The Core Beliefs of the BKWSU
The teachings of the BKWSU plays on already accepted ideas in eastern religions whilst simultaneously teaching that they are not of any existing religion and are superior to all. The basis of their beliefs is the idea that God incarnated into their founder to teach them alone, thus making them the elite souls of the world. They also believe that they are the future deity princesses of Heaven, that the world is about to end and that world history repeats identically every 5,000 years.
The BKWSU have beliefs that are unique to them in every way. Notably this includes the deeply held and dominant notion that world history repeats identically every five thousand years. They refer to it as ‘the Cycle’. In essence, they say that every 5,000 years God comes and purifies the world which is impure and corrupt, through the efforts of His ‘special, long lost and now found children’. The result is a new Golden Aged world in which all those ‘special’ souls will live as deities. According to the amount of effort those special souls made, they will become the kings and queens of Heaven. This usually means the BKWSU seniors.
In order to transition from this old, impure world to the new, golden aged world the world as we know it must be destroyed. A key element of BKWSU belief is that the world is about to end. Over the next 5,000 years the world becomes impure and corrupt as it descends through the Silver, Copper and Iron Ages. (These ages are common to Hinduism, but Hindus neither mention 5,000 years or identical repetition.) At the end of the 5,000 years, God Shiva comes again, and the same special souls will join Him again, exactly as they did in the previous cycle. This is predestiny taken to the extreme. The very dangerous implication here is that if a member fails, they fail forever. This is the concept that killed Ranjana.
A member of the BKWSU will also have accepted, believe and have faith in the following:
- - In 1936 God Shiva incarnated into the body of Dada Lehkraj to begin the process of purifying the world through His knowledge and the ‘power of yoga’.
- God Shiva renamed Dada Lehkraj as ‘Brahma’. Dada was thus anointed the ‘number one’ child of God and His primary instrument for the creation of the new Golden Aged world of Paradise. All His other true children, i.e.: those that have recognised that Shiva is teaching them through Brahma, are anointed as Brahma Kumars and Kumaris (from now on referred to as BKs) – the sons and daughters of Brahma. This extrapolates as the ‘true Brahmins’ and is a play on India’s highest caste.
- all BKs’ are the true children of God and the only true children of God. All others are like step children.
- the knowledge that Shiva gives, in conjunction with the ‘wisdom’ of Brahma, is the absolute Truth. This ‘knowledge’ is called ‘gyan’ and was delivered as sermons and transcribed. Referred to as the murli, it is the foundation of BK beliefs and lifestyle.
- that by having ‘yoga’, that is, by communing with God Shiva in meditation and “in every action”, a BK will become pure and free from the burden of their karma.
- a BK must make extreme effort for yoga in order to become pure before the ‘preordained Destruction of the world’. Otherwise there will be severe punishment meted out by Shiva in His role as dharmraj and one’s status in the new Golden Aged Kingdom will be less.
- the world will be destroyed by nuclear war and natural calamities. The first prediction was 1950, then 1976 and so on. This date has been revised a number of times and now no year is designated. Senior teachers simply play on the line “Destruction is close”/”the time is near” etc. Most Western adherents are unaware that Dada Lehkraj was committed to a 1976 end date for humanity (and all Westerners that he had earlier stated 1950) to the point he was to give up all the wealth of the organisation to the Indian Government if he was wrong. He was convinced by senior desciples not to do so however – he still maintained this conviction until his death.
- all children of God, His “Godly students”, are “numberwise”. They are not equal. Some are definitely considered to be better than others. This will be demonstrated by their commitment, their sacrifice, their renunciation (of the material world, friends and family, careers etc), understanding and hard work in the name of Shiva. They will then incarnate in Heaven numberwise – those with the highest number become the Emporers and Empresses and members of the Royal Families. Those with low numbers become cremators.
- world service, or “Seva” is pure karma. By performing pure karma one increases their eternal fortune and their number, or ranking, in Heaven. The purest karma is to dedicate oneself to the development of the organisation and to increase membership. This translates as saving souls from the current world of hell and teaching them yoga so that they can become a deity in paradise also. Subsequently every member will seek to cooperate with the development of the organisation in some way, which is the basis of the organisations’ success.
-we are all eternal souls who are the form of consciousness and reside in the brain: “I am a soul and this is my body”. God is also a soul, but the Supreme Soul who is eternally pure. His name is Shiva. This time, referred to as the ‘Confluence Age’, is the only period in history in which the soul can be purified by the Supreme soul. Effectively, nothing else matters except the effort to become pure. As all humans are impure they are either to be indoctrinated into the same belief and lifestyle, or to be avoided due to negative influence. This includes ones own immediate family. This referred to as detachment and is essential if a BK is to accumulate the necessary credits to get to heaven and live as a deity prince or princess.
-as this completely impure world is about to be destroyed one must break all attachments and give up this material world. There is no purpose in being ambitious or having worldly goals. This includes careers and professional lives. And family and friends are simply the product of attachment and past karma. Therefore they must be renounced. One must dedicate their minds to Shiva exclusively if there is to be any hope of becoming pure and “karmateet” (free from the burden of karma /past actions). All knowledge or information of the “old world” is completely impure because it is the creation of impure human beings. Therefore a BK would typically avoid reading books, papers and magazines, watching television and movies, or allow themselves to be influenced by outside sources.
This is just a brief overview of their beliefs. It is more complicated and subliminal than this. Ultimately a true believer will have divorced themselves from the world they knew before they committed themselves to the Brahma Kumaris. They will ‘surrender’ to God and therefore, by default, to the will of the seniors. After some years the failure of promises to be fulfilled will begin to stress these beliefs – but it is self belief that will crack first. Then the descent into confusion, depression and generally years of dysfunction begins.
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By Lokila, %A %B %e%q, %Y @ %I:%M %p
What about the children, brought into this organisation by their parents? They are far too young to reflext on such matters as individual freedom. Let alone they are able to compare those BK teachings with Hinduism or other religions/cults. By the time they are adults, the brainwashing is complete. They never finished high school, now nothing about reality, the world which surrounds them.
They are simply exploited and abused to ‘serve’ the system. Specially in India: hard work, no privacy, no access to media.
And the adults? Are they all capable of having balanced thoughts, revisions and intellectual debates by themselves about all these matters? No. Because this is all about emotions, about the deeper levels of our subconsiousness were we are the most vulnerable.
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By brahmakumaris.info, %A %B %e%q, %Y @ %I:%M %p
The Brahma Kumaris do not teach “Raja Yoga”, an ancient and traditional spiritual path.
Typically of their deceit, the Brahma Kumaris teach their own unique practise, based on spiritualism, which has its roots no further back than the 1950s when they first introduce the concept of “God Shiva” entering into, possessing and speaking through their founder and medium Lekhraj Kripalani.
It is to this “spirit” that the Brahma Kumaris encourage their followers to surrender their minds, bodies and wealth. It is this practise which they call “Rajyoga” or “Raja Yoga”.
The Brahma Kumaris are not Hindu. They use the language and some outward forms of Hinduism in order to promote entirely different, spiritualist beliefs. Increasingly, these beliefs are being dressed in New Age or executive coaching type language in order to attract new individuals.
However, underneath these, the core beliefs as presented in the channeled messages called the Murlis, which they protect secretively, remain relatively unchanged … unaccountable historical revisions aside.
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By Edward, %A %B %e%q, %Y @ %I:%M %p
I am glad to say that I perceived from the first moment I met Brama Kumaris back in the 80s that there was a strange subterranean current of deception.I went to an introduction to meditation meeting in London and came away quite perturbed by the atmosphere and the strong sense that I was being misled by what I was being told and it was different from what I observed.The few males I met seemed to be emotional castrates and not so much in touch with their feminine side so much as completely identified with it.I had the distinct impression that it was wrong to be male in this organisation and that maleness had no good inherent in it.As a psychotherapist specialising in hypnosis I noted the hypnotic like induction{or guidance} we had in sampling meditation.I left thinking that there seemed to be nice but duped people there but that as an organisation I felt deeply uneasy about it.To coin a phrase I would not trust this organisation an inch.Everything I have subsequently learnt over the years has confirmed by first and powerful perceptions about it.
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editor Reply:
March 25th, 2010 at %I:%M %p
I think there are many more of us who wish we had observed what you did and stayed away! Interesting observation that it is totally wrong to be a male – psychological castration and feminisation of all males who are obviously only male because of past – and very bad – karma. Twisted to say the least.
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By Edward, %A %B %e%q, %Y @ %I:%M %p
Thanks for your comments.I might add that many years later in a different location I went to an open meeting and asked a few questions of one of the leaders,an Indian lady.I do not now remember the question, nor the answer.I do remember that I continued to question her and it was obvious to me that she surrounded herself with an impenetrable air of spiritual superiority in relation to me.Ultimately she actually patted me on the head implying as she did so that{there,there} one day when I was grown up I would understand such deep matters.I thought that she was outrageously self deluded and was torn for a moment between confronting her patronisation of me or laughing outright in her face at the absurdity of it.In the end I did neither , concluding that this was more than just a quirk on the part of one person,rather something that reflected a sample of the underlying values of the organisation.I was also absolutely certain that any confrontation{no matter how mild} would ultimately only serve for such an individual to confirm the truth and worth of Brahma Kumaris and my lack of truth and worth.In short any comment that I made would hold up no mirror to what I saw plainly,instead be proof of my lack of light and desperate materialism.Such attitudes are circular,self serving and ultimately self deceptive.How sad that peace should be bought at such a price and yet prove attractive to some.
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