The reason I turned my back on Eckankar for good was discovering the plagiarism in their bible, which other Eckists told me was divinely inspired. In 68 he was a convener, which means he held Eck satsangs [classes) in his home in Rosemead, California. Every thriller these days has a false ending and then a real ending, to the point that when I watch a pre-Carrie film, I am disappointed at how easily chaos is defeated. I dont have a real axe to grind., At a Hillcrest cafe, Lane confides, The people who scare me are John-Rogers people, not Eckankars. John-Roger Hinkins, founder of the Church of the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness (MSI A, pronounced Messiah), has gotten a lot of bad press lately. Then his widow, Gail Atkinson, had a vision in the night in which Twitchell named Gross. We close our eyes and chant Hu together for several minutes. Off my granddaughter sprints down the driveway, giving herself a head start, the front gate our finish line. No. He wanted to know every dirty piece of laundry on Twitchell and Eckankar. They say, the message works for me, the contemplation works for me. For a hundred bucks per year he gives you the divine connection. I gave up drugs, and my grades went down. Im under your spell, but how can I help it. There is a double edge to this torch song; from the way she keeps glancing affectionately over at Gross, it is the Masters spell that Driggs cant be blamed for falling under. One interesting guy I met was Jerry Mulvin. We zone out on lounge music for an hour and a half, then Dawn walks to the front of the room and says, Thats it. I ask Lane if hes going to introduce himself. So Harold said, Hey, why should we make this difficult for people? The bed was overturned, drawers were everywhere. Theyre very much like physical exercises, but theyre for Soul, to strengthen Souls connection with spirit. His new title was President of Eckankar. This is helf to be the sustaining force of all life and the equivalent of the Holy Spirit. So I came upon this theory called genealogical dissociation. While a few people I met were off-the-wall, Eckists in general make wonderfiil friends, kind, caring, nonjudgmental. We have to make sure for ourselves that what were experiencing is truth and not an illusion.. In days of old the barrier [sic] of bad news to the King was done away with. As we wander aimlessly back and forth between the second and third levels of the garage, I smile at my surfer companions inability to negotiate this concrete urban maze. Through daily spiritual exercises, one can shift ones awareness from the physical world and soul travel to these higher planes. My research has helped because its made me more discriminating, more critical-minded. I anticipate our talk with a mixture of excitement and anxiety. Because that was my condition if I could just study in the closet, then I would join. What about Lanes plagiarism charges? I ask. I get the sense his gentleness does not comes naturally, that it has been worked at, with great success. Dont miss out. He read thousands and thousands of books, and he was a spiritually hungry man. He looks like Santa, I think, like a fallen Santa. People were wearing rich, colorful clothing. It was difficult coming to this country, trying to figure out the language, the new culture, and what to do. Why do you make a point of fingering Eckankar?, I do think Christianity has fucked up more people in its history than Eckankar ever has. Seriously, what could one say about anybody that left a long held teaching based solely on words in one book? Lane attributes the initial success of Eckankar to Gails organizational abilities. Recent local Eckankar meeting. I dont give them any value. The following evening, when the airport shuttle drops me off in front of my apartment, five guys are smoking crack beside a dumpster. Then he took the Ho, and he put the two words together. Some letters contained threats against me and my informants. I keep discovering more and more offshoots, in India as well as here its like a virus, it keeps reproducing itself., You know the ins and outs of how religions are organized, and you're a charismatic person. I was confident that soon James would see the light and become a disciple of Eckankar. Yelman is stunning tall and extremely thin, clad in a pale-beige pantsuit, her natural blond hair pulled back into a bun, the bangs teased like feathers across her forehead. In 1979 he called me from Northridge, where he was living at his girlfriends aunts house. When he died in 1971, he was living in Del Mar. My parents raised me not to write in books, and so I didnt. It was hard to leave Eckankar too. Yelman received hers while at an Eck seminar in Hawaii. Susan Rice, the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, is stepping down from her post, President Biden announced Monday. Dont you all have innocent" friends visit you and live near you? When they find out youre talking to me, I guarantee that their lawyers will write. Thered be nothing to believe. When I ask him what Eckankars position is on Lanes research, Richards, whos been in Eckankar for 20 years, says he doesnt know. One time he said, I want to take you someplace. I said okay! For the past 20 years, Lanes books and articles accusing several new religious movements of plagiarisms, lies, inconsistencies, and scandals have raised a fury among true believers. Secondly, we dont have any kind of communal living. I said, 'Where was John-Roger yesterday? The guy turned totally paranoid. Driving the news: " As the only person to serve as both National Security Advisor and Domestic Policy Advisor, Susan's record of public service makes history," Biden said of the former UN ambassador and national . He seems gently ecstatic, but so tired. Gail, after Twitchells death, married his successor, Darwin Gross, in a. Its the reason, I believe, that he plagiarized so blatantly.. Many events are open to the public, including the Sunday worship services, which tackle spiritual topics of broad interest. Now I "work" on the internet trying to help others to get out, or not join to begin with. Grosss uplifting music is claimed to have miraculous healing powers. Nobody wins, so we just let it sit there. Lane believes, that Twitchell created the unbroken line of Vairagi Eck Masters, dating back some six million years to Gakko, who emigrated from the planet Venus. We were suddenly in a marketplace with lots of bright burgundy-colored carpets. But this is not oppressive at all. In Understanding Cults, Lane published The Criminal Activities of John-Roger Hinkins, a laborious account of Hinkinss alleged break-in and smear campaign. Eckankar teaches that the soul is eternal, it exists because God loves it, and it is journeying to self-realization and God realization. He also does private executive coaching. Murdochs obsession with water suddenly makes sense. Cult Survivors: Victims of the Eckankar cult (The Library of Truth): Sykes, Joe: 9781659942743: Amazon.com: Books Books Religion & Spirituality Other Religions, Practices & Sacred Texts Try Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery Buy new: $6.99 Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns Jerry Mulvins suggestion that you start your own cult must have been intriguing on some level. But its just a few blocks off University.. My only regrets were that I sold all my rock albums to pay for my membership. Apparently, says Lane, Darwin took $2.5 million and put it into a front corporation in Oregon called Dharma Corporation. I would ask a question and get an answer, and I would jot it down. No, I was excited that somebody would pay attention to my research, Lane exclaims. 1:08. Members are deluded into believing they make spiritual progress, while they are merely psychologically entrapped. Toni Atkins wife Jennifer LeSar to bid on Todd Gloria's downtown project. The suggested annual membership donation for individuals is $120, a bargain in the miracles-and-freedom market. Eckankar, which is now called the Religion of Light and Sound, teaches that each individual is Soul inhabiting a human body. Apparently Lane has equally conflicted feelings about me. Before founding Eckankar, Twitchell was involved in yoga, self-realization groups, and Scientology. In Youth Ask A Modern Prophet, Harold Klemp writes, "The deep relationship between man and woman is a sacred token of human love. A friend from La Jolla gave me a copy of the article that David Lane is writing called the J. R. Controversy. Radhasoami is a yogic teaching that, according to Lane, is designed to enable the soul or consciousness to ascend beyond the physical body to higher spiritual regions by means of an internal sound or life current. Central to the teachings of Radhasoami, continues Lane, is the necessity of a living human master competent in initiating disciples into the practice and technique of listening to the inner sound, contemplating the inner light, and leaving the human body at will. The Indian guru Kirpal Singh figures prominently in Twitchells early writing. But Eckists are such sweet people, I insist. Eckankar's stance on sexual relations, although overtly heteronormative, speaks to the religion's appreciation of the sex act as an important and meaningful experience in human life. Remembering him in his better days, thin and attractive, I am shocked by the corpulent, aging man standing before me, coughing. Nowhere in any of the Eckankar press materials is Gross mentioned. So, Im not scared of attorneys. The religion seems to be centered around spiritual experiences, particularly experiencing the "Light and Sound of God." We dont rely on the written word. It affects those who have an unrealistic goal in ECK; those who want to Soul Travel or reach Self-and God-realization with practically no effort. Home study discourses and musical tapes are also available. There are ECK Temples, ECK Centers, and reading rooms in cities and towns across the . Saturday afternoon, when we arrive at the hotel, Lane keeps disappearing into the bathroom. His books were suppressed, and he was forbidden to associate himself with Eckankar or Eckankar teaching in any way, including the use of trademark terms such as Eck, EK, Living Eck Master, and Eckankar. When Gross protested, he was slapped with a lawsuit for business impropriety and copyright infringement. Well, the upshot of it is, we were friendly for five years, and then in 1983 four of his closest disciples defected. He focuses a lot on past things, Paul Twitchell and how much his writings look like the writings of a teaching Lane happens to be in. David Lane has his own personal agenda. Soul, being a spark of God, is on a journey to find its way home to God, or the Sugmad. Eckankar is not for everybody. McMahon seems suspicious of me, so I tell him that my current husband is an Irish Catholic from Long Island and that Im still very much in contact with my former husband, whos a higher initiate of Eckankar like himself. Shes very clean and clear about her business acumen. Understand that if you read the sacred works of all the religions, such as the Bhagavad-Gita, the Bible, or the Koran, youre going to see references almost exactly alike. He tells me a phenomenal story about an American writer and a European writer who, unbeknownst to one another, wrote identical books and sent them to the same publisher. I was teaching at UC-San Diego at the time. Recently I have had a spiritual crisis where I stopped believing in the concept of the Abrahamic God. In 1983 Lane and Brian Walsh issued a glossier version of The Making of a Spiritual Movement through their own Del Mar Press. Man, it was a nasty conversation. Lane places his hand to his face like a phone receiver, Hi, Fubbi, this is Gakko. I choke down the last gulp of my Green Garden vegetable cocktail and ask,. Harold Klemp. The term Eckankar is also a word used to refer to the name of God in Sikhism. Let's just say that on a relative scale, Jim Jones and Jonestown is the worst and that Mother Teresa of Calcutta is the best in that range Eckankar is kind of in the middle, and I dont think it should rank with the most dangerous of cults. You know, just a natural progression. Last April the current Living Eck Master, Harold Klemp, spoke at a three-day major seminar at the San Diego Marriott Hotel & Marina. Paul Twitchells the past; weve evolved out of that. After a year or so, he branched off and started his own group, MSIA, claiming that in 1963 he had a kidney stone operation and that after nine days of being in a coma he had been commissioned to be the Mystical Traveler Consciousness. At first Hinkins thought it was the legendary Rebazar Tarzs who came to him on the inner planes and passed on the keys to the Kingdom, but later, after seeing a photo of Radhasoami guru Sawan Singh, Hinkins decided that it was really Sawan Singh who had given him the mantle. If you left Eckankar because of the lies of the founders and their actions, don't spread garbage about totally unrelated things that were largely debunked after the 1980s "Satanic Panic". But even in his formality I instinctively trusted him. Twitchell married his second wife, Gail Atkinson, in San Francisco in 1964. He didnt bring up David Lane, but he requested that I not dwell on Darwin Gross. This was 79, 15 years ago. What I find interesting is that his material doesnt shake the belief of most Eckists., This is why, he responds immediately. Twitchell was living in Point Loma in 1965 when he started teaching workshops and selling booklets on how to leave your body. It lacks the wit, passion, and narrative drive of his other books. You can imagine how I felt, exclaims Lane. I would just close my eyes and he would be there, and I would be there with him too. But the stuff that Lane goes after has nothing to do, for me, with the validity of the teachings., When I was in Eckankar, one of the things that I really liked about it was its respect for other faiths and that there was no pressure to get anybody to join., Richards responds, Sri Harold Klemp has taken a special effort to make it clear that we accept the value and the need for all different paths and religions, because people operate at different states of consciousness. Experts say there are two main reasons many members of Gen X, roughly defined as people born roughly between 1965 and 1980, aren't ready to leave the workforce. Eckankar did work for me, mainly because its spiritual exercises, like using the mantra OM or HU and focusing on the third eye, are legitimate and used by similar religions that predate Eckankar. I was never able to penetrate Richardss reassuring politeness until I turned the conversation from Eckankar to Freud, Adler, and lung. Yet it has a sweetness to it. You are wondering about the question why i left eckankar but currently there is no answer, so let kienthuctudonghoa.com summarize and list the top articles with the question. Although no meetings are required, the local Eckankar newsletter lists a variety of classes, book discussions, Hu chants, and lectures. by. They say you can never damage the Eck spirit, because its life. His earlier writings didnt really talk about Rebazar Tarzs. (The 500-year-old bearded Tibetan monk Rebazar Tarzs wears a maroon robe, carries in his powerful right hand a huge walking staff, and speaks with a musical voice. . I was excited 20 years old, in the moment of discovering something new. Sitting at our outside table, high above Camino Del Mar, surrounded by sky and ocean, I feel as if were gods feasting on petty human concerns. I met David Lane in San Diego. I bet youve fantasized about it. On the negative side, Twitchells teachings were synthesized without really maturely thinking whether these different teachings fit in together. Finally, in 1992, Garland, a publisher of hardback reference books, accepted Lanes manuscript for its library series. Incredibly, I was awake, but still in my inner world at the same time. Pine Avenue, right next to where I was living when I was doing my books in the 80s. The mastership of Darwin Gross is a black cloud in Eckankar history, a history that Eckankar wants to erase. The lover has lied to you, but the lover is oh so seductive and satisfying, and submission is so thrilling. Lane discovered information that led him to believe that Twitchell copied whole chapters from Radhasoami texts, lied about biographical details.. On the desk behind him sits a teddy bear. He and Gross have been sparring since 1977. To top it off, their white helmets bore an insignia that was remarkably similar to Eckankars circular EK logo. Twitchell told his second wife, Gail, that he was born in the early 20s. I noticed in Baja a highway sign that said Rebasar. I said to myself, I bet this is where Twitchell got the name Rebazar Tarzs! Fie has a personal thing against Eckankar, he briskly replies. If theyre going to sue you about a 120-page term paper when youre 20 years old, you know somethings up. I never stopped, not even for a minute even though they, pardon my expression, treated me like shit. As I walk away he yells after me, Hang in there!. Whereas Sudar Singh [another memorable character in Twitchells cosmology] isKirpal Singh. In The Making of a Spiritual Movement, Lane quotes many passages from Twitchells magazine articles written in the 60s in which Twitchell cites Swami Premananda, Kirpal Singh, Meher Baba, Guru Nanak, Kabir, and even Jesus. I looked like a little kid. I talked to Twitchells first wife. After Id talked to him for a couple of hours, Jerry said, Dave, why dont you start your own religion? Since its early days Eckankar has always really been a religion. May the Force be with you.). The Living Eck Master gives support and guidance for the things that we choose to do. Yelman pauses for emphasis. I stood up and said, You know, Im a member of the community, Im a coach in the Little League, Im involved with the schools. I gave a list of my involvements with the community, and then I said, Im an Eckist and I believe in God. Theres always been a complete reliance on the individuals own inner guides and not some pre-established protocol that everybody has to operate under. On the Marie Vega [TV] show in Los Angeles, I said, John-Roger Hinkins robbed my house. He threatened to sue the TV station for a million dollars if they ever ran the program again. What I found was so obvious that anybody could have discovered it. . A representative at the Eckankar international office assured me that no one is turned away for lack of funds. And just explain that Twitchell covered up his life. The upshot of it was, they didnt do anything.. Rebazar Tarzs, yeah, that Rebazar Tarzs. Hi, Im Dave." If we were to rely on books as the source of our knowledge and our truth, wed be really hurting, because wed be all going in different directions. The air is cool as I listen to the soft lapping of waves. The treatment of critics, the phony official organizations that are merely cult front groups, and the lies are all the same. Eckankar is cult just like Scientology. For one, they're saddled with . Aside from the fact that Eckankar has techniques and tools that are incredible and not really matched by other groups, I think the freedom that is allowed to the members is a wonderful thing.". I want Eckankar in some weird universe to keep going, because its fun for me. In fact, we find more in common with people of other religious or spiritual beliefs than we have with people who dont have any religious or spiritual beliefs, simply because they have a commitment to spirit on some level., Im curious about how Eckankar has changed since I left it in the early 80s., Well, Richards says slowly and thoughtfully in a charming Southern accent, I think the present Living Eck Master has not changed the essence of the teachings, which is basically about self-realization and god-realization in the most direct way the individual can achieve that. Grosss rise to power was steeped in controversy from the beginning. It controls their minds using sophisticated thought control systems, and demand absolute obedience to Klemp and to the cult. So I said, 'You guys can get out of this simply, just explain that Twitchell plagiarized. James Peebles, an Eckist and fellow classmate of Lanes, also wrote a paper on Eckankar. Some people who have ringing in their ears say that its horrible. A skeptic goes to an Eckankar meeting, or anybodys meditation meeting, and says, Well, now wait a second, are you sure you saw the astral body of Rami Nuri? "Race me!" 4-year-old Lucia demands. I feel like Ive stumbled into a New Age greeting card or a novel by Iris Murdoch, try to imagine experiencing this extravagance on a regular basis. After dinner, she confides, I walked along the beach and sat down beneath a tree to do a contemplation. He said, 'Some of us live the spiritual life, others intellectualize it. Members receive a monthly discourse, which they have the option of studying alone or in classes. Eight years later he broke with Kirpal Singh and thereafter denied any involvement with him. And curtain after curtain of gauze was quietly removed, and I saw stars behind stars behind stars, as in the magical Odeons of my youth. Thats his axe to grind with Eckankar. Gross enters and takes his position behind the gold-toned vibes. The Living Eck Master descends from an unbroken line of Vairagi Masters. Signed, The Master. Another former Eckist named Gary Olsen started the MasterPath. Rebazar Tarzs, she says reverently. Though Eckankar does not try to coerce disillusioned members to remain on the path, Eckists are warned that when they drop out, their spiritual growth stops, and they are at the mercy of the Kal, the negative force of the universe.
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