BK Denise Lawrence on Morality and Ethics

As per another topic, here, I've been watching a few of the BKs' "Godlywood" English language videos ... "Ethics of materialism" and "How Conventional Morality has failed us".

As far as I can work out, by the "Ethics of materialism" or "Conventional Morality" she really just means what they used to call "Body-consciousness". It the same old argument, fudged at the edges not to reveal too much of their real teachings.

To real philosophers, words like ethics, materialism, and morality have already established meanings which the BKs are attempting to sound-a-like but to add nothing. And, I am afraid, show they know nothing either.

Embarrasingly, they call it 'Socratic dialogue', historically a form of prose, when they probably mean 'Socratic questioning', which it is not either.

I take back what I said about Denise having half a brain. It appears to have wasted away for not being properly challenged within the BKWSU.

Conventional Morality that everyone is used to ... the materialist paradigm ... that a human being is a male or female body.

Well, that's just what the BKs called body consciousness and has zilch to do with materialism.

Conventional morality people who are in male body are fundamentally more valuable than people in female body.

Except for body conscious matriarchal societies and ones that saw woman as a higher expression then men, one presumes? Simplistic black and white teaching.

Conventional morality is not alignment with the realities of the Laws of Karma.

"Laws"? Karma and spirituality are not laws. But it's interesting how she falls back on words like rules and laws whilst sounding like Margaret Thatcher ... you see ... you see ... you see ... Well, I see through you Denise, if that's what you mean.

Laws of Karma are not standards, they cannot be changed, like the law of physics.

Laws of Karma are based ... they are not based ... they reflect the laws of spirituality ... The laws of spirituality says souls will always reincarnate at humans

Neither are "laws" ... this is just a pot BK service talk. Now here's the corkers ...

Once we know we have been betrayed by something one leaves it.

The proof has to come out in the pudding ... If my views are correct and I live by them they will be the results that will happen, if my views are not correct then I will not get the results I planned on.

Well, that's what we say about the BKWSU ... like no Destruction in 1950, 1976, 1986, 1986 to 1996, Year 2000 and so on!

And ...

not everybody is willing to accept something that is logical, coherent and consistent if it is in opposition to what they are used to.

Like Brahma Kumarism is "logical, coherent and consistent"?

Like BK Denise Lawrence claiming, that ...

anyone born after 1980s has a facility to use computers.

... and that's why so many people can use technology today!

The foundation of Conventional morality is the materialist paradigm.

Spiritualist paradigm ... A human being is not a body ... that is something new.

Sorry love ... no, it's not new. And these words materialism and spiritualism already have perfectly good meanings, so learn then or stop muddying the water.

She also misquotes what she calls a "rule" discovered by Schopenhauer ... "First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident" (referring it to BKism) which Schopenhauer never actually said. See ... Science, Pseudoscience, and The Three Stages of Truth

Fail. I hope Magela Pillay get out quick before the same thing happens to her.

I think the giveaway that "conventional morality" just means "body consciousness" in old world BKism, is that there is obviously not just one morality in the world ... so what on earth is she talking about?

Largely, in the West, women have at least legal equality and no where in the world are the Brahma Kumaris involved in any real world upliftment of women. Rather they just appear to be demanding the right to be self-elected, unaccountable, religious parasites, equal to self-elected, unaccountable, male religious parasites. A new Brahmin caste.

Many would not see that as any miraculous step forward for humanity.

And, on the other hand, if Karma is such an inescapable "Law" ... are not the downtrodden suffering inequal women suffering because of their own bad behaviour in their last life?

Why then should the Brahma Kumaris be concerned about them any more than any other victim of their own bad karma?

Surely, according to BKism, the only path to salvation for them is ... remembering Baba and enslavement to the new BK Brahma caste?

In short, is it not all just the usual BK format of 40 minutes of waffle, using all the right sounding words, to dumb the audience down and suck them in, for the 15 minutes "experience" of guided meditation/hypnotism at the end of their public lecture?

I found her quite good fun on her own, like most of them, but excessively competitive.

What was your take on where she was at?

I think I remember, way back in the old days, that she raised an interesting point about BK Sisters essentially using their sexuality for the sake of service which I thought was very brave and valid.

By that, I don't mean sex ... but feminity ... flirtiness ... charm ... even subservience.

From memory, the discussion was scotched fairly quickly by the elite.

I would be interested in her relationships with Mohini Panjabi, Jayanti Kirpalani and others. Did her status as an equal within the BK machine suffer because she was not brown enough, nor speak Hindi? Or, perhaps, because she was intellectual? Does she have her "own" followers or wing within BKism as many of their Seniors do?

I understand she's made some effort to speak Hindi to some degree now and spend time in India.

Denise speaks, reads and writes very good Hindi. She was able to give very good translations, probably better ones than many of the other translators who had a lesser grasp on English. The native Hindi speaker often takes words at face value and does not investigate the deeper or more etymological meanings of a word, whereas one who comes to it from outside often analyses it further to place it into a bigger context and find the more accurate corollary in their own language.

I think the biggest battle that any long term intelligent BK has is with their own conscience. In the videos, compared to how I remember her face and demeanour, Denise looks like she has been through the wars and a lot has been pushed down.

I see the look/marks of inner struggle in a lot of the really long term BKs.

I guess she is on the payroll now, and living off donations, so she has to keep up the facade ... both for the sake of her own relative sanity and the cult.

Therefore she has joined the "co-pocrisy" that rules the BK world.

To me, she just looks tired, dry and very controlling ... "you see ... you see ...". She's attempting to use her intelligence to create new language and memes for BKs; to use to promote or defend the cult. Almost forcing this other, younger BK, to accept them ... "it just would not happen ... you see ... you see".

Yes, we see.

Within the history of the BKs, was it not her who opened the door to a new, more casual, down to earth style of guided meditation ... in opposition to Jayanti Kirpalani's "rocket ship" version (of travelling up through space into their "Soul World"), which led to all the current super vague New Age meditations that come out? Was she not part of a modernising/westernising element, e.g. dreamy, "going for a ride in a car with Baba" etc?

Had it not been for her, and the likes of her such as Neville Hodgkinson and Brian Bacon, giving a new language to BKism, BKism would still be stuck in the narrow Hindi diaspora's market place.

I think that's a heavy and negative responsibility to bear, one that, e.g. Brian, has already bailed on. Unlike Brian, I suspect she just has not got the money too ... unless her parents died and left her something to live off.

At the end of the day ... it all just comes down to the money. No money, no money pulling power, no status within BKism, no effect on outside society.

Co-pocrisy

From co- meaning 'with' + -pocrisy from hypocrisy

I think quite a few of her and our generation of remnant BKs are going to surf off their childless retirement within the BKWSU living off their parents' inherited wealth. The rest accepting social welfare to do so. India ... another question altogether that needs looking into.

Is that moral or ethical ... the BKWSU living off adherents' social welfare cheques ... or not supporting those who gave up their natural lives and family to build them up?

One of the reasons I bailed was that I saw the BKWS leaders took without appreciating the full value of what they were taking, and did not reward clear of future sightenedness, let alone morality and ethics.

A BK could have a brilliant idea that brought in millions of dollars or human work hours ... and then be trashed or even pushed up on the whim of some dumb Senior Sister higher up the pyramid of power because they did not follow some 1950s style norm of BKism ... and if said BKs was latter to leave, then they lost all of their investment into the BK machine, in addition to facing what they had not invested into their "lokik" or worldly life.

Dear Ex-I and Pink, I thank you for your well written post and replies on a very important aspect of yogi life. We can be carried away by giving of ourselves to those who suck our energies like energy vampires, who will then trash us and leave us to become chaos in the gutters.

However, good never ends when a soul leaves the BK system. It can be the opposite. I can empathize with rejected souls from the BK system, my Brothers and Sisters in the West who feel that they had ultimate loss due to giving to the BKs in ultimate ways.

The ultimate loss has the potential for ultimate gains outside of the BK system.

She managed to become one of the only Westerners resident in India, and stayed at Gyan Sarover most of the time. Yes, she was fluent with Hindi and a very deep thinker, and quite witty.

She came across as aloof and aggressive but most of the senior-ish Sisters liked to act a bit fierce, part of being a shakti I suppose. She had that intense fast marching walk like Jayanti and others.

I really feel sorry for people like her, she's given everything like a lot of us did, and for what? To slowly witness the facade falling down to reveal just another Hindu cult riding on a past that never happened.

At least she had the early years of personal meetings and the Dadis etc. The younger Sisters don't even have that!

I wonder how they fixed her visa to remain in India ... through contacts and 'baksheesh', or as a "religious teacher"?

They used to be very much against Westerners remaining in Mount Abu. They wanted "all hands on the Western front", but I see a few have managed to wangle their way in.

How do they do so, and is it forever?

I imagine taking a Western pension, even just a social security one, and going and living in India would make for a very comfortable retirement.

Dear Ex-I and Pink, I thank you for your well written post and replies on a very important aspect of yogi life. We can be carried away by giving of ourselves to those who suck our energies like energy vampires, who will then trash us and leave us to become chaos in the gutters.

Thanks.

Sometimes I wonder if I go too far, but the long I observe and document what is going on, the more convinced I am of my position.

Denise's Brother, Anthony, is pretty well off.

He used to live in Toronto (Canada) and then moved to the UK where he was residing at or around the Oxford retreat mansion where he was hanging around Neville and others.

As far as I know he sold his property in Toronto for over $1 million and donated the money to the Yagya. Denise was appointed to be head of the Centre there around that time and used that money in the acquisition of a new building to house the Centre. Anthony had given his old Jaguar to Denise.

It is likely that he would financially support her if she were to leave the BKs.

She would know more than any of us about all the crap going on within the BK circles. Why she still sticks around and promotes it if she has any sense of ethics and morality escapes me.

I have always been disappointed by the poor standards of ethics and morality of the BKWSU. For a while I thought it was weird that my standards seemed to be higher than God's standards. I am glad that I walked away. I could not bear it anymore.