Origins of BK meditation

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

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Re: Origins of BK meditation

Post07 Dec 2016

Pink Panther wrote:I see BKs, and Lekhraj Kirpalani in particular ...

Which is pretty much the criticisms of him at the time (from the court proceedings and papers).

Basically, as sexist as it sounds today ( and giving a little leeway for the time and place) they said his level of teachings was "sufficient enough for women", who at the time were heavily cloistered (hidden from the world and the world from them), and uneducated.

He taught from the Bhagavad Gita, presumably as the pundits did ... reading a little and expounding upon it before going off on his own ... although he was specifically criticised for dropping it out of his hand. A great disrespect.

What I only found out recently was that the "greater than god" epithet is/was not specific to the Om Mandli/BKWSU ... it was a commonplace praise in some schools of Hinduism or communities. The idea being that the "guru was greater than god" because he led the seeker to god.

I am sorry to burst anyone's bubble but it all smack of a sort of immature vanity and selfishness, *their* guru Lekhraj Kirpalani had to be better than anyone else guru and, hence, they borrowed all the typical praises for him.

My question would be ... did Lekhraj Kirpalani not "get it" from his masters or was he not able to teach it to his followers, or both?

I think his religousity has been grossly overstated too.

Arbit

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Re: Origins of BK meditation

Post07 Dec 2016

Friend wrote:One thing I was thinking about is the Brahma Baba being considered God in the early days (ie years). Brahma Baba supposedly knew someone else had entered his body/conscioysness and it was that being that showed him the visions of pradaise and destruction. So, why did they think he was God? Had he not told them he is following the..dictates of someone else?

Very interesting question. The following is based on what I remember from BK history, I might get some aspects wrong.

In the beginning, the group called itself the "Aham Brahmasmi" clan. This is printed on the early posters and Mama says as much in the court during the case against BKs. Aham Brahmasmi translates to "I am Brahman", Brahman as in the Supreme Being who is both transcendental and immanent, which is aligned with the classical Vedic philosophy of non-dualism. This means that they all believed that the Supreme "resided" in them. Clearly DL was believed to be PRAJAPATI (and not Prajapita) Brahma (the creator, per Vedas) and future Krishna, i.e. manifestation of the Supreme. Not sure what the folks thought was happening, but many got visions of Krishna, Golden Age, etc. It was some "Shakti" guiding them, and that was enough for them to follow DL. At this point it does not appear that the folks cared much about the precise cosmology or theology because the Golden Age was right around the corner.

But sometime later, the cosmology changed from non-dualistic to dualistic. Humans were no longer Brahman, but simply Atmans, there was no way to access the Supreme until the Supreme showed how, the Supreme was only transcendental and not immanent, etc.

The BK philosophy has been an hybrid of classical Vedic philosophy and Abrahamic religions, even after the changes it seems to have undergone. The similarities are remarkable, as are the differences.

Arbit
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ex-l

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Re: Origins of BK meditation

Post08 Dec 2016

That's correct. Their faith was not in "I am a soul" or "Om Shanti", it was in "aham bram asmi" ... I am the Brahma ... and converting took just a single class.

Where are all the other Divine Decrees? They were numbered and many and, strangely for the mid-period being entirely Hindi, written in very good English.
Lekhraj Kirpalani wrote:Yada Yada, that is to say after every Kalpa at such a time of the end of Kali-Yuga, when the Divine Knowledge of 'Aham Brahm Asmi' or 'Aham Chaturbhuj' vanishes from the entire World and when numerous irreligious prevail everywhere causing extreme Decay of Righteousness, then I, that Viceless, Fully Accomplished Abider of BRAHM-PURI or Vaikunth, Dwarkanath Kalgidhar SREE Krishna of Sat-Yuga, complete with Sixteen Divine Attributes (through whom this Divine Knowledge actually circulates among the Suryavanshi Sovereigns in the beginning of the Kalpa), having taken birth in Bharat with a different name in a human form, spontaneously regain faith in 'Aham Brahm Asmi', organise the most Supreme Yagya of Imperishable Divine Wisdom and create Divine Ones (Brahmins and Kshetriyas) through My Oral Orifice ..."

BK Tamsin Ramsay offers her version of our findings here but say goes *way* off further to make unsustainable statements, e.g. "1942 – 43 ... this voice ... generates some interest, particularly in Dada, as it confirms his intuition that there is another power, another personality, responsible for the experiences he and others are having". She's still too desperate to make the findings fit the BKWSU version and wallpaper over the cracks.

Come on, if he had such intuitions, why did it take another 14 years for Lekhraj Kirpalani to finally work it out? Why did not he just ask, "are you me or someon else?". How bizarre is that?

672-AhamBrahmAsmi.jpg

675-Ahambrahmasmi2.jpg

leonard

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Re: Origins of BK meditation

Post08 Dec 2016

Can I say key matter in above printed item at top is that 'Prajapati Brahma INCARNATES' into L.K. Kripalani, such was belief of early devotees I would say. Many documents make clear along these lines. Somehow, and this must be biggest mystery, after 20 year period or more, and with Brother Jagdish joining group in 1952/3 and intellectual type and so totally much respected, incarnation of God Brahma became incarnation of God Shiva. Bigger God. God for whole world. Possibly Jagdishbhai did churning of situation with LKK over time, and upgrade took place.
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ex-l

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Re: Origins of BK meditation

Post08 Dec 2016

From memory, it was Professory Richard Barz, specialist in Shri Vallabhacharya Bhakti or Pushtimarg, who suggested BKism was rooted in Lekhraj Kirpalani's wife's family religion.
Can I say key matter in above printed item at top is that 'Prajapati Brahma INCARNATES' into L.K. Kripalani,

Only if one accepts the PBKs' premise that "Bharat", or the Land of Bharat, is Lekhraj Kirpalani or Lekhraj Kirpalani's body (I don't know the specifics of their beliefs in this area but there's lot of argument with the BKs over what Bharat, and other "lands", means.

The rest of the world would obviously presume it meant India.

As an aside, I think one can see how the meaning of karmateet has changed, here it is "immunity from actions" and, from Om Radhe's witness statements they believed that all of their actions, even the dodgy or prurient ones such as bathing with Lekhraj Kirpalani, sitting in laps, and feeding mouth to mouth were free of karmic reaction due to their being with their Divine Father.

By this time, they had already developed the idea of Divine Fathers, e.g. Christ, Buddha etc.

Latterly, I thought karmateet within BKism meant being free from negative karmas ... no bad karmas left to come back and get you.

It's funny because they thought at that time they had "made it" ... were victorious.
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Pink Panther

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Re: Origins of BK meditation

Post09 Dec 2016

Just a reminder that the topic is about BK meditation and any references to the evolution of ”Gyan” and conceptualisations should be related back to that. Otherwise other topics exist for such discussion, or new ones can be started (I am basically telling this to myself as i was about to enter into the fray and go further off on the tangent ...).

Arbit

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Re: Origins of BK meditation

Post11 Dec 2016

I recall Dadi Gulzar saying a few years ago that the 4AM meditation was not part of the routine from onset. It was introduced after a while (she did not say exactly when). The concept of "infinite divine light" and "manmanabhav" did get introduced at the onset, but it is unclear precisely when the present form of meditation - imagining self as "atma" in the form of a point of light that travels to "Paramdham" to connect with the supreme point of light, and its variations, arose.
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Pink Panther

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Re: Origins of BK meditation

Post12 Dec 2016

I remember it said that it was Mama who came up with ideas of the point form, combining primary school geometry theory - a point has no physical dimension - with the ”jyoti bindhu’ idea found in the vedas.

The bindu is used early on in the way zero was used in arabic and modern maths. The vedas reference the sun (maybe poetically?) as jyoti sarovar, and the jyoti bindu may even be, in a way, a kind of poetic (intuitive?) understanding of individual photons ?!

Check this out - Vedic Ganit (mathematics) !
History of Mathematics in India

Since Jain epistemology allowed for a degree of indeterminacy in describing reality, it probably helped in grappling with indeterminate equations and finding numerical approximations to irrational numbers.

Buddhist literature also demonstrates an awareness of indeterminate and infinite numbers. Buddhist mathematics was classified either as Garna (Simple Mathematics) or Sankhyan (Higher Mathematics). Numbers were deemed to be of three types: Sankheya (countable), Asankheya (uncountable) and Anant (infinite).

Philosophical formulations concerning Shunya - i.e. emptiness or the void may have facilitated in the introduction of the concept of zero. While the zero (bindu) as an empty place holder in the place-value numeral system appears much earlier, algebraic definitions of the zero and it's relationship to mathematical functions appear in the mathematical treatises of Brahmagupta in the 7th C AD.
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ex-l

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Re: Origins of BK meditation

Post12 Dec 2016

Can you confirm the conceptual aspect of that statement, e.g. the mathematics, or is that just your assumption? I just don't see her as being that intellectual.

For example, couldn't it just be as simple as an answer to someone thinking, "Oh, that is what the dot on Indian women's heads is?" or something they saw in visions? I remember it being said Lekhraj Kirpalani saw visions of points of light coming to earth at some point ... although that may well be a later re-write too.

Can the BKs not get a straight answer out of Janki regarding all this stuff before she dies and without Jayanti putting a spin on it?

It seems their history project has stalled, and gotten no further than we had done so before them.
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Pink Panther

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Re: Origins of BK meditation

Post13 Dec 2016

HI ex-l,

I quoted that passage just to show that the ideas were floating around in the culture for millenia, changing and metamorphising, the way the idea of the ”angel” has been. I was not implying she was seriously into vedic mathematics.

Rather, by taking a pinch of this (high school geometry) and a pinch of that (some phrase or terms overheard or read in the vedas or wherever) and conflating that with tilaks or whatever else is being selectively picked or ignored to suit the time and group beleifs, she could have come up with ‘soul' as 'jyoti bindu' (implying indivisibility) rather than brahm.

Just consider how BKs say things like - "you know how it says this in this scripture and that in that field of knowledge, well, it proves the such’n'such point of Gyan”. They do it all the time. You can ”prove” anything without needing to prove anything! Just needs to sound believable.

I know it's easy enough for someone like her to have done that mainly because, well, how many gurus and charismatics have built followings by similar ”churnings” and, um, I did the same thing myself before encountering the BK.

In those pre-BK days I used to often fly with Lucy in the sky with a diamond eye, and we spent a great deal of time discussing reality, truth, god, the universe and everything. One night, about midnight, I remember the moment and scene and feeling clearly, I came up with the idea that, if God existed, ‘he’ would have a point form.

I won't bore you with all the rationalisations that led me to that conclusion other than to refer to the image of the mandala and its various forms, which gave rise to an image of ”cosmic wheel” (the title of an album by Donovan I had been listening to ) - I envisaged each field of knowledge bleeding into and overlapping with the next (e.g. archeology > paleontology > geology > geometry) to eventually come full circle like a horoscope, and what connected them all, even those diametrically opposite, were spokes in a wheel (like the Buddhist wheel) and the axis was ”god’.

So if teenage me could come up with that, why not young whatever her name is, Om Radhe, coming up with her own abstract solutions based on similar musings (anything goes in the realm of theory!).

When I went to the BK centre and heard their Gyan, I took it as confirmation that I was on the right track (and they were too because they agreed with me! ) and because the meditation experiences I was having before BKs was replicated in the BK meditation, experiences of Third Eye, golden red light etc.

How could an agyani b.c. boy like me be so blessed? Of course, as they told me, I must be special, "one of the chosen few who will march in the procession”.
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ex-l

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Re: Origins of BK meditation

Post13 Dec 2016

Something that came up in our earlier discussions is how, despite her position in the Western BKWSU since the 1970s, Dadi Janki was not that central nor really a part of the inner circle of the Om Mandli/PBIVV in the early to mid period.

Perhaps she does not know/did not question and accepted what she was told? I don't know.

The thing is, there had to a day when Lekhraj Kirpalani and OR sat them all down and said, "OK, this is the way is it going to be now ... let's ditch all the old books and poster and forget the past".

I just cannot believe the community, who had followed God Lekhraj Kirpalani and had faith in an impersonal and divine infinite light - Aham Brahm Asmi was part of the orthodoxy of Hinduism - do not remember and did not struggle with such a huge change.

The problem, I think, with most Western BKs is that, given their scant understanding of Hindu and philosophical matter, they don't get just how HUGE swing it was. I think it's one of those "big lies" things Hitler theorised about ...
the use of a false claim so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously."

It seems to be the human mind just freezes like a rabbit in a car's headlights in the face of them, does not know what to do, and then makes a decision to join the group or not based on purely physical (security/sustenance) or emotional grounds (needs based).

Arbit

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Re: Origins of BK meditation

Post13 Dec 2016

    1949 Kalpa tree poster clearly says "Aham Brahm Asmi" and Prajapati Brahma (i.e., God Brahma).
    1950 Kalpa tree poster has no mention of Aham Brahm Asmi, but continues to say Prajapati Brahma.
    1954 speeches (6 in all) at the 2nd World Religion Congress in Japan, there is still mention of God Shri Brahma, but no mention of Shiva.
    1960 Kalpa tree poster has no mention of God Brahma or prajapati Brahma, but mentions God-father Shiva and Adi Dev Brahma.
So the present meditation practice may have started sometime after 1949, perhaps even after 1954 because Shiva comes into picture only after. Since Brahma Baba was considered to be God, maybe they prayed to him directly? It is still very likely that they started their days at 4am since that was a long-standing practice in India for centuries.

So what did "manmanabhav" mean to them from 1936 to at least 1954?
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ex-l

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Re: Origins of BK meditation

Post13 Dec 2016

No "perhaps". It's 'definitely' after 1955.

They also translate "Aham Brahm Asmi" as "I am God" at least until the 1940s.

Did you notice when they introduced "manmanabhav"?

I was re-reading a 1942 class ... notice last quoted paragraph.
"Avinashi Gyan-Yagya Camp
P.O. Box 381
Karachi, 3rd September, 1942
 
No. 162

THE EVER REVOLVING WHEEL OF THE ETERNAL CREATIVE PLAY CONSISTING OF FOUR EPOCKS AND FOUR CASTES WHICH TAKES 5000 YEARS TO COMPLETE ONE ROTATION.
 
Question: Mother Divine…is there anyone who could visualise, realise and comprehend Divine Light (i.e. Incorporeal God), as well as the entire Creative Play, and reveal the same to others?
Answer: Yes. You, me and our Divine Father PRAJAPATI Brahma, the Gita Inventor.

Question: Who then is superior- God or a human being?
Answer: Doubtless a human being. Who else could manifest Brahm,Tattwa, Brahmand and the Divine Secrets of this Creative Play? Who could establish Brahm-Puri ( Angelic World) and lead others there but for a human being?

Question: But Atheistic, Self-Unrealised Vicious shudras consider God superior to themselves?
Answer: No doubt, but Theistic, Viceless Brahmins and Kshatriyas, firm believers in ‘Aham brahm Asmi’ ( I am God) shall never admit superiority of Incorporeal God over Self-Realised Human Beings. 

I shall now divulge further upon the question of Superiority of a Human Being over God. This has been for long quite a puzzling problem for the world that the Puranas, Bible, Quran, Popes and Bishops on the one hand and Science proud European Yadvas and Bharatvasi Kauravs (Congress) on the other are definitely ignorant.
 
But all of you Divine Ones have your personal experience, gained through Divine Wisdom and Divine Insight, corroborated by Gita and Bhagwat, that the Divine Personality who played the Flute of Imperishable Divine Wisdom of Gita, for the purpose of annihilation of un-righteousness and the establishment of the One Eternal Religion of ‘Aham Brahm Asmi ( I am God) is the Divine Father PRAJAPATI Brahma, The Gita Inventor, The Imparter of Imperishable Wisdom and the Bestower of Divine Insight and NOT SHREE Krishna!!!

 What you are now waiting to see, in practical, is the remaining portion of the Mahabharat War, yet to be acted. If you had not visualised all these ensuing scenes of the War of Mahabharata beforehand, you would not have been able to issue Divine Decrees and Warnings, assuring the world of the ensuing catastrophe of the present World War as the war of Mahabharata, and the transformation of Kali-Yuga into Sat-Yuga! All the Dynasties get completely  annihilated at the time of the end of the Kalpa through The Satanic Power of the Violent Steel Sword  and various natural calamities.
 
Question: But Dear Mother Divine, will these Self-Ignorant Kauravas (Congress) and other slave Bharatvasis, engaged in a life-and-death struggle for hoarding transitory triflings, wake up from their Kumbharkaran-like slumber of self-ignorance?
 
Answer: Their case is not entirely hopeless. If only these downtrodden, destitute Bharatvasis were to divert their attention from their unbecoming lust for the filthy coin, and compare the War of Mahabharat of those days with the present World War, and focus their entire brain power on these Divine Decrees, there is certainly a chance that they might rise from their deep slumber.

Divine Father PRAJAPATI Brahma has Himself ordained “One who maintains constant contact with ME and who, after due concentration of intellect upon SELF, rendering the highest service under MY guidance, will enjoy along with ME for numerous generations, the sovereignty of Vaikunth of BRAHM-PURI (Angelic World).

At that time, the "Angelic World" meant the Golden Age, Krishna's Vaikunth.

It's all very confused and confusing ... e.g. the Upanishads describe the human form as "brahmpuri" (Abode of God) and Vaikuntha as a heavenly planet from which the BKs have taken their description of Sat Yug (complete with golden vimana flying machines etc).
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Pink Panther

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Re: Origins of BK meditation

Post13 Dec 2016

Very good list of specific references Arbit. Can you provide links for interested readers who have not come across this before to see for themselves? Admin - is it possible to make these into links to any relevant documents in the library?
ex-l wrote:I think it's one of those "big lies" things Hitler theorised about ...
[include quote] - the use of a false claim so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.”]
It seems to be the human mind just freezes like a rabbit in a car's headlights in the face of them

Reading that letter you can see that she could string her words together and was articulate. The power of a good rhetoric has swayed people throughout millenia. We all know it's part of what made Hitler personally popular and can explain why she rose in the ranks of the group so quickly and the leader became enamoured of her (a sassy clever groupie?!).
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ex-l

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Re: Origins of BK meditation

Post14 Dec 2016

Actually, although she is often described as charimatic, I am pretty sure it was written for her. Even her image was polished for public comsumption.

We had a name for the Om Mandli's primary English speaker. A Brother. I cannot remember it at present.

I'd be interested to know why they invested such efforts into presenting themselves in English.
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