A Response to Child Abuse in Brahma Kumaris

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A Response to Child Abuse in Brahma Kumaris

Post02 Jun 2008

A Response to Child Abuse in Brahma Kumaris - posted by: gyaniwasi on June 20, 2004

Eromain: A warm welcome to xbkchat

Your insightful post is profoundly disturbing to one who has been acquainted with the BKs for almost as long as you have and has even played the role of teacher. It is quite possible that I may have read you the Murli in your youth and in that regard, considering the profundity of its effect which you have so eloquently articulated, I hasten to offer my sincere apologies even though I was (unwittingly) a ‘victim’ of the same system at the time. The position you have taken raises several important questions not only for the BK’s but for the wider world at a time when we are plagued by so many perversities in society.

First of all, I cannot help wondering by what measure of reasoning you can expect the Brahma Kumaris to follow your advice when they believe that their very raison d’etre is to serve as ‘God’s instruments’ to perform his task of ’setting right the things that have gone wrong’ in the world. As you have noted several times, they are programmed to ‘follow Shrimat’; anything else is termed ‘Manmat’ or your own thinking, and that is anathema. To follow your advice, from their point of view, would be committing an act of institutional suicide. It would contradict the very tenets of Raj Yoga as you have alluded in several instances when discussing their sense of propriety.

Please understand that I am not criticising the fact that you have taken such a stand. I commend you on your exemplary courage. To attain a psychological position as an ex-BK as you have done must have taken tremendous emotional energy and spiritual fortitude considering your grounding in the Faith and the extent to which you have been committed. Indeed, your position reminds me of the British psychiatrist Edward Bullough’s principle of “the antinomy of distance” required when contemplating an object of art.

According to Bullough, it is important to discover an optimal distance from which to observe or interact with an object of art. Too much distance leads to estrangement and an abstraction indicative of being devoid of emotion; too close a position leads to a crudity or absurdity of expression indicative of being too emotionally close to render a truly artistic perspective. The analogy can be applied to us as ex-BKs. If we have not struck the antinomy of distance from our involvement then it is difficult for us to verbalise it or we are now so far removed from it that it hardly evokes a meaningful response from us. If you have not achieved that antinomy of distance then I believe you are close to it - perhaps a little too close to your subject to see the antinomy (i.e. contradiction) of your proposal, as explained above. That is why I ask the question ‘quo vadis’. The direction and consequences of this revelation can extent beyond the realms of the BK organization since it raises implications for every other cult. And yes, let me say en passant that for me you have, remarkably, profiled the BK’s in such a way that no one reading your report can doubt the validity of their classification as a cult. But back to the implications of your proposal for their formulating and implementing an effective child protection policy.

Apart from committing organizational suicide, the implications for such a policy as the kind you have suggested would inevitably set an unusual precedent for both the established and so called ‘New Age’ religions. I am no expert in this area and am subject to correction but, as alluded to by “Kevin” in one of the recent responses, there are similar considerations to take into account as regards the established religions

This point leads me to reflect on an experience I had recently when facing a commission established to examine ethnic relations. I proposed that, in a multi-ethnic society, comparative religion should be included in the curriculum of secondary schools and offered at a tertiary level to help resolve conflict arising from religious and (consequently) cultural differences. The commissioners agreed but then asked ‘why restrict it to secondary and tertiary levels, why not start at the primary level?’ I replied that at that age the child is not sufficiently developed intellectually to appreciate the range of differences and that one should perhaps wait until the secondary school level when the child’s intellect is a little more prepared to explore and appreciate such differences.

At that point one of the commissioners, a Christian cleric, quickly pointed out to me that by then the child would have been “confirmed” into the faith into which he or she was born and the education in comparative religion would therefore be counter-productive. I share this anecdote to say that it is indicative of a ‘child policy’ already embedded in mainstream religions where the legitimacy of grounding a child in a Faith is considered important and crucial. There is a well known Christian saying that says ‘train up a child in the ways of the Lord and he will not depart from it’. This is often an argument for religious indoctrination in the context of character building, hence another serious implication.

However, let me hasten to observe that the same principle of early indoctrination, when applied to the BK’s quality of inflexiblity, can produce the sort of detrimental results outlined by you. There is fundamental difference between traditional religions and new ones like the BK’s with new Messiahs who claim to be God speaking “face to face” with Man today. There is no chronoligical difference between the Messiah and his teachings, thus allowing those teachings to be tempered, stretched or significantly modified by interventions and reinterpretations of Man as has happened in traditional religions. Should the BK’s follow your advice and incline themselves seriously to that practice then they can no longer claim to be the direct, living invention of God to change the world. Rather, it would be an admission of failures which, for them is unthinkable or suicidal.

What this brings us to is the big question of Shiva Baba’s responsibility with regard to a ‘child protection policy’. To say, as might be said by them for him that “this is your panchait or worry” in your worldly affairs, is to contradict the meaning of another popular theme song of the Sakar Murlis, namely, “He has come to set right the things that have gone wrong”. To excuse him from this process is to cast aspersions on the nature of his abilities and powers, and to do so, logically, is to question the fundamental Truth of his identity which would be like shaking the very foundations of the institution and shattering or at least disturbing the ontological security of its adherents. The reverberations of that would be like an earthquake with a reading of 10 on the Richter scale!

In other words, Eromain, the buck does not stop with the Seniors whom you have been addressing but with their “Supreme Father” who, unlike the “Supreme Father” of the Christian or Muslim or other traditional faiths is actually accessible “face to face” in Madhuban - the very place where the “sin” was committed! There was an Avyakt Murli on th theme of “Justice” that was delivered in the late seventies or early eighties and it was churned and expounded on by one of the Administrative Heads. I recall vividly her words echoed from the Murli “Where else but in God’s House will you find justice?” Actually, that was a sore point for me since I was seeing our fair share of discrepancies in the administration while it was being drilled into us that ‘God in actually in charge here’. My faith broke and I left a few years before you. So we cannot avoid addressing the central question to our collective experience: who is “Shiv Baba?

You have made it clear that you are not dealing with questions of the veracity of the BKs teachings of tenets, yet, after reading the intensity of your involvement and the gravity of your concerns, I find the absence of any critical assessment of the “Seed” of the movement a very significant omission since the success of your appeal to his instruments depends on their willingness to involve him in the entire process. And if they find this ridiculous - as one might argue - then shouldn’t the focus of any serious public investigation extend to or begin with an investigation of the identity of that transcendent founder. Arguably, this should satisfy everyone: from a BK point of view, it would reveal the “Truth” that they have been labouring to awaken the World to; from ours we would faster get an answer to the unsweet silence surrounding your concerns.

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