Ancient Wisdom for Today (2 page)

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The spiritual leader of Eckankar is

Sri Harold Klemp, the Mahanta, the Living ECK Master. His inspiring and practical approach to spirituality helps thousands of people find greater freedom, wisdom, and love. His teachings uplift and help them recognize their own experiences with the Light and Sound of God.

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What Is Eckankar?

There are many routes we can take

to heaven. God has established so

many different paths and means for us
that there is a way for everyone. . . .

.
. .
If you are ready, the Spiritual Exercises of ECK will help you to find your
own custom-made approach to the Kingdom of God.

Harold Klemp

The Golden Heart

This earth is a big old schoolhouse. In fact, so is this entire material level of existence called the physical plane. However, we’re here to learn more than just 1

reading, writing, and arithmetic. We’re here to find our way back to God.

Our teachers have been many: Moses,

Jesus Christ, Muhammad, Confucius,

Buddha, Krishna, Zoroaster, Socrates,

Copernicus, Martin Luther, Shakespeare, Emerson, Einstein, the list goes on. The courses we’ve taken range from
Who
Am I? 101
to
Meaning of Life 404.
Texts include the Old and New Testaments,

the Apocrypha, the Torah, the Kabbalah, the Koran, the
Tao-te Ching,
the
Book of
Changes
(I Ching)
, the teachings of the Buddha, the
Bhagavad Gita,
the
Book of
Mormon,
the daily news, and even nursery rhymes.

The purpose of
ECKANKAR — Ancient
Wisdom for Today
, as was the purpose of the old schoolhouse primer, is to teach the basics. To give you the tools to explore your dreams. To help you have more love and understand past and present relationships. And to gain the spiritual insights that improve the quality of your life every day. It’s a spiritual adventure of a lifetime.

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Experience God for Yourself

A cornerstone of Eckankar is the value of personal spiritual experience. Reading a book or listening to a friend will give you only a small understanding of the spiritual worlds and your role in them.

To master your life, you must apply

self-discipline and have a true desire to experience God for yourself. Your experience with the spiritual Light and Sound of God will enrich your life and help you put daily problems into loving perspective.

Eckankar Has Ancient Roots

There’s a common golden thread run-

ning through all religious and spiritual teachings. It’s called the ECK. It is also known as the Holy Spirit, the Word of

God, and the Audible Life Stream.

Though the teachings of Eckankar

have ancient roots, they are timeless.

They’re a living teaching. They speak to us through books and through experience 3

in both the dream and waking states.

Humans have been inspired by the Holy

Spirit to reach spiritual understanding since the beginning of civilization.

A basic text is the Shariyat-Ki-

Sugmad, which means Way of the Eternal.

It is the holy scriptures of Eckankar. Several chapters of
ECKANKAR — Ancient
Wisdom for Today
open with a quote from
The Shariyat.

There Is Always

a Living ECK Master

The key teacher and mentor in

Eckankar is the Living ECK Master.

Eckankar is never without a living

Master. This ensures the religion remains pure and appropriate for the consciousness of the day. It avoids the theological disputes and political maneuverings so common in large organizations. And it allows the spiritual student to see and hear a teacher who has traveled the path to Self- and God-Realization.

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Paul Twitchell Introduced

Eckankar in 1965

When Paul Twitchell introduced

Eckankar to the modern world in 1965,

he separated spiritual truths from the cultural trappings which had surrounded them. Average people could begin to experience the Light and Sound of God while still living a happy, balanced, and pro-ductive life.

Paul Twitchell was born in Kentucky

in the early part of the twentieth century and served in the U.S. Navy during the Second World War.

A seeker from an early age, he was

introduced to a group of spiritual Masters who would change the course of his life.

These were the Vairagi ECK Masters.

While they trained Paul to become the

Living ECK Master, he explored a wide

range of spiritual traditions under different teachers. The high teachings of ECK had been scattered to the four corners of the world. Paul gathered these 5

golden teachings of Light and Sound and made them readily available to us.

It was these God experiences he

chronicled in his book
The Tiger’s Fang
.

Paul Twitchell eventually joined the

Vairagi Order and was given the task of bringing Eckankar to the world. He became the Living ECK Master.

By 1965, Paul was conducting Soul

Travel workshops in California and of-

fering discourses on the teachings of

Eckankar. A community of ECKists be-

gan to grow, and in 1970, Eckankar was established as a nonprofit religious organization. Paul Twitchell died in 1971, but not before he initiated many into the ECK

teachings.

The Mission of the

Living ECK Master

Is to Help People Find

Their Way Back to God

The present Living ECK Master is

Harold Klemp. He grew up on a Wisconsin 6

farm, attended divinity school, and completed four years in the U.S. Air Force.

While stationed in Japan, he discovered Eckankar. Initiated by Paul Twitchell in 1969, Harold earned his way into the

God Worlds. He later chronicled these

experiences in his book
Autobiography of
a Modern Prophet.

Harold Klemp speaks to many thou-

sands of seekers each year at ECK seminars, and his talks are broadcast around the world via the Internet. Well over a hundred recordings of his talks are available in various media from Eckankar. He has authored more than sixty books, and he continues to write, including many

articles and spiritual-study discourses.

His inspiring and practical approach to spirituality helps people find greater freedom, wisdom, and love. His teachings

uplift and help them recognize their own experiences with the Light and Sound of God.

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The ECK Message Is neither

Orthodox nor Evangelical

Eckankar is a religion but not an

orthodox religion. Eckankar is a religion for the individual — what many of us

hoped religion would be. It is designed to help individuals find their own way back to God through direct personal experiences.

There is no desire to convert people to Eckankar. Though many ECKists share

their spiritual enthusiasm with others, there is an abiding respect for the belief systems of all people. The ECK message therefore tends to be offered in a quiet and steady way. The teachings are written to speak to the inner being, Soul.

They don’t play off the emotions or the fears of spiritual seekers.

The best way to find out about

Eckankar is to read one of the more than a hundred books on the subject offered by Eckankar. Many of them mention the

Spiritual Exercises of ECK, which you

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can try in private and at your own pace.

Some of these books are available in more than eleven languages.

What Are ECKists Like?

ECKists come from all walks of life.

Their only common denominator is a love of God and a commitment to spiritual

unfoldment. They are of every race and religious background. They are responsible members of their community and

are not restricted by any special dietary rules, ascetic practices, or dress codes which would differentiate them from their neighbors.

Many people who have come into

Eckankar have done so because their

questions about life were not being

answered by orthodox and traditional

teachings.

Defining Eckankar

To aid your understanding of

Eckankar, a few definitions are in

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order. We use certain words to define

spiritual principles, either because they are more descriptive or because they do not carry the same connotation or stereo-type as some more commonly used words.

ECK
—
(EHK)
The Divine, or Holy, Spirit; the Audible Life Stream; the essence of God which supports and sustains all life; the Life Force.

Eckankar
—
(EHK-ahn-kahr)
Religion of the Light and Sound of God. Also means Co-worker with God.

Light and Sound of God
— The Holy Spirit. The two aspects through which

God appears in the lower worlds. The

Holy Spirit can appear to us as Light, which is a reflection of the atoms of God moving in space, or as Sound, which is the Audible Life Current that carries Soul back home to God. The Spiritual

Exercises of ECK show people how to

look and listen within themselves for

these qualities of Divine Spirit for

upliftment and guidance.

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Mahanta
—
(mah-HAHN-tah)
The inner form of the Living ECK Master who

guides the spiritual student on the inner planes. An expression of the Spirit of God that is always with you.

Soul
— The True Self. The inner, most sacred part of each person. As a spark of God, Soul can see, know, and perceive all things.

Soul Travel
— A natural way to expand the consciousness, to experience the

higher viewpoint of yourself as Soul

through spiritual exercises.

Sugmad
—
(SOOG-mahd)
A sacred name for God, the source of all life. It is neither masculine nor feminine.

This book will give you a brief overview of the religion of Eckankar. The teachings are actually quite simple and do not require any formal training or academic rigor. In fact, the basic beliefs of Eckankar could easily be summarized as follows:

•
Soul is eternal and is the individual’s 11

true identity.

•
Soul exists because God loves It.

•
Soul is on a journey of Self- and God-Realization.

• You can actively explore the spiritual worlds through Soul Travel, dreams,

and other spiritual techniques.

•
Spiritual unfoldment can be acceler-ated by conscious contact with the ECK, Divine Spirit.

•
This contact can be made by the use of the Spiritual Exercises of ECK and by

the guidance of the Living ECK Master.

•
The Mahanta, the Living ECK Master is the spiritual leader of Eckankar.

•
Spiritual experience and liberation in this lifetime is available to all.

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Soul Travel

oul Travel is an individual expe-

Srience, a realization of survival. It
is an inner experience through which
comes beauty and love of all life. It cannot
be experienced in rituals and ceremonies,
nor bottled in creeds.

The Shariyat-Ki-Sugmad

The traditional concept of Soul is that you have one, but It is distant from your everyday life and becomes important only when your physical body ceases to exist.

The ECKist believes, however, that each person
is
Soul and that Soul is the es-sential and permanent center of our being.

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It can never be lost.

The pressures of the modern world

make it easy to forget who we are. Our physical senses and emotions become

overwhelmed, and we lose Soul’s spiri-

tual view. Regaining this view is called Soul Travel. And Soul Travel is accom-plished by practicing the Spiritual Exercises of ECK on a daily basis.

Many people experience Soul Travel

as an expansion of awareness and

knowingness: an inner nudge to call a

friend, or seeing beyond your current

difficulties to a deeper meaning. Others may have dramatic experiences full of

spiritual majesty. In Eckankar, you learn to prove spiritual truths yourself through personal experience.

A Classic Soul Travel Experience

“A single pinpoint of white light

appeared in the depths of the dark

universe before me. It was far off in the distance but exploded toward me at a

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fantastic speed, like a brilliant sun

racing from the other side of the universe to swallow me in the hotness of its light.