29 Mar 2020
It is common just before death, especially in the aged, for what appears to be a ”recovery” to happen. So those messages may have been ‘honest reports’.
I spent a number of years under her tutelage in London. What can I say? At first I thought she was the bee’s knees, by the time I left there I had seen many faults. OMG! She’s human? And so are all of them!
And the most wonderfully crazy, faultily human of them all was old Dada Lekhraj with his (relatively benign) god-complex that attracted those looking for something similar to what he offered. The thing Janki and others learnt most from him, I believe, is how to ”project” an aura of spiritual "aloofness” and knowingness, and in speech make simple things sound profound. A bit like Peter Sellers’ character Chauncey Gardener in the film ”Being There” .
And, just like Chauncey, simplistic homilies can seem wondrously insightful to those caught up in life’s complexities, and so they are seen as elevated and wise. TBH Gyan is a pretty limited body of knowledge that borrows heavily on the traditions it pretends to be the superior originator of, i.e. Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism.
Within the BK paradigm Janki was definitely a deeper thinker than most. Like a bush mechanic, she used what she had to make things (logically) ”work” in inventive ways. I, too, had the aptitude to utilise that skill so as to be convincing and ‘create subjects’, i.e. convince others of the Gyan.
It requires three things - intelligence, sincere belief and the hard work (effort-making) to make the sow’s ear appear to be a silk purse to oneself firstly, and with one’s own sincere wonderment at the fantastic construct, convince others.
I had a respect for her early on as she saw something in me and encouraged it, which boosted my ego nicely (Yes I am special) but later she was not shy in letting me know that she was disappointed in my unwillingness to be a subservient zombie robot BK.
One thing she said had a major effect on me, it made me see what the game was about.
We were lined up to get toli from her after a meditation session. When I got there, she took my hands and held them, a lovely soft warm feeling, and she gave me quite long dristi. I'd had very good, powerful meditation. My experiences in meditation at that time were often very much like the Yogi in Bliss picture the BKs used in their literature - seeing auras, radiating light etc was common. My meditations were very much about going into deep silence/seed stage as BKs called it, something common to all the great traditions, and not the usual visualisations and love affirmations of Brahma/BapDada, i.e emotional devotional projections.
She held my hands, then in a gentle voice praised my Yoga by saying "Very good. Very good”.
She’s lifting my hands up and down, those beady bright eyes drilling deep into mine. I felt comfortable with it and was returning it as positively as I could, not submissive in any way, more like a co-conspirator, an initiate. TBH, there was a little uncertainty - what was this about? - given that she had not spent any time with the people in front of me, and in these situations she rarely said much to me anyway, so why was she holding me there?
Still moving my hands up and down, then stopping, then holding them firmly, she said ”You fill the room” then kept looking deep into my eyes, ”You can fill the world”.
Ego nicely softened - yes, that’s me, super yogi finally being validated by the boss. I was about to move on thinking that was it, but she held on to my hand and held me there, then she said ” You have no guilt.”
I think to myself ”Yes, true enough. That’s good”.
But she then says "You need to feel guilt."
"Wha...?” is what i thoight but what I said was ”Excuse me?”.
She said again, "You need to feel guilt. Then you will progress”.
I was momentarily bemused, then thought this was quite funny, but did not show or say that. She let go and I moved on.
Over time this scene replayed in my mind and gradually I realised what this had been about. I was being tempted, suckered, she was trying to shape me into being someone else, probably to be her ”creature" in exchange for acknowledgement, and the first step was for me to be more stereotypically ”pukka” in how I lived my life so that I could then be utilised. (At the time, I was known for shamelessly doing what I felt when I felt, within certain BK disciplines - going out to see movies, missing morning class or Amrit Vela without remorse, those things did not bother me the way others let it deeply bother them. Someone like me could not be put out front, or be controlled, despite other ”talents”.
I lived in London over 8 years. As I matured, I found her previously profoud ”philosophy” was becoming less so to me. I was spotting more contradictions and absurdities. Maybe the buzz, the zeal of the convert, was wearing off and the veil falling from my eyes. She always had presence but this had no corollary with intellectual integrity. And I witnessed some of the **** she had put on some people - those who would take it, she gave it. After one young man whom she considered a ‘protege” decided to grow a beard, the way adolescents do to show they are now mature enough to, and a few others followed suit - a fad, she ordered that ”Brothers should not have beards” and they all shaved. So seeing this as an intrusion into a person;s autonomy, I started to grow mine. That is, i was a BK for my own reasons and no one else’s and never took their ****. Is that what she meant by ”I need to feel guilt? (I think so, yes).
She was definitely an interesting figure in my life, although I have a couple of High School teachers whom I now realise were more important in informing and shaping me.
There’s the saying ”When the student is ready the teacher appears”.
Most take that to mean there is one ultimate teacher who will only appear to us when we have done the prerequisites. I now understand that to mean that, whatever level you are on, that level of consciousness determines who you will look toward to learn from. Teachers are meant to be learnt from and left behind as we move to the next level, just as we move through grades at school Those teachers do not try to keep us there, at the same level, on the contrary.
Dogma, however, is a glass ceiling or cage, in the same way ego is.
Dadi Janki promoted dogma and subservience to her cause and her view. She was not about helping a student grow beyond needing her or the BKs.
The whole BK microcosmos is about being pulled into their orbit then being held there in their "gravity". The centre of that solar system was meant to be ”God” but it really was Brahma/Lekhraj wearing his delusional gold-leaf mask of a sun god, i.e. it’s 2-dimensional, a party trick that relies on a person's willingness to suspend disbelief and be part of the charade.
Some of us reach escape velocity and break free.