it was what it says it is?

I don't know ... I would not because I think there are other influences involved we are not properly aware of ... but I suppose a BK struggling to find truth in the shifting sands of BKism might argue that it's necessary for faulted human beings to have all those structures and fabrications in order to do what is good for them for as long as it might help them. As in, a means to an end which includes that all other "means to an end" are false or lesser.

Would that be what "purification" and "eliminating negative sanskars" might mean?

Again, I would be cautious about being an apologist for the Kirpalani Klan as I've know too many to waste too long in making a decision to walk away and continue their own path with confidence.
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Pink Panther

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Re: BKs use Texas University Claim Again

Post27 Mar 2016

‘Stability’ (let’s use that word) of mind can be a ‘two-edged sword' as ex-l suggests. Is being unresponsive to different stimuli or mental activity always a good thing?

I think of sociopaths - very ”stable” - they have no empathy to other people's experiences. Most people will react to images of others - people laughing, eating, having sex, playing with animals etc will cause a response in the ”mirror neurones’ which reveal empathy and even lead to the viewer to physically respond in kind, smiling or salivating or whatever.

Similarly seeing, even just in photos, the the suffering of others, pain, crippled, diseased etc also will fire these mirror neurones . Recent publicised research shows that this is why people enjoy sad songs, dramas and tragedies in stories, because what we are ”enjoying” is not eh sadness or the tragedy but the stimulation of our empathy. I’d say it’s because we enjoy feeling human and connected to our fellows.

See some of the research here and here

There is the 1960s study comparing Vedantin yogis and Zen monks meditations, which I have referred to before. The experiment was simple, measure EEG responses of the meditators to irregular noise, in this experiment, a loud bell. The Vedantic yogis reacted less and less each time the bell rang, until eventually no response at all, they were able to shut it out. The Zen monks however, kept responding identically every time it rang. One is ‘absence', the other ‘presence' of mind.

It also reminds me of a story I heard on the radio, two men from Bengal who were here promoting a book they’d written about their lives. They were childhood friends who grew up in poverty, both disabled in different ways. One was blind, the other was, from memory, crippled physically, legs I think. One of them, the blind one, decided to become a yogi and went into the forest. He became absorbed in his ”deep meditation” so much so that he did not eat for many weeks. When the monsoons came and he had not returned as he had said, his friend formed a search party and went looking for him.

They eventually found him, still meditating but where he was, in a bit of a gully, he had sat still so long and was so weakened by lack of food and so "transcended” in mind (out of it!) that he hadn’t noticed the rainwaters had covered him in so much dirt and leaves that he was buried up to his chin and would soon be drowned as the rains continued. After revivification he spoke of his blissful state of mind.

I thought to myself, ”that’s like being asleep at the wheel”.

GuptaRati 6666

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Re: BKs use Texas University Claim Again

Post27 Mar 2016

Stability of the mind can be mistaken for high emotional intelligence quotient or EQ. Stability of mind can be erroneously regarded as balance or harmony with the self, others, and the multi-verse. Many yogis, including BKs think that stability and detachment without EQ are signs of a powerful stage, when they are not.

It was Janki Dadi who gave the final orders for Errol to be banished from the BK organization. I am sure she will say that God ordered her to take away the title from a soul. However, her banishment based on fabricated reports from BKs in Guyana and New York, did not end the spiritual journey of a soul. It only opened new doors and other pathways.
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Pink Panther

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Re: BKs use Texas University Claim Again

Post28 Mar 2016

She has banned a number of people for things like repeatedly questioning the chasing of VIPs and money, and the double standards applied to people based on their wealth or social status/fame. She has asked for the name of an ex-BK to never be mentioned in her presence. And so on. She is solipsistic, or maybe just childish.
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