GuptaRati 6666 wrote:Mr. Green does have a valid point; the BK meditation seems to elicit Benson's relaxation response (RR). How much of the RR is elicited by BK meditation? The question needs to be answered by scientific investigation ...
Something we (at least a few of us) were aware of when I was teaching BK Raja Yoga -
I don't think it is universal with the cult - is that there are various different stages or practised before "hitting the bullseye" with BK Raja Yoga. That is to say, the mind needs to be quietened down a far degree *before* the individual gets near actually having "Yoga" (connecting) with their god spirit, starting with contemplation or simple repetition of words and ideas (an 'internal' mantra) leading to a sort of auto-hypnosis.
BKism appears to be becoming vaguer and vaguer as to its practises, and less demanding of newcomers or adherents to the point where pretty much *anything* counts as "Yoga" ... even, to quote Janki Kirpalani, "saying Baba 10,000 times a day". A practise or concept borrowed identically from Bhakti Yoga (e.g. chanting Krishna's name).
As you say, how much of the relaxation response is just from that generic aspect of BKism, ie that part of it that is common with most meditation practises such as mindfulness?
But, for me, I'd put the wierd and wonderful experiences far *beyond* that element.
How many, what proportion of, BKs get beyond those early steps ever, who knows? There's no way of telling. All the BK leaders really care about is whether you say the right things, in the right BK language, afterwards. How can they really tell what "stage" your meditation is at? Do they have a "yoga-o-meter" yet?
To pick up where we were with Leaf, and a bit of a longer answer, although I am pretty sure it must have been discussed by the Tibetans and Vedantic sages, and the Ancient Greeks and Egyptians, in the West, this discussion really all took place in the middle of the 18th and 19th Centuries, during a period where youthful science was rising to challenge, and ultimately defeat, ancient religion.
I think the idea of it all being auto-suggestion really goes back to the doctors
Franz Mesmerand
James Braid (who coined the term "hypnotism"), a tale that includes many great minds of the era, such as Benjamin Franklin. It is not a new discussion at all and, if anyone is interested, they ought to read up on it.
Franz Mesmer was a fantastic hypnotist who came up with his own theory of animal magnetism and flowing internal energies (chi?) from the practioner upon the patient, including the use of 'gaze'. In many ways, I see the Lekhraj Kirpalani of the early days as a kind of 'mesmerist' ... bearing in mind that he was publicly accused of mass hypnosis of the women in his Om Mandli cult. His early seances bore much in common with Mesmer's demonstrations, including the sexualised element (eg repressed women experiencing "ecstacies").
Mesmer became very famous and influential but his theories were ultimately discredited by investigation, including the first placebo-controlled trial of a therapy. You can see how influential this was. But the effects were very real and, to a point, I think the critics missed the point which was not the 'how' of how it worked but rather the power of suggestion and how it worked.
Braid came along and stripped it of its hocus pocus elements and turned it into a therapy, developing 'self-' or 'auto-hypnotism'. He saw it as merely a psycho-physiological mechanism. A a psychological phenomena rooted in a physiological process. Interestingly, Braid researched eye-fixation and also drew analogies between his own practice of hypnotism and various forms of Hindu Yoga meditation and other ancient spiritual practices.
Like I wrote ... "nothing new under the sun".
The next great assualt was the fight between the materialist and spiritualist around the turn of the 19th/20th Century, by which I mean spirit mediums, psychism, spiritism, channelling and the likes. Although in theory, this kind of "spiritualism" - congress with disincarnate or "higher" spirit beings, angels etc - was debunk in the West, it has hardly gone away and is still active all over the world.
BKism is a spiritualist religion. It's core is not medatitive or yogic, it is spiritualistics. It is based on the channelling and mediumship of spirits, disincarnated human beings, dead elders and ancestors ... a very ancient and universal practise. All that is new about BKism, is that they claim their god spirit is the God of all religions; the God of the Gita, the Bible, the Koran etc ... (they don't say much about Buddhism!).
But the aim of the practise is the same ... a submission to these spirits in a mediumistic manner so as to become a channel for their influences.
Many of the arguments regarding hypnotism and spiritualism and BK Raja Yoga are in no way new. They are all pretty repetitions of the arguments I've briefly mentioned above.
However, I'll suggest a model by which to understand the process of BKism ...
It starts by simple, innocent contemplations (e.g. I am a peaceful soul) ... progresses into an auto-hypnotic state ... afterwhich, once stilled sufficiently, one is encouraged to open up to these other spiritualistic influences ... and become am unconcious medium or channel for them.
The BKs do not state this openly but it is what is often stated in their teachings.
You are being set up - mentally, physically, psychically - for their god spirits, their deceased leaders, their allegedly enlightened leaders to work through ... in a literally manner. Not a metaphorical one.
So the question I ask you is, do you want to psychically opened up so that their 'spooks' occupy your body and mind and can work through you?
And, to be honest, it does not matter whether you believe is spooks and spirits and spiritualism or have some other theory for what it all means ... Because that is *exactly* what BKism says it is doing and what BKs *aim* to have have happen.
I am of much of the materialist criticisms of spiritualism - I am sceptical of the skeptics - because, subject to their own confirmational biases - I think they rather miss the point.
Materialist tend to criticise spiritualism merely because it does not work, because it is not reliable, because there is no acceptable theory to explain its mechanism; simply because their world view does not allow "other realms", "life after death", "angels", "disincarnate beings" and so on. They would argue because it is not reliable, it is not true.
I would say that being unreliable is not proof of non-existence, it is merely the nature of spirits!!!
And that is certainly true of the BKs' god spirit.
Why would you want to be drugged up on whatever bliss the BKs offer, when the end result is surrendering and becoming subject to a vain, narcissisticm utterly unrelaible megalomaniac ... who really wants all of your money and property ... and who sees the only cure for the world's problems to being killing off humanity by nuked them!
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BTW, if you dad is a BK, it is very likely that he is going to give all this money and property to the BKs ... so start working on it now to protect that and stop the BKs getting it. Keep it within the family.
Don't discuss the philosophy, discuss where the money is going.