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Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual Organisation, or " Prajapita Brahma Kumaris Ishwariya Vishwa Vidyalaya ". Teachers of a form of meditation, or spiritual channelling, called Raja Yoga not to be confused with classical Patanjali's Raja Yoga.
A New Religious Movement with core Millenarianist beliefs concerning the imminent destruction of the current impure Kali Yuga world by a World War and nuclear holocaust followed by the reward of a paradisiacal Sat Yuga in India for its faithful followers.
Origins
Formed in Sindh, now Pakistan, during 1937 by businessman Lekhraj Kripalani when Kripalani experienced that God, the Supreme Soul, took his bodily organs to express a message to humanity. Followers, called Brahma Kumars or Kumaris believe that Lekhraj Kripalani / Brahma is God's chariot, God being a soul cannot express his message but through a human body. God himself needs to give his message when the world experiences utmost irreligiousness and suffering.
Global Expansion
Claims to have more than 5,500 meditation centres in 90 countries with over 900,000 students.
Fundamental Beliefs
Although borrowing much symbolism and terminology from traditional Hinduism, Brahma Kumari Raja Yoga perceives the world as a family tree, every branch being a religion in search of the experience of God. Followers believe that the Supreme Soul and Brahma continues to be Channelled on a regular basis by a senior sister at the headquarters in India and that Brahma' soul will reincarnate as Krishna in his next birth.
Central to its faith are the beliefs that ;
- the human being is an eternal soul living within a physical body
- reincarnation happens from one human body to another only
- Experience of the physical world happens through an eternally repeating 5,000 year cycle.
- Time is not linear but rather cyclical
- each repeating cycle is exactly the same as the previous one
- humanity is currently reaching the end of the cycle and thus the world will be transformed.
- God incarnates personally onto the Earth and speaks only through their founder Lekhraj Kripalani which was the soul known as "Adam" or the "first human" in his first birth.
- all other religious founders such as Christ, Buddha and Mohammed had a part in the cycle by founding a religion.
- that the Indian Subcontinent will be the site of the future Golden Age and Hindi is the original language.
Followers are taught that if they make spiritual efforts that they will become deities in the Golden age. A small number of dead B.K. are thought to have reincarnated onto the earth to work with scientists to build the future heaven on earth. These are called The Advance Party.
Practice
The Brahma Kumaris Raja Yoga practice involves;
- complete celibacy
- strict vegetarianism excluding onions, garlic and food cooked by non-B.K.s
- avoidance of alcohol, tobacco and drugs
- ritual cleanliness, washing and changing clothes after toileting.
- regular daily meditation.
Students wake for 45 minutes meditation at 4 am. They then attend a one and half hour daily morning class at 6.00 am, work or keep their household during the day and then return to do service, teach or more meditation in the evening. Couples are suggested to live a celibate life and address each other as brother and sister, in order to make spiritual improvements. No one is expected to make regular donations or contributions to the Raja Yoga centre. However, serious students feel it is their duty to support it. It is suggested to visit the headquarters in India once a year if possible.
7 Day Course
Central to the Brahma Kumaris practice is the teaching of all their core beliefs in 7 one hour long lessons called "The 7 Day Course". Once these 7 lessons are understood, students are then introduced to unpublished "scriptures" considered to be the direct teachings of God called "Murlis". These are sometimes edited by senior Brahma Kumaris removing statements which could be misinterpreted according to current times. The seven lessons are:
- The Soul
- The Supreme Soul
- The Law of Karma
- The Cycle
- The Tree of Religions
- The Founder Brahma Baba
- Brahma Kumari Lifestyle and Principles
The Soul
We are an eternal soul. A point of light. We have 3 subtle organs: The Mind, the Intellect and the Impressions or Sanskars. The sanskars are transmitted from birth to birth. Sanskars are innate in the soul. They emerge or submerge according to time. Huamans can experience soul consciousness which gives them happiness, or they can experience body consciousness which bring duality to their experience.
The Supreme Soul
God is a point of light. He is the purifier. He cannot take birth, otherwise; God would experience the duality of suffering and happiness, forgetting and remembering, etc. However, God remains eternally unchanged with purity, bliss and happiness. Human beings can purified their intellects by means of "remembrance." We have forgotten who we are, our original nature and consciousness. Because time is cyclical and this current cycle is about to end, God needs to tell us who we are, what is our history, what is the beginning, the middle, and the end of the world. Thus God purifies us through his knowledge. This is God's task. Huamans need to emerge virtous sanskars in order to experience the Golden age.
The Law of Karma
Is the law of action and reaction. Every accion has a cause. We experience the effects of those actions either as happiness or suffering. Those effects are experienced one time or another in this or another life. Thoughts are the origin of actions. The origin of thouhgts are our own sanskars.Thus by emerging virtous sankars our thoughts become positive and our actions become elevated. Remembrance of God is the only way to remove the alloy of impurities in the soul. Those impurities are the 5 vices: Ego, Lust, Anger, Attachment and Greed.
The Cycle
Time is cyclical. Every cycle lasts 5000 years. The accurate view of time is cyclical. Thus, repetitive. The 3 main theories that physicists are talking about these days, classical physics, relativity and quantum physics are pointing out to this view of time in a subtle way. In a cyclical view of time there is no “beginning” thus we can claim that time doesn’t exist. If we consider a “point of reference” meaning time as past, present future, we can claim that time exists as a measure of entropy. Low and high levels of entropy are complements of each other. In a cyclical view of time one state cannot exist without the other. Predestination is a natural consequence of a cyclical view of time, thus there are no “chances,” “luck” or “probabilities.” The movement of the “plot” in time is unknown to us (the fish under the ocean), however; it changes between those 2 stages mentioned before: high and low entropy. The behavior of the micro cosmos fully supports this view. There are no possibilities of a “thinking,” conscious electron changing directions at will, but moving as part of a higher system between two states. This could be called dualism. Matter is dualistic in nature. Time is this repetitive dance of 2 seemingly opposite states of matter. There is no time unless there is perception of it. Thus, we can perceive in this physical world how matter “moves” from one state to the other. That awareness, we call time.
Past, present and future are relative labels used to express time in relationship to a point of reference. It could be argued that they don’t exist as well as that they truly exist. It is Paradoxical. It all depends in our view, our reference, and our reality.
What was the “beginning” of the world? There was no beginning. There is no such a thing as “nothingness.” “Something” always existed, but changed according to our well known laws of physics.
The Tree of Religions
The tree signals the human family of souls. The root of the tree are made up by those souls currently making spiritual efforts according to God's system. Those efforts are based on soul consciousness. According to the laws of Karma, elevated actions are needed in order to experience the Golden age. The first part of the tree is the Golden age which is an age of total purity, happiness and peace as years went by and according to the physical law of entropy, the silver age appeared. Population increased and the original pure system changed, however; human beings called Deities (virtuous) were still soul conscious. Then the tree splitted in different branches due to body consciousness, we forgot out original nature. This is the age when different religions were founded in the east and in the west, the aim was to search for peace, search for happiness and search for God. Body conscious beings started a system of worship of the elements of nature instead of realizing their true original nature, thus suffering appeared. As time went by, the Iron age appeared. Huam divinity was completely lost, body consciousness was the rule.It is an age of cheating, killing and lying. As humans in this age advanced technologically due to their devilish impressions and vices, technology serves as a mean to destroy our own race. Thus the tree is transformed into a new tree. The seed for this new tree is God himself, thus God transforms humans with devilish traits into Golden age deities. The tree shows us clearly how unity appeared first and then as time went by division appeared.
The Founder Brahma Baba
Dada Lekraj known as Brahma Baba has a very important role in the world. He is known as Brahma in his 84th birth. The maximum number of births per cycle is 84. Brahma took all of them and was the first pure being in the world. In many religions he is known as "Adam" or "Adi Dev." God needs a body to communicate with us. Since Brahma is the most experience of all human beings; God takes his body and sanskars to communicate with body conscious, impure beings. Brahma Baba is the number one soul. All souls are numberwise in spiritual efforts. Brahma Baba was a caring man, loved by his community. He gave utmost respect to women in a time and location where women were considered second class citizens. Brahma Baba gave all his wealth in order to build Brahma Kumaris.
Brahma Kumari Lifestyle and Principles
Sub-sects
Believing himself to be a reincarnation of Lekhraj Kripalani's business partner, Virendra Dev Dikşi splits away from main body of the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual Organisation to form the Adhyatmik Ishwariya Vishwa Vidyalaya or " P.B.K. movement " after being barred from B.K. Raja Yoga centres. . P.B.Ks believe themselves to be The Advance Party but are entirely disassociated from by mainstream B.K. organisations.
German psychologist and ex-B.K. Heidi Fittkau-Garthe was charged in the Canary Islands with a plot of murder-suicide in which 31 cult followers, including five children, were to ingest poison. After the suicides they were to be picked up by spaceship for an unspecified destination.
Controversy
Some believe that destruction of the old world will not happen. Brahma Kumaris points out that transformation will happen and it is as clear as when night time becomes day time. The New World is known as Paradise by many religions. There are some individuals who are forecasting dates of "destruction" rather than transformation without further explanation. God, The Supreme Soul; has never released a day of destruction.
External links
bkwsu.com - Official websites
Xbkchat - a discussion forum mainly for ex-members of the Brahma Kumaris
shivbaba.org.pl - P.B.K. website
Abuse in Brahma Kumaris - documentation of institutional response.