Young, Gifted & Black in the BKWSU ...

for measuring opinion on matters relating to their BKWSU experiences
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Do you find yourself in this birth as a BK / ex-BK soul in black body?

Yes
4
17%
No
20
83%
 
Total votes : 24

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alladin

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conforming to a look

Post24 May 2007

Will it be "off topic" if I reminded you that many of the first core of children were hippies on a quest for God and truth and were wearing long hair/beards and were asked to cut/shave it all off? They all did, as a proof of love for God, surrender to him, with a clean heart, not to please Seniors.

In the same way that Sisters had to plait loose wild long manes or grow their hair in case they were wearing it short. Whenever SS tell these stories, they describe those hippies as disgusting looking people that were saved by BKs. Now they are presentable and even to be proud of (some became highrank BKs, obedience pays!!). The drive was, I guess, for those souls, gratefulness to God from the "long lost and now found children". Possibly the root of all problems lies in this mistaking human gurus for God. I agree with Di about the deep significance of hair cutting as loosing, giving up your power, allowing someone to strip it off from you. Would resistance be ego, or real healthy spiritual power?

I am personally convinced that there's a lot of benefit and king's sanskars in not conforming and not bending. Time will tell. In the meantime, I whip the system with my dreadlocks!

di

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Post24 May 2007

Hi Alladin,

My tongue in cheek humour obviously got lost in the telling. I am sorry. I was only relating a old parable of Sampson and Delilah I heard as a child, link; Samson and Delilah (not that I am a baptist mind you). It tells the story of a man renown for his strength whose weakness was beautiful women.

His source of strength lay in his hair. He told his secret and she betrayed him. Ultimately it is about asking forgiveness and faith, to see the good that can come out of the bad. It only occured to me from the previous posts re a man's length of hair and ex-l's comments
For most cultures from the Greek, to Sikh, to Viking, to Native American, long hair was a symbol of a man's strength and position within society. Perhaps that is it, shorn of locks is shorn of identity, and "ego" as the BKs call it.

I guess with many things it is the metaphorical meaning that is important. Personally, I don't think someone's strength is in their hair, though hair style can usually be an extension of who we are. In training for nursing there were very strict rules regarding hair and it had to be secured at all times. Partly for practical reasons, and partly as a code of uniform and appearance. It can denote us as belonging to a group or culture as well. Appologies if I was out of place.
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abrahma kumar

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Post27 May 2007

Do you find yourself in this birth as a BK/ex-BK soul in black body? To which the responses on this day told us that the 'ayes' were 11% and the Nays 88%.

Everytime i look at the poll results the title of a UB40 song, "One in Ten" comes to mind. I do not know the lyrics, so i cant be making the connection based on any treatment they give a particular subject matter. Therefore, it must be purely on the basis of it being a statistic.

Anyway, earlier on in the piece ex-l mentioned a spiritualistic aspect concerning the fact that
Many other seers have given each race, or even major civilisations, a different soul colour karmically grouping them together. That is, if we agree all soul is the same, something more to do with the spirit perhaps

I am not learned in this aspect so, as a layman, where would i start to look for clues to verify that there is such a principle at play in the drama?

Having asked that question, I subsequently bumped into this discussion a part of which opens up a discussion of; "How Can Human Variation Be Best Described?" In the context of a BKWSU inspired lifestyle, I wonder if the development of Soul-Consciousness helps a BBK to deal with issues related to the political and socio-economic conditions they find themselves living in?

Is there a certain 'way of being' that is unmistakeably, characteristically 'black', as a result of which a "soul in black body" needs to imbibe certain specific Baba's divine qualities?

Besides race or skin colour, is the BBKs experience one in which the BKWSU is seen as sufficiently aware of the 'roots' nature that appears to be part and parcel of the life-expression of souls in black bodies (or is that an old romantic notion that has been overtaken by the harsh realities in struggle for survival, whether in the "Mother Africa" or amidst black population groups the world over)?

Or is that 'rootsiness' opinion just a romaticised notion that is common amongst "hippy types"; "romantic-minded liberals" and blacks themselves?

Is there an even more positive spiritual bond experienced by BBKs when they meet each other? Do BBKs feel spiritually, karmically-bonded with other BBKs? Was the BBK pre-gyan life-experience one in which they were somehow "emotionally, philosophically and politically" insulated from the negative associations attached to being a "soul in black body"?

OS
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abrahma kumar

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Big enough to swallow the whole of Christendom

Post25 Jun 2007

ex-l wrote:...Can you imaging how the corks of those men popped when being confronted with the rich, dirty, sexy, smelly, sensual, technicolor, freakshow that India is? The hot, half-naked women in diaphenous garments, the spice, perfume and incense. The rythmic, psychedelic music, elephants and tigers, the bhang ...

Imagine leaving a cold, wet, grey, uptight, tripled-buttoned England of the Industrial Revolution, where even the husband of the Queen and Emperess had to wear a chain attacthed to a ring through his penis to stop him embarrassing himself by getting an erection in public ... and waking up in Benares during a Mela. The size and scale of it all. Big enough to swallow the whole of Christendom and still leave room for second helpings.

Thanks ex-l. Classic content. I guess that one could muse along similar lines when ruminating on the mind-blowing experience it MUST have been for those white folk to see with very own eyes black skinned ... what? Monkeys?! Maybe I post something later - so i rest this down here as a marker. Thanks again, ex-l
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ex-l

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Re: Big enough to swallow the whole of Christendom

Post25 Jun 2007

abrahma Kumar wrote:I guess that one could muse along similar lines when ruminating on the mind-blowing experience it MUST have been for those white folk to see with very own eyes black skinned ... what? Monkeys?!

No argument in that. Mind you, the most disconcerting thing I think I have ever seen was an African eating the flesh off the blackened barbecued bush meat arm of some great ape ... fingers, thumb and all. A bononbo or something.

There are still BK seeing white folk for the first time via Gyan but I wonder what it is like for them when they see BBBKs. The only black bodies they know of within Hindu culture are "ugly" (Shyamsunder), devilish, (Kali etc) or equated to extreme low caste, e.g. dark skinned means you have to labor outside.

I would like to test it by marking up my face with paint or wearing skulls around my neck, sneaking up on a sleeping Indian BK and then going, "Boo-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya!!!.

Do it in a village and they would probably kill you.

It would be a good test of their soul-conscious stage and a good thing for us all to remember how quickly and easy humanity can revert to outright, "animal" barbarity. It goes against Gyan, but it strikes me that "civility" is merely a recent veneer.

Of course, the lokik position is that Africa is the cradle of humanity. Soemthing that rest uneasily with racists or Imperialists as it means that we are all of African descent. But you see here is also evidence that, contrary to Gyan and Indian prejudices, Africa is also the original source of Yoga ...
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Image

Its called the Wannanabanana asana.
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paulkershaw

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Post25 Jun 2007

Many years ago, three South Africa BK boys were travelling from Delhi to Benares via train and whislt doing so were visited by many 'local' people riding the same train. We had apparently caused quite the stir and the reason for the visit ...

Not that we were male, or BB even, or even dressed in white "Indian" style garb, and probably not because we came from South Africa. But simply because the three of us were all of different colour; one black, one Indian, one white and no-one would believe we all lived in the same place. It was beyond their belieff system that this could actually happen ...

I've even been to places in Thailand where the locals would ask where I came from then would start stratching my arm to try to and scrape off the white skin to uncover the black underneath "as everyone in Africa is black ..."

There are apparently townships in South Africa where some of the children still have not see a white person in the flesh and cannot grasp the existence of people of different colour. And this is s'posed to be the 21st century ...

The joys of travel indeed. I can see how a different colour skin appearing in the midst of someone who has no conscious experience of it could cause some shock, never mind having to try to understand the strange behaviour that arrives with that person too.
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abrahma kumar

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And this is s'posed to be the 21st century

Post25 Jun 2007

Well put. Especially the 21st century bit. It must be quite an eye-opener for a a dark skinned person to come across attitudes and beliefs about him or herself that beggar belief. Back in the 1980s somewhere in Europe, I overheard a white person asking a black person whether they had lived in a mud shack and walked around naked prior to arriving in Europe? Jesus H Christ! When the black person looked quizzical the response was; "Well I do not know!" Makes one wonder what the whites were really told about the reality of the peoples and the discoveries made in those far flung places.

Anyway, moving things along a bit there is something that comes to my mind whilst thinking about these angles on this topic. Perhaps it is not common knowledge (nor is it a widely held belief, I AM SURE) that there is a debatable 'falsehood' that often crops up in some imperialist circles to the affect that: If you want to hide something from a black man just put it in a book!

To which the black man may counter with an equally debatable 'falsehood': For all the claims of being civilised, racially superior and technologically advanced, the average white person portrays a level of ignorance about History and Empire that defies belief.

What use TV/Radio/Newspapers etc as means of information, mass-communication AND supposed education, if the great majority remain in the dark ages insofar as knowledge of history and attitudes to race and world affairs is concerned. BTW, let us not for one minute think that "ignorance" along the lines I have twittered on about here is the sole preserve of my bothers and Sisters clad in white skins. On no, there are some pretty entrenched ignorant and narrow-minded views held amongst black folk as well. No?

Meanwhile, back in the BKWSU, the colour-coding in the question: Are you a black-bodied soul is of such insignificance that not one BBBK who may read this site has come forward to share their experience! Never mind. Do I find this surprising? No, not in the slightest, because it could be that some BBKs, under the influence of BKWSU oblox, feel obliged to add web sites like Brahmakumaris.info to that book-shy list.

Anyway, enough of my garbage and on to more enlightening matters - talking of which, as of today, the 25 Jun 07, this topic had 410 eyeballs and 21 braindrains. But are we any the wiser about the BKWSU experience had by those souls in black-body?
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ex-l

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Post26 Jun 2007

There was a "token" black Brother in our center. Naturally he wanted to be a soul singer and becoming Om Shanti did nothing to disuade that.

Well, boxing wasn't a very Avyakt job to do, was it?

It would be interesting to encourage a census of BK centers to see if "enlightenment" was "equal opportunities for all", i.e. past the racial discrimination act. An easy guess says, "no way, Hosé."
    I'd put it at about; Indian 80%, WASP 10%, Latin 2%, Black 1.2%, Asian 1%, ... others (not a lot of Eskimos either).
This draws out interesting questions along the cruel lines of Jews and Karma. If so few African-Americans are draw to a successful life in Gyan, then they must be a less enlightened, more impure race. Ditto Chinese Diaspora. Naturally, we remember being taught, that India is the heart of purity and spirituality and of the highest caste. Additionally that the Highest of High are those Indians that do not go off and convert to other religions but stick close to Lekhraj Kirpalani and end up in their final birth near to him or the BK Dadis.

I do not doubt that the early BKWSU had not a single thought or awareness of Africa. I know of no references in the Murli to "The Dark Continent". The Indians interest there appears to be very mainly of other Indian migrants. Do the BKWSU not fail, as the Christians did, of not being able to explain how and why some individual that never hears of Gyan because they are a distant native is eternally doomed never to gain an inheritance ... never meet or realize God ... never to become enlightened?
    Gnats ... mosquitos ... sub-humans? Difficult, is not it?
There has been quite a long tradition of White folk pretending to be Indians. Its the old Aryan Roots thang. Africans would not understand. So where does the African soul come from and how does it gains its inheritance? It is a similarly unanswered dilemma, in my opinion, that other indigenous traditions suffering.

I understand, PBKs reckon Africa is Islamic but the Islamic population of Africa is about 27% with the southern nations have as few as 2 or 3%. Muslims in Africa arrived from the East in the early days of Islam to flee persecution and then through military invasion only a few years after the death of Mohammed in 639. Africa and African people had been there for a LONG time before then! Later they came for its gold. Islam's power lay in imposing uniformity and spread a degree of literacy but it took until the 14th Century to establish itself well in West Africa. The population of Muslims only just doubled between 1869 and 1914.
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alladin

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Post26 Jun 2007

As far as black bodied souls, I often heard in the BKs org that unfortunately it was particularily difficult for blacks to follow celibacy. This making Africa a tough service ground (They are unmanageable, impossible to reform lustful Shyam souls!!), not to mention the karma points about aids, poverty, being born in an extremely poor country/continent ...

But jumping to the Indian continent, it is commonly known by lokiks, that the cradle of spirituality and ayurvedic tradition, is Southern India, even Tamil and other languages are the most ancient, the Veda culture, srcriptures, vegetarianism still persisting, unadulterated Bhakti, etc ... Can someone correct me if I am badly informed?

In Southern India, people are really dark, and women wear nice smelling jasmine malas in their hair ... :wink:.
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ex-l

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Post26 Jun 2007

alladin wrote:In Southern India, people are really dark, and women wear nice smelling jasmine malas in their hair ... :wink:.

Dravidian versus Aryan in the North of India.
wikipedia wrote:In India, under the British Empire, the British rulers also used the idea of a distinct Aryan race in order to ally British power with the Indian caste system.

It was widely claimed that the Aryans were white people who had invaded India in ancient times, subordinating the darker skinned native Dravidian peoples, who were pushed to the south. Thus the foundation of Hinduism was ascribed to northern invaders who had established themselves as the dominant castes, and who were supposed to have created the sophisticated Vedic texts.

Much of these theories were simply conjecture fueled by European imperialism. This styling of an "Aryan invasion" by British colonial fantasies of racial supremacy lies at the origin of the fact that all discussion of historical Indo-Aryan migrations or Aryan and Dravidian "races" remains highly controversial in India to this day, and does continue to affect political and religious debate.

Some Dravidians, and supporters of the Dalit movement, most commonly Tamils, claim that the worship of Shiva is a distinct Dravidian religion going back to the Indus Civilization, to be distinguished from Brahminical "Aryan" Hinduism.
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abrahma kumar

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Young, Gifted & Black in the BKWSU and other minority ch

Post26 Jun 2007

Since my last post on this thread yesterday I found my mind wondering about the nature of the impact (if any) that Godly Student Life may have on some of the deeply entrenched taboos that ARE prevalent within the Africa, the African diaspora, and wherever Afro-centric culture establishes itself or serves as a major and/or rising influence.

For instance, wherever the male negroes can be found to commune, I reckon that there quite a high statistical probability that an atmosphere of intolerance toward homosexuality will be evidenced. If not outright intolerance then certainly an attitude of ridicule. Some might go further and opine that tolerance toward homosexuality is the exception rather than the rule in the expressed sexual attitudes of the black male.

As for the situation with the Sisters, I know nothing, but given that sons are born of mothers might be there be scope to examine whether there is something about the black boy-child experience via the relationship with his mother that contributes to this tendency toward homosexual intolerance?

As for the Brothers, is there scope to examine whether black men feel duty bound to project (and sustain) a sort of mythical cult hero figure of undoubted sexual prowess that is akin to idol worship?

And to bring this all back to Godly Student Life, can soul consciousness and Gyani lifestyle help humans to overcome deep-seated prejudices that may have been accumulated over decades and/or received through layer upon layer of subtle and gross cultural conditioning?

Does soul consciousness present us with some useful insights on how to develop a truly inclusive culture? As a BBK with a homosexual orientation have you found Godly teachings a very welcome source of reassurance that we are all the same i.e. souls? Different with regards to our indivisual composition of sanskars but souls nonetheless.

I wonder if the BKWSU in Israel or Ethiopia has any Falasha in its studentship.

Om Shanti
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ex-l

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Post26 Jun 2007

I can reliably confirm that Haile Selassie, November 2, 1930 – September 12, 1974, was not a previous incarnation of Lekhraj Kirpalani.

So, if a large to majority proportion of African existed before Islam, where did they come from? The Deity religion?

I might have shot myself in the foot here though as the early BKs and PBKs called Judaism Islam and Islam Muslim. I have no idea why (... any ideas).

Rastas and Falashas aside, I think it will be infinitely hard to have accepted that Africans are Tribe of Israel tribe ... but you never know.
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abrahma kumar

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Young, Gifted & Black in the BKWSU & off-beat chat

Post03 Jul 2007

abrahma Kumar wrote:... I wonder if the BKWSU in Israel or Ethiopia has any Falasha in its studentship.

Some may wonder, "Abe, why you made that reference to the Falasha in the post on that poll topic?"

Answer, don't entirely know yet but i guess that it could be in part due to wondering about the respective life-experience of a black-skinned jew / a black-skinned gay person / a black-skinned jew who subsequently discoverd that they really are a BK / a BBK? Do these 'distinctions' serve any useful purpose at all?

P.S. Read somewhere in a BK publicity handout:
Raja Yoga Meditation is a method of relaxing, refreshing and clearing the mind and heart. It helps you look inside to rediscover and reconnect with your original, spiritual essence. Meditation enables an integration of your spiritual identity with the social and physical realities around you, restoring a functional and healthy balance between your inner and outer worlds.
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joel

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Re: Young, Gifted & Black in the BKWSU and other minorit

Post03 Jul 2007

abrahma Kumar wrote:For instance, wherever the male negroes can be found to commune, I reckon that there quite a high statistical probability that an atmosphere of intolerance toward homosexuality will be evidenced.

You're painting with a very broad brush. I just read the story of an early Chicago jazz musician, Mezz Mezzrow, who totally adopted the language and customs of the black culture, beginning, according to his story, with black musicians he met in a "reform school", i.e. a jail for kids.

The book is Mezz Mezzrow's Really The Blues.
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paulkershaw

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Post03 Jul 2007

alladin wrote:As far as black bodied souls, I often heard in the BKs org that unfortunately it was particularily difficult for blacks to follow celibacy. This making Africa a tough service ground (They are unmanageable, impossible to reform lustful Shyam souls!!), not to mention the karma points about aids, poverty, being born in an extremely poor country/continent ...

Yup - just found out that a new BK centre in a nearby tiny country to South Africa just got closed down too. No interest from the locals me thinks ... service no growing in these parts by the sound of things ...
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