The Brahma Kumaris and their World Spiritual University

BRAHMA KUMARIS’ THEOLOGY

The extent to which BKWSU has taken on the concept of *purusha as applied both to human beings and to God is well summed up in a quotation from one of their leaflets: “The human soul is recognized as a metaphysical, infinitesimal, eternal spark of sentient light. God is the Supreme among all souls with a form that is precisely the same - the infinitesimal spark of light. Human souls take on a physical body and mental energy is used to operate this vehicle for expression of thoughts, decisions and personality. God the Supreme is the one soul free from the limitations imposed by having a body”³⁰. This statement approximates to a rather simplified summary of Patanjali’s philosophy. However, the Brahma Kumaris’ teaching has distinctive features of its own.

In contrast to the lonely destiny of the liberated as portrayed in the philosophy of Patanjali, those who faithfully practise raja yoga as taught by BKWSU are promised a personal relationship with God. Individual meditators can have a relationship with God not just after death, or after some highly advanced stage of yogic practice is attained, but quite early on during meditation. Meditation is seen as a meeting with God. As one focuses on the centre of the forehead and withdraws one’s attention from one’s surroundings and one’s body, the meditator is invited to realize that he/she is “with God in my eternal home of silence”³¹.

In the preceding section it was pointed out that the concept and role of God within the entire raja yoga tradition had become steadily more central in the centuries following Patanjali’s time. For the Brahma Kumaris, the most significant development in this regard has been the experiences of the god *shiva which are believed to have been given to Dada Lekhraj. The same type of experience has been claimed a number of times over the intervening years by some of BKWSU’s leaders. The visions of Lekhraj and his successors have affected the theology of BKWSU. Because of them, the God of the Brahma Kumaris seems nearer and more influential as compared with *ishvara in the raja yoga tradition generally.

BKWSU has an impressive record in terms of peace projects, building understanding between different religions, social and personal development and generally working towards a better world. Meditation is seen by the Brahma Kumaris as providing the motivation for action in the world. “Raja Yoga meditation is not a rejection of the world, it is the preparation for life in the world. The detachment taught brings an objectivity that makes activity constantly positive”³². This statement could readily be adopted by Christians, who share the Brahma Kumaris’ concern to make the world a better place. Christians however, unlike the Brahma Kumaris, believe that the body and the material world, no less than the soul, are destined for salvation in Jesus Christ. This is quite the opposite to Patanjali and the classical raja yoga tradition in which detachment allows one to escape the world - a world of which the human person never really was part in the first place nor ever could be. In respectively affirming and denying the ultimate value of the material universe, Christians and classical raja yogis are each being consistent with their philosophies. The Brahma Kumaris however, seek to marry Patanjali’s spirituality of disengagement with something that is not part of any traditional Hindu yogic: a mission to redeem the world. There is a dichotomy here. How can detachment which aims at enabling a person to “escape this physical world” ³³ every time he or she sits down to meditate, also prepare one to become involved wholeheartedly and unselfishly in making that world a better place? These counterflows within the heart of the Brahma Kumari are an enigma. What their possible effects may be on the lives of individual meditators - especially Westerners - has yet to be fully investigated.

1 The above national details were a few of many reported in a newsletter issued by the organizers of MMOP entitled Minute by Minute, iii, 1 - 3.

2


^ When We Change..., a pamphlet published by the BKWSU, 8

3


^ The information in this section was found mainly in When We Change...; Eileen Barker, New Religious Movements - A Practical Introduction [London, 3rd ed., 1992], 169; Gordon Melton, Encyclopedia of American Religions [4th ed., 1993], 909 - 910; Massimo Introvigne, Le Nuove Religioni [Milano, 1989], 318 - 319.

4

^ Frank Gaynor, Dictionary of Mysticism [London, 1974], 92

5


^ See the testimony of one ex-member in William Shaw’s, Spying in Guruland [London, 1994], 93 - 94

6


^ This term was used by Brahma Kumari meditation teacher Mike George at a Stress Management Seminar in Dublin, June 15, 1995

7


^ ibid.

8


^ These phrases are selected from Practical Meditation [3rd ed., London, 1993], 3, 7, 31

9


^ Mike George at the Seminar referred to above.

10


^ Practical Meditation 9, 20

11


^ ibid., 5

12


^ ibid., 31

13


^ ibid., 21

14


^ ibid. 8 - 9, 17 - 19

15


^ Taken from Mircea Eliade, Yoga, Immortality and Freedom [Princeton, N.J., 1970], 91. The author of Practical Meditation rightly states (14) that the term *sanskara has “no simple translation”. Alternatives to the text might be “subliminal impression”, “subconscious residues”.

16


^ Practical Meditation, 14

17


^ ibid., 18

18


^ ibid.. 21

19 Mircea Eliade, Patanjali and Yoga [New York, 1975], 25

20 Surendranath Dasgupta, Yoga as Philosophy and Religion [London, 1924], 13

21


^ Eliade in Patanjali and Yoga [New York, 1975], 44, puts the word ‘enslaved’ in parentheses to underline the deeper truth that “The self is pure, eternal, free; it would be impossible to subjugate it because it would be incapable of maintaining relations with anything other than itself. But man believes that the purusha is enslaved....”

22


^ Patanjali’s yogasutras, I, 2, as translated by Fernando Tola and Carmen Dragonetti, The Yogasutras of Patanjali [Delhi, 1987], 3. Eliade gives an alternative translation of Patanjali’s cittavrttinirodhah as “the abolition of states of consciousness” in Patanjali and Yoga, 51 and "the suppression of states of consciousness" in Yoga, Immortality and Freedom, 36

23 yogasutras, I, 3 as found in Tola and Dragonetti, op. cit., 7

24 Cf. Tola and Dragonetti, 61 - 63, 181 - 185

25 Dasgupta, op. cit., 159 - 161

26


^ Cf. ibid., 87 - 89.

27


^ Yoga, Immortality and Freedom, 74 - 76 and Patanjali and Yoga, 88 - 90

28


^ Yoga, Immortality and Freedom, 93

29


^ Patanjali and Yoga [New York, 1975], 46

30


^ “Raja Yoga”, a leaflet of the B.K Raja Yoga Centre, San Francisco. 2

31


^ Practical Meditation, 31

32


^ “Raja Yoga”, 3

33


^ Practical Meditation, 31