A Very Thorny Question – Sri Harold Klemp

 

   There's a Native American word that the English language sorely lacks. The word is svaha.

 

 

   Svaha is the interval between any two points in time that we choose to be important. It can refer to what happens between the flash of lightening and the sound of thunder that follows, or between what I said last and what I'm going to say next. It can also be what happens between the time a politician makes a promise and when he delivers. The space between one point and another is svaha.

   I love thunderstorms now, but at age four I was terrified of them. Even the most distant rumble of thunder or flash of lightening could make me shudder with fear. I didn't know at the time which part was the most dangerous, only that one was bad and the other was worse.

   Every time there was a thunderstorm, my mother had to search the entire house to find me. Midwest thunderstorms are usually accompanied by severe winds, so she would gather all of the children and bring us down to the basement to wait out the storm. Of the thirty-five hiding places in our home, she usually had to look in thirty-four of them before she found me.

   The afternoon that lightning struck a transformer outside the window of our farmhouse, I was sure it had baked me against the wall. All I saw was a pure blue flash followed by thunder, and I froze, certain that I'd never move again. So for me, the period between the flash of lightning and the sound of thunder always brought a feeling of total fear.

 

 

   In past lives I'd had some bad experiences with lightning, and the fear was carried forward into this life. Many of our seemingly unreasonable childhood fears are rooted in experiences from a previous life. Yet when our own children are afraid of thunder and lightning, we are quick to tell them, "Don't be afraid. It can't hurt you."

   In ECK we have a period of svaha too. It's what takes place between the time we find ECK and the time we reach the goal of God-Realization.

   The ECK pushes us into a situation where – by agreement , by saying we would like the next-higher stage of illumination – we open ourself to changes in our life. The moment we say to the Mahanta, "I am ready; take me where you will," is like a flash of lightning. In the space of time that follows, we face the unknown. We go about our life, changes start to occur, and we don't quite understand what's happening or how it's going to turn out.

   Sometimes the changes go on for months leading up to the next initiation, and then we start to wonder if the Master has forsaken us. Are we all alone? But the Master's love is always with us, and the space between the lightning and the thunder of our spiritual life is filled with the pure love of the Mahanta.

   The Master's love is with you at all times.

 

 

   On a flight from New Orleans, I was seated next to an eighty-three year old woman. She was very proud of her age. The word svaha was playing in my mind at the time, and I thought surely it could apply to the period of time between this lady's birth and the moment she sat beside me on the airplane.

   She had boarded in Florida and was traveling to Reno, Nevada, for a few days of gambling – in a wheelchair. She said she had made the same trip the year before, thinking it would be her last, and had made up her mind that she was going to enjoy herself. This year she said the same thing: "It's my last trip, so I'm going to enjoy myself." She certainly had a lot of pep.

   We were seated right behind the curtain that separated us from the first-class section. From the other side of the curtain, we heard a jovial-voiced man with a loud, hearty laugh say to someone, "I almost kissed you. I thought you were a stewardess giving out kisses."

   All of a sudden the curtain parted and out strolled this jolly man who looked to be in his early sixties. The woman next to me looked up at him and said, "Did I hear somebody say they were giving out kisses?"

   "Giving out kisses?" he said, putting on a mock-terrified expression. Then, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, he pretended to peek through the curtain and look around.

   The woman had a good sense of humor and kidded him right back. "It isn't often that I see such a good-looking young man. If you know anybody who's giving out kisses, I would sure like one. I'm eighty-three, so I can't wait around too long."

   "OK," he said, "I guess you deserve a kiss." With that he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, which made her very happy. They were both jovial people, just bubbling with life.

   Then she said, "I'm eighty-three, and look how I still travel."

   "My mother's eighty-seven," he said, "and I'm going to visit her in August." The woman looked a little bit surprised at that. "Her sister is eighty-nine," he went on, "and her brother is ninety-one." By this time, the woman was feeling much younger.

   But the man wasn't quite finished yet. "My uncle is blind, but he jogs two mile every day. He square dances and has a girlfriend."

   "I don't jog or square dance very well," she said, pointing to her swollen knees.

   "Don't worry about it," he said. Then he added, "Why don't you come up and visit him sometime?" She looked very pleased at that.

   Just as he was about to walk to the back of the plane, he said, "There may be snow on the roof, but there's still fire in the furnace."

   "Yes," the old woman agreed, "But you've got to keep stoking it."

   Her snappy reply reminded me of a point that I had tried to get across to someone: If you find someone or something to love, you've got to nurture that love. In her own way, this woman was saying the same things.

   She was full of fire and life. She had a good attitude toward life because she always had another goal to look forward to. The fact that she was in a wheelchair could have been an obstacle, but she didn't let it stop her from finding a way to travel and enjoy herself. I'm sure the man who had stopped to talk to her had problems too — I haven't met anyone yet who doesn't — but he managed to find a joyful way to live life, and he knew how to make this old woman feel good.

 

 

  When people first come into ECK, they sometimes feel that if they could know the future, everything would become simple and easy. There would be no more fear, and they could enjoy life to the utmost. I really wonder how most people would handle it if they knew the future.

   Whenever you imagine having something that would bring about a change in your life, try to feel and understand what the consequences would be as this change came about. What would happen? What would it do to your spouse and children if this wish came true? How would it effect the circle of people close to you, the circle of people just beyond that, and so on?

   There was an article in Reader's Digest about people who had won large sums of money in lotteries. The lottery officials always advise the winners to put the money in a bank or in the hands of people who know how to handle it. As soon as your name is publicized, you're going to be besieged with hard luck stories; if you're not careful, in a very short time you'll be broke.

   Some of the winners were surprised to find that they wouldn't be receiving the whole amount at one time. It was distributed, after taxes, over a number of years. They still got plenty of money, but not enough to give away to everyone who asks and still have a lot left over for themselves and the people they love.

   But people are funny. Once they see how little the amount is after the government takes its share of taxes, they say, "Why isn't it more?" Having nothing to start with, they look a gift horse in the mouth and complain, "Look how little is left for me." That's the human consciousness speaking.

 

 

   Even in ECK, there are people in the poverty state of consciousness. No matter how much love the Mahanta showers upon them, they will still say, "I don't have enough. My life is empty. I am very sad. Why doesn't Eckankar do something for me?"

   No matter how much the Master gives them, they never have enough. Yet all around them are truly needy people with barely enough for real necessities – food, shelter, and clothing. These people are often the happy ones, appreciating the gift of a healthy body and the ability to walk and be joyful.

   When the blessings of ECK come without struggle, often the individual doesn't recognize the treasure that is in his hands. For this reason the ECKists who receive initiations during my term as the Living ECK Master are finding they must earn them in the true coin. After a few years, it will become apparent that any ECKist who has gotten an initiation and keeps it has earned something truly rare.

   The treasures of heaven are so precious that no gift on earth can ever balance the love that is given by the Mahanta. Therefore, no money is ever taken for an ECK initiation. The only way this gift of love from the Master can be repaid is with another gift of love.

 

 

   Now we come to the very thorny question: Do Higher Initiates have karma? We read in the ECK teachings that once someone becomes a Fifth Initiate, he enters into the worlds beyond matter, time, and space. The natural question then is, Since the person is spiritually above the worlds of karma, is he therefore free of karma?

   As long as anyone is still in the human body, he is here for a mission greater than serving himself. Yet as long as he is in the body for the greater mission of becoming a Co-worker with God and attaining the higher states, there is always the potential of falling backward. This remains true as long as we are in the lower worlds.

   There is a saying: if it can happen to one, it can happen to two; if it can happen to me, it can happen to you. Spiritual unfoldment works both ways. We can either rise to the heights and the glory of God Consciousness, or we can fall backward and lose it all.

   At any stage on the path, the potential is within every individual to accept the gift of God or to reject it. And this includes the Higher Initiates, even though supposedly they are spiritually beyond the worlds of karma.

   Do Higher Initiates have karma? The answer is yes — during the times they forget. Perhaps the times we forget, between the point of where we are today and the ideal of Self-Realization or God-Realization we hold for tomorrow, could be one definition of svaha. Sometimes we go forward and sometimes backward. This is true of all of us.

 

 

   A mother and daughter were bot ECKIsts, and the daughter had become a High Initiate before the mother. The mother, who liked the material things of life, always referred to her daughter as "Goody Two-Shoes."

   "I don't know if I want to be a Higher Initiate if it means ending up like you," the mother said once.

   "Don't worry, Mother, you won't turn out like me," the daughter assured her. "You'll be more and more like yourself — whatever that is."

   It's true that certain personality or character traits of the Higher Initiates sometimes become more strongly defined, and other people look at them and wonder why they are like this.

   Well, they're learning. I give people a lot of time to learn. After all, where is it going to be done if not on earth?

   I also allow time for initiates who are backtracking. They've come up the trail so far; then, for some reason understood only by them, they decide to back down the mountain of God. But at some point, when they are camped out at night, all alone with the howling wolves, they look around and say, "What am I doing down here?" That's when they repack their belongings and start back up the mountain, this time perhaps to go beyond the place they had traveled to before. And the farther they go, the fewer people, because not many individuals have reached the higher states.

   You develop more of a sense of humor as you go higher. It's either laugh or cry, and when you get tired of crying, you laugh. It becomes a habit

.

 

   A woman who got into Eckankar found she was able to go out of the body very easily. Simply by remembering to go into a higher state of consciousness, she could go into the Soul body, rise beyond her problem to get a broader view of it, and resolve it. She called it "lifting." It was so easy for her that she never thought anything of it.

   One day she returned to the large parking lot where she had left her car. She saw a sea of cars from one end of the lot to the other, and suddenly she realized she didn't remember where she had parked hers.

   "I had thought I could find it easily," she said. "I'd just lift out, go up above the cars, and look around until I saw it." She figured she could save a lot of steps by using this ability in a useful way. So she left the physical body, went in the Soul body to a viewpoint above the parking lot, and discovered an interesting fact: All cars looked the same from above.

   "As I looked down on the roofs of hundreds of cars," she said, "I realized I could spend the better part of eternity up here and still not find my car."

   She came back into the body and began the long walk up and down the rows of cars, bending over to check the license-plate number whenever she saw one that looked like hers. It took her quite a while to find it, but she learned a valuable lesson. Here on earth, some things have to be done the hard way. There is a way to use Soul Travel for spiritual benefits, but not to find lost treasures, even one as large as a car.

   The period between being in the Soul Body and back down to the ground where she finally found her car was, for her, svaha. It's a period during which you wonder, How is this going to turn out.

   The ECKist often becomes very capable in his profession. But as he becomes more capable, the ECK always brings something into his life to keep him humble.

   Without humility, all progress on the path to God is stopped. When this happens a person just treads water, going nowhere until he realizes that his ego has gotten in the way of the love between the Mahanta and himself, which is absolutely necessary to walk the path to God.

 

 

   Lately my back has been bothering me when I sit at my desk and work at the keyboard, so I've been seeing a chiropractor. In Minnesota, I finally selected a new chiropractor. I told him on the first visit how good my last doctor had been. He had done things to my back which helped in a way I had never experienced before. 

   I think it was a mark of this new doctor's greatness that he didn't try to convince me how great he was, too. He was very gracious. After checking my back, he said, "Your former doctor did very well for you. Let's see if we can continue the progress."

   This chiropractor turned out to be excellent. Every time I went in there he adjusted something else. Working on my spine, shoulder blades, and even ribs, he moved parts of me that i didn't know were movable. He worked on pressure points I didn't know I had, pressing them to make sure I'd never forget.

   One day he announced that he was going away on vacation and he would be gone for eleven days. When I arrived for my appointment the day before he left, he said, "It looks like your shoulder blade is not quite in the right position. I'll fix that for you."

   After a treatment that felt like he was banging on my shoulder blade with a hammer, I practically staggered out the door. I really didn't feel well. I considered going back in to let him know but decided not to. I had confidence in him. Each time I went to him, he made me feel a little bit better.

   The day before that, he had recommended that I get an ice pack. "With the treatments I'm doing now," he said, " there are going to be deep changes in your spine as it rights itself, and it could be a little sore." So as I left his office with an aching back the day before he was to start his vacation, I thought this might be a good time to use ice packs.

   I went home and suffered through the first day. The next day was even worse, and by the third night I couldn't turn over in bed. The ice pack not only didn't help, it was very cold and uncomfortable, so I stopped using it.

   About four days before the doctor was due back at his office here on the physical plane, I went to see him on the inner. There are offices on the inner planes, too. Each of us has a body and a home on the Astral Plane, which is the next heaven up above earth. Most people are unaware of this. Part of my job is to make people aware that Soul activates not only the physical body, which you operate here in full consciousness, but also a body on the Astral Plane. This awareness begins to come through dreams or Soul Travel.

   When I got to his office on the inner plane, I signed in at the reception area and went in to see the doctor. I explained briefly how I had been suffering. "Let's see if we can take care of you," he said. He's a man who gets right to work.

   "Lie face down on the table," he said. Using an instrument that looked like a hammer contained in a hand pump, he began to work on my back. When he was finished with the hammer, he made a few more adjustments. Finally he said, "Sit up, and face that way."

   "How does it feel now?" he asked.

   "It feels much better, " I said. "But what went wrong with my last treatment?"

   He said, "The doctor is sometimes wrong, too." His answer was right to the point; no excuses given or promises made.

   Then he said, "But yesterday was yesterday. What counts now is how you are feeling today." Again I assured him that I felt much better. "Good," he said. "See you next week then."

   The doctor's brief but direct answer was his way of saying, No matter how good we think we are, we don't know everything. This little factor that life constantly throws up to us is called humility. It's the ingredient that has to go into this recipe before the cake comes out right. This man had humility. Very simply and with no fuss, he was able to admit that he sometimes made mistakes, too.

   I woke up feeling well enough to get by until the doctor returned.

   When I got into his office four days later and explained how sore I had felt as I left the last time, he said, "You should have come back in immediately." I was waiting for him to say, "The doctor is sometimes wrong, too," but he didn't remember our meeting on the inner planes. Maybe he will someday.

 

 

   Some ECKists have experiences on the inner planes with people they deal with on the outer. Some are able to remember and can use the information to avert dangers here.

   Once you develop the sensitivity to go into the inner worlds in the Soul Body, you will be able to see what is coming before it happens. You can take measures on the inner to correct the problems before you have to go through it here. This is one of the benefits of Soul Travel, and one of the beginning stages to spiritual liberation.

   Spiritual liberation means final and total freedom from the karmic ties of the five passions of this world. But as long as you are here in this body, it signifies that you are willing to have the experiences needed to take you to the higher stages of spiritual unfoldment and service to God in this lifetime.

 

 

From the book, Cloak of Consciousness © 1991 Eckankar  -Sri Harold Klemp