Question: Moving on from a religious path

Friend,
First I would like to thank you for your sharing of your experiences in life and how to live life with more meaning with freedom and connection:)
I have used your blog to experience for myself and the most useful thing has been about really just re-connected with now, being present and being in the flow of life. It has made me appreciate how narrow minded it seemed I had become whilst living what I thought was the ultimate spiritual life!
I guess I have a few questions for you, which you may like to answer?! I don’t wish to depend on any one individual anymore or anyone for that matter, so I ask you whilst aware of dependency traps!
I have been walking the path of life closely with the Brahma Kumaris for the last 10 years. I felt it was the truth, that this was God, that heaven was my birthright and many other things which are taught by the BKs. I feel now that I am questioning all of what I believed in and finding that if feels like I don’t necassarily find all of the BK teaching to be so much ‘the only path’ now….what concerns me though is that to be open to life and to really make the journey of life my own, opens up a lot of joy and possibilities, whilst also opening up loneliness and uncertainty. I really feel in some ways that I have neglected many things in life over the last 10 years, whilst in the pursuit of purity and peace…whilst I have had many beautiful experiences as a BK, I also feel I have rejected a lot of life and suppressed a lot of feelings/emotions…life isn’t always so easy;-/
I guess I have isolated myself from the bigger picture of life in pursuit of a ‘spiritual lifestyle’. By being more open recently I can see that people in the world are much broader than simply ‘shrudras’ and that there is a lot to be gained and experienced through friendships with people who don’t label themselves as BKs!
In going with the flow and as you shared recently about flowing with the wind, I can see when I allow this, it is a beautiful experience. I have a concern though!-0…If (hypothetical question) I am in a relationship and with children who depend on me and if in going with the flow, I find I connect with someone else who I’d like to spend more time with than my partner and children, then is this still going with the flow?! Sometimes, it seems desires can drive us more than our deeper purpose and the ‘damage’ caused could be greater….of course, suppression of lust, desire, needs for companionship wouldn’t be helpful either….
Last comment/question (honest) as otherwise I am going on too much! It feels like the last 10 years has been a lot about battling with lust and suppressing many interests in life, including being close to people, in particular females. I used to have the best (and worst!) time with girlfriends in the past. Somehow, I feel that I have been suppressing my desires, emotions and that nothing has really gone away…now I’m confused. Do I want a pure lifestyle? Would I rather be close to another person again? In being close to another, would I open up to being extreme in lust again?!
Right! That’s it! Muchas gracias mi amigo

Thank you for your honest question. Last year I decided not to answer questions any more… So I am “lying” now, because I plan to fully answer your question.
Is Ananda a liar? Is that bad?
“Avyakt7” is the one who made that statement not Ananda but paradoxically, it is the same guy but not the same. :-)

Things change. Life changes and our consciousness will change as well. It is the way of life. There is no “I” statically living life, but we are life itself with those changes.

I recall one time that I was speaking with a dear Brahma Kumaris friend of mine. She has been a friend of many lives (even though she does not realize it yet) about the intricacies of “Good and Bad.”
She said to me: “ For me there is a clear line between good and bad.”
I listened to her and didn’t say a word for there was nothing else to say.

A couple of years later, she said to me: “I don’t have a clear line between good and bad now” I said to her: “Good.” She just smiled.

What changed her perception?
It was an experience that she was going through at that time. That experience represented the very thing that she was repressing in her life.

Life experiences will make the changes in our lives, not intellectual understanding.

Repression is not the answer when trying to “conquer a vice.” Don’t separate yourself from what is. Don’t consider that to be “you.” Just observe, accept and transform that energy which we label as “lust” into good wishes from the heart. Feel. Don’t label as “good or bad.” It is important to “learn” to feel again.

A religious practice based on beliefs is able to put layers of things in top of our “vices,” but a dependency on a system is unavoidable. We are not free. We become dependent.

Ananda is very thankful of the experience that he had in the Brahma Kumaris.
Without that experience, he wouldn’t be able to understand (not intellectually) many things that he does now.

Let me share some of those realizations.
We are caught up with this thing, which we call morality, the “good and bad.” That is a belief that we have acquired in this world. Many of us, need to experience that belief to the utmost.

That is the role of the Brahma Kumaris in my view. It is a path of reformation by changing our minds to be conscious of that duality which otherwise, we wouldn’t be aware that even existed practically, not just intellectually.

“God says that broccoli is good. Ice cream is bad. Ice cream and sweets will make you suffer by taking you to the dentist office or even worse, the doctor. You must eat all your broccoli if you want to be good and then, God will be happy with you. “
Then, God will change his words when the kids are becoming “smarter” according to time and he will say something like: “OK. If you eat all your vegetables and broccoli, then at the end of the day, you will have a piece of dessert.”

When the time comes, the kid cannot eat dessert because his stomach is full of vegetables and so he claims that “God has cheated on him.” Then other kids will find out that “God gave ice cream to so and so when he preaches that ice cream is bad.” God is liar, they will say.
What is God’s task? To keep the kids fed with “good” vegetables as much as possible, for when someone’s mentality is fixed in “good or bad,” they do not have the ability to see something else. “Black or White” are not the only colors, but how could that be taught when someone does not want to see other colors?

That kid mentality does not allow someone to look at the bigger picture.

The path of asceticism will take our experience to one extreme. Buddha was an example. He went to that extreme and then he was left alone by his “friends” and disciples when he no longer wanted to do that practice because of a realization. That is how the path of the “middle way “ started. Many followers will say: “I will follow the middle way only. I will not go into extremes. Everything in moderation.”

In life unless you experience things in your own skin, you will not know. Intellectual understanding is completely and utterly useless. (Although “good” at the office world.)
We may need to experience that extreme in us.
The Brahma Kumaris offers that valuable opportunity for those who need that in their life experience. Ananda understands that there are many who still may need to experience that path. They have the right to experience that path themselves without “my” input. My experience is just my experience.

For the serious seeker, to be alone, to feel alone is part of the ride. That is the chance to become one with yourself, but that is not the end of the road, for we live in relationship and that oneness that we have realized, needs to be observed under the mirror of relationships.

Let me add another thing.
Brahma Baba is truly a being of light. However, he is not the only one. Brahma Baba’s path is not the “only one” although his follower may think that to be the case.

Every being has a role, which is not depending in our petty morality or how well it fits it, but in the common good.

Life my friend, is not concerned with our beliefs or moral standards; however, there is a consequence for every action as we know.

Flowing in life is to take away the baggage, the weight of the “I.”

In your hypothetical question, when we learn to feel that who we need to be in that occasion, that is when we are honest with ourselves, we will know that we have acted, as we should. That action does not need for people to applaud us or to say “Good boy, you did good.”

We need to learn to discern our emotions and desires from that calling of life. One thing is to realize something and a different thing is to put that realization in action.

When your feeling is honest, then it is honest also to accept the consequences of that honesty and to move on in life.

Note that Ananda is not giving formulas of “good or bad” for life changes at every moment, every time and to flow with life is to appreciate that change, to ride with the wind while it lasts.
We are eternal. Enjoy the ride of experiences, amigo… :-)