Sex, Sexuality and Relationships within the BKWSU or PBKs

Hi, ex-l, I am experiencing "honey moon" period with you,I hope it will last forever!! Joking, but once again, your stories and feelings match with mine. It was an abrupt change for me passing from very liberal, not b. consc. environment where people could freely go around the house naked without anyone taking notice of them, or if you entered a bathroom when someone else was in it, it was no big deal, to the centers and bhawans pervaded by a thick, mysterious atmosphere created by many paranoia inducing prohibitions. Like seeing a womans silhouette behind a haveli window/balcony, or her heavily kajal-painted eyes behind a veil. God forbid!!

Have the BKs served the Talibans yet, by the way? It shouldn't be too difficult. Similar principles. Any form of lokik-human fun, forbidden, or you have to do it secretely. Punishments..

So, it's nice and healing for me to be able to share these deep emotions (such as fear, guilt ...) now. Better late than ever (I don't think in those days we would have had the guts to talk freely). But, apart from recalling do you or anybody feel like sharing what was the benefit, or damage left over by these practises? And since I got contaminated by the tone in the joke topic, have people who left experienced difficulties in relationship with the body (guilt about taking care of it, dressing down when it would be appropriate to look better, sports seen as a waste of time, healthy food as Bhakti) or sex (frigidity, impotence, visions of Dharamraj, cremators or falls from the fifth floor whilst in bed with someone?).

Do you see where I want to go, how deep the conditioning went and for how long can it have power over us?

Apologies for tacking this question on the end here but does anyone know why God wants us to be pure? I myself can issue the stock BKWSU answer but I am trying to think outside that box for a moment.

Has anyone come up with any non-gyan based reasons why livinig a celibate life in 'devotion to God' is the preferred one? Perhaps someone can point me in the direction of balanced articles or books that address these and related questions.

I accept that Murli quotes in which God exhorts us to have: "All relationships with One" clearly represents Shrimat and gives us a clear: if-you-are-not-pure-you-are-not-folllowing-Godly-principles type answer to my question. But what is the point of celibacy?

I believe a higher state of consciousness and well being can be had through purity.

In many other spiritual paths, sexual activity is seen as a drain on one's natural energy, especially for males the discharge of semen. I think if you look for websites to do with Kundalini Yoga, you may find some insights.

For me the idea of sin is something which will harm us or others in the short, mid or long term. Short term loss is easy to understand because it is more immediate, long term loss is more difficult to understand and that is where understanding and faith in the (Sat) Guru is needed to give the followers insights and keep them on the right path.

Newer souls with higher natural energy levels may not notice any loss through sexual activity and will only see/feel the enjoyment part of it, therefore the idea of purity or celibacy will not make as much sense to them. Though it is said in Murli new souls incarnating for the first time will be naturally pure, so I assume their interest in sexual activity will be less or non-existant.

So for me it is about energy and with the loss of energy the other vices can come into play easier.

Hallo everybody!

Topic about celibacy deserves some thoughts and discussion especially because it's considered taboo and the rule is usually imposed without a good explanation.

It's a "conditio sine qua non" for being considered Brahmins, for permission to go to Madhuban, staying overnight at centers and bhawans . Latest fashion, in order not to loose clients, is "don't mention it to contact souls, or else they 'll run away", even for months or years. In my 22 years with Baba, I took some "vacation". What to do? Sometimes you meet a golden deer, or a karmic account, is so strong that even a bronze deer seems irresistable. I had joy and pain. I never turned my back on all the other disciplines of food, Murli and even meditation but, maybe, due to a sense of "unworthiness, foolishness or guilt", I found it difficult to have Yoga. Or perhaps when you allow space to such a physical activity in your life, the wavelength in which you vibrate becomes so different from incorporeal God's that you feel distant.

The worst was the frustration for not being able to utilize fully the powers and virtues. With a lover you'll need tolerance, for example, sanskars clash and so on but even though I had all the intellectual knowledge, I couldn't get access to the power required at the right moment. Also, I was disappointed to notice jealousy, fights, expectations and disappointments re-emerged as before Gyan. I felt as if I slipped backwards. But do dishonest, greedy, bitter, angry and bossy and fame oriented, career minded BKs have more right to sit in God's lap?

I agree with John's last sentence (possibly the problem is the effect sex has on us; opening the door to other vices, strenghtening body-consciousness), and I am curious, as Abrahma Kumar Brother is, about the whole issue. In the BK organisation, sex fits into the trash can without making any difference in nuances.

A few nights ago, in some movie I watched, someone was saying, "sex without love is a sin", (and this is typical of Kaliyug, or even worse is common; sex for money, or power, or some interest). But what about sex with love, something where the heart chakra is also involved, is that a more rajo form, like Copper Age stuff? And what about physical contact, something Joel has mention a few times is our natural mammal need and behaviour, without sexual feelings? All of this is not only forbidden to practise, but also useless, embarassing or harmful to talk about for BKs. So, if we just want to explore the topic, we have to give back our label and then feel free to think "out of the box" and speak.

Questions like the ones we are raising on the Forum, are dismissed by the BK establishment as wasteful, something similar to excuses people start to make when they want to stop following purity. So, try and question a dogma and you'll get labelled as not "pukkha".

Just some thoughts.

We, as human beings, can be divided into 3 areas can we not? The physical, the psychological (including mind and emotions), and the spiritual. To effect a machine or human being, or anything you want to name, to work and produce as effectively as it can, everything, and I mean everything, needs to be in sync, maintained and most of all balanced. If one area is focused on at the expense of others, we become imbalanced, loose perspective, and for want of a better word, becomes faulty.

We have a physical side to maintain and keep healthy as well as the others. All these aspects of us that make us human are closely intertwined and if we deny, or gain a unbalanced view of an area, we are not doing ourselves justice and, importantly, not honouring God by not looking after what we have been given. Once again, if we tell ourselves and convince ourselves if we have sex we are draining our essences and we will feel rotten, that is exactly what will happen.

Just like the Catholic Church used to teach how sex was wrong, and even in marriage should only be used for procreation (I might add I no longer consider myself of the Catholic Church), thereby creating generations of people who, even when married, carried the psychological scaring of being dirty; and all of the disfunctions that go with that line of thinking. I am not advocating free love and a lack of ethical and moral standards, just a healthy, well balanced, well maintained outlook without the pre-determined and mind controlled taboos.

It is healthy and normal to make love. It can provide a great deal of satisfaction physically, emotionally and spiritually thus creating and maintaining that balance and health. Yes, you can curl up and feel tired and sleepy afterwards (that's physiological and males feel it more), but if you convince yourself or allow yourself to be convinced that an orgasm will drain you of some vital essence that makes you less of who your are and you have made yourself impure, that's exactly what will happen. Sorry, this whole thing makes as much sense as the dinosaurs to me.

Is it really about sex? I do not think so. I think it is a way of isolating and ensuring unconditional following by the people and enhancing the leaders' power. Enforcing celibacy in this situation is a very effective method to isolate and damage relationships. If you are in a loving relationship and you change the dynamics, there is no other way to go except to become detached. The breakdown of the relationship happens because you have removed yourself emotionally, physically and spiritually, and therefore you are then free to go and do more service. Never mind how much it screws around with your mind, how much of your life it has destroyed and how detrimentally physically it is to you.

You can then become a non-thinking, non-experiencing shell of who you once were that will sincerely believe everything you are told. To be in a commited relationship, married (with or without the paperwork) and then to 'marry' or make the same commitment to give oneself wholy to another (BK or any other faction) is biagamy is it not?

Balance is the key. I, myself, feel re-energised, secure in my world, close to another human, and ready to tackle the world because my inner world is balanced and at peace after giving myself. Remember what it was like when you were a teenager? To live is to experience, to make love did not make you feel like s*** afterwards. You were growing and developing and making preparations to take on the next experience.

I am not saying I am against celibacy. If you want to become monks, be monks; but for the right reasons, not because you've been mind controlled and you have been told you cant be equal to God if you love another human being. (Its OK to lust after the Golden Age and the thought of being a king? And kill everything god given you have now?). Its OK to give yourself totally to your beliefs and your religion, BUT, and this is the one real thing I have against the BK institution ... BUT do it in an informed, educated fully enlightened manner.

BK-ism does not allow for this. None of this is told at the introduction and the free meditation, (nothing free about it, the price is your family, work, income and freedom of will) the full Murlis are not available, how can anyone give up such an intregal part of themselves without full disclosure and understanding of consequences and not have dire results? The only way BK has been able to get people to this point is through conditioning and mind control. Personally, I do not think the celibacy issue here is to become pure, I think it is a method to control.

Dear Brother,

Topic itself changed.

You cannot call the vision stereotypic, because it is not visible in pratical, it is possible that these ideas are not new and are there in the scriptures, but I have never met them, or in the way I can meet them now easy to understand.

In the history there are example of Indian queens burning themselves when the husband dies. It is a matter of purity, when her husband is over she cannot be with anyone else. This has even become a tradition later on, but initially it should have been out of own wish. Also it is said in India on the path of bakti to the woman – your husband is your everything, God, guru etc. It is not correct because not every husband is god. It is also a memorial of the Confluence Age, but strong devotion, faithfulness and commitment of a woman to her husband is not seen in practical. It is the woman that supports the family. Now she is ashamed and afraid to bind herself completely to one. She does not sing songs for deep love for only one anymore, but for freedom, freedom of choice, freedom of relationships. She runs away from the family in seek for entertainment.

Now the woman does not care for the family /I speak out of observing the circumstances where I live/ she prefers a career. For her it is waste of time to care for her baby, but takes a baby sitter. She can even appear on a billboard naked and this for her is success. What would her child think that my mother is there in front of eyes of everyone? OK what would the husband think? The more attractive to many a woman is the more successful she things she is. But it is like the prostitute the ways she does, is it not.

Man has no more authority. He cannot control his own self. What is common is to suppress the woman with desire.

Husband and wife to live together like Brothers is very new conception. Baba via Virendra Dev Dixit says Brothers are free to take any course in their life. We can of course say this is good, this is bad, but nothing more…we cannot fight.

For me there are very fine ideas because here we are very far from them. To try to close a shop for alcohol and cigarettes, because it is close to a spiritual place or school…no one would dare do this here. Here this shop is not seen as something bad. To have to have a license so to produce and serve meat…meat is not considerd bad here. Or to censor a film …such high moral standards are very much needed. We all very well know what is good or bad, the smoker knows it is not good, but is so used to it, it has become natural for him.

The concept that a woman is weak and is influenced and the more influence the more her purity suffers, at all that woman is pure, here we don’t have such conception. Here woman are respected as with the same vices as men, and they start acting like that, without control. She does not like to be controlled, the man does not like to control his wife. She likes to act as she please. It is normal to have a lover, to like many, to meet many, to talk to many, to have vision for many….this knowledge at least makes me see the difference, realize the state we are in. Here we think we are progressing etc. Also the conception that all men are vicious…it is also new.

It is a noble act to respect woman. One can get a Noble prize for this. It is said wherever woman is respected deities live there.

It is not normal to protect her..Here. It is normal to attack her.

Also here it is not considered that lust and anger are great enemies and one should conquer them. Lust is considered as big achievement, anger is just normal.

So for these Indian women it is said that they are like cows that to whichever stake you tie it it stays there for the whole of her life. It is concerning the matter of marriage. Here when there is a little cross, the woman is not ready to tolerate, she shows her ego and goes away or chase the husband. She does not consider the family as a value. She is ready to brake it at every moment. When she comes home from somewhere /where does she have to go at all…however/ when she does come home from time to time she does as if out of great virtue of generosity. “See...I came to you”. She does not like to rely on one husband, and be beside him whatever he is rich or poor, good or bad. She has her own desires. Her own persona. Her own life.

It is said that BapDada are ready to go, but why don’t they go. It is a family. They wait for the children. I like so much what Baba via Virendra Dev Dixit says, be it as God or ordinary person that he cannot do anything alone, a mother is needed, a couple is needed, it is a family. It is so different to all those gurus who were single and were great. This is so ordinary – a family.

To live together without desire is in fact natural, but we have the bad habit of bodyconciousness and lust appears.

Why the family is called mud? no one accepts it like that. It is because it is something worldly, connected to the body, the bodies are together. The intellect can be pure if it is occupied with spirituality.

So many things of this world are extra and with this knowledge become useless, like romances, poetry, songs, films, pain, separation, jealousy, forgiveness, if we renounce bodyconciousnes we won’t need fashion, show business etc.

You say it is hard. What is hard? Reality is our own internal reality we create on the way we see the world. We have done the world like it is now.

There is a memorial of the philosopher stone. Whatever gets in contact with it becomes gold. It is a memorial of the Confluence Age and the practical company of the Supreme Soul, but also we can do that whatever we see through the eyes, we continue to produce thoughts of knowledge inside, everything becomes instrumental to cause our internal churning where we finds essence.

The One? Who is the one?

OK. See. I’m an ordinary human being, but can I behave ordinarily if I think I have found God? I think like this in this point of time. If he is not God but an ordinary human being still I would like to support him. If the ideas are only his, then fine, for me the ideas are fine, they resonate, so for me this is God.

Whether The Knowledge is true or false, we can find something for us there. For me life has no meaning if we don’t dedicate ourselves to some meaningful purpouse. I would fight with all of my heart to remove poverty and suffering from the world, but I can only stay with this idea, without The Knowledge how to make it in practical. Now I see it entirely possible. I’m completely convinced each soul has a right to peace and happiness. One should not labor for food. I’m happy that there is this task going on, I’m carefree, with or without me it will be successful. I may as everyone fall and turn the opposite, who knows the depths of our nature, we are doing just that – exploring our own self, so I can also fall, but even falling I can understand I have fallen, I can know what is good and what is bad and that I have gone on the wrong side. At least we can know what is good and what is bad. It is some kind of a beginning. Then we may stick to what is good.

Whether in India is like this, or like how it is, it is not important now. How we create our world according to our own internal world if important. We change and the world changes. We change our world inside of conceptions created by us with our visious mind and by others with their vicious mind. How is India like today...we see how it will be like a "Golden Sparrow", we see it possible , because the potentiality is there. In the Murli it is said that we become instrumental to uplift Bharat, is not it?

I believe a higher state of consciousness and well being can be had through purity. So for me it is about energy and with the loss of energy the other vices can come into play easier.

... In Christianity they say that if you don't become like children (i.e. pure) you'll never enter God's kingdom

I agree with John completely and can add that I liked the experience of Purity in my 21 years of BK life.

By purity, I don't mean just "no sex" but rather all aspects of my life; pure food, pure actions/relationships, pure thoughts and a physically pure (clean) household environment. That type of life made me feel (most of the time) light, content and "protected". I had a full-time demanding job, was running a center and had enough energy for doing everything and more ... At the beginning of my BK life, I must admit that I had some difficulty to adjust, renouncing having a relationship and making love. Later it became easier, and even "natural". I think though that for the majority of "Sisters" it was and will always be somehow easier to follow purity/celibacy than for "Brothers". I remember myself in Madhuban looking at young BK Brothers with a sense of pride, admiration and deep respect for their courage in following Shrimat.

I can also say that I never had any "negative feelings" for those who weren't following celibacy and never felt "I was better than them". At that time, I just felt, "I was lucky."

And today, I can HONESTLY say that the reason why I distanced myself from the BKWSU wasn't because I was desperately needing a physical relationship. I feel disgusted by the gossiping that goes on among BKs about ex-BKs, and by their habit of labelling anyone that moves away from them simply as someone that was "defeated by lust".

To say that anyone goes away only because of having been defeated by lust is an easy method for senior BKs, centers-in-charge etc. to free themself of any sense of responsibility for others' confusion, sorrow and disappointment.

Anyhow, I still think that purity/celibacy is a magic ingredient of our spiritual life but if anyone doesn't feel like it ... is absolutely free to do something else without feeling inferior or superior to others, as we are all ... similar and yet ... different.

Kind regards.
Adikarisoul

Thanks all for the insights shared so far; and indeed the frankness.

Go to YouTube and search for "Why is Sex a Sin?". I can not give you a direct link because the video of this title is for over 18 years only. You will have to create an account at YouTube so you can watch the 7 minute video. There is no very explicit sexual material on there, nothing to worry about, a little partial nudity is all, no naughty bits showing, nothing shocking or pornographic. The video describes how all religions use the idea of sex being a sin in order to control their followers. It is also very good on showing how religions teach you not to question their own teachings. If you question, then it is a problem you have, and you need to pray more. The video is also very balanced in that it points out that sexual activity necessitates some self control.

Interesting video ( Had to sign up for youtube though )

All our bodies apparently that house our dear souls, according to Gyan, has been created from sin as we are born in the most degraded age. This would even include the chariots that carry Father Shiva. Is this the right deduction ?

Interesting video ( Had to sign up for youtube though )

All our bodies apparently that house our dear souls, according to Gyan, has been created from sin as we are born in the most degraded age. This would even include the chariots that carry Father Shiva. Is this the right deduction ?

Absolutely

Absolutely

Then does this mean the Vishnu Party is right, that we have to purify our body as well as our soul, i.e. we have to be both body conscious AND soul conscious. (this is what I understand about the Vishnu Party). If we are just soul conscious, then since this body is degraded, then there is really no need to wash it, brush it, wipe it after toilet, wear any sparkling white clothes, decorate it with badges, etc. Or does being soul conscious naturally turn our degraded bodies to pure when in the process of purifying our soul ?

(PS I don't want to move off the main topic, for those members unaware of Vishnu Party, there is a thread in the Common room)

Well, it is said Krishna will be born with a pure body and so, yes, it must mean that purity of the body must come before Krishna is born because Krishna will have no knowledge.

He would not be able (or have any need) to purify his mind and body.

"All religions use the idea of sex being a sin in order to control their followers."

It's thanks to similar posts on the Forum that I opened my eyes about that and I got scared. The ultimate goal of a sect, is controlling people's minds, passing through all the spheres of our lives: sleep, timetable, reading, company, (including a very private one, sexual life), food, thoughts. Sounds like a high security jail!

CHOOSING to sleep early, veg diet, having spiritual friends, platonic relationships is very different from being controlled and frightened or judged from above.

It reminds me of the importance the feminist movement gave. In fact, it developed around such issues mainly, to the right of owning and managing our bodies (... our looks, contraception, right to experience sexual pleasure and having sex not necessarily for procreation, pre-marital sex, infringing the myth of virginity, abortion).

"It is also very good on showing how religions teach you not to question their own teachings. If you question, then it is a problem you have, and you need to pray more."

I wish to comment this on a relevant topic, so let me just agree plus add that the standard SS answer would be that, basically, "... you are a stupid buddhu ... your intellect is not refined enough yet ... sit in Baba's room ... get more brainwashing and you'll be able to swallow the nonsense about dinosaurs ... stop questioning how violent ancient civilazations could fit in The Cycle since 1550 years BC was Silver Age and not Copper".

Always evasive answers. Once you've been turned into a zombie, it will suffice.

It reminds me of the importance the feminist movement gave. In fact, it developed around such issues mainly, to the right of owning and managing our bodies (... our looks, contraception, right to experience sexual pleasure and having sex not necessarily for procreation, pre-marital sex, infringing the myth of virginity, abortion).

"Our Bodies, Ourselves" by The Boston Women's Health Book Collective.

I will add it to the book section.

I have not read the new one versions but the original one changed my life and other women friends.