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. Members are deluded into believing they make spiritual progress, while they are merely psychologically entrapped. Other students of Radhasoami have objected to Lanes critical stance in The Radhasoami Tradition: A Critical History of Guru Successorship, published by Garland. David Lane has his own personal agenda. People typically define cults, first of all, as based around worshiping a personality. On the wall to my right is a framed print of the yin-yang symbol with a feather fixed to it. How-to video gives tips on how to survive after leaving the Eckankar cult. On tape Twitchell is asked about Rebazar Tarzs. I imagine we have a wide spectrum. His quest for knowledge and experience of God is without question. Hes got his music. Recently I have had a spiritual crisis where I stopped believing in the concept of the Abrahamic God. Gross and Kurz are joined by vocalist Kim Driggs, an attractive woman with dark shaggy hair. Lane drives me back to Hillcrest. I wonder how long it takes new Eckists to even learn of his existence. Are your tax dollars being spent by this group? So they interviewed me, and I had this rainbow tie on, and Geraldo and I were going at each other. We take our seats among the 50 or so other seekers, many of whom have flown in for the event. His disciples told me he would pick a guy every night out of the staff and claim that they needed to have sex with him in order to increase their aura or they needed, pardon my language, a rectal innerphase in order to burn off karma., He has thus thing called aura innerphasing, where you do aura balancing, soul balancing, etheric balancing. Nobody wins, so we just let it sit there. In their own words, "The ECK is spirit. I'd sign this but you SCUM BAGS aren't worth much more of my effort, just a bit more EFFORT and then it ends. After giving lectures and teaching Eckankar classes for ten years, I already knew them well. When Fox settled the defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million, the conventional wisdom was that it would alter little about . Apparently Lane has equally conflicted feelings about me. 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. Those who become disheartened quit ECK for other paths that seem to require less drive and responsibility of them. The waiter arrives with our check, and Lane and I bicker over whos going to pay for it. James Peebles, an Eckist and fellow classmate of Lanes, also wrote a paper on Eckankar. His clothes seem to be tossed onto his rather stocky body. In my copy of The Making of a Spiritual Movement, he signs himself the Kal force, Dave. The Kal force, remember, is the power of negativity. The skies themselves seem to be weeping with loss. Twitchell coined the word Eckankar (a Punjabi word meaning "One God" or "Supreme Reality") from Guru Nanak's Japji, as found in the Sikh's holy scriptures, Guru Granth Sahib. In The Sea, the Sea she writes, Far away in that ocean of gold, stars were silently shooting and falling and finding their fates, among those billions and billions of merging golden lights. But, Dave, I whine, why wont you talk about it on tape? Because I have a certain kind of respect for him, a kind of sweet affection. He never had much money. 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. Because Gross had been in Eckankar less than two years, his appointment shocked and disturbed many Eckists. Lane says, He got them from his Indian books on Radhasoami, or Julian Johnsons The Path of the Masters, or from With a Great Master in India. Sipping his virgin strawberry margarita, Lane says, I got a sense of authenticity when he played his vibes, like thats who he really was, a musician, instead of trying to be a master. When Driggs gets to the line away above the chimney tops, thats where youll find me, I focus on Grosss bulbous belly and red suspenders. He has no phone. Now, Jagat is actually the first name of a Radhasoami guru named Jagat Singh. I had my two sisters to take care of while my parents were being mixed up. Hes sitting on a couch in the small lobby outside the conference room. Hinkins also wrote to Charan Singh asking him to use his influence to get lane to stop doing research on him. Sri Harold Klemp has immense financial resources available to guide the spiritual lives of his tens of thousands of believers. Clearly Lane is not a blind follower. Eckankar teaches that the soul is eternal, it exists because God loves it, and it is journeying to self-realization and God realization. Harold Klemp. People always say, Leave us alone; Eckankar works. I do leave those people alone. In 1942, after a stint in the Navy, Twitchell moved to New York, where he continued his journalism career, attended many churches, and read extensively on spiritual subjects. With the popularity of the Ghostbusters logo. Before founding Eckankar, Twitchell was involved in yoga, self-realization groups, and Scientology. And in my unknowingness, I like to explore how much more I dont know., Talking to these Eckists, the conscious, rational, jaded Dodie faded out, and this other little Dodie inside me was starting to feel an incredible seduction. Its basically, check your brains at the door when you join a religion.". I only accept that thing which I can verify or that thing which I consider to be somewhat genuine. Those answers were so far-reaching in their depth and breadth, they still help me today, nine years later. 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? Buying a used car you at least look underneath the hood, hit the tires, maybe take it to a mechanic to check it out. In one he refers to me as Lane the widower. So then I wrote The J.R. Controversy for a new journal called Understanding Cults. I cant understand why he would be doing this, because the Eckists have never gone out of their way to hurt him; but he claims that they did, I think, in one regard. But in buying a religion, youre supposed to wear these narrow blinders, so that if anybody disagrees you can block it out. When I leave Richardss office its dusk. For tax purposes Twitchell moved Eckankar to Las Vegas, but he maintained residence in San Diego for the rest of his life. Sitting in this pathetic room with its riotously floral turquoise-and-purple carpet, it feels as if nobodys dreams will ever come true. Although no meetings are required, the local Eckankar newsletter lists a variety of classes, book discussions, Hu chants, and lectures. 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. When they find out youre talking to me, I guarantee that their lawyers will write. I have been an official member of Eckankar for 10 years. Friday afternoon I visit 22-year veteran of Eckankar Kevin McMahon in his Cardiff home. Eckankar is not affiliated with any other religious group. Totally aware, she says seriously. Toni Atkins wife Jennifer LeSar to bid on Todd Gloria's downtown project. He is Shamus-i-Tabriz (a living Eck Master of 400 years ago who now teaches on the Causal Plane at the Sakapori Temple of Golden Wisdom in the city of Honu). The program Lane and I attend at the Best Western Hanalei is called The Universal Basics of Life Through Music. It costs $35 at the door. I talked to Twitchells first wife. Within two years Klemp fired Gross, accusing him of negativity, spiritual decay, and embezzlement. This most incredible feeling came over me, literally like light inside of me. The Cadillac of Cults. With the blink of an eye, he could vanish forever. Do you think it would be an easy thing to do?". Then his widow, Gail Atkinson, had a vision in the night in which Twitchell named Gross. Some left the movement. I was very naive. No. If he cant take your soul back to God, he improves your bowling game, money-back guarantee. We both laugh so loudly at Lanes joke, the couple at the next table, who have been covertly eyeing the tape recorder, stare at us openly. I was 21. 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. Im not interested in all this other dialogue that David Lane is so focused on. Finally, he agrees to come to the house, but Im doubtful that he will really appear. 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. There he and his first wife, Camille, joined the Self-Revelation Church of Absolute Monism, a system of yoga founded by Swami Premananda. The vivid orange-pink horizon stretches on endlessly beneath a nearly full moon. This is helf to be the sustaining force of all life and the equivalent of the Holy Spirit. 2 0 Share Reply More Q Through daily spiritual exercises, one can shift ones awareness from the physical world and soul travel to these higher planes. Del Mar Press agreed to change the cover on future editions. Lane looks like hes swallowed a mouse, grinning and biting his finger. Lane discovered information that led him to believe that Twitchell copied whole chapters from Radhasoami texts, lied about biographical details.. I am afraid my beliefs will cause conflict within the Eckankar community and it may be best that I leave Eckankar. In order to burn off all their karma in this lifetime and to be released from the cycle of death and reincarnation, Eckists practice detachment from the vagaries of life. That is, people have to find meaning in their lives, regardless. I really enjoyed the music, but it was kind of sad. Once when I was driving down to Baja on one of my frequent surf trips, he continues, I noticed to my amazement a highway sign that said Rebasar. I dont know exactly what it means No Passing, or something like that. Founded in 1965 by Paul Twitchell, one-time disciple of Swami Premananda, Kirpal Singh, and L. Ron Hubbard, Eckankar owes much of its theology to Radhasoami. And he didnt know anything about Eckankar., The guide was a bearded man in this maroon robe. Im greeted by a tall, handsome black man with a mustache and short-cropped hair graying slightly at the temples. We see that all the time.. I asked what happened to my friend, my childhood master. He offshooted from Eckankar and founded this religion called the Divine Science of Light and Sound. As Eckankar filled my life, I felt like I was entering Shangri-la; a new glistening world of love, of possibility opened before me. Man, it was a nasty conversation. When Paul Twitchell suddenly died in September 1971, he left no word as to who his successor should be. I get the sense his gentleness does not comes naturally, that it has been worked at, with great success. All that junk you gave Lane to write down came out of your own filthy minds, and mouths and you know filthy mouths must be cleaned out don't you. (Such a quake did occur in 1812.) Remembering him in his better days, thin and attractive, I am shocked by the corpulent, aging man standing before me, coughing. Lane and Walsh had put a circle with a slash through it over Eckankars logo, which is EK formed into a circle. Im an extremely intuitive person, she says, so I feel things long before I understand them in my head. According to Lane, members of various cults have threatened lawsuits, written him letters with skeletons on them, broken into his apartment, made death threats, and generally harassed him. . A volunteer raises one arm straight out to the side, and Dawn easily pushes it down. In a husky voice, smooth as malt whiskey, she sings, Dont blame me for falling in love with you. On Saturday, I lunch with Lane at a restaurant in Del Mar. I am afraid my beliefs will cause conflict within the Eckankar community and it may be best that I leave Eckankar. He used to send me Christmas cards, he gave me his personal phone number, and he offered me $5000 to help with my research on Eckankar.. It may be a game for Lane, but believers are playing for high emotional and intellectual stakes. People sit on park benches, push baby carriages along paths, jog beside the water. The loss of my old loves and Grosss loss of status become merged in an ineffable sadness. Lanes research into Eckankar is meticulously documented. Its had to be recognized as such in this country to operate as a nonprofit organization. At one Eckankar seminar in Florida, a panhandler happened to station himself outside the hotel where the seminar was held. McMahon, who was raised Catholic in New York City and on Long Island, has always been interested in spirituality. In 1983 Lane and Brian Walsh issued a glossier version of The Making of a Spiritual Movement through their own Del Mar Press. After Id talked to him for a couple of hours, Jerry said, Dave, why dont you start your own religion? The two students shared notes. Youre right, every world religion has got its problems. So, Im not scared of attorneys. Read full review of Eckankar Helpful? If I were any of you. It went through the roof a lot quicker than he expected. It doesnt make sense. And all the people kind of looked at me as if to say, Well, jeez, he doesnt look evil. Lane came up and he talked to me and thanked me for coming. McMahon looks as Irish as his name, with a large, soft face and a sad mouth that bends pleasantly when he smiles. It was difficult coming to this country, trying to figure out the language, the new culture, and what to do. She was a Buddhist, and I became interested in Buddhism. Tucker Carlson's Great Replacement. The spiritual home is the Temple of ECK in Chanhassen, Minnesota. A few months later Gross and Twitchells widow married, sending more ripples of confusion throughout the fold. Thats his axe to grind with Eckankar. Plagiarism charges fall on deaf ears with Eckists because weve had experiences outside of book learning. Lanes no longer an easy man to find. David Lanes critiques of Eckankar may be well documented and rational, but religious devotion is not about rationality. I was a member for almost 15 years, but thanks to the internet, I found out the truth about it and got out. And so I had handwriting analysis done on the writing on the diaries and on that NO MORE sign. As we shake hands I notice hes wearing a gold ring with an embossed EK logo. This was 79, 15 years ago. Nine years later she read Paul Twitchells Eckankar: Key to Secret Worlds. In many cases, even when they do ask, they face a stony silence from the org, or are told they are being "tested" spiritually, Curated stories, fun places to hang out and top events. 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. In the Army he traveled to Thailand, where he met his wife. The inner form of the Living Eck Master, known as the Mahanta, works with students in the dreamstate and during their spiritual exercises. If you've checked out the lives of the Eck Masters and found problems, do the same thing to all these "occult experts" because a lot of them had their stories . Among those two explanations, Occams Razor points to the simpler one, I overslept. While a few people I met were off-the-wall, Eckists in general make wonderfiil friends, kind, caring, nonjudgmental. The mastership of Darwin Gross is a black cloud in Eckankar history, a history that Eckankar wants to erase. My parents raised me not to write in books, and so I didnt. A representative at the Eckankar international office assured me that no one is turned away for lack of funds. Understand, hes got names coming out of the woodwork., So who do you think Rebazar Tarzs really is?. Signed, The Master. Another former Eckist named Gary Olsen started the MasterPath. The former members of Eckankar make a mistake in here thinking procedure.
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