The Shield Of Silver Light – Sri Harold Klemp

 

    The Shield of Silver Light is actually the shield of love, which is the ECK, and this is what we look to find as we come into Eckankar.

   The path of ECK deals entirely with the Light and Sound of God. This is what it can offer you. The way to reach the Light and Sound is by Soul Travel, which simply means the movement of consciousness.

 

 

   Soul Travel can be done in two ways. One method is by the movement of Soul as a unit out of the physical body to another state, to another place. In the second method, as the contemplator sits in silence, the Soul awareness simply expands outward in concentric rings, going to the far ends of the universe or to the place where consciousness wishes to be. The expansion of consciousness may not always be recognized as an actual movement, but you will come in contact with the Light or Sound of God.

 

   The different ways in which this happens are explained in the ECK books. In The Tiger's Fang, for example, Paul Twitchell describes his journey to the inner planes. He traveled through the heavens as he was used to seeing them. In your own contemplations, you may not see heavens and worlds that fit the descriptions Paul gave. Your experience on the journey to God is going to be along your own path.

   An individual that comes from a traditional Hindu background, for instance, is more likely to see people in robes and long beards, similar to those described by the Biblical stories, or a walled city of diamonds and streets of precious gems. But a person whose background is along more modern lines is likely to see people dressed in twentieth-century attire in worlds similar to those of the physical plane, but broader and more spacious.

 

 

   The inner planes are filled with many different heavens, and we each are attracted to the heaven where we feel most comfortable. It's that simple.

   Heaven is much broader than the concepts or stories reported to us by those who have had Soul Travel experiences in the inner planes. Putting the inexpressible into words can tend to limit the experiences to the images evoked by those words. Therefore, the account of a saint—someone who went to the inner planes and saw one of the great beings who live there—becomes the ideal the followers strive to reach.

   Most of the Western orthodox religions are based upon an account of a saint or founder who came in contact with Sat Nam. This is the manifestation of God on Fifth Plane—the Soul Plane. Very seldom do any of the followers of the orthodox religions come in contact with Sat Nam themselves, but the experiences of the founders or saints are generally claimed to be a meeting with the lord of the highest heaven. The best that any of the followers can do, then, is to make every effort to attain the height of their leader.

 

   When the founder dies, his teachings eventually become crystallized into a formal doctrine, protected from change, and promulgated to the world by followers who haven't had an inner experience of any kind. In time, the doctrine formed from the original Soul Travel experience of the founder becomes a dead religion based on dogma alone, and its acceptance is based on the factor of belief.

   In ECK, belief is only the beginning. The true basis of Eckankar, the Ancient Science of Soul Travel, is experience. At some point, if you don't have the experience of the Sound and Light, or Soul Travel, or meeting one of the Masters on the inner planes who will take you to a world beyond, then you really ought to find a religious teaching that is more in tune with your development up to this point.

 

 

   When something out of the ordinary comes up, we generally resent the intrusion. We often have definite ideas about how our plans should work out. As events change, if we are too rigid to change our ideas, we become angry, upset, and unhappy—with our co-workers, our spouse, and everybody else.

 

   The fact is, if we refuse to be flexible, life will pass us by at great speed, and we'll be left to sit in the dust at the side of the road. When we ask, Why isn't this working our way? maybe it is because it's not supposed to work our way. Perhaps our way is old, slow, and backward. Maybe the ECK is trying to bring us a hint to speed up, catch up, or change our direction.

 

   Even if we are moving in the right direction, we may be going too fast or too slow. The ECK wants us to adjust our pace, but sometimes we won't listen. You often notice this when you travel by car.

 

   In an effort to get somewhere by a certain time, you'll sometimes run into one delay or another. It doesn't matter whether you left home five minutes late or right on time, you may run into one red traffic light after another. And as you impatiently sit through the red lights, you probably won't recognize that maybe Spirit is trying to put you into the proper synchronization for the meeting that is going to take place when you reach your destination. Instead, you become angry because you're in a hurry. Sometimes you race to beat the red light, and though you may get through the light, something else happens down the road—perhaps a near accident. This happens because you're pushing.

   whenever you're pushing, you're not listening to Divine Spirit. You can't hear the message the ECK is giving you—the silent guidance of what to do, how fast to go, and what direction to take to do it right. And so we come to grief in big and little ways, and our unhappiness is always someone else's fault

.

 

   My daughter came home from school one day and told me this story. There was a family that loved all the cooking and baking the mother did. Year after year, any meals prepared by the mother were special. She had a mysterious spice jar, and just before she served the food, she would sprinkle some of this spice over it.The family never knew what the spice was, but they did know that meals were always a happy, congenial time. 

 

   As the years went by, the father passed away and then the mother. Soon after her death, the children got together to sort through her belongings. In the kitchen they eventually came across her special spice jar. One of the daughters said, "I wonder what kind of spice she used that always made the food taste so good." If they found out, they could prepare the same kind of tasty meals for their own families.

 

   They opened the jar, and inside was a little slip of paper with a few handwritten words: "I made this meal with all my love." And there wasn't anything else in the jar

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   When you prepare food or do anything with the love of the SUGMAD, with the love of God, it turns out better. You can impatiently throw a meal together in a hurry, or you can take your time and carefully select the ingredients you're going to put into it. If you prepare the meal with care, everyone will notice that there is something special about it. It's that way with everything you do in ECK.

 

 

   Our purest purpose for learning Soul Travel, or anything else, is to eventually become a Co-worker with God. This may sound like a very dull thing to aspire to. When I first heard about Eckankar, all I wanted to do was Soul Travel, and that's what I did. Being a Co-worker meant nothing to me at the time.

 

   Recently someone asked me, if he dedicated himself to serving the ECK, how would he fill time when there weren't any ECK activities going on? Well, you do whatever is needed to take care of yourself financially, maintain your health, work with others, do the things you like to do, and help other people. But however you spend your time, you don't do it for someone else; you do it for the love of God, for the SUGMAD. It will make a big difference.

 

   In the past I have worked in several different camera departments at various companies. When somebody would bring me a job to do, I'd have to take it to the printing camera and decide the quickest way to do this task. After i came into Eckankar, I sometimes remembered to say, "I'm doing this in the name of the SUGMAD." And I'd proceed to do the job with every bit of skill and love and attention I could muster.

 

   But a funny thing can happen: You get too many rush jobs, you start getting busy and tired, you forget about being a Co-worker. Soon you're doing the job as a favor for another person.

 

   One time someone appealed to me to rush a job through. Because I was anxious to help him, I got right on it. All of a sudden the camera stopped working. I put the negative into the developer, but for some reason the exposure was wrong. So I took it out and checked it under the light.

 

   The whole procedure should have taken three or four minutes. But since I had to do it twice, it took a little longer. It didn't work the second time either. So I tried it again.

   Ten or fifteen minutes later, after the third miss, it suddenly occurred to me that the camera didn't work because I was trying to do this particular job for a certain person. I wasn't doing it in the name of the SUGMAD. As soon as I caught on to this, I said to myself, Since all this hurrying wasted fifteen minutes with nothing to show for it but aggravation, why don't you just stop, think, do it in the name of God, and do it right. It made all the difference. I think you'll find this too.

 

 

   When people work together to set something up, it's necessary to have a good chain of command. If five different people have five different ideas of how to do everything, you won't get the job done efficiently. In order to get it done well, someone has to be in charge. But we still have to learn how to give others their space.

 

   If we really love another person, we are willing to give them this personal space. But there are many ways we unknowingly invade it. For example, someone tells you all about something that is really precious to him, but you always add something on top of what he says: "Not only that, but also…"

 

   This not only contradicts what he said in a subtle way, it also puts a little wall around the other person's thoughts. In effect, you're saying, Your thought is OK, but I have a better one. We may not intend to get in the person's space, but we often do it anyway.

 

   This is not meant to imply that if you just watch your words, your spiritual life is sure to go right. That would be working with the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law. When you really care about another person as much as you do yourself, you are more apt to listen to what he says. You are less apt to interrupt with your own bright ideas about what he really means.

 

   Many times we may show a lack of regard for another person's state of consciousness, but not because of any ill will and not necessarily through our own doing. Sometimes it's caused by other people. For instance, you're at home talking with your spouse, and one of the children interrupts with a totally different topic. You wonder if you should be patient and polite to the child, or if you should tell him,Hey! Mom and I are talking. Is it so important that you can't wait until we're finished?

 

   It sometimes works the other way around. You may be talking with the child when your spouse comes over and interrupts. To compound the dilemma, she interrupts with a topic that you'd really enjoy getting into: "What do you think about the latest political elections?" Your child, on the other hand, was talking to you about Little Red Riding Hood, a subject that is very important to him or her. Now you have a choice to make about the degree of love and respect you are going to demonstrate toward another person.

 

 

   I know an individual who performs an excellent coin trick. He'll hold up a coin and say, "Here's the quarter in my left hand. Now I'll put some whiffle powder on it." He sprinkles the imaginary powder with his other hand, clasps his hands together, and the coin is gone. Then he reaches into his pocket or behind your ear and feigns surprise: "Oh, here it is. How did it get there?" And just like magic, the coin is in his hand again.

 

   This individual likes to do it for fun. It keeps his mind limber. Most people enjoy this trick, but the day he performed it for a couple who were members of one of the fundamentalist churches, he got an unexpected reaction. At the time they were tenants in an apartment building he owned. The woman was a very gullible sort, and to make sure there was no misunderstanding, he explained that it was only a trick. Then he did his routine, and the coin disappeared.

 

   The woman's eyes grew as big as the coin. "Demonology!" she shouted. "The work of the devil!" The magician was shocked. "It's just a trick," he said. "but I can't tell you how it's done because magicians don't reveal these things."

 

   The woman and her husband seemed to calm down. "We know it's only a trick," they said. But apparently they were quite disturbed. Two weeks later they moved out.

   It's quite a simple trick, really; I saw how it was done. It's more fun not knowing. But when the ECK wants you to see, you see.

 

   You don't always know what you're dealing with in another person's state of consciousness, even when you're talking about ECK. You can explain Soul Travel in the most straightforward way—as one of the best means to begin the journey home to God—but some people will still manage to take it all wrong. They will interpret your words to mean all kinds of fantastic things, such as astral travel, mind travel, or even the works of the devil. These ideas and concepts are established in their minds, either from this lifetime or another, and there is no hope of getting through to them.

 

   The only way to protect yourself from people of that level of consciousness is to steer clear of them. They resist truth. They wouldn't accept truth if it came walking up to them like a camel in the desert, offering them the only way out. Instead, they would view it as something dangerous that might spit at them or bite them. They would rather chase it away—and die there in the desert.

 

   A person may be thirsting for truth, but if he doesn't recognize it when he sees it, he'll throw a stone at it. And so, he loses salvation—the liberation of Soul. This is what we do so often before coming onto the path of ECK. Even after coming into ECK, some people say, "It's not what I want. I don't believe any of this is true."

 

 

   The real problem that people have with the Spiritual Exercises of ECK and their inability to see the Light or hear the Sound of God is a lack of self-discipline. They simply do not have the self-discipline to do the spiritual exercises everyday, with love. This is where we find the Shield of Silver Light, which is the principle of love.

 

   The spiritual exercises work best when done with goodwill, a feeling of happiness in your heart, and with joy in the expectation of seeing the Mahanta. On the inner planes, the Mahanta is the representation of the SUGMAD, which is often seen in the form of the Living ECK Master. If you can fill yourself with love, you have a very good chance of being successful in Soul Travel.

 

   How do you evoke the spirit of love? You can do it in any number of ways. For instance, when you go into contemplation, you can put your thoughts and mind upon a past experience when you were filled with love. This will set the tone for your state of consciousness. Then begin chanting one of the secret names for God or your personal word.

 

   You are the one who must set the tone of love and let it fill your heart. Your whole being has to be filled with love, not from your head but from your heart. And then, as you make your preparations to go inwardly, you say to the Inner Master: "Mahanta, please take me to the place that is right and fitting for me at this time. I put myself into thy hands."

 

   This is sometimes difficult to do, especially when you're new to the path of ECK. I don't expect you to be able to do it right away. If you are new to ECK and you still have feelings for and reliance on a past master—Christ or anyone else—then look to that master; ask him to help you.

 

   In time, as you progress in your spiritual unfoldment, you will come into an awareness of the true nature of these masters, which is Divine Spirit, or ECK. It uses the images of these masters to come to you in a way you can understand.

 

   When you are ready to graduate from your present level of understanding, a new master will come to you. But as you go further, you begin to realize that it wasn't a new master at all; it was still the Holy Spirit, the Divine ECK. In Its highest form on earth, known as the Mahanta . At other levels It is known as the Christ Consciousness, Buddha Consciousness, cosmic consciousness, and so on. What you see is still the ECK, but at different levels.

 

   You touch the level where you belong at that time. So instead of rejecting the image, accept it and move forward with it. This is the path to God.

 

 

   I met an individual who said she had experienced the Light of God as a golden light. She had this experience a few years before she came in contact with ECK, and she wanted more. An advertisement in a magazine led her to a certain metaphysical group, so she sent for their monographs. But after studying them for several months, the Light went away.

 

   It was lost to her for a number of years. Then she came to ECK, and gradually the experience of the Light of God is coming back to her. She finds it enlightening and heartening that in ECK she can regain the state of consciousness she had before, but lost.

 

   It is a very sad condition for those who have some experience of God and then lose it, never to find it again in this life. They wander around like the shadow-walkers, haunted by the image of this Light or Sound of God.

 

   Once It touches you, It haunts you; and the only way you can live is to have more of It, because It is love. Once you have tasted love, at whatever level—whether human, emotional love or the more impersonal divine love—you can't live without It. If you can't find It again, your life becomes one of misery.

 

   There are people who, having once touched the garment of God, are never again able to recapture that split second in eternity when they were in the divine presence of the Holy One. They go through churches, metaphysical groups, and occult teachings, always searching for this missing element they can never seem to find.

 

   It's even worse when they come to ECK and then walk on by. What they seek is here, but because they haven't wandered along the narrow, dark streets long enough to recognize the truth of the teachings of ECK, they walk right past. And so it must be.

 

 

   If you meet a person like this, let them go; there isn't any way in the world you can convince them. But when the state of consciousness has been prepared by the experiences and hardships of life, Soul will recognize the Master's voice. At that point, nothing can keep them apart.

 

   In the old West the calves ran very close to their mothers on the plains. The smells and sounds of the mother were so strongly imprinted in the calf's mind that even if it got separated from the mother, it would be able to find its way back.

 

   This is what happens to us, too. Through the hard knocks of life, we become imprinted with the ideal of the Holy Spirit. The education we gain from the hard experiences of life is necessary: Most of us have such hard heads that it's the only way we can wake up when the Master comes calling, either on the inner or outer planes.

 

   The inner experience through Soul Travel is as definite as if it were engraved in marble. Once you make contact with the Inner Master, he will give you the direction you need for your spiritual unfoldment.

 

 

   A lady was afflicted with a serious illness. The family health insurance didn't cover many of the additional expenses incurred, and they had been forced to dip into their savings. They wondered if they could afford to travel all the way across the country to attend an upcoming ECK seminar.

 

   Her husband reviewed the finances and felt they shouldn't go. But one night on the inner planes this woman saw a block of marble. Carved on it, in letters emblazoned in gold, were the words: "You both should go to the ECK seminar."

 

   This woman's husband had a favorite expression that he used whenever she came up with an idea. He'd say, "Is it carved in stone?"

   When she woke up, she said to her husband, "We should both go to the seminar."

   "Is that carved in stone?" he said.

   "As a matter of fact," she said, "its carved in marble—with gold letters!" He simply said, "We'll find the money." They did, and they went to the seminar.

 

   The Holy Spirit, the ECK, had seen that it was important for their spiritual unfoldment to be there. Perhaps they found a new way of healing; perhaps they were shown a way to learn how to accept her condition. Whatever the result, it came through contact between her and Divine Spirit through the workings of the Mahanta, the Inner Master.

   This is what we are working for—the connection with our inner reality in a way that we can understand. When the time is right, and if such is your mission, you will be approached on the inner planes by the ECK Masters with the precise instructions and directions needed for you to take the next step in your life.

 

 

   One fellow you may meet on your inner journeys is an old man without a name. He looks like an old codger. He generally stands outside a farm gate, grumbling and mumbling to himself. You may even try to avoid him; after all, you're on a Soul journey and you don't want to be bothered with that sort of stuff. But this individual is an engaging sort of person, and soon he catches you up in conversation.

 

   He tells you that he served as the Living ECK Master for a period of ninety-one years. You notice that his skin isn't even wrinkled; it's baby pink and smooth, like the skin of a youth. And you want to hear more.

 

   He goes on: "When the time is right, I will give you the secrets of health, step-by-step over the weeks, as you need them. This will aid your health and increase your longevity. You will receive these directions sometimes in a conscious way, sometimes in an unconscious way. This secret doctrine will be given to you because you have earned it."

 

   With that, he opens the gate, goes through it, and walks off with the energetic gait of a young man. You realize now that the whole thing was an act just to give you, the Soul Traveler, the opportunity to decide for yourself: Was this man part of truth or not?

 

   Maybe you would rather not talk with him, but you do. And because you do, because you are willing to give up your concepts of what this man might or might not be, the truth will come to you in its simple, clear way. It always works like this.

 

   Truth is simple. So why doesn't everybody know it? Because it's too simple. Because we have our preconceived notions about what truth is or what it should be.

 

 

   We have our built-in prejudices that are as familiar to us as old friends and as much a part of us as our hair or our fingers. You don't have to think twice when you grab a piece of paper; you just automatically move your fingers. In the same way, the prejudices that are built into us from past and present karmic experiences react as reflex actions that can automatically turn away truth.

 

   But just as some people reject wealth while others accept it, truth is not turned away by everyone. Two people may have similar backgrounds and education, but one will be rich and one will be poor. Why? It always goes back to attitudes and prejudices which have become so firmly entrenched that we aren't even aware of them.

 

   We always come back to the Spiritual Exercises of ECK. As you chant the name of God, with love, for twenty minutes a day, the bindings and bands that constrain Soul will begin to unwind. Not all at once but very slowly, at a rate you can understand and accept. As these bindings are released, Soul rises in spiritual freedom.

 

   As Soul, you are like a balloon that rises above the ground. The higher you go, the farther you can see. And the farther you can see, the better you can plan your life.

 

   This is why the initiations in ECK are referred to as circles of initiation. When you get the First Initiation, the balloon is very close to the ground, your horizon is quite near, and your circle of vision is limited. But the ring of awareness becomes greater with your Second Initiation, even more so with your Third, and so on.

 

 

   The meaning behind the circles of initiation is simple: As you come to see more of the spiritual horizon of your own life, you find you have a greater capacity to plan and live a happier life. One day you will notice you are no longer asking God to make your life better; you are now taking full responsibility for your own actions. This change comes as you take on more self-responsibility for gaining a higher state of consciousness.

 

   The Living ECK Master does not call upon God or anyone else to help him out of troubles. He does get help from the Divine Being, but he acts as if everything depends on him to work it out for himself. Then the Divine ECK steps in and brings help as it is needed.

 

   You do what you can for yourself, and you trust in Spirit. You use your own creative imagination, the faculty that makes you more Godlike. When a problem comes up and you can't find an instant solution, sit down and think: What can I do to solve this problem that I haven't tried before? It may help to talk to a High Initiate. This doesn't always mean that you'll instantly get the answer that's going to work for you. Other people's solutions may not be your own. But by asking, you have reached out and taken the initiative—a first step that will lead you to the next answer. Now you are actively doing something instead of passively sitting around waiting for the Divine Power to shower wisdom and riches down upon you. It doesn't happen that way.

 

   We have to take responsibility for moving forward in our own spiritual life, and the best method I know is through the Spiritual Exercises of ECK. These are given mostly in the ECK discourses, but there are also some very good introductory spiritual exercises given in the ECK books.

 

 

   In the forest of the SUGMAD is an enormous clearing. It is set in a breathtakingly beautiful landscape, where the sky is baby blue, speckled with fluffy white clouds.

 

   Against the stump of an ancient tree, all by itself in the middle of the clearing, stands a silver shield. It appears as a mighty warrior's shield from medieval times. The Light of God shines down from above, strikes the shield, and comes off in a ray of light so brilliant that it will blind anyone who approaches it with an impure heart. Only the Mahanta can approach the shield, for it is used in his travels on the inner planes.

 

   This Shield of Silver Light stands as a protection for the children of ECK, those who make the commitment to follow the shield of love. No being can approach it except in the spirit of love. And when you can approach the Shield of Silver Light in the spirit of love, you have the protection of the Mahanta with you. Nothing can touch you, nothing can harm you.

 

   When battle must be done to bring protection to Its own, the Inner Master, the Mahanta, will go to the clearing, pick up the shield, and with the sword of the SUGMAD he will take the field in battle for you.

 

   If you know and accept this, then you have the love and protection of the Holy Spirit against every psychic attack, against all harm and all danger. In times of danger, you have the ability to wrap this aura of love so tightly about you that nothing can touch you.

 

   In your contemplation, see yourself walking beside the Mahanta through the meadows to this great forest. When you reach the clearing in the middle of the forest, you will find the Shield of Silver Light, which is the shield of love. Stand within its circle of protection, and know that you are standing in the love and protection of the SUGMAD.

 

 

From the book, The Golden Heart © 1990 Eckankar Sri Harold Klemp