Scorpions and snakes

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dids

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Scorpions and snakes

Post17 Aug 2011

Now there is a Murli point that makes me wince.

What an appalling thought, to compare children with scorpions and lizards ... should one read 'vile and disgusting' or something lighter? Some metaphorical link I just don't get? When I heard that point all those years ago a little voice inside me would whisper 'ouch' ... now I think its evil.

I am sad people have taken their lives over some daft concept such as purity - such an indictment on the 'teachings' and organisation I am sad to say. I've got 2 beautiful girls and 3 step kids. I adore them all in spades ... my girls live with their mum, also an ex-BK. We get along nicely.

It's one of those gems that I'd like to ask, confront or debate a Senior Sister with if that occasion ever arose again.

jann

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Re: Scorpions and lizards

Post17 Aug 2011

HI dids,

Yes, that kind of Murli points hit me right in the face, knowing it is not from any God.

Like today,

"You are making effort to forget your children, home and family. This is your vow. When you die, the world is dead for you. You are now becoming liberated from vicious relationships".

Any BK will find an explanation that what you read is not what it says. And that Baba loves them so much.

Jann

Welcome by the way, good to see you here.
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ex-l

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Re: Scorpions and lizards

Post18 Aug 2011

dids wrote:Now there is a Murli point that makes me wince. What an appalling thought, to compare children with scorpions and lizards ...

Wasn't it scorpions and snakes, as in things that sting?

I think most of us here accept that the Murlis were just Lekhraj Kirpalani ranting on and so I wonder if he is having a dig at his own son or children, at least two of which left the commune? Lekhraj Kirpalani sitting on his guddhi putting the frighteners into those young women he had treating him like a god so they did not leave and go and have a family. For what? I wonder how many of their ached to love babies of their own, most women do, and died in regret because the End of the World did not come?

It is mentally ill. Is "God, the Father of all blah blah blah" really saying that EVERY child born after 1935 to 65 ... or whenever it was he was speaking ... was a scorpion or snake? When you think about it, it is absolute idiocy ... because 90% of the Western BKs and probably 50% of the Indian BKs were all born after that period. Who would be funding his followers religious business and offering their free labor if it were not for those very same scorpions and snakes born of the sword of lust?

"Oh, that is different ..." I imagine them saying, "They are obviously all twice born BKs! They must have taken The Knowledge in their last birth and then been reborn in the West". But then there are FAR TOO MANY for them all to be twice born BKs.

That's the Brahma Kumaris for you. Utterly illogical. "Don't think ... Don't question," Dadi Janki will say. To question her Baba Lekhraj Kirpalani is the most terrible Maya.

dids

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Re: Scorpions and lizards

Post20 Aug 2011

Thanks Jann.

Yes, so black and white is not it - unhelpful, unkind, explains nothing about relationships and solves nothing. Impossible to see anything spiritual or divine in such words. Mad rantings as you said ex-l.

I cannot believe I fell for this crap once. I caused my Father such anxiety when I became a BK, that he ran away to Spain and never came back. But I never fell for those Murli points. They were the kind that made me feel there was something not quite right.

It's strange revisiting this crazy BK world again.

jann

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Re: Scorpions and lizards

Post20 Aug 2011

dids wrote:"It's strange revisiting this crazy BK world again".

I was never in the BK world. Well, just for the 7 day course and the advanced course. But now I notice I am in it every day. Why? Because there is a person in MY LIFE, following BK. Me, I read muril to see how the person will behave this day. Trying so hard to find the trigger to get the person out!

You can see the BK world from a different perspective. You are out!

Now you get involved again, let's say on the other side ... That must be hard for you.
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ex-l

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Re: Scorpions and lizards

Post20 Aug 2011

This is an aspect I find fascinating. Did you really believe that all children were "scorpions and snakes" or the word 5,000 years long etc? No, probably not. And yet, if you ever taught the course or "did service" you 'traded these pebbles' with other BKs and told them absolutely strangers ... playing out as if you did believe it.

Therefore, if not you did not really actually believe, what was it that sucked you in and held you?

I am thinking right now, part of it simply boils down to human beings being programmed to be used to or require some kind of phatic communication. The BKs use that programming but overlay their programming onto your family's programming.

Phatic communication is a kind of "small talk", or conversation for its own sake, which we use a little bit like animals use mutual grooming to announce our presence, our status, express out love and affection or reinforce our sense of belonging. It means nothing really and is generally ritualised. The "Jewels" of BK "Knowledge" are as just meaningless, valueless, cliched or time-worn phrases as most examples of it, although the BKs would never admit it.

I suspect it does not really matter what they really mean, or if they have any meaning at all. It is just the use of them identifies us as part of the BK group not the non-BK group, a bit like a Freemasonic handshake ... that and a bit of hypnotically induced trance to encourage a sense of a high.

Baba Lekhraj Kirpalani sets the groupthought, the senior Sisters reinforce it, all the BK adherents follow along together enjoying the infantilised nature of it ... like repeating together the bit at the end of the Murli. Achcha, to the sweetest, long lost ... etc etc. Like any tribal lore, it probably had some specific relevance at some point, e.g. one Brahma Kumaris having hellish children which disturbed the satsang or as I also suspect Lekhraj Kirpalani's own son or child leaving him, which has been long forgotten but which has entered the collective state of mind as a universal truth which all the sheep ba-ba in unison.

Strangely enough, I do believe that there is some kind of intelligence behind the Brahma Kumaris. It would not have grown to be as big as it is if there was not. But I think it is an evil intelligence.

Has everyone met someone that was genuinely a little mad? Someone who managed to operate in the world but yet had outrageous ideas about what was going on ... who would appear quite normal and function at a basic level but then if you scratched the surface and encouraged them would go off on some mad rant?

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Mr Green

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Re: Scorpions and lizards

Post20 Aug 2011

I feel proud we've come far enough to realise how daft we were, really taken for a ride and we did the riding!

dids

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Re: Scorpions and lizards

Post22 Aug 2011

jann

Now you get involved again, let's say on the other side ... That must be hard for you

Not like it must be for you Jann. I would hate to be in your shoes. To witness someone you love stuck in spiritual slavery must be scary. All courage to you.

I am finding organising my thoughts around this long forgotten subject a tad challenging and memory is not reliable. I've never participated in a forum and I am not used to writing, let alone writing constructively without being too cynical. No stone seems to have been left unturned on this forum and I am not sure I have anything new to add.

I left for the same reasons many left - it was impossible to keep going and remain sane. Lucky for me, that little sane voice was loud enough to make me exit after 3 years of pukkaness and another year to wean myself and finally give it away ... I am glad I did. I was young (23), firm in my desire to be a Father, too rebellious and basically did not like being told what to do. I was studying natural medicine and counselling was my favourite subject and that exposed me to an understanding of human behaviour which was not the simplistic views espoused by bkism. So I was working, studying and following Shrimat and it was tiring and tedious. I don't know how some could have stayed as long as they did.

The Sydney family in the late 80's was at its peak. It was buzzy and friendly and I met great people who are still friends. I had a good time overall. But overtime, once the honeymoon phase ended, and I became just another cog in the wheel, the dysfunction of the family became more apparent - cliquey, inner circle vs the rest, big egos and intellects and hierarchy. Big powerful hierarchy. I did not like that. There was unrest and calls for change and meeting and committees to try and bring some humanity into the organisation. I think that gave me and many others permission to leave. There was a massive exit of high ranking BKs at the time.

I went through the usual guilts and the thoughts of 'Destruction' stayed with me for some time. It did not last (not that I think the world is not in a perilous state now). I hooked up with a BK Sister who became my wife and we had a family. Nothing like having kids to get you right down to reality. So it wasn't until some years later that I well and truly realised that I had been completely brainwashed by a cult - a peculiar time in my life that has led me to where I am now. A better, saner and more rational person. Better, not because of what I learnt in the BKs, but in spite of it.

So revisiting this time reminds me of how warped the BK world view is - it sets such a high bar that is impossible to reach because it doesn't match reality (becoming an angel??). It's fantasy. And unless you remember Baba every minute of the day and remain soul conscious every minute of the day, well, you'll end up sweeping Golden Age turds for 2500 years ... (it's hard not to be cynical) ... oh, yeah, but it's all numberwise anyway ... crazy stuff. And in setting such high and unreachable standards, it coercively preferentiates abstractions such as purity over ordinary life. In doing so it trivialises our humanity and human experience. That is my biggest problem with this philosophy (if we can call it that) and that's why I think it so sad that you can take your life over it. It makes me angry ... and then there is The Cycle ... anti-science and anti-history.

ex-l, I want to answer the question of what sucked me in and held me but I have to get to work.

Mr Green, yes, I am glad we all took responsibility for our lives and got out. We got brainwashed but did not know it at the time. Our intentions were well meaning because so many BKs are just so decent and kind. However, let's not totally blame ourselves - we were under a spell and there was plenty of spiritual coercion to keep us there.
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ex-l

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Re: Scorpions and lizards

Post22 Aug 2011

I'd be very interested if you were to briefly document the efforts in the 1980s to reform the BKWSU in Australia and the period of the mass exodus.

It would be a good warning to anyone trying the same today. Actually, following our arising, the BKWSU were forced to be seen to do something and go around that same cycle just a few years ago and, again, BK OZ probably tried harder than most. I think it all petered out without any significant changes.

Personally, I think the idea of reforming the BKWSU is just another hook to keep folks in too. I learnt something from studying art. Sometimes an imperfect is needed to hook certain kind of individuals in ... it is an obscure hook that keeps people, good people - especially I suspect 'givers' and 'doers' - engaged because they think they can do something to make thing better. The solution always seems just around the corner ... just like Destruction.

bkti-pit

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Re: Scorpions and lizards

Post22 Aug 2011

ex-l wrote:Personally, I think the idea of reforming the BKWSU is just another hook to keep folks in too. I learnt something from studying art. Sometimes an imperfect is needed to hook certain kind of individuals in ... it is an obscure hook that keeps people, good people - especially I suspect 'givers' and 'doers' - engaged because they think they can do something to make thing better. The solution always seems just around the corner ... just like Destruction.

I totally agree with you. I've witnessed it so many times.

The latest was the "Global Functioning" initiative, or whatever it was called, initiated by Western BKs for Western BKs. To my knowledge nothing came out of it to address the longing of Western BKs for a more caring organization. It morphed into some kind of administrative restructuring of the organization and the issue of guidelines about being more careful with the laws and thus avoid lawsuits.

jann

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Re: Scorpions and lizards

Post23 Aug 2011

It is scorpions and snakes by the way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws1N9PiHBOQ

dids

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Re: Scorpions and lizards

Post24 Aug 2011

ex-l wrote:I'd be very interested if you were to briefly document the efforts in the 1980s to reform the BKWSU in Australia and the period of the mass exodus.

I had to chat to my ex to confirm my hazy recollections of that period and i realise the importance of being as accurate as possible for the purpose of documenting events. However, I'll have to leave that to someone else with a fresher memories, mine are not reliable enough.

My ex came was having a pretty harsh time with the centre in charge on the Gold Coast. After a meeting with Didi, she was moved to Sydney which at the time was much more progressive by BK standards. I was a peripheral and young BK and not really privy to the grumblings. But I remember talk of making things 'real', of being 'real'. It was the buzz word. It was a large family with many professionals. My impression is that there was a desire to open up the family to useful but non Gyani psychological models.

I remember attending a conflict resolution talk. It was informal and voluntary and like a group counselling session. I felt awkward and did not attend any more. I am not sure how long or how many of these occurred afterwards as I was on my way out around that time. My ex, who was quite high up and well loved in the organisation, confirmed the general malaise, the talk of being more 'accepting' and the attempts to bring some broader ideas into the family.

I guess it did not work. I heard a few years ago that there are hardly any Western BKs left at Indraprasth, they are mainly Indian. Can anyone confirm this?

I remember shortly before I started disengaging that a senior Brother left without a trace. I think he was 3rd charge in Didi's and Charlie's absence. I asked someone but leaving Gyan was a taboo subject especially for young BKs like myself. All I was told was that he'd left and I remember being shocked. Soon after I left the floodgates seemed to open and through the grapevine I'd hear that such and such had left, or had moved out of the centre. A whole bunch of us partnered up and that was it for me.

I think the net effect of introducing outside ideas into the family was that it was an acknowledgment that Gyan couldn't possibly solve everything and that the lokik world had something to offer. Coupled with what I was learning, it gave me permission to move away and made my transition out much easier.
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ex-l

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Re: Scorpions and snakes

Post25 Aug 2011

I guess the big difference between India and the West is that in the West, people have other options they can leave for. I am not sure that is the same in India.

I wonder if India has the same problems? BK centers are small, insular goldfish bowls. Tensions, and plain wrongs, must arise. I suspect the Sisters, for the most part, just do not have any way out. I am always conscious that in all we have done here, we have hardly scrapped the surface of BK India.

xephani

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Re: Scorpions and snakes

Post06 Jun 2012

I am really curious about why you guy's keep reading the Murli's - they are just such nonsense ... nothing to get het up about - they are spoken by a woman who has never had sex or had children ... how is she to know about such matters?

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