E C K A N K A R, Religia Światła i Dźwięku Boga
Fork in the Road
By M. S.
Before I found Eckankar, I studied with a teacher in Hawaii who possessed extraordinary psychic powers. As one of his first students and ministers, I settled into the role of psychic counselor for his metaphysical church. Adept at reading auras and psychic scanning, I counseled friends and strangers by probing their most private depths. Healings were commonplace. I would simply drop the name of the afflicted person into our “healing circle” for miraculous cures.
Now, this is true sainthood, I pridefully mused, as I noted my “spiritual” accomplishments and awed friends.
But the psychic powers we unleashed were starting to cast dark shadows. Several students committed suicide. My teacher began to manipulate his followers for money, sex, and psychic influence. My health started to suffer from the many “healings” I’d performed. Actually, I had simply interfered with the sick individuals’ karma and taken it upon myself.
I didn’t know my teacher had failed a test of power. He was spiraling down into darkness and taking all of us with him. I was a psychic prisoner and didn’t know it!
During this turbulent time, I cried out to Spirit for help. An interesting dream followed. I found myself next in line to see a Master. Her aura of love left my knees shaking, and I dropped to the rug before her. She sat on a beautifully brocaded pillow, radiating a soft corona of light that danced about her head. Her voice sounded like velvety water; it poured over me like a waterfall. “You are unfolding like a flower,” she said with gentleness. Her wisdom flowed from the depths of Soul.
A highly polished table caught her reflection as she leaned over to deftly pluck a single blue carnation from its vase. In one fluid motion, she deposited the flower in my hand. I was embarrassed at taking the only flower on her table. She smiled understandingly.
“Choose,” the Master whispered softly, as her slender fingers pointed to many trinkets neatly arranged around the vase. I gingerly reached for a tiny crystal figure of a blue man. I awoke with the feeling that it was still clutched reverently in my palm.
I looked forward to our next dream meeting, but it never came. This mysterious being had pointed out my next spiritual step. Six months would pass before I realized the significance of this inner experience.
The dream led to my resignation from the metaphysical church. My teacher was outraged and refused to let me go. In his anger, he began a battery of psychic assaults that left me weak and fearing for my sanity.
When my second pregnancy failed, my world caved in. I no longer had the strength or the will to fight my teacher. One day his attacks broke through from the inner planes to the physical world. One moment I was gazing at the waves on the outer reefs far below my apartment window. The next moment I was hurled into a realm of collapsed time. Mountains of electrical energy volcanoed around me, sending needles of pain through my back.
I spun around and met a thunderous blow across the face! Wave after wave of blows sent me ricocheting against the walls of this unearthly realm. It was like being shredded alive. Desperately I fought to stay conscious and survive. The glimpses of the monster attacking me left me terrified. Its center fumed in an electrical darkness of unspeakable depths, exploding around in a raging storm of red-and-black lightning. I recoiled in horror as I glimpsed the face of my old teacher!
The aftershocks of the attack reverberated to my core. Something inside of me snapped alive, fighting to reach consciousness. I remembered something. What was it? I frantically clawed at the memory, but my mind was numb.
As I sank deeper into the pit of terror, I screamed out for help. “Oh, God! Please hear me!” A true Master would hear me, wouldn’t he? The ground broke under me, and a swirling funnel of no thought, sight, or feeling began to pull me toward its abysmal depths.
Almost in the same instant, someone grabbed me from behind and tossed me a hundred feet upward, as easily as a child would toss a doll. My rescuer was a brightly illuminated being made up of blue sparkles. He wasted no time in engaging in combat with the angry mass of red-and-black lightning before him. He looked so small against the huge hulk of my former teacher.
Yet I could feel his power even from the distance that separated us. In the split second that I perceived his beauty and power, I found myself back in my body at home—a shaking, nauseous mass of quivering nerves. But I knew that “my”' Master was real now. His love followed me for many days, erasing all fear of my old teacher. I had finally seen the power of true love. All of my magic tricks had proved useless until this love broke the chains of fear that had held me prisoner.
Not long after that, I found the Outer Master, the Living ECK Master. I recognized his photograph on the back cover of a book and ventured into the local Eckankar center to find out more. A woman there told me the picture was of Sri Harold Klemp, the present spiritual leader of Eckankar. I could never forget the face of my rescuer. I had finally found my teacher.
Life wasn’t all roses after that initial recognition of the Inner and Outer Master. Many changes shook my life as years of meditation gave way to the Spiritual Exercises of ECK.
Now my days are spent as an active participant in life. The sleeping hours are an opportunity to consciously explore my inner worlds. Soul Travel is so different and so far superior to psychic phenomena that it must be experienced to be believed!
I could never return to playing with power and psychic tricks. There is so much beyond the psychic realms; I don’t want to be bound there anymore. And though old friends don’t understand my new path, forging on alone has brought me many new bonds. The pure Light of ECK far outshines any of the phenomenal experiences I had while on the dark fork in the road. If I listen to my inner guidance, I know I will avoid any obstacles on the path; if I fall flat on my face, Wah Z (Sri Harold Klemp’s spiritual name) is always there to pick me up, a knowing smile on his face.
Sri Harold Klemp has passed the tests we now face and is the Mahanta, the Living ECK Master symbolized for me in the inner worlds by the single blue carnation. It’s good to know we have competent help from the ECK Masters on the long, twisting, and sometimes surprising road home to God.
“Fork in the Road,” zaczerpnięte z Earth to God, Come in Please . . . , Book 1 [Ziemia do Boga, przyjdź proszę..., Księga 1], copyright © 1991 ECKANKAR. Wszystkie prawa zastrzeżone.
Ostatnia modyfikacja: czerwiec 2012 040604q