k rSpecial Recording
Okay, everybody ready? This afternoon which is the last in this series of these lectures as I promised to speak on the doctrine of ECK. Now, the basic doctrine of ECK is freedom here and now, means actually, that we get liberation in this life. And, we are not waiting for the next life or any other life freedom or salvation which is what we call, well, the religion is called, the liberation of soul from the body and all its problems. This salvation or if you want to call it, liberation, is actually a freedom of the controlling of our life here and now. And making ourselves the control factor of all things in our environment here and now and in the other worlds.
This can be done in several ways. It can be done through a Master or, as I spoke about last night in the other lecture, Ii can be done by one accidentally by falling into a certain pattern in a certain area. Or, it can be done by one who has disciplined himself and found himself in certain areas of the invisible life or the spiritual life which has brought him to this area of, I would say, the spiritual area or the area of finding a path himself and, accidentally, coming across someone who knew something about it in order to help him and direct him. If he can work in the field of analysis, spiritual analysis, and certain forms of higher psychology then he can pretty well work through himself although it isn’t a good thing to work by trial and error. When we are working by trial and error we can actually run into a lot of problems like we are in any position or any job or anything in our present life of trying to move through our own experience in trial and error, which is, actually, always the tough way to go.
But, then you must remember that we are not concerned here (with this path which we call the path of ECK or Eckankar) with a philosophy, religion, a metaphysical system, an occult system or a teaching of spiritualism or any of the well-known paths that we know today. We are not concerned with them at all. What we are concerned with is a path of freedom. We are concerned with a doctrine of freedom, a path to God. That’s all we are working on and that’s ALL we are working on. So, we must remember then, when we are doing this, that we are actually stepping out on a path to be taken into the God realm or the secret Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of God which Jesus kept speaking about in the Gospels, and merely going directly instead of working in vias or bypass or taking any route instead of going to the gold we want to go to. So, when we want to reach this total awareness we, actually, want to go to completely and absolutely and directly straight to the gold instead of wandering off into many areas.
And, that is why we come back to the teachings of the Master who is the inner and the outer Master in one individual. So, we are concerned then with the doctrine and none of the things of religion or philosophy or metaphysics because these are all the bypass of the teachings of God. These are only the ways that we go. And, we go in directly. And, it is like the old saying in the Christianity; that if we want to make the contact with God we must see the clergyman or the priest or the minister or whoever is supposed to be representative of God.
Well, in ECK, the inexperienced will, for a while, make contact through the teacher or the Master. But, eventually, when he begins to make his own contacts, he doesn’t need that. He has his liberation here and now because he has been taken up to what we call the soul plane or the fifth plane where liberation has carried into a point of total awareness. And, this total awareness has brought him into a fact where that he can make his own contacts.
These, are sometimes, get to be humorous points because one time I had a man who wrote me in reference to something I had said in an article that I had written. In the article I had just made one statement – is talking with God. And, he was quite incensed over that because he felt like that nobody could talk to God. Well, this was only, actually, words or a phrasing or a symbology or an idea that we have. We don’t actually talk to God. We have communication but we don’t talk with God. And, we may have the, I don’t know what word to use here, the contact. Or, actually, it is a communication with God through light and sound. And, it isn’t the vocalization of talking with God. But, it is actually making the contact and getting this into this field of awareness, that we never have in, while we are in this state of human consciousness.
Now, this is a thing which bothers people especially in the state looking at God or thinking in the term of God that this, whatever this is, this deity, this unknown quality or whatever the form of light and sound, it’s coming out of this center that we call the Kingdom of God is we must, ourselves, make this contact. Nobody can make it for us. Actually, it cannot be given, cannot be given to us by someone. We have to do this ourselves. The teacher or the Master or whatever you want to call the one who’s guiding you cannot do this for you. He can merely show you the path. He can help you along the path. He can do a lot of things for you. But, it’s, actually, up to the individual to do his own contact, to do his own communication, to work himself on the path to the top. If he doesn’t want to do this then there’s nothing that can push him into doing this. That is why we have free choice.
If we want to stay In the state of human consciousness for eternity that is up to us. God doesn’t particularly care. We hear so much about the fact that God cares. He only cares
In the terms that he wants us back into his kingdom in order to help in the work that has to be done. But, he wants us back there as perfected souls. And, that is why that we’re down here in these lower states going through all this experience Is because we need it. And, believe me, don’t feel to the effect that because one may have higher knowledge than another one that he is not still upon the path regardless of the state or regardless of his position, well, on his position on the spiritual ladder. He must remember then that he is working with three basic factors. These three basic factors are actually the cardinal principles of Eckankar.
And, they are: the Number one is wisdom. And, it’s a wisdom that’s different from the wisdom that we know because we are not concerned now with the wisdom of know-how, the wisdom of the seeking into a greater area of knowledge that is going to be stored up in us. But, we are actually working to get into the position of actually having the knowledge and the wisdom when we want it. Now, let me put it like this. We do not carry spiritual wisdom around like we carry academic wisdom. We carry a certain amount of knowledge around with us which guides us along in our in our daily lives. But, the spiritual wisdom, which is truth itself, does not work in the same manner. It embeds itself within us. And, when we need it, it turns in some manner to expose itself to the physical senses so it can be used. It’s like, well, I don’t know if I want to use present vocabulary. We can use the word intuitiveness. It’s an intuitiveness that when we need it, it’s there. And, by using the proper techniques, it exposes itself to the physical senses and it can be used.
I would say the proper technique is the technique of relaxation. And, the relaxation is that we work easy in all things, all crises, and it comes through. It Is that which gives us the benefit and the spiritual consciousness and the spiritual wisdoms of directing and running our life rightly. I would say that it comes back to the point that I keep talking about of letting the spirit run our lives, instead of us running it, in the sense of letting it do the judging and taking us along in life instead of us fighting and being aggressive.
Now, actually here, the second part of this is a word which I have used so many times and that is the word charity. That’s the second part of the basic principles of ECK and this is the term love. And, this is a term that bothers a great deal of people. And it’s all worked in with another one as the unattached love and I don’t want this word to bother us. In its simplicity, it doesn’t mean what it sounds like here. And, actually, we want to be unattached to anything except what we want to be attached to. We can love any and all people except those whom we do not care to love. We can be non-attached to these people, have no attachment to anything. This merely means, the word charity means, goodwill and impersonal love towards all people except those whom we want to love dearly, our families, our friends, our sweethearts, Any of those whom we want to love closely we can do so. But, we have control on this and we do not allow things to hurt us like they did in the former position.
I mean by that, actually, when we’re young and we get married and we have this great feeling of love towards one another and we base all of our feelings love towards our mate actually. And, we base so much on this love, and we feel that everything has to come up to our own expectations. Well, this is the protection that it gives us but it’s no less loyalty. It’s no less the emotional love. It’s no less of the feeling of love of that for your mate. But, it means that you are not going to attach an emotional feeling towards something that is of relative unimportance within the marriage or within the relationship with another person that, that you can cut out and you can control. And, you can control your own love towards anyone that you wish, your family or the children or anyone else.
I feel very much like a mother I once knew who had a child whom she loved dearly and he grew into a young man and his social behavior wasn’t quite that which came up with the community or our society’s behavior. And, several times he was put in prison,. Then he became a narcotic pusher, or whatever you call those people. She loved him dearly but she wouldn’t let the fact that he had to pay his penalty to society affect her. She says, ”This is it. He has to pay it, so he can pay it. Of course, he can pay it.” Of course, it hurt her in the sense that her own child did this but she would not let it hurt her.
She said to the effect and told me on the case several years later. She said it was a hardship the first time that she met with this situation. But, then she learned that she had to look upon this as completely nonattached to the feeling of this. She did everything she could for him. She spent a great deal of money on trying to get him straightened out. And finally she did get him straightened out and the whole situation straightened out, after several years. And, he was put back upon a proper path of conduct within society and she was, she had saved herself a great deal of hardship by not attaching the emotional self into this. And, she took it just as, just as if she was taking it upon herself, a duty to do without having to go through the hardships of the emotions with it.
Now, we can do this. There’s so much of this comes about with us in life, in our jobs, our relationship with one another, with our family affairs, with anything in life. But, we seem to have become so sensitive to situations that we lay ourselves open to the common word that we call hurts and sensitivities. So, if we accept these things in a broader light, if we accept these things in a Universal Mind. If we do not look upon this as the behavior and the conduct of the individual, that he is deliberately setting out to do something in order to hurt us and we maintain that goodwill and impersonal attitude towards him in such crises as this, then we come out alright but it never hurts our loyalty or our love towards the person.
So, we have to remember that we have to keep a love on such a basis or we will always go through life with our feelings on our sleeves and we will always be hurt and we will always have to be to the point, something that would actually bring us into a point, of staying in the human consciousness forever, especially while we are in this physical life.
Now, it’s a very funny thing, you know, I think that every person feels in his married life, he always has a problem. It’s like somebody said the other day. I don’t know a married couple who doesn’t have a problem. Well, this is true in a sense. It’s correct. I have certain little problems in my life and that sort of thing. But, you see, I have to accept life and I have to accept the condition of my mate as to, she has her life. She’s an individual and she has to live that way and I have no right to interfere.
There was very humorous, happened one time. In school work, she came home and reported one time how someone had come and said a couple endearing words to her on the campus and, of course being a husband, I get real jealous about these situations, she being young and attractive. So, after a few days, I said to her, “Has anything else been said to you?” She said, “Oh, I wouldn’t tell you if there were because it would make you feel bad.“ So, you know, I accepted it and left at that and said. “Oh well. Alright. Maybe they did, so who cares. You know, so, as long as I don’t know, it doesn’t hurt me.” But, actually, the humor of the situation comes in the fact we can hurt ourselves by taking on the fact. We can make a great deal out of nothing. And, we can make a great deal out of nothing because that we are taking love in the human element and we’re not taking it in the universal element.
So that comes from the point that I made mention of a minute ago, the third part of this, the basic principles, is freedom. So, in order to have true love with one, we must have freedom and by having freedom, we must give the other person freedom. We must have a complete freedom of consciousness. And, the individual that we’re living with or all individuals we meet and all individuals who we’re working with, we must give them freedom and freedom of consciousness.
At one time I wrote an article upon this and I made some statements about freedom of consciousness. I said that I didn’t believe that one should pray for another one or try to do something for another one in the invisible or in the spiritual sense unless he was asked to do so. Well, I got a great deal of rebuttals back on that. I practically got my head beat against the wall with a lot of clubs on this because they said, “Why shouldn’t I pray for someone who is ill or who wants or who is dying or something of that nature?” And but, my answer was this, “If the person has made indications that they wanted it this, yes.”
I’ve had many a letter from people who asked me to pray for someone else who is in a state of ill health or some state of human illness, economically and so forth. But, I have always written back and said now if they will write me and ask me to do this for them I will be happy to do the prayer or happy to do anything I can for them. But, they, of themselves, must make the request first.
Now, occasionally, this will come true that if a person is incapacitated and his desire is so great for certain things to take place that his wife or her husband might ask for someone like me to help them. And, then, Spirit reaches out and touches them. And, suddenly they find themselves well. It’s because that they did not actually make the physical request. They were making the request in another way. It’s alright. We have no argument on this point. But, the point is we must give these people freedom. We cannot walk into their field of consciousness and say that we desire such a thing for them because we feel like it is best for them. We may not know, of ourselves. We may not know what is best for the other person. So, therefore, we have to be careful in our state, in saying and intruding upon anyone else’s consciousness because this is their home. This is their house. This is where they live. This is where they have all of themself dwell as soul and once that they feel that they want us into their house, they will open the door and welcome us to come in. But, otherwise, we cannot do that. If we knock on the door and they say enter, alright. But, if they do not say enter then we have no business intruding into their home or into their state of consciousness.
Now, this is a freedom that we have for ourselves and we must give to everyone else. And, I often and I say it abruptly to people who make statements to me out of the blue, just something I will say, I simply say, that’s none of your business. And, they don’t understand that. And, it happens to be not their business. Because if we make postulants for other people then we are directing their lives and they are not directing their own lives.
And, this is why that ECK is the path of freedom. And, it is the individualized path of freedom. So you see, we have to come down to the other point of this. And, it is that God is, simply, light and sound. And, as long as we are dealing with God in light and sound, then we are dealing in the right area. If we can hear the proper sounds which are the sounds of the universes which is the sound of spirit as it moves through the certain universes and if we can see the light which is the light that comes from God and sound coming from God then we have reached into certain states of realization.
And these sounds and this light will put us into the highest area of ecstasy and joy and individualization. And, the closer we become to this center of all reality and this kingdom of heaven, the more we become individualized and the more we become our own. The more that we are of ourselves and the more that we are the individual. The more that we are free and the more that we have contact with God, the more self-recognized we are. So, therefore, we are actually working then in the fields of wisdom, love and freedom with God who is, or what is, light and sound.
Now God is, and is using the word, is reality. And. the reality is, merely, light and sound and light and sound on the inner path. So, therefore, we will work in the fields of discipline. And, the fields of discipline, actually, will fall into two things. It falls into the mental discipline and it falls into the spiritual disciplines. And I, myself, in falling into the principals of ECK. do not lay down any principles of saying that you may be a vegetarian or you may be a non-smoker or you may be a nondrinker or you may be a violator of our society or any of that sort of thing. I say as long as you work upon the path, your discipline will come through the spirit. The spirit will take all of these things away from you.
It’s like a friend of mine who was a great smoker and a great drinker and a great carouser, which seem to be the three principal violators of the moral codes of our society, who took up this program and went through a year of it and didn’t feel like he improved on anything. And, then one day in talking to him, he says to me, “You know, all of a sudden I don’t want to smoke or drink anymore. And, I want to stay home with my family because I enjoy them so much.” And I says, “What started in all this? What created this?” He says, “I don’t know. It just happened. One day I just didn’t want it anymore and I quit.” And, he says, “I don’t have the craving for it anymore.” And, I didn’t say anything to him but I knew what had happened. He had become purified in a certain state, in which then Spirit had purified him and he, of himself, found that he no longer needed these things. And, Spirit of itself, in purifying him, then made him a more pure person and he didn’t want these things anymore.
This is about all I’m going to say upon this, the doctrine of ECK at the present. But, there will be future talks and discourses on this. Thank you.