k rSpecial Recording – Las Vegas, Nevada
Generally, I don’t speak to open audiences, because of the factor of, the work is not easily explained. It seems the simplicity in it, which there is a simplicity in it, but at the same time, one has to think of the fact of the subtleties and the background and everything that goes with it that brings in the depth of any teachings. I feel very much like the people who, St. Thomas Aquinas and all these people who, spent many, many years of study before they were ever able to bring out what they wanted to bring out. And, sometimes, they only brought it out in one book.
Now, this is true because I’ve been doing this sort of thing since I was a child but yet, I did not start working towards the public or working in any public area until I, at about 1935, and then I didn’t do anything openly. And I went through a tremendous amount of research and work and background and visions of thinking and a lot of work. In fact, I was compelled by my own master to make a study of practically every field of thought in the spiritual field that is possible. Because I was told I had to have this in order to bring out the background of ECK and bring it to the public.
Now, I was given this sort of training because I was not to be one-sided in the sense that being raised in the work, and being raised in the field and being given this from the childhood, that I would know only one thing. And a factor remains back to the one point, is that I am now brought forth a philosophy, if you want to call it that, or a teaching in which, that when one is through, whether they are able to do all the things that we talk about here. They do have a depth, they do have a background and this, of itself, is good because then they will know close to the whole of the works, instead of knowing only one short path or one short segment of it. And this, the reason I say this is good, is because then they know what other people are talking about.
They know what the other fellow is saying when he comes to make the talk or the lecture or he, of himself, gives what he calls a new philosophy or something that he’s brought into the world at a particular time. Now, this brings thought upon thought. I never prepare a talk at all when I come to a group, but the strangeness of all of this about ECK was the fact that it seemed that when it began to make it’s reappearance into the world again, there was a very interesting thing that began to happen. There began to be a breakup of the old social organizations. There began to be a new trend of thought. There began to be new ideas that were brought into the world, new thinking. New groups were formed. And many things were happening that never happened before, since maybe perhaps, for about a hundred years or two before that.
Of course, we have all these great trends that have broken up the social groups like in the ancient worlds. The coming of Christianity broke up all the ancient world and their philosophies and their thoughts. Now we have coming into the world, new ideas that are breaking up the orthodox thinking, the orthodox thoughts. And we are having to settle down on what are two things which will be the basis for the future.
Of course, ECK has never been a mass, or never will be a mass, teaching. And this is because that we don’t have the facilities, for one thing, to go out and teach it as a mass thing. Secondly, the mass won’t adopt it like they will a general teaching that comes along where one person has one or two techniques and they’ll say this is the end result.
We don’t find, that in the following of ECK, that anyone has the end results on anything. Not even ECK has the end results. But we do find that one thing happens. We try, in every possible sense we can, to give the person who is in ECK, and all of our fellow beings who are not in ECK, the freedom to be themselves and the freedom to act in their own state of consciousness. We feel that this is the basis of things – is this freedom. And if they do not have the freedom, then there is something wrong with either the teachings or the other teachings that are being given.
Control over people and control among ourselves, even if it comes down to family units, has a benefit, of course. But at the same time, we must think in the terms that the benefit of controls must be something that is going to be for the group. We cannot take a wild savage group and not have a chief or a head over it. We cannot take a civilized organization and not have some form of governments that heads up nations. So, therefore, we say in the teachings, of themselves, they have to have a head. They have to have someone who will be, in a sense, not in control of the individual, but control of the body of thought. And this body of thought being flown out to the people, especially those who are interested in it.
Now of itself, this thing that we call the ECK are, if you want to term it the spirit of God, the Holy Ghost or whatever. The comforter or what name you want to give it, is a very subtle, a very strange-working sort of a power because it works for all people for their benefit, whether we feel like it is being done that way or not. So many times we think we are in a position of where we say, “Well, there is always something better than what we have, especially in the form of the things where we get to the bottom of the scale and we scrape along on the bottom and will sometime cry out to God, “Why is this happening to me? Why have you left me?”
It is the same thing that at one time several decades ago, at least almost a hundred years ago, there was a master of the ECK who stood out on a peak in the Himalaya’s and he raised his arms to the heavens and he cried out, “Where are you, God, and why have you left me?” And he belonged to a monastery there. In fact, he is at the same monastery there at the head of it. He then experienced this great phenomenon of the thunder in the sky, as you read in some of the scriptures of the way that God portrays himself, and this voice came out of the heavens, “I have never left you. I have been with you since the beginning of the age. I will always be with you.”
And that was all there was that was said, And he came down off of the high summit down back into his monetary again. And he walked through the doors and everyone knew that this man had had the great change from himself, the old self into the new self. And he had discovered that God never left him, never will leave him. But he had to do this with a state of phenomena, with some thing that seemed to be that, when we become, frankly, the great disbeliever, that something comes out and it strikes us, as with a club or a hammer, and says, and whatever it is that does this says, “I am God and I have always been with you and I will always be with you.
It is the same as Saul of Taursus, when he was riding on the road to Damascus. He had to be struck by this great light and blinded for several days because that he could not understand that he was not to be persecuting a certain element. That he must, of himself, become greater and broader and have more depth within himself to know that there really existed something that was far beyond him, far beyond the orthodox religions that he had been studying and he had known since his childhood.
So you see we, ourselves, do not believe, normally, that there is something that is taking care of us, that is beyond us, beyond all the senses. that we can’t see, we don’t know about and we don’t know what it is, until this day that it comes to us and it hits us. We cannot sit in an audience and listen to someone like myself say to the audience, “it is here and now. God is always with us. We’ll always walk on holy grounds wherever we go,” because we, ourselves, haven’t experienced this.
And if we don’t experiences this, then well, we can’t believe it. And I’m quite sure and I know, of myself, that it isn’t true for the person who hasn’t experienced it. No one can believe there is an out-of-state-of-the-body consciousness. They cannot believe that they can move from this state of consciousness into a higher state of consciousness unless that they have either heard someone talk about it, they have read it in books or they have experienced it themselves. And not until they have experienced if themselves do they know it to be true.
Now I say you here and now, that all reality is here now and we can have if we have recognized it. And this is a great factor. This is the one whole thing that we must know about – the recognition of this. We do not have the recognition of this then we have lost it. I say the recognition of it, we ourselves, as the individual, as the soul, as the individual soul, have everything within us that has ever been known or that will ever or the great knowledge of God or the experience of God. Everything that we will ever need or we have ever had, we had it within us. But our problem is, we pay attention too much to the outer and never to this inner self. And, unless we pay attention to this inner self and we know for what it is and can recognize it for what It is, then we have lost it. And we are like those who wander in the wilderness, never to be found what we actually are. And always crying out and no one but God hearing what we have to say. And wondering what we have to offer him or what he has to offer us.
Now this strange thing about all of this, it may be a heresy to make this statement but it is a true statement. God in it’s entirety does not care for us in the form, the body form. That is nothing to him. He cares about survival. And if he didn’t care about survival, then soul itself would die when the body died. But he wants its survival to go on and on and on. And the soul, of itself, can adopt many bodies, different types of bodies, until it reaches back into the heavenly kingdom again.
There was one time, I forget when it was, maybe 10 to 15 years ago, when the Life magazine published a story how about the many different body forms that were on earth of the animals and the reptiles and the fish and the birds and all and the human body, of course. And in this, I believe I am correct in saying, there was something like 9 million different types of body forms. Now God, of himself, is not interested in these body forms. He knows everything that goes on. He can hear everything that is being said or done, even to the chirp of a cricket, yet, in his entirety, he leaves to us what we want to do.
If we want to return on the path to heaven or the path to reality again that is entirely up to us. Or if we what to spend another million years in the state of taking on one body after another body until, finally, we come to the succession of all of these bodies, that is entirely up to us. Now there it Is a statement that’s made in, one of the books that I write, in which I dispute the words of St. Thomas Aquinas who said, “all roads lead to Rome.” He meant that all roads lead to heaven. Yes, this is true but I disputed this in a sense that not all roads will lead to the ultimate or the true reality because so many of us will think and find a place in the lower planes which we believe that is heaven. And many religions have established what they call the place of paradise within a certain area of the lower worlds like the high mental worlds. And they have built their own homes there and they have not yet gone on into the true reality, because they believe this is the ultimate of the ultimate.
Well, this is not of the essence in which we are trying to bring across to people. We are trying to say to people, beyond this paradise lies the world in which that we want to go. Beyond this lies the ultimate of all ultimate’s. And not as the Muslims, who used to say that we have a delightful world in which we will go to when we pass from this body and which will have all of the physical sensations and delights that we missed here on earth.
Now, we say we go far beyond this and it’s true that in the past, the old orthodox Muslims went to these places because they established them through the channel here that is on earth here at this present time. And when we build up these afterlife places, just like some people do in talking about the summer lands in which they will meet all of the relatives and their friends and their uncles, their aunts, their cousins on the other side, this is true. They’re there. And they will go there if they so determine and make the considerations that they are doing this.
But we do not want any of this, of ourselves, In the field ECK. We want to go beyond. And so far beyond all of this, that we do not understand, we have no imagination of what it is. All we know is that it’s there. And when we go into this high area out of the physical state of consciousness, while we are living in this physical state, and visit in these areas and come back, we cannot talk about it
There’s no words. There’s nothing that we say about it and it’s like the old Buddhists or the old primitive Christians, who did get into these areas. They, themselves, could not say anything but with their hands or with body gestures or something. They could try to tell of the ecstasy or the great delights that they had in visiting these worlds.
Now, the practicality of all of this is the fact that we must live in this world. Yet not be one of it. And, by this statement, I mean to say that there are so many who do in the field of meditation, which we are not concerned with, of ourselves, as the meditation the East Indians do. Because it is a word that just is a formalized system, like prayer is a formalized way of praying to a higher source, so is meditation in this form.
We, ourselves, know that so many people who get into these higher areas, they come back. They are not trained and therefore lies the pitfalls, that they, themselves, do not want to live the life here. And this is the problem. This is one of the strange problems that go within a lot of these fields and these people say, “This is for me and, therefore, this life here isn’t for me.” This is a point of foolishness because, as long as we have the body, we have to take care of the body. We should do what we can for the body. Live like we can and live according to what we want to live here. But we must live in this other world, too.
Live in this state of consciousness. Quite frequently or occasionally, go and visit these places but come back, knowing that it is there. But at the same time we have to stay here. We need two things in this life and this is the way that we have to live.
First, we must have help. If we don’t have help, then we’re not much good to anyone or to ourselves. And secondly, we must have the means or the income or the economic status in which that wecan live. And we don’t have to have, so many times as we think we have to have so much, and so much to be able to live at certain levels. I’ve know people who have lived on minor incomes and have enjoyed themselves. But I’m saying that we live at our own level. And whatever level we live at is perfectly alright with me. But we do come back to the one point: that we have to have these two things while we’re living here. And we must know that, beyond the physical senses, lie these other things.
We do not use ECK for ourselves. We do not use it for a purpose of getting something, which I’ve had many many people in the past who’ve come to me and have wanted various things. Humorously, like the woman who came to me and wanted to know if I could get her boyfriend back for her. And I thought it was humorous and I laughed about it and she got very upset and she wanted to know why this. And I said, “Well, do you use a high, something that is for you personally to gain a temporary advantage in life, or would you use it for a permanent advantage? Would you use it for something that would give you the high essence of life, or would you give it for something that you would use in the physical?”
And then I came back with the point, I said, “You remember your friend is also a human, living in the human element as an individual soul within the human element. You must also give him freedom. And unless you give him freedom, whether he wants to make the decision about whether to come back or not to you. Then, if you have forced him back, you may get, what I would say, a part man, a half man. Someone who would resent you and it wouldn’t last. On the other hand, if he never decides to come back to you, then you are free of this. You are free of any love you have for him. Then you can go out and there are other people you can find greater harmony and a greatest strength in being with.
But the point which I am trying to get across to her was the fact that every individual has his freedom of choice of what he wants to do. And when we force these people into doing things, when we push them into certain elements, in certain areas, then we, ourselves, are working to our own disadvantage, because we then have to take upon ourselves the burdens in which that they, of themselves, have been carrying. And we take part of that burden and, sometimes, we do not like it.
Now, I say unto you, as I have said to many, “Those who come to me, the burden will be shared.” And I do not speak from the human element. I speak from the element which is beyond. I speak from the element of the inner master or speak from the cosmic conscious state.
The burden of the oppressed will always be taken by this inner master. And it will try to be lightened for those want it lightened. It always reminds me of the story of great saint who appeared one time in the Mexican village. There was a number of complaints that had been going on in the Mexican village about who had the greater burden, who carried the greater cross. So he appeared in the village and he said to all the villagers, “All you people who now feel that you are being oppressed, bring all your crosses and throw them in the pile. And then we’ll divide them up and we we’ll have an equality of the burdens.” So they were all thrown in the center of the village, in the little village square.
And he said to the man, who was making the greatest complaint, that he had carried the greatest burden of the cross. He said, “You may step forward and you may take the cross of your choice. And this is going to be yours and you must bear it.”
He stepped forward and he picked up the smallest one and, as you know, the answer was he could not hardly get it off the ground. And he could not say anything because he had made his choice. And he staggered away under this. And the saint turned to a very small. a man of very small stature, and said, “You have not made any complaints. You have not said anything. What cross do you want to bear?”
So the man went out and he says, “Lord, I will bear any cross that is given to me.” And the saint says, “Take that one.” And it was a huge cross. It was so great that the fellow was insignificant beside it. The little fellow went over. He picked up the cross and it was like just a toy. He put it on his shoulder and he went jauntily away.
Now, the whole thing about this was that the teacher, representing the inner teacher or the ECK master who comes to all people eventually in the inner form, says to these people, ”What do you want of me?” And they say, “Oh Lord, I want to be relieved of all my burden. I want all of this oppression to leave me.” Well, the master knows if this is truth or If it’s not truth. So the master will say, “I will take your burden, but you must take your own responsibilities because you have your own responsibilities. What do you want?” And usually, he who’s complaining the loudest, he who said that, “The Lord has left me. The Lord is no longer with me.” So many times, he is the one who has said that I will take the smallest burden. And he is the one who finds whether the burden is light or whether the burden is heavy, it is always heavy and oppressive to him, because he has not adopted himself to the one thing.
That joy is the attitude of the disciple and the joyous attitude of the disciple is that no burden is too great for him. This is why that the master always chooses an outer form. And in the outer form, he says to the individual who is in outer form, “You are to represent me among all the worlds. And all the worlds is the burden that you must carry. You must carry the burden of the oppressed. You must carry the burden of those who feel the guilt. You must carry the burden of those want to leave this life and go into the other worlds. And, usually, the outer form is very joyous and says, “If this is my task, this is my task and I’m so happy that I’m able serve. I am happy that I’m able to go out into the other worlds and do something. Not to do something for people, but to do something in which that it gives the individual a new lease on life.
It gives the individual the opportunity to see that there is something that goes beyond this world, something that is greater than himself. And by doing so, then he has spread the word or the message. And when he who receives this message or has the spark of divinity relit within himself, he understands and he knows then that it has come to him and he becomes the joyous one who goes, on beyond, then. And he, of himself, may not ever preach the message. But this is which has been relit and the flame that is now within him can go out and it can touch and relight other flames though he, himself, may never know this.
He, himself, may be the man who walks through the crowd, in the square or through the restaurant. And suddenly someone becomes very joyous who had been in depression and says, “I don’t know what happened to me. I feel so joyous. I feel so happy.”
And it’s all because the individual, who’s had the great flame and the spark of divinity relit in him, had reached out and touched another one. I tell you here. And I tell you now that, once that you get this flame lit again within you, you will touch people in areas who have never known who you are or who will never know who you are.
You, yourself, will be able to touch people in the darkest of the Congo, in the far reaches of the frozen north and they, themselves, will never know where it came from. And you, yourself, will never know it went there. Then we become what we call in ECK, the ECK Vahana. Vahana is the word for the vehicle. We are the vehicle for this thing that we know as ECK. As it moves out from the center source of the Inner master through the outer form and goes out and touches the others, they themselves become the carriers of this. They, themselves, become that which reaches and touches all other people. Then we are no longer interested in the things as we have known them but we are interested in the things of what will be. So there I say to you that we, ourselves, want to become the vehicle for this source that we call the God source or the spirit or whatever it is.
And we do this by keeping ourselves in a state of neutrality, a state of, not indifference, but a state of awareness on a high level. We know and we are detached from all of these things which would affect us emotionally and which would trap us and put us into the deep pits. All of these things, which put Job in the pit, and put many others into the pit, St. John of the Cross who wrote The Dark Night of the Soul, all of these things that bring him down are now no longer a part of us.
And we can have them or we can’t have them. We can enjoy them for what they are and live with them and yet be not a part of them. And yet we know, of all the things that within us living in the center of the core, that we are part of this great thing, this unknown quantity that we call God, and that we, ourselves, will be it. Someday we’ll become the ECK and our final incarnation on earth is that we, ourselves, will someday become the master. And that we, ourselves, will be in the same position as the ECK master or any of the other masters. And we are now taking the world burden upon ourselves and we are carrying it. But we are carrying it with a lightness. As Jesus said, the burden is light and we, ourselves, will then be it of itself and we’ll live in, what we call, the joyous life.
But I say to you, whoever does the sparking of the flame or whoever brings you into the light, always consider this person as giving you something, which you would never have gotten within these worlds of the psychic or the physical worlds. Because all this comes from God, of himself. And we, ourselves, have nothing other to do than to serve him. And maybe St. Thomas Aquinas might have been right that all the roads do lead to Rome. Or maybe all roads do lead to heaven, no matter what they are.