Cannot handle any esoteric stuff anymore?

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

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Cannot handle any esoteric stuff anymore?

Post17 Nov 2013


The wonderful Alan Watts explaining in his beautifully clear and simple way why ”efforts for liberation” are counterproductive.

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Mr Green

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Cannot handle any esoteric stuff anymore?

Post19 Nov 2013

This is all a bit silly is not it?

Meditation is just pondering, ponder on as much or as little as you fancy.

Following the ideas of another in terms of personal pondering is a mistake IMHO.

I don't need a guru to tell me what or how to think.
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Pink Panther

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Re: Cannot handle any esoteric stuff anymore?

Post20 Nov 2013

Indeed. You are not wrong Monsieur Vert.

The reason for this thread is to inspire dialogue for any who feel that meditation (in any form) has too much association with the BKs' (or other prescribed) mindset or jargon, or for those who want to meditate but when they do it brings back uncomfortable or unwanted associations, especially as, for most people, the BK experience was their first (first proper) or only experience of meditation to any ”depth”.
following the ideas of another in terms of personal pondering is a mistake imho

... and then, being bound within only one’s own current set of ideas is also a mistake (which is why people seek to get "out of it” via artificial, natural or ritualistic means).

Alan Watts (1915-1973) was both a serious, recognised scholar / practitioner, and a guy who didn’t take himself too seriously. He was one of the few Westerners who, when the then new fads for Eastern philosophies and gurus arrived, had the study, knowledge and experience to strip away the baloney and explain them clearly - which doesn’t mean he was understood.

e.g. I read him back then as an adolescent, but still I joined the BKs - (so what does that say?) - and came out the other side fairly unscathed - (maybe because I had read him beforehand?) - but can only say that I finally understand him now ( or think I do).

What he says in the video is worthwhile. It is the opposite of what BKs and most religions would teach, more in line with what you think. Or am I mistaken?
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Mr Green

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Re: Cannot handle any esoteric stuff anymore?

Post22 Nov 2013

Sorry if I was harsh panther rose, I just cannot handle any esoteric stuff anymore ... my ears are shut to it I am afraid, and I don't feel able to open them any more.
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ex-l

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Re: Disassociating general meditation practice from BK metho

Post22 Nov 2013

Mr Green wrote:Sorry if I was harsh panther rose, I just cannot handle any esoteric stuff anymore ... my ears are shut to it I am afraid, and I don't feel able to open them any more.

I imagine the BT IT team who has to monitor us as part of their "global service" sitting there smugly, thinking pitifully about you ... that you have finally sunk into total body consciousness and the Sleep of Ignorance again.

The different between you and BKs is that you are see and hear truth ... so who is more "esoteric"?

They are a joke ... Simon Blandford whipped up a cohort of internet wallahs to conquest on the Wikipedia again. The first thing the Master Authorities of the Universe did ... was to write back in all the *absolutely* false facts we know are false, they know are false, they know we know are absolutely false using absolutely dishonest reasoning ... and yet for them that is serving their "truth", actual "The Truth" to their mind ... a factual falsehood to the rest of the world.

The BKs are just morally bankrupt, totally spaced out, and completely upside down in their thinking ... and, of course, being in that position, believe the rest of the world is upside down. They are actually quite twisted and nasty by nature. The only thing "esoteric" about them is that they keep even their own true records hidden to everyone but a closed and unquestionable inner circle.

Meanwhile, Scientists witness biggest, brightest cosmic explosion ever seen which happened blast was 3.7 billion light-years away, or in other words, 3.7 billion light-years ago ... light taking that long to travel here.
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Mr Green

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Re: Cannot handle any esoteric stuff anymore?

Post22 Nov 2013

Thanks ex-l.

Yes, Simon Blandford really seems to have become a funny little calculating orc, a bit like an acid drenched android!

Well, they can pity all they like, they're stuck in an illusion I have the most powerful form of spirituality ... reality ... nothing more magical than reality.

Anyone can invent a story and stubbornly insist it is real ... good luck with that boys!

That explosion kind of blows the 5000 years thing away.
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Pink Panther

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Re: Cannot handle any esoteric stuff anymore?

Post24 Nov 2013

Mr Green wrote:... my ears are shut to it I am afraid, and I don't feel able to open them any more."

Is this the real damage that BKs do?

Plato said that the greatest falsehood is that which is closest to truth. We get tired of such falsehoods, so tired that anything close to them, even truth itself, is also tiring?

The Buddha said that if you want to know who you are, well, there’s nothing more fleeting and fickle than what you think in mind. Looking at physical existence is as good and as certain as anything, and it changes less (and more predictably) than what comes & goes through your mind. We recognise others by physical presence, the things they say and do; these have lasting impact, and yet we want to identify as some ”concept" or other?

Mr Green’s experience - it’s like a child that’s been so abused that hearing the words ”a mother’s love” sends shivers down their spine. Sad.
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Mr Green

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Re: Cannot handle any esoteric stuff anymore?

Post20 Feb 2014

Yes.
Pink Panther wrote:... The BKs will teach you that what is forgotten and to be remembered is yourself as soul, and God. But these two, like all phenomena, are also transient, ideas which come and go, and have no independent existence or ”truth” other than what you give it.

As I referred to elsewhere, this BK type of affirmational meditation is, metaphorically speaking, wanking.

Nothing more underated than a good crap, can be better than a poor wank.
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ex-l

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Re: Cannot handle any esoteric stuff anymore?

Post21 Feb 2014

Mr Green wrote:Nothing more under-rated than a good crap, can be better than a poor wank.

It's true ... literally and metaphorically speaking.

Spiritual constipation leads to all sorts of problems, the first being that you become full of it.

maria

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Re: Cannot handle any esoteric stuff anymore?

Post21 Feb 2014

I cannot handle neither. No even talks about God, vegetarianism, Yoga, meditation, religion, spirituality ... i feel sick and angry.
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Pink Panther

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Re: Cannot handle any esoteric stuff anymore?

Post21 Feb 2014

It’s a kind of overload I think.

Good to let it all go for a while, try different things in life.

Often it’s because we have neglected too many other, more basic, things for too long and all this intangible or more abstract stuff feels infuriating, like it's getting in the way.

When it feels right, you might feel to come back to it to consider such things, in a new way, with a new perspective.

Most important is to have a new vocabulary, or new definitions of old ones, to know that your life is yours and no-one has the right to taint it.

This is where many BK sympathisers do not understand the accusation of psychological abuse. The proof of abuse is in the inability of the abused to proceed as freely and as wholly as they otherwise would have.

It answers the question of how ”universally beneficial” a teaching or practice is.
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ex-l

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Re: Cannot handle any esoteric stuff anymore?

Post21 Feb 2014

Overload ... sure, I guess so ... I think also it's seeing behind the facade of it all too.

I became involved in the BKWSU when I was pretty young and, if I am honest know, stupid. Or let's say, "hugely inexperienced about life". I knew absolutely nothing about Indian or Sindhi culture and little more about the business of religion. I wanted there to be some mystical "Wizard of Oz" path to life or magic and, I think, allowed myself to go along with and recycle the fairy story element, believing it was it (I was lucky not so see much of its dark side).

If I am to take full responsibility for it ... which I don't actually agree with the idea of ... I allowed myself to be lead along believing that, or being led to believe, that eventually ... somewhere at the end of the yellow brick road I would gain some magic power or have magic experiences. They give you lots of encouragement and promises that this is going to happen at some point ... but it doesn't. I can still remember the sort of things they used to say.


It was largely, as you recently wrote in another one of your posts, really just stroking our egos. BKism can turn you into an instant guru if you can play the part. The ego loves it. But the deal is they get a business commission out of it, which can be anything from 10% to 100%, not just of your financial security/life/career etc ... but of your soul.

Having swallow the hook, or poisoned apple once, and pulled or spat it out just in time ... I think one becomes shy of doing it again and see what much of the rote, ritual and psychobabble is ... sugarcoating, marketing, a disguise, a way to 'top dog' it over others etc ... and realise that most of it is just pointless in real life.

Even moreso, it really does not prepare you to succeed (which I define at the most basic level of survival) in the world we live in.

I am thinking, if we look at the individuals who have popularised "spirituality" in the West, e.g. those who brought in Buddhism, spread Yoga and vedanta etc, most then often they were already quite privileged individuals who either had everything or had families who did.

Is "spirituality" and "esotericism" just a kind of a luxury good or luxury entertainment. Think to who and how the BKs are marketing themselves now with their relatively luxury retreat centers and 5 star hotel gigs. Even when there's poverty involved, it tends to be of a "romantic" or exotic nature, e.g. street kids in South America, villagers in Rajasthan.

There are very few to no jobs in the Brahma Kumaris. You cannot train to become a center-in-charge and then be paid to be one, with insurance, a pension and a retirement home like a priest. They don't even offer the security monks and nuns have. Other New Agey or Hindu imperialists outfits all offer similarly poor deals ... so what's else is there in it?

I tend to think that is much the same of other traditions, e.g. the Hare Krishnas or even Buddhism. There's a lot of learning of stuff for which the only point is keeping up appearances and the sustenance of business. For example, do gods or Buddhas really require to you bow and clap three time, wave incense in a particular way and say the same magic spell? It strikes me their existence is fairly unimaginative and must be pretty boring too. Like being in the civil service only wearing a different uniform.

Of course, the truth is, I am not that stupid and gullible so I ask myself how are kids and others influenced by all these promises.
In Good Bye Yellow Brick Road Elton John wrote:Maybe you'll get a replacement
There's plenty like me to be found
Mongrels who ain't got a penny
Sniffing for tidbits like you on the ground

So goodbye yellow brick road
Where the dogs of society howl
You cannot plant me in your penthouse
I am going back to my plough

"Oh I've finally decided my future lies ..." Good Bye Yellow Brick Road (and The Muppet Show).

jann

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Re: Cannot handle any esoteric stuff anymore?

Post22 Feb 2014

Great!
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Mr Green

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Re: Cannot handle any esoteric stuff anymore?

Post01 Jan 2015

the rainbow connection

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