BRAHMAKUMARIS.

 

This sect was founded by Lekhraj Khubchand Kripalani (also known as Dada Lekhraj)  at Hyderbad, Sindh. Initially he founded the ‘Om Mandali”. Lekhraj Kriplani was originally a member of the Vaishnava Sect of Vallabhacharya but started conducting his own Satsang. Lekhraj was originally a jeweller before he turned to this philosophy.

In 1937 Lekhraj named some of the members of the Satsang as the Managing committee and transferred his fortune to them. This committee is known as the Om Mandali and was the nucleus of the Brahmakumaris. Several women joined the Mandali and transferred their wealth to the organisation.

He got most of his women and child followers from the “Bhaibund” caste which is one of the castes of Sindhis. This following consisted of the wives and children of wealthy merchants and businessmen whose husbands and fathers were overseas on business. The group taught that the young women had the right not to marry and married women had a right to choose celibacy. This obviously led to the male members of the community vehemently opposing it.    

The Sindhi community from which Lekhraj comes opposed the concepts of the Mandali that women should be less submissive to their husbands and also that chastity should be practiced by the women. The Mandali was accused of disturbing the families by some Sindhi organizations and to escape persecution Lekhraj moved the Mandali from Hyderabad to Karachi where they lived in an ashram.  

In 1939 the mothers of 2 girls aged 13 and 12 from Hyderabad (Sindh) filed an application in the court at Karachi against Om Mandali stating that the girls were being forcefully detained by the Om Mandali in the Karachi Ashram. The Karachi court upheld the petition of the mothers and ordered that the girls be sent back to their mothers. The decision was appealed in the High Court which upheld the Karachi Court’s decision. However, the parents of one of the girls whose name was Hari were persuaded to let her stay in the Ashram.  

Several Hindus continued their protests against the Mandali and some members of the Sindh Assembly threatened to resign if the Mandali was not outlawed. The Sindh Government finally outlawed the Mandali and on further pressure by the Hindu assembly leaders, the Government ordered the Mandali to close and vacate the premises. Nevertheless, Om Mandali continued to hold satsangs and the Government did not enforce the ban.

After the partition of India, the Om Mandali moved in 1950 to Mount Abu in Rajasthan and renamed itself as the Brahmakumaris. Lekhraj died in 1969 and after that Brahmakumari’s expanded to other countries. Since the 1970’s it has spread throughout the West.  In 1980 the Brahmakumaris registered as an NGO with UN. In 1983 it got the consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the UN. The leadership and membership of the Brahmakumaris remains predominantly female. Its membership worldwide was estimated to be about 450,000 in the year 2000.  

Brahmakumari’s do not believe in race, religion, nationality and gender and tries to teach that through meditation. It emphasises the concept of identity as souls rather than bodies.  Through this practice they aim to establish a global culture. They believe that all souls are good by nature and God is the source of all goodness.

The movement sees itself as a vehicle for spiritual teaching rather than as a religion. The adherents of this thought made many predictions of the violent destruction of the world between 1987 and 2008 all of which failed.

The Brahmakumaris borrow a lot from Hinduism. Their concept of souls, karma, rebirth, generation and destruction of the world through the 4 yugas ( incidentally their yugas are 1250 years each and the world would end in 5000 years when the 4 yugas are complete. This is unlike Hindu literature which says each yuga is of different duration and is far longer than this 5000 years) , meditation and so on are taken from Hinduism only. The only difference is that it is addressed more towards women, led by women and it preaches celibacy.

Nothing should be taken to an extreme but Brahmakumaris preach just that.

1.       Complete celibacy in or out of marriage. – 

This is nothing sort of being childish to me. What is so special about not having sex? Similarly we can also stop taking food; where is the problem? And then die meditating. They should do that and seek their own salvation through it.    

2.        Satvic lacto-vegetarian diet—Excluding eggs, onions and spicy foods, that too cooked only by the Brahmakumaris or their members--- 

 Silly postulate again. The best way for them is meditate and die why eat food at all? Not needed.   

3.       Abstention from Alcohol, tobacco and non-prescription drugs—

 Now why only that much? Why do they not stop taking medicines altogether? Let their meditation cure them.

 4.       Daily early Morning Meditation—

Nothing wrong with this and it is one of their good postulates. A great idea to refresh the mind in the morning.

5.       Daily Morning Class at 6.30 AM—

A fine idea to soak down new things when the mind is fresh.

6.       Frequent wear of white attire to symbolize purity—

What is so special about white? That is merely an idea formulated by humans. Does that hold for divinity too? Apart from that, any colour is as pure or impure as another.

7.       Preference for the Company of the other Brahmakumari followers—

So they want to limit the thoughts of the person lest they question their belief itself. There is a fear in them that a follower may rebel against their thoughts.  

 I am saying this not to anger the guys who believe in religion and each is entitled to their own belief. But each religion merely juxtaposes human thoughts on to god. Very simple operation indeed. Humans like, so god likes, humans’ love, so god loves, humans hate, so god hates, humans are vengeful, and therefore god is vengeful and so on till all the human emotions are packed on to god. So society imagines god to be like any human but merely with more super powers (they merely become super because they are not possible to emulate for humans).

How can god be separate from us? Anyway our Upanishads themselves say “Tat vam asi” or “You are that” or “You are the Supreme” and are not separate from him. But we have forgotten our own thought and search for him (in fact God cannot even have a gender so I should say it instead) everywhere except within yourself. This realization that we are a part and parcel of this Universe (and therefore of that Supreme) is the ultimate religion and it requires no other precepts or principles to understand it and it is complete by itself. Although we are a part and parcel of that ultimate reality we can never know anything about it. Because it stretches in unimaginable and infinite number of dimensions far beyond our consciousness. Our Upanishads again say that Brahman or the Ultimate can never be defined and when one starts defining Brahman one ends up with Eswara or the personal god, and we can define Brahman only by negation by saying this is not that, this is not that, and never by affirmation.