After Raj Yoga, Can There be ANY Faith?

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After Raj Yoga, Can There be ANY Faith?

Post02 Jun 2008

After Raj Yoga, Can There be ANY Faith? - posted by: ex-london on September 17, 2005

That is an interesting question. This post is intended as an open “work in progress” and not as a finished “truth” or thought. This is a fairly in depth response that requires a broad base of spiritual, psychic and academic understanding, and is not intended for sociologists, comparative religious instructors or cult busters! I would like to give a personal answer as well as a more theoretical answer.

In theory, I would have to say that anyone that does go back to faith after Raja Yoga could not have gotten Raja Yoga in the first place because, in essence, Raja Yoga is the destruction, through diminishment, of all other religious or psychological practices or beliefs. Individuals ought to realise the total and complete deconstructive absolutism of Brahma Kumarist mental practice. What would be an interesting thread to start would be to question how long, by what process, or what preconditions are required, for these seeds of destruction - of all other loves and faith - to flower in human minds.

But it has to be said; after B.K. Raja Yoga, how can there be “faith”, “Bhakti”, ” worship”, without voluntary and energetic reconstruction of the ignorant, blind or childlike mental state required for “faith”? The practice taught by the Brahma Kumaris is designed to erode and eradicate any other potentially challenging hope for one’s soul. Seen in that light, if Brahma Kumaris Raja Yoga is not the work of GOD, then it must be an almost perfect nihilistic psychic parasite meme. This process of spiritual annihilation brought about by pracitising Brahma Kumaris Raja Yoga is well documented throughout this forum

The only three limitations I can see to this are if :

a) a state of severe trauma - either physical, mental or social - throws the practitioner back on an earlier state of consciousness for the sake of survival. I think a perfect example of this is the previous quotation of an ex-B.K. who, in panic, re-found him / herself as a Churchgoer. Physical and mental traumas are easy enough to understand. By “social trauma” I mean the type of experience where an individual, by moving from his / her “native” faith, causes such social upheaval within his / her closest family and community that he / she is forced, or forces him / herself, to re-immerse in a particular social form of religion - i.e. religion; not as a spiritual practice, but social conformity. This is generally soul destroying.

b) a particular practice is taken up because it is seen or understood to have a “mechanically” productive effect. By which I mean, for example, “I don’t believe that hatha Yoga / tai chi / aikido will bring me to enlightenment but, by doing it, my body / spirit connection feels better / healthier / is more productive, or “I don’t believe that chanting this particular mantra / visualising this yantra connects me to a God, but by doing it my such-and-such chakra opens up, it clears certain blockages and energy flows through me better.”

c) actually, we were wrong all the time and Jesus / Mohammad / whoever was right after all, and we all fake it like hell come the End of Time.

To answer the question on a personal level, I would like to draw attention to the psychic level of effect of Brahma Kumaris so-called Raja Yoga. This is not a level that I see much discussion of, as it is a level of awareness that either the Brahma Kumaris are unconscious of or, of course, institutionally block any discussion and awareness of. Indeed, they even control and exclude any acceptable language with which to discuss it, as to even discuss it would challenge the status quo

My deepest, most personal and saddest response is that since being indoctrinated by the Brahma Kumaris I have pretty much been unable to follow or practise any other spiritual form, never mind religious path. This flows from what I would define as a persistent psychic experience I started to have whilst practising Brahma Kumaris Raja Yoga; that I have been unable to have externally o objectively defined. As soon as I try other spiritual or meditationary forms, this experience or these related experiences return so strongly that it makes any other form of practice impossible. And, of course, my mind has been so prejudiced into a state of superiority over non-practitioners that I do not know of anyone or any group with which to turn to for bona fide assistance

Now, to an indoctrinated follower of the Brahma Kumaris, this would be evidence that Brahma Kumari’s Raja Yoga is “The Way, the Truth and The Light”. I don’t believe that. I find the teachings and the institution of the Brahma Kumaris Raja Yoga too inconsistent to accept and hold the senior practitioners responsible for serial abuses and for perpetuating serial abuses of a spiritual nature, rather than helping others grow

Just what the Brahma Kumaris “Source” and process of indoctrination is will be left for another threa and another time - and I do not have a final answer for that either - but I must say that I often feel that I am exerting myself defensively on a spiritual or psychic level against this influence, rather than “practising”, “worshipping” or “devoting” myself - all of which have some personal and objective value

The primary symptom I am talking about is the pressure felt on the area of the third eye, which I can basically “turn on” almost immediately and become intense fairly quickly. On a minor level, I could also say the “whitening” visual effect many of you must have experienced. I think also my dhrist †, is either still “used” by their “Source”, “Guide” or “Guides” or that it has been changed / strengthened in a way that I do not entirely understand.

I must say that during my practice of Brahma Kumaris “Raja Yoga” - I bet Patanjali wished that he had taken a trademark out on the use of that name because I cannot equate what the Brahma Kumaris practise to “Raja Yoga” - I had numerous ‘interesting’ experiences; given a prior leaning toward Christian Spiritualism and family and social environments where psychic phenomena were commonplace.

I never actually “left my body” or had a “Paramdham †† experience” but I certainly experienced detachment from the body form and the utter and general body consciousness that most folks live in. Funnily enough, whilst teaching students on a one to one basis, I had proof that I was not doing, but another was doing through me. I certainly did feel myself / my head being taken and guided, almost as surely as someone was holding it on either side, whilst giving “dhristi” from the “gaddi”.†††

And I certainly experienced other completely neophyte students, on “The Seven Day Course”, having visions through me, or projected onto me - and I clearly state ‘through me’ because I was not giving them and have no idea how to - during that “White Out ” experience you sometimes have during open eyed meditation. The latter was always most entertaining, as individuals who had not one iota awareness of Hinduism would have visions of old bearded men [God Brahma] turning into monkeys with crowns on their heads [Hanuman] or, on another occasion, I remember a Christian lady having what must have been vision of Jesus and then Mary. More than once, jaws would drop or student snap out of meditation in shock, and so I am convinced something was happening. I am still asking what though.

So, personally, I am completely stuck and at a loss as far as faith or practices go. Until I have a clear faith or knowledge of what these psychic phenomena are, and what the psychic source or sources of the Brahma Kumaris tradition are, I am spiritually paralysed and tragically upset at being so.

When I came to the Brahma Kumaris, I was at the starting point of earnest spiritual seeking. I did not want peace of mind, my ego flattered, pampered by New Age sophistry or to buy into “positive thinking” sales pitches. I wanted to understand the human condition and be trained to help myself and then others, to manage, overcome and improve it. I was at the point of dedicating my life to th spiritual path and spiritual study. I respected the BKs for their seeming purity of intent and, although I did not go along with “The Knowledge”, I was willing to practise it earnestly and see what came out of it all. In my opinion, what I got was a mesmeric hypnogogic indoctrination and, as far as I am concerned some kind of psychic attachment to whoever or whatever is their psychic “Source”, “Guide” or “Guides” As far as I can see, learning to overcome, defeat or at least defend myself from that influence is the next and only thing I can hope for at present

Faith and Faiths are essential for “human monkeys”. I call us “human monkeys” just to remind us of how close to basic, frail and dependent biological beings humans and their minds truly still are. I would never criticise faith and Faiths, as the Brahma Kumaris do, until I was able to offer a complete alternative to them. I can’t and, to be honest, I won’t. Being a Brahma Kumari has cured me once an for all of ever wanting to be a guru, guide, or whatever! Forget it. Challenging others faith is a dangerous act of spiritual aggression, domination and imperialism. It might be right and necessary at times BUT one had better be damned sure of when - and ready and prepared to carry the responsibility of the ramifications afterwards. Ramifications I have experienced - the Brahma Kumaris very quickly drop, ditch and run

Faith and Faiths are the little life rafts and lighthouses that we all cling to and climb aboard from time to time on our journey. I have basically no idea what another human requires and teach myself not t judge and leave well alone. What the Brahma Kumaris want to do - teach their teachers and student to do - is sink every other lifeboat, disassemble every other lighthouse, dysfunction every other guide How can one practise another faith if one part of one’s self, one’s mind has been set up and is continuin in that disfunctional process? It is like drilling a hole through the lifeboat with one hand whilst bailing out water with the other

I accept that what the Brahma Kumaris are doing is offering another brand of lifeboat and, in many cases, it is actually better than most alternatives. It is just clear to me that in order to run their business of providing psychic “lifeboat and lighthouse” services, they need a lot of metaphoric - as well as literally - joiners, bricklayers, painters, decorators, cooks and cleaners to do their work for them! At the subjects’ own financial expense. And, I have come to think, at their own spiritual expense

I also raise some contentious questions. How just are the BKs? Have they just used Westerners as a sale pitch to their native Hindu client base? And how much of Brahma Kumarism is applicable to those born into the Western Tradition?

Administrator inserted notes:

† The word “drishti”, in Brahma Kumari usage, means “gaze” or, to be more precise, the spiritual power emanating from the gaze of an elevated being.

†† “Paramdham” - in Brahma Kumari usage this refers to the supreme abode, the non physical Soul World, the original home of all souls.

††† “Gaddi” - the raised seat or couch that Brahma Kumari teachers sit on.

saraquel

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Re: After Raj Yoga, Can There be ANY Faith?

Post20 Dec 2008

Hi Ex-London

Not sure how long ago you posted this, but I found it interesting reading, especially the bit about the 'burning' Third Eye, which I also experience. I am able to move my consciousness away from it, it just takes me patience and conscious effort. As soon as I read what you said, I thought about Barbara Brennon, who is a healer who works with energy. She has a highly developed interpretation of body energy and a whole world view to go with it. It took me a long time to read her first book - Hands of Light because I found it spoke to me so powerfully I could only take it in short doses. I subsequently did a weekend retreat with her organisation and have been to a healer trained by her, I was very impressed by both.

Brennan healers work with energy, and particularly chakras. In my opinion, the third eye chakra is vastly overused (abused) by BK meditation and the lower chakras are starved of input, unbalancing the whole system. You may find that a Brennan healer can help you balance out your chakras again, breaking the domination of the third eye chakra.

As a start I would recommend her books which give an impressively comprehensive overview (I find most stuff on energy healing intensely infuriating, completely void of any real substance and total quackery) and her website is the Barbara Brennan School of Healing. She has been a practising psychotherapist, so her discussions are informed and use standard models in some cases. There are Brennan healers around the world, in the UK they are in the south of England.

My own experience of the healer was that I was suffering from exhaustion all the time, mainly because of stress over a long period. I was having to take time off work - a week at a time, just to lie around and do nothing, to summon up physical strength to carry on. I knew this was unsustainable and went to my doctor and requested every blood test known to man. They all came back OK and the doctor said that the diagnosis, if she was going to venture one, was probably borderline ME. That was when I went to the energy healer.

I had to travel about 150 miles to see her, so it was quite a serious commitment. After the first treatment, I felt substantially better and after 2 treatments I was back to normal functioning energy levels. She basically ran energy through me and cleared my aura of 'debris', and then re-energised my chakras.

Thanks for your post.
Best wishes
Saraquel
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ex-l

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Re: After Raj Yoga, Can There be ANY Faith?

Post21 Dec 2008

Thanks Saraquel ... that post went back to my "innocence" in 2005.

I am always very interested at what spiritual healers and spiritualist make of the BK and post-BK experience. Did she say anything more?

The BK did, and I guess large still do, utterly devalue any type of other practise spiritual healing and, of course, other opinion about such matters.
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joel

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Re: After Raj Yoga, Can There be ANY Faith?

Post21 Dec 2008

Interesting to read about Barbara Ann Brennan again. Her book, Hands of Light, was in a box of books sent me on loan from a friend when I was beginning to explore other paths outside the BKs. I did not follow up at the time, wanting a more immediately grounded way to experience the world. I have no doubt that many have benefitted from the quality of awareness and attention her training brings to a person.
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leela

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Re: After Raj Yoga, Can There be ANY Faith?

Post24 Dec 2008

After Raj Yoga, can there be ANY faith? This is a great question and a very pertinent one. I was very interested to read the original classic post. Personally, I have never had any psychic sensitivity, so I cannot respond in that language, but I relate deeply to the "saddest response" of being unable to practice any other spiritual form.

I certainly entered a spiritual and intellectual wasteland for several years. Even something as mundane as reading a novel I could not do. I no longer saw it as forbidden, but I still "knew" that no writing held anything of value, truth, or personal benefit. I well remember reading my first novel in about 12 years - The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. It was a slow process, and an enlightening one, to break out of that intellectual wasteland and rediscover literature as a source of richness, personal growth, truth, or simply for pleasure.

Spiritually too, I was held captive by some inner idea that nothing else could possibly be true, even though I no longer felt Gyan to be the absolute truth. I dabbled in Buddhism, Christianity, Yogananda teachings, Hatha Yoga, but I could never quite get over the threshold. I had been introduced to A Course in Miracles by some "back row" London Brothers a few years before, and post Gyan I studied it religiously. I loved it deeply (and still do), but where I doubted it was that I never met a person who seemed transformed by it. To prove its validity, I was still looking for a person who would have the same impact on me as Dadi Janki.

Being held hostage like this, spiritually and intellectually, was quite extreme in my case, and a source of distress and loneliness. Whether it was due to psychic influences, I really have no idea. Where I did keep faith was in my original quest for truth. I still believed in the value of searching. I could do no different. Although I came to see that it is the searching itself that is the separation and source of suffering, it is still my faith in searching that brought me here. It is a paradox, of course.

It all makes me think of that other BK - Byron Katie - who asks the question, "If your past were your only path to God, would you take it?" In my case, absolutely yes, but happily those wilderness days are long gone now.
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yogi108

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Re: After Raj Yoga, Can There be ANY Faith?

Post30 Dec 2008

What about another dose of an informed BK ... with all those learnings that can be put to use ... I know you will not be welcome in the BK world ... but why not some of those good things that were learnt during the BK days?

Yogi
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joel

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Re: After Raj Yoga, Can There be ANY Faith?

Post30 Dec 2008

Yogi, maybe that's one of the reasons she is here?? Perhaps you are making an offer??? 8-)
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leela

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Re: After Raj Yoga, Can There be ANY Faith?

Post30 Dec 2008

Yogi 108, I am not sure I understand your remarks. If you read my post as another exercise in BK bashing, then you missed the meaning in the last line - that I would not change any of my BK experiences. They were, and are, very precious to me.

You seem to question why I am sharing what you perceive as negative experiences. Well, I am responding to the title of this thread - After Raj Yoga, Can There be ANY Faith? Why? Because I find it very interesting and pertinent. This type of spiritual and intellectual desolation is a recognised post-cult phenomenon, and one which I experienced for several years. Many who remain within the cult would obviously interpret it as proof that what they hold is the truth. I do not challenge that. Nor do I say that my experience was a negative one. I actually feel that I am enriched by it.

You also seem to be asking why I don't share some of the positive things that I learned while I was a BK. Well, if another ex-BK starts a thread on that, I would probably have a lot to contribute. I think it's a good idea to be honest. But if that's what you want to read and talk about, surely you have plenty of opportunity to do that within the BK world. A world where I would not be welcome? Hmmm.
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ex-l

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Re: After Raj Yoga, Can There be ANY Faith?

Post31 Dec 2008

I wanted to add a further short realisation what to what I wrote, back in 2005, on the now defunct xBKChat.com.

Does "religion", any religion, any practise work? Despite all human religious endeavors, we really don't know how or if religion "works". The only thing we can be sure about is that it is unreliable. Despite all the millions murdered, billions spent, the ocean of ink and forests of tree cut down, no one can say with any surety, if you do this for that long you will end up with x ... y ... z.

On the other hand, what we can be sure about is that collective religious practises are part of the glue that binds large parts of humanity together in a socially productive manner ... and has produced some good art.

With regards to the latter, in many of our experiences the Beakies were anti-art and anti-artists until they twigged that, a) it was an expected commodity in the West and actually add value, b) having a few artistes around did not distract from having enough people to cook, wash pots, teach classes and evangelise, c) it could be achieve at no expense from them and even prove to be an earner.

This is understandable, although in no way acceptable or commendable, as they came from a culture where artistes came from a lower or untouchable caste and, entirely contrary to the West, artworks had little financial and societal values. Art was at best craft and at worst distraction carried out by sinful, devilish and dangerous individuals. The free thinking exploration at the heart of great art is an anathema for BK-ism ... and beyond the ken of its petty bourgeois leaders.

With regards to the former, it has always been my working theory that from the BKWSU's point of view, the overriding principle has been to entirely separate and disassociation their followers for any, and preferably all, external influences other than the influence of the spook ... and, of course, their own.

This leads me to point out that the destruction of faith in faith is not just a little "poor me, no body loves me, think I will go and eat worms" New Age malaise. It is a social suicide as well and many ex-BKs, or people exiting Brahmakumarism, end up wandering in a bardo for some or a long time. Some never come out ... and some kill themselves.

Collective religious practises bring together and hold societies. Relationships are made, businesses founded, personal psychological needs met, a little bit of human warmth and fun had ... even if there is nothing in the religion at all. "Family" also plays part of the glue and the Brahma Kumaris have quite rightly been accused of breaking up and commandeering other families, to create "their family" since the cult's conception.

Now, obviously, where this thesis fails is that generally, "religion" is failing and society becoming secular and materialist. However, in secular and materialist society other forms and practises have take the place of religion, e.g. "New Age" interests, venerating art, charitable projects, environmentalism, even cultic popular cultures etc. All of which are equally disabled by BK programming.

My best advise for exiting BKs IS to get themselves involved in something for the good, outside of themselves. To find a new "religion", meaning an involvement with society. It is a lifeline to hold onto. However, I still think the inherent illusionism and nihilism of BK programming is deeply corrosive to the parts of us that are bound to reality ... and this is how they are meant.

I still see the spirit of the BKWSU, which may not even be the original spirit that started the BKWSU, as "The Matrix" seeking to turn every follower into an utterly passive, non-thinking 'human battery' to provide power, energy and money. The persistent layers of deception, the extensive abuse of faith, the mediocracy of most of it does nothing to convince me otherwise. Although I accept the existence of active psychisms within it, I do not think that anything the leaders have produced is particularly profound.

Where the BKWSU "works", it is working at just the same level as any other religion or social movement ... and not a very good one at that. To me it stinks of royalty obsessed, mercantile social climbing. Religion has also always been about the conquest of lands, people and real estate, and what the leaders are doing is just that.
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yogi108

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Re: After Raj Yoga, Can There be ANY Faith?

Post31 Dec 2008

Hey, hey seriously been completely misunderstood here ... I am not making any offers nor am I capable of making any ... I am not sure whether all of you are aware that there are many BKs who have detached themselves from the Yagya politics and all the mess that goes around in Madhuban, UK, NY and other major BK centers ... now that could be a realization and learning about it from folks like the ones here ...

All I was suggesting was a re-look at the principles of The Knowledge and its practices, and follow it in your own way without having to go and get involved in the BK world.

Something like learning Hatha Yoga from the BKs IYENGAR institute and then practicing at home ...

Leela, my sincere apologies if I try to mean anything at all in my earlier message.

Yogi
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joel

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Re: After Raj Yoga, Can There be ANY Faith?

Post31 Dec 2008

Hey Yogi,

I am teasing you, too, a sign of brotherly affection. I am also saying that all of us here are recreating our own spiritual paths, whether it looks more or less like the Shiva knowledge you are familiar with. How much juice a person gets from "this is my body, I am a soul" really depends on where they are. I know a wonderful elder nurseryman from Jamaica, one of the nicest people, whose great realization about life came forty years ago: that all humankind's problems stem from forgetting the basic truth that man is an animal! I look forward to reading the book he's working on. Masanobu Fukuoka, a founder of the organic farming movement (originally trained as a microbiologist), got his "enlightenment" from the realization that man knows nothing, and that the only way to learn to farm is by observing.

Re: independently practicing BKs. I recall a few years ago visiting Sydney. Martin, Pam and others started their own center to be free of having to do things Dr. Nirmala's way. I wonder how they all are. Has anyone heard from them? Primal Logic maybe??
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leela

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Re: After Raj Yoga, Can There be ANY Faith?

Post01 Jan 2009

Yogi 108

Misunderstandings arising from the subjectivity of the reader and the inadequacy of words maybe? We read into things what we want to hear, and respond with what we need to express. So no hard feelings on either side I hope!

Joel

I love your two examples above - knowing all we need to know and knowing nothing both leading to enlightenment!

I find a lot of what ex-l says very interesting and well expressed, and it ties in with my personal experiences above, although I still don't come to the same conclusions about the BKs as an institution. Also, I am cautious about generalising from my own subjective experience. I wonder if there is any such thing as objectivity. Raja Yoga offered me a package and I met that with my own subjective perception. That meeting place produced a set of experiences which were true for me at that time, and which I then subjectively conceptualised as evidence of "The Truth."

What I seem to be discovering now is that my truth is found only in that meeting place between my subjective position and external events of the moment. So the loss of faith in faith, and the loss of faith in any concept of Truth is proving to be a gift. My faith is growing that I can live in truth from moment to moment, and there is always a deeper truth to be discovered and embraced.

It seems to me now that believing in an objective and conceptual Truth, such as that ShivBaba descends from Paramdam, is exactly what leads to dissociation from reality. However, at the time, over the ten consecutive years that I visited Madhuban, I experienced the meetings with BapDada as a wonderful, powerful and extraordinary truth. How is it that I can hold both positions with no sense of contradiction? I don't know, but it feels good.
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alladin

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Re: After Raj Yoga, Can There be ANY Faith?

Post01 Jan 2009

leela wrote: This type of spiritual and intellectual desolation is a recognised post-cult phenomenon, and one which I experienced for several years. Many who remain within the cult would obviously interpret it as proof that what they hold is the truth. I do not challenge that. .

A good description of what I call "emotional blackmail". Thank God, my life story is such that my parents also tried very hard to make me fall into a similar, although family size and version, trap. That prepared me to keep the guard up when I was told the threatening stories of "there's only one shop, Baba's, and at the end everybody will come back to it ..." with tails in between their legs, they hope ;). So gross that it is not worth challenging it. Also, I must confess that I find it impossible to feel respect for anyone blackmailing me in anyway, since I perceive it as an indirect but serious attack to my freedom.
yogi108 wrote:All I was suggesting was a re-look at the principles of The Knowledge and its practices, and follow it in your own way without having to go and get involved in the BK world.

I am in tune with that, and must say it takes a lot of effort in sifting out the garbage from the pearls, the alloy that was part of brainwashing from my own free thinking/ideas and practises that suit me naturally and blend in with my lifestyle and I deem as beneficial. Whether they come from the BKWSO or some other religion or a sage or a book, as long as they are "inspiring", they are welcome, and it makes no difference in the end. IMHO, impositions and fear have nothing to do with faith. They do not strengthen it, eventually they erode it.

Happy New Year to everybody!! :D
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gotmylifeback

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Re: After Raj Yoga, Can There be ANY Faith?

Post18 Jul 2009

It's interesting, the mind games and self-deception become entrenched and go on years after leaving Raja Yoga. How many of you ex-BKs still believe in the soul? Or that God exists and is still Baba, and that it was really those nasty Sisters in India who twisted all the "pure knowledge" and corrupted the teachings? That the "Gyan" is good and true, and it's really the institution that's gone off the true path? I talk to some ex-BK's who were "in it" for maybe five years back in the seventies and thirty years on, still think it's "true".

I've worked out my own answers to the phenomenon of BapDada, having sat directly in front of "him" three times in the early eighties in what were called "personal meetings". But, essentially, the reprogramming process starts with the first lesson of the Course - you are a soul. Are you? Where's the evidence? The belief becomes so deeply ingrained that it's almost second nature, as necessary as breathing. Yet that's where the programming starts, the first lie, the first nodding of the head (and I don't mean chook-staging in Yoga), where Raja Yoga first gets it's grip on your mind. Very few ex-BK's I've met in the past fourteen years have been prepared to stare that one in the face and question it.

These so-called peddlers of truth start the lie there - everything from then on is a house of sand, with lie after lie following on through the course, through the attendance at Murli, through the Maryadas, right through to your eventual death and - you hope - reincarnation. It takes a very brave person to ask themselves, what if it's all false? That there is no soul, no God, no reincarnation, nothing. That we're just physical bodies after all, and death is the end of everything? Anything else is conjecture, belief, all brought about by fear of death. That this really is it, and nothing else.

Chilling thought, is not it? What I believe, or think, is irrelevant to you but to successfully free myself from the grip of this insidious organisation, I eventually had to face those questions and find my own answers. Courage - and a considerable amount of egolessness and humility; the very characteristics this organisation claims to promote and instill in its devotees.

I mean, have you ever met anyone with bigger egos than Dadi Janki, Jayanti, Sudesh or Nirmala Kajaria? Giving themselves titles and lording it over everyone with their so-called purity. The chosen servants of God? I don't think so! I am losing it - the impotent rage does start to boil to the surface now and again. All those years of abuse, and it was nothing less.

Back to the subject matter - can there be any faith? Of course! You were sucked in by Raja Yoga, so you'll probably be sucked in by some other group offering hope, immortality, happiness, etc. Anything to avoid waking up in the dark and feeling alone. Morality - the last bastion of the coward!

Raja Yoga even had us there - that cynicism was a quality of a very old soul. Answers for everything, and no one whiff of incense, not one mouthful of nectar, not once meagre piece of toli, definitely, absolutely, provably true. All belief, all a fabulous masquerade, the Emperor's new clothes, no less. Ah, but there was fun though, sending up the Yagya at cultural programs, mega atmas around Madhuban, mimicking anyone and everyone.

Faith? Start by having some faith in yourself. A man once said to me (in 1970, his name was David Field, and he was a share trader from Port Lincoln, South Australia - memory is still good) "If I believe in God (the Christian variety) and there is not one, I've lost nothing. If I don't believe in one and there is, I am in trouble". Perhaps that's the answer, not faith but risk management. Have a good day!

bkti-pit

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Re: After Raj Yoga, Can There be ANY Faith?

Post18 Jul 2009

gotmylifeback wrote:What if it's all false? That there is no soul, no God, no reincarnation, nothing. That we're just physical bodies after all, and death is the end of everything? That this really is it, and nothing else.

Chilling thought, is not it?

Thanks for bringing this up!

I did ask myself this question and I am very comfortable with the thought that all that were only nice concepts that have been useful to me, gave me nice experiences, made me into a better and happier person and improved my relationships with others, but that none of it can be proven as being true. Just like so many wonderful and interesting concepts of science that can not be proven to be true but are very useful to us.

Did any of us ever see an atom? I remember from my high school days that it was introduced to us as the "atomic theory". But it does make sense to most, it seems, and it has lots of useful practical applications. Similarly the concept of the soul makes sense to me. Still to this day, after loosing faith in BapDada, this is the best answer I have to the question "Who am I?". It has given me sweet meditation experiences and it has proven very useful in my everyday life.

But it does not prove anything. Can anything be proven anyway? I have non BK friends whith different beliefs and practices who have similar experiences. So what is it? Maybe some day scientist will find out that it is due to some chemical process in the brain. Or will it be that the chemical process is the result of a true spiritual experience? Will I ever know the truth?

It does not really matters to me, no more than the vimans and the golden palaces. What matters to me is to live a life of truth, which for me is not so much about knowing but about behaving, not about being right but about being good and loving, because this is the right thing to do and the right way to be for me. Not because of some rewardin a future lifetime but because it brings me a sense of peace and makes me happy here and now. Whatever the flaws and the lies within the BK world, somehow my time as a BK helped me to understand myself better and understand what is important for me. It refined my sense of right and wrong and stenghtened my conscience and my determination to live by it.

I got as much thrill learning about the hidden history of the BK, the original posters, etc, than I got when I originally got the faith in BapDada and The Knowledge. I get the same sense of freedom watching my faith in all of it gently falling apart than I got when I dropped the Catholic faith as a teenager.
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