14 Dec 2008
I have just read the whole of Eromain's submission re Child Protection (except for one or two minor bits regarding emails to centres worldwide). It makes salutary reading, and I would like to express my thanks and support to E for continuing to press for action as long as he did.
When I left Gyan I had come to the end of my personal, eleven year journey with BK Raj Yoga. I realised that there was nothing further for me to learn from being in the BKs and that I needed to go out into the world in order to continue. This happened over a period of about 18 months and without actually reflecting on the organisation itself, I left. It was not a bitter parting full of recriminations, but quite a civilised one. I left intact the flavour of my previous relationship with the Seniors and the organisation as a whole.
I then spent a further 18 very lonely months relentlessly putting it behind me and refusing to think about it at all – a discipline I had learned par excellence, in Gyan. I moved on, having only reflected on my experience of the past eleven years within the context of the experience itself – if that makes sense. What I mean is that I had reflected on my experiences whilst still within the organisation, but I did not reflect on them again, from the outside, looking in. And, basically – there it had remained, pretty well untouched for over 15 years.
I had heard of and always wanted to read T’s letter, but never had the opportunity, so when I found that it was the starting point of E’s story, I was very pleased. As I read it, I began to see it, not from the point of view of being inside the organisation, but from the standpoint of someone outside the organisation. I found that there were conflicts of opinion going on within me – the interpretation that I would have given it, and the interpretation that I now gave it.
If I was to change the name and say that T was discussing his upbringing in another cult (the BKs fulfil the definition of a cult) or a fundamentalist Christian Church – what would I think? I would be horrified that a child was coerced into limiting his/her horizons and truncating his/her choices and denied the information/ability to make judgements for themselves later in life as well as have his/her emotional relationships with parents marginalised and damaged. In short, I would call it an intellectual and emotional abuse of power, and my reaction to that when I come across it now, is unfailingly, anger.
Undoubtedly, any child brought up in any strongly religious household of any denomination, is subject to these abuses, which are not deemed to be abuses by those within the religion, rather they are seen as aspects of salvation.
This subjective minefield is always difficult, and what can I say about it, that philosophers down the ages have not already picked apart endlessly without resolution. So I’m not going to make this aspect the central point of my discussion, because what I perceive as insidious and ominous about E’s interaction is not whether what the BKs believe is the ‘Real Truth’, but rather, what I perceive that E himself is addressing – accountability and what happens to the checks and balances of power within organisations/religions/cults which believe they have God on Their Side.
Anyone who is interested in history can follow the unfolding story of democracy from the 50 year experiment in Athens, through to the current day. Contrary to what it seems some people believe, it is not just a voting system that makes a democracy. One cannot impose it from the outside on cultures who are not structured either socially or intellectually/emotionally to receive it. Hence, I believe, the chaotic situation in Iraq and most of Africa.
I’m not a classical historian and do not know what lay behind the original attempt at a working form of a democracy in Athens, but I do have some background in how it developed in Britain over the past 1300 or so, years. The democracy we currently enjoy, has taken at least that long to develop and it has its origins in the need for accountability and the placing of checks and balances on power and those who wield it. (Anyone who is interested may like to get hold of a copy of the BBC TV series ‘Monarchy’, narrated by Richard Starkey which deals very well with this topic.)
There are no cults and very few religions that I am aware of that are democracies (perhaps the Quakers?) – even religions such as Buddhism, that do not have an all powerful God, are autocracies. But where you have an all powerful God, there is unfailingly, a set of people who are its hierarchy of representatives. In the case of the BKs, the Seniors are at the apex of the pyramid.
Power is then centralised both within the individual/s at the top of that hierarchy and also within the structure and rules of the organisation itself. Very similar to the Fiefdoms and Kingdoms of the past, against whose rulers, generations of individuals found it necessary to enact checks and balances and develop democracy.
Here, I am not saying that the BKs should be democratic. I am using democracy to illustrate how people have thought it essential to regulate the use of power, and how that has changed our perceptions and our lives. We all like living in democracies – I doubt that there would be any Seniors willing to go and live in countries currently under dictatorships.
I think it is important to realise not only what constitutes power, but that the nature of power, any power, is such that it needs checks and balances if it is not to distort and maim too seriously.
I remember being very taken aback at the sometimes complete disregard which the London Seniors had for the laws and social rules of the country they were living in. Whether that was tax evasion, or misrepresentation of themselves to the public in what was termed service. This sense of being above the law and beholden only to their god rang alarm bells for me even then (I should note that I did not do or say anything about it however).
But the attitude of being above the law, is the attitude of being above checks and balances and accountability. It shows a complete lack of understanding of what power is, and what inherent dangers there are within it. The fact that abuse is done with good intentions is in fact totally irrelevant and should never be accepted as mitigating where checks and balances have been ignored or thought irrelevant. The road to hell is paved with good intentions ... What ensures that actions coming out of power bases are least detrimental to others, is an acknowledgement of the role and necessity of accountability and a willingness to have ones actions scrutinised by others.
Undoubtedly, the imposition of accountability and checks and balances on power and those that wield it, is irksome to them. What is the current preoccupation with spin, except a way of trying to evade accountability (very successful it is too), and that is why, IMO we should continue to resist spin in every possible way. It should be irksome – that is what it is designed to be. To give/leave people with power, without also implementing accountability, is as irresponsible as giving a 17 year old the keys to a Ferrari. What those wielding power often fail to realise, is that accountability keeps them safe from the corrupting influence of power itself.
Internally, what acts as a screen behind which it is possible for them to evade accountability is the confusion within the BK organisation between the notion of being a family and the reality of being a large public organisation. I was increasingly surprised at Es restraint as time went on. I felt that he was being treated very much as an ex family member – a child who could be fobbed off or punished by ostracism – whereas in fact, he was addressing the public organisation (as he repeatedly pointed out), and his requests should have been treated as if they had come from someone like the Charities Commission (to whom I would probably have sent a copy of the report).
This confusion allows things such as the sexual abuse in question to fall conveniently between the two world views – acknowledged but hushed up by the family so that no-one in the outside world needs to know. But you should not have all the advantages of being a public organisation (the foundation for ‘service’) without accepting the responsibilities that go with it – policies and procedures for the protection of your members.
So the lack of willingness to engage with Eromain's correspondence and the implicit assumption that it was none of Eromain's business, is, in my opinion the source of the danger: To wield power without regard to the nature of power and how it influences and manipulates both thought and action. Not implementing a child protection policy is simply one instance of the problem. There are many more.
Saraquel
When I left Gyan I had come to the end of my personal, eleven year journey with BK Raj Yoga. I realised that there was nothing further for me to learn from being in the BKs and that I needed to go out into the world in order to continue. This happened over a period of about 18 months and without actually reflecting on the organisation itself, I left. It was not a bitter parting full of recriminations, but quite a civilised one. I left intact the flavour of my previous relationship with the Seniors and the organisation as a whole.
I then spent a further 18 very lonely months relentlessly putting it behind me and refusing to think about it at all – a discipline I had learned par excellence, in Gyan. I moved on, having only reflected on my experience of the past eleven years within the context of the experience itself – if that makes sense. What I mean is that I had reflected on my experiences whilst still within the organisation, but I did not reflect on them again, from the outside, looking in. And, basically – there it had remained, pretty well untouched for over 15 years.
I had heard of and always wanted to read T’s letter, but never had the opportunity, so when I found that it was the starting point of E’s story, I was very pleased. As I read it, I began to see it, not from the point of view of being inside the organisation, but from the standpoint of someone outside the organisation. I found that there were conflicts of opinion going on within me – the interpretation that I would have given it, and the interpretation that I now gave it.
If I was to change the name and say that T was discussing his upbringing in another cult (the BKs fulfil the definition of a cult) or a fundamentalist Christian Church – what would I think? I would be horrified that a child was coerced into limiting his/her horizons and truncating his/her choices and denied the information/ability to make judgements for themselves later in life as well as have his/her emotional relationships with parents marginalised and damaged. In short, I would call it an intellectual and emotional abuse of power, and my reaction to that when I come across it now, is unfailingly, anger.
Undoubtedly, any child brought up in any strongly religious household of any denomination, is subject to these abuses, which are not deemed to be abuses by those within the religion, rather they are seen as aspects of salvation.
This subjective minefield is always difficult, and what can I say about it, that philosophers down the ages have not already picked apart endlessly without resolution. So I’m not going to make this aspect the central point of my discussion, because what I perceive as insidious and ominous about E’s interaction is not whether what the BKs believe is the ‘Real Truth’, but rather, what I perceive that E himself is addressing – accountability and what happens to the checks and balances of power within organisations/religions/cults which believe they have God on Their Side.
Anyone who is interested in history can follow the unfolding story of democracy from the 50 year experiment in Athens, through to the current day. Contrary to what it seems some people believe, it is not just a voting system that makes a democracy. One cannot impose it from the outside on cultures who are not structured either socially or intellectually/emotionally to receive it. Hence, I believe, the chaotic situation in Iraq and most of Africa.
I’m not a classical historian and do not know what lay behind the original attempt at a working form of a democracy in Athens, but I do have some background in how it developed in Britain over the past 1300 or so, years. The democracy we currently enjoy, has taken at least that long to develop and it has its origins in the need for accountability and the placing of checks and balances on power and those who wield it. (Anyone who is interested may like to get hold of a copy of the BBC TV series ‘Monarchy’, narrated by Richard Starkey which deals very well with this topic.)
There are no cults and very few religions that I am aware of that are democracies (perhaps the Quakers?) – even religions such as Buddhism, that do not have an all powerful God, are autocracies. But where you have an all powerful God, there is unfailingly, a set of people who are its hierarchy of representatives. In the case of the BKs, the Seniors are at the apex of the pyramid.
Power is then centralised both within the individual/s at the top of that hierarchy and also within the structure and rules of the organisation itself. Very similar to the Fiefdoms and Kingdoms of the past, against whose rulers, generations of individuals found it necessary to enact checks and balances and develop democracy.
Here, I am not saying that the BKs should be democratic. I am using democracy to illustrate how people have thought it essential to regulate the use of power, and how that has changed our perceptions and our lives. We all like living in democracies – I doubt that there would be any Seniors willing to go and live in countries currently under dictatorships.
I think it is important to realise not only what constitutes power, but that the nature of power, any power, is such that it needs checks and balances if it is not to distort and maim too seriously.
I remember being very taken aback at the sometimes complete disregard which the London Seniors had for the laws and social rules of the country they were living in. Whether that was tax evasion, or misrepresentation of themselves to the public in what was termed service. This sense of being above the law and beholden only to their god rang alarm bells for me even then (I should note that I did not do or say anything about it however).
But the attitude of being above the law, is the attitude of being above checks and balances and accountability. It shows a complete lack of understanding of what power is, and what inherent dangers there are within it. The fact that abuse is done with good intentions is in fact totally irrelevant and should never be accepted as mitigating where checks and balances have been ignored or thought irrelevant. The road to hell is paved with good intentions ... What ensures that actions coming out of power bases are least detrimental to others, is an acknowledgement of the role and necessity of accountability and a willingness to have ones actions scrutinised by others.
Undoubtedly, the imposition of accountability and checks and balances on power and those that wield it, is irksome to them. What is the current preoccupation with spin, except a way of trying to evade accountability (very successful it is too), and that is why, IMO we should continue to resist spin in every possible way. It should be irksome – that is what it is designed to be. To give/leave people with power, without also implementing accountability, is as irresponsible as giving a 17 year old the keys to a Ferrari. What those wielding power often fail to realise, is that accountability keeps them safe from the corrupting influence of power itself.
Internally, what acts as a screen behind which it is possible for them to evade accountability is the confusion within the BK organisation between the notion of being a family and the reality of being a large public organisation. I was increasingly surprised at Es restraint as time went on. I felt that he was being treated very much as an ex family member – a child who could be fobbed off or punished by ostracism – whereas in fact, he was addressing the public organisation (as he repeatedly pointed out), and his requests should have been treated as if they had come from someone like the Charities Commission (to whom I would probably have sent a copy of the report).
This confusion allows things such as the sexual abuse in question to fall conveniently between the two world views – acknowledged but hushed up by the family so that no-one in the outside world needs to know. But you should not have all the advantages of being a public organisation (the foundation for ‘service’) without accepting the responsibilities that go with it – policies and procedures for the protection of your members.
So the lack of willingness to engage with Eromain's correspondence and the implicit assumption that it was none of Eromain's business, is, in my opinion the source of the danger: To wield power without regard to the nature of power and how it influences and manipulates both thought and action. Not implementing a child protection policy is simply one instance of the problem. There are many more.
Saraquel
, once again you put the finger on the wound: it seems that they all come from the same mould! Is there a factory up there somewhere on some astral plan? They appeal to the same type of people, leveraging on the same type of weaknesses adepts have.
