Young, Gifted & Black in the BKWSU ...

for measuring opinion on matters relating to their BKWSU experiences
Forum rules A forum specifically for polls on any topic relating to Brahma Kumaris. Anyone can vote here or discussion the poll. General conversion about the issues is best kept to the Commonroom.

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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onthor

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Young, Gifted & Black in the BKWSU ...

Post28 Nov 2016

ex-l wrote:I admire and congratulate [you] for trying ... but, especially, trying to get up to speed from your sleepy sojourn in BKism. If you find any definite answer, please let us all know. And, more to the point, especially if you work out how not to be depressed or dejected at what you find ...
...I have started to give serious thought to starting a blog, in part as a way of venturing boldly where I've not tended to go before; and also to throw off the subtle 'support' (also a constraint) of primarily sharing with others around a common interest as we do here. Though it must be apparent to anyone who reads me that I nevertheless tend to go off on all sorts of tangents as befits some whim or the other; while coming over all assured and apparently convinced that it is all 'right-on & on topic'.


Sometimes I Imagine myself a haunted rebel wandering around trying to pinpoint the causes, but being far too easily distracted by the detritus littering the curb-side I get woken up by a proverbial traffic-cop urging me to "move along now" before I can come to any sort of satisfactory conclusion, except perhaps that I believe in daydreaming.

I see from your words a wee hint that you really do know of the deep despair. A state that I liken to waking from a nightmare only to discover that all the other patients appear to be under a spell of being awake; so that though I bang and bang and bang on the glass from the outside, trying to get their attention, my wavelength is evidently 'off the common grid' because their heads swivel neither left nor right.

But hey, because I live in hope I keep banging till I collapse in an exhausted heap, unseen and unheard for the glass is naught more than a one-way mirror and I am really in solitary confinement and the jailor's have forgotten all about me and my sentence. Drained of hope, I want to go back to sleep and dream that the world will stop so that I can get off. Guess what though? BK knowledge says that according to the World Drama cycle, I the soul am gonna get incarnated into matter again, and play some part or the other on this field of action. Sh1t!
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ex-l

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Re: Young, Gifted & Black in the BKWSU ...

Post29 Nov 2016

onthor wrote:I have started to give serious thought to starting a blog, in part as a way of venturing boldly where I've not tended to go before ...

That would be a good idea. Then link back to and raise any specific BK related posts here.

I do think "our community" ... ex- and exiting BKs ... would benefit from more individuals sharing their own process of growth and unwinding for others to follow; and have encouraged others to do so before (if you still want to make it a BK related project that is).

By intent, this forum has to remain more tightly focused but it was never meant to limit individuals development and conclusions.

We are more widely read than contributed to. I can understand how much of the tone puts off a large number of exiting BKs ... but it seems to have had an effect in waking up a few.
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Pink Panther

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Re: Young, Gifted & Black in the BKWSU ...

Post29 Nov 2016

onthor wrote:Whenever I think about these paradoxes my mind feels as though it is scrambling in futility to make some sense of the world as it has been presented to us; it lurches from one crumbling foothold to another seeking out reality, all the while knowing that if there really is anything left to stand upon it will have to be a thing of faith all of my own making.

What I’ve found as an echoing, a continual reprise in the years since leaving the BKs, is the phrase ”if only I had known that before”. So I’d suggest, with the extra years of experience now in your pocket, to ask the question ”what would I have liked to have known?” (before joining the BKs).

I have found my interests since leaving the BKs returned to what they were before, that the BKs were an interruption, a wrong turn made by misreading the signs, and I have since gotten back on the right track (for me). Of course, errors and failures, missteps and distractions are part of it all. Best not to overdramatise and self-obsess, just see yourself as a character in a book that still has quite a few chapters to go, and you are, after all, the author.

onthor

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Young, Gifted & Black in the BKWSU ...

Post29 Nov 2016

Good suggestion ex-l.

Hi Pink, as I said, I don't really regret my time as a BK; and back then I was not equipped to ask the questions I am now wondering about, nor would Gyan have offered any answers. Anyway I do believe that it is all for a reason, and I have recently started to see my life history in a new way which is allowing me to connect in a positive way to some core values that my past actions have undermined countless times. Gladly, it is proving not be too late for me to try to make amends and emerge the sort of love and loyalty that I truly stand upon; and if i die today I would be happy in The Knowledge that am headed in the right direction.

I take your words re: over-dramatisation in the spirit that they are intended; as i always remind myself "we cannot escape seeing others through our own eyes and not there's". Thanks a lot

GuptaRati 6666

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Re: Young, Gifted & Black in the BKWSU ...

Post29 Nov 2016

Ex-I, there is a body of scholarship on the connection between the sadhu culture and the rasta culture. I think the author is BK Prarad. I will dig up some references.

For me, the Hindus genes are part of my DNA, mixed with genes from European royalty and the culture of the Far East. As I indicated before, my great maternal grand mother was a mid-wife who spoke fluent Hindi the British West Indian culture and I grew up reading books on yogi philosophy. In my teens, the study of budo was not only at the physical level but also a spiritual journey. The BK experience was no mistake for me. It has been one of the schools where I have studied, and my spiritual equilibrium was never markedly disrupted.

I deliberately opted to attend Tuskegee, because I needed to understand the spiritual origins of Black American intellectualism. The BK experience was an added dimension.

onthor

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Young, Gifted & Black in the BKWSU ...

Post29 Nov 2016

This topic is digging deeper and deeper and revealing interesting synchronicities. Within the 14 hours or so I spent about 3 of them acquainting myself with the Aghori saduhus of India. Gupta, it appears that your background is quite an interesting mixture and would make an interesting study all by itself?

I can also see why the BK system would not have appeared too alien to you.
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ex-l

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Re: Young, Gifted & Black in the BKWSU ...

Post29 Nov 2016

onthor wrote:Gupta, it appears that your background is quite an interesting mixture and would make an interesting study all by itself?

I can see a cultural and evolutionary connection between Caucasians and India, hence the "Hippie Trail" in the 1960s being a search for ancient spiritual roots. I don't see one between Africans and India, "Africans" - largely - being the ones who stuck put ... who "turned left" and spread around the continent rather than "turned right" and wandered off to India.

Was African spirituality - and martial art - so lost and destroy that young members of the African diaspora had to seek a simile in more unbroken Indian and Far Eastern tradition?

Are there equivalently developed African spirituality paths/techniques? All I can think of are animism/spiritualism and imperially imposed Christianity much of which remains the former under a guise of Judeo-Christianity.

It was, I think, in Africa that the orthodox BK view - in opposition to the liberal/politically correct PR conscious BK view - labelled black Africans as being "the most impure". A view which would, of course, sit comfortably on the Indian pre-set of seeing darker skin a sign of a lower caste. Lekhraj Kirpalani or the god spirit often made derogatory analogous about dark/black skin in the Murlis ... which, presumably, have all be [url]whitewashed[/url] out by now.

In the Carbibean, because of the social and genetic mixing, it becomes a little more complex. But I, personally, don't know of many - or any - Black non-Africans make their Kunta Kinte trip or seeking their spiritual roots by going back to Africa.

Fair dos, it has largely being destroyed by the imperialist and neo-imperialist eras and what's left on top of what was already a fairly undeveloped culture? When you are struggling just to survive, or oppressed, you cannot afford to seek something as nebulous and impractical as "spirituality" ... and that would apply equally to blacks in the South of the USA.

Paradoxically, you need a fair bit of material success and security before you can throw it all to the wind to address life's mysteries. I see it as a kind of icing on the acquisition of wealth and class.

Indeed, another level to the class power game ... mind control over the mass.

onthor

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Young, Gifted & Black in the BKWSU ...

Post29 Nov 2016

I do apologise to those of a sensitive, politically correct disposition but this where the saying, "if you wanna hide something from a n1gga; put it in a book" can be trotted out.

ex-l if ALL folks realised that they have a vested interested in finding out what lay behind the looking glass there would be such a revolution in the world the like of which hasn't been seen yet, so I do believe. But hey I can dream and spend some time in any of the great world museums and start to realise that the mind control over the masses is truly what it is al about (as I mentioned today elsewhere on this site)

Meanwhile, why don't we spend a wee bit of time learning a bit about ancient Kemet and I don't mean in a way that will give rise to the equally abhorrent 'african supremacist' diatribes because it won't change a thing. ex-l, if Dadi Janki really thinks that 'dark skinned, nappy headed folk' are inferior mainly on account of their appearance then I thank God almighty that they exist otherwise only the Creator knows what or who un-nappy headed folks would have turned to in order to obtain a sense of their being exalted.

I don't think that there is anything in the history or social development of a non-African that can ever enable them to grasp the heavy load that the African bears. For Dadi to spout such foolishness reveals that she is not truly a human of Spirit! But like I said elsewhere, in the final analysis the African will have to find ways to suck it up and yet still keep rising because the alternative does not bear thinking about. It scares me real bad to think about it.

But like I said, take a start with Ancient Kemet and as you do pay some attention to the dates - we might find it really interesting!
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ex-l

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Re: Young, Gifted & Black in the BKWSU ...

Post29 Nov 2016

I don't know enough about Ancient Egypt - it's 'off topic' for this forum - except to say that for a long time it was clearly a very mixed society (e.g. Cleopatra was Macedonian), ruled by other cultures. It was not all Black, and not always ruled by Blacks (e.g. there are questions whether the Black pharoahs were Egyptian or West African conquerors taking on the dressing in the same way that, say, the Normans did in England).

Do we know anything of their spiritual practises?

The big problem with presenting Ancient Egyptian as representative of "African" is that most African-Caribbeans who have found their way to the West have basically zero cultural and ancestral history going back there.

That is to say they are West African and, presumably, their genes headed straight out there from Ethiopia, while others headed straight south. "Egypt" is just about as close to the Bantu as it is to Icelanders (Iceland is closer), and whatever spiritual practises it might have had, they've been over written by Islam as surely as the West African diaspora has been over-written with Christianity.

However, it is interesting that so much of Christianity has its roots in Pharonic mythologies.

In a way, Africa not only suffered from European (and Islamic) imperialism, it suffered from not having it. Not having such a complete package as India received, e.g. being united by the British and the English language, given a civil service, and then independence.

Elsewhere on this forum, I linked to a study of how different kinds of spiritual responses arose from different social conditions of which spiritualism ... "consorting with spirits" as the BKs do ... came far low down - from memory - alongsides fear driven survival and as a response to oppression (i.e. "voices from beyond saying that which could not be said") leaving one to question whether - as with the good ladies of the Om Mandli - the psychologic stresses caused by oppression actually cause schisms that manifest as "god spirits" or "spirit entities".

See African spiritualism where the "possessing spirits" are inevitably kings or queens (powerful people in a culture where having power means the power of life and death over others), whereas in the West they tended to be either Native Americans or Wise Orientals; and, in the New Age today, they tend to be space or interdimensional aliens.

Remember even Enoch Powell praising highly evolved Indians as having better intellects and social mores than the British, and considering my other thoughts on the Brahma Kumaris as arch-social climbers, I would have to be so audacious to ask whether Blacks joining the BKWSU in preference from Spiritualist or Baptist Churches, are doing because the BKs' facade is also more middle class?

As in it's also about class ascendency, e.g. in the Caribbean, Indians were above Negros in the pecking order (... although probably not the pecker order).

Modern African Evangelic or Charismatic Churches are, of course, huge and spreading vigorously. Far bigger, probably even more richer than the Kirpalani Klan's are.

There are not anywhere near as ascetic though. Indeed, ascetic is pretty much no part of them.

So why the attraction from a few Black to the ascetic demands of the BKs?

Does the BKs' "soul consciousness" given them a vehicle to reject their "Black" or even African (and all it stands for today) body consciousness?

onthor

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Young, Gifted & Black in the BKWSU ...

Post29 Nov 2016

Sad to say that Cleopatra reportedly born around 69BC is rather modern in historical terms - so in my books she hasn't really got a lot to offer insofar as the essence of this train of thought goes. Apologies for repeating myself:

onthor wrote:I don't think that there is anything in the history or social development of a non-African that can ever enable them to grasp the heavy load that the African bears. For Dadi to spout such foolishness reveals that she is not truly a human of Spirit! But like I said elsewhere, in the final analysis the African will have to find ways to suck it up and yet still keep rising because the alternative does not bear thinking about. It scares me real bad to think about it.
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ex-l

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Re: Young, Gifted & Black in the BKWSU ...

Post30 Nov 2016

onthor wrote:I don't think that there is anything in the history or social development of a non-African that can ever enable them to grasp the heavy load that the African bears.

Which Africans?

I think you're making a huge mistake to portray Africans as one and having any shared experienced. Africa was already divided long - and doing all the terrible things to itself - before the Imperialists came. It would be hard to argue that, say, a Kenyan is or feels any more connected to West Africans and slavery (if that is the kind of load you are talking about) than the above Icelandic (same distance away) ... the Vikings, of course, engaging in their own slavery.

So rather than 'all Africans sharing a perspective' would not it be 'all individuals of a same class' sharing the same perspective, e.g. slaves of all heritages versus slavers of all heritages? Example, go to Africa today and a large proportion of Pygmies still live as slaves to Bantu masters ... which one shares "the load"?

I think the BKs comments about Black Africans arose from East Africa where they are established amongst the Sindi/Hindi community there (as usual mainly Gujeratis, Gujeratis have always been the primary hosts for the parasitic BKs expansion) ... which looks down upon majority blacks for their "savage", unevolved, and particularly libidinous ways. Alcohol, such as chang’aa (literally meaning “kill me quick”) - being a big part of it.

It's funny because, again, it's a case of the BKs following the (cough, money) British, as it was the British that took the Gujeratis to Africa to build railways. The same Kenyan Asians became the foundations for BK expansion in London and Leicester.

Indians took India with them when they went to Africa and African culture just did not measure up to ancient Hindu culture.

I suspect it was in Kenya where rather than being servants of the 'Lord of the Poor' (as they call their god spirit) the BKs invested themselves hooking up with the hugely wealthy Nizar Juma who fronted up for their 'Future of Power' PR programme. I don't think he's a BK proper ... I think the BKs are doing their usual thing or pumping up some VIP and standing along side him taking profits as they go. See, there's no mention of them in the Press Releases.

You want to know how much of a joke the BKs are, and how insenitive to Africans? ... Look, they pump up one of their Brian Bacon trained 'Self Management Leadership' gurus Anthony Phelips to shadow Juma, pressumably keeping him on script and picking up the contacts ...
Juma is being accompanied by Anthony Phelips from Oxford, the United Kingdom, and advisor to the board of Nestle (Switzerland) for the conference in the city.

But they make their usual exaggerated boast about him being "an advisor to the board of Nestle".

Now, I'll contact Nestle to find out how much of an "advisor" Phelips is (and I'll bet you he is not) ... but, in the meanwhile, Google 'Nestle baby killer scandal Africa'. Whilst 200 groups in over 100 countries boycott Nestle for its baby killing in Africa, the BK suck up them for the money and use the business connection for prestige and to establish creditibility.

See; here and here - an informal discussion of business ethics, of the like the Brahma Kumaris never have.
At the forefront of these scandals is the infamous Nestle Baby Milk Scandal, which began in the 1970’s and has yet to fully subside.

The scandal began when Nestle decided to switch its main baby milk demographic to poor mothers in developing countries.

The company realized they could exploit the mothers, and was quickly able to get across the false impression that its milk was tastier and healthier than breast feeding, which was later proved scientifically false and was a major catalyst for a national reform and marketing standards soon after.

However, the damage had already been done. After Nestle’s aggressive and relentless marketing and advertising in many countries within Africa, Asia, and South America, many mothers of young infants believed that feeding their children Nestle bottled milk would bring their child a better life, and still do this day since sales have remained steady over time.

According to UNICEF ... who the Brahma Kumaris also boast about being connected too ... 1.5 million lives of infants could be saved every year with a return to breastfeeding practices and a reduction of artificial feeding.

Mostly African.

I suppose the BK view is, "oh, well, they are all going to die in Destruction anyway ... like flies visiting the dung heap of humanity for a birth or two at the end of the Kalpa cycle".
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ex-l

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Re: Young, Gifted & Black in the BKWSU ...

Post30 Nov 2016

BKWSU wrote:
BK_Anthony.png
BK_Anthony.png (31.07 KiB) Viewed 18785 times

Anthony Phelips, strategic marketing consultant experienced in all five continents in the health care, nutrition and food fields. Currently working with Nestle to establish ‘Creating Shared Value’ as the central operating philosophy of the company.

For 32 years Anthony Phelips has been experimenting with using spiritual principles while working in senior management positions. A student of Raja Yoga for 25 years, Anthony currently participates in the daily workings of Global Retreat Centre, near Oxford (note: also near Bacon's Oxford Leadership Academy).

M/C for some BKWSU events.

Indeed, the BKs even claim ...
As a consultant with NESTLE, Anthony has established Creating Shared Value (CSV) as the central operating philosophy of the company.

Oh, I really must check up that fact with Nestlé!

Brahma Kumari 'Self Management Leadership' guru Anthony Phelips' no doubt well paying employers Nestlé have also been exposed for;
Chairman and former CEO of Nestlé Peter Brabeck-Letmathe famously declared that “access to water should not be a public right", nor is it a human right, sending teams of tactical hydrogeologists to hunt for the next great water source. The company ... sells them at exorbitant prices back to the very people whose aquifers they drain.
In the small Pakistani community of Bhati Dilwan, a former village councilor says children are being sickened by filthy water. Who’s to blame? He says it’s bottled water-maker Nestlé, which dug a deep well that is depriving locals of potable water. “The water is not only very dirty, but the water level sank from 100 to 300 to 400 feet,” Dilwan says.

I could go on ... but apparently Nestlé is good enough for the Brahma Kumaris to boast about for their 'Future of Power' ambitions.

Poor. powerless Africans? Nothing more than troublesome "dirty shudras". It's true the BKWSU might have a few "house n1ggers" but what do they really believe? There's no room for Africa in the Golden Age, and I've never seen a picture of an African deity in their literature.

You raised the issue of the NWO in other post, onthor, in my opinion, I'd say the like of Phelips, and the BKs, are doing nothing more than polishing the politically correct facade of it, while lining their own pockets.

BK_Nestle.jpg
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onthor

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Young, Gifted & Black in the BKWSU ...

Post30 Nov 2016

Young, Gifted & Black in the BKWSU ... Alas I feel that for the sake of brevity I have to use the B-word in an attempt to cut a long story short. When I use the word African, i am trying to avoid tarring a diverse and great peoples with a monosyllabic derogatory label which serves the purpose of perpetuating a form of conditioning in the labeller and the people being dressed (my opinion).

When I type 'black' into a search engine and check for images, what is returned are representatives of what I term a void. NOTHINGNESS. A COMPLETE ABSENCE OF LIGHT.

Dear reader, I assure you that I am not playing an infantile politically correct word-game but am sure that opinions will differ. As the late Robert Nesta Marley sang: who feels it knows it all.

Where were we ...? Ah, Nestle in Africa ... shall we talk?

Regards

onthor
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Pink Panther

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Re: Young, Gifted & Black in the BKWSU ...

Post30 Nov 2016

Started to read this book, time to get back to it...
BLACK ATHENA
"Bernal proposes that a change in the Western perception of Greece took place from the 18th century onward and that this change fostered a subsequent denial by Western academia of any significant African and Phoenician influence on ancient Greek civilization.

Bernal rejects the theory that Greek civilization was founded by Indo-European settlers from Central Europe; that theory (which Bernal calls the Aryan model) became generally accepted during the 19th century. Bernal defends instead what he calls the Ancient model; the name refers to the fact that both Egyptian and Phoenician influences on the Greek world were widely accepted in Antiquity.


http://amsterdamnews.com/news/2013/jun/27/martin-bernal-author-black-athena-dead-76/


As for Nestle, one of the world’s biggest and ethically dubious companies, who are master equivocators whenever criticised. A perfect fit for a bourgeois BK.

Note to Admin - haven’t been able to post any images for ages now, is there a problem?

onthor

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Young, Gifted & Black in the BKWSU ...

Post30 Nov 2016

Thanks PinkPanter.

Like i said folks, we need check dates when we read, exposing ourselves to terms like AD, BC, BCE till we can fix and relate the timeframe of one event to another in our minds.

When we read they will (sometimes) tell us what is speculative theory and what they accept as proof. For simplicity, I try to see my re-education as being an information gathering exercise in the first instance; then as I become more aware and hopefully intelligent, that information gets transformed into data by scrutinising and analysing it with an ever-growing critical awareness. Fact, conjecture, unknowns and the like (Donald Rumsfeld comes to mind) become more familiar as I progress; and before too long I see that the greatest challenge I face in getting a broad-based insight into times gone by is the passage of time itself! For the farther we go from the 'when' a thing happened the harder it is to know exactly what happened because historical revisionism is ALWAYS taking place and I mean ALWAYS. Why? Because there is a POWER narrative that has to be maintained at all costs!

As far as I read history and focus a bit on "the GOD business" as it has been disseminated to the masses through the ages, there is a word that I have become familiar with, and that word is Archetype. It is a word that has such depth and bearing on EVERYTHING that has been told to us; Antiquity is also a lovely word (thanks Pink). Maybe PinkPanther will share a few tidbits that he picks up as relates to the role of Archetype throught Grecian times. As for the Romans, well ...

I am absolutely certain that if anyone reading this topic has interest enough to do a wee bit of digging on any aspect in keeping with their interests they will struggle (for a while) against feeling that what they are reading is impossible. I've already said that my feeling of being insane has gotten compounded by the recent turn of events that my life has taken but hey that aint anything new.

I remind myself that one of the key concepts is POWER - just like that the BKWSU finds itself mixed up in.

They say that History is written by the Victor; however in the telling of history we can not only learn who it was that was Vanquished but also the why of the battle. Have fun and before I go I do remind myself that it is not my purpose to tub-thump and rabble rouse on behalf of the "poor down-trodden black" (apologies for that word again) for doing so will change nothing about the perceptions that are projected upon the African.

Warm regards

onthor
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