How the mighty fall ... Martin Damo is an ex-BK

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ex-l

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How the mighty fall ... Martin Damo is an ex-BK

Post02 Jul 2015

At 6' 6", big BK Martin Damo was an early and notable Western BK, now ex-BK, but what do we make of his current position? BK for 35 years, now with a wife ... was she another BK and also bailed out? ... Martin presents himself still at ease and still doing PR for the Kirpalani con.

My only recollection of Martin was his outspoken, nay nigh racist, tirades aimed at Indian BKs.

Voluntary work? Hmmn, I don't know if I can accept that. What he did was work for the BK promoting them for nothing. The BKs don't exactly do voluntary work and certain did none for at least the first half of his time with them.

It was all just evangelist PR and enculting others. If he spent time in NYC, it was working the United Nations from their hired office there. And he's still exaggerating the standing of their "consultative status". It does not mean they are "consulted", it just means they can attend meetings, watch and hand in pithy opinion pieces.

I'd call it more "keeping up the facade" some ex-BKs do to sustain the concept of social value in the BK myth as an alternative way to explain what they did for 35 years ... rather than just run a crazy End of the World cult.

So what trend do we recognise here? Is it going to be something like when the parents of childless mature BKs die off and leave them their estate and money, they are finally going to be able to finally leave the pay and pension free BK lifestyle? Or, like others, do they have to start looking for wealthy partners?

(A general question, not aimed at Martin).

And what does, "where selflessness had been a key value, he felt too many people became selfish" refer to?

2011 minus 35 years puts him back to around 1976 and that day of Destruction.

"No regrets"?

Perhaps "no regrets" is a better attitude, or perhaps it just indicates that he did OK out of his BK experience ... was he on the BK payroll at any time? But should we have regrets, at least for encouraging others into the system? Or for what else we could have made of our lives and done for others during that time? How does he feel about pulling his younger Brother - now also ex- I understand - in as well.

Lives wasted?

It's certainly better for the BKs if we don't, and an attitude they would hope we adopted. Or perhaps it's also part of the message we have to live with and repeat if we still want to drop in and out of making use of their facilities?
The early 1970s was a time when university students in Australia, like Mr Damo, were experimenting enthusiastically with mind-altering substances, looking for enlightenment and a "higher understanding". Somewhere in there, he tuned into meditation and left what he terms "the herbs and spices" behind.

Finding Brahma Kumaris

"I ended up staying there for 35 years. We did voluntary work all around the world — China, Africa, South America, every continent — spent a lot of time in New York. They have centres all over the world," Mr Damo said.

"They have consultative status with the United Nations as an NGO, so they're quite up there. It was a big organisation and it gave me the opportunity to go to a lot of countries and help out.

"It's most closely connected to Hinduism but their tenants are no false gods, no worshipping; the theory is good but unfortunately human beings tend to relapse back into their original ways of thinking.

"But I must have liked it, I don't think you can do something like that for 35 years if you did not. There was a lot of discipline, getting up at quarter to four each morning, then meditation, then a class, then breakfast..."

Landing in Wilmot

Mr Damo eventually tired of the system he was in, saying the organisation just got too big and where selflessness had been a key value, he felt too many people became selfish, at least in attitude.

He eventually left Brahma Kumaris in 2011 and moved to Wilmot in 2012 with his wife Margie who has family in Tasmania.

Mr Damo said the life at Wilmot is the best he has ever known but has no regrets about the time he spent saying "omm".

"But being here, seeing Mt Roland every day and having these beautiful animals around is pretty unbeatable," he said.

An enviable retirement lifestyle I would say, however, strictly speaking he has "destroyed his fortune" for all eternity - according to the BKs and Lekhraj Kirpalani and will receive a lower status in the forthcoming Golden Age! From here.

BK_Martin_Damo.jpg

bkti-pit

Independent, free thinking BK

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Re: How the mighty fall ... Martin Damo is an ex-BK

Post03 Jul 2015

I do not recall meeting him but I remember hearing about him and his travels to various BK centres around the world where he would do electrical work, painting and what not.

I must say I agree with him about selfishness within BK ranks. It was turning me off.
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Pink Panther

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Re: How the mighty fall ... Martin Damo is an ex-BK

Post03 Jul 2015

And what does, "where selflessness had been a key value, he felt too many people became selfish" refer to?

Maybe he felt he wasn’t getting the respect or position or influence he felt he deserved after so many years? (i.e. like those who protected their position and influence at his expense?!).

Maybe he finally outgrew them? Saw what he no longer wanted to be or partake in?

Often through seeing a certain fault in others, one eventually sees what one doesn’t want to be any longer but can’t/couldn't acknowledge in oneself.

He was never backward in putting forward what he wanted either, with little regard to others. I remember at one meeting which was deciding where time, energy and money should be spent on a new venue. He and his Brother blatantly and strongly (borderline verbally abusive) putting down the opinion of a woman who was also a long term BK, in a most unfair, undemocratic way, saying that as she was not putting in money, her point of view did not count (despite the fact that she donated lots of time and energy, she was a single mum on low income). Other things were said and the way things were decided at that meeting made that a 'last straw’ for me. I think it was the last time I attended any of these ”service meetings”.

Martin is basically a good hearted bloke, if a bit self-centred himself. I am sure he would cringe at the memory if he remembered those comments.
The early 1970s was a time when university students in Australia, like Mr Damo, were experimenting enthusiastically with mind-altering substances, looking for enlightenment and a "higher understanding"

Indeed. nearly all the Australian foundational BKs were heavy users of psychotropic substances (that can be a plus as much as a minus, not a value judgement in itself). Many other Westerners at the time based their evaluations of reality on their very subjective ‘unreal’ experiences, it was all about the personal high. So they/we were susceptible to a self-serving lotus-eating idealistic lifestyle that validated the self-satisfaction instinct of the adolescent ego, i.e. idealism manipulated to egoistic ends and rationalised in spiritual elitism.

My, those horses look a hundred times wiser than any BK or BapDada ever did - vital, present, real. He now has many true spiritual teachers.

Free Speech

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Re: How the mighty fall ... Martin Damo is an ex-BK

Post03 Jul 2015

Name one BK who is not selfish?? Please don't tell me that Martin was working for free, voluntarily. That is a lie most BK teachers make to their followers, " We don't need money, it is just for yugya".

BTW, who needs God if money is by your side?

A good lesson one can learn from Martin is not to regret your BK-stay as post BK life will appear more miserable. He must have consoled himself a lot before reaching at this conclusion. BK for 35 years ... what a waste.
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ex-l

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Re: How the mighty fall ... Martin Damo is an ex-BK

Post03 Jul 2015

It interests me how ex-BKs communicate their experience after they leave. If they have to work the UN blag, they are still being dishonest. It is of no real meaning or value. It's just bullsh**.

Personally, I just say that I was doing hatha Yoga and so on, was planning on going to Indian and then got sucked up into a cult by mistake (which is all true).

But then I did not invest 35 years into sustaining that false ego ...

For those interested in "before and after" photos, I found one of Martin during his BK days with his old spiritual teachers ...

my_little_pony_friendship_is_magic.jpg

I know that the Damos were responsible for more than a few BKs walking out. I remember the stories of how before the BKs they were pretty bad tearaways, taking drugs, stealing cars, trading off their physical size to intimidate ... but that was all part of the "now saved" story of how "Baba had transformed them". Martin's younger Brother trading off his back up.

The latter was a user (also used his BK contacts for the sake of his own self interests), and was basically lazy. I remember him telling me how physical work was "not royal" for BK, and how he avoided it as much as possible despite sharing the same admirable physique.

Tell that to the Bheli women they have crushing rocks and laying foundations for their roads and buildings in Mount Abu.

BK life may have "saved" them. On the other hand, they might have just grown up. It certainly "saved" them from having kids and going through parenthood and so they were able to wander around free of such expenses and commitments.

But being free in that manner also means that perhaps you don't try hard enough in life too.
Free Speech wrote:BK for 35 years ... what a waste.

In a way, if you are of the few who can cut out a niche for oneself, it's an "upper class" drop out's life and, certainly amongst the first generation of Western BKs, there was that element. You still had to get up at 4am, go to class every day, do teaching new students etc, but if you had in demand skills, like building and maintenance, you could just spend your years surfing around centres, not paying rent.

Now it sounds like with the growth and wealth they are supporting more and more people and, presumably, flying them around.

Do such BKs also get give "pocket money" to spend, or are they tied to the centres for food and a place to sleep?

In my time there was not much holidaying, you were expected to be "grinding your bones" 7 days a week and were lucky to get one picnic a year out of it.

Lotus eater ... fair assessment. We were living a delusion of what a "spiritual life" meant ... under leaders who hadn't a clue and were just hustling for their board, keep and international airfares.

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