Marriage at a BK center

for ex-BKs to discuss matters related to experiences in BKWSU & after leaving.
  • Message
  • Author

mango

  • Posts: 4
  • Joined: 10 Oct 2012

Marriage at a BK center

Post26 Oct 2012

Recently my partner and I were visiting local centre and someone mentioned that there was a centre in Melbourne (Fitzroy, I think?) that recently held a wedding reception for a BK couple. This left us a little confused.

Do the BKs now support marriage and if so what is the conditions when applying to have our wedding reception held at the same centre?

I believe they were a Indian couple. Can anyone have there reception there or do we have to be practicing BK?

ex.brahma

  • Posts: 79
  • Joined: 02 Aug 2012

Re: Marriage at a BK center

Post26 Oct 2012

It is a bad omen to get married in a Brahma Kumaris center .

Existing marriages are being destroyed by B.K teachings and ideology, so how about brand new ones !
User avatar

ex-l

ex-BK

  • Posts: 10661
  • Joined: 07 Apr 2006

Re: Marriage at a BK center

Post26 Oct 2012

Well said, ex-B. Accepting hypocrisy is not a good starting place for any new venture.
mango wrote:Recently my partner and I were visiting local centre and someone mentioned that there was a centre in Melbourne (Fitzroy, I think?) that recently held a wedding reception for a BK couple. This left us a little confused.

Me too. This is quite bizarre and unthinkable at most BK centers and for most of its history. It's completely hypocritical considering how many couples and families they have split apart and how many young girls, and males, they have forbidden having this experience and life security. Lekhraj Kirpalani used to talk about sex and marriage in terms of murder and a brothel. Indeed, they used to call Hindu temples specifically this for carrying out marriages and condemned priests for carrying it out.
Do the BKs now support marriage and if so what is the conditions when applying to have our wedding reception held at the same centre? I believe they were a Indian couple. Can anyone have there reception there or do we have to be practicing BK?

I don't know, this is something new for us. Do you have any more information? Only recently have we heard BKs attending the marriages of recently ex-BKs ... or useful and cooperatively ex-BKs at least.

If the zone-in-charge was a Sindi BK, one might suggest that 'money' would have something to do with it, e.g. if the families were well-connected, wealthy and "cooperative" etc. Normally, people consider BK Australia to be more Western and modern, so perhaps this is part of a trend of appearing "normal"?

From the Hindi community, we've also heard of the BKs gradually moving in every area that Hindu priests would normally do, e.g. funerals etc. The BKs like to think that they can bestow "blessings" on people ... perhaps some people swallow this and believe it too? However, I can confirm it is entirely contradictory to their god's teachings

I've never been there or see it. BKWSU Fitzroy looks like it is primarily a shop ... as is also the BKs current trend ... a strange place for a wedding celebration.

I don't know ... can you tell us if they were a full BKs or exiting-BK?

User avatar

howiemac

ex-BK

  • Posts: 215
  • Joined: 08 Apr 2006
  • Location: Scotland

Re: Marriage at a BK center

Post26 Oct 2012

My understanding is that BK "marriage" is allowed, though not encouraged, so long as it is a "celibate marriage" (spot the oxymoron). I have heard a Sakar Murli specifically stating this. I know of marriages that were sanctioned by the Dadis on the grounds of obtaining visas, but that is a different case. I also know of a marriage in India that was sanctioned decades ago: the couple concerned still run a centre in Delhi. Anyway, Australia has always been more sane than the rest of the BK world ...
User avatar

ex-l

ex-BK

  • Posts: 10661
  • Joined: 07 Apr 2006

Re: Marriage at a BK center

Post26 Oct 2012

I've never seen or heard it presented in the terms of "being allowed". I would rather suggest that adherents are somewhere from "strongly dissuaded" to "forbidden" from doing so.

Can you seriously suggest that if a man went to the BKWSU and found a nice, good looking BK Sister, that he could court that women ... and then when they went to the Seniors to tell them they wanted to get married, the Seniors would sanction it?

You're joking, surely? I've never even heard of it being an "official policy" ... even in order to cheat immigration (although, yes, we both know that has happened and disastrously). That's just another one of those grey areas in which the BKs operate in a semi-criminal manner which you'll never find written down anywhere.

The Murli quote from Lekhraj Kirpalani is that it is "better to get married than burn with lust" (by which I presume he means going off and having affairs or visiting prostitutes), meaning that if at the very last resort you cannot give up lust and attachment, it is better to get married. It is by no means a suggestion or even allowance.

I can think of one "official" BK marriage which was arranged by Lekhraj Kirpalani (of trustee/account BK Ramesh Shah to BK Usha) but, to the best of my knowledge, the practise was stopped because too many of such couples left the Yugya. The marriage of BK Ramesh Shah to BK Usha was to trick, fool or placate the parents of Usha to stop them arranging a different marriage to a non-BK who would have expected her to carry out full conjugal responsibilities. Perhaps others have happened in India, I don't know. We are talking about, what, two or three cases out of 1 million followers?

The great contradictory (oxymoron) surely is that "marriage" is a binding of two individuals as one based on love, attraction and attachment ... whilst the BKs are entirely against those and their path about the separation of all individuals. Never mind the idea of sex and affection being OK.

My reading of the situation is that it is about,
    a) presenting a certain facade to the public, and
    b) control over adherents and particularly their finances.

    i) If you come into the BKWSU as part of a couple, they want you to stick together because it looks better, more respectable for them.
    ii) If you come into the BKWSU as an unmarried couple, they want you to immediately stop because to them an unmarried couple, "living in sin" or boyfriend-girlfriend situation, look bad.
    iii) If you are single, they want you to stay single and will come down on you like a ton of bricks if you start to become attracted and form a relationship with a BK of the complimentary sex.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but where such attractions do arise, they were normally treated with a 6 month ban from seeing each other and/or one of the individuals being sent away to another center. Any individuals having such attractions are expected to confess them to center-in-charge or Senior Sister ... and likely be snitched upon by other BKs. And, yes, I speak from direct personal experience of it.

Because I don't think BKism has any particular spiritual benefit, I see this purely as a management of resources, i.e. the adherents time, money and resources (such a property). The BKs want it all, or as much as they can get and they do not want anyone else "pulling the intellects" of their adherents (meaning distracting or questioning influences).

Married couples or individuals have always seen seen as "half" Kumars or Kumaris and, in my opinion, treated as a bit of a second class.

It does seem to be that in the West the BKs are becoming a bit more relaxed. I also put this down to financial security,, i.e. they have enough money, properties, unpaid workers and so don't need to control as much as they did whilst they were building themselves up ... and, indeed, they have discovered that it is more profitable ($$$) to be or appear more normal (tolerant and accommodating) and less cult-like.

However, I do not think for one minute that reflects their actually inner beliefs and teachings, nor that the leaders have any consideration or care for what might happen to their adherents in their old age or infirmity.

In addition to which, given that as many of 5% of human being have homosexual tendencies, I have no idea how all this effect them.

Gay celibate BK marriages any one?

Return to Commonroom

cron