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BKWSU information technology team

Greetings! I am a member of the BK information technology team approaching you, on their behalf, regarding the content of the article about the Brahma Kumaris on the Misplaced Pages page. It is a fairly comprehensive article with a clear structure and leaves the reader with an appreciation of the effort that may have gone into its research.

However, it is misleading in that whilst appearing to be authoritative, it is written in a way as to bias the uninformed reader against the organisation. In a number of places, use of disparaging language and a gross misrepresentation of facts gives the impression that the article hasn’t been written in good faith.

An example of a straight untruth appears in the fourth paragraph under “Origins”, where the entry states that the community moved to Mount Abu in 1950 “mainly due to the religious resistance to its activities in Pakistan”. In fact, the group had become well-respected in Karachi, where local leaders tried to dissuade them from leaving. They moved to India at the request of relatives.

Everyone has an equal right to contribute to this article and we respect that individuals have a right to express their opinions about the organisation. However, as the Misplaced Pages site is used by many as a reference for what they consider to be a neutral point of view, the existence of such a biased article is an issue that warrants attention.

With respect to the rules that Misplaced Pages sets out for proceeding forward amicably, I look forward to engaging in discussion with you so that proposed changes can be reviewed before any implementation occurs. Having read the discussion pages, I plan to start proposing incremental changes to the page over a period of time.

In the first instance, bearing in mind the above and evidence of obvious questioning of neutrality in the discussion pages, we would like to re-instate the neutrality warning box. I hope that this is acceptable. Bksimonb 05:12, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Welcome BK Simon.

From our point of view, we have watched this topic develop with interest and welcome your input. The previous propaganda whitewashes and outright vandalism have done nothing to benefit the reputation of either your organization nor the Brahma Kumars and/or Kumaris that perpetrated them.

Before any changes or edits are made, including re-instating the neutrality box as obviously your position is not entirely neutral, can we establish on which grounds you are wish to make these changes?

• Are you acting personally, on behalf of the "BKWSU MultiMedia and Global PublicRelations Wing" under B.K. Karuna, or under the instructions of some other individuals or element of the organization?

• How long have you been in the BKWSU/Gyan and what status do you have within the organization, e.g. surrendered or not?

The problems I can forsee are that ;

• a) The BKWSU has invested fairly heavily in a very high level PR campaign which it is obviously protective of. It also has a history of rewriting its own history, beliefs, controversies within; while portaying itself quite differently without. In essence you must be part of that PR campaign.
• b) Individuals have to come to expect an unwillingness on behalf of the BKWSU organization to make public sufficient easily referenceable original material in order that third parties could use it to check details.
• c) The lack of sufficient third party sources to validate any claims by any parties.

If you think that you can provide reference material when requested, where contention exists then I, personally, would say that we will be able to make progress towards the first complete, objective and public study of the BKWSU, its beliefs and its activities.

So, rather than fluff around at the conjectural edges, what one unnamed family felt in comparison to the damage done to many others in some small community decades ago, I would suggest the way forward is for us to address the main contentions the BKWSU organization has with the article.

Obviously, a Wiki topic should not be, and is never going to be, an advert for the organization, so;

• What do you, the Senior BKs or the organisation, consider to be the main points of contention?

Brahmakumaris.info 12:37, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I am an ex teacher of the bks, Simon, and the official line of the bks was that due to resistance and the court injuctions imposed on the group to stop them gathering in numbers they decided to move. this was the official line until recently, and I would be interested in how you propose to prove otherwise.

Green108 17:31, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I guess that you would say that I have been in Gyan for 20 years or more. When you state, "proposing incremental changes to the page over a period of time", do you mean of the same sort the BKWSU have been making to the Sakar Murlis that contain that knowledge?

I do not want to interrupt the discussion raised by user Brahmakumaris.info but could you also please identify those "a gross misrepresentation of facts" you refer to as I am prepared to give a second opinion.

Thank you. 85.25.141.60 19:33, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Greetings Brahmakumaris.info!

This is a response to your first post. I will respond your second post re. copyright shortly. Hope that's OK.

I must admit to being a little surprised since I was anticipating a response from the main contributors and maintainers of the page who are, as far as I can tell, 195.82.106.244 and TalkAbout . I notice just one or two contributions from brahmakumaris.info in the page history. Do you have any connection with the other editors? Are you working in some sort of formal or informal team? Are 195.82.106.244 and TalkAbout happy for you to assume the role of discussing / changing content on their behalf?

Also, your name suggests some connection with the http://www.brahmakumaris.info website. Is this the case? If so what is your involvement with that website?

I would like the questions in the above two paragraphs clarified before I take up any of your points. I'd like to know in what capacity you represent the editors I wish to discuss the article with.

As already mentioned, I am a member of the BK information technology team approaching this discussion on their behalf. Most team members, myself included, have been with this organisation for a long time. This approach is an initiative of the team. My posts and responses have their consensus.

You have stated “Obviously, a Wiki topic should not be, and is never going to be, an advert for the organization” Yes, we very much agree with you. It should not be a tool to express a strong personal opinion / understanding of an organisation either. For this reason we would like to reinstate the NPOV warning box.

In response to 85.25.141.60, I will take up one topic at a time in order to keep the discussion page clear and simple for all of us to follow and also because I/ we are quite busy on a number of projects and can't deal with too many discussion threads to research/document all at once.

In response to Green108’s post, “resistance and the court injunctions” occurred shortly after the Yagya relocated to Karachi in 1937, not in 1950. A simple reference regarding my statement for the reason for the move is the Book, Adi Dev by Jagdish Chander, first published in 1981. That is as close to what you might call the ‘official line’ as you are likely to find. I have a copy of the third edition (2003, p. 181) and the second edition (1983, p. 181) in front of me; another team member has the 1981 edition. The text of the section, “Returning to Bharat” in all three editions is identical. It says,

“At last, in 1950, the children prepared to leave Karachi. When the Muslims of Sindh came to hear of this they tried to persuade them to stay. ‘We will give you better facilities,’ they said. ‘You will not experience any unhappiness here. Why are you going away then? If you stay here, there will not be any unholy acts done in this country. We will take care of you in every way. You are of God; you have no connection with the politics of the Hindu or the Muslim.’”

We propose correcting the article to read, “In 1950, the community moved to Mount Abu, at the invitation of relatives of the organization.” Do you agree?

Bksimonb 10:57, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Greetings BKSimonb,

I am honored by your request to partake in these discussions here.

• First, I would like to point out that I monitor the Brahma Kumaris Wiki article from a factual and historical perspective.
• Secondly, I am not associated with BrahmaKumaris.info, nor with .244.
• Thirdly, I monitor the article for vandalism, spelling, open discussions and because the Misplaced Pages is used by a large global community as an information resource.
• Fourthly, I keep an open mind, will research items, and will acknowledge when I make a correction or addition in error.

I have been active in the prior discussions with Brother Jesselp and have rather enjoyed his earnest intent and vigor for the debate on the issues being discussed. That said it would be good if you would point out the sentence in the Origins that you object to and then provide evidence, which can be referenced via link/s or postings here. If you had an independent source, it would be preferable. In addition, it would be good if you provided the sentence you are proposing so that we can see it and comment on it.

By “we”, I am referring to all the participants on this article and not implying a team effort. As you may have seen .244 and I do not always agree but look to bridge that divide with the facts put forth. PEACE

TalkAbout 00:17, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi Simon

Firstly I see no reason why any of the contributors here should reveal any information about themselves or any affiliations they have with each other. The very nature of this site is 'open source' and anyone whoever they are has a right to contribute without the need to justify themselves to anyone else. Also why do you think you have the right to enquire about what other websites people belong to, this seems to be a very arrogant approach on your behalf, you would do well to remember that the function of this page is to solely :D discuss the article and nothing else. Just because you feel you are representing the brahma kumaris here doesn't afford you any special privilage or authority.

Secondly I do not agree that Jagdish Chandlers works are in any way 'proof' of anything, they may be the official line as you say, but that doesn't mean they are factual and therefore the final word. In actual fact I would say that seeing as Jagdish was a fully surrendered member of the Brahma Kumaris it is quite likely that his version of events might be coloured by his own ideas.

So, no I am not yet ready to agree to the change you are suggesting.

Green108 17:56, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

User Bksimonb

Firstly, with regards to the NPOV notice ; I would disagree on the grounds that you have still not provided any major point of contention nor suitable evidence to support an alternative view. In my opinion and experience, I would say that the topic presents accurate and objective documentation of facts. I understand why the BKWSU is deeply unsettled by it in the same manner as Scientology is unsettled by anything that documents their beliefs. It lays out a complete overview of the organization and its beliefs in a manner that shortcuts the usual slow and incremental initiation to the facts that happens as an individual become indoctrinated into the BKWSU's practices.

The only area that I would accept requires work is clarifying the relationship between the BKs and the PBKs, their channelling medium and spirit guides. Towards the end of the archived discussion, a PBK contributor raised some valid comments that should not be ignored by those working on this topic and requires incorporating. Specifically relating to the question of the historic relationship between the BKs and the PBKs, and their leaders. Having looked at it, I would have to agree that the use of the term "sub-sect" is probably wrong although I can understand why, from an outsiders point of view, it would appear that way Perhaps, given your access to the BKWSU hierarchy, you can help in clarify this.

Essentially, I would suggest that your suggestion of a NPOV notice is a "yukti" to be used to raise doubt or discredit an entire article. Generally, such notices are only used by interested parties on one side of a debate or the other. In your organizations case, as you are the only full aware and true representatives of God on Earth, I would expect a higher set of ethics applied here and repeat my request that your organization makes clear its major contentions with the article - and supporting evidence - before we proceed. So that would be at least 3 to 1 against the NPOV. It appears that other contributors have more or longer experience within the BKWSU than you do.

With regards to the move to Mount Abu, I question why you are focusing on an almost inconsequential aspect of the topic and also see it - and the intended slow incremental change of the topic - as a ploy on behalf of the organization to reduce resistance and re-write the article to suit your organization's PR. If we simply look at the organizations main website it says, " '... you have no connection with the politics of the Hindu or the Muslim'. But the institution had the Godly command to go to India and so they moved to Mount Abu in India ". .

The BKWSU headquarters therefore contradict what you are saying. BKWSU says that Shiva instructed medium Lekhraj Kirpalani to move the organization. You are saying that un-named, non-BK relatives of some un-named BKs were instrumental in moving the BKWSU. That would be considered "following Manmat" by the organization and its Seniors, "lokik attachments" and their opinions are given low to absolutely no priority within the organization and so I find it highly unlikely that they had any part in the move. The quotation also hints that there was indeed social and political conflict in the background. Given a general awareness of the history of the Partition, the strained relationships between Hindus and Moslems and the horror stories reported by Jagdish Chander elsewhere in his canon which you do not reference and to give you the benefit of doubt, may not be aware of; the burden of violence would suggest that you are wrong and attempt to re-write the BKWSU history.

You do not state that the book "Adi Dev" is a BKWSU publication and that BK Jagdish Chander was the main publicist for the BKWSU for most of his surrendered life. On the basis of that, I would also support Green108 assertion that his work in not impartial and cannot be entirely relied upon and bring into question your ethics by not disclosing this.

I have absolutely no representative powers over any other contributor nor the website http://brahmakumaris.info . To the best of my awareness there is nothing that you could say constitutes a team effort, or if there is I am not party to it. I take personal benefit from and contribute to the above mentioned website, on an ad hoc basis, but to the best of my knowledge, there is nothing that would constitute a team or organization effort or again, if there is, I am not aware of any. If pressed, I could tell you very little about any contributor to http://brahmakumaris.info other than what they have made public on that or the previous xBKChat.com forum and prefer it that way. Personally, I would say it is all in the public domain now.

I would strongly agree with the completeness and accuracy of the work others have put into this topic, given the constraints of the medium, and would expect all BK related individuals to have to agree. Being a BK is a fairly narrow experience. As other contributors state, this discussion should not be about personalities but objective facts. If you want an opinion from others involved in ], you will have to ask them yourselves on the discussion forum provided. I do not see any real division between BK, PBK and ex-BK. The only divisions I can see arising is where in the first two cases each party has a self interest in their particular formal, legal and financial organizations. In the latter case, I have always respected the wish for anonymity of individuals.

Now, to return to my questions to you, looking at the BKWSU websites, I see no mention of a "BK information technology team" except for Karunabk's wing and so I do not consider that you are making an honest disclosure of your interest. You state that you are "approaching this discussion on their behalf". I asked you if you are acting "on behalf of the BKWSU MultiMedia and Global Public Relations Wing" under User:Karunabk, or under the instructions of some other individuals or element of the organization?". In short, and in language you will understand, I am asking if you have taken Shrimat from the Senior Sisters about the re-writing of this topic, whether you are acting on the basis of your own manmat or the manmat of others you associate with. You have no satisfied my question as whether your actions are official representative of the BKWSU organization.

I understand that you have been in Gyan for about 12 years, a period entirely after the major re-writing and re-structuring of the BKWSU in the West. You state that " most team members, myself included, have been with this organisation for a long time ". That is not a specific nor honest enough response but by not answering it you have disclosed a lot. I read that to mean 'unsurrendered, junior members of the BKWSU' with little historic involvement. You state, "this approach is an initiative of the team". My posts and responses have their consensus". Frankly, if that is true, it means very little given the 'fluidity' of relationships between the individual and the organization and the way in which the organization presents these.

What we need to do now is put aside the diversion of the move to Mount Abu and be told;

• whether you have taken, and are taking, Shrimat on the issues that are arising here?
• whether through the organization and Seniors Sisters you have access to easily referable sources of documentation rather than merely repeating BKWSU instigated publicity materials such as Adi Dev, as would be in your own self interest?
• whether they are willing to disclose them into the public domain?

If you wish, I am happy to start to suggest a list of documents kept by the organization to be placed into the public domain in order that the truth be revealed. Like you, I see this as a process that is likely to take some time. But given that " the 900,000 " - the first BK residents of the Heaven, are going to be ready this year, no doubt heralding the closeness of Destruction may be you had better hurry towards your point.

195.82.106.244 18:15, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

In response to TalkAbout

Greetings Talkabout and thank you for a warm welcome!

Very much appreciate the spirit and tone of your response and hopewe can move forward in a congenial way.

Regards Bksimonb 15:09, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

In response to Green108

We strongly agree with you that this discussion board is for discussing the article. None of us on the team have any time to get drawn into anything else.

In the context of brahmakumaris.info's bold and authoritative introduction, I believe it was reasonable to ask the questions I asked since he had only very rarely posted on the (archived) discussion page or made edits. I was just trying to find out whom I should be talking to. I am sorry that you took so much offense to that. My questions are, after all, just questions and no one is under any obligation to answer them if they don't want to. Although Misplaced Pages is based on the best collaborative principals of "open source", I don't believe that removes anyone's right just to inquire. I certainly respect the anonymity of authors if they wish to maintain that.

We are proposing a simple correction to a factual error. Your claim is that you are stating the "official line" from what you remember having been a BK teacher. However none of us on the team recognised your version of the story as being the case and there are some very experienced BK teachers on the team. We cited the reference from Adi Dev since that is what most BK teachers would use as a source of information, or the "official line". Though you may have your own personal views about Jagdish, he did do a lot of research into writing the book, researching many internal documents of the organisation and conducting interviews with eye witnesses. He also made no attempt to hide other difficulties that the organisation did have in it's history, so there is no real reason to suspect he would have covered up any problems with the authorities in that particular case if there were any.

If you have some proof that your version of events is correct, then we would be very interested to hear about it. Otherwise, I would suggest that a cited reference, backed up by experienced BK teachers, is more definitive than a claim based on their own personal recollection from someone claiming to be a former BK teacher, and I would like to correct it to read as I have earlier proposed.

I respect and appreciate your concern for accuracy and hope that you will appreciate that I have an identical concern! Regards Bksimonb 15:09, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

In response to 195.82.106.244

Thank you for your post. I can see you are quite passionate about your views regarding the Brahma Kumaris.

In your post you seem to suspect the worst intentions in just about everything: me, the team and anything and everything the Brahma Kumaris say or do. Where do I start? You’ve accused me of wanting to discredit the article, of lack of ethics, and even of not following shrimat! Isn’t that getting a bit personal? May I respectfully direct you to the Misplaced Pages official policies of Misplaced Pages:Assume_good_faith, use of Misplaced Pages:Civility and Misplaced Pages:No_personal_attacks.

From what you are saying, it appears that you misjudge our objections to the article. The assumption presented of our motives also does not demonstrate good faith. Ask an educator, learning any new subject is best done in stages. The term ‘indoctrinated’ is a good example of using derogatory tone and opinionated terminology to disuade people from learning Raja Yoga. However, there is no reason why a student can’t just pick up, at one of our centres or bookshops, a copy of a book (such as “New Beginnings” which lays out all of the concepts, including destruction and celibacy) and read it cover-to-cover in one day if they choose, after all, that's what I did.

I take your point about there not yet being enough evidence presented by us to reinstate the NPOV warning box. Let’s park that for now until we have some consensus regarding the first factual error that we highlighted. We can come back to it later. Your suggestion that the NPOV box request is intended to “raise doubt or discredit an entire article” is another example of a lack of good faith. I respectfully request that you accept the reasons we set out in the first post.

With regard to the PBKs: I saw the proposed text and it seems it is not quite ready to add to the article for the reasons stated in the revert comments. Going forward, one idea we have is to move the PBK material to a disambiguation page with a link to it at the beginning of the article, similar to the way other groups who claim legitimacy are linked from the Bahai page. However I suggest that this be a topic for a separate discussion thread.

Now getting back to the factual error: We started with this one issue to ‘test the waters’ to see how the editorial process works. As everyone can see, this one minor issue has generated so much heat. Imagine what would happen if we listed all our objections at once! I anticipated it would be difficult but had no idea it would be next to impossible. Again, your suggestion that citing one topic at a time is some sort of “ploy” to “reduce resistance and re-write the article to suit your organization’s PR” is another example evincing lack of good faith.

So now we have tested the water and what is the result? It seems that anything any BK says or writes about the organisation is going to be branded “PR” and anything said or written by the BKs in the west is going to be branded “whitewash”. This extreme view seems to be being employed to invalidate any input from BKs to this article and to intimidate them from trying. The notion that no BK statement, literature or opinion can be trusted seems to be repeated loudly and frequently on this discussion page. This constitutes a personal attack, according to Misplaced Pages:No_personal_attacks#Examples_of_personal_attacks : “Using someone’s affiliations as a means of dismissing or discrediting their views — regardless of whether said affiliations are mainstream or extreme”.

Naturally, we are very disappointed with the responses we have received in this respect over even a small matter. If civil discussion on our part here is not going to enable us to improve the article, then we will certainly consider other approaches and options. You and others have all stated that you consider the article to be factually correct and neutral as it is. However, given the uncompromising stance, extreme opinions and stonewalling I can see expressed here, I find it challenging to see how this atmosphere could ever result in anything even approaching a neutral article.

With regards to the move to Abu, I don’t see any contradiction. If you read the page I referenced on Adi Dev you will see that an invitation from relatives, plea from the Pakistan people that we remain there, and command from God all happened at that time. There is no reason for these three factors to be mutually exclusive. No one, least of all the BKs, is denying that there was ‘social and political conflict’ going on between Hindus and Moslems at that time. This was in fact why many of the Yagya’s relatives had left Pakistan and moved to India. The BKs (who were mostly from Sindhi, Hindu backgrounds) were not involved in that conflict, which is why the Moslems asked them to stay and why the Moslems said, “You are of God; you have no connection with the politics of the Hindu or the Muslim”. I would like to know where any other interpretation of the events at that time comes from. Could the editor responsible cite your source please?!

You stated “That would be considered “following Manmat” by the organization and its Seniors, “lokik attachments” and their opinions are given low to absolutely no priority within the organization”. This may be your opinion or view, but it is a complete misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the BK perspective and policy towards family members. If you have sources to cite on this, please present them. Perhaps you are not aware that 5 or 6 years after the founding of the Yagya the mothers and sisters were instructed to by Shiv Baba to “return to your own physical parents and relatives and to all those who did harm to you, and you must fulfill your obligations to them.” (Adi Dev, 2nd edition, page 152). And again in the early 50’s the first service centers were established in the homes of friends and relatives who had invited the sisters there. (Adi Dev, page 217).

Yes, as you correctly point out, Jagdish Chander was BK. He was the main historian of the organisation. As Green108 had already informed us that he was a former BK teacher I assumed that he would know who Bro. Jagdish Chander was and of the book ‘Adi Dev’. To say that it “bring into question my ethics” to not have given more detail about the publication and author in this context is yet another attempt to discredit me personally.

The IT team I serve in is responsible for LAN and internet services and I am based in the UK. The team is completely separate from the India Media office. Since you have posted how many years I have been a BK I am sure you also know exactly who I am and where I am based and which senior you or your source can inquire about my claims to represent the team. May I request that, as a courtesy, you ask me before posting any other personal information about me. You can email me via my talk page if you wish to contact me off-line. Given that whatever I have posted here is subject to immediate broadcast on the brahmakumaris.info site within a context of words that are far from impartial, assume lack of good faith and are designed to further discredit the BKs, I am even less inclined to disclose anything further about myself or our team, especially since you are not forthcoming in establishing your credibility as an authoritative source on matters BK. Surely you understand that I have a duty of care to protect the anonymity of myself and the other team members from abusive publicity.

Finally, can I please request that all editors refrain from the “pr”, “whitewash” label throwing. Please try a different, less hostile, approach. This project is part of a new initiative, not to splatter “pr” everywhere, but to open a constructive dialogue. As a rapidly expanding organization, we are aware that mistakes have been made in the past or are still being made. God’s perfect. We’re not right now. What people say about us on the internet has highlighted a number of issues that we have been in the process of addressing for awhile now. You may find we actually have a lot more common ground than you seem to give us credit for. If we had had a pr department in place all along--as distinct from literature, public speaking and course teaching functions--then perhaps this discussion would not have been necessary.

Regards Bksimonb 15:09, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Simon, personally, I repeat that I consider focusing attention on to such a small inconsequential issue as the move from Pakistan to Abu as obfuscation within the stated aims that you are engaged in.

The strength of resistance you have met is not to do with one inconsequential fact. It is against the institutional tendancy towards whitewashing internal Brahma Kumari beliefs to make them palatable to non-BKs, such as the death of 5.1 Billion humans to make way for the BK Golden Age re-written as "Transformation" rather than Destruction on this very Wiki. Contrary to what you state, the institution has many individuals highly skilled and active in PR internationally.

• Please list your main objections without any more delay. Being to the point is not hostile. You have yet to qualify "bias, disparaging language and gross misrepresentation of facts".

May I remind you that you have entirely ignored the entirely contradictory statement I quoted from the BKWSU's own website which states "... but the institution had the Godly command to go to India".

Objectively, God Shiva and Brahma Kumaris do not and would not take instructions from Iron Aged Shudras filled with vices such as attachment, would they? BK Brahmins to do not accept manmat, do they? So, putting aside the courtcases and injunctions, which is true;

• Did the institution have the "Godly command", as written on the headquarter's website, or was the institution invited by relatives as you state?

What we need to do now is put aside the diversion of the move to Mount Abu and be told;

• whether you have taken, and are taking, Shrimat on the issues that are arising here? .
• whether through the organization and Seniors Sisters you have access to easily referable sources of documentation rather than merely repeating BKWSU instigated publicity materials such as Adi Dev?
• whether they are willing to disclose them into the public domain?

To engender our good faith, perhaps you want to qualify;

• what this "new initiative" is?
• is it officially sanctioned and under whose authority?
• which issues you have been in the process of addressing?

Thank you. 195.82.106.244 20:07, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Simon, firstly, please not that we have not had an answer regarding how God views the copright of the images below. You are welcome to join us in a personal basis on neutral ground outside of the BKWSU to discuss matters relating to BKs, PBKs, the BKWSU, and indeed this article at ;

http://www.brahmakumaris.info/indexbb.html

My concern with respect to this article, putting aside your cultural background as a Westerner, is that you do not appear to have sufficient authority to act on behalf of the BKWSU and your involvement with the organization has been too short. Entirely after the period in which the BKWSU engaged in re-writing their history and then outreach programmes. Your faith seems to be dependent on what you have read in highly controlled BKWSU publications, especially those intended for public digestion, rather than primary sources.

In requesting copyright details, we received an email from the BK Chief of MultiMedia and Global PublicRelations demanding the surrender of our domain name and stating that "BKs teachings and practises will remain unchanged".

From our point of view, here we see the institutional problems we are faced with. Firstly, a group of unaccountable individuals apparently consider themselves to be the final arbiters of God. BKWSU teachings have obviously and significantly been changed by the institution, e.g. in these teaching aids, the Confluence Age was stated to be 40 years, now it is 100 years, "Destruction" was to be in 1976, then after "50 years" of Confluence Age, then "50 to 60 years", now the organization is celebrating its 70th year, the World has not deen destroyed yet and we hear that the idea of a 5,000 year cycle is being questioned. We know that the Murlis - allegedly God, or your god's teachings, are being re-written whilst being hidden from the public in both their original and edited form.

Your Chief of MultiMedia and Global PublicRelations is apparently willing to state that which is untrue. Or PR.

If they are to be encouraged to surrender their money, lives, and very mind over to these individuals, do you not think it is fair that the general public are made aware of such inconsistencies first? With respect to the move to Abu, all we discover are more institutional inconsistencies.

Brahmakumaris.info 10:32, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Godly Intellectual Property.

In order to illustrate the Misplaced Pages 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/Image:Bklandn_A4.jpg
• http://en.wikipedia.org/Image:Bkcycle_A4.jpg
• http://en.wikipedia.org/Image:Bkladder_A4.jpg
• http://en.wikipedia.org/Image:Bktree_A4.jpg

Brahmakumaris.info 12:26, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

brahmakumaris.info page

user 195.82.106.244 said: "I have absolutely no representative powers over any other contributor nor the website http://brahmakumaris.info . To the best of my awareness there is nothing that you could say constitutes a team effort, or if there is I am not party to it. I take personal benefit from and contribute to the above mentioned website, on an ad hoc basis, but to the best of my knowledge, there is nothing that would constitute a team or organization effort or again, if there is, I am not aware of any. If pressed, I could tell you very little about any contributor to http://brahmakumaris.info other than what they have made public on that or the previous xBKChat.com forum and prefer it that way. Personally, I would say it is all in the public domain now."

user 195.82.106.244 has expelled me from the brahmakumaris.info site without previous warning (I cannot log in). This individual uses the name "ex-I" in the brahmakumaris.info site. Apparently he runs this site since he is capable of editing any post at will. I have been contributing to this site for about a week. This user has been one of the main contributors of this page and I had the opportunity to debate with him before back in march/april 2006 with no avail. It is evident that this individual has high bias against Brahma Kumaris. It is truly unfortunate that an article about Brahma Kumaris has been started by someone with strong negative feelings against the institution. Just a FYI.

avyakt7

Riveros11 AKA avyakt7,

This reply is to say that the article was not started by .244, it is a work of many, including .244. The article is written in a factual way with no personalized wording or personal attacks. Effort was given to add PBK information to be fair. As to your assertion above, contact them directly via their contact page or post on the infogami site. Please use the discussion area to post article points/discussions only.TalkAbout 22:52, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I invite you to go back to the archives of this "discussion page" in March-April 2006,(the first ones) at that time user 195.82.106.244 AKA "ex-I" was the only one editing this page as his heart content, that is the time of my participation. My point is, user 195.82.106.244 has not been telling the truth: "I have absolutely no representative powers over any other contributor nor the website http://brahmakumaris.info " User .244 manages that site as he has done with this page in the past. This comment is closely related with the on going discussion in this page, as a matter of fact; is about a previous discussion. I thank you for your advice but it is needless. Once a blatant lie is found, it is hard to trust the "goodwill" of those involved in writing this article "in a factual way with no personalized wording or personal attacks." --avyakt7 00:23, 21 August 2006 (UTC)