The Purpose of ECKANKAR

Way of Eckankar CD Set, CD1 – Track 01

This is the first tape of a series of tapes that we are putting together called the Way of the Eckankar. And, the first tape will be the Purpose of Eckankar. Now, the terminology that goes with the term Eckankar simply means the ancient science of Soul travel, which is commonly called the science of Total Awareness or Total Consciousness. The fact that we have such a name and the idea of a new type of science, actually, being an old type of science but a new name for people in the western area, is that we have the the purpose of having to take a name that came out of the ancient days when the world was very young for the the fact that we wanted to get a striking name which meant something to the people. And, this was a fact that Eckankar, itself, is actually Total Consciousness. And, Total Consciousness is that part of us which has reached God Consciousness or the God Area, the Realm of God or the Kingdom of God, whatever you want to call it.

Now, the fact is that this is the only thing that we are seeking in life. And, the purpose of seeking this is the fact that we want to go back to the element of time when we were in this Realm of God or this world in which there was a Highest World. There, where we were originated and eventually came down to this lower world in order to have the experience and to meet various obstacles so that we would have that experience and gain spiritual judgment of maturity and return to the heavens again. And, there, where we’d become the co-worker with God to select a job in his spiritual worlds in which that we could work with God and not under God nor for God. But, the point which I’m trying to bring across to us tonight is the fact that we have this one thing that we are to do in life. We’re to return to God because we are to help some place in the hierarchy at some particular job. Now, we have actually a work to do. Everyone has a mission. Quite frequently, I’m asked a question, “What is my mission in life?” Your mission here on Earth is to open the consciousness so that we can have the power, or that which we call the Holy Spirit, flow through us and to the outer world, the external World, in order to touch and manifest or create the change in things and in people.

Now, our mission as a spiritual mission, eventually, is to become a worker in eternity with God. Now, this position that we have can be one of our own choice. We can become a planetary Spirit. We can become an agent with God. We can become the cherub or whatever you want to call it. We can work with the Lord of Karma. We can work with the hierarchies on each plane. There are all types of jobs that we can take within the spiritual worlds. Now, this is actually the purpose that we have here in being one as that part of God, itself. Now, we have to reach these areas. And, we do not go into what is termed the Cosmic Consciousness simply on this plane. It must be in a lower plane. It must go to there from the lower planes up to the higher planes and we have two steps there we must make.

One step or the first step, rather, is the self realization step in which that we realize ourselves. And, the second one is the God-realization in which we become the Universal or the Universal Self or of realizing that God is a totality. And, within this point, then we have what we call the Total Consciousness or the Total Awareness. And, by working in the field of Total Awareness, then we do work on the Universal Plane or the Universal Area. Now, we can live in this body and still work in the Universal. And, by doing this we can, actually, become the total of itself and still remain the the little self. That is what they call the Large Self and the little self.

This is sometime called the Macrocosm and the microcosm. We of ourselves, here, usually within the human consciousness, work in the microcosm. Within the Universal Self, we work in the Macrocosm. This is a two, in which we call, normally, the human consciousness and the God Consciousness. While we’re working in the Macrocosm, we run into all the daily problems that can be found, all of those in which that we find that meet us every day on all common grounds. It is the basis for the what is known as the, oh, I would say, the goshen, in the areas of emotion, the areas of the mental self, the mental problems, all of these are the works into that which we know as the human consciousness. Now, the fact that when we work into the, or get into the, God Consciousness or the Universal Consciousness, then we see all things with the Universal Viewpoint. Then, we are detached from this little self, the human self. And, then, we see and work in the area of the totality. What we do, then, we work for the whole instead of the small or the individual.

By doing this, we then touch, not the masses, but the total of all things. We work for all things because that is what we are actually going to do, eventually, when we are going into the work, into eternity. Now this sounds so far-fetched to many of us, but it isn’t. Actually, when we are working in totality, we’re working for the total of all, for the good of all. This is a fact. It’s actually become an old cliche by using such terminology, but that’s the best thing I can say to get across to you here, But what it actually is that when a mother works for all the family and takes to the idea of treating all her family with impartiality, she is, in a sense, working in totality. When a job of a man who comes into the area of working for the whole, like the the executive of hundreds or thousands of people, all decisions and all actions work for all people within his area of influence. Well, this is the same thing except we are now working for the influence of all things and all people, not with in one area, but in all areas, in everything.

And, if you can stretch your imagination, this does not go only from for the Earth plane, it goes for all physical planes. It goes for all planets. It goes for anything that is within the area of all lower planes. And, all the lower planes are from this physical plane up to the Soul plane, but not including the Soul Plane because the Soul Plane is the first plane that we meet in the Spiritual World. Now, by all of this and, what I am saying here, we, of ourselves, operate and must operate in the largeness of thought and the largeness of action. We must do everything in the name of God and for the the deed of God. By doing this, we then are working in the Universal. We must always feel that He is in our life or It, whatever you want to call this unknown reality, that It is working in our life.

Now, spirit and God are two different things. God is a deity in which that all things flow from, including spirit. Spirit is that which that flows through us as we are the little God or the minor God. And, it flows through us and to the outer world and our consciousness becomes a greater Consciousness because we are allowing this. We change people. We change things by allowing the spirit to flow through. Now, the spirit does flow through us at all times and it has to flow through us at all times. But, what I’m speaking of here, that we ,as the human or in the human consciousness, then we are putting a screen or a sieve for this pure Spirit to come through us. And, by doing that, we are allowing this like a prism. This prism will reflect whatever the mind or whatever this screen is at the time. It will come through the prism or the sieve and go outward to the outer worlds around us. And, it will change us according to how it flows through and flows through this prism or this sieve.

Now, if this sieve, of itself, is set in what, using the old metaphysical terms, is of a negative nature, then the Spirit will flow through in that manner. If it is of the positive nature or if it is clear, then pure Spirit flows through and flows to the outer and changes something for the better. Otherwise, on the other side, it changes something for the worse. You’ve seen for example, those who come around us during the day and their minds are in their attitude and their mind has been changed by something that happened, maybe overnight, and they’re in bad humors and everything around is changed. All people and all things are changed. But, if they come in with a positive and the higher survival factors, like cheerfulness, happiness, contentment, working, conservativism, doing, that sort of thing, they come through then and change things to the better. And, by touching other people, the changes are for the better and they become, also, the instrument in which the Power flows through. Because each of us have been put here to act as an instrument for God for the very purpose of raising and lifting the man from below upwards, lifting man from the human consciousness into the Cosmic Consciousness.

And, when we have achieved this, we are able, then, to become the highest or what is called working in the Universal Consciousness. So, therefore, you have what you call, first the human consciousness, second level is the Universal Consciousness. So, what we do, we in the first, we reached the stage of self-realization, realizing who we are, what we are, where we’re going and what we’re going to do when we get there. And, the second one is the God Consciousness and realizing that we are, here and now, within the God Consciousness and assuming this as our state of being. Now, this is a point which I have to put across to you, is that we must assume the state in which that we want to be.

Not so long ago, Bishop Pike, who has just left the Episcopal Church in San Francisco, had an article in Look Magazine and he made a very strong point about Christ. He said Christ was a man, in so many words, who assumed the role of the Messiah. And, assuming the role of the Messiah, he grew into this. We, ourselves, are in the same position, each of us, by assuming the role of this part that we want to be and growing into that role. Now, there are so many people who cannot do what we call ‘assume the role.’ Well, ‘assume the role’ is like the old part of acting out something.

And, that is, merely, all it is, taking the end result of what we want to do and what we want to be and acting it out. We want to live within the Universal Consciousness are of the God-realization state, then we must assume and act this out. And you say, “Well, how do you do this?” Well, the the point is, that it is very hard for anyone to tell someone else how to live or what are the details of the God Conscious state. But, I would suggest that anyone who wants to know this would go to the religious writings of those who have had this Cosmic Consciousness, rather this God State, the God-Realized state, and let him read what those people have gone through within this state. There are many, many and, I would say, thousands and thousands of books today upon this very thing by people who have had been in this State, especially in the biographies and the autobiographies of the Saints and the Holy People.

One of the best I would suggest for anyone to have is a little book just about 50 pages long. It’s called Practicing the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence, written by a man in the 16th century who was a rough soldier and decided to become a monk in a monastery. And, he practiced the presence of God by simply being a man who saw God in everything. He was working in the kitchen and in It, While he polished a pan he can see God in that. While he scrubbed the floor., he can see God in the scrubbing of the floors. He did everything for God and he can see God in everything, His mind and his thought and his deed were on God, therefore, everything that he said, everything that he did, everything, he thought about was on the factor of the one thing. That was the Universal or the God-Realized state. Now. remember that you must be in the God-realized state.

So often, people will come to me asking questions about certain things within their lives. They want certain things, naturally, to fulfill this particular life. They desire to fulfill their physical wants, but it’s very strange to them. Many times, I say, “Well, if you get God Enlightenment, if you will work for God and do everything in God’s name, all these things will fall in line.” It’s the same as I have tried to put across to so many people as a fact that, why go for the attributes, the aspects of God when you want to go for God, of Itself? And, I hope you realize that because this is the one thing that we must remember in all our lives. And, this is why that I’ve gone to the path of Eckankar, rather than to any other path because that is all that it teaches. That is all that it has to offer is a path to God. There are thousands of paths to God. Yes, we realize that. Any church, any group, any cult, any of those, eventually, will lead to God. But, to me, this is the one way that you can go to God and go the quickest and easiest and, eventually, go for yourself.

Now, it was like that St. Francis said, that all we care for in our lives is purity, chastity and freedom and they all, incidentally, go together. So, in the liberation of ourselves, our soul, of itself, then that’s all we’re looking for is freedom and chastity and purity. Now, why we say this, in a sense of these three things, is simply because, as St. Francis said, they go together. If you’re liberated, liberated from all things here by being in the God-Conscious state, then you are, yourself, free from everything else. The fact that you want something here on Earth, now, may not interest you anymore. The fact that you need something now, it would come to you but it does not come to you the way that you want it and outlined it. This is one of the strange things, the way the spirit works. You ask God for something and it’s all made up and in the invisible. And, it comes to you in the outer, but through you into the outer. But, it may not come in any way or any form that you think it would come. And, if it comes in in certain forms, then you’re to accept it in certain ways, whether it looks to you like it’s not being right or not. It’s like the old thing of waking up some morning after you’ve made a prayer for something and suddenly realize that you already had such a thing.

It was a fact that many many years ago, I prayed for this God Consciousness. And, I prayed and I went through all sorts of ways to get it and I wanted it on a particular day, under particular circumstances. And, it didn’t come that particular day, under the that particular time, under the particular circumstances and I said, “Well, so I’m let down. There’s no need to even be bothered with such an unknown thing called the God or this reality.” So, I went about my way and about three nights later, well, I laid down and, all of a sudden, I was in It. So, this is the way that God works. If you push and push and push and outline the way that you want it, it will not work. It will not give you what you want in your way. It will give you what It wants and in Its way and the best way for you, in the Universal Way, in which it comes out best for all things. It is like the fact that Edgar Rice Burroughs who could not keep a job and doing anything in the world at all to support a family under any circumstances and when he sat down to write the books about the Tarzan character, he reached millions upon millions of people and gave them great enjoyment and it became a universal thing. And, he, then, got what he wanted in life, a good home and all of the benefits of the fittest physical life simply because he got something, on a Universal basis, to all people. So, this is a way that it works and it works so simply and so so uniquely that we overlook it, And, it is one of the things in which that I must say that, if we do not look at it in this subtle way or look at it from the point of the a menu or the simplicity, then we’re apt to lose it and lose the whole point in which that God is trying to get across to us.

Now, on Eckankar, of itself, the soul travel is only in the lower worlds from the physical, the astral, the mental, the causal and up to the soul plane. And, then, when we go above that, we are in the the God states. And, by being in the God states, we do not travel anymore. But, we are there within It, of Itself. We know all things. We can see all things. We can understand all things. Therefore, we are not dealing with travel anymore and travel is only within the space where there’s matter, energy, space and time. And, that is only in the lower worlds. Up in the upper worlds, there are no worlds. There’s no karma. There are the pure worlds and there, where we live and work, and probably throughout eternity, we can come back to these worlds as a spiritual traveler or as an agent of God, if you want to call it that, or our Master, our teacher and we can work here if we want. It is up to us to do in our choice. But, we must work in the Spiritual Fields when we go back to the Higher Worlds. The fact then, we have this state. We must then establish ourselves within God and work within that area and be of God, of Itself. We do not want to have anything to do with astral traveling, mental traveling or any of these except when it’s necessary within the lower worlds and we’re learning to get out of the body and to find out what the upper worlds are. But, as speaking of this, we must, ourselves, think in the terms of God, of Itself. And, we must be and know of God, of Itself.

Because as the old story goes, we are God. And, we are only the instrument in which God can work through us via Spirit. Because when we allow Spirit to work through us, all things are made perfect. All things are straightened out in our lives. The Spirit of the Lord, as said in Corinthians, goes before us and straightens a crooked path. We are, then in terms, not God, of Itself. But, we are a god and we are working in the God area or the God-illuminated state or whatever state that you want to call it. Now when we are in this particular position, we are then able to command and do everything that we want to do in the area of all the spiritual life and working in all spiritual life. We have then become the true channel and the real channel of God itself. This is all for now and later, the next tape will be Eckankar as the Path to God.