Dadi Kumarka

for Brahma Kumaris, or those becoming BKs, to discuss matters in an open, non-judgemental manner.
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howiemac

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Raja Yoga Semantics

Post10 Jul 2006

I find the use of Raja Yoga in conection with the BKs tends to be very misleading.

I understand that the BKs in the past marketed themselves as 'Raja Yoga', and that the promotion of the name Brahma Kumaris is a more recent thing, and that thus many "older ones", such as primal.logic above, persist in referring to the teachings of the BKWSU as 'Raja Yoga'.

This is a misuse of terminology - check your dictionary, Google the net, just look around you - Raja Yoga is an ancient form of Yoga, widely practiced for centuries before the BKs ever appeared, and still practiced worldwide by a great many people who have never had any connection with the BKs.

The majority of BKs wouldn't know Raja Yoga if it jumped up and bit them (which of course it wouldn't..). Even within BK teachings Yoga and Gyan are separate subjects. But, more fundamentally, Raja Yoga is not synonymous with the BKs or BK teachings.

The BK understanding of Raja Yoga tends to be at best sketchy, there is very little practical information about it available from them, and almost no information on the higher stages of it, beyond a few, generally misunderstood, terms like 'seed stage' and 'third eye'. They claim to teach Raja Yoga, but in fact they are teaching BK Gyan ('knowledge'), or, increasingly these days, BK dogma.

The BKs claim (of course) that their stripped down version of Raja Yoga is the real one, and the original. If you don't believe the 5000 years, then why believe that? Especially as most of the BK Yoga "teachers" clearly know next to nothing about it!

I say it is misleading and bad practice to blacken Raja Yoga with the weaknesses of BK teachings and practices, by confusing the terminology.
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john

reforming BK

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Post10 Jul 2006

Actually, Didi Manmohini (Big Didi as she was known) was charged by Brahma Baba to modify the Murli before it was distributed. As her right to do so was 'according to Shrimat' nobody has ever questioned it.

Sounds totally crazy to say it was Shrimat to change Murlis. I do feel there are big pieces of the jigsaw puzzle missing(Yagya true history). What bits would BB consider are right to cut out to delegate this job in the first place?.
(in the early days everyone believed B.B. was God, including himself, which is why we don't get Murlis from prior to 1964)

That's an amazing insight, if it is truly founded.
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jamesy

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Post10 Jul 2006

primal.logic wrote:I still feel that the BK's as an institution will eventually come unstuck when the fiction it has conveyed as truth finally catches up with it. By that I mean things like changing the Murli.

Sorry to be a pest, but I’m really not so sure Primal. I think many of the current flock are to some extent aware that it is being continually revised - at the very least in tone and style, and as you say it’s likely this has gone on since close to the inception of the Yugya. In spite of this the organisation has continued to grow.

You mentioned your love of dharna and I do think this is the key to spiritual integrity, rather than a need to preserve scripture as the literal truth. In retrospect, I’m not sure how much of the philosophy I ever believed in, but whilst the Raj.. (sorry howie!) ..BK Yoga tasted so good I was willing to accept much of it. And had I never encountered BK, I may never have experienced the spiritual insights that I was fortunate enough to have had.

I certainly think that it is a rare case to make spiritual progress without aligning yourself with some form of religious community at some point in your life. All of the free spiritual agents that I’ve read (including Eckhart Tolle!) infer some sort of similar involvement in the past. To be honest, it also seemed evident to me that the BK leadership-in-waiting have pretty good dharna - they are renewed by it and others will continue to be inspired or at least given hope by it. I think with the passing of the old order we may well see them making further revisions to the philosophy.

By way of example, I remember a public argument between Jagdish and Dadi Janki over the significance of the Trimurti. DJ was of the opinion that the Trimurti existed in time and space. Jayanti taking questions on the 'argument’ some days afterwards, remarked that in her opinion, Dadi’s perception of the Trimurti was ‘her Bhakti’. What’s interesting is that though this is an example where the literal truth for ‘old’ and ‘new’ differ, I am fairly sure it did not create any conflict for Jayanti in terms of the respect she has for Dadi’s spiritual authority.

I’ve also heard (second hand) that Jayanti has recently said that the length of The Cycle is not of importance to her – further indications of what’s to come?

In any event, we live in an era where mankind is consuming the earths resources at a far faster rate than can be replenished, and though the alarm bells are now ringing, so far there seems little or no political or corporate impetus to face up to the consequences. Almost every book I’m reading right now whether coming from a spiritual, environmental or scientific perspective is in broad agreement. If we don’t collectively start to seriously address our excessively materialistic lifestyles, we will be abruptly forced to some time this century.

... And as long as these conditions prevail, with a 24-hour global media every eager to ramp up the uncertainty, Utopian philosophies can only continue to flourish.
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primal.logic

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the latest from Dadi Janki

Post12 Jul 2006

I received a text message from a BK friend in London who, in all sincerity, was advising me of the latest jewel from Dadi Janki - "Baba has said that all 3 Dadis will be with the Family until the end. And that there are 800,000 BKs and so it won't take long for the other 100,000 to come. So time is short for us to change our sanskars".

Dadi is typically creating drama to pull everyone into line and get over the confusion of Dadi Prakashmani losing her mind. This is on old tactic of Dadis. But whilst she seems to have put her head on the block with this one - ie: when the Dadis have 'left the body', everyone will have forgotten that she said this and that yet another 'untruth' has passed away without being challenged. No one seems to realise how cunning Dadi is. She uses her celebrity to 'shock and awe' and gets away with it again and again.

Back on the issue of Dadi's Alzheimers: my point is that this is hard evidence that consciousness is brain based and not an etherial soul. In fact, if the soul were the seat of consciousness alzheimers would be impossible. It has taken someone of Dadiji's authority to substantiate that. That the BK's don't get it is evidence that they are simply bhagats.
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ex-l

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Re: the latest from Dadi Janki

Post12 Jul 2006

primal.logic wrote:Dadi is typically creating drama to pull everyone into line and get over the confusion of Dadi Prakashmani losing her mind. This is on old tactic of Dadis. But whilst she seems to have put her head on the block with this one - ie: when the Dadis have 'left the body', everyone will have forgotten that she said this and that yet another 'untruth' has passed away without being challenged. No one seems to realise how cunning Dadi is. She uses her celebrity to 'shock and awe' and gets away with it again and again.

Back on the issue of Dadi's Alzheimers: my point is that this is hard evidence that consciousness is brain based and not an ethereal soul. In fact, if the soul were the seat of consciousness alzheimers would be impossible. It has taken someone of Dadiji's authority to substantiate that. That the BK's don't get it is evidence that they are simply bhagats.

I think that Dadi Janki could be sitting there reading the back of a Cornflakes packet and most BKs would still sit in awe wondering what the deeper meaning was and not questioning it.

Funny, I am remembering some of the Hindi conversations that Dadis, not necessarily Janki have between themselves when they think white punk BKs cannot understand Hindi. Utterly mundane stuff.

So have you swung entirely away from any spiritual concept and just go for the secular, "extraordinary lump of meat concept" of consciousness and being? Answer please in a new topic.

But please, continue on documenting these things so that others might see the flags we left behind on the path as they pass by, like ;

Dada Lekhraj is God,
Shiva is a thumbshape,
the 40 year Confluence Ages,
the 1976 Destruction dates,
the 5 Billion human beings only,
never mind all the joyful PBK supression stuff etc.


Great stuff.
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zhuk

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Re: the latest from Dadi Janki

Post12 Jul 2006

hello everyone ... the poster formerly known as zhukov here :wink: (with a now-functioning pc after terminal crash lol)
primal.logic wrote:Back on the issue of Dadi's Alzheimers: my point is that this is hard evidence that consciousness is brain based and not an etherial soul. In fact, if the soul were the seat of consciousness alzheimers would be impossible. It has taken someone of Dadiji's authority to substantiate that. That the BK's don't get it is evidence that they are simply bhagats.

I couldn't agree more, primal.logic.

My Father had Alzheimers and it is the most potent argument for what you say about consciousness being brain-based. ALL personality and sense of self is destroyed utterly by this entirely physical condition; so that eventually the person is no more than a body just existing; unable to feed, toilet themselves or recognise anyone previously known.

All memory (& therefore, by implication, self) obliterated :(. Its awful to watch this slow, inevitable process and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy ... But the BKs delusion will persist, of course. There is far too much at personal stake for either the BK org (TM) or individuals within it to admit the truth which is right before their very eyes.

amaranthine

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Post12 Jul 2006

ex-l wrote:So have you swung entirely away from any spiritual concept and just go for the secular, "extraordinary lump of meat concept" of consciousness and being? Answer please in a new topic.

I've started a new topic regarding this in the spirituality section
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jamesy

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Post12 Jul 2006

primal.logic wrote:And that there are 800,000 BKs and so it won't take long for the other 100,000 to come. So time is short for us to change our sanskars

Yes, I’ve heard similar, and you probably recall the stocktaking of water containers/purifiers at the turn of the century, or the touching that Dadiji had in the early nineties that resulted in panic buying of enough lentils to last 6 months. In fact my first meeting with the Seniors, occurred at the height of the mid 80’s US/Soviet nuclear escalation’s and the few practical concerns I had were largely dismissed as at the time there was only a couple of years to go ...

Unlike you, I was never that close to the hierarchy but I don’t hold this sort of stuff against them. I may be wrong, but to me they are just articulating what they feel, -their message is simple, ‘don’t get discouraged, just stick by me, this life is the good life’ ..and if you’re lucky enough to enjoy even a fraction of their dharna, so it probably will be.

But it’s good to hear so openly from someone that was as closely bound to the BK inner-party as you. And I can guess that in order to reach the position you did, you would have had to develop intense faith. Have you ever browsed much of the stuff that Gyaniwasi posted in the original forum? He struck me as someone similar who had lost a very deep faith but despite an acute perception of his dilemma was unable to see the way out. Never the less he had quite an ability to appreciate and articulate the surprisingly wide range of spiritual positions than can be accommodated within the BK movement.

http://ex.brahmakumaris.info/ae/TRUE_SP ... DOM.1.html

Above is a link to a conversation between himself and another ex-BK - Wahl, who probably represents the other end of the spectrum in terms of folk who would once have placed BK philosophy as the centre point of their life. The interesting thing of course is that Wahl who’s faith during his time as a BK is clearly not so intense as Gy’s, appears to have had a far easier time of it assimilating useful aspects of BK’ism into his ongoing spiritual progress, whereas Gy honestly tells us that he is still really stuck.

Certainly in my case and I think for many of the ex-bks I’ve chatted with, the experience both as a BK and afterwards is somewhere in between the two. There is clearly initially some hefty disenchantment, but unless you were 100% sold on every aspect of the philosophy, it does seem possible to eventually detach from it and to affirm that there is also a lot of universal wisdom and insight well worth salvaging and carrying over to wherever you’re headed.
primal.logic wrote wrote:‘Back on the issue of Dadi's Alzheimers: my point is that this is hard evidence that consciousness is brain based and not an etherial soul.’

Looks this is the way onwards for you, well guess I’m still a Bhagat too. 8)
ex-l wrote:Funny, I am remembering some of the Hindi conversations that Dadis, not necessarily Janki have between themselves when they think white punk BKs cannot understand Hindi. Utterly mundane stuff.

Awesome, a Hindi speaking white punk, - they really should have taken more care to nurture your considerable potential ex-l.
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arjun

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Post13 Jul 2006

Jamesy wrote:Awesome, a Hindi speaking white punk - they really should have taken more care to nurture your considerable potential ex-l.

That is the reason why in the Advance Party (PBKs) Father Shiv through Baba Virendra Dev Dixit urges all the non-Hindi speaking souls to learn Hindi so as to understand the Murlis directly and also discuss it with Baba whenever they have any doubt. I have practically seen many non-Hindi speaking souls from India learn Hindi within a short time after becoming a PBK. Some of the PBKs from foreign countries have also learnt Hindi to a considerable extent. This insistence by Baba on learning Hindi has led to more empowerment of those PBKs, who might otherwise be dependant on translations to understand the Advanced Knowledge.

With regards,
OGS,
Arjun
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uddhava

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Re: the latest from Dadi Janki

Post13 Jul 2006

primal.logic wrote:Back on the issue of Dadi's Alzheimers: my point is that this is hard evidence that consciousness is brain based and not an etherial soul. In fact, if the soul were the seat of consciousness alzheimers would be impossible. It has taken someone of Dadiji's authority to substantiate that. That the BK's don't get it is evidence that they are simply bhagats.

This seems like a good point but on the other hand, did not we know this already? - if the physical brain is damaged in any kind of way (road accident, violence etc) surely the consciousness is affected accordingly, and surely this applies equally to highly realised as to ordinary folks. More generally, when the integrity of the body is sufficiently damaged, death follows. Is there anyone who is exempt from these basic facts of life? So don't we already know that earthly life and earthly consciousness are dependent on physical biology?
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ex-l

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Re: the latest from Dadi Janki

Post13 Jul 2006

primal.logic wrote:Back on the issue of Dadi's Alzheimers: my point is that this is hard evidence that consciousness is brain based and not an etherial soul. In fact, if the soul were the seat of consciousness alzheimers would be impossible. It has taken someone of Dadiji's authority to substantiate that. That the BK's don't get it is evidence that they are simply bhagats.

I don't understand this extrapolation and, honestly, if you were to apply scientific rigour to your first proposal, I think it would fail as well. We could easily say that all Alzheimers proves is that any such soul requires a brain to patch into the physical body which is equally obvious - and unprovable. Alzheimers effects the folds of the brain's outer layer. The seat of soul is thought to be the hypothalamus or thalamus area right in the centre. What is interesting is that the spread of Alzheimers does start from around this area.

What you seem to be wanting to prove is that anyone that wishes to believe in the existence of a soul or spirit is a Bhagat. And it interests me that despite your expounded leaving Gyan, you have not left behind the 'nigger word' of the BKs; using the term Bhagat* as a term of greatest contempt for ignorant people. Here you seem to be saying that anyone with spiritual beliefs and ignorant in the face of modern scientific Bhakti.

You can take the man out of Raja Yoga but can you take Raja Yoga out of the man?

So, what is your explanation for the channelling / possession factor with Shiva/BB and Gulzar/BapDada, the trance messengers and so on? I can understand your need or desire to to disassemble all those previous beliefs that bound you. Without doubt, there is a whole load the so called University teaches that should have been better studied. And why not use some of those multi-millions to do the science that would prove the claims its makes? But many of the faiths and understandings are universal and do not belong to it, so why need to throw the baby out with the bathwater?

The anomalous examples the more academic BKs trot out are the individuals with Hydrocephalus, or "water on the brain", where an individual basically hasno brain but goes on to gain a degree from university. Something most folks with a brain are not capable of. Where is your path taking you now? Quasi-scientific cult humanism? A complete denial of spirit? A single biological existence of 3 score an 10? Does it require the rituals of and conformity to skepticism in order to be accepted into? The problem for me with science is that at present it has too many equally stupendous failings. I don't know either. I just try and face the practical day to day things within my influence and control as best I can. Best rather to ask question than make grandious statements.

I think that most of us on this forum would be shot to pieces if we repeated the level of science that is used by the BKWSU to prove their beliefs. What I would say is that it would be very useful to document all the daft or devious things that you heard the Dadis say or do, so that they can be documented and newcomers can learn from your experiences.
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primal.logic

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Post14 Jul 2006

Well, we have certainly generated an inspired conversation and that is the main thing. No doubt we are arguing over who believes what. Whether we go for 'spiritual fact' or 'scientific fact', I agree that there is religion in both. We all have our own individual perspective, which means that it is innately subjective, and that in our own minds there always seems to be a blurring of facts and opinions inspired by our own needs. So I am not going to sit here and try defend myself in the face of your attack ex-l. However you may find my next posting in the back room of interest.
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ex-l

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Post14 Jul 2006

primal.logic wrote:Well, we have certainly generated an inspired conversation and that is the main thing. No doubt we are arguing over who believes what. Whether we go for 'spiritual fact' or 'scientific fact', I agree that there is religion in both. We all have our own individual perspective, which means that it is innately subjective, and that in our own minds there always seems to be a blurring of facts and opinions inspired by our own needs. So I am not going to sit here and try defend myself in the face of your attack ex-l. However you may find my next posting in the back room of interest.

I think that to interpret my comments as an attack is symptomatically very AHDH. It was not.

As far as your personal belief system, I meant the question honestly. Where are you coming from?

I am an ex-BK but I still believe in the existence of soul. I believed it before and I still believe it after [ just as I happened to be vegetarian, not drink, not smoke, not do drugs, be pro-celibacy etc before and I still am after. Indeed, in some elements, leaving the Bhakti of Gyan has allowed me to be free to be more strict where I wish and feel best for my body-mind system ]. I was also engaged with "spooks" [ disincarnate spirits ] and spookery before Gyan and see no reason to deny them after. I use 'engaged' specifically to disassociate from 'believe'.

I never did worship them. Shiva and now Brahma fit fine with my Heinz "57 varieties" framework of spooks. I just happen not to accept or categorise them as 'The Supreme Soul' and 'The Father of Humanity'. While accepting them as existent, "holy spooks" and quite powerful beings, I might actually consider them as to be dangerous now and their orbit - and ESPECIALLY the orbit of their bhagats - to be avoided on the basis of their mutual delusion.

NONE of this excludes my respect for the real Bhakti of scientific rigour and my wish that it was applied to spiritualistic phenomena. I am as equally frustrated by pathological skeptics - or septics as I call them - within the scientific community as I am the braindead, groundless, indiscriminate fruit and nuts within, say, the New Age movement. The sort of phenomenon junkies.

I see a slight tendency with ex-BKs, who quite rightly need and want to work hard to disassociate from the BKs, chuck out a kindergarten full of babies with the bathwater when they leave. I guess I am lucky in that I felt I owned the above tendencies BEFORE I got to Gyan and so can just consider that the Didis, Dadis and the Holy Spookery are just others on a parallel path whom have grabbed hold of fairly universal and empowering good ideas.

I resist any attempt to drag conversation down to the subjective as we ought to be putting aside our own personal interests to rise to the objective.
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uddhava

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Post14 Jul 2006

ex-l wrote:I was also engaged with "spooks" [ disincarnate spirits ] and spookery before Gyan and see no reason to deny them after. I use 'engaged' specifically to disassociate from 'believe'.

Dear ex-l,

I am not sure what point you are making here - what are you saying is the difference between 'engaged' and 'believe'? As I understand it, you believe that there are lots of these spooks around of which BK Shiva is one. Can you name a few other spooks that you believe in - there are plenty in the New Age scene but IIRC you are not really into this.
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ex-l

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Post15 Jul 2006

Uddhava wrote:I am not sure what point you are making here - what are you saying is the difference between 'engaged' and 'believe'? As I understand it, you believe that there are lots of these spooks around of which BK Shiva is one. Can you name a few other spooks that you believe in - there are plenty in the New Age scene but IIRC you are not really into this.

Hi. The difference I wanted to exaggerate was between an individual that may have read a book or watched a TV programme and come to an opinion about something, a belief either pro or con; and someone that actually engaged in the activities that those programmes are about.

In my own case I am talking about time spent in local Spiritualist Churches. Nothing fancy by way of big name spooks. Indeed, the spooks were largely as lost and nameless as any other ordinary, working class folk you might meet on a High Street on in a tenement; dead kids and soldiers, drowned seamen [ the church was by a port ] and the likes. Indeed, when any visiting medium did attended the church and put on funny voices of " wise Chinamen ", Red Indians or the like, they were mostly derided by the regulars.

I used to go for psychic / healing development classes and to 'rescue circles'. Rescue circles were the most interesting and I think valid. Helping spirits or souls [ I do not know what - see howiemac's post on a relative thread, click here ] that were "stuck" find their way back to " The Light". I wish that I had stuck with it instead of bailing out and joining Gyan. As with Gyan, it has been a while since I dabbled but I saw enought to blow the socks off any skeptic.

One interesting story just to illustrate, I took a completely skeptic friend once. He was a biker and ex-racing car driver that like hunting and shooting. During the circle he went into a completely uncontrolled trance and was entirely possessed by another spirit. Different voice, personality, body movements that the facilitator could communicate with and attempt to heal and release. It was, or still thought it was, crippled. The story is much longer but when he flipped out of it - he was now on lying flat out on the floor - had no idea how he had gotten there. Likewise, I had friends that were active, professional psychics, mediums, healers, chakra readers and water diviners or organisers of such events; and when you know folk rather than just pay them $ 45/65 for a reading, you start to learn about another side of that life altogether. Good and bad.

One of them would teach me how to do stuff and strangely it worked. I also saw another friend I knew pretty well be subject to the most weird things during a healing session, something only slightly short of a 'Linda Blair' exorcism scene BUT having none of the chilling feelings that you might imagine. And I know from their experience that I was no where near scratching the surface.

So I tend to avoid using the word "believe". I don't believe in believing any more. I don't 'believe' in anything. Somethings I know with a fair degree of surety, some I don't. Always best to go out there, learn and experience first hand.

I don't know why the BKWSU comes down on these folk so hard. I do see any difference between one of them and any other in the caring professions ... except that the caring professions were not subjected to hundreds of years of murderous persecution from the Roman Catholic Church. Asked which are closer to God and doing His work, the Mystic Meg grannies or the media luvvies; unless I have got God so very, very wrong, in my opinion, there is no debate which.
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