Ex-Cult Members answer questions from public

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Pink Panther

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Ex-Cult Members answer questions from public

Post04 Aug 2018

This link is to a TV program called ”You cannot Ask That” - which each week has members of a particular minority group answer provocative questions straight to camera (no interviewer).

The program is only available online for a few weeks. So watch soon.

The blunt questions are asked by the (generally ignorant) general public. Previous episodes have included victims of domestic violence, disabled people, aboriginals, Muslims, people with dwarfism and gigantism, schizophrenics etc.

This episode is asking questions of people who have exited from cults.

”Why are people in cults always smiling” (one answers, ”To hide the pain”)
”Did you ever do any really weird sh*t?” etc

There are some things that parallel the BK experience, other things not.
Quite a few survived small Christian cults, others not. Really interesting.

Repeat - It is only available online for a few weeks.

https://iview.abc.net.au/show/you-cant-ask-that

GuptaRati 6666

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Re: Ex-Cult Members answer questions from public

Post05 Aug 2018

Pink,

Thank you for your post. In my first decade as a BK I would always defend against attacks of the BK institution as a cult. The attacks against cults gained prominence in the American media, immediately after the November 1978 tragedy at Jones Town in Guyana, South America.

It took me another decade of self analysis to understand that the BK institution is indeed a cult. Now when I reflect on some of my hurtful experiences as a BK, I do not feel hurt. Instead I enjoy living in the moment and enjoy thinking about a bright future I can help to create by my thinking and action in the present moment.
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Pink Panther

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Re: Ex-Cult Members answer questions from public

Post05 Aug 2018

GuptaRati,

Interestingly when the participants are asked the question ”is there anything you miss?”. Most of them say things like "the community" and some of their old friends, certainty and routine.

One man’s mother who was still in the cult refused to see him because he was not.

The other side of that from my experience was that when i joined the BKs my dad said he would cut me off from the family and the estate (matching the advice ex-l gives people here whose family members have joined BKs) - although I dare say it was meant more as a disincentive than a protecting of assets.

In both cases, it’s a a defining feature of a cult - they separate people, they do not bring them together in completley free and completely open, accepting, inclusive relationship. There are all kinds of ‘conditions” and categorisation of relationships.
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ex-l

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Re: Ex-Cult Members answer questions from public

Post05 Aug 2018

GuptaRati 6666 wrote:Pink,

Thank you for your post. In my first decade as a BK I would always defend against attacks of the BK institution as a cult ...

My position was pretty much exactly the same as yours.

Despite no longer "believing", I would still defend them from criticism and apologise for them as being a good, sincere or one of the more dedicated religions, largely duped by the facade of "purity" and boot camp like disciplines it takes to be a pukka (proper) BK.

Of course, it appears the sort of pukka BKism we were demanded of and subjected to is largely a thing of the past now in the West.

I would still recommend people to them at least one of whom became enculted ... greatly to my regret now.

In a way, it was terribly sad. Despite leaving on the outside, I was still trapped on the inside; subjected to far deeper indoctrination and programming that I realises and bound by the "what if" fear of Destruction (which was supposed to be in 1986 to 1996 in my time).

It also took me decades to accept it was a cultic religion and only through participating in this forum did I start to find the extent of concerted deception over decades that they had subjected us to.

Same too with accepting the hypnotic elements.

GuptaRati 6666

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Re: Ex-Cult Members answer questions from public

Post06 Aug 2018

Ex-I,

Thank you.

The BKs' ideas on raj Yoga are in many respects revolutionary, though borrowed from other philosophies. One is the eight power of raj Yoga and the other is the pillars of raj Yoga.

I always used to think that BKism was the top and the best of the best. When I was asked to leave by Janki I was seeing a writings clearly on the wall of BKism and the cracks on the wall.

Janki has been the Emperor's champion for BKism, yet she has not exemplified all of the theoretical aspirations of BK philosophy. Raj Yoga is meant to be more superior to other types of Yoga and cannot meet some of the standards of traditional raj Yoga, which BKism regards as bakti.
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Pink Panther

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Re: Ex-Cult Members answer questions from public

Post07 Aug 2018

One is the eight power of raj Yoga and the other is the pillars of raj Yoga.

Most of that ‘formalisation” of the teachings in those ways came from Jagdish who basically took Patanjali’s Yoga sutras and made them fit BK teachings, then they said - this is the origin. Cyclic time theory allows any johnny-come-lately to say they were first!.

I have over the last few years been learning a lot about the history of Yoga, the evolution of ideas that arose out of pre- and post-Aryan invasion, Vedas, Upanishads Jainism, Buddhism, Vedanta etc. In a way, it's part of what I was looking for when I joined the so-called ”Spiritual University” only to find they did not even have a library except of their own propaganda. I got sucked in, as we all did, by believing the experiences were part of a bundle package, inseparable from the ”service provider”, the only shop in town.

But that is also what defines a cult, and those who believe it as members of a cult.

That’s not to say that somewhere out there there is not a person/people with "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth” to share - but life has taught me that one sign that they don’t is any claim to exclusivity!
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ex-l

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Re: Ex-Cult Members answer questions from public

Post07 Aug 2018

Pink Panther wrote:In a way, it's part of what I was looking for when I joined the so-called ”Spiritual University” only to find they did not even have a library except of their own propaganda.

When I arrived, they had just a domestic cupboard with a few copies of a few of their books on a couple of shelves. They were still just free. Then you had to pay "cost" price for them.

Now they have shops selling. Still no library though. Not even of original Murlis and teachings.

Sadly, even their "Museums" are not museums and they don't even keep an archive or musuem of themselves. They went from sticking stickers on old poster to cover up failures, to "slash and burning" the past every few years culling the past and leaving little to no record of it.

I tend to hark back to my understanding of the Bhaibund business model and the relationship between Lekhraj Kirpalani and Jagdish Chander fits in well with it. Once proven as a loyal "son", a junior in the business, the "clever businessman gave him his freedom to come up with new business ideas.

I remember trying to read Patanjali's Ray Yoga sutras before BKism, it was one step in the path that brought me to them, and, to be frank, it was hard to make sense of it or see or understand it much of it as being realistic ... I don't know the super powers a yogi was suppose to be able to learn.


It's "8 Limbs of Yoga" were somewhat different from the BKs merchants' version 8 Powers. I can see Chander sitting down trying to make them into something more simple and practical for the mothers.

I also suspect that BKism must have pretty damned boring for decades if you look at the material they actually had.

It's still very unclear me what they actually did for all that time during "the beggary period" and after. It's like based your impression of what it must have been like to be an early Christian based on the image of Jesus walking around and say, "I am the way and light, follow me ... OK, next village guys".

I suspect it was all very mundane; no books, no papers, no other religions or philosophies, just a grinding of folks down to fit within a very narrow spectrum of thought and expression without any resistance, or even creativity.

Patanjali's principles make sense ... but I don't know the real history of its development as you refer to it, Pink.
YAMA - Restraints, moral disciplines or moral vows
NIYAMA - Positive duties or observances
ASANA - Posture
PRANAYAMA - Breathing techniques
PRATYAHARA - Sense withdrawal
DHARANA - Focused concentration
DHYANA - Meditative absorption
SAMADHI - Bliss or enlightenment

GuptaRati 6666

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Re: Ex-Cult Members answer questions from public

Post07 Aug 2018

Here is a great link on analysis of religious by Eliade, a respect scholar who did in depth investigation into Yoga:

Mircea Eliade's Phenonemological Analysis of Religious Experience.

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