BK knowledge is meant for real Indians

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Pink Panther

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Re: BK knowledge is meant for real Indians

Post25 Apr 2016

To say european (yadava) science exists to serve BKs and deities is infantile.

To say India is less socially developed or lacks civil infrastructure because it is 'more spiritual' sounds like compensating, or making excuses.


Even these ”better than, worse than” comparisons is showing that the concern is not with seeing "what is” and from that "what can be improved” but it’s a form of stereotyping and fatalism. We are and always have been ‘this' while they, those ”others", are and always have been ’that”.

But Indians make up a huge percentage of the world’s scientists, many leading breakthroughs have come from Indians - most famous probably is Satyendra Nath Bose from where we get the name for the elementary particle, the ‘boson’.

Whether blatant, like our friend Pakka here, or subtler, like those who pray that non-believers will one day ”see the light”, bigotry, narrow-mindedness and judging others finds justification in religion and spirituality very easily.
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ex-l

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Re: BK knowledge is meant for real Indians

Post25 Apr 2016

I am guessing that as with White Supremacists being the last Whites you could claim as being "supreme", the same goes for Indian Supremacists?

I read quite often of right wing 'throw back' reactionary backlash mobs in India, e.g. destroying libraries, burning down film sets, threatening authors and publishers etc. For example, Invaluable books and artefacts have been destroyed in an attack on the Bhandarkar Institut.

The Brahma Kumari leadership are guilty of their own form of intellectual vandalism, destroying invaluable young minds and educations. Teaching people not to think or question but become "buddhu" slaves to them. Even their vision of a "perfect human", the deities, are - according to their own knowledge - buddhus, i.e. idiots.

Just who is going to make and maintain all the high technology they believe will be in their Golden Age, I have no idea ... perhaps there will be an army of White scientist servants hiding in the background as the BKs play at being Krishna and Radhe?

It strikes me a lot of it is just pent up tensions because they are not loved and cannot get laid, so they just turn to anger, jealousy and bigotry instead.

Arbit

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Re: BK knowledge is meant for real Indians

Post27 Apr 2016

Pink Panther wrote:You can keep your Indo-centric, narrow world view. It benefits no one except those whose ego relies on their superego - and that is how cults, politicians and society keep power over you.

Many Indian social scientists have described the Hindutva movement as fascist in classical sense, in its ideology and class support specially targeting the concept of homogenised majority and cultural hegemony.

Wow!

In one stroke you have labeled me an egoistic Hindu fascist!

And yet, neither do you know my nationality nor my religious/ideological bent nor my personality.

Pause for a moment PP, and let me turn the mirror around - did you just take a narrow view of what I said? Did your "ego rely on your superego" to completely dismiss my assertion, which probably goes against what you were taught, which is "how cults, politicians and society keep power over you"?

I am happy to debate the Aryan Invasion theory. Remember, it is just a theory and not a law. And, BTW, even laws have been proven to be false (e.g., Newton's laws). I can provide hundreds of links that debunk it (e.g., http://www.stephen-knapp.com/solid_evid ... vasion.htm), you can provide an equal number supporting it. It's a great discussion to have, but under a separate thread.

You know, PP, science is fallible, and the Aryan invasion theory is just that, but certainty requires religiosity!

As an aside, if you have studied the Rgveda, or any other Vedic literature, do you know how old they say The Knowledge contained in them is? Do you believe in those time periods? (Just a question, don't assume I am implying anything).

Arbit

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Re: BK knowledge is meant for real Indians

Post27 Apr 2016

ex-l wrote:The funny thing is, as Pink went to prove, many Western BKs - especially of the original generations - probably have as good, and in many cases a better, 'big picture' understanding of India than most Indians. That's not the same as knowing what it's like to be a specific kind of Indian, of a specific gender, and a specific jati at the granual level, I would agree, but in terms of 'India; it's culture, history and place in the world', we do pretty well.

(although, I'd still concur with his view of the "Aryan invasion controversy").

Don't be so sure about the big picture you have. It now appears that the view of India we have is largely based on what has been engineered over the last two centuries, first by the British to suit their purpose and then by "social scientists" to shoe-horn the society into the Western framework. At this point even Indians do not know who they are. For example, India did not have jatis, but had "gnyatis", which pertains to knowledge domain. British created the jatis when they took the census. Of course, this is not to say there weren't divisions already which the British exploited and left behind as a legacy!

However, I will say that on occasion non-Indians, like yourselves, show a better understanding of India than Indians.

Arbit

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Re: BK knowledge is meant for real Indians

Post27 Apr 2016

Pakka brahmakumar wrote: Basically, if you guys were honest, it would take you no time to accept that White man is nothing but a descendant of an evil race and that's the inbuilt default trait.

I hope this enlightens my friends to be aware of the most venomous and ugliest and infectious white rat.

Pakka, please stop, for your own sake. At best, you are failing to apply the lessons you learn everyday, and lowering your status.

Clearly, you want to make a point. You should. But learn to articulate. You may want to start by examining how the "venomous, ugliest, infectious, and lecherous Whites" put in huge efforts to pick a topic, study it, devote themselves to it, formulate their viewpoints, and articulate them with supporting evidence.

There is plenty of time for you to acquire these skills. The world is unlikely to end soon; such predictions have failed for some 2000 years. And you will be better off for it.

Arbit

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Re: BK knowledge is meant for real Indians

Post27 Apr 2016

Mr Green wrote:That's fair enough Arbit, but it proves my point we're all as good and bad as each other, Western or Eastern.

We're all just humans.

That is not the point your original post made, but if that is indeed your view, then I couldn't agree more.
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Pink Panther

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Re: BK knowledge is meant for real Indians

Post27 Apr 2016

Pink Panther wrote:
You can keep your Indo-centric, narrow world view. It benefits no one except those whose ego relies on their superego - and that is how cults, politicians and society keep power over you.

Many Indian social scientists have described the Hindutva movement as fascist in classical sense, in its ideology and class support specially targeting the concept of homogenised majority and cultural hegemony.

Arbit wrote: Wow! In one stroke you have labeled me an egoistic Hindu fascist!
And yet, neither do you know my nationality nor my religious/ideological bent nor my personality.
Its not about you Get over yourself ;-) And the second part, as stated, is said by ”Indian social scientists”, not me, although i do agree with it. Its a quote from an article about the Hindutva movement.

As for ”ego relies on their superego” - i think you may have misunderstood because many people use the word ‘ego’ in a derogatory way to mean overweening pride or arrogance. Let me clarify the terminology:

Ego - simply means the psychological mechanism of self-awareness, how I think of myself, my conscious self, self-identity.
Superego - not a ”massively arrogant person” :-D Superego is a psychological term for the things that we identify ourselves by that exist beyond (super) ourselves (ego) - our collective consciousness, or the groupings we identify with. e.g. Two Brothers may born jewish - for one the jewishness is very important part of how he identifies himself, while the other couldn’t care less about it. Pakka-brahmakumar radically and very seriously identifies with India and Indian culture, therefore his ego relies on his superego.

We all have our ego associations with some kind of super ego, its normal and realistic. We are social creatures after all. However we have to be circumspect about it and be aware how it affects our thinking and actions.

The problem with super-ego, IMO, is that it is not super enough! Either you identify with ‘the universe, the all, all of nature” etc - i.e. cosmic consciousness - or you identify with a smaller collective identity that’s not so universal, like your species, race, religion, culture, nation, caste, clan, family, city or village, cricket team, political party, whatever. In a way, empathy and compassion signal how "super" our superego is - those to whom we are compassionate are those we can empathise with i.e. identify with.

As for Stephen Knapp - looking over the site, my guess is he is a follower of the ISKON movement, a Hare Krisna, therefore himself just as biased as those he criticises for bias! He makes an immediate mistake early in the article by dropping a zero from his dates - sloppy. His thesis, on the first page you link to, goes to cultural ”evidence” but we need to look at both soft and hard evidence, not just cultural biases which inevitably influence historians (BTW Max Muller was not a historian, he was a philologist and one of the first translators of Indian texts.)

By hard evidence we mean objective - like archeological, paleontological, geological, genetic, linguistic etc (linguistics is more than philology). e.g. his argument that the Indus valley civilisation is dated according to preconceived cultural ideas may be valid, but in the end, geological strata, carbon-14 half-life and historiographically sound comparisons of correlated evidence gives one to a broader basis for dates. No contradictions or anomalies are allowed just because you choose to ignore them.

Forget Stephen Knapp, read Romila Thapar’s work, she is one of the great scholars of the last 100 years. She was vicously attacked by hindutva advocates. Would they feel threatened to the point of angry threats if the work was merely sloppy and disprovable assertions?
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ex-l

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Re: BK knowledge is meant for real Indians

Post27 Apr 2016

I tend to think a certain kind of Indian nationalist, BKs not far off, would like to drive India back to backward, supersistious agrarian villages of which they were the all powerful Brahmin heads ... keeping it - and especially the women - dumbed down, disempowered and fearful. The BKs do not "empower women", except to elect themselves as the new Brahmin caste, training a few junior Brahmins and turn the rest into dumb followers.

Looking at the history of BKism, I think you can see the village educated Lekhraj Kirpalani struggling to deal with his envy and admiration for the British Raj and, grudgingly, finding a place within his world philosophy for them ... from being a British Royalist in the beginning - is it suited his financial interests - and only adopting Indian Independence/supremacism later after the political winds changed, they rejected him. ("God" Lekhraj Kirpalani wrote his mad letters and sent books and posters etc to the King, would be Queen, Royal family, Viceroy, Gandhi etc. None of them wrote back).

His condemnation of them, echoed in BK Pakka's attitude, was merely a way of downplaying that rejection to his primary audience ... the gullible and naive Bhaibund women.
Arbit wrote:For example, India did not have jatis, but had "gnyatis", which pertains to knowledge domain.

Actually, it had both. I chose Jati because it emphasises rank or position according birth, while Gnati emphasises it according to connections or community. However, I think you're being a little pedantic because, equally, you could say both are the same thing and are used interchangeably. They just different spellings (that's from Gujerati).

You might say "the British used the word "Caste", instead of Jat or Varna" but they did not invent "caste" either (that goes back to the Manu Smriti in 2nd century BCE). By the same logic, you might even say "the British invented "Hinduism"" ... which they did and did not (I'd give the Mughals the credit) but you'd really just talking about administrative categorisations. You could even argue "the British made India" uniting the chaos of many into one.

And Newton's Laws are not "false", they work perfectly well within their specific realm.

But if Newton's Laws are "false", does that not debunk the idea of a so called "Law of Karma" too?

Say what you like about the "Evil Whites" but the British-Indian civil service and its civic works were acts of genius. Rarely have so few ruled so many with so little effort, done so much good and created so much order and structure. It probably betters the Roman Empire.

Pakka's Indian nationalism reminds me of the Monty Python sketch, "What have the Romans ever done for us?". You could do another one, "What have the British ever done for us?".

The answers would be tirelessly many ... legal system, an efficient police force, an apolitical army and civil service, tree lined roads, the railways (the British built more railways in India than America, France, Germany and other European colonialists built in all their colonies, bridges, schools and universities, they brought the industrial revolution, modern medicine (immunization) ... tea and cricket ... a common language. The list could go on and on.

During British paramountcy, the population increased 250% ... suggesting for the ordinary people, it was a very good thing.

So let's add create "the world's biggest democracy" to the list too.

I would be interesting to compare that question with, "What have the Indians ever done for India?".

Even the BKs heaven on earth is going to be built - allegedly - by the "Christian" scientists.

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ex-l

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Re: BK knowledge is meant for real Indians

Post27 Apr 2016

An interesting little historical footnote ... the idea that Mahmud of Ghazni's attack on Somnath Temple, one which Lekhraj Kirpalani was so obsessed with in the Sakar Murlis, was actually "Made in England" too.

It was the British Government that first raised the idea of it being a "national trauma" in 1843. It only entered the Indian public imagination fueling the Hindu-Islam division afterwards. The BK God included.

Now, here's the kicker ... no contemporary or near source mentioned the looting raid. The only contemporary source mentioning its rebuilding - a Jain text - refer to a king having to rebuild it because it had fallen into disrepair due to the negligence of local officers. The sources that do exist clearly note that business carried on as usual.

Even a small word like jati (जात ‎jātá from the Indo-Iranian or Proto-Indo-European word ǵenh “to beget, to give birth”), takes us right to the heart of the debate over the origins of "Indian" culture ... which is largely non-Indian ... but when would you define "India" as existing from? I'd say 1947. Arguably, your "real Indians" are the aboriginal tribes, who still also exist at the bottom of the caste dungheap and, funnily enough, they are not really interested in BKism that much.

Controversially, and with no evidence to support any of his pronouncements as usual, Lekhraj Kirpalani taught the BKs that Hindi's Sanskrit roots actually evolved after a pure form Hindi that was spoken in his Golden Age India.
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Pink Panther

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Re: BK knowledge is meant for real Indians

Post28 Apr 2016

What is a real Indian?

Whether indigenous tribes or nation states, most cultures speak of themselves as ”the people” and consider themselves as the ones who are cultured and civilised, while the rest are ”the others” and barbarians. The Brits were no different to the Chinese, who were no different to the ancient Greeks (whose word ”barbarian” means someone who did not speak Greek).

The Hindutvasis are the same, thinking that vedic culture is ”adi-sanatan” and won't brook any evidence to the contrary, quoting scripture and legends in the same way Christian creationists use the bible as the basis for interpreting science and history, rather than the other way around.

India is a land beyond the Indus. Before the nation of India, the whole area, all the countries east of the Indus were called ”The Indies” i.e. plural, including those countries in the region we now call South East Asia, eg Indonesia means "the islands of the Indies” and were called ”The East Indies”. The West Indies were so named because Columbus thought he was sailing to India - but the Americas got in the way.

The various people, languages, genetics, cultures and religions of the subcontinent are quite distinct, but were lumped together by the colonial powers who lumped all vaguely similar 'exotics' together. Despite what the Hindutvasis say, they are actually following the colonialists' lead by imposing the beliefs of their ‘dominant paradigm’ over the rest of Southern Asia.

Is a Jain the same as a Sikh? Is the Sikh the same as a Vaishnavite? Is a Tantric Bengali the same as a Sinhalese Christian or Burmese Buddhist? You could answer ”yes, in these ways” or ”no, not in these other ways”.

ex-l, I remember reading about Mohamed of Ghazni from the historian I’d previously mentioned, Romila Thapar. She reported some of the legends surrounding him and his conquest of Sarnath. The Brits latched on to him because a large diamond that became part of the british crown jewels was supposedly looted by him from that Somnath temple.

Thapar repeats the legend that the diamond floated in mid-air and in his effort to work out how, Ghazni dismantled the temple stone by stone which saw the diamond shift and sway until it finally fell to the ground. I do not remember her saying there was any other evidence for it, and that she only mentions it as its one of the few local stories about him that survived. Lekhraj, being a jeweller, of course knew this legend and mentioned it in Murlis.
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ex-l

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Re: BK knowledge is meant for real Indians

Post28 Apr 2016

India was never one until the British took it over, which makes Lekhraj Kirpalani loyalties to the British Royalty, his invocation of Mata Bharata, and his own spin on Gandhi's Swaraj quite confused.

I think, in this case, "real Indians" means all the would be Brahma Kumaris "Bharatwasis" Golden Aged souls. Even non-BK Indians would not be consider "real". Rather they would be dimissed as Copper Aged parenvues or worse still "one or two birth souls" ... "insects" on the BK dung heap.

BTW, it was the Greeks who gave the name India to India, along with their culture of representative art. All those realistic deity sculptures are really Hellenistic in origin. See, Greco-Buddhist art and the Gandhara School.

For example, some of the earliest coins found with Shiva with his "bull" (Lekhraj Kirpalani to the BKs) had Greek inscriptions on their backsides. Not that Indian sculpture is short on its representation of backsides ...

Image

Does Pakka's ire rises because of our criticism of that which makes him feel special as a real Indian, is it envy of the liberties those Whites around him have, or a puritanical disgust at their indulgences?

I am reminded of a story when one of Indian's top Bharata Natyam dancers first came to perform at a high class venue in London. She herself being from a high caste.

Asked afterwards about how she felt about her performance, she voiced disappointment it, placing blame on the thought of being in a roomful of unwashed assholes (literally). She had heard that British had the habit of "wipe and go" instead of a proper wash and clothes changing like a good Brahmin would.

True story.

But with a rising population of 1.2 billion in comparison to the West falling birth rates, India herself is hardly bereft of sex lust.
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human being

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Re: BK knowledge is meant for real Indians

Post07 Jun 2016

Okay, so this is my second post on this forum.

I went to BKs at the age of 19, haven't been to center since last 8 months and am not interested in going there anymore (I am 25 now).

First, since you have mentioned that you are highly educated, I would like to ask you a few of my doubts. I, like you, also used to take moral high ground during first few months of my BK years, but as my experiences deepened I grew out of them. Apparently, you haven't but it hardly matters to me anymore. What are your views on the theory of evolution? Are you aware that every other day new and exiting proofs are being found of ancient civilizations? A few days ago it was found by a team of IIT Kharagpur that Harappa civilization is a lot older than previously thought. (It's freely available on internet so I wont bore you with details). Even in previously known civilizations, the past happens to be significantly different than that taught by the BKs.

Even if you reject techniques like carbon dating (which is pretty foolproof by the way), there used to be slavery, rapes, tortures and all sort of horrible things in the past civilizations also not to mention widespread diseases and very low life expectancy. It totally boggles one's mind if one looks at the real picture of human history and compares it with the version of past as taught by the BKs. Also, it sounds amazing that the sheer size of this marvelous universe is totally worthless (some even suggest that it was designed to confuse 'science ghamandis'). That GOD would go to such depths to hoodwink people is a repulsive thought, at least to me.

What are your thoughts on this?
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human being

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Re: BK knowledge is meant for real Indians

Post07 Jun 2016

BTW, have you had any other supernatural/metaphysical experiences outside of your BK life. I now think that they play a huge role in convincing people that the BK knowledge is real without using the rational part of your mind.

I also used to teach newer students but I am a voracious reader. During my seven days course I underwent a huge transformation not just at the outside but also at the inner most level so much so that I used to be an example for others. Then my family followed my lead and we all went to Madhuban 5 times. I spent a considerable amount of time in 'seva' so I had read pretty much all the big books written by Jagdish Bhai. But, even at that time, I could see the logical inaccuracies in them but used to convince my self to have faith in Baba and drama.

The thing is, I have had pretty powerful experiences elsewhere as well. The reason I went to BKs is that they claimed that GOD has come finally, so I thought that at least I should try to verify this claim myself. This was my motivation. I followed the dharnas and had pretty much all the experiences which I used to deeply cherish but the thing is that an age of truth cannot be based of incomplete (and in some cases misleading) information.

BKs try to explain logically their knowledge but as soon as a contradiction arises they start talking about faith. This, in my opinion, is dishonesty which I realized even then.

PS: Both ex-I and the person who started this thread have a very narrow approach towards Indian culture and history although, ideologically, they are at opposite poles. I am sorry for sounding blunt but that is what I think is completely true and I think I can defend my position here. Thing is, I have little time to spare and am a terriblly slow writer.

Thanks for your patience.
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ex-l

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Re: BK knowledge is meant for real Indians

Post07 Jun 2016

human being wrote:PS: Both ex-I and the person who started this thread have a very narrow approach towards Indian culture and history although, ideologically, they are at opposite poles.

I am not offended by this. Your criticisms and expansions are welcome.

Normally I just try and just stick to typical BK "Indian-isms" which, in my BK experience, was mostly (Bhaibund) Sindi, Patel Gujerati, and a little Punjabi. BKism in the UK was dominated by the Sindis but managed by the East African Gujeratis at that time.

I am aware India is an entire continent that pretty much has the whole of human existence still happening all the the same time, and that things have changed in the last 30 years.
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human being

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Re: BK knowledge is meant for real Indians

Post08 Jun 2016

@ex-I:

Glad to hear this response. I am taking liberty to assume that you are at least 50 years old by reading a few of your posts. For, a westerner who took pains to adapt to a foreign culture by getting associated with brahmakumaris (which is not much different from a ... let me say it and ruin my position in heaven for every Kalpa ... a personality cult) and ended disillusioned by it, I can understand where your frustration (I am deliberately using a mild word here) comes from. In fact, I sympathize with you. But let me assure you that BKs, by no stretch of imagination, are a representative of Indian civilization in a similar fashion as KKK in USA is not a representative of ancient Greco-Roman civilization.

In fact, I think that you already know it.

The person whom you were arguing with said a lot of degrading things about West but by being equally abusive and keen to use derogatory (or perhaps under researched) information propagated by erstwhile colonial masters of the subcontinent, about its history and culture, you are not doing a service (this word still gives me chills) to your part as a major contributor to this forum, my friend.

Usually, people who attach themselves with the BKs are not psychologically very healthy no matter how deep their spiritual experiences are. So,I think they should be talked to in that fashion and dealt with accordingly. I think this way will be more productive/fruitful. But since I am just 25, and my experience is significantly lesser than yours, perhaps you are privy to some more information/wisdom and have your own reasons and motivations. Well, to each his own, after all we live in a free world (Satyug has not yet arrived;)).
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