First post from friend of BK

Hello,

I've been visiting this website for some time, and this is my first post. I am a “friends and family of” (although the registration page would not accept this, so I had to enter something else.) For quite a while I have been involved in a significant friendship with a BK member. From this experience I have a number of questions.

My first question is: what does it mean to be a friend of a BK?

To elaborate on this: I speak of friendship in the true, deep meaning of the word, and not as an acquaintance or someone you know. To what extent and how does one express disagreement about BK beliefs without driving the person away? To one extent does one listen to understand, while not giving the impression that one agrees? What about this “detachment” thing. What other considerations are involved?

I appreciate any insights from other “friends and family of” from your experience. I also appreciate insights from BKs, questioning BKs and ex-BKs. What kind of friendship would have been most meaningful and important to you as a BK and when you began questioning?

To give a bit of background: I met my friend and began the friendship through our mutual work. He seems to have developed a way to move and work in the world, while keeping BK rules (diet, celibacy etc.) It took a while for me to learn that he was a BK (which I had never heard of) and longer to get a more in depth understanding of the belief system (both from him and your website). By now I feel I have learned a lot about an organization and belief system, without any conscious plan to do so. So I am also trying to sort out how this has impacted me – but those are questions for a later post.

Thanks for any and all insights.

Warm welcome to you Cypress.

To have a BK as friend can be quite difficult sometimes. Although the friendship seems to best ever, remember that BKs do anything to recruit you to the group. If you are strong enough to NOT attend the group then be loving to your friend and educate him about the organisation. Be careful and subtle with that, to not scare him away.

Know that you are not any special to him, all souls are special to him ... nothing more nothing less. His aim is to recruit you, with all friendship, love, presents, compliments and appearing to be the perfect partner.

Love Jan.

Hi Cypress,

thank you for dropping by and congratulations for having the courage to speak online. If you wish, you can also ask members questions via 'private messages", see the PM button under each of our names on the right. Jan came onto this forum in a similar situation as yourself and so she is our expert in that department! Although we drown ourselves in the esoterics of the cult, we are first and foremost here for individuals such as yourself.

I am an ex-BK and I speak from the experience of being an insider with the BKs remembering how we were taught and encouraged. I have been on the other side of the equation you are in. Yes, we used relationships to attempt conversion ... even after leaving, I was so "owned" by the Brahma Kumaris and their spirit guides that I felt my prime responsibility was to introduce and hand over anyone to them. Such is the nature of total surrender encouraged.

A "friend of a BK" is someone with enough love, patience and commitment to bring them back from the control of the BKWSU leadership and into normality.

Although there are a few, mature BKs who seem to be able to manage friendly relationships without swamping the non-BKs with evangelism, I think Jan is basically correct. BKs, especially new BKs, are deeply inspired to convert others and there is a tremendous pressure to conform to an ideal of wonderfulness whilst using every person and every opportunity to promote the religion. It is not really a friendship in the normal understanding of the world, normal relationships really are not possible within the BK framework.

Especially if you wish to take matters forwards in the long-term, it is a non-starter. Any real BKs will incredibly guarded against that, any BK engage in a relationship will be internally crucifying themselves and committing the worst sin according to the BKWSU. You will be taking on that too. Of course ... some do leave and start normal lives and often a relationship is the start of that. Latterly, some have found half-and-half lives but in such a case, I would say you will also only half a person.

In most of those cases, transformation back to being a normal human being is very difficult. You will be taking that on as well. The mental conditioning, especially about Destruction and the impurity of the world and other religions, is deep seated and "normal life" does not compare against the emotional and trance experiences they had, especially in their "Honeymoon" period at the beginning. It is like a drug.

The ability to "detach" talked of by BKs can be as complete and utter as a sheet of steel or as invisible as air. Can you discuss ... what are their intentions and where do they see your relationship going?

There is a lot of information on this website that we never knew about when we were inside; the historical revisions, the failed predictions, the manner in which the leadership have handled abuse. BKs are well armored against taking any of it onboard but at least we can help you translate their use of language and spotlight the methods, or "yuktis" that they use.

Thanks.

Hi Cypress!

I am a firm BK in terms of practicing all the disciplines, etc. I have been around for 25 years and am curently living in a Center. I never believed blindly and have always allowed myself to think on my own and develop my own understanding of the teachings.

I do aim to have genuine love for all but I see nothing wrong with having special affinities with someone who I can trust and to whom I can confide and I see nothing wrong in specially enjoying spending time with friends.

I have many friends, BKs, ex-BKs and non BKs, and I do value their friendship a lot. Although friendship may be of varying degrees, each one of them is important to me. Friendship has helped me to remain spiritually healthy.

When you mention this "detachment thing" about your BK friend, I think you are dealing with a misunderstanding of the real nature of detachment but sadly enough it seems to be a very common spiritual and social disease amongst BKs. I do not know the exact nature of your relationship with him and how seriously infected he may be with this "detachment thing" but I would suggest caution. I have seen many getting hurt in their relationship with such "pretending to be detached" BKs.

HI Cypress

Thanx for your post and warm welcome to the forum! One should know there are all types of BK members from many different backgrounds but most of them (as were we all at some time or the other ...) begin to follow the BKWSU teachings in a way that makes it very difficult to have any external friendships or relationships. Those who try to form relationships with such a practicing "BK" often do end up frustrated and upset as you have evidenced from reading some of the posts on this site.

My question to you is to ask yourself, why you have found it neccessary to write to us on this forum if the friendship/relationship with the 'BK' was going well? Is there an underlying sense of something wrong that you pick up that is making you search deeper and further for answers that you're not receiving from your BK friend? Check if there is something you're not trusting or not sure of and then trust yourself to look further.

Your BK friend is probably a wonderful person and will be really trying to do their level best to improve themself as a human being walking this planet, but unfortunately for those in the outside world, they always have another agenda, which is deeply ingrained and instilled by the teachings, of the need to bring to others into the fold. And often the 'BK' is even unconscious that they are acting on this ingrained teaching, as they believe it to be the only way ... It's not easy to explain this, and many have learnt the hard way for sure. You may not be in this situation though (as BK-Pit has pointed out the balance he has created in his BK life) - so suggest that you check in your heart always, it will never let you down if you remain open to what it tells you.

Much luck and warm wishes and I look forward to reading your posts as we go along, feel free to write and ask on any subject!

Thanks to you all for the warm welcome and thoughtful comments.

Allow me to respond, add some details and perhaps deepen a question.

In some ways my friend may be like bkti-pit – an independent thinker finding his own way of keeping his beliefs while moving in the world. In other ways, I have recently come to understand the depth and extent to which the organization and its belief system has a hold on him. Coming to this larger understanding is the impetus for me joining this forum – my heart tells me it’s time to enter into dialog with others who understand and have been involved with BK, both for my friend and for myself.

My friend has been a BK for quite some time, and is well over the Honeymoon Period. Although I may be naïve here, I have not felt that the main thing in the friendship was him trying to recruit me. We seemed to share a number of interests in common (one of them is my interest in alternative spirituality). We have talked a lot about BK beliefs, but much of that is me asking him – because I am trying to understand him more fully and also because I feel there may be good things to learn from what might be called the “outer layers” of Brahma Kumaris (perhaps the things that pull people in initially).

I’m sure he would be happy if I joined, but I have clearly stated to him that that is not going to happen. I also differ with him on various things. Some time ago, when I learned what group he was part of I did some research, discovered your website (thank you so much for being there), did some further research about cult awareness, and tried to understand how to take care of myself in the risks involved with such a friendship. I feel strong enough to risk being hurt, and also to have love, patience and commitment to be there for him in the long term.

One thing to clarify is that from the very start (before I knew he was a BK, or what that involved) it was very clear to me, for my own reasons, that this friendship had nothing to do with romance. When I read (with great empathy and feeling) Jan’s story and some similar situations, I thought “that does not have to do with me, because this is not a romance.” I was wrong. As the Brahma Kumaris for Beginners section says “Attachment to another human being as a sin is probably only second worst to having lustful thoughts”.

Which gets to what I called “this detachment thing”. What Bkti-pit says on the Dilse thread (she is an amazingly brave woman) about “detachment is a virtue by which love can flow unrestricted, with no demand or expectation and no emotional dependence on how my love is received”, sounds lovely. I have also seen detachment discussed in the seven spiritual laws of Yoga (not BK Yoga) as acting on one’s intention while relinquishing one’s attachment to outcome, and there seems to be some wisdom here.

I would be grateful if people could elaborate on what Paul said about “a misunderstanding of the real nature of detachment” that “seems to be a very common spiritual and social disease amongst BKs.” I don’t thing I’ve seen this discussed elsewhere on this forum.

Thanks for listening and all responses.

Remember that we are still good friends.

My BK friend is the joy of my day and sometimes my worst nightmare. And vice-versa

There is a post on "Detachment" in the classic posts section and many others that address "attachment". "What do the BKs mean by detachment?" might be a good, impersonal, topic to start elsewhere.

Is the romantic element two ways?

If I was to be honest, I remember, especially towards my tail end of being an orthodox BK, relationships which I obviously thought at that time were me wonderfully (or desperately ... how ever you wish to see it) "serving" some soul when in reality, I was falling in love with them, wanting that love. I think if we were to be collectively honest, there were many occasions when two BKs were in love with each other but not fulfilling it ... and, of course, I think it is fair to put the likes of Janki Kripalani and others feelings for Lekhraj Kirpalani in the same category.

If BK mean - say - altruism, agape or caritas, why not use the word altruism etc? I would say is because we are not talking about altruism.

Detachment, ultimately, means a total absorption in god without even consciousness of their own body, never mind anyone else's or any one else. Ultimately, its a kind of religious idea but they mean 'their god' not 'God-God' as others would understand it. It means their god and the organization comes first in all aspects of their life, so everything is surrendered, used for the sake of service, including any relationships.

That, I would say, is the ideal. Not all make it. Some mind a happy medium. Some are dishonest about relationships. But it is safer to assume that in every BK there is a little 'watcher' watching checking thoughts and emotions and steering things "towards Baba". The kind of meditation and the kind of mental 'chart checking' BKs go through strengthens this nature and a simple level of detachment which you would think of a simply an ability to space out and be unaffected by any thing, thought, word or action inside or out. Its what makes the worst of them so good liars. They can say sit and listen or say anything in a complete "calm" and sincere manner.

I liken relationships to planets in orbit. At some times in our lives, people come past us with a strong gravity that affect and change our orbits; some are suns, some are black holes, sometime hails of comets (... with apologies to any apoetic astro-psychicist). OK, your two planets have come close ... where do you think you, he or vous are heading? Do BKs leave Gyan ... yes, of course. In the West, probably the majority.

What are the other alternatives; you become a BK ... your little orbit carries on but is pulled into moving around the bigger BK solar system ... you ask him outright if he is interested in leaving and joining you ... you realise that you do want a relationship but have to go somewhere else for it? I am being presumptive here.

For me, the outer rings of the BKWSU's cosmic onion are all cherry picked off from elsewhere and composed by intelligent enough, sensitive people. They have a lot of them, that equates to a lot of time and energy to go through and refine the typical Ancient Wisdom, New Agey stuff.

Please do not mistake that for the core Brahma Kumarism, very often the inner core is actually entirely contrary to the salespitch.

Thanks to all for offering insights about “detachment”.

ex-l, I also want to say that having followed this website for some time, I appreciate your directness and ability to get to the core of an issue. As in:

A "friend of a BK" is someone with enough love, patience and commitment to bring them back from the control of the BKWSU leadership and into normality.

In my heart, I believe there is great truth to this. Then I consider the enormity of that, the deep pain I have seen expressed on this website from people pulling away from the BK, the depth of its hold on people. I hope I would be up to that, should the chance present itself. I have told my friend that for me, true friendship means being there for someone in difficult times.

So, for the purpose of this discussion, let's pretend this is a friendship (and not romance - both ways). I understand that can have many complexities when one person has been so long in an environment where human relations are constrained. There is a difference between being “in love” and loving (or caring deeply) – although any society I am familiar with places serious restrictions on who people are allowed to love and how, so any thing that is a bit different becomes more complex.

There are similarities with friendships and romantic involvements, and differences. Since we are not talking about a life partnership, it does not occupy the same place in one’s life. I have a meaningful and interesting life. The friendship is part of that life, but not the center of it. I want to handle the complexities of this friendship as best I can. I want to take care of myself in doing that. I am not going to become a BK (many thanks to this website for helping me understand that clearly). I like the analogy of planets in orbit and gravitational pulls. I have no intention of being pulled into a black hole, or orbiting around BK solar system.

And, yes, I understand that the core of Brahma Kumaris beliefs is shockingly different from the exterior ideas presented (thanks again to this website). It may be good for me to look more deeply into the other wisdom traditions from which the things that are attractive to me are drawn.

So, sometime soon, I will post some of my other questions on a new thread.