Brahma Kumaris / Pachamama Partners

for ex-BKs to discuss matters related to experiences in BKWSU & after leaving.
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ex-l

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Brahma Kumaris / Pachamama Partners

Post07 Jun 2012

I have always wondered about the accuracy of the BK adopting business plans or service programmes like the Self Management Leadership which was started by a now ex-BK who married another ex-BK and asked them to stop using it ... but I think this is a first.

The Brahma Kumaris have now adopted a service program which started outside of the BKWSU ... it is called the "Awakening the Dreamer Workshop" created by The Pachamama Alliance.
The Pachamama Alliance wrote:The Pachamama Alliance is delighted to be in partnership with the Brahma Kumaris.

Both organizations are working toward a new future in which spiritual fulfillment, environmental sustainability and social justice are cornerstones.

The Pachamama Alliance's purpose is ...
To empower indigenous people of the Amazon rainforest to preserve their lands and culture and, using insights gained from that work, to educate and inspire individuals everywhere to bring forth a thriving, just and sustainable world.

Just what the connection to Shrimat and Gyan is, I cannot understand ... except that as a service programme, it gives the Brahma Kumaris another disguise to hide behind.

What is the purpose of "empower indigenous people of the Amazon rainforest" if you believe that rainforest has to be destroyed any minute now. Are the BKs planning on starting Gita pathchalas for the tribespeople in the Amazon? Apparently they have

Perhaps someone can explain this to me ...



The Pachamama Alliance is proud to be in partnership with the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University.

Together we have created and piloted the “Awakening the Dreamer Workshop,” which is based on the latest version of the Awakening the Dreamer Symposium and incorporates elements of Brahma Kumaris wisdom, and will now be offered by their network of 8,000 centers in 110 countries worldwide.

The New Awakening the Dreamer Workshop

Together we have created the Awakening the Dreamer Workshop, an opportunity to engage members of the public in the most urgent and necessary questions of this age:

    Where Are We? – looking at the environmental, social and spiritual condition of the human family
    How Did We Get Here? – finding the root causes of our modern malaise
    What is Possible Now? – examining the alternative scenarios for our future
    Where Do We Go From Here? – finding a role to play in creating the future

The experience is based on the proven Awakening the Dreamer Changing the Dream Symposium developed by The Pachamama Alliance. And from the Brahma Kumaris we have incorporated meditations, videos and elements of the Earth Care Workshop. The workshop can take people from confusion, despair or denial into hope and committed action in just 4 hours. It combines powerful video elements, thought-provoking interactive exercises and meditation to inspire participants to take a stand for an entirely future and to begin to see themselves with a role to play in creating that future.

This workshop will be available to every center worldwide, and training material will be made available to support the center teams in promoting and presenting the workshop. There will also be advice and some support available for those wishing to translate the workshop into their own languages. We aim to make it as simple and joyful as possible for Brahma Kumaris volunteers to share this workshop in their own local communities.
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ex-l

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Re: Brahma Kumaris/Pachamama Partners

Post07 Jun 2012

I see they are already using it to attract people to their Anubhuti retreat center. The course is on Facebook.
BKWSU wrote:Awakening the Dreamer ~ Changing the Dream of the Modern World 07/28/2012

Saturday: 1 pm to 6 pm

We are delighted to present the Awakening the Dreamer Workshop, a collaboration between the Brahma Kumaris and the Pachamama Alliance.

    What Kind of Future are We Creating?
    And will it work for everyone?

The Awakening the Dreamer Workshop is a profound inquiry into a bold vision: to bring forth an environmentally sustainable spiritually fulfilling and socially just human presence on Earth.

The colloboration between the the Brahma Kumaris and the Pachamama Alliance was created to reflect the wisdom and approach of both organizations. Jon Symes will host the event.
Q. How did the BK meet Pachamama?

A. The Green Team (BK Environment Initiative) has developed a strategy to grow our service by developing partnerships. We also do this by applying open-source principles to some of our trainings, like the Earth Care workshop. In September 2011 we met people from Pachamama in person during a UN meeting on Sustainability in Bonn (Germany). There was such a good click that we both decided to further develop this partnership. We are very happy with how we are collaborating towards a better world.

Q. Why should we do this program in our center?

A. To open a conversation with our students and the public about the state of the world; a very necessary, relevant and even exciting conversation. To reach new audiences for service.

Q. What is it going to do for us?

A. This workshop is a bridge to attract the public and a direct support for our BK mission – promoting spiritual understanding, leadership with integrity and elevated actions towards a better world.

bkti-pit

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Re: Brahma Kumaris / Pachamama Partners

Post08 Jun 2012

They need to be told the truth about the BKs.
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ex-l

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Re: Brahma Kumaris / Pachamama Partners

Post14 Jun 2012

It looks like a pretty obvious branding exercise and an extension of typical Western BK service, i.e. talk about anything for 45 minutes and then get them to do a guided meditation.

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jann

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Re: Brahma Kumaris / Pachamama Partners

Post15 Jun 2012

YES! Well, it must be hard to bear for BKs to see that non-bk and lokiks in this 'graveyard" world, amazingly also have a good heart for the world and for people, but than for real. So that is the best place to infiltrate for BK, to be a part of that, and even tell others they invented it. As all sweet talk is performed by sweet BK, one never get any sign about what BK is about. Now, as they see people are standing up to speak to save the world to make a difference, all of a sudden they need to be part of it. As today Murli said:
Do not perform any false actions. Death is just ahead. It is the time of settlement and you must therefore awaken everyone from the grave. Do the service of becoming pure and making others pure.

Do not have any desires in this dirty world. Become the Father’s complete helpers in salvaging everyone’s sunken boat.

So anyway ... a new religion can awaken when the old Dadi's die. Here in the West, BK teachings do not work so what else can they do than to accept, and fool people about the real teachings. That is a big issue to me. If I see the above and I did not know anything about BK I would probably join!

jann

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Re: Brahma Kumaris / Pachamama Partners

Post11 Jan 2014

Request to Overturn Fundación Pachamama’s Dissolution is Turned Down

On Monday, January 6th, Ecuador’s Ministry of Environment denied Fundación Pachamama’s request to reverse the illegal dissolution of the organization that took place last December 4th, 2013.

The organization will appeal this decision and continue to pursue other channels to get their legal status reinstated.

This dissolution is considered an arbitrary act that seeks to repress Fundación Pachamama’s legitimate right to disagree with the government’s policies, such as the decision to turn over Amazonian indigenous people’s land to oil companies, in direct violation of their constitutional rights.
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ex-l

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Re: Brahma Kumaris / Pachamama Partners

Post11 Jan 2014

There's a list of over 100 NGP who "Stand in Solidarity with Fundación Pachamama in Ecuador" but I don't see the Brahma Kumaris on it.

Did they avoid taking any political stand again?

Maui

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Re: Brahma Kumaris / Pachamama Partners

Post25 Oct 2017

This is still around; making a resurgence on Youtube with a BK (Elizabeth Pandya [sp?]) alongside a representative from this organization Pachamama Alliance. The work is again being promoted in retreat centers with the Green Team. From the above site, it looks like they did not get a legal status reinstated? However, it's all again being talked about amongst those on the team.

Maui

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Re: Brahma Kumaris / Pachamama Partners

Post26 Oct 2017

Also just found out they are in alliance with the BKs. Many are already conducting workshops all over. I spoke with a BK I know on the Green Team who told me she feels we must sustain the earth while we are on it (not a BK teaching) but ... "but we can bring in more people who can learn about us, who God really is, and Baba's plan/drama".

As she went on, I thought, another ploy ... her team has aligned with a wealthy agriculturist who comes to their center and a rep from the Pachamama Alliance will be the "keynote" speakers. Then, introduction to the soul and meditation.

She said one is in the works in a center in CA; at the retreat center and another perhaps in Fla. although she wasn't sure about that one since they needed a facilitator there.

GuptaRati 6666

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Re: Brahma Kumaris / Pachamama Partners

Post08 Nov 2017

The BKs' interest in the Amazon rain forest could be their method to get to vulnerable westerners who are now flocking to the Amazon in a craze similar to the counter culture revolution embrace of India and the East in the 1960s and 1970s.

The reason for the rush or gold rush of the mind to the Amazon: Ayahuacsa. It is a phyto-chemical mixture, with potent psychedelic properties, capable of inducing one of the altered states of consciousness more powerful than the relaxation response, shamanistic states of consciousness (SSC).

In the SSC, which match and/or exceed many powerful meditation states, individuals can overcome their addictions narocotics and other negative tendencies. Howerver, ayahuacsa use, though it is centered around some Amazonian Churches, has many physiological side effects.

There will be a competition between the BKs' soul conscious and the experiences of SSC.
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ex-l

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Re: Brahma Kumaris / Pachamama Partners

Post08 Nov 2017

Looking at the materialists' world, recent research into the measured use of MDMA and ketamine as treatments for depression is apparently looking positive. With ayahuasca, and here, you have another psychoactive ingredients, DMT (N,N Dimethyl Tryptamine) and harmala alkaloids (MAO inhibitors - the first class of antidepressants developed). Someone described MAO’s as "the doormen standing in front of the night club of your brain", combining the two allows the DMT to kick in. The nature of which is contradictory and oppositional to BKism.

Somewhat miraculously, its brew of two primary plants - caapi vine and DMT-rich chakruna - was discovered out of a choice of 80,000 higher plants and 10,000 vines present in the Amazon (DMT only being found in a few hundreds of plants in the whole world). What odds on it working?

I've never done ayahuacsa. I would not be against it, and I clearly agree it's at the core of the Amazonian shamans' and is partly the root (excuse the pun) of Pachamama Partners world view, but it would clearly go against the BKs' marayadas, defined simply as an intoxicant (tamasic)

What surprised me about ayahuasca is how quickly mainstream it has gone. Although it may have been the hippie/traveller/head anthropologist community who "discovered" it, already you have little old middle class librarians, ex-soldiers and so on heading 'up river' to try it. It's become big business, in everything from luxury spas to fraudulent scammers and has, of course, churches built around its use.

Shamans or adherents talk about it animistically opening one up to the "spirit world" or spirits of the jungle or plants. They also use 'mapacho', an Amazonian tobacco, in the ritual. Again what the BKs would define as impure or tamasic.

(I am not suggesting that the BKs actually know what they are talking about, only what their adopted values define).

Initiates into ayahusca can have profound and, it is said, lifechanging vision, although I don't know of any formal studied into its use as I write. Certainly anecdoctally, many claim to have been cured of mental, emotional and even physical disorders.

What would the BKs make of that? How can a plant "clear" what they would see as your well deserved "bad karma"?

(This is where I think the BKs are still in the dark ages, their denial - in their often over indulgence - of the influence of diet and herbs. In my opinion, much of what many BKs carry around with them, from their depression and inability to focus, to their weight and chronic illness, is dependents *not* on their karma, but simply their diet. And, institutionally, they were adverse at challenging it as their eating habits were the only pleasure they allowed themselves).

Early anthropologist used the term "animism" for the religous “belief in spirits”, a "category mistake made by young children and primitives who project life onto inanimate objects, at least until they reach a more advanced stage of development" which has, possibly, developed into see it as a “metaphoric symbolic attribution” - again, as "incorrect attribution of mental qualities, like those of humans, to unknown and natural phenomena" but that is a view now being challenged.
“I saw with my own eyes a large gray blob of something like plasma emerge from the sick woman’s back. Then I knew the Africans were right. There is spirit stuff. There is spirit affliction: it isn’t a matter of metaphor and symbol, or even psychology.”

- Edith Turner was an English-American anthropologist

There are some proponents of such practises that I think go too far with it, Terence McKenna being the obvious one.

Without a doubt, such practises have and are shaping our worldwiew in the West, even if we have not taken them.

I know marijuana is commonly used in India amongst the saddhus but I don't know of its psychoactive practises. I guess there have to mushrooms and vines out there too.

What I don't understand, except for its parasitical element and the use of it as an expedient facade, is the BK marriage with such heritage; any more that I don't understand the BKs dressing themselves up as "save the environment" warriors, when they believe that the entire environment must be destroyed, in order to be made pure again.

Such paradoxes have led me to decide - after long term observation - that the "spirit of the BKs" - whatever it might be - is specifically parasitical, deceptive, manipulative and dishonest in nature ... however initially intoxicating a union with it might be.

I see it as climbing on the back, seducing, exploiting and ultimately exhausting sincere individuals, such as the Pachamama people in order to make its own progress.

Symbolism not far removed from the stories of the activisties of the god "Krishna" it based its religion on.

Correct me if I am wrong.

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