BKism: Spirits, super consciousness or psychology?

Split from: Karma. Why did Islam Invade Bharath and Give Sorrow?

There is no depth to it all. No where at all. It's really just about stupefaction and conformity, putting on a facade of religiosity, in order to reap financial and societal benefits and submitting to their spirits. Becoming passive mediums for them

That's the crux of it. It is just a symbiotic relation between BK God spirit and Dada Lekhraj and his closest aides. The former providing the latter with temporary gratification at psychic, emotional and to some extent physical levels, while the latter becomes a slave of it the more intensely one is connected to it. There is no meditation here. None whatsoever.

All that is taught here is to kill your inner voice and become more and more submissive to that spirit. It is the exact opposite of liberation.

The Intellect can be a powerful tool but it will be a tool always. If used with honesty it can help one to dissect one's true motives and go even deeper towards self absorption. However, what happens with most people is that we seldom use it for this purpose and use it instead to hide our true feelings and motivations. It is this dishonesty which takes us further away from truth. That why most intellectuals you will meet will turn out to be pretentious phonies who seldom practice what they preach. The more powerful the intellect is the greater will be the chances that the person will be fraud especially in spiritual field.

That's why I loathe people like that Rajneesh guy who just became a big slave of his own ego. He could have used his abilities to work upon himself and become a sincere sadhak. Instead he used them to gain cheap fame, wealth and fool innocent, gullible people of lesser abilities like a predator. Unlike the BKs, he was not using this ghost/spirit medium (or was being used by it, not as far as I can see at least). He should have known better ... but, again, it's not my place to judge others. They will get what they deserve in the due course of time ...

I've often ask them to explain the mechanics of how karma works, or through what medium karma works, but they have no clue. It's just about conforming to what the Seniors say.

They won't because they cannot. The basis of BKs is not wisdom or knowledge. These things come with our own experiences not when someone superimposes their own belief systems on us using psychic charlatanry.

Dadi Janki often used to say it blunting, i.e. to stop thinking too much, stop asking question

In a twisted way she is right. There is a level where we go beyond our rational mind which is nothing but a big noise of thought currents, and access the super consciousness. Only then we get answers to all questions which trouble us. However, what happens with the BKs is that that spirit simply makes your thinking mind numb and provides a soothing effect which gives this false sense of enlightment to these BK 'yogis'. Instead of liberation they have moved towards enslavement. I pity simple men, women like these Dadis who could have led a normal, ordinary life had they not fall victim to that spirit.

That's the crux of it.

Not real "knowledge" just mental plugs to stop people thing, questioning and, especially, questioning their authority.

There is no meditation here. None whatsoever.

A bit of autohypnosis to calm the mind and make it more open and submissive, may be? Certain, meditation is not the gaol, but the means to the mediumship and channeling.

All that is taught here is to kill your inner voice and become more and more submissive to that spirit. It is the exact opposite of liberation.

I agree with that.

However, what happens with the BKs is that that spirit simply makes your thinking mind numb and provides a soothing effect which gives this false sense of enlightment to these BK 'yogis'. Instead of liberation they have moved towards enslavement. I pity simple men, women like these Dadis who could have led a normal, ordinary life had they not fall victim to that spirit.

And those of us who were unfortunately to encult a few people into the cult are left feeling terrible at how we stole their potential of ordinary lives. Thankfully, in my own case, I think only one "student" became fully dedicated to the cause. But I feel responsible for taking that life.

The whole question of how and why we feel supercharge to try and encult others, "to create your subjects" as the BK god calls it is another element part of which, I think, is because during the "teaching" of the indoctrination course, one is given an extra drug-like boost from the possessing spirits, a high to which one becomes addicted.

It was always during such one to one meditations with new students that I've have experiences that I was incapable of inducing myself.

But that leads us a little off this topic of discussion.

It was always during such one to one meditations with new students that I've have experiences that I was incapable of inducing myself. But that leads us a little off this topic of discussion.

Not really. There is a connection (pardon the pun) to the topic.

The answer is often in the question. The reason its during one-to-one meditations with new students that you have these unique experiences is the reason gurus, demagogues, even teachers of anything, get off on what they do. It takes two to tango.

Solo meditation is like a conversation with oneself, totally dependent on one's own mental choices of where/what I will allow my thoughts to dwell on.

Conversing with others, the thread of the conversation is "inspired" by unexpected replies and continually new input from the other person. The experience depends on how we react to each other and is bound to be very different to being alone. By extension, that goes for meditating and conversing in groups. Same with how we behave when we live alone or if we live in a small household where we are overly familiar with those we live with, or if we are with new people, house-sharing, or in a big commune with its own rules. Who we are, how we present, what we experience, all changes depending on the setting. And for sure how we present ourselves with others largely depends on the role we play, how we respond to the fact others are looking to us to provide something.

As you've pointed out in other posts ex-l, and as is known by marketing psychologists globally, eye contact inspires primal feelings of connection (like lovers, babies & mothers, do). In some cultures it is respectful in others disrespectful. In others it's considered aggressive, threatening. And don't stare into the eyes of a gorilla! That is, eye-to-eye contact is a powerful thing, and maintaining it for long periods is bound to bring on many emotions and thoughts which as we control them, brings on emotional and physical feelings & responses etc. Maintaining open eyes without fixed focus also does things to the muscles of the pupils and affects visual perception so muscle fluctuations lead to sensations of brighter and darker, i.e. waves of light ... ( another whole topic)

We "played the role" when we taught BK meditation. We overcome any "imposter syndrome" to be the "spiritual senior' to the newbie. You sit and meditate and give drishti "by the book" as you know you are meant to, and Geezuz, when two sets of human eyes make and hold contact, things start to happen! In these one-on-ones a lot will also depend on the other person. How are they tuning in? The better they can get into it, the more you do as well ... "You fake it till you make it" - the current version of that old adage "Be what you want to become". Imagine yourself as a channel of divine energy? Then that is what you'll understand your experience to be.

(And, along with the official hierarchy within the BKs - or any organisation - how one responds to one-on-one eye contact with a nominal senior creates its own "organic" ordering of relational hierarchy - as it does in any ape colony! Even though I was never an "official" senior" in the hierarchy I was always treated as an equal by the senior BKs I dealt with, I think largely because I looked at them as "nothin special" i.e. normally and in meditation dristi moments, I always saw myself giving as good as I got!

Be it Jayanti or Nirwair, Karuna, Gayatri, etc we often spoke informally, as equals, joking or serious, small talk or D&M. Others, like the recently deceased Dr Nirmala, when she was Australian zone in charge, did not quite know what to make of me as I wasn't obsequious or subservient the way nearly all Australian BKs were. And Dadi Janki ... well, once, as we were lining up for Toli with longish dristi, she took my hand and said "you have to learn to feel shame". WTF? Later reflection made me think that this came from me not ever being intimidated by her, and I often questioned her in class settings (and even had private meetings with her to argue and question Gyan orthodoxies until she eventually said she wouldn't meet for such things again. I think John Morgan used to do the same thing.)

Cut to the chase - How does this all relate to Muslims giving sorrow to Bharat?

I think most of us can grasp the idea of a "shadow" or maybe of co-dependency?

We can see how violent actors such as Hamas are Islamo-fascist "Tails" of the same religious zealotry coin for which Jewish Ziono-fascism is "Heads. We can see how the USA military-industrial complex needs enemies to bolster its profits, and if there is not an actual one, then one is manufactured, i.e. built up as a threat, either directly to the US or to one of its "markets" - be the enemy another nation or an internal opposition or resistance. Apparently if you cannot bomb a country into becoming a modern liberal democracy, you should at least make a fortune trying.

I was listening to this program about religious communal violence in Bangladesh and India where the guest goes into the history of these clashes and how in today's world people of both sides are exploited by those who use "religious identity" as a means to further their own agendas.

That is, action and reaction are the tango, the flip of the coin, each other's shadow by which "I" defines itself by the "Not-I". The spiritual master and spiritual student need each other, the giver of dristi is empoowered when there is a receiver, the 20 year old Yoga student who does a 3 week workshop and is now a Yoga teacher just needs a few student to feel "yes, I am that" . Oh what a feeling ...

Sorry for the ramble, I hope I got the point across.

Imagine yourself as a channel of divine energy? Then that is what you'll understand your experience to be.

I think the conclusion that Human and I had gotten to, is that it or they aren't "divine". Which is more the point. We had the experiences being told that they were, when they are clearly not. If your theory of "if you believe it, it will come true" worked, then we would have had divine experiences instead. If anything, the complete opposite happens, disproving your theory.

I am sorry but it's just far too reductionist, and born of reductionist thinking by people who never had such experiences in the first place, in order to judge them. Bizarrely, what in the first place comes across as intellectual, really just boils down to a kind of New Agey "manifestation" belief.

And in this is another big problem BKism has; no one know what or if anyone else is having any kind of "experience". I certainly knew BK who hung around for years, decades, who never had any experience at all. If your "what you believe, will come true" worked, why weren't they having experiences? At that point, your position would become almost BK-ish, e.g. "they need more faith/weren't believing enough" or, dare I write it, "they need to do more Yoga".

It could be possible to test your theory scientifically, e.g. get a load of non-BK subjects to stare into other people's ideas and measure what experiences they have, like performance artist Marina Abramović does. I'll put a bet on that they're not having the same kind of experiences.

I have no idea what experiences you had. I have no idea what you were even doing during meditation (again, I known BKs who admitted that they were basically doing nothing but thinking during it). May be psychically, you're locked because you are too intellectual?

But I can say I cannot do to myself, or do to others, what I and they were experiencing during those sessions.

Ergo, it wasn't me doing it. If it was me doing it, I'd be able to do it at will. And I think even you would admit that BKism was often months (or even years) of absolutely, painful nothing happen during meditation for most despite all the "believing" in the world going on. Therefore, again, you'd have to come up with a better theory.

This part of the conversation between is just a tiny eddy in the to and fro between spiritualists and materialists that's been going on for at least 175 years or more in the West. An argument, for the most part, between those who have experienced very strange phenomena and are open to various possible explanations for it; and those who haven't, and are looking for the easiest way out of explaining it away in an apparently "rational" manner.

My intention wasn't to say that it was actually divine, just that it can be a subejctive belief. Maybe I should have used inverted commas?

I was trying to say that the experience had when there is, a) prolonged direct eye/face-to-face contact combined with b) the mental processes that are part of the BK meditation/dristi technique we meditation "teachers" applied in those situations, is not your normal experience of everyday social interaction.

It is created by that scenario, the physical and mental act that is happening. Some can believe that the appropirate term to apply to it is "divine energy", because they were told that what it is.

Conversely, there was a person in London when I was there who was from a West Indian fundamentalist Christian background who took the course and freaked because they saw it as "supernatural" and they'd been warned against it. (Lots of fundamentalists are against Yoga and meditation because they see them as doorways used by Satan's demons).

One thing I was going to go into - but my post became overly long - was to refer to your old posts where you brought up the concept of the 'egregore" i.e. a spirit that is created from the collective consciousness or collective energy. It's a great word (yes, etymologically same roots as "egregious").

Be it Hitler's Nurenmburg rallies, the contagious madness that turns a demonstration or a football crowd into a riot, the difference in the ambience found in solo meditation versus group meditation, the different dynamics that arise in different relationships, they can all be seen as an "egregore-like" product of that relationship. ("Men go crazy in congregations, they only get better one by one" - Sting, or rather Sting quoting his dying Father).

It could be possible to test your theory scientifically, e.g. get a load of non-BK subjects to stare into other people's ideas and measure what experiences they have, like performance artist Marina Abramović does. I'll put a bet on that they're not having the same kind of experiences.

I was going to mention her work. That and what you say after, that each one's experience is different, applies to what you later say, how some people never really felt much in meditation. That is what I am saying! The experience is not just that there are two people, its which two people.

If you surveyed the people who took part in Abramovich's "art performances" (as opposed to performance art) you would find that each person has different excperiences, but that may just be their different ways and means of struggling to describe their experiences. (BKs get given a vocabulary to use). You'd also find, with a big enough sample group, you could find similarities to be able to group them into "types" of experiences. Same with BK meditators.

This can be described in other ways, pick your preferred model. E.G. Jung' categories of superior/inferior function, the two pairings: thinking/feeling and sensation/intuition. Won't go into what these words mean when they're used in this context (and the word "feeling" is English is ambiguous to begin with).

Suffice to say that he is describing the main way that a person consciously engages in the world is their superior function and, inversely, its opposite is the not-as-developed- hence-less-used, i.e. the inferior function .

The inferior function is what will be experienced as "shadow", discomforting, different to "normal experience". It manifests when the usual consciousness is put aside, suppressed, altered - through different activity and circumstances e.g. asleep (dreams) drugs, meditation, challenging and extreme sport, rituals that bring on altered states, fasting, and combinations thereof etc. Inferior function is usually what manifests in dreams, but the dreamer will tend to narrate the dream from their superior function (so the dream analyst is looking for what is missing as much as what is mentioned.The Via Negativa).

Anyone who seeks wholeness (call it enlightenment or personal development, whatever), if they are genuine, through the course of their lives, will not stick with their already established patterns, They will try different things and try to spot, then develop and integrate, the inferior function (even if they are unfamiliar with that terminology). Those who are not conscious "seekers" will have these inferior functions manifest as distress, diseases, fears, dogmas, that won't and don't allow integration.

That is, in the course of a lifetime, some people change for the better by what they consciously choose to do (be it rationally, intuitively, etc), others change because of what happens or is done to them (and usually a bit of both). Others just seem to become more of who and what they already are - call it stuck, backward looking, ossified (it's like all they can become is caricatures of themselves. Many politicians seem to be like that).

As Sri Sri Mahadev Bob Dylan said "He who is not busy being born is busy dying".

Yeah, imagine the influence of spirit mediumship to be some kind of psychoanalytical equivocation? Then that is what you'll understand your experience to be.

An interesting question for spiritualists to answer is why has the power and influence of the BK spook weakened or diffused to the degree that it has today? Or has it?

Have the trance sessions, and mediumship all stopped?

For the record, I think think it's a matter of either/or. I think it's all three. The art is in being able to differentiate between what is which. Did you ever read the short book, "People of the Lie" by M Scott Peck? It's interesting because he came from an entirely secular point of view, i.e. US Army psychologist, yet was forced by his experiences to accept there was a whole lot more going on that simply just did not fit into that model, and ended up accepting there was some kind of reality to spiritual or demonic influences.

I don't 100% accept or agree with his conclusions as they were, as you would point out, coloured by his Christian indoctrination, but I won't close the door to the fact that there are a whole load of weird, spooky phenomenon in this world.

I'd be equally sure that the subjective experiences of art gallery attendees do not match those of people doing BKism, especially when we consider the totality of experiences had within BKism, e.g. going right back to the intensities of the mass hypnosis/possession/trance sessions of the Om Mandli (which the BKs have whitewashed).

Generally, the argument against spiritualism goes something like, "what spirits/mediums say is often false, therefore spirit mediumship is not real" but it seems reasonable enough to respond to that with an observation that the method and practise of mediumship is real, it's just that the low level of spirits involved in it are generally false, limited or even deliberately misleading by nature.

Again, the foundational text to investigate that would be, 'The Siren Call of Hungry Ghosts' by Joe Fisher.

While not "academic" or scientific, it's at least on the level of good investigative journalism. And, yes, he found that almost all of what "the spirits" communicated was in some way false. Rather than just knee-jerk on the basis that there is no life nor lifeforms outside of the physical realm, he did the legwork of listening to what they said, then going to check up with historical records to see if they could be true, and then confronting them with it afterwards over a period of 5 years.

May be these days it might pass as some kind of ethnographic anthropology.

HI ex-l,

I am not here to debate whether or not ghosts, spirits, demons, exist "objectively" or not. Nothing exists "objectively". But it does.

Then again, do the multitudes of ancient gods & demons that have ever been named, believed in, experienced by people in the time of homo sapiens, any of those gods created when a tribe, a priest, a shaman "breathed life" into them, do they still exist after those tribes themselves become extinct?

You know I like Jung's work ie his working models and language makes sense to me. He was very much into accepting the reality of supernatural phenoma, experiences, spirits. He tells of when he was about 14 sneaking out to spy on his cousin (or aunt) conducting seances. He maintained a lifelong fascination for the inexplicable ... and the explanations. Never dismissive. So if I sound like I am being hardline rationalist, well, it's more about playing devil's (!) advocate.

Buddhism talks of spirits and demons also, in some places refers to them "objectively" but also goes out of its way to clarify that nothing exists objectively or has independent ontological existence (pratityasamutpada).

The "deity Yoga" of Tibetan Buddhism, the paradoxical "vulgar" explanation of the visceral experience when one encounters any of the Buddhas of the 10 directions being as real as a wet dream i.e. "the reality" in any moment is reality. The experience and the consequence is undeniable ... and all come from our "mind-made reality" as decribed in, say, The Diamond Cutter-Thunderbolt of Pure Wisdom sutra: "All dharmas are dharmaless".

That is, conventional conceptualisation and language provide the working models we live by, relate by and experience by. But to be unaware they are "constructs" leaves us at their mercy.

You also articulated the very good point years ago on this forum which resonated (because it is essentially a Jungian idea too but which at that point had not sunk in for me, unti I read that post) about the importance of a therapist accepting, adopting the language and perspective of the person in fornt of them, rather than insisting they're wrong or "it's not real". I.E. people come to their own understanding in their own time.

I'd say that this approach - accepting and using the language and analogues of the person before us - is good advice for any sincere listener as well. So apologies for being adversarial. BTW, the original meaning of Satan is 'adversary" - as per The Book of Job.

Ray Bradbury

Then again, do the multitudes of ancient gods & demons that have ever been named, believed in, experienced by people in the time of homo sapiens, any of those gods created when a tribe, a priest, a shaman "breathed life" into them, do they still exist after those tribes themselves become extinct?

Years ago, on this forum, I mention a novel about just that. Unfortunately, I cannot remember its name right now (a quick search suggests it's an idea that a few authors have explored). It was about how the gods or spirits needed us to pray to and remember in order them to feed off our energy, and how when we humans stopped doing so, they shrunk in power and influence, then shrivelled up and died. From memory, I think it's set in a desert where they go to die. There are also post about how many gods existed and were worshipped for 1,000s of years, and then were just forgotten.

I read anthropologists estimate that at least 18,000 different gods, goddesses, and various animals or objects have been worshipped by humans since our species first appeared.

Apparently the great god Science is currently looking into the periaqueductal gray area, a brainstem region previously implicated in fear conditioning, pain modulation, and altruistic behavior, for an explanation of religiousity. Ironically, it's also an area which, if damaged, is thought to produce phantom limb syndrome.

I am not a Science wallah or Bhagat, so don't quote me. I changed the title of this part of the discussion, so perhaps I should have "brain damage" to the list of possible influences we need to filter out? Never mind mental illness cause by chemical imbalances.

Is the BK god spirit waning?

Results: We found that brain lesions associated with self-reported spirituality map to a brain circuit centered on the periaqueductal gray. Intersection of lesion locations with this same circuit aligned with self-reported religiosity in an independent dataset and previous reports of lesions associated with hyper-religiosity. Lesion locations causing delusions and alien limb syndrome also intersected this circuit.

A wonderful topic and discussion. It revealed lots of information.

I always wonder why BK Meditation works so effectively that the people just pulled to follow the BKism no matter how much sacrifices they have to do just to feel that hike and feel good experience. I know it's like a drug which initially boost your confidence and feeling elevated in the early years (Honeymoon Period), however it fades gradually and by that time the person gets trapped into the organisation.

How the BK meditation (Remember Baba ... while doing all works or while sitting) works? What is the psychology or mechanism behind it? is there any real spirit whom they call God Shiva behind all this?

If you may please throw some light on this?

Thanks

When we were kids we all studied Newtonian physics. While studying the second law of motion, we learned an interesting concept of a non-inertial frame of reference and pseudo forces. To a person sitting in a non-inertial frame of reference, like a car taking a turn, it feels that a force is acting radially outwards. While to a person sitting in inertial frame of reference, it is the absence of any force that makes a person feel as if he's accelerating radially outwards. Both approaches lead to similar results and are equally valid.

The concept of an 'atman' or the individual soul's existence or non existence, is exactly similar in Hinduism and Buddhism and all serious practitioners of either way of life recognize this very early in their spiritual journey. The apparent 'clash' between the two, where one claims that soul exists and the other says it's an illusion, exists only in the minds of ignorant people who, because of their ego, think that they have understood the teaching without undergoing necessary experiences which really broaden their insight. In short it is not an intellectual exercise. It requires a different aspect of your being to develop. A simple farmer can possesses spiritual wisdom ten times greater than a clever professor of philosophy. I, too, can go in detail about either of these schools of thought but, honestly, I have little patience for that kind of approach as it would lead to endless debates and argumentation, so I will do what I do best in such situations and, that is, ignore such childish opinions.

However, a few important points need to be addressed here. First is that the physical is a sub-set of the meta-physical. This is one of the very first realizations which happens when we progress spiritually. So a 2 dimentional being cannot really feel what it would feel like to be in a 3 or four dimentional world. However, a 3 or 4 dimentional being can use his imgination to see the world from the perspective of a 2 or 1 dimentional being relatively easily.

Second realization is that there is no clear boundary separating the two so, in a way, everything has a certain degree of consciousness. It's just that in some forms it is more manifest than in others. Some are roaming around freely while some are embedded in what we call flesh and blood. The former we call spirits and the latter as living beings. It's only our classification to fit reality to our simplified minds.

Science though has progressed by deriving the super-set from the sub-set most of the time, that is to derive the unknown from the known. It is a painful, cumbersome but a very sure-shot approach which has worked wonderfully since its inception. The problem, however, starts when people who claim to be scientists and intellectuals start identifying and attaching their own identities with ideologies like 'rationalism', 'materialism', 'atheism', left, right etc etc, so once you have associated yourself with a subset, you cannot progress to the superset if you refuse to even acknowledge its presence!

Here comes your answer from my point of view at least, you can try as much as you like to study neural connections and do all kinds of brain mapping to explain spirituality but you will very soon reach a glass ceiling. The brain is not the cause of such things. It is only a tool and mostly an obstruction to it for most people. Look, if I study muscle tissues of the biceps of N individuals I will be able to more or less guess who is stronger and who is weak. A deeper study might also reveal at least some aspect of the nature of their jobs but that's it. However, if I knew beforehand the nature of their jobs I will be able to guess their entire body structure with fair amount of certainty. So establishing which factor is cause and which is effect (in our case spirits or brain wiring) is of utmost importance.

With regards to your next question of whether BK god spirit is waning or not I will try to put forth my brief argument in a day or two.

Years ago, on this forum, I mention a novel about just that. Unfortunately, I cannot remember its name right now (a quick search suggests it's an idea that a few authors have explored). It was about how the gods or spirits needed us to pray to and remember in order them to feed off our energy, and how when we humans stopped doing so, they shrunk in power and influence, then shrivelled up and died.

I also had a similar personal belief just 3-4 years ago that is before the time where a slightly different set of ideas has started taken a hold of me, but it is not quite mature yet and I don't personally like to indulge in guess work beyond a certain point, so will not speak much about my newly formed theories.

First, we being spiritual beings have power in us to bring about changes in this material universe both at the gross as well as subtle levels. In fact, any change in physical world is just an outcome of a seed planted in spiritual world. So it seems quite logical to believe that if a person (or better still, a group of persons) with above average ability to focus his/their spiritual energies on a particular shape/form/object can 'charge' it so that that particular entity will possess similar qualities that were infused in it. If that energy is infused in an inanimate object, that object will become charged like vodoo dolls etc. However, it is possible to transfer such energies into the bodies of other living creatures like humans. In that case, it is referred as 'abhichar' (black magic, if the energies infused are negative in nature).

There is a third possibility that you don't infuse energy in living/non-living things but just 'let it be'. (I, personally, am not very sure about this but it seems doable). In this case, it will continue to exist until it is not consumed by another being of greater power who may choose to either utilise it in certain cause of his own, or feed more energy into it so as to prolong its existence. Tantriks indulge in such activities all the time.

However, not all such entities are created by humans. That is for certain before me. Some spirits like some nature spirits, animal spirits (not very sure about it), gods like Indra, Varuna, 9 planets, 5 elements etc you will find their versions in most ancient cultures, can be, to a certain extent, dependent upon collective belief of a group of people for them to function as spiritual entities. But if someone had a body of flesh and blood at some point of time, then the nature of that spirit is totally different. For an ordinary guy, the ability to influence other beings, especially in the physical plane, is very less and will keep decreasing with time and he will take a rebirth in some form. However, there are powerful techniques in tantra which can help an individual to accumulate psychic/spiritual abilities using which he can enhance his longevity as well as power/influence in spiritual dimension and can exercise control over living beings in physical plane as well. Note that these abilities do not mean that the entity is spiritually evolved necessarily, though many evolved beings acquire such abilities but the rule is they do not run after them. Such abilities are granted to them by nature after they cross a certain threshold of evolution.

Dada Lekhraj, it seems, was the kind of person who would be attracted by the status of those who had such abilities and it is no wonder that he might have approached someone like this who saw this weakness in him and made him his minion. He was infused with a lot of such psychic energy and he later used similar tactics to create minions of his own and each one of them tried to replicate this model like a pyramid scheme. But since the top of this pyramid is a mortal being (Dada Lekhraj), he does not have infinite capacity. The more beings are added to this pyramid, his servants would increase, that is for sure, but, he also will get bogged down by their collective karma after a certain point. You can increase the life and potency of your subtle bodies to a certain extent only. The greater the number of people who connect to you, the faster will you loose your abilities, ie quality and quantity are inversely proportional always. Also since he is not a 'jeevan mukta', he is bound to be reborn in some plane of reality and once that time comes all this pshchic nonsense will start ebbing away and once that happens, people will start seeing the 'Godly Knowledge' for the utter nonsense that it is. Game Over.

I always wonder why BK Meditation works so effectively that the people just pulled to follow the BKism no matter how much sacrifices they have to do just to feel that hike and feel good experience. I know it's like a drug which initially boost your confidence and feeling elevated in the early years (Honeymoon Period), however it fades gradually and by that time the person gets trapped into the organisation. How the BK meditation... works?

Good question. I think the answer varies from person to person, although we could probably notice certain categories or types of reasons appear.

Earlier (I think in this thread), we talked about how many BKs admitted they did not actually have any experience in their meditation, so for them, it's not the meditation experience.

To speak for myself, I had lots of what many would describe as "amazing" meditation experiences but I'd say that for me, in my 20s, the reason I continued as a BK was because I enjoyed the community that I had found, a large group of people with similar interests and values. The defining aspects of BKism (why be a BK and not become a member of any of the many other meditation/spiritual groups) were the grist for the mill for churning but really, it was just that the BKs seemed just as good as any others so why go there, and also, many others had controversies and scandals that made the BKs seem relatively benign.

We BKs loved to tell ourselves that we have no guru (basically a semantic argument). I found among the Western BKs that we/they basically brought their conditioned characteristics and personality to the BKs and replaced, for example, their Catholicism with BKism, or their guru with Brahma, or found their desire for an ideal beloved could be projected onto "Baba" ~ many would have been wooed by the idea that they could jump caste to become "true Brahmin" superior to "lokik Brahmin".

For Westerners, we were treated with reverse racism, feted as extra special "double videshi" who'd seen through the double veil (how clever of me!), given extra time in Madhuban, extra time meeting with BapDada in seasons, and constantly reminded how special that was, we were the mics that would wake up Bharat. We had lecture tours arranged where we travelled to different Indian states where programs organised specially for us, put up to lecture Indian BKs when we went to India, fed, looked after, because we were PR assets. Why bite the hand that feeds our ego?

Without going on too long, I'd say the reason any person becomes and stays a BK for any length of time is made up of a multiple of factors which vary from person to person, and the reason we stop being BKs is rarely with foresight and usually a hindsight, ie that we stay until something "hurts", until some need - personal, emotional, psychological, financial, physiological* - that is not being met becomes painful enough to override the rest.

We stay BKs - and BKs allow us to stay - as long as it is mutually profitable (be it for ego or financially) then when one side feels parting ways will serve them better the relationship is either allowed to fade or is cut. I know of a number of times where the BK organisation has pushed people out, banished people.

*I know one woman who left the BKs due to health reasons. She was advised to switch from vegetarian diet to red meat to get the nutrition she was sorely lacking and, from there, she rationally unravelled the construct that insisted there was only one size, one way of living/thinking that fits all, and if it doesn't, well, it's because you are spiritually of a lower caste spiritual. We accept the arrogance of that belief system, found among many groups of "chosen ones", as long as that attitude serves us. We are so proud of our humility!!!

Then, one day, we come down to earth (the actual meaning of humility and humiliation).

Ask the mirror on the wall
Who's the biggest fool of all?
Don't you feel small?
It happens to us all.

(if we're lucky)

I;'d say that for me, in my 20s the reason I continued as a BK was because I enjoyed the community I had found, a large group of people with similar interests and values.

Yes, I resemble with the above.

I being the introvert person really adjusted myself in the BK Group as Murli points often says 8 hours remembrance, remember Baba while walking, eating and doing all seva was a good advice but practically I did not find any true yogi or yogi life style, still I went on in the group till I reached the stage which you explained below.

we stay until something "hurts", until some need - personal, emotional, psychological, financial, physiological* - that is not being met becomes painful enough to override the rest. We stay BKs - and BKs allow us to stay - as long as it is mutually profitable (be it for ego or financially) then when one side feels parting ways will serve them better the relationship is either allowed to fade or is cut. I know of a number of times where the BK organisation has pushed people out, banished people.

The other reason for my stay in the group is the due to vinash. God prediction to transform the world and vinash is round the corner. So I have to stay. I was thinking that may be just because of previous births, karmic account and my weaknesses which is stopping me to experience the God’s bliss but, any way, I have to go as vinash is happening soon. I viewed in my mind that the world, where I am living, is not going last for long, so it's all useless to make a home, family, career. I was contented in small income for myself till I experienced the hypocrisy, manipulation, favoritism, groupism etc in the group, so I decided to get away and later on discovered that many like me are suffering due to their fallacy.

How the BK meditation (Remember Baba ... while doing all works or while sitting) works? What is the psychology or mechanism behind it? is there any real spirit whom they call God Shiva behind all this?

Did you have any meditational experiences, visions etc?

I remember once when I was coerce to go and do service to Indian community (I am a Westerner) speaking to some really simple young India women. Probably late teenagers or early 20s. They certainly weren't intellectuals or philosophers (I am being polite here) and they're entire summation of the BKs was, "they make you feel light", by which they meant weightless (one fairly common experience).

It was clear, as with many of the students during the 7 Day Course, that they were definitely having a psychic/spiritual experience despite there being no effort on their behalf, no understanding, no metaphysical practise, no 40 year of chanting etc. Even, I would argue, much of a predetermined or pre-programmed disposition towards such an experience individually, or within their culture/Hinduism. This even happened to some children.

This, to me, appears to be part of the hook of BKism for many, ie you're given an experience/experiences upfront that you cannot psychically engineer on your own, then you waste years of pointless agony and beating yourself up, working against your own better interests and intuitions, trying to have to get them back again.

That then leads to the 'how' or rather 'who' of your question.

I had such an experience early on that I never experienced again while I was "pukka" nor since, that I cannot remanufacture for myself, therefore I tend to lean towards Human Being's position that it was, and there is, a or more than third parties involved. I don't deny the experiences, I think the ease at which so many have such profound experinces is part of the BKs' USP (unique selling proposition). I just deny their interpretations of them and where they are leading to, or that they are good. As you say, the level of enlightenment (or lack thereof) and ethics of the organization and leaders are evidence of that.

Then, as you also write, I got trapped by the Destruction monkey trap.

As to the 8 hours of remembrance every day, I don't think it works at all. It's just remembering to remember. It's just them keeping you thinking about them to strengthen the psychological bonds to them rather then you family, or whoever else you are attracted to. Just stuff to keep your mind occupied.

Did you have any meditational experiences, visions etc?

No ... Never. But by doing meditation especially Amrit Vela, my day was quite relaxed and peaceful. I experienced that my day do day tasks are done very easily and right on time. Many times I experienced that which I was thinking, is coming itself to me. Like if, I am thinking a man was to deliver some items, then I did not have to go to him but he, himself was coming to me. One another experience is supposed it's rainy atmosphere out there and I have to ride a bike for about 10 kilometers, then I would say to Baba, that see Baba, let the rain not fall till I reach my destination. And it worked for me.

And many small experiences like this.

When something did not worked for me, I would always think that it’s because today I had missed/imperfect Amrit Vela or due to some looseness in following the Shrimat of eating satvik food or eating in remembrance.

Regarding Destruction.

I would always think that Destruction is round the corner. I did not give importance to my personal growth in career, education, family. I always considered the present education, political, social system bogus and lost all interests from it. But whenever I see any news of war, natural calamities, riots, political crisis, I would relate it with the Destruction as they all are the signals towards Destruction coming soon.