Life could not exist without either the Light or Sound of God. They show up in many different ways here in the material plane. They create the forms within which we need to move to get the spiritual experience we need to have spiritual freedom.
A Gift of Laughter
A friend told me the story of "Helga" and "Sven," a Swedish couple who traveled to New York City. They were unsophisticated travelers, and when their friends learned where they were going, everyone warned them about crime in New York. "Don't ride a subway; watch out for cabdrivers," they said.
But the Swedish couple arrived safely, got to their hotel, and even went on a few guided tours. They had a few days free, but they didn't want to leave their hotel room because of all the terrible things that could happen out there.
One day they were running short of refreshments, and since room service was too expensive for their budget, Helga decided to take her life into her hands and go to the corner store. As she got on the elevator, a huge man came in with a huge dog. The man was the leader of a rock band; he had a huge head of hair, well-worn jeans, and chains around his neck.
Helga was petrified; she stood in the corner of the elevator shaking as the doors closed. All the warnings of her friends came back to her mind. And here her worst fears had walked right into the elevator with her.
The dog was curious about Helga and moved over to her. He began sniffing her dress, as dogs do.
"Down," the rock musician commanded.
The dog got down on the floor. And Helga got down right beside him, her hands over her head.
The rock musician began to laugh. He laughed until tears streamed down his face. He was still laughing as the elevator doors opened and he walked across the lobby into the street.
Poor Helga was so scared she got off the elevator on her hands and knees. Finally gathering her courage, she stood up and went to the corner store. When she got back to the hotel room she was too embarrassed to tell Sven what had happened.
For the next few days, every time the couple went down to the hotel dining room, the whole rock band was there. As soon as Helga walked in, the entire group started to laugh. They laughed until tears ran down their faces and they finally had to leave the dining room. Sven wondered what had happened.
Mercifully, the day came when they could check out and return home to Europe, to sanity. Helga and Sven went to the front desk to pay their large bill, but the clerk said, " Your bill's paid for. And here's a letter for the lady."
The letter was from the rock musician.
"Thank you so much," he had written. "I have never laughed so much in my whole life. But I realize we embarrassed you, and to make up for this I am paying for your hotel room. We wish you a happy journey. Thank you for the joy and laughter you brought to us."
This was the journey of the Swedish couple to New York City, where they learned that fear can sometimes be overcome by love. Because as the musician began to laugh, love came into his heart. It also came to the Swedish couple when he was able to give the gift of love back to the woman who had inadvertently opened his heart.
What Is Spiritual Freedom?
It's hard to say what exactly spiritual freedom is. At times it's easier to say what it is not.
Sometimes when a person sees tragedy, has trouble, or finds his or her faith shaken, it causes that person to ask, "Why does God allow this to happen?" If you ask yourself that question, you would be one who does not have spiritual freedom.
If you are a person having everyday troubles in your own life, you might say, "Now what purpose could there be to my having this kind of situation at work where this person is constantly on my case, causing trouble for me? What possible reason could there be?" A person who has to ask such a question does not have spiritual freedom.
Or say that people blame us for something that someone else did, and we feel that we have been the victim of injustice. We ask, " Why does something like that happen to me?" We really don't understand. This is another indication that a person does not have spiritual freedom.
In other words, any person who does not understand what's happening in life does not have spiritual freedom.
How do we identify those who have it? This is very hard for me to explain.
Seeing God's Hand In Everything
The easiest way is simply to say that a person who realizes God's hand is in everything that occurs in that person's life is someone who has a degree of spiritual freedom.
If you look at people who are constantly unhappy, complaining, or criticizing, you'd have to say that they aren't anywhere near having spiritual freedom. Then you find sweet people — the ones that life throws everything negative at them that it can — and these people are always up. They're happy. They've had all kinds of losses and troubles, but if you met them in the store or on the street, you'd never guess.
These are people who have a degree of spiritual freedom. They can see, to some degree, that whatever is happening to them is part of the spiritual plan. It's a part of their spiritual unfoldment.
One Step Forward
You'll often hear people like this say, "I don't understand why this happened to me, but I know it's for the good. In some way, it's for the good."
This is a step.
It's a better, or higher, step than someone who falls into the dark night of Soul when things happen and asks, "Why did this happen to me? Is God a loving God, or is God not a loving God?"
The question is, Where is spiritual freedom?
Most of us, if we had it, wouldn't recognize it. And if we don't recognize it, what good is it?
Stumbling Blocks
Or Stepping-Stones?
The ECK, or Holy Spirit, provides the bricks and mortar. I'm here to point them out to you, to say, "Those are the bricks, and there's the mortar." Most people don't recognize them.
And what are you going to do with them?
The Holy Spirit provides them, somebody points them out to you, but it's up to you whether you use them as stumbling blocks or as stepping-stones.
There's a trend today in society. A person will take the mortar and slop it on the ground where it hardens into big clumps. It has sharp edges, and the person trips on it but always says it's somebody else's fault. To me, this is such a waste of spiritual potential.
Creative Ability is Survival
What does it mean to be a spiritual being?
It means to employ the highest force of creativity that is possible among people. Creative power means figuring your way out of a situation once you get yourself into it. Because most of the time we find ourselves in trouble that we've made ourselves.
The definition of someone with a golden heart is someone who lives in the presence of God, in the spirit of love.
That means you pay more attention to the needs of other people than to your own. It doesn't mean neglecting your own needs, of course; a person who is unable to take care of himself or herself certainly isn't going to be able to help anyone else.
Until you become a strong human being — able to survive under any and all conditions — you're never going to be able to help anyone else. In Eckankar, we want to see people develop into strong human beings. This is a path for the strong. The meek shall inherit the earth, but the strong shall go into the highest reaches of heaven.
Love In Expression
One of the tour guides at the temple of ECK was asked a question by a visitor: "Can you explain this Light and Sound of God in one sentence?"
No one had ever asked her to do this. She was at a loss, but she did the best she could in two or three sentences. After that she was a little nervous that someone would ask her such a question again. She wondered how to answer it.
One day she was showing someone a framed quilt downstairs in the temple. It had a large golden
in the center. She spoke about love as the creative force. Love is the force that opens your heart and allows you to experience life in a fuller measure than before. It allows you to have more joy and appreciation for life everyday.
That evening she was home hanging a picture on her wall. As she stood back to admire how nice it looked, a message came to her from the Inner Master that answered her question. "The Light and Sound is love in expression," he said.
Love is the doorway to spiritual freedom. And the Light and Sound of God opens that doorway of love. You must go through that doorway. You must have the love of God transform your life before you can realize the gift of spiritual freedom.
The Wonder of You
Who could be more wonderful than you? You have, oh, so many blessings. All you need to do is recognize them.
Can you? Will you? Do you?
Look around. You live in a garden. Someone loved you so much that here you are, in a garden. There is spiritual food all around, there to feed and nourish. All you need to do is get it.
You are one of the special people. Somehow you've become awake and opened your eyes. Now awake, you know you are special. You know you live in a very special garden, a garden of love. Someone loved you so much that you are here, and awake. What a blessing to know you are blessed.
So how'd you come to be? How'd you get here? Why? And where to next?
Questions in the midst of plenty. Why, why? And, why, why?
All this and more is you, a so-wonderful you.
Handmade in heaven.
Cared for on earth.
And all you have to do is accept it, and you will recognize the wonder of you too.
Set your sights high. Set them very high. Why not set your sights on God? God loves you and has from ITS creation of you. You're handmade in heaven, by the Maker of life, love, freedom and happiness too. Be happy, be you, just BE!
Put away your fear. Put away your doubt. And remember to put away your worry.
You are Soul. Special. One of a kind. So love yourself, love God, and love others. That's what your stay in this place is to help you learn. So look around and say thank you for all the blessings. Be grateful. Make sure this is a fruitful life. After all, why be here if you won't?
Such is the wonder of you. Wake up and sing! Glory in this garden of love, because the holy foods are all around. The best is yet to come.
Now let's leave creation and being from beyond the stars and return to the world of being that we've created. We've made our world and all that's in it. Slowly and surely we see that it is so.
Our realization of it has a starting point, a place where Soul's awakening begins in earnest.
A Special Reason For This Life
Odd as it may seem, you had a special reason for coming into this lifetime. It was to become a more godlike being, but most people do not realize this fact. They assume that birth is a fancy of destiny.
All the lives you have ever lived were for the polishing of Soul. Like it or not, you are now at a higher and more spiritual level than in any prior incarnation. So look at yourself. Do you like what you see? Keep in mind, whatever it is, for better or worse, it's of your own making.
You are the sum of all your thoughts, feelings, and actions from this life, and every lifetime of the past.
People, in general, think of karma as an unpleasant force and less often as having a beneficial side. Take for example Mozart, already composing music at age five.
The rule of karma determines factors like male or female body, eye-hand coordination, long- or short-term memory retention, and desires. In addition, our karmic package includes race, ancestry, family, friends, economic and social standing, and much more besides.
However, what comes of those conditions depends on the exercise of our free will.
The Law of Cause and Effect, or the Law of Karma, is always in play your whole life. You must know how to live in harmony with its exacting terms. The experiences that derive from an adolescent or mature understanding of that law will, in time, bring you to an acceptance of divine love. That's the reason you're here.
Soul's Awakening — The Easy Way
The Easy Way discourses are a portal for you to enter the secret worlds that exist beyond our cosmos, the higher regions so well known to the ECK travelers and the saints of old.
Sarah became a member of Eckankar and received the Easy Way discourses. One night, she had a dream. She found herself with the Mahanta — this is the Inner Master, the inner form of myself. They were with a group of people — strangers, but they weren't strangers.
The dream took place in a room that was beyond the definition of time or space. And in this was was a big book, just a single book. The group of people stood around it, and each in turn, would flip to one page or another and pick out a word. Each person got a word.
Sarah found a word, but she hadn't been in ECK long enough to know what the word meant. The word was Wah Z. For some reason, she liked the word. She'd never heard it before. She hadn't come to it in the inner teachings, the more advanced teachings, and she hadn't run across it in any of the outer writings. She didn't realize that Wah Z, or sometimes Z for short, is the name of the Inner Master.
Sarah convinced all of the people in this group on the inner planes to chant this word with her. So they all chanted Wah Z. She liked the sound of it.
Suddenly a light came into the room, a warm, bright light that reached into the very depths of her heart. It made her feel warm and full of love. As the experience was going on, someone walked into the room where she was sleeping and turned on the bedroom light.
It woke her, and she lost the experience. She was very upset by this, but tried not to show it.
What she didn't realize is that that person didn't accidentally walk into the room and turn on the light. The ECK — or the Mahanta — arranged for the person to come in at just the highlight of the inner experience. Otherwise Sarah would have forgotten her experience.
While she was writing this in her spiritual journal, it suddenly came to her that this was her first initiation in ECK, as indeed it was. She had entered a larger room. The First Initiation in ECK usually comes during the first year of study of the ECK discourses, when one has made a commitment to the teachings of ECK – The ECK discourses are written with a secret, internal rhythm that gradually unfolds your consciousness in a very precise and orderly manner.
A Most Holy Moment
An initiation is a most holy moment. An ECK initiation is simply a rite that brings you closer to ECK, the Holy Spirit. Not only does the person getting the initiation walk into the presence of the Divine Spirit, but also the initiator. Both are standing in the circle of Divine Spirit more so than they do ordinarily. A lot of people just aren't aware of it. But during the time of initiation, people open their awareness and recognize the linkup with Divine Spirit.
Sometimes the awareness of this linkup comes in a gentle way, like a dream. Sometimes it comes later, when you wake up one morning with a feeling of love and wholeness that you've never felt before. It begins to change you in little ways. Little by little,your spiritual eye opens and your heart opens to love.
Your heart opens to love because the teachings of ECK are about receiving God's love, that is the way to spiritual freedom.
How Soul May Come to the Launching Pad
The ECK initiations (particularly the Second Initiation) are the launching pad. Let's see how Soul may come to it. And what then? Let's look at two recent members of Eckankar, a First and a Second Initiate.
"Lucia" is a First Initiate. She's been in Eckankar less than a year. Before one can begin the big spiritual awakening, he must find the teachings of ECK. A friend introduced her to them when she was at a university in 1992. This was in the British West Indies. She received an Eckankar brochure and also learned that those wishing to receive truth must be willing to share the modest cost it takes to provide it. This calls for self-responsibility. It came as a shock to Lucia however. So she did not become a member.
She nevertheless began to do the spiritual exercise of singing HU, our love song to God, given in the brochure. Her experiences with the Light and Sound of God began at once. They continue still.
This had been her situation:
Lucia was a devout Roman Catholic all of her life. But her spiritual hunger was growing, unsatisfied by her church. She felt there was more to the "Me" she was. Where, oh where, could she find out about that?
Suddenly, there was Eckankar.
Her spiritual hunger had called for something to quiet the insistent longing in her to develop a personal and deep communion with God. This, she felt, would make sense of her existence.
The very night of the day she'd received the brochure,she had a dream. Three men greeted her.
"Welcome to ECK," they said.
It was a realistic dream,but she was cautious. "How am I to know this is real?" she asked.
In response, a large wave of water rushed through her nearby house, but disturbed nothing and hurt no one. Her house, though, was left clean and spotless. And with the housecleaning came a marvelous feeling of warmth and being cared for. It stayed with her a very long time.
Yet she didn't commit to Eckankar. It would be three years until she did. In the meantime, she learned about karma and how it worked. Also about not intruding into the thoughts and deeds of others. Yet it wasn't enough. Her spiritual hunger grew.
Suddenly, in 1995, she decided to return to her hometown, which had an ECK center. She became a true Hound of Heaven. She'd found the trail, the scent of truth was strong, and she wanted to follow it to the very end. So Lucia read every book about Eckankar that came her way. She went to every Hu chant or Eck seminar.
Sound and Light experiences were with her from the very beginning, like the yellow lights. Sounds too, like the chiming of bells. And many, many meetings with the Mahanta, the Inner Master.
Now Lucia is more content and loves herself and others more. She's compelled to do loving things for others.
"Jim" is a new Second Initiate. Before and after he received the initiation, his life seemed to fall apart. Old things broke and needed replacing.
His car was one of them. One day, he left it by the roadside, a steaming, smoking piece of junk. He would need a new used car. But inspection showed all of them unfit to make a reliable commute from country to city. His wife said to check out a new/used car dealer she'd found and look for a used one there.
So he went. It was a large dealership, with several entrances. The Mahanta (his inner guide)guided him to an "off-lot lot," where cars were sold that the dealer thought had a better prospects there. Jim found his car.
Jim realized that his old car was him before the Second Initiation, the new one is him now. The old one had gone as far as it could. The new one can take him where he needs to go. He is learning.
The Way to Spiritual Freedom
The way to spiritual freedom is really very easy. But first you've got to realize there is a need to have spiritual freedom. That's a big step. Most people never come to that in a single lifetime. It never occurs to them that they don't have spiritual freedom.
Once you come to the realization that you are without spiritual freedom, then comes the question of how you go about getting it.
In the teachings of ECK, we have a very pat answer: You do the Spiritual Exercises of ECK. The mainstay is to chant HU, an ancient name for God. You sing HU once or twice a day for ten or fifteen minutes to spiritualize your state of consciousness.
During the time you're singing HU, you are saying to Divine Spirit, "I've opened myself to you. Give me the understanding and the wisdom to meet the waves of life, and the problems, troubles, and whatever else. Give me the strength to meet life." This is basically all we do when we do a Spiritual Exercise of ECK.
A short session where we meet with the Divine: that is a Spiritual Exercise of ECK.
The Passkey is In Your Hands
When you're ready for something more durable than philosophy, metaphysics, or orthodox religion, then you're ready for the knowledge that grants love, wisdom, and spiritual freedom. These three qualities are available through the teachings of ECK.
The answer is in your hands.
The Spiritual Exercises of ECK are the lost passkey to life. The give the secrets of the ancient ones. A greater state of consciousness is a direct result of doing your spiritual exercises and will reveal new ways to ease your life.
Such freedom is but one of the many benefits that come to all who wish to find the living way and do something about it.
You are Soul, a child of God. It is your good fortune to eventually become a Co-worker with God. The way of ECK is the single most important choice you can ever make.
And so begins Soul's awakening to the wonder of you!
From the book, The Call of Soul © 2012 Eckankar – Sri Harold Klemp
