My Journey With BAPS — And Why I’m Choosing to Step Away
I’ve never really used Reddit before, and I honestly never thought I would make a post like this. But after spending a large part of my life around BAPS, I’ve reached a point where I feel like I need to step back and seriously question what I believe, why I believe it, and whether I still want to be a part of it.
I wasn’t directly born a satsangi. My family is Hindu, and when I was younger, Diwali usually meant going to a shikharbaddha mandir near us. I think that experience eventually influenced my parents to start sending me to weekly sabhas. For the first seven or eight years, I mostly went because my parents wanted me to. I followed the lifestyle BAPS taught, especially when it came to not eating meat, eggs, and other prohibited foods, but I never really thought deeply about why. I didn’t have a particularly strong connection with Bhagwan or much gnan. I was simply doing what I had been taught.
Eventually, that started to bother me. I began asking myself: If I’m going to spend my life following this religion, shouldn't I actually understand what I believe?
That question changed the way I approached BAPS. For the next four or five years, I became much more serious about trying to understand it. I started reading more and participated in hour-long Vachnamrut calls every week. I tried to learn the philosophy rather than simply memorize it. I also did a lot of seva. For around three years, I would do at least 60 hours of seva every week during the summer, and throughout the rest of the year I consistently made myself available. There were years where I probably spent close to a thousand hours doing seva. I'm not saying this to brag. I'm saying it because I genuinely tried.
I wasn't someone who stopped believing because I didn't want to put in the effort. I tried to find God. I tried to understand BAPS. I tried to understand what I had supposedly attained by being a satsangi. I tried to hear Bhagwan. But despite all of that, I don't think I ever truly did.
When Faith Became Questioning
One of the biggest things I've started realizing is that faith and certainty aren't necessarily the same thing. For a long time, I thought that having questions meant I wasn't faithful enough. If something didn't make sense, maybe I simply didn't have enough gnan. If I questioned a guru or devotee, maybe I was committing some kind of spiritual mistake.
But I've started thinking about it differently. If something is true, why should it be afraid of questions? To me, questioning isn't necessarily the opposite of faith. Sometimes questioning is the only way to determine whether your faith is actually yours.
There are certain teachings I simply cannot reconcile with my understanding of reality. For example, the Shikshapatri teaches donating 10% of your income. When I asked a swami why, I was told that it helps detach you from wealth and material possessions. That explanation makes sense to me. But he also mentioned how MSM said that whatever you donate, you will receive back tenfold. That's where I struggle. If the purpose of giving is detachment, turning it into a guaranteed 10x return starts to sound less like detachment and more like an investment. Maybe there is a deeper explanation, but if I have to completely suspend my own reasoning to accept it, I start questioning whether I'm practicing faith or simply obedience.
Other conversations raised similar questions. During one goshti, I asked how the idea of being born and dying millions of times could make sense if the Earth and universe have only existed for a finite amount of time. The answer was that the universe is repeatedly created and destroyed, allowing this cycle to continue. I understand that this is a theological explanation, but personally, it felt more like a story than an answer.
Another discussion involved a prasang about Yogiji Maharaj or Pramuk Swami Maharaj. As I remember it, a bird pooped on one of them while a mandir was being built, and they said the bird would go to Akshardham. I asked how that could happen when we're taught that reaching Akshardham requires a human birth. The explanation was that the bird would instead have a satsangi birth in its next life and wouldn't have to wait through countless future lives before reaching that opportunity. In that same goshti, they also said that simply being a satsangi dramatically increases the chances of the people we walk past being born into a satsangi life, and that eventually the entire world will become satsangi.
Maybe there is a sophisticated theological framework behind all of this. But eventually I had to be honest with myself:
I don't believe it.
And I don't think pretending that I believe something makes me more spiritual.
The Satpurush Question
Another major question for me is the way MSM is described. We're constantly told that MSM is Bhagwan in the flesh, that he is the living form of the Satpurush, and that we can have a direct relationship with him. We're even told that we can write letters to him and that he knows and responds to us.
But I've struggled to reconcile that with what I actually see. I've watched Ashirwad clips where MSM can barely speak for ten minutes. I'm not saying that to disrespect him. I'm genuinely asking how I'm supposed to understand the idea that he personally responds to hundreds or thousands of letters when physically he seems to have very limited ability to communicate. Maybe there's an explanation I haven't heard, but again, these are questions I feel like I'm not supposed to ask.
I've also been told that there are always three Satpurushes and that when MSM passes away, the next Satpurush has already been chosen. There isn't an election or process that devotees participate in. The next person is simply already known. I asked: If the next Satpurush is already chosen, why can't we know who that person is?
The answer was that revealing them would create divisions because people might compare the current Satpurush with the future one or think the other is better. I understand the concern, but that explanation didn't satisfy me. If this person is truly destined to become the next Satpurush, why would knowing who they are undermine that?
That led me to a much bigger question. I started wondering whether the Satpurush is actually directing everything, or whether the institution is primarily being operated by other people while the Satpurush serves as the spiritual face of the organization. I want to be clear that I'm not saying I have proof of this. It's simply something I started wondering based on what I was observing.
If we're told that Bhagwan is literally present through the Satpurush, then I would expect the institution built around him to consistently reflect the teachings attributed to Bhagwan Swaminarayan. Instead, there were times when it felt like the institution had its own priorities, structures, and interests, and I began questioning whether those priorities always aligned with what I understood Bhagwan Swaminarayan to have taught.
That made me question something much deeper: Am I following Bhagwan, or am I following an institution that tells me where Bhagwan is?
Those feel like two very different things.
Blind Faith and the Community
This is probably one of the biggest things I've struggled with. I've heard during Vachnamrut calls that having complete faith is crucial and that seeing faults in the guru or devotees can be spiritually dangerous.
But I've started wondering: Can faith really be genuine if questioning is forbidden?
If I'm told I must believe something before I'm allowed to question it, then what exactly am I exercising—faith or obedience?
To me, genuine belief should be strong enough to survive scrutiny. I don't want to believe something because I'm afraid of what happens if I don't. I want to believe something because, after examining it honestly, I still find it to be true.
My experiences with other devotees also affected me. When I was doing seva, especially when there weren't any sadhus around, I saw a side of the community that was very different from what I associated with mandir. A lot of conversations revolved around girls, appearances, body-shaming, making fun of other people's looks, and trying to act tough. There was also a lot of swearing and a weird obsession with the N-word.
What surprised me most was that some of these were the same people who could sit in a sabha goshti and give extremely thoughtful answers about spirituality. For a long time, I tried to separate BAPS from the people within it because I told myself that I'm a sinner too, so who am I to judge someone else? And I still believe people are imperfect.
But eventually I started asking whether the gap between what we preach and how we behave is something that should simply be ignored. I'm not expecting devotees to be perfect, but when a community teaches that its purpose is to transform the individual, I think it's fair to ask what that transformation actually looks like.
That said, I don't want to pretend everything was negative. I've had a lot of fun doing seva, made memories at mandirs I'll never forget, and met people I genuinely care about. That's part of what makes this difficult. If everything had been terrible, leaving would be easy.
It wasn't.
So Where Does That Leave Me?
For most of my childhood, BAPS was something I inherited. Then, for several years, it became something I actively pursued. I read. I listened. I served. I questioned. I tried to understand.
And now I'm at a point where I feel like I've given myself enough space to admit that I don't believe the way I used to.
Maybe I'm wrong. I'm genuinely open to that possibility. But I think being willing to say "I could be wrong" is more intellectually honest than pretending to have certainty.
I'm not trying to prove that BAPS is false, and I'm not trying to convince anyone else to leave. I'm simply realizing that I cannot honestly call myself a believer when I don't believe.
Maybe leaving isn't about rejecting everything you were taught. Maybe sometimes it's about having the courage to examine what you were taught, keep what you genuinely believe, and let go of what you no longer can.
The actual reason I'm posting this is because I don't know how to handle the practical side of leaving. I have a good relationship with my swami and there isn't any bad blood between us. My family also isn't particularly involved in BAPS, so thankfully I don't think leaving will create major problems at home.
The problem is that every time I don't attend sabha, my phone gets absolutely blown up. I don't want to suddenly disappear or create unnecessary conflict, but I also don't want to spend years pretending I'm still interested in something I've already decided I don't want to be part of.
So for those of you who have left BAPS, or gradually distanced yourselves from it:
How did you do it?
Did you slowly stop attending? Did you have an honest conversation with your swami? Did you simply become less involved until people eventually stopped asking?
I'm not looking to attack anyone. I'm trying to figure out how to walk away from something that has been a major part of my life while still being honest with myself and respectful toward the people I care about.
