Shame-Bound Fundamentalism

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leela

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Shame-Bound Fundamentalism

Post14 Mar 2009

This may be old news to the more seasoned forumites here, but it piqued my interest recently and I wanted to write it out.

While I was exploring the role of toxic shame in my own journey into the BKs, I started to notice the many parallels between how a shame-bound person operates and how the BKs as an organisation operate. A quick Google brought up some very interesting articles about shame-based religious groups.

Summarising from one by T Boschen, here are the 8 operating principals of such a group:

    1. Control - Always give the impression of being in control of one's life.
    2. Perfectionism - One must always be right, do the right thing, follow the rules, and strive for spiritual perfectionism.
    3. Blame others - to maintain the illusion of control.
    4. Denial - deny all negative and vulnerable feelings and remain task-focused.
    5. Unreliability - don't expect them to be consistent or reliable
    6. Incompleteness - resolving personal, emotional, or church conflicts is not important.
    7. Do not talk - never discuss the negatives in order to foster the illusion of self-control and power.
    8. Disguise - hide the shame at all costs. The appearance of control and power is maintained at the expense of the victims.
And I quote him:
T Boschen wrote:"Grace, the unconditional love of others as God loves us, is not the operative ethic. Preserving one's personal goodness is. Close relationships with fellow Christians is subordinated to preserving the appearance of goodness...."

It sounds like a neat summary of how the BKs operate to me. How an individual becomes shame-bound can easily be traced back to some form of abuse in early life, and is familiar territory to me. How an organisation like the BKs becomes that would be speculation at this point and I don't know how useful that is.

What seems pertinent is whether this sheds any light on how to communicate with them in order to effect change. Using the parallel of the shame-bound individual again, these things I know: genuine concern and offers of help are pushed away; requests for heart to heart communication are not understood; blame activates their impenetrable defences; shame sends them into their refuge of "spiritual perfection." Shame-bound individuals are frustratingly unreachable, and so it seems are the BKs.

I wish I had some answers. Terry has said a number of times that the BKs have to want to change and that the change has to come from within. From an individual perspective, I know that to be true, but I cannot say that persistent pressure from the outside doesn't play its part too.
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joel

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Re: Shame-Bound Fundamentalism

Post14 Mar 2009

This is the first for me to hear the term "shame-based religious group." It makes sense.

The term "toxic shame" I first encountered in John Bradshaw's seminal book, Healing the Shame that Binds Us. Bradshaw distinguished between healthy shame that can come and go, as distinct from toxic shame, that is ever-present, that warps your sense of who you are.

I learned that a healthy person can admit their limitations, inadequacies, failures. Around that time (~1993), I recognized something wrong when I came to know that a BK could commit suicide, and the Seniors responsible did not respond at all; no concern that such an outcome could be possible, no guilt for their part in that outcome, no mention at all of what one might do to prevent a recurrence in future. At that moment I realized that something the organization was not psychologically healthy, humane, mature or wise.

Terry

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Re: Shame-Bound Fundamentalism

Post14 Mar 2009

What an incredible summation Leela. I hope many people read this - a most thought provoking topic.
leela wrote: How an organisation like the BKs becomes that [shame based] would be speculation at this point and I don't know how useful that is.

It's usefulness is in helping people free themselves of imposed values, to find themselves. And a lucid exposition of such conditions is often all that is needed to prompt soem reflection and review.

I don't think it is hard to speculate and get close to what might drive the shame.

Essentially it comes down to the conceptual splitting of the body-mind-heart that is the human being, identifying with one and then disowning, even making an an enemy of, the other parts of one's self. Any time those alienated aspects of ourselves let us know they exist, that they need honouring, they are judged as "impure", "unworthy".

Shame is an unwillingness to own up, it originally means to ''cover". So we keep our skeletons in the closet, never mention those "shameful" thoughts, and to deflect attention from our "failings" we castigate others who haven't covered themselves up as well as we have .

Shame is a social dynamic, no-one wants to be shunned by their communities for offending them, breaking laws. All "soul" based religions abuse this dynamic to some degree or other, it allows them to undermine a person's autonomy, to give them more influence over the person. Describe a higher standard, an ideal, then persecute those who don't live up to it. You are only vulnerable to being shamed if you subscribe to that so called ideal. if you do not, it has no effect. Another quote by that contemporary of Lekhraj
C G Jung wrote:We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.
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ex-l

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Re: Shame-Bound Fundamentalism

Post15 Mar 2009

Yes, good work. A posts starting the kind of serious discussion that I would like to see more of.
terry wrote:You are only vulnerable to being shamed if you subscribe to that so called ideal. If you do not, it has no effect.

To that list of "onlys"I would have to add that one can be made to be vulnerable by peer or familial pressure, and unconscious previous conditioning. I do not think the "subscribing" is always conscious.

One could "consciously" leave Christianity, Brahma Kumarism etc ... or have consciously gone into Brahma Kumarism "leaving Bhakti behind" ... but still have under the surface and be driven by those sorts of subconscious drives. Obviously children, growing up within their parents' psychological realm, are largely victims to it.

    ... and how to "unsubscribe"? Like I paraphrased elswhere, you can take the person out of the Brahma Kumaris but can you take the Brahma Kumaris (or the holy spook), out of the person?
Helpful as the idea is, terry, I think we should be warying of simplifying truth or theory down to sound bites. Does Brahma Kumarism fit into such diagnoses, just as it fits into cult diagnoses? Yes, of course ... at a rate of 90% plus.

Are the BKWSU leaders conscious, questioning and reveiwing this? No, they are using and exploiting it. Would a Supreme God do so? In my book, surely not. How could any intelligent being do so!?! Could a demi-god, or slightly more "enlightened" individual do so? Perhaps ... just teaching at a level that their students can understand and relate to.

So I suppose we could say such approaches may not be "right" but are relevent for certain individuals at certain stages in their development, e.g. like some spiritual prison or remedial center.

Terry

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Re: Shame-Bound Fundamentalism

Post15 Mar 2009

Yes all those things you speak of, ex-l. Things we carry with us; from previous beliefs, upbringing etc, things we transfer over from those, things we idealise then learn to judge ourselves harshly by, things we unconsciously pick up from our society (e.g. shame in nudity would be one).

Mostly, we don't consciously choose to subscribe to such values and ideals, we are drawn to them. But we can consciously choose to unsubscribe from those values.
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paulkershaw

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Re: Shame-Bound Fundamentalism

Post16 Mar 2009

Could one also call Islamic suicide bombers to be under the same banner?

I am discussing herein people who are led to extremist actions by fundamentalists and radicalists (who don't carry out the acts themselves I may add), and are shamed into believing they are not honourable if they do not do as instructed ...
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ex-l

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Re: Shame-Bound Fundamentalism

Post16 Mar 2009

terry wrote:But we can consciously choose to unsubscribe from those values.

To keep 'on forum' would you wish to suggest, "how one might do so consciously unsubscribe ... and when one would know one was clear?".

I could not answer for sure whether Islamic bombers were propelled by "shame ... there is also a "duty and honor" element. I am thinking too of all the young Japanese boys that threw themselves at American warships during WWII, most in their teens and many from elite schools, universities and so on. There are different moral codes at play and it is hard to equate the two or, for me, to say which is obectively "more right". For at least the Islamic freedom fighters, both male and female, there would have often been great personal pain (death of relatives and hopelessness etc).

You might be able to draw correlations between shame and honor. Honor is a word that the West is a little afraid of and may even be lacking in these days. I am throwing out a poetic guess here ... perhaps shame is the flip side, honor gone to excess.
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leela

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Re: Shame-Bound Fundamentalism

Post17 Mar 2009

From Joel: The term "toxic shame" I first encountered in John Bradshaw's seminal book, Healing the Shame that Binds Us. Bradshaw distinguished between healthy shame that can come and go, as distinct from toxic shame, that is ever-present, that warps your sense of who you are.

Thanks for the reference, Joel. I am reading it now, and paraphrasing some of his theories below, mixed in with my own.

A shame-bound individual does not feel shame, they have become shame. Their authentic inner self has become too damaged and ceases to function. It then becomes necessary to create a false self. A common false self is the human failure model which includes the alcoholic or the drug addict. Another false self that shame-bound people create is the 'superhuman overachiever'. Within that model you find the "spiritual perfectionist."

Individuals who escape from their shame-bound condition by becoming spiritual perfectionists can become powerful spiritual leaders. It is around this individual that a shame-bound fundamentalist religion develops. The false self, the adopted identity of spiritual perfectionist, becomes the only identity of that person. There is nothing left, nothing visible or felt, of the authentic human self. (OK, so if we're going to speculate, I think we can see an example of this in the London leadership). Their operating ethic is all about maintaining the appearance of spiritual perfection. Everything is subordinated to this. To me, this would explain why the BKs cannot deal with anything "human."

The question is raised quite often about whether the BKs will change. My question is, why would they change anything when, to all appearances, it is working very successfully? The whole system is self-affirming and self-perpetuating. It is a closed system. Every "service project" serves to reinforce the leader's spiritually powerful and perfect identity. The only time a shame-bound individual is likely to begin to reflect on themselves is when the escape route they have taken ceases to function, and they begin to suffer.

Alcoholics, who have taken the road of "human failure", experience suffering, reach rock bottom, and sometimes turn their life around. External interventions also work if carried out at the right time. If there is only and always the experience of functioning successfully, there is no motivation to change. For those who would like to see change in the BKs, this is a rather pessimistic picture. There is no human authenticity at the core of a shame-bound fundamentalist religion, and so appeals from the heart simply cannot be heard.

So what are the strategies for entering into communication with a shame-bound fundamentalist religion? How can their self-serving monologue be directed into meaningful dialog? I realise this has been the subject of much debate and much frustration on this forum. I am not sure if I have anything to contribute to that debate, although I do feel I understand it better.

An another note, Terry said:
terry wrote:Mostly, we don't consciously choose to subscribe to such values and ideals, we are drawn to them. But we can consciously choose to unsubscribe from those values

Definitely I was drawn to the BKs - this shame-bound individual was at home within the shame-bound institution. It would be interesting to know if many others fit that picture. But I don't know how true it is to say we can chose to unsubscribe. As ex-l says:
ex-l wrote:you can take the person out of the Brahma Kumaris but can you take the Brahma Kumaris (or the holy spook), out of the person?

That's another (the next?) area of personal inquiry for me. And I suspect it has a lot to do with the condition the person was in when they subscribed in the first place.
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ex-l

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Re: Shame-Bound Fundamentalism

Post17 Mar 2009

leela wrote:So what are the strategies for entering into communication with a shame-bound fundamentalist religion?

To use your analogy ... take away their "bottle" first, whatever it is they are addicted to. Close down any avenue of supply that you can. Remind them of the harm they are doing. Warn everyone else. Stop them hurting others ... "Name the devil".

Somewhere in the middle of that, you will experience a strong reaction. The serpent will strike (... as we experienced with the legal case clearly intent to do us damage and shut us down).

If you survive that, you will do fine. Any attack from them, will weaken them. From then on in, it is just a slow proceedure of reeling them in and picking up the survivors.

In my opinion, the main conversation is not so much with them but with everyone else in "your village". Isolate them. Make them look at themselves.

Quarantine is my favorite idea.

In the BKs' case, beyond the delusions of grandeur, in my opinion, the addictions are; power, money, public opinion.
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spiritual spy

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Re: Shame-Bound Fundamentalism

Post18 Mar 2009

Hi all

Compare Islamic fundamentalism and BK.

Osama : Allah oo akbar, well, if you do not convert to Islam I will kill you - Corporal world terrorism.

BK : Om Shanti, well if you do not join me or trait us you are doomed forever - Incorporal world terrorism.

If you join us and later leave us you will become cremators.


he ... heee ...

PT I am A guy. :D
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paulkershaw

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Re: Shame-Bound Fundamentalism

Post18 Mar 2009

In the BKs' case, beyond the delusions of grandeur, in my opinion, the addictions are; power, money, public opinion.

... which in my opinion are all aspects of "Lust" ... and the biggest enemy in BK life is ... ?
Make them look at themselves.

Leela, these are all aspects of taking one's power back. And its got to be taken back, full and complete and strong. No easy task at times and still remain loving to the self.
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rayoflight

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Re: Shame-Bound Fundamentalism

Post19 Mar 2009

Wow, this was really eye opening. Thank you leela. Makes me look at myself and the group in a different way.

I was raised in a patriarchal family and women were always second to men. I remember feeling ashamed of being a girl when I was little and felt jealous that my Brothers had preferential treatment. I ran away from home at eight because of that and made my point. I know that childhood scars stay with us forever no matter how much work we do on ourselves. We are molded from a very young age and our choices are often based on the very early messages we received as children.

There is a split personality that traumatized children create in order to survive. It's the social personality or the mask many of us wear in order to protect ourselves. This occurs from a lack of unconditional love in the family. Lack of acceptance for who we are and the inability to feel like we are ever enough to be loved.

These shame-bound operations are like "the bite that fits the wound" to quote one of my most troubled but brilliant friends. The operation is the bite and we are the wound and if the shoe fits it is as though we have "come home." And we have in more ways than "One." I know some Brothers who have terrible relationships with their mothers and have found the loving mother in Dadi that they never got as a child.

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