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Some question regarding BK experience

PostPosted: 18 Jul 2017
by LeafsMarlander34
Many times my dad tries to convince me to attend center but I never do it because some of what they preach just doesn't make sense to me. Anyways I still have some questions.

My dad has mentioned many times how he used to Raj Yoga for 8 straight hours and he said it felt so blissful and "light" after. Now my question is, how can one sit for 8 straight hours? There has to be something right?

He also said he went to Abu and looked someone in the eye (called drishti or something?) and it was so powerful. Was he just imagining things? Or is it for real?

Re: Some question regarding BK experience

PostPosted: 19 Jul 2017
by Pink Panther
Leafs, I have not had time to reply but I have read yoru post. So don't think you are being ignored. When I get time I will reply at some length.

For now, my short reply to your question "Was he just imagining things? Or is it for real?” is - what makes you think imagination isn’t real? A little cryptic but I will expand later.

Re: Some question regarding BK experience

PostPosted: 19 Jul 2017
by LeafsMarlander34
@ Pink Panther

No problem, take your time. I usually lurk around every once in see and always find detailed response from you and ex-I. I love reading both of your replies.

Thank you.

Re: Some question regarding BK experience

PostPosted: 25 Jul 2017
by ex-l
Sorry, I've been on a break. It's that time of year ... hopefully back on track tomorrow.

In short, the experiences can be "real" ... even if many BKs exaggerate them ... but so what? It's more a question of what it is being used for and to what end it all leads.

Heroin addicts say the same thing. And, overall, heroin is less damaging.

Re: Some question regarding BK experience

PostPosted: 26 Jul 2017
by ex-l
Of course, the BKs and many ex-BKs, think I am being too exaggerated when I write something like that.

What I mean, it that you should just approach it as listening to an addict talking about their extremely addictive addiction. It's not on a par with beer or marijuana, it's a class A, life-consumming addiction that destroys, at first, all reason within the individual and then takes over their entirely life and family.

Therefore, the thing to do is not just rush for "the hit", nor to give "the hit" any attention at all.

That's the BK trick ...
they want you to suspend your critical faculties and "have the experience". Never mind how ridiculous the beliefs all appear, don't think, don't question ... feel the experience.

I've always additment that, yes, there are many weird and wonderful psychic experiences to be had within BKism ... but my end position is that they are all just a distraction from what is really going, and that is generally individuals have their lives; wealth, labour and properties drained from them.

Again, like addicts, they run around like crazy, increasing the dose, to get the same "hit" as they got when they first joined. Like a drug, it also wears off.

Like drug dealers, the BKWSU then sets individual addicts up to become local pushers, dealers, who are given extra "hits", a high, some extra attention from a leader, from bring in new customers.

It is just a subjective, delusional, every changing mire ... the very opposite of the clarity of enlightenment, which is rooted in rationality and objectivity.

A large part of BKism is based simply on dragging new individuals into a centre or to a public programme, where they hope the newcomers will experience a high, and become an addict like them. Many, but by no means not all do.

I know that, I did too.

But it wears off.

The Honeymoon Period ... the Days of your Childhood etc ... they call it. They say at first "Baba gives the children many experiences" in order to encourage them but then gradually weans them off them to encourage then to make more efforts and sacrifices.

What on earth is going on there?

Re: Some question regarding BK experience

PostPosted: 31 Jul 2017
by EricCartman
I have often wondered what this "powerful experience" is. I have sat and stared unblinkingly into the eyes of more than a few people (including some that are considered "powerful yogis") but have yet to experience anything other than a sensation of dryness and a desire to blink.

Regarding the experience of blissfulness and lightness, as Pink and ex-l mentioned, I think its a subjective experience. I feel blissful and light after a bike ride, a run, a brisk walk etc, but have yet to feel the same level of blissfulness and lightness after a meditation session (I have tried 2 techniques including Raj Yoga).

FWIW, if you are truly interested in meditation as a technique to augment your life, then I would suggest you lump BKs in with all the other schools/techniques out there. Try them all out and pick the one that works best for you. Surely your parent would be supportive of you making an informed choice.

Re: Some question regarding BK experience

PostPosted: 13 Aug 2017
by ex-l
Sorry for the delay in responding ... real world stuff is dragging me down right now.

I'd be wary to understand the experiences one can have via BKism as being purely subjective (as in projections) or on a par with riding a bike etc ... having sex is another one non-BKs often use.

But I would agree experiences, or indeed non-experiences, are often exaggerated by BK adherents. I've heard ex-BKs, who I remember claiming to being having "blissful" experiences during forced post-meditation "experience sharing" sessions, admit that they basically experienced nothing. It takes humility to do so.

People have tried reviewing BK experiences, even those friendly to BKism, but pretty failed as I think there's a tendency within BKism to say what is expected and conform to the norm rather than be honest.

I am one of the biggest critics of BKism but I'd still admit that individuals do have "powerful" inexplicable psychic experiences. I might even go as far as to say - from a purely anecdotal point of view - on a more regular frequent basis than other practises. But I certainly don't that that's a good reason to commit one's life to the control of their god spirit or leaders. It's not.

They are just a psychic "hits", like taking a drug, that makes one senseless and addicted.

Who and why and when one individuals "gets it" and another does not is a mystery. There's no apparently logic or rational behind it. I have family members and partners of BKs do exactly as you have done, sit and stare at the BK trance light thinking it might trigger some experience ... and feel nothing ever.

Same too the effect of meeting their leaders, or even their god spirit in India. Indeed, I'd even say most BKs go to India with huge expectation of "meeting god" and feel absolutely nothing from being in his presence.

I'd also say the BK experiences are not unique to BKism. I remember an ex-Scientologist speaking about "exteriorising" (going out of his body) during one of their 'eye-to-eye' sessions and how it hook him to that group. I've sat with TIbetan Buddhists and heard their experience of being completely out of their body in a realm of light and seeing other beings of light, like jellyfish in the sea, floating around in it. Non-religious people who have had various visions of "angels". Some Eckankar devotees also used to claim to be able travel out of their bodies but their cult seems to have waned. (I actually never did).

I wonder if there is a correlation with "purity", as in virginity, and whether the young Indian girls surrendering to BKism have more experiences more often as they have not been rooted by sex? It's a question I never asked as a BK.

BKism is practised a very, very vaguely within. It's all very wordy but few hard and fast facts or research. Mostly though, the pattern seems to be, you get a load of weird and wonderful experiences in the first 6 months or year ... often taking a few months to break through to ... visions of light or sparkles ... weightless feeling ... non-body states ... completely out of the body experiences ... may be an overwhealming tearful experience ... some people see vision of heaven on earth etc ... and then they dry up.

And then you spend the rest of your BK life surrendering more and more, doing more and more for them, giving more and more ... in order to try and get back to that state.

Meanwhile, they've been moving the goal posts of the religion and have forgotten about you, chasing the next new recruit or VIPs. You're old news and retire to the back of the class where increasing you sleep through meditations.

Re: Some question regarding BK experience

PostPosted: 16 Aug 2017
by LeafsMarlander34
ex-l wrote:"I am one of the biggest critics of BKism but I'd still admit that individuals do have "powerful" inexplicable psychic experiences. I might even go as far as to say - from a purely anecdotal point of view - on a more regular frequent basis than other practises. But I certainly don't that that's a good reason to commit one's life to the control of their god spirit or leaders. It's not"

Sorry for the late reply. Was out of country.

There has to be a reason why you felt this right? What made you have those, "inexplicable psychic experiences?"

Was it all just in your head or is there a possibility something being real (god actually existing )?

I also have two more question and I don't feel its necessary to create a separate post for it.
    1) My dad keeps forcing me to Yoga and tells me that once you get the "touching", it will be easier. What does he mean by touching? I don't really like ask him because I really don't believe in it so I just nod or say "hmmm" everytime.

    2) On Youtube, it appears more educated people are giving classes. Are they who they claim they are? Some are doctors, but are they really doctor? Or did they just make up their status so its easier to sell knowledge to newcomers?

Re: Some question regarding BK experience

PostPosted: 17 Aug 2017
by Pink Panther
LeafsMarlander34,

I’ll just say that in many religious groups, churches, political rallies, movies, concerts, etc, a number of people will have very profound experiences, some milder ones and others won’t get it at all. Those who do have that ”spiritual” or ”religious” experience will often describe it in similar ways, regardless of which belief system, god or guru is the focus.

When people speak about them, how different is Christ consciousness, Krishna consciousness, God consciousness, being One with the universe, mystical ecstasy, etc? The name is interchangeable but the descriptions and descriptors are very similar.

Why do some ”get” it and not others? Because they are ”ripe” for it - they are looking for it, they instinctively have the potential for the experience and all they need is the trigger. Whichever group happens to be the one that becomes the trigger, they will identify the experience with that group.

When someone is becoming ”ripe” they are looking for something or someone to bring on the ”quickening” and of course they will attend a group or place or teacher that aligns with where they are ‘at’, in alignment with their interests or their partially developed ideas.

When one has that profound experience they'll identify it with the circumstances around that, and that then is the basis for the addiction-like behaviour that follows, chasing that constellation of circumstances to experience it again, making that the centre of their routines and around which everything else revolves.

Barry Humphries, a famous comedian and actor was an alcoholic. He said it began when as a young man, when after a few drinks he’d feel free enough to let shine his cleverness and charisma, becoming the centre of attention and adulation which he unwittingly associated with drink, then drank almost as a ritual.

For the gullible (and we are all gullible at times), what is true is whatever we want to be true.

Re: Some question regarding BK experience

PostPosted: 17 Aug 2017
by Mr Green
The meditation is not so bad it's the Gyan that kills ya

Re: Some question regarding BK experience

PostPosted: 18 Aug 2017
by ex-l
I'll answer the easier questions first.
LeafsMarlander34 wrote:My dad keeps forcing me to Yoga and tells me that once you get the "touching", it will be easier. What does he mean by touching?

The BK often use the word touch or touching as in "Baba touched the soul to go and do ..." by which they infer that their god spirit is conscious of their day to day predicament ... and, therefore, apparently conscious of *every* BKs' day to day predicament at all times as many of them will claim it (which is difficult to believe) ... and able to hint or guide their actions. I think we can be sure he/they/it does not and they are just projecting his influence upon their own intuitions or will.

Here, your Father is using it in a different manner that was not common in my day. He is suggesting that if you sit obediently, their god spirit will somehow know you exist and are waiting for him - perhaps because your Father has "told" him in meditation - and psychically connect with you. Light the fire within you, as it was.

That is to the BKs', and my own, kind of how it works.

But why the great jump from it being a 'spook', or spirit, higher being or "ascended master" ... to it having to be "God"?

That, for me, is just typical of the BKs' delusion of grandeur. A tendency that has been with them from their very beinging. Everything BK or Lekhraj Kirpalani has to be 'the best', the 'highest', the 'most supreme', 'global'.

So, something weird and wonderful happens ... why claim "God" did it? Is your Father really worth god's personal attention? Are you? Do "God" really have time to be watching your house for when you sit down? Or does he really listen to your dad talk to him?

There's a saying, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" ... so, after 85 years and numerous false claims of the End of the World, where's the BKs' extraordinary evidence that their god spirit is "God"? The best they can claim is, "look at all the money we have saved up, big buildings and friends in the government or United Nations".

He's trying to suck you into his religion ... best go to the end of his religion and see where it will get you if you surrender to it. Look at its leaders and see if you want to become like them, see if they really impress you? And ask what have their really done to make the world a better place?
On Youtube, it appears more educated people are giving classes. Are they who they claim they are? Some are doctors, but are they really doctor? Or did they just make up their status?

Probably by now, but so what? All cults can claim the same. This is fallacious logic, a fallacy called "appeal to authority". As you get older, you'll find a many qualified individuals are basically stupid, arrogant, egotistical, vulnerable and so on. Doctors some of the worst.

In the old days, they used to exaggerate wildly. These day they do have followers at all levels. Same response ... so what? What are they actually doing to make the world a better place? How much have they really changed?

Learning to deal with the crap of BKism is just learning to deal with the crap of life. All the same sorts of principles.

They try to distract you by getting you to focus on the experience, the feelings, and give up all reason and logic ... to believe and then surrender your questioning mind, your body (time and energy) and wealth to the cult. And what does it believe?

It's the same impossible stupidity regardless of what someone's qualifications are ... an identically repeating 5,000 Year Cycle of Time, dinosaurs 2,500 years ago, Nuclear War End of the World and so on. That they are educated and professional and yet still follow the BKs is evidence why *not* to give your mind over to BKism.

It turns you into a Buddhu (stupid person), not a Buddha (enlightened one). That comes from a quote from them.
What made you have those, "inexplicable psychic experiences ... Was it all just in your head or is there a possibility something being real (god actually existing)?

My position is slightly different from Pink Panthers.

My position is that I cannot prove or disprove "something real", e.g. spirit entities or higher being etc, therefore I do not take a position on it either way. I do not accept the "all in your mind" equation. I don't rebut the idea that it is all based on some possessing spirit, I just look at the evidence of the quality and nature of the god spirit's utterances and manifestation.

And it falls far short of what I would expect of "god", "god's representative on earth", or even a "higher being". For me, qualities like honesty, intelligence and integrity ... let alone just being interested and interesting ... are worth far more than all the millions of dollars, and 1,000s of properties, the Brahma Kumaris have conned out of 10,000s of people. And all the stinking, hypocritical VIPs that they are willing to get into bed with.

If "God" came to earth, I am pretty damned sure he would not hang out with them and get up to, or go along with, all the crap the BKs do. And to suggest the BKs are the highest human beings on earth make me sick ... for a start, "the highest human beings on earth" - if such things were to exist - would never claim to be the highest human beings on earth !!! They are dishonest morons who just happen to be very good at manipulating and control a certain proportion of society who, like Pink writes, happen to be attracted to their spider's web.

For me, that "spider's web" ... the false advertising etc ... worked because I was interested in mysticism, Vedanta and Yoga and Indian culture as a foreigner with no real experience of the reality of India. Yes, I was primed for them in a way I was not for Christianity or Sufi-ism.

I'll reply more later but, yes, I think it was more than just "in my head".

One thing that is common in BKism is that one's strong experiences happened when teaching others ... that is to say, beng used as a medium to suck other in. After I stopped teaching, I did not have those experience and I could not give them to others. I don't think I was, I think I was being used by forces, energies, entities, weird group psychology that I did not understand and was not in control of. It was in control of me.

The aim of BKism is really to lose the self and to become a servant medium to its god spirit and leaders. They claim you will receive multi-million fold returns in the heaven on earth that is about to come ... just any day now.

I don't buy that for one minute. It's the old "work today (for nothing) and get jam tomorrow" trick (clue: the jam never comes).

Re: Some question regarding BK experience

PostPosted: 18 Aug 2017
by because.parmeshwar
Mr. Green wrote:The meditation is not so bad it's the Gyan that kills ya

True ... but doing BK meditation ultimately pulls you to BK Gyan and BK leadership and ultimately stuck you in ridiculous Shrimat.

Better follow any other meditation.

Re: Some question regarding BK experience

PostPosted: 18 Aug 2017
by ex-l
I tend to agree.

I think it keeps you attached and under the influence of the BK "hive mind" ... kind of like a 'sleeper' BK.

Don't feed it any of your energy, nor take it.

Re: Some question regarding BK experience

PostPosted: 19 Aug 2017
by GuptaRati 6666
Mr. Green does have a valid point; the BK meditation seems to elicit Benson's relaxation response (RR). How much of the RR is elicited by BK meditation? The question needs to be answered by scientific investigation in which a randomized controlled trial has to be conducted. In my literature searches, I have seen a few papers investigating BK meditation. I do not think I saw documentation in the papers in which the authors indicated zero conflicts of interests.

Re: Some question regarding BK experience

PostPosted: 19 Aug 2017
by ex-l
GuptaRati 6666 wrote:Mr. Green does have a valid point; the BK meditation seems to elicit Benson's relaxation response (RR). How much of the RR is elicited by BK meditation? The question needs to be answered by scientific investigation ...

Something we (at least a few of us) were aware of when I was teaching BK Raja Yoga - I don't think it is universal with the cult - is that there are various different stages or practised before "hitting the bullseye" with BK Raja Yoga. That is to say, the mind needs to be quietened down a far degree *before* the individual gets near actually having "Yoga" (connecting) with their god spirit, starting with contemplation or simple repetition of words and ideas (an 'internal' mantra) leading to a sort of auto-hypnosis.

BKism appears to be becoming vaguer and vaguer as to its practises, and less demanding of newcomers or adherents to the point where pretty much *anything* counts as "Yoga" ... even, to quote Janki Kirpalani, "saying Baba 10,000 times a day". A practise or concept borrowed identically from Bhakti Yoga (e.g. chanting Krishna's name).

As you say, how much of the relaxation response is just from that generic aspect of BKism, ie that part of it that is common with most meditation practises such as mindfulness?

But, for me, I'd put the wierd and wonderful experiences far *beyond* that element.

How many, what proportion of, BKs get beyond those early steps ever, who knows? There's no way of telling. All the BK leaders really care about is whether you say the right things, in the right BK language, afterwards. How can they really tell what "stage" your meditation is at? Do they have a "yoga-o-meter" yet?

To pick up where we were with Leaf, and a bit of a longer answer, although I am pretty sure it must have been discussed by the Tibetans and Vedantic sages, and the Ancient Greeks and Egyptians, in the West, this discussion really all took place in the middle of the 18th and 19th Centuries, during a period where youthful science was rising to challenge, and ultimately defeat, ancient religion.

I think the idea of it all being auto-suggestion really goes back to the doctors Franz Mesmerand James Braid (who coined the term "hypnotism"), a tale that includes many great minds of the era, such as Benjamin Franklin. It is not a new discussion at all and, if anyone is interested, they ought to read up on it.

Franz Mesmer was a fantastic hypnotist who came up with his own theory of animal magnetism and flowing internal energies (chi?) from the practioner upon the patient, including the use of 'gaze'. In many ways, I see the Lekhraj Kirpalani of the early days as a kind of 'mesmerist' ... bearing in mind that he was publicly accused of mass hypnosis of the women in his Om Mandli cult. His early seances bore much in common with Mesmer's demonstrations, including the sexualised element (eg repressed women experiencing "ecstacies").

Mesmer became very famous and influential but his theories were ultimately discredited by investigation, including the first placebo-controlled trial of a therapy. You can see how influential this was. But the effects were very real and, to a point, I think the critics missed the point which was not the 'how' of how it worked but rather the power of suggestion and how it worked.

Braid came along and stripped it of its hocus pocus elements and turned it into a therapy, developing 'self-' or 'auto-hypnotism'. He saw it as merely a psycho-physiological mechanism. A a psychological phenomena rooted in a physiological process. Interestingly, Braid researched eye-fixation and also drew analogies between his own practice of hypnotism and various forms of Hindu Yoga meditation and other ancient spiritual practices.

Like I wrote ... "nothing new under the sun".

The next great assualt was the fight between the materialist and spiritualist around the turn of the 19th/20th Century, by which I mean spirit mediums, psychism, spiritism, channelling and the likes. Although in theory, this kind of "spiritualism" - congress with disincarnate or "higher" spirit beings, angels etc - was debunk in the West, it has hardly gone away and is still active all over the world.

BKism is a spiritualist religion. It's core is not medatitive or yogic, it is spiritualistics. It is based on the channelling and mediumship of spirits, disincarnated human beings, dead elders and ancestors ... a very ancient and universal practise. All that is new about BKism, is that they claim their god spirit is the God of all religions; the God of the Gita, the Bible, the Koran etc ... (they don't say much about Buddhism!).

But the aim of the practise is the same ... a submission to these spirits in a mediumistic manner so as to become a channel for their influences.

Many of the arguments regarding hypnotism and spiritualism and BK Raja Yoga are in no way new. They are all pretty repetitions of the arguments I've briefly mentioned above.

However, I'll suggest a model by which to understand the process of BKism ...

It starts by simple, innocent contemplations (e.g. I am a peaceful soul) ... progresses into an auto-hypnotic state ... afterwhich, once stilled sufficiently, one is encouraged to open up to these other spiritualistic influences ... and become am unconcious medium or channel for them.

The BKs do not state this openly but it is what is often stated in their teachings.

You are being set up - mentally, physically, psychically - for their god spirits, their deceased leaders, their allegedly enlightened leaders to work through ... in a literally manner. Not a metaphorical one.

So the question I ask you is, do you want to psychically opened up so that their 'spooks' occupy your body and mind and can work through you?

And, to be honest, it does not matter whether you believe is spooks and spirits and spiritualism or have some other theory for what it all means ... Because that is *exactly* what BKism says it is doing and what BKs *aim* to have have happen.

I am of much of the materialist criticisms of spiritualism - I am sceptical of the skeptics - because, subject to their own confirmational biases - I think they rather miss the point.

Materialist tend to criticise spiritualism merely because it does not work, because it is not reliable, because there is no acceptable theory to explain its mechanism; simply because their world view does not allow "other realms", "life after death", "angels", "disincarnate beings" and so on. They would argue because it is not reliable, it is not true.

I would say that being unreliable is not proof of non-existence, it is merely the nature of spirits!!!

And that is certainly true of the BKs' god spirit.

Why would you want to be drugged up on whatever bliss the BKs offer, when the end result is surrendering and becoming subject to a vain, narcissisticm utterly unrelaible megalomaniac ... who really wants all of your money and property ... and who sees the only cure for the world's problems to being killing off humanity by nuked them!

--

BTW, if you dad is a BK, it is very likely that he is going to give all this money and property to the BKs ... so start working on it now to protect that and stop the BKs getting it. Keep it within the family.

Don't discuss the philosophy, discuss where the money is going.