21 Dec 2006
Would the nice BK Brothers be capable of violence against sincere child-of-Baba PBKs?
First, anyone with authority is subject to welding power arbitrarily. Search the wikipedia for Stanford Prison Experiment. The nature of authority is one of life's great questions. In a population, even if many use authority virtuously (if that were possible -- note that those having authority tend to believe they use it judiciously, if not virtuously), there will always be enough not judicious or virtuous so as to undermine and circumvent the benevolent effects of others' virtue.
Why is not governance better? Because it is good enough for the winners who control the game. Why is not it better? Because the activities for good are biased in other directions, which I hope to elucidate in future writings. Basically, a gun gives you value when you use it. People are biased toward using energy, toward powered machines, along with everything else that gives them advantage. It is the machines that are crowding out the biosphere, not the humans. That is the reason concrete and asphalt roads look so little like rainforest ecosystems: cities are the domains of the machines and the humans who tend to them. The bias is toward utilizing strengths that are hundred, thousand, even a million times more powerful than what I could achieve with my own body.
The power of science, in BK jargon. Who would not be drawn in? In fact, there is a huge line of people struggling to emigrate to nations where people can exercise this 'power of science' to have the freedom to drive a car.
Now what of the PBKs? If you want Baba, and are Baba's children, you ought to be able to have such intense bhattis that God comes into one or another of your group. That you choose to depend on the BKs for anything appears to contain an element of helplessness that I can only say is the inevitable result of a choice that leaves you in a similar place as the peripheral males in a dog pack. Just ask yourself, are you lingering at the periphery, waiting for an opportunity to receive?
Horrible for me personally to subsume my personality and life to the story of another, created for me by the group. Perhaps okay for you all. I need to be and become my own story.
Then think of all the millions who work hard in their lives without question, perhaps knowing who they are. How do they compare to those who contemplate The Cycle of time, if it is a cycle? Are those who live without spinning The Cycle, are they universally less capable in life? Do you judge them missing something spiritual, because they lack the urging that drives you to seek a blissful union with God? Do those who seek God achieve more in their lives? Probably if their was a reliable way to improve the lot of humanity, it would have;
I know someone who works as a mental health counselor. Every day she works in the trenches, seeing people who are barely functioning. She helps them, individuals, children, families, get back on their feet, so to say. She often sees miraculous changes in her clients. She is an atheist. In aggregate experience, the ex-BKs seem to show that faithfully following is no guarantee of success in Raja Yoga taught by Brahma Kumaris. We can say it is not their fate, but what if meeting them, I find that they are no less than I?
Whatever the case regarding the validity of the spiritual beliefs and traditions of the BKs, the group does have power as an organization. For example, shared with the Scientologists, the BKs receive confessions of the life story of its followers. In a confrontation, I am sure that they (like everyone) use all the reserves they have. It is amazing the way they have established such a massive infrastructure for printing books, posters, Murlis, etc. They also have weight to throw around. PBKs can bring their own sticks if they want to face conflict, or can perhaps succeed in invoking God fully into their lives without depending on the goodwill and cooperation of the BKs, who as an organization show no sign of wanting to share their sacramental authority.
I conclude this (what I can only describe as a diatribe, whatever that means) with a pointer to the text of the BK teaching posters. Thanks to the PBKs for having the courage to put these posters on the Web. You have zeal and enthusiasm beyond what I see in the main sect.
First, anyone with authority is subject to welding power arbitrarily. Search the wikipedia for Stanford Prison Experiment. The nature of authority is one of life's great questions. In a population, even if many use authority virtuously (if that were possible -- note that those having authority tend to believe they use it judiciously, if not virtuously), there will always be enough not judicious or virtuous so as to undermine and circumvent the benevolent effects of others' virtue.
- Laws are only on paper. People naturally seek their own advantage.
- http://www.marginalrevolution.com/bandits
http://www.forbes.com/Roving bandits and stationary bandits
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/books/How to Grow
Why is not governance better? Because it is good enough for the winners who control the game. Why is not it better? Because the activities for good are biased in other directions, which I hope to elucidate in future writings. Basically, a gun gives you value when you use it. People are biased toward using energy, toward powered machines, along with everything else that gives them advantage. It is the machines that are crowding out the biosphere, not the humans. That is the reason concrete and asphalt roads look so little like rainforest ecosystems: cities are the domains of the machines and the humans who tend to them. The bias is toward utilizing strengths that are hundred, thousand, even a million times more powerful than what I could achieve with my own body.
The power of science, in BK jargon. Who would not be drawn in? In fact, there is a huge line of people struggling to emigrate to nations where people can exercise this 'power of science' to have the freedom to drive a car.
Now what of the PBKs? If you want Baba, and are Baba's children, you ought to be able to have such intense bhattis that God comes into one or another of your group. That you choose to depend on the BKs for anything appears to contain an element of helplessness that I can only say is the inevitable result of a choice that leaves you in a similar place as the peripheral males in a dog pack. Just ask yourself, are you lingering at the periphery, waiting for an opportunity to receive?
Horrible for me personally to subsume my personality and life to the story of another, created for me by the group. Perhaps okay for you all. I need to be and become my own story.
Then think of all the millions who work hard in their lives without question, perhaps knowing who they are. How do they compare to those who contemplate The Cycle of time, if it is a cycle? Are those who live without spinning The Cycle, are they universally less capable in life? Do you judge them missing something spiritual, because they lack the urging that drives you to seek a blissful union with God? Do those who seek God achieve more in their lives? Probably if their was a reliable way to improve the lot of humanity, it would have;
- a) been discovered already, a lot of bright people came before us!
b) be famous by now by the miracles it is bringing
I know someone who works as a mental health counselor. Every day she works in the trenches, seeing people who are barely functioning. She helps them, individuals, children, families, get back on their feet, so to say. She often sees miraculous changes in her clients. She is an atheist. In aggregate experience, the ex-BKs seem to show that faithfully following is no guarantee of success in Raja Yoga taught by Brahma Kumaris. We can say it is not their fate, but what if meeting them, I find that they are no less than I?
Whatever the case regarding the validity of the spiritual beliefs and traditions of the BKs, the group does have power as an organization. For example, shared with the Scientologists, the BKs receive confessions of the life story of its followers. In a confrontation, I am sure that they (like everyone) use all the reserves they have. It is amazing the way they have established such a massive infrastructure for printing books, posters, Murlis, etc. They also have weight to throw around. PBKs can bring their own sticks if they want to face conflict, or can perhaps succeed in invoking God fully into their lives without depending on the goodwill and cooperation of the BKs, who as an organization show no sign of wanting to share their sacramental authority.
I conclude this (what I can only describe as a diatribe, whatever that means) with a pointer to the text of the BK teaching posters. Thanks to the PBKs for having the courage to put these posters on the Web. You have zeal and enthusiasm beyond what I see in the main sect.
