Author: Eagle

Socks as Divine Protection

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Chantilly contemplated on the Law of HU before she retired for the night. That night she had an inner experience. In her inner experience, she said out loud, ‘I do not have any socks.’ She was given a choice and selected the one with animal prints. Upon awakening, Chantilly vividly remembered her inner experience and tried to figure out the significance of that pair of socks. Socks are protective footwear one wears with shoes and she knew intuitively that SOCKS meant ‘protection’ from the ECK.

Chantilly travels regularly on the inner planes and has lost her way a couple of times. This inner experience was confirmation from the ECK to continue to explore the Inner worlds with confidence for she knows she will always be protected.

The Astral Plane is a vast place, indeed. Once, Chantilly had wanted to go to ASKLEPOSIS, the Temple of Golden Wisdom, on the Astral Plane and found herself in a campsite looking for her book discussion group. Another time, she ended up in a basement building with lots of rooms, again looking for her group.

She is now a little wiser. Her group has now given themselves a specific location in ASKLEPOSIS to meet on the night of their class so that Chantilly doesn’t get lost. But even if she does, she knows she has the guidance and protection of the Mahanta to help her navigate through unfamiliar Inner terrain.

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Mahanta. A title to describe the highest state of God Consciousness on earth, often embodied in the Living ECK Master. He is the Living Word. An expression of the Spirit of God that is always with you.

 

Make Your Personal Effort First

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Emma bought an amaryllis plant with a single bloom from Holland about 10 years ago. That single flower was the only one she witnessed for the years to come. She tried all kinds of ways to coax the plant to bloom, like dutifully watering the plant, adding fertilizers, moving the pot to a shadier spot in the garden. But all her efforts were futile. She even left the bulbs in a plastic bag in the fridge to hibernate. Nothing worked. They just kept on liberally putting forth green spears!

Did Emma give up? Well, no. She persisted in lovingly coaxing them to bloom. Finally, after 10 long years of care and attention, the first bud burst forth. A gardener’s joy is hard to describe!

7 more blooms are on the way. Emma is in heaven now! That humble bulb has transformed into a glorious array of blooms! Now, she has a new found respect for her plant, a feeling she hopes it senses.

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This is the Law of Grace at work! The Law of Grace does not merely come to us because we ask. “It does in a way, but first we must earn it. We must make at least some effort before the grace of God comes to us” like Emma’s perseverance with the amaryllis plant.

The Law of Grace is “To be in accord with the ways of Sugmad for making each a divine channel, through working in the area of non-attachment mainly through the discipline of emotions.”

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Nathan gleaned these 4 main points from his understanding of the Law of Grace.

1. Grace of the Sugmad (God) involves sending Soul down to creation & returning Soul back to Sugmad (God). Divine love can be soft love or tough love.

2. In the lower worlds, grace is seen in helping Souls reach Self-Realization through non-attachment to emotions and mindset, which would help to clear karma and help make one’s life easier.

3. In the higher spiritual worlds, grace is seen as helping Soul achieve God-Realization by Its connection to God.  Soul has to put in effort by shedding further blockages in its consciousness.

4. At the last hurdle of God-Realization, grace is granted by the Sugmad (God), independent of Soul’s effort. Put in another way, Soul cannot affect Sugmad’s (God’s) grace.

 

 

 

Choice to Grow or Degenerate in Life?

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Reading ‘The Spiritual Laws of Life’ is easy.  Layla has no problem with the English language. However, she finds herself facing a blank wall when it comes to understanding. Reading them umpteen times did not bring her closer to even a small degree of enlightenment. So Layla accepted that she wasn’t ready to understand these lofty spiritual laws but she was hopeful that understanding will dawn on her with the exercise of patience.

And it did! As she sat in class, patiently listening to her group members’ honest and sincere views, queries and confusion of what they had read, Layla’s spiritual eye opened. She saw two spiritual laws interweaving and working smoothly together in an episode in a past life several hundred years ago.

In that past life she was left without roof and penny by a ‘womanizer’ husband. To add to the gravity of the situation, it was mid-autumn with winter beckoning. Feeling a sense of hopelessness and helplessness, Layla contemplated suicide.  Standing at the bank of a lake, she began to form a mental image of wading into the deep end and drowning.  As depressed as she was, Layla suddenly burst into laughter with tears of joy rolling down her cheeks.  A little white dog had gone under her long skirt and started licking her ankles with relish. She shooed it away.  It then went away completely pleased with what it had done.

The laughter and joy had shifted Layla’s depressed consciousness to one of hope and courage. Layla changed her mind in that instant and decided to use her skills in housekeeping to support herself.

Reviewing this episode, Layla saw the Law of God at work followed closely on Its heel by the Law of Grace.

The Law of God states that Soul exists because God loves It.  In this law, Soul, was to cooperate with the laws of God. Thus instantly Layla was embraced by the Law of Grace, which lifted her from the negative consciousness of suicide to the consciousness of hope, delivered by the little white dog.  A most unexpected channel of the Divine! Lifted to a spiritual state of consciousness, Layla was granted free will. This free will was like a blank page with a single yet simple question: How do you want to write your story from here?

Here, Layla was presented with the choice of going back to wallow in self pity or to follow the higher state of spiritual consciousness of hope and courage.

Days passed after this gift of insight of the workings of these two spiritual laws in this long ago episode. From experience, Layla knew this meant that there is more to this insight.

A month before this insight, she had been reading up on the Law of Life.  Three things had lighted up for her.

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First, it says : Knowing these laws, we can then make our own life easier. 

Second is: It is the law of all life to either progress or degenerate. 

Lastly, it states: The Law of Life, or in a simpler term the Law of Realization, is that certain principle within each man which reverses itself when man makes an effort to know God.

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So what has Layla realized?  She realized that there is always free will no matter how desperate a karmic state Soul is in.  There comes a point where God presents Soul with a blank page. This means the progress or degeneration of the person’s life is solely in her hands.  Soul holds full responsibility and no one else. Not even God!

This realization and insight of how these spiritual laws work, have increased Layla’s courage to dream of a life filled with possibilities and opportunities for growth even as she waltz into her twilight age.

Thoughts are Things

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Walking home on a covered pathway, Florence saw some cat food strewn all over the pathway, making the place unsightly. Her immediate response was wishing the relevant authority would pick on the person who made the mess and fine him.

Just as she played out the thought, she almost stumbled on the stairs leading to her home. Luckily, she managed to reach out to the railing, thus preventing a fall.

The following week, strangely enough, the same scenario played out again at the same site. Once more, she created the thought form of having the person who made the mess be punished by the authority. To her amazement, she found herself having the same experience of stumbling and being saved by the railing. That shook her up and made her wonder what the spiritual lesson was in this experience.

Florence realised she had manifested her thoughts in a negative way which would not be spiritually beneficial for all the individuals concerned.

She is now more careful with her thoughts and wishes.

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Law of Consciousness                                                                                          The simplest key to being ‘conscious’ is the art of listening… To be conscious is to be humble and compassionate in the presence of life. In short, love fills your being. The ego is out.

– Harold Klemp, The Spiritual Laws of Life, p. 11

Changing Our Lives from Soul’s Viewpoint

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Lightly place your attention upon a situation in your life, then put your viewpoint as Soul above the situation. Look down on everything going on below as if it were a chess game – even though it might be in your imagination. You can look at a situation anywhere in the world from this viewpoint.

As you are gazing upon it, change the situation by simply rearranging your place on the chessboard. It’s a successful device, and those who use it often make great changes around themselves.

What if we reached a ‘checkmate’ situation in our life?

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Law of Change                                                                                                            This is a world of change. In fact, even this universe plus so many heavens that lie above this physical one are in a constant swirl of change. Change is the unchanging law for the worlds of change.

– The Spiritual Laws of Life by Harold Klemp, p. 5 & 6

A Golden Age

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In recent times, Eckankar has been revitalised for a New Golden Age with:

a) A new descriptive title, “The Path of Spiritual Freedom”

    (replacing “Religion of the Light and Sound”)

b) “ECK Light and Sound Service”

     (updated from “ECK Worship Service”)

What do you think are the spiritual laws being invoked here?

Laws of Charity

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The laws that bring Soul a greater capacity to love

 1. Laws and Rules for the Chela

“To give harmony, purity, and perfection of Soul.”

2. Law of Creativity

“Every atom is striving continually to manifest more life; all are intelligent, and all are seeking to carry out the purpose for which it is created.”

3. Danda, the Righteous Law

“Self-discipline; sometimes called the righteous law. It treats the divine rights of people as well as kings; works both ways, neither can trespass upon the other’s rights.”

 4. Dharma

“Dharma. The Law of Life; the righteousness of life; doing what is right; the code of conduct that sustains the right ethics in life.”

 5. Ethics

“That which is not selfish, which is good for the whole, which will not harm one and will do justice for all concerned; actions for the benefit of all.”

6. Four Zoas

“The four Zoas (laws) of Eckankar for the Mahdis, the initiate of the Fifth Circle, are

(I) The Mahdis shall not use alcohol, tobacco, or drugs; gamble; or be gluttonous in any way. No Mahdis shall be existent on the animal level. He is a leader, and he must fix his attention above the psychology of the brute.

(II) The Mahdis shall not speak with the tongue of vanity or deceit, or unhappiness, criticize the action of others, blame others for wrongdoings, quarrel, fight, or inflict injury. He shall at all times be respectful and courteous to his fellow man and show great compassion and happiness.

(III) The Mahdis shall have humility, love, and freedom from all bonds of creeds. He shall be free from the laws of karma which snare him with boastfulness and vanity. He shall have love for all people and all creatures of the Sugmad.

(IV) The Mahdis must preach the message of ECK at all times, and prove to the world that he is an example of purity and happiness. He must show that the disciple in the human body must have a Master in the human body.”

7. Law of Gratitude

“Abundance flourishes in a grateful heart; gratitude is the secret of love.”

8. Law of Love

“The principle which gives thought the dynamic power to correlate with its object, and, therefore, to master every adverse human experience; feeling that imparts vitality to thought; feeling is desire, and desires is love.”

9. Maybury’s Two Laws

“(I)  Do all you have agreed to do, and

(II) do not encroach on other persons or their property.

These laws appear in Richard Maybury’s Whatever Happened to Justice?”

10. Law of Noninterference

“Soul’s responsibility not to interfere in the affairs of another Soul, but to allow others their freedom. To interfere usually involves  a lack of love. Impatience and offering uninvited advice are often symptoms. Even the Living ECK Master does not enter into someone’s personal affairs without definite permission. This spiritual law forbids it.”

11. Law of Plenty

“We live according to the Law of Plenty when we go about life with love and thanksgiving. The viewpoint that there is enough for everybody; more than enough if people know how to find the blessings of God.”

12. Law of Progressive Continuation

“Soul’s instinctive drive toward higher states of being.”

13. Kamit

“The Law of Silence, which means being silent about the secret teachings, personal affairs with ECK, and the personal word given in the initiations.”

 

 

 

 

 

Laws of Freedom

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The practical laws that afford a smoother passage through everyday life

1.  Law of Assumption

“It is only by living each moment in the assumption of one’s divinity that an individual can bring his spiritual potential into the world.”

2. Law of Attitudes

“The fifth law of the physical universe, or Law of the States of Being; the power of imagination rules over will in the actions in this universe.”

3. Law of Balance 

“The stability which lies in the Godhead: all is completely in balance in God’s universal body. The principle of unity, or oneness, but in the lower worlds this unity is simulated by the interchange between the pairs of opposites.”

4. Connecting Diamonds 

“Events are like diamonds. Invisible lines connect them, a part of divine plan. The God lover learns to see and follow these lines, for they smooth his way. They lead over the holy ground. It is there that the Holy Spirit does the wonders that help an individual do what he cannot do alone. It shields him. Its love and mercy are the grace that put joy and goodness into everyday life.”

5. Law of Destiny

“Soul comes into the world to accomplish an assortment of tasks; these assignments taken as a whole make up Its destiny.”

6. Detachment

“Vairag, one of the five virtues and remedy for moha, attachment. Giving up strong affection for the environment and possessions, but not ceasing to identify with them; becoming independent of them; mentally free from love of the world and all worldly desires.”

7. Discrimination

“Viveka, one of the five virtues, is the ability to make right judgments; the recognition that there is no good nor evil, no beauty nor ugliness, no sin, and that these are concepts of the mind, the dual forces in the matter worlds; to distinguish between those actions which contribute to spiritual growth and those which are a waste of time. The remedy for self-indulgence, kama.”

8. Law of Economy

“Using our resources to the fullest, no matter what thought we have or what action we take, it results in the most productive deed we can do as Soul learning to become a Co-worker with God.”

9. Law of Facsimiles

“The sixth law of the physical universe, that all effects in life about by the thoughts and pictures in the mind of the individual.”

10. Invisible Laws

“Seven principles of consciousness – appreciation, sincerity, unselfishness, idealism, devotion, personal effort, and attainment.”

11. Law of Karma

“The Law of Cause and Effect, action and reaction, justice , retribution, and reward, which applies to the lower or psychic worlds: the Physical, Astral, Causal, Mental, and Etheric Planes; a facet of the Law of Love, purifies people by holding them responsible for their thoughts and deeds, both to themselves and others; the Law of Universal Compensation which is under the Law of Vibrations; inflow and outflow; a matter of vibrations; one of the twelve laws by which the universes are sustained.”

12. Laws of Nature

“The laws of the negative power; the laws of the physical universe; the natural laws.”

13. Law of Polarity

“The law of Opposites. The third law of the physical universe; the state of opposition between any two related factors; yin and yang (negative and positive), feminine and masculine; the negative, or reactive, side  and the positive, or active, side; the third part is the passive, or middle path; each thing within the universe is supported , animated, maintained by, and in opposition to the opposite.”

14. Law of Progression (or Unfoldment)

“Soul is inevitably bound to become a Co-worker with God, It means going through all the steps that lead to this. To teach Soul how to give and receive divine love.”

15. Law of Spiritual Protection

“Follows the principle of “Speak not; harm not those who are the bearers of Light, for harm will come to him who does.” The Mahanta, the Living ECK Master offers spiritual protection to all followers of ECK.”

16. Law of Resonance

“Each initiation opens the gate to certain regions of the corresponding plane and new levels of consciousness.”

17. Law of Reversed Effort

“The functioning of the imagination by negation which draws into the external that which one is trying to avoid.”

18. Law of Spiritual Growth

“Truth has to be continually rediscovered, reformed, and transformed; the same truth has to be experienced in ever new forms.”

19. Law of Unity

“The seventh law of the physical universe; thinking in the whole instead of the parts.”

20. Law of Vibrations

“The fourth law of the physical universe which governs all the influences such as wavelengths, outflows, inflows, cause and effect, and the harmonics of the movement of sound.”

 

 

 

 

Laws of Wisdom

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The laws that speak of divine power and how it manifests in the universe

  1. Law of Causation 

    “The wheel of life, which is a factor in the human and spiritual cycles of lives; karma.”

  2. Law of Change

    “Conditions in the worlds of time and space will always change at some point; there is no stability here.”  

  3. Law of Consciousness

    “The recognition, or realization, of the beingness of self or thing in thought, which manifests external life and form.” 

  4. Five Spiritual Laws of This World

    “These are just five of the many spiritual laws of this world. They are important especially when looking at political and religious fields.

    (1) The beginning of human life is when breath comes into the fetus.

    (2) Love is the first and great commandment; also called the rule of spiritual law: love God, love your neighbour, and love yourself.

    (3) Work for your food. This deals with the welfare system and our responsibility to make our own way as much as we can in this world.

    (4) Give tribute to God and Caesar. This relates to our duty to the government regarding taxes.

    (5) Reward the laborer. This is about the government’s duty to the people.”

  5. Law of Fixidity

    “A law that governs the dominion of the Kal Niranjan giving the appearance of completeness, spaciousness, and accommodation yet beset with numberless restrictions not perceived by anyone except the Spiritual Traveler.”

  6. Law of God

    “This supreme law speaks to the heart, for it tells of the relationship between the Sugmad (God) and Soul. That law is love. It gives each person an answer to the ancient riddle of life: What is my purpose here?”

  7. Law of Grace

    “To be in accord with the ways of the Sugmad for making each a divine channel, through working in the area of nonattachment mainly through discipline of the emotions.”

  8. Law of HU

    “The first law of the physical universe. Spirit is the all-penetrating power which is the forming power of the universes of HU, the Voice of HU (God).”

  9. Law of Life

     

    “This is the Law of Life, in that nothing is available unless you first obtain wisdom through the treasures stored within thyself. These in turn can be shared abundantly with others, bringing them happiness.”

  10. Law of Mksha

    “Life is only Spirit, and being spirit it has nothing… The understanding of this points out clearly that it has only intelligence with the peculiar ability to perceive, penetrate, survive, have causation, specialisation, creativeness, beauty, love, and ethics.”

  11. Laws of the Physical Universe

    “The Book of Laws; seven fundamental laws that govern the physical universe through Spirit: Law of Attitudes, Law of Facsimiles, Law of HU, Law of Polarity, Law of Soul, Law of Unity, and Law of Vibrations.

  12. Law of Self

    “You, yourself, are your own problem,” he says. “You must understand and act to solve the mystery of thy little self before you can solve the mystery of God.”

  13.  Law of Soul

    “Always remember that you are Soul. In that state of consciousness you can get unlimited help from the Mahanta.”

  14.  Law of Spirit

    “This Spirit, the Voice of HU – HU is often known as the Sugmad – which is the true name of God in the upper realms, has one great quality and that is to create effect… It needs distributors, and It works through Souls.”

  15. Law of Spiritual Evolution

    “Presupposes inequality in all things and beings and their continued effort for self-improvement in life.” 

  16. Law of Spiritual Nonperfection

    “No one ever becomes a perfect being; there is always one more step in God’s plan of conscious evolution.”

  17. Law of Strength

    “Only the strong can stand the true love of God.”

  18. Law of Survival

    “Each must take care of himself by earning his own way in society; Soul must keep growing.”

  19. Three Basic Principles of Eckankar

    “First, Soul is eternal; It has no beginning or end. Second, whosoever travels the high path of ECK dwells in the spiritual planes. Third, Soul always lives in the present; It has no past and no future.”

    Note: All quotes cited in this article are taken from ‘A Cosmic Sea of Words: The ECKANKAR Lexicon’ by Harold Klemp