bkti-pit wrote:I never understood why so many BKs seemed to enjoy that kind of celebration. I found it fake and tacky and that it was a waste of my time, not to mention that it was a terrible waste of resources.
- "Oo-er Baba ... You've got a big one. We've polished it and now it's spraying everywhere".
And then there is the tidying up afterwards ...
Dr Freud would have a field day interpreting this party ... and you'd have to be a virgin to do it without thinking the obvious about all that pumping and spraying. Look at Big Mohini cringing.
I suppose to begin with the parties are sort of quaint and cute and, like going to a party at an old folks home, you don't want to be heartless and spoil their fun ... but it wears off quickly and either you accept it and conform for the sake of a free meal and some dhristi from a Dadi, or you leave.
I don't know how things are now, it's a long time since I left but I suspect it is still the same in India and where Indians dominate. In the West, there used to be more elegant "closed door" VIP dinner parties but the ordinary rank and file BKs never got invited to them.
In my time, self and social expression was very limited and there were very few activities that were considered "safe" and acceptable, and they were basically all two dimensional. Dadis on the throne, everyone else sitting watching them, then a little bit of light entertainment from the stage which we usually tried to subvert.
It was all very, very, very uncool and very, very, very inelegant. I would go as far as to say primitive. I suppose you could enjoy it in an anthropological kind of way, and all the old ladies except for the BK royalty were very sweet and loving, but I cant say I enjoyed it or it was what I aspired to.
At the time I accepted it as I thought multiculturalism and putting women first was a good thing ... but then I realised it was not going to change, or change so slowly and *against* the will of Dadi Janki. Janki cannot take credit for all the good changes in the Western BKWSU, many of them happened around and despite her. I think Jayanti often had hard time with her.
Mr Green, you might know more about that having been a surrendered soul.
Jayanti often spoke of "having to show respect to the Seniors". Did Janki demand that respect? It's ridiculous to think we actually accepted all her decision making were "equal to god's" (Shrimat).
In my time, I think Dadi Janki just wanted everything to be the same as it was, and I am not convinced that she had much imagination. Her way was the old way and the BK way. I think any developments had to happen quite slowly around her and with a lot of work ... and they happened mostly far away from her direct influence, like in Australia or Europe, not London.
I am really just thinking out loud here. I left around the time when she wanted the whole Western BK world to go out and do "Peace Marches" like they do in India. That was all she could think of as a "Global Service" campaign and what wanted. I thought it was a terrible idea and stood against it ... and, boy, that did not go down well but it did force them to stop and think a bit and change came from elsewhere (Australia and the Million Minutes of Peace).
Most BKs veered from sucking up to her for the sake of extra Toli/Dhristi or even a hug, to be plain scared of.
I don't think Westerners fully recognised how much of a tyrant Janki was to Sisters and particularly Indian Sisters and more should be said about that. She is not really enlightened at all. I found she could be coercive and invasive at time -
I could give examples - and I think, whilst giving Jayanti a very tough time too, she used Jayanti as a surgical blade to her work for her. I think we on the outside of the inner circle will only ever know a tiny fraction of all the machinations that went on and go on inside ... especially to keep the show in the West financed ... and until one does, one knows nothing of truth of the BKWSU.
For me, she will always be the BKWSU's 'bag man'... (
the a person designated to collect dirty money, e.g. in a protection racket).
I am not saying she is a criminal, I know little about Indian and international tax laws, but there was always quite a bit of cash-cash being asked for, collected and moved around that ordinary BKs were always kept out of knowing about. For me, much of their religion is just con to exploit primarily Hindi Wallahs (Indians) to keep that money coming in. Even Westerners were just used, and their status exaggerated, in the old days to make them look more special, "
Look, even Englishmen follow us, we must be important".
This is all that she was responsible for instituting and keeping running and so, hence, I cannot have a lot of respect.
My best memory of Dadi Janki is her lying on her back on the couch in Baba Bhavan to rest and letting out a huge, long fart. I was working doing service in a back room and I don't think she realised I was there. It was one of the best and few laughs I had in my time as a BK and remains with me to this day.
I was glad to hear that even "one of the top 8 souls in the world" had the same problem with the food as I had. It must have been a stinker.I left and changed my diet.