Do BKs realise they are joining a doomsday cult?

[jannisder]

For the last few years, I have been studying everything that has to do with religion, cults, new religion movements, mind power, brainwashing, Persuasion Techniques used by cults - and so one, oh yeah ... of course ... spirituality.

All reports on dangerous doomsday cults points directly to the Brahma Kumaris organization. What is your opinion?

Do you know the warning signs and what do you think of it? Do you admit you are in a doomsday cult and even happy about that? And if so, why should I join?? What do you have to offer me??

The first lesson is, "never tell a cult member he/she is in a cult". But I did! His reaction was exactly as described as how a cult member would react, so no surprise there.

[fluffy bunny]

Ah ... but the difference between BKs and "doomsday cults" is that ... "this REALLY, REALLY, REALLY IS GOD AND DOOMSDAY THIS TIME!!!" Allegedly.

BKs won't answer but the question must be firmly in the back of their mind. Only time will tell. To that extent, someone somewhere will have to keep documenting all their revisions and re-inventions in order that new followers/initiates/victims are not suckered in. In the meanwhile, it is like trying to talk to a teenager high on drugs ... "it feels so good, I never want it to end!!!".

Congratulations Jannisder, you passed the 2 year course ... you are now an fully authorised cult-exiting counsellor. But the fist and last lesson in counseling is,

• Keep your 'friends' separate from your 'clients' and never have a relationship with a 'client'.

[jannisder]

With all this mind control knowledge and power I can turn a client into a friend in a view seconds and even a friend into a client. :D

[fluffy bunny]

I can turn a client into a friend in a view seconds and even a friend into a client.

You don't want to. You don't want to become co-dependent to their attention seeking drama.

[jannisder]

Anyway ...

THE WARNING SIGNS:

• 1) The spiritual group claims to have received special instructions from one or more "messengers from the sky."

Brahma Kumaris:

“The knowledge that Baba gives is totally unique. No one except you can understand it."
“It is only we Brahmins who study these teachings.”
“People don’t know anything they are like those who are uneducated, they are completely senseless buddhus.”
“My understanding is accurate everyone else is lost in misunderstanding”.
“People belonging to other religions will neither understand these matters nor make efforts."

• 2) The spiritual group uses a special set of rules that you must obey or be cast out.

Brahma Kumaris:

First promise to Baba.: “We will break all other connections and we will have connection with you alone.”
“One should not eat food cooked by sinful ones. As far as possible keep saving yourself."
“I will sit where ever you make me sit, I will do whatever you asked me to do”.
“One Baba and know one else to eat only with you, to speak only to you, to listnen only to you.”
"If you do not study you will suffer loss."
"One has to leave everything including this body. Therefore you develop detachment for this old world. You also have detachment for this old body."

• 3) The spiritual group demands that you give up as much of your assets and your yearly income to it as possible.

Brahma Kumaris

The intellect of those who are still working, understand that all of it is for Baba. Otherwise how would the business of the Yagya (organization) continue”?
"If you have money you can use that money in a worth while way for alokik service.”

• 4) The members of the spiritual group call each other "brother" and "sister," even when they aren't related at all.

“You children are brothers and sisters. There are no other relationships”. It is better to be Brothers and Sisters, is not it? So, one has to become Brahmakumar-Kumari. Then one can never indulge in lust. Otherwise, it will be a criminal assault.

[paulkershaw]

I just want to point out, for clarity's sake that the title of this thread is a little misleading. One is not a BK until one decides to join the BKWSU and one cannot join without doing the 7 Day Course first and thereafter deciding to attend class and becoming more involved on a day to day basis. To say that one is a BK, simply means that one works with the core teachings of the BKWSU in one's daily life to some degree or the other. In fact, one does not officially join unless you get surrendered by your family or choose to surrender totally. In most cases, each member is supposedly only 'involved' to their own choice of individual participation.

BKs don't join a "doomsday cult", they become part of it as they go along; and the vast majority of its members do not susbscribe, call or entertain a single thought about the organisation they 'belong' to as being a cult. Never mind a doomsday one. They're too busy thinking of how they can overcome that particular event by becoming more and more angelic within themselves.

[fluffy bunny]

In a way, the Brahma Kumaris have to accept being the 'Mother of all Doomsday Cults" - on the basis of their philosophy which implicates that all "Doomsday Cults" are imperfect and incomplete "memorials" of them from last Cycle of Time. They are the only one true "Doomsday Cult". Its logically inescapable.

But Paul raises some interesting questions; at what point does one "become a Brahma Kumari" ... especially now, given that Doomsday, "Destruction", is buried away in a course, after a course, after a course? Is one socially and psychically inducted BEFORE one know the big picture or can one only be considered a BK AFTER one is given the big picture and accepts in. In the old days, and still in India, there were surrendering ceremonies, signed 'letters of faith', may saw that only when you got your BK ring you were "married" to the spirit entity BapDada.

I am not comfortable using this c-word as a strategy because it is too easily defeated and, as we saw with the recent Police/State action, becoming politicised. But "cultic" is accurate and academic. There are distinctly cultic aspects to the Brahma Kumaris centered around the secrecy of the teachings, the leadership's personality and the unaccountable, power structure.

But even once "in", and after surrendering or signing one's soul away, how many BKs really, honestly believe in 5,000 years Cycles and Destruction? Not the full 100% I would say. We were lead to believe by the leadership that they are toning down "Destruction" and it was becoming "Transformation", oh how nice, but the recent reform documents saw them asking whether they should be more outfront about "the changes" that were coming.

But, yes, I think it is a good thing for newcomers to know exactly what lies in the heart of the BKs BEFORE they are inducted. Over to you ... BKs.