In my opinion, the BKs' whole celibacy thing was just adopted as a front and as a reaction *against* criticisms of the cult in its early days when the founder, Lekhraj Kirpalani, took liberties with the young girls and women.
He lay with them, bathed with them, massaged them (the court record specifically states "breasts") even fed them mouth to mouth like only the closest of lovers do ... and their number 2, Om Radhe, defended this saying that "everything they did was pure because they were with their divine Father, God Brahma".
It was only later than they adopted the strict "no touching" rule and it was the court, not Lekhraj Kirpalani, who separated male and female accomodation.
Since then, I just think that most of their behaviour is just a conformity to Indian religious expectation. Around the 1950s, when they "revealed" their new god Shiva, they had run out of money to survive. All Lekhraj Kirpalani's wealth was used up, as were other families, even compensation taken from the British government. Lekhraj Kirpalani's had a private non-BK donor but I suspect that source dried up too.
At that point they had to start going out into the world, in essense, to beg for money ... to bring money back to Mount Abu firstly from Sindhi families they had known in Hyderabad and Karachi, then from innocent Hindus.
For me, it's a simple matter.
They wanted to make money from looking religious and performing a religious function for society, so they copied the real world Brahmins and borrowed from real world religions making up their own.
He lay with them, bathed with them, massaged them (the court record specifically states "breasts") even fed them mouth to mouth like only the closest of lovers do ... and their number 2, Om Radhe, defended this saying that "everything they did was pure because they were with their divine Father, God Brahma".
It was only later than they adopted the strict "no touching" rule and it was the court, not Lekhraj Kirpalani, who separated male and female accomodation.
Since then, I just think that most of their behaviour is just a conformity to Indian religious expectation. Around the 1950s, when they "revealed" their new god Shiva, they had run out of money to survive. All Lekhraj Kirpalani's wealth was used up, as were other families, even compensation taken from the British government. Lekhraj Kirpalani's had a private non-BK donor but I suspect that source dried up too.
At that point they had to start going out into the world, in essense, to beg for money ... to bring money back to Mount Abu firstly from Sindhi families they had known in Hyderabad and Karachi, then from innocent Hindus.
For me, it's a simple matter.
They wanted to make money from looking religious and performing a religious function for society, so they copied the real world Brahmins and borrowed from real world religions making up their own.