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Re: Good quotes

PostPosted: 28 Jul 2017
by Arbit
Discussion on "God" gets muddled due to poor understanding of different definitions of "God", especially by those from Abrahamic religion societies (including BKs whose definition of "God" has a strong resemblance to "God" of Abrahmic religions as I have enumerated elsewhere).

For starters, there is a notion of "personal God" and another notion of "impersonal God". Sages from Vedic traditions have spent lifetimes deciphering the concept of "God" and its implications.

I put "God" in quotes because the English word "God" conjures up a definition that is hopelessly inadequate when compared to definitions provided by the Vedic tradition and its derivatives such as Buddhism, Jainism, etc.

Poor understanding of the different definitions of "God"

PostPosted: 28 Jul 2017
by ex-l
As we know now, there was also no personal god in the early days of the Brahma Kumaris. "Shiva" did not appear/announce/assert his existence ... was not invented ... until after 1955/56. Prior to that, they shared the concept of the "Brahm" ("infinite light") with other Hindu traditions.

This is a huge, unexplained philosphical shift that has been completely brush under the carpet by the BKs ... presumably because it makes their guru Lekhraj Kirpalani look like an egotistical maniac prior to accept that he was not a god, but that a god had entered him (but only entering half a dozen or so young girls).

Indeed, they even argued that Lekhraj Kirpalani was quote-unquote "greater than god" because he was a man ... again, a claim we also find in Hinduism about gurus but also something we might propose came from Christian influences; the "god became man" element of Christianity ... their "religous Father". A little bit of Krishna, a little bit of Christ.

Given all that, I've just reconciled their "personal god" as just being Lekhraj Kirpalani, or their attachment and infatuation with Lekhraj Kirpalani. For example, when I remember Dadi Janki talking about her love "my Baba", my feeling is she was still referring to Lekhraj Kirpalani.

Not any cosmic Shiva.

I accept that there were other minor "spirits" involved, e.g. before Shiva or BapDada they used to have seances with "Piyu" who behaved like a channeled being and many people going into trances or noisy rapture, would but they did not conceive of it as being "god".

Strangely, it's only recently that they have been tying the two together ... partly because we over here are forcing them to address their historical revision come up with new explanations, new stories to tie it all together congruently.

I don't care much for the whole 'god gamble' these days whether it's physics or metaphysics.

There's plenty to get on with in the real world without worrying about the next and postulating about the unseeable and uncontrollable. I wish it were all true. I wish I have more confidence and there were reliable, systematised approachs with guaranteed results ... but there don't seem to be.

One of the only favorite quotes I remember from BKism was something like,
"A mouse found a grain of turmeric and started up a shop".

Says it all really. A multi-million dollar, multi-national operation in the case of the BKs, but still a shop!

I think Pink Panther is correct to criticise the BKs abuse of Einstein's "woo factor" and his "god" and there "god spirit" are clearly two entirely different things ... and they are also quotes taken out of context, e.g. a physicist speaking science in religionists' language for playful poetic value rather than to argue a case.

It's a fallacy called, "appeal to authority".