The Story of the Brahma Kumaris

SPECIAL EVENT - Pioneering Women in Spirituality: The Story of the Brahma Kumaris

Thu 12 Mar, from 07:15pm to 09:00pm at Global Retreat Centre

An Oxford International Women’s Festival 2009 event, celebrating Pioneering & Inspirational Women.

Join Maureen Goodman, a spiritual pioneer, to explore the story of the Brahma Kumaris, an organisation run by remarkable women since its founding in India in 1937. Audio visuals will complement the talk and Q & A.

SPECIAL EVENT - Pioneering Women in Spirituality: The Story of the Brahma Kumaris... an organisation run by remarkable women since its founding in India in 1937.

Hi John, you haven't used any quotation marks!!

Do you still believe in that? Please share with us your real feelings.

Which story ... the fairy story? Please come back to us with a report on what they tell others now.

Audio visuals will complement the talk and Q & A.

What I found interesting was the addition of a Q&A, is this usual?

The right person could ask some challenging questions.

What I found interesting was the addition of a Q&A, is this usual?

Please go and do so, John. Grab the microphone and see if they cut you off or not!

My reading is that Maureen Goodman is not such as asset, nor potentially such a loose canon, as Janki Kripalani. Therefore they do not need to protect her. She wont be challenged by the audience and she will follow the partyline perfectly, despite all the cracks. I doubt she has the courage to investigate some of the historical revisions or to speak out about them. As a sin, even knowing them would be on a par with "reading novels" to her ... hmmn.

What always got me about Q&A times was that there would be a queue of really quite thick but self-assured BKs, more than often Indian, desperate to ask the like of Janki Kripalani the most stupid of questions, or a question that cannot be answered, yet expecting the most profound of new answers. I cant say they even came. One used to sit practising 'the power of accommodation' and sending loveful vibrations at them.

I wonder if David Goodman is still paying for her living and upkeep so that she can work 24/7 for the beakies or is she on the BKWSU (UK)'s accounts yet? Or how long he did so? Is that not some sort of karmic account?

History of the BKs?

During my last few visits to Madhuban, I tried hard to get through the mythology and find something out about Lekhraj, but it was impossible to penetrate and find the person. I spoke with Dada A.K., Vishwa Rattan, Jagdish (in Delhi as well as Madhuban) and fished around as much as I could without attracting unwelcome attention. What I did uncover in many, many trips to India was that it is customary for educated men with means to establish their own ashrams.

If you're ever back in India, take a trip up to Haridwar and Rishikesh and you'll find ashrams one after another on both sides of the river. Many of them make the BKs pale into insignificance in terms of numbers and influence - the manufacture of religions is one of India's principal industries; and Lekhraj was just following protocol.

He was, of course, from Sindh, a very poor province of Pakisthan, where, as the saying goes, you can tell the wealth of a man by the fatness of his wives and the thinness of his carpets (thanks for that quote, Roger D). One wonders how thin were his carpets. So, there was nothing unusual about the establishment of the BKs. And who can forget Adi Dev, that cartoon book written by Robert S in America, which had Lekhraj at two metres tall (he was about 175 cm).

As for the so-called assassin, that never occurred - at least, not in the fashion the BKs would have you believe. A person did break in with some sort of ill intent but Lekhraj wasn't even there! Interesting what you find out when you start fishing around. And we've all heard the stories about the beggary period - but the old photos show them pretty thin so times were certainly tough after partition.

Briefly, Lekhraj founded the BKs (Om Mandali) around 1937 - numbers were perhaps 100, give or take a few dropouts. Then the move to Brijkoti, in Mount Abu - a big rambling old house, now demolished. Numbers couldn't have been more than 70 by then. Jagdish was the first to come after that period in India, around 1950. He was promoted as the principal of a teacher's college, but could only have been 21 or so at the time. 1950 onwards was slow expansion in India.

Lekhraj died in 1969, aged about 93, and was senile for some time before that (the BKs call it Avyakt). A group of about sixteen women took over the running of the Yagya before that and, presumably, elected or chose Dadi Prakashmani to be their leader. Not long after that, an invitation came from a few ex-patriate Indians living in London to send a teacher from Madhuban, and Dadi Janki was the one sent over. So began what the BKs call "foreign service".

When Lekhraj died, Raja Yoga fractured, with the breakaway group with their own medium started up, representing the most conservative side of the BKs. I think they're still around spouting as much gobbledegook as the BKWSU. Once "service" started in the UK (around 1971 or 1972), it was hell for leather as everyone believed Destruction was going to happen in 1976; the centenary of Lekhraj's birth and the completion of the Hindu 100 years of Brahma. It did not, and there was another exodus from Raja Yoga at that time.

Since then, there have been all sorts of predictions about Destruction, last one I heard was 2012. BKWSU gained a toehold in at the UN and widely publicised it in their literature, big-noting themselves as usual. As anyone who has had any involvement with the UN knows, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are a dime a dozen and no-one worries about them.

I've heard people question, does the UN know about the BKs and their world Destruction viewpoint? Anyone here heard of Christianity, who have been pushing that line for 2000 years, and very successfully recruited amongst the Vikings by predicting the end of the world at the end of the millenium? The first one, that is. So nothing new, startling or even frightening about the BK views as far as the UN is concerned. And the UN itself is hardly significant, except to its members.

Million Minutes of Peace was widely promoted as the "largest non-fundraising project of the International Year of Peace (1986)". It was probably the smallest too. The BKs try hard to walk the world stage but the reality is that BKWSU is small fry. So, there's a little history.

Thanks for sharing this with us and welcome to the Forum!

You have to laugh at the boneheadedness of the BK who used this forum to post an advertisement for Maureen Goodman's program. Sounds like a relatively new BK as anyone else might have just a little more sensitivity - he probably thought he was being clever! Probably one of the London Brothers totally starved of service opportunities and wanting to create some Golden Aged fortune. Knowing the BK's, some Sister would probably have ticked him off about it.

Hi gotmylifeback,

You come up with some interesting points, I did not heard or read before. Some questions do come in my mind, reading all this.

As for the so-called assassin, that never occurred - at least, not in the fashion the BK's would have you believe. A person did break in with some sort of ill intent but Lekhraj wasn't even there! Interesting what you find out when you start fishing around.

I am interested in how you found out this. Did you read it anywhere? If so, where? I would like to take notice of it too. If someone told you, how was/is this person connected to the BK? (Well, If you do not want or cannot to reveal your sources because they need to be protected, I understand. However I would appreciate if you could say in which pond you caught the fish).

Briefly, Lekhraj founded the BK's (Om Mandali) around 1937

From what I have noticed so far about the BK history is that Lekhraj started his satsangs when he retired in 1932. (source: “Is this Justice” published in Om Radhe’s name)

Lekhraj died in 1969, aged about 93, and was senile for some time before that (the BK's call it Avyakt)

Also “Is this Justice” shows the date of birth of Lekraj Kripalani’ was 1884 instead of 1876, we were all to believe. So he must have been 85 years of age, not 93.

The fact he had Alzheimer, like Dadi Prakashmani, is totally new to me. So again: makes me curious how you found out. I realize that since I joined here a short while ago, by far I did not read all the stuff about the historical facts available at this forum (so maybe everyone know except me - sorry).

So nothing new, startling or even frightening about the BK views as far as the UN is concerned. And the UN itself is hardly significant, except to its members.

Don't you think it could make a difference when organisations like the UN, became aware of the two faces of the BKWSU? They pretend to be a peace preaching "university", but in fact they are a sect expanding by collecting to get as much money as they can get from their students, businesspeople and VIPS. Meanwhile frightning thousands of students with free interpretations of the teachings in the Murli about karma, drama and end of the world predictions. To such an extend many of them suffer from depression an emotional instability. And a growing number just cannot figure out how to survive now they are aging because they handed over all of their properties to the BKWSU?

Lekhraj died in 1969, aged about 93, and was senile for some time before that (the BK's call it Avyakt).

This is the first time I am aware of someone mentioning this, which would explain a lot and is perfectly in line with what happened with Dadi Prakashmani.

Welcome to the site. I am glad to hear the sense of clarity behind the BK world-weary edge.

I am the forum's history bore ... I wrote myself into the BKWSU's history by being the punk that went public with all the original documents from the 1930s and 40s. I will probably go down as one of the punks that make more than a few "leading" Western BKs start to hope that there is not another 5,000 year Cycle just so they do not have to know me again.

Of course, I realise that I was not the first to know about these documents but there were definitely covered up and never spoken about in my time. Yes, I bought into all that hogwash too. Take some time to look over them, they are in the Library & History sections.

They clarify a load of things like "no God Shiva until after 1950 ... Om Mandli, or its precusor, started in 1932, not 1936, when Lekhraj Kirpalani was aged 54 ... his death at 80 odds ... his wealth at the time of the partnership splitting up (from memory it was the equivalent of £3,000,000 at today's rate) ... that he was not the sleeping partner (not the other way around as the BKs tell it) and the partner actually owed him money ... and so on. (I am not a PBK, this all came from independent research).

It also evidences the type of letters they were sending out to Queen Elizabeth and their opinion of Gandhi etc. It will blow you away. I am interested to read about Lekhraj Kirpalani old age and his "Avyakt" senility. More than a few have gone that way.

Robert Shubow, it might interest you, has self-appointed himself as a Guru and is doing paid enlightenment for courses down in Costa Rica a good deal of, in my opinion, is BK dressed up with even more poetic spiritual psychobabble. It does not seem like he managed to throw the unholy ghost off and has rationalised into being the Universal god ... much as the BK have.

So how did we get sucked in and what is the "drug" that kept us hooked?

You remind me of their addiction to exaggeration. is not it funny that after the 7 Days Course the next thing one had to learn off my heart was how big and important the BKWSU were?

Thanks for the prompt replies and further updating.

The assassin story ... one of the Madhuban Brothers, probably Atam Prakash, was responsible for this enlightenment. Interesting about Lekhraj's birth year. But it fits the pattern of misinformation. As for the UN, I was an NGO delegate for the BKs in New York at the second special session on Disarmament (the one which led to Reagan and Gorbachev signing the agreement to scrap 3% of their nuclear arsenals) and, at that time, the UN was probably more irrelevant than it is now. Really, if you knew some of the organisations that were NGO's at the time, you'd know what I mean.

I had the "pleasure" of encountering Richard Butler (former head of UNSCOM) and had the following discussion with him, "what does this agreement mean? Is it a true start to nuclear disarmament?" His response, "understand the agreement is not to scrap and dispose of the nuclear warheads. It is not an agreement to dismantle and dispose of the warhead guidance system. It is an agreement to scrap the warhead delivery system (i.e. the missile) which is outdated technology. The warhead and a reprogrammed guidance system are merely transferred to a more up-to-date delivery system."

In other words, this agreement was nothing more than a publicity stunt by Reagan and Gorbachev and, as we all know, the nuclear threat has not diminished one iota since that time. So, coming back to the BKs and the UN, you need to understand that the UN is basically a melting pot of the diplomats of many, many countries, and anyone involved in it knows the skullduggery that goes on all the time ... just like any other area of politics. It is not the shining white knight guarding the world's morality and safety. It has no unified voice, no consistency, no focus and is subject to the pressures and whims of the day (who can forget how the UN rubber-stamped Bush's invasion of Iraq?).

The UN has about as much chance of saving the world as the BKWSU, so they're good bedfellows. Then, many, many levels below this, are the NGOs. Any man and his dog can get NGO status. And the ECOSOC thing, sounds good on paper and designed to impress on BK letterhead, but what does it actually mean? About as much as a plastic whistle in a Christmas cracker.

In those days, the UN rep in New York was Gayatri, with NY Mohini overall North American senior (except for Texas, which went it's own way under Hansa Ravel). Gayatri worked her butt off for the BKs at the UN, in their little and expensive office opposite the UN headquarters. The BKWSU are acutely aware of the importance of politics and having at least some sort of political profile, because it brings in the money.

I'll digest the replies when I have more time but would love to share history more - particularly post 1975 history of Australia.

One last thing - will be offline for the next ten days. Have to go away and work, and no, I am not Brian B on one of his jaunts around the world. Just a humble worker with a mortgage to pay. Now, if it hadn't been for that thirteen years with the BKs, I'd own my house outright, but then my ex-wife would be living in it, and not me.

C'est la vie!