I cant afford the time to find a really good version of the real Raja Yoga Sutras, but there is a copy
here and you can download a text version,
here. I have no idea how useful or valuable it is ... philosophy to me is just poetry; some good, some bad. I think the external forms of any philosophy, which include the written and even spoken word, are fairly meaningless and it is the internal form that one should be aware of and study. By "internal form", I mean everything from the unspoken social structures to the psychic influences. A lot of which is simply looking at what they do rather than say.
Some Tibetan summed up my opinion about much of this stuff long before me as ... "dancing on books". I see this piece was written in the 70s, fairly early in what is now called "The New Age". I find that an a-w-f-u-l lot of New Age stuff is just that 'dancing-on-books-which-are-on-the-heads-of-dancers-that-are-dancing-on-books-which-are-on-the-heads-of-dancers-that-are-dancing-on-books' ... I would not base my life on that foundation.
Common to that is misappropriating "ancient wisdom" to substantiate whatever it is one wishes to do whether it is the BKs and their End of the World religion, or some drug taking hippies attempting to justify their chosen vice.
Although the experimentation on psychedelic drugs is still in a primitive stage and researchers have not arrived at any definite conclusion as regards the utility of these drugs fot the benefit of mankind, there should be no objection to accepting these drugs as na aid for inducing paranormal experiences ...
May be if the author was not stoned they would have made so many spelling mistakes!?! What position are we in, relating to drug use, 30 years later?
As has already been described above, the psychodelic drugs induce paranormal experiences by bringing in a change in the state of consciousness which can be compared with the sate of samadhi.
A comparison does not mean it is the same ... and it is clearly not.
One of the problems with the rumors of that the BKs "put something in the toli" is that no one has ever substantiated
what or provided any evidence whatsoever. I mean ... WHAT? What did they put in it ever, even if it just happened once? Name the devil. To suggest a global conspiracy across all the Kitchens in the BKWSU is ridiculous ... sure, Dadi Janki is beaming out of Madhuban, appearing in all the kitchen at 4 in the morning and spiking the sugar with LSD!?! You see how crazy it would read?
What I would accept is, is it that individuals are intuiting SOMETHING is going on and then seeking a "rational" answer according to their level of consciousness. As there is a lot of ignorance or denial of the unseen or "psychic" elements to Brahma Kumarism, they look for "rational" material answers ... which, naturally, appear crazy.
Here what I would real like is for someone like Terry to step in and explain those unseen "energies" that are transmitted between individuals and how they work upon our individual consciousness.
What I do continue to underline are the similarities between other occult traditions and the Brahma Kumaris ... and ask, 70 years later and all those millions of dollars, where is it all going?
Do we have enough evidence now to come to some conclusion?