- Posts: 69
- Joined: 29 Aug 2014
She was, I am pretty sure, the second non-Indian to become a BK. The first was Stefan Nagel, from Germany. She was the first female non-Indian BK.
She was a university graduate, not sure which speciality but in Humanities, maybe English, journalism or literature or something like that. She worked at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation before and just after becoming BK.
She started BK ”service” in North America, initially Toronto then went on to San Francisco for many years. There was always an underlying ”competition” with (New York) Mohini as to who was, or should be, North American senior.
Her status or position now is probably not one with a title. She’s probably is treated with the respect of her seniority (years as a BK) and for what she can offer to BK PR - her ability to string coherent, seemingly intelligent sentences together. ( I say seemingly because if what you say sounds intelligent but is based on errors, ommissions, presenting articles of faith as articles of fact, then no matter, its only seemingly but not actually intelligent).
She is one of the few ”senior" Western BKs, and BKs generally, to apply some intellectual & philosophical perspective to the BK teachings, making it acceptable to be a little less literal or fundamentalist in one’s approach which enabled more westerners to engage and stick. She had studied Sanskrit I think, then as a BK learnt to speak, read & write Hindi fluently. She was/is an excellent translator, maybe the best into English in terms of nuance and accuracy, that the BKs have. She also spoke French, as do many Canadians.
I believe, that is, I am of the opinion, that someone with her smarts will have, after all these years, ”intuited” that basic flaws exist in the BK narrative that cannot be ”spun" but she got caught in the identity dilemma of such a recognition i.e. whether to drop it all and make a new start or try even harder to make it make sense. That way, no admission to self needs to be made about having been mistaken for many years, that they were taken, or took themselves, for a ride.
I had heard that she went through a mental health crisis a few years back. That can happen to anyone but it would not surprise me if part of that was psychological stress based on what I described earlier rather than neuro-chemical or genetic. And the jury’s still out as to whether one is cause and the other effect, or if both ”co-arise”. If she is now better and found a ”role" where any such suffering is less, that is good for her at least.
It remains up to others, like most of us here, to present alternative ways of how the BKs and their teachings should be seen, then its up to each individual to "make up their mind” (pun intended).