Talk:Brahma Kumaris

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Some inaccuracies in the article

I don't feel the need to qualify myself as a BK, in real life or on wikipedia. You may believe about me what you will, but either way that does not disqualify me from making edits. My edits should be judged for what they, and not who they were done by, as with anyone else. Out of interest, have you been in gyan for 20 years or is it that you came into gyan 20 years ago and left some years after? How the Knowledge is taught in India and abroad is obviously going to be different due to a different audience with different cultures, traditional beliefs etc. I believe you have some bias against the BKs. The wording of your posts suggests so, as does your linking to an organisation made up of ex-BKs which would be inherently biased against the BKs. Please attempt keep your bias in check. I will attempt the same with mine.

• 1. 'I can certainly say that it was Shrimat for BKs not to court or accept donations from Shudra souls. It still is largely in India where bribery and corruption are rife but I cannot state if this is still true for the West now.' [emphasis added]. If that is the case you will need to provide citations that this was the case, and the sentence that states that 'Donations are generally not accepted from non-B.K.s as their money is considered as " impure "' will need to be removed as it does not cite an authoritative source. 'Murlis' on an ex-BK website do not constitute reliable sources when the topic at hand is the BK organisation itself. If it cannot be proved either way, it should be omitted from the article. Anything else would be siding with the version of the article before my edit simply because it was the earlier version. Also, the process is what is important here and not the person, as 'impure' souls are capable of doing 'pure' acts. After all, most BKs aren't at a karmateet stage and so are still 'impure' so to say.

• 2. a. Even if the BK estimates are seen as unreliable, then the article will have to reflect that. But at the moment that section does not cite a source.

b. 'A multi-million dollar registered "educational" charity that in 70 years has only been known once to distribute aid outside of its operations.' That is not even a proper sentence. It definitely does not belong under a section entitled 'Global Expansion'. What it lacks in form it also lacks in content. It is misleading in that it gives the impression that the BKs are hoarding money, and if it is to be said that the BKs have only ever once donated outside of its operations, then it will also need to be said exactly where this money is going instead.

• 3. 'Their god' is not neutral wording. Again, Brahma Baba is not seen as God. Yes, the word 'businessman' is accurate, but not in this context! He was a diamond jeweller but this was not continued once the BKs were established. This is misleading and derragotory, implying he became a spiritual leader because of the business prospects! Also it does not need to state that he was a 'priest or authentic caste Brahmin.' This section especially is full of fragments and needs to be edited.

• 4. Again, you would need to a cite a reliable and authoritative source. Also, any reference the BKs make to 'Krishna' is not what is typically seen as Krishna - with the latter being purple skinned, an avatar of Vishnu etc. This is inaccurate and misleading, and this sentence needs to be changed to avoid this, seeing as this sections attempts to outline the core philosophy and beliefs of the BKs.

I believe this article needs to be flagged as NPOV and a warning needs to be up saying that it does not cite its sources. PEACE 89.240.134.193 09:58, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

OK. I apologize for the forthrightness but let us take this point by point using sources acceptable to the Wikipedia to check your neutrality, competance and integrity as a Wiki researcher. Unfortunately, the NPOV tag is all too often used by individuals or organizations that have something to hide, to discredit objective and documented reviews of their activities. A Wiki topic is not intended as PR for the BKWSU. That is what its own websites are for. Let us work together to provide citable sources.

• 2 b.Donations and the Multi-Millions. Let us look at the British BKWSU zone as you are under its influence. Hopefully, you will be able to produce accounts internationally and from the Indian headquarters to disprove the assertion made at present on the basis of the folowing.

According the English Charity's stated object, it was set up on 18 July 1975 to:

• (I) TO PROMOTE THE ADVANCEMENT OF THE HINDU RELIGION AND OTHER RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD.
• (II) TO PROMOTE STUDIES OF AND RESEARCH IN THE FIELD OF HINDU RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY, YOGA (VARIOUS TECHNIQUES OF CONCENTRATION AS DEFINED AND DISCUSSED IN HINDU SCRIPTURES) AND TO MAKE KNOWN THE RESULTS OF SUCH STUDIES AND RESEARCH.
• (III) TO RELIEVE POVERTY, MENTAL AND PHYSICAL SICKNESS AND DISTRESS.

Source: [1]

According to accounts held in the public domain at the Charitable Commission here; [2], over the last 5 years it has had a income of £1,200,000 to £2,800,000 and holds in excess of £15,000,000 in the bank taken in donations from its followers. It has spent approximately £1,000,000 on a new meditation centre and accounts state that its policy is" to invest in bank deposits".

Show me, via the accounts where or when it has ever acted to alleviate poverty from the period of 1975 onwards and how it spent money alleviating poverty. Perhaps once you have done so, we can also address as an additional point, whether the BKWSU was actually set up to "PROMOTE THE ADVANCEMENT OF THE HINDU RELIGION" and whether it is based on beliefs "DEFINED AND DISCUSSED IN HINDU SCRIPTURES". Your statements regarding Krishna would seem to contradict this.

Please note, Chief administrator, Dadi Janki Kripalani is on her own website reported to be a "a highly effective spiritual entrepreneur", here [3] and elsewhere through the media. It would not therefore appear that the correlation between business and spirituality is contradictory to the organization's activities.

Thank you. 195.82.106.244 14:14, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

195.82.106.244, had a look at the Charitable commission accounts link that you cited. Got to say it all looks entirely reasonable to me. Most of the £15 million is tied up in buildings and other essential service facilities.

So how do they address poverty? Couple of things I might mention. When I first ran into the bk about 5 years ago now, I noticed discreet little boxes with “Indian Earthquake” Appeal on them. No hard sell, no obligation, but if you inquired you were welcome to make a donation, casual visitors included.

As to how they do it in the West. Happy enough to speak from experience. You’re encouraged to develop a spiritual perspective which not only improves mental and physical health, gotta tell you bud, the day to day basics become a whole heap more affordable when you finally draw the line on the 30 fags a day and pub every night after work habit. More too, much of the infantile keeping up with the Jones’s led consumerism goes as well, so even more hard earned cash stays in your bank account.

As to your query on “whether the BKWSU was actually set up to "PROMOTE THE ADVANCEMENT OF THE HINDU RELIGION" and whether it is based on beliefs "DEFINED AND DISCUSSED IN HINDU SCRIPTURES".”

Well, I’m no real student of the core teachings, but I've had a look at one of the more balanced references on this site. Reender Kranenborg, Free University of Amsterdam. " Brahma Kumaris: A New Religion? " [8], 1999. Might shed some light for you.

--searchin man 00:14, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

• As far as the core teachings go, I prefer the core teachings which are easily verifiable by Wikipedia standards and so therfore citable. You can read some of them here. [4]. The BKWSU generally keep them locked up with passwords and PGP encryption on the internet but some BKs are sick of that - or support the PBKs - and have released them to the public domain. A number of non-orthodox BKs are also publishing them, so we do not have to rely on hearsay or front of house PR any more. Failing these, you can go to a BK Raja Yoga Centre and request to be read them.
• Donations. Just show us the bottomline. How much, where, when.
• Raja Yoga is not based on Hindu scriptures - any BK care to disagree and provide citable references ? BKs believe that the Hindu Scriptures are based on BKWSU teachings. I can provide citations.
• "Baba says is the Murlis" - which is something that you will hear the BKs say all the time - that BK don't perform Bhakti, don't go to Temples, worship statues, follow Gurus etc. What they are told is that they belong to their own BK Brahmin Religion that will then become the 900,000 strong Deity religion in the future heavenly Golden Age [ approx 30 years ] and then in about 2,500 years reincarnate again as Hindus worshipping themselves. The only argument for "advancing the Hindu religion" is essentially destroying it or leading its followers out of "impurity" and "ignorance". Which are the words they use. - any BK care to disagree and provide citable references ? 195.82.106.244 04:54, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I state "BK Brahmin" and "BK Raja Yoga" so as not to confuse between the BKs and proper caste Brahmins and traditional Raja Yoga.

BTW, 89.240.134.193, Shamsunder Krishna is blue not purple. It is symbolic.

NPOV

"I believe this article needs to be flagged as NPOV and a warning needs to be up saying that it does not cite its sources. PEACE 89.240.134.193 09:58, 28 August 2006 (UTC)"

It is evident that the authors of this page have a clear dislike with BK. User .244 has his own web site brahmakumaris.info where he clearly edits, changes and does wahtever is necessary to fit his beliefs, it is not surprising that he wants to do the same here. Any serious "encyclopedia" must have a non-biased approach when informing the public. How many votes do we need to get the NPOV tag and a very strong warning? What is the policy on this? So far 2 votes.

Last but no least, Talkabout. still waiting for the "computer glitch" in the brahmakumaris.info to be resolved. My membership there has not been reinstated. I am being blamed for calling "Ex-l" as "195.82.106.244" and that was considered a personal attack. Hopefully he will not edit this out.

As always Best Wishes, avyakt7 21:17, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

OK Avyakt Bud, sound enough, but I can see no reference to this on the brahmakumaris.info forum, so I guess it must have been censured as well? What say you .244? Tell you what Bud, if you are Ex-l, then from what I’ve seen of your postings, I wouldn’t say you’ve a clear dislike for the bk, more the mother of all clear dislikes for not only them but pretty much anyone else you can find on the web with any hint of association with them.

Guess we better make that 3 votes for the NPOV tag then hadn’t we? Sincerely searchin man 23:05, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

avyakt7,

I must say to you that your sensitivity here is lacking. As stated before there was no issue until your membership was at risk. Play nice and maybe others will play with you.

• First, as you know many Ex BK suffer from trauma once they leave due to the constant talk of destruction.
• Secondly, the forums serve as a place where they (ExBks) do not have fear, where they have an outlet to discuss all these tenents that the Organisation wants kept secret and which they are trying to sort out.
• Thirdly, I see that the PBKs act with more tact and sensitivity in being able to play nice in the sandbox with both BKs and ExBKs. Your skills (computer/flash) are good, artistic and I am sure you can elicit some interaction from other active BKs. So, if you can't play nice, start your own party. MY VOTE IS NO NPOV.

Riveros 11 avyakt7 = searchin man? Are we having a duality moment here?

TalkAbout 01:00, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Bhais,

a) If you want to use the Wikipedia, read the rules. " Wikipedia is not an experiment in democracy or any other political system. Its primary method of determining consensus is discussion, not voting. In difficult cases, straw polls may be conducted to help determine consensus, but are to be used with caution and not to be treated as binding votes. "

That is the official policy.

b) 89.240.134.193 if you want citations, place one of the following citation request at the point where it is required by using the following markup ;

{{cn}} or {{Cite needed}}

and allow us time to provide them. Be warned, it is a two way process and the BKWSU will equally have to provide its citations where requested and I would like to request now overall Global financial statements detailing how much money and what proportion of donations it has actually given to alleviate poverty, when it started to do so and so on. If you can request this from your Zone-in-Charge then we will make for a very neutral and accurate report.

c) If you have answers, and citable sources, let us see them and reach that consensus. You have not provided any to support your positions to date. I am perfectly willing to provide mine.

d) Avyakt7, honestly, if you got kicked off a webforum for attacking someone else, go fix it with the owners. You are a BK teacher in Florida. That was obvious back in March of this year. What Shrimat have your taken to act in the manner that you are acting? Tell us the whole story. More personal attacks?

OK, so I voted against your "Cycle of Time" topic but the overwhelming consensus was against you. I am sure you love Baba but science is another game.

d) Transformation versus Destruction. Avyakt7 again. Yes, I also removed your Transformation re-writes. We all know that the concept of "Destruction" is and has been key to the BKWSU teachings. OK. I am very sorry if I hurt your feelings. But if the BKWSU have stated there is going to be no Destruction, no death of 6 Billion human beings, no Confluence Age, therefore no Golden Age - provide the citations.

So, of course, it does not require a NPOV. What it requires is dialogue and citable evidence. Honestly, you BKs are becoming more like the Scientologists every day! 195.82.106.244 04:22, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Godly Intellectual Property.

In order to illustrate the Wikipedia article on the BKWSU, we propose to reference original teaching posters as inspired and authenticated by God Shiva and Brahma Baba.

We have listed the following images but these require a correct copyright to be assigned to them. This raises an interesting dilemma ;

• Who owns the copyright to God's works or God's versions? Are they covered by limited, proprietory licenses or are they open and unlimited?

To our minds, the answer has to be no one. They must surely be in the public domain, or Copyleft, as they have been given freely by God, and Prajapita, to humanity in order that eacha nd every individuall may use them to earn their own inheritance. In a sense, God Shiva appears to support the GNU 'General Public License' principle.

Following on from this ;

• What is the accredited creation date for The Cycle, The Ladder, The Trimurti, and the Lakshmi and Narayan concepts?

Presumably the individual artists gave over their personal rights to the images, as the ideas were not theirs in the first place, but perhaps you can clarify what rights Shiva Baba - or the BKWSU - exert over Godly Intellectual Property in your role in the Global IT Team.

• Lastly, if possible, we would like to give proper credit to the original artists.

We await your advises with concern.

Thank you.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bklandn_A4.jpg
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bkcycle_A4.jpg
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bkladder_A4.jpg
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bktree_A4.jpg

Brahmakumaris.info 15:22, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Anonymity, Cults and personal attacks.

User Riveros11 or Avyakt7 enters into this discussion have been allegedly kicked off a discussion forum. He had allegedly been attempting to reveal personal information about another person he had dug off the internet in a menacing manner, presumably intended to win an argument.

As a cult member of this group we are documenting, immediately he commences exactly the strategy attacking me and attempting to connect me with this other individual. Obviously, a strategy of intimidation used by Cults like the Scientologist to frighten individuals off from revealing their truths to the public eye, he now engages a 'buddy' to help him.

The Wikipedia protects individuals and encourages discussion. Its official policy is "no personal attacks" and within personal attacks is stated, "Threats or actions which expose other Wikipedia editors to political, religious or other persecution by government, their employer or any others. Violations of this sort may result in a block for an extended period of time which may be applied immediately by any sysop upon discovery". So, in line with policy, I am formaly requesting you to decist from personal attacks and to remove any smears, allegations or confusions you are attacking me with.

As an example of which, I would like to illustrate. Riveros11 or Avyakt7 has an issue with Destruction and Transformation. If we take his user names, those subjects and his known affiliation with this cult and put them into Google, within a few steps it reveals

• his proper name • his place of work • his department and position [or at least a recent one] • his professional qualifications • two telephones • work email address • his degree of involvement with the BKWSU

Within a few steps, one is about 70% on the way to identity theft.

Now, given the current state of tension, fear and security paranoia within the USA; BKWSU teacher Avyakt7 writes on more than on forum, "We, will destroy our planet. We have the means to do it now. Our technology “know how” have created the bombs. Many countries have them. The bombs will be used". Now, it is also policy that, "membership of an organization does not prohibit an indivdual from contributing". But from this, we could easily say Avyakt7 to be;

• a recruiting leader of an extremist Eastern cult involved in psychic channelling and mind control • a cult that believes in the destruction of free society and that it is agent to destroying free society • a leader who demands total surrender of mnd, body and wealth • a leader that teaches that "the world is a haystack ... it will burn" to "make Heaven on Earth" for his 900,000 virgin followers • a group that operates numerous fronts and is infiltrating politics and power internationally • cult members of whom chop and change representing these various fronts in public

You can see how a malicious individual could use such easily gleaned personal information in a personal attack. Now, obviously, I have deliberately constructed an extreme scenario here - but the citations are there to support it. What does the general public really know about what is going on inside the mind of Raja Yoga / BKWSU? But I suggest that if we meet in the Wikipedia, we observe the Wiki's policies.

When in Rome ... and all that. 195.82.106.244 13:41, 29 August 2006 (UTC)