Watch your language! Why not to use BK language

for concern over cult-related damage, institutional abuse & psychological problems.
  • Message
  • Author
User avatar

Pink Panther

  • Posts: 1885
  • Joined: 14 Feb 2013

Watch your language! Why not to use BK language

Post14 Feb 2013

I place this new topic under the "Recovery and Abuse" very purposefully. I think you will understand why as you read, because the effect on a person who spends any length of time within the BKs is more insidious than we often realise.

In his answer to Manoj in the topic Psychological problems after wife joins Brahma Kumaris ex-l surprised me by saying
"the religion tends to just dump such individuals back with their physical families or into hospitals."

It was not what he said - I understood and agreed with it, it was the way he said it.

I balked at the language. Why qualify the word 'family' with "physical"? is not this still playing the BKSWU game, revealing how entrenched certain neuro-linguistic pathways are? After all, most of what we think is done so according to some language construct (no, I have not done any NLP specific courses or programmes, or even read about them. I am just using those words as i am talking about the neural pathways linked to language!).

Changing habits & patterns is harder than acting to existing habits & patterns. That's why BKs need to be constantly encouraged to continue to make effort, why learning any new skill requires regular application & practice, and usually a new language!

It has been shown that once something becomes habitual, the frontal cortex is less involved and the activity arises from the limbic system. Interestingly, the limbic system actually takes less energy (literally, less kilojoules or calories) to function whilst the frontal cortex - used in planning, facing new problems, new learning etc - takes substantially more. When lolling about doing nothing much, most brain activity is occurring in the limbic system. Habit is a kind of laziness - we admire anyone who displays great skill and appears to do it with little effort, almost lazily! it has become "second nature".

We in the West know about the longer-term effects of applying politically correct rules to speech. Despite the short-term irritations and occasional misapplication of PC language, people will stop using certain terms eventually because they do become unacceptable - 'nigger' being an obvious example. The language is like a supply line to the enemy's mindset. It gives nourishment to patterns of thinking.

Most people are unaware of the jargon they use, (e.g. teenagers saying "like" inappropriately and repeatedly). I sometimes will talk with BKs and ex-BKs and often (even with the ex-BKs) pull them up on their use of such language. As they are such people that don't want to be considered shallow or fundamentalists they are usually apologetic and will backtrack (e.g. one recently was telling me of her "lokik Brother" dying of cancer, and she did not realise she had said that until I mentioned it - as if I would think she was talking about a BK if she said "my Brother is dying of cancer").

May I suggest a policy for the forum that people's families are simply called their families, their Father & mother is their Father & mother, not their "lokik Father & lokik mother", same with Sisters, Brothers, etc.? I mean, does anyone ever give birth to an alokik baby? Can we lose the auto-capitals that this software applies to these words?

The only time a qualifier is needed is when such terms are used as a metaphor or adjective, which is how BKs use them, e.g. "quote marks" should be used when the BKs say "alokik family" or similar - that is, show what is the euphemism and what is the actual relationship.

Let's break the lingo that sustains such elitist and discriminatory thought patterns.

Let's make it clear that English is English and the minority use, the deviation is the BK jargon and the perverse attitude they encourage toward those who breastfed them, wiped their bottoms, raised them, had nothing but the best wishes for them, and so on.
User avatar

ex-l

ex-BK

  • Posts: 10661
  • Joined: 07 Apr 2006

Re: Watch your language! Why not to use BK language

Post15 Feb 2013

I agree with all this.

The Brahma Kumaris use the device of renaming one's family as one's "lokik family" - a mind control technique which is constantly reinforced to BK adherents - as a way of separating and dividing you off from your real family. Recently I have come to call the Brahma Kumaris "parasites who feed off other families" even going as far to put forward an 'economic' rational of why they feed off other families, stealing their family members, rather than breeding their own.

Put simply, it's cheaper for the religion as a whole for them to steal ready made adult "children" and it allows them to expand their empire quicker. Of course, they not only look to steal individual family members, usually the wives or children, but, if possible, they also extend their ambitions to stealing and taking over the family home and turning it into one of their centers.

It always makes me laugh when I hear them boast they have "8,500 centers" ... it is like Christianity claiming every Christian's house in a church (and, as an aside, their arithmetic looks wrong again ... if they claim to have 850,000 adherents and 8,500 centers that equates to an average of 100 followers at each center. As most of them are domestic homes ... that is just not possible).

I also agree that in almost every case, one's real family really do have the best wishes for their children far beyond that which the BKWSU does. It is remarkable just how, in many case of BKism or individual exiting the BKWSU, how tolerant and accepting families are welcoming their child back even after they have reject their family as being impure or inferior according to Brahma Kumari philosophy.

Like basically every cult, the Brahma Kumaris like to present themselves as the real family and one's physical family as false, impure, vicious ... even literally "demonic". They and their god spirit is relentless at reinforcing such a concept and, yes, it is reinforced by the use of such language.

I, personally, can remember as clear as day how BKs used to speak of their (physical) family in dismissive, derogatory and apologetic tones ... e.g. "the lokiks". In my opinion, having to go and spend time away from the cult and with "the lokiks" was seen as a burden, something to be apologised for, purely a selfless act of charitable service on behalf of the superior BK as if they were going off into the jungle as an evangelist to some ignorant, amoral primitive tribe ... which is basically how non-BKs are seen.

With reference to this forum, yes, in the beginning when we welcomed all parties in an attempt to resolve all difference and build up a complete picture and documentation of the BKWSU, it was a real problem to know just who an individual was speaking about if they said Father or Brother.

It also underlined for me how, in general, the BKs targeted individuals of a slightly lower educational level or weaker minds, or experience a weak and vulnerable period in their lives (... and I include myself in that criticism). Personally, I also remember the re-eduction period when becoming a BK when one had to unpick and learn all the language ... it's one of the reasons we started the Encyclopedia in order to help non-BKs understand it. My feeling is, the BKs are well practised in the use of language and most non-BKs are fooled by it/them.

Yes, it revealed how deep Brahma Kumari condition had gotten into them ... to a sub-sconcious, automatic level.

Language can be used as a means of control ... something we see a lot with the BKs suppressing valid criticism as "negativity" and portraying acceptance of them and their ideas as "positivity" ... and also a tool of lberation.
User avatar

Mr Green

ex-BK

  • Posts: 1877
  • Joined: 07 Apr 2006

Re: Watch your language! Why not to use BK language

Post15 Feb 2013

I've heard people call their own family shudras.

onthor

  • Posts: 78
  • Joined: 22 Nov 2016

Watch your language! Why not to use BK language

Post23 Nov 2016

Agree with everything that you all have said here re: language. I was going to add 'lokiks' but after a search I see that it had already been pointed out. Pinkpanther, I have also read some of your other contributions and so have gained a bit more of an insight into your experience and your motivations for your 'caring'. Thank you for your various feedback on my posts elsewhere.

Did you guys list 'agyani' as in the majority of folks in the world who have not (had the fortune) of studying Gyan ... and never ever will no matter how many Kalpa's there are to be? As I wrote that last bit and felt the faint stirrings of dawning realisation of the far-reaching impact of what is being discussed here. The word and concept is in fact condemn(ation)! Hovering like a sinister shadow that I never could articulate as clearly as I can now.

As BKs, the language/ideas we become conditioned to use/harbour is all designed to foster & breed separation from the 'them' that are not in the Confluence Age. Horrifically, not only is this a 'this lifetime sentence' for them if we succeed at being a good BK, but it is also an eternal sentence Kalpa after Kalpa after Kalpa after Kalpa after Kalpa a bit like an eternally shapeshifting computer fractal; except that the sworling pattern is eternal denial of our kith and kin!

It truly sucks.

Return to Abuse & Recovery