From: Cults: The Drug Analogy * (Lapsed means, "having ceased to be active in practice, membership, or belief").
Not so strangely, I think biggest problems we have had is with lapsed BKs. Individuals who have stopped going to the center but are still holding onto some aspects of BK.
Perhaps it makes their otherwise normal life feel more special?
You mentioned something else connected earlier, how for many BK is becoming their first contact point with spiritual ideas and, hence, becomes their first love affair with the god concept or religion. I suspect then to question or challenge their "first love" is highly challenging for them for purely emotional reasons. I suspect the BKs also know ... the first cut is the deepest.
Pink Panther wrote:From my experience, most ex-BKs don't leave, they simply drift away over time, and often maintain a kind of 'fond affection' for their time there, and even continue to consider God and spirituality in BK terms, i.e. they are not really ex-BK, more like "lapsed BK", like non-church going Christians who don't go to church because they are lazy or maybe they disagree with church policy or they feel unacknowledged, believing their own understanding of Christianity is superior to the official church (usually over some fine point of nonsense) ... or they dislike other parishioners ... etc
Even if someone does not attend the centre anymore, or even doesn't read Murlis or sit to meditate, if they still arrange all other aspects of their lives according to BK paradigms, e.g. thinking in terms of soul consciousness versus body consciousness, or (BK) Karma philosophy, or keep remembering Baba when situations arise, or think of God as Shiva -point of light, or are awaiting Destruction, or they interpret whatever they experience in Gyan terms.
Essentially, such people are still "addicted" in my view - although it may be more benignly said that they are "scarred" or "damaged". (Some are more than damaged however, they are permanently broken mentally and emotionally, like someone I know).
Not so strangely, I think biggest problems we have had is with lapsed BKs. Individuals who have stopped going to the center but are still holding onto some aspects of BK.
Perhaps it makes their otherwise normal life feel more special?
You mentioned something else connected earlier, how for many BK is becoming their first contact point with spiritual ideas and, hence, becomes their first love affair with the god concept or religion. I suspect then to question or challenge their "first love" is highly challenging for them for purely emotional reasons. I suspect the BKs also know ... the first cut is the deepest.