Hindi
Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...
, translates as "Spiritual Godly University".
Devanagari
Devanagari ( ; in script: , , ) is an Indic script used in the Indian subcontinent. It is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental systems: alphabets, writing system), based on the ancient ''Brāhmī script, Brā ...
: आध्यात्मिक ईश्वरीय विश्वविद्यालय) is a reformative splinter group within the
Brahma Kumaris
The Brahma Kumaris ( ("Daughters of Brahma")) is a spiritual movement that originated in Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan during the 1930s.
Followers of the ''Adhyatmik Ishwariya Vishwa Vidyalaya'' (AIVV) refer to themselves as the ''Prajapita Brahma Kumaris'' (PBKs) or Advance Party. The AIVV sees itself and the Brahma Kumaris Organization as two halves of the same spiritual family who will eventually re-unite to transform this world from hell into heaven, although the BKWSU does not share the same belief.
The organisation is based in
Kampil
Kampil, historically known as Kampilya, is a town and a Nagar panchayat in Farrukhabad district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is located about 45 km from Farrukhabad, and 55 km from Budaun. It is a very important place fr ...
,
Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh ( ; UP) is a States and union territories of India, state in North India, northern India. With over 241 million inhabitants, it is the List of states and union territories of India by population, most populated state in In ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
Beliefs
Central to the PBKs' beliefs is that at the beginning of the movement, there was a different
medium
Medium may refer to:
Aircraft
*Medium bomber, a class of warplane
* Tecma Medium, a French hang glider design Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* ''The Medium'' (1921 film), a German silent film
* ''The Medium'' (1951 film), a film vers ...
,
Dada Lekhraj
Lekhraj Khubchand Kirpalani (15 December 1876 – 18 January 1969), also known as Dada Lekhraj, was an Indian guru who was the founder of the Brahma Kumaris.
Life
Lekhraj Kirpalani was born in a Hyderabad, Sindh in 1876. In his fifties, Kir ...
's business partner, who died in 1942, reincarnated as the AIVV's leader Virender Dev Dixit and has, since Lekhraj Kripalani's death, become once again the authoritative medium of
God
In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...
through whom he speaks clarifying the earlier teachings.
The PBKs accuse the BKWSU's hierarchy of "censoring or altering" the spiritualistic messages called "". They consider that the Brahma Kumaris misinterpret and misunderstood their predictions. PBKs refer to the Brahma Kumaris' teachings as ‘Basic Knowledge’ and message presented by Shiva through Dixit as the ‘Advance knowledge’.
The PBKs claim that God is now manifesting himself through a different
medium
Medium may refer to:
Aircraft
*Medium bomber, a class of warplane
* Tecma Medium, a French hang glider design Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* ''The Medium'' (1921 film), a German silent film
* ''The Medium'' (1951 film), a film vers ...
to correctly interpret the original teachings and reject the Brahma Kumaris belief that
God
In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...
and their deceased founder
Dada Lekhraj
Lekhraj Khubchand Kirpalani (15 December 1876 – 18 January 1969), also known as Dada Lekhraj, was an Indian guru who was the founder of the Brahma Kumaris.
Life
Lekhraj Kirpalani was born in a Hyderabad, Sindh in 1876. In his fifties, Kir ...
is being channelled via an elderly woman called Hiradaya Mohini or "Dadi Gulzar".
Shivbaba narrated Gyan (flute of knowledge) through Brahma Baba and is now giving the advanced knowledge i.e. He is clarifying the true meaning (the true Gita) of those , to the AIVV Prajapita Brahma Kumar/Kumaris (i.e. Advance Party or AIVV).
Membership
The group is made up of predominantly disaffected ex-members of the BKWSU University, some of whom had conflict with the BKWSU's local representative.
Walliss identifies the Advance Party as radically re-interpreting the millenarianism of the BKSWU to regain its "true" original form. As a result, they set a specific date of 2008 as that expected for the destruction of the world and the emergence of the millennial kingdom in 2036.
BKWSU use of term
Within the Brahma Kumaris movement, the term "Advance Party" is also used for the group of deceased
Brahma Kumaris
The Brahma Kumaris ( ("Daughters of Brahma")) is a spiritual movement that originated in Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan during the 1930s.paradisical heaven on earth, called the
Golden Age
The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the ''Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages of Man, Ages, Gold being the first and the one during wh ...
.
The breakaway group's use of the name is seen within the BKWSU as impertinent and they therefore refer to them as the 'Shankar Party'.
Criminal allegations
In December 2017, Indian police raided the group's
ashram
An ashram (, ) is a spiritual hermitage or a monastery in Indian religions, not including Buddhism.
Etymology
The Sanskrit noun is a thematic nominal derivative from the root 'toil' (<
Meditation
Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique to train attention and awareness and detach from reflexive, "discursive thinking", achieving a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state, while not judging the meditat ...
*
New religious movement
A new religious movement (NRM), also known as a new religion, is a religious or Spirituality, spiritual group that has modern origins and is peripheral to its society's dominant religious culture. NRMs can be novel in origin, or they can be part ...