Is Life a Random Walk? (2 page)

The whole purpose of you, me, and every-one else is to become more godlike. It is our 11

mission, or purpose, here. It’s the key to happiness.

People may believe they’re here to mark time until the trumpets blow on the last day. At that point, having pursued a frivo-lous life, they expect the Lord to catch them up to some better world, to let them em-bark upon a useless and self-centered existence there too.

No. The true purpose of life here, there, or anywhere is to become a Co-worker with God.

Our past lives have brought experiences to polish us in a spiritual way. Like it or not, you are now the best and highest spiritual being you have ever been in any lifetime. Take a look at yourself. Like what you see? Fine. But if you don’t like the face star-ing back at you in the mirror, keep in mind that this reflection is of your own creation.

You are today the sum of all your thoughts, feelings, and actions in past lives.

I once said that sincere people who attend an ECK event—like an introductory talk on the Eckankar teachings—come because of some dissatisfaction with their 12

belief or religion. Otherwise, why would they be there?

Yet they may be aware only in part of the pressing nature of their search. But Soul, the True Self, has heard and is yearn-ing to go home.

It’s simply a matter of time before a seeker’s search begins in earnest—perhaps a week, a month, a year, fifty years, the next lifetime, or later—it matters not. Yet this may be the lifetime that a seeker ad-mits, “I sense having lived many times in the past. I may be the best I’ve ever been, but I want more. Much more.”

“I Want to Go Home”

A child we’ll call Debra, for the sake of privacy, was born with a valve defect in her stomach. Doctors were at a loss whether she would outgrow the condition. All dur-ing Debra’s childhood, her parents had introduced her to strangers: “Our daughter was born with a stomach defect. She doesn’t keep food down very well.”

Negative comments like that added an extra burden to this poor child’s youth.

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One day the problem reached a crisis.

Debra’s parents found her turning blue and rushed her to a hospital. By luck and divine grace, she pulled through. The doc-tors who treated her predicted that the stomach valve, which they fixed, would cause no future problems.

Now, Debra’s older sister took a fiend-ish delight in making fun of her. Soon after Debra returned from the hospital, her sister picked a fight. Family rules kept the older girl from giving the younger one a physical beating, yet verbal abuse and name-calling did the job. They left no visible scars. On that particular day the younger girl simply got tired of the hazing and turned on her sister. She beat up her tormentor. Outraged, the elder ran and told their father. The wisdom of Solomon he had not, so he sent Debra to her room.

Debra was recovering from a serious condition, her sister had started the fight, but she’s the one banished to her room. She lay weeping on the bed, crushed by the in-justice of it.

“I want to go home,” she cried. “I just 14

want to go home.” In a spiritual sense her heart was saying, “I want to go home to God because of my unhappiness.”

Each of us is Soul. Once we laughed and sang in the high heavens of God’s pure Light and Sound—at play in the park. But without the discipline or need to serve others, we (Soul) served ourselves. So God sent us to earth for the rich experience of liv-ing in a world of duality, to suffer and en-joy extremes like heat and cold, wealth and poverty, or love and hate. It was all to learn the true nature of love.

That’s our mission. The first big lesson is to learn to love ourselves.

So when young Debra cried, “I want to go home; I just want to go home,” her plea was in a spiritual sense. In her abject mis-ery the faint, but not extinguished, memory of Soul’s onetime home flooded in upon her.

She remembered that her true home wasn’t on earth. She was but passing through.

Accept Life for What It Is

As Debra heard the sound of her own words, she snapped from her self-pity and 15

returned to her human cage, timeless ages—yet a mere heartbeat—from bliss in the heart of God.

I am home
, she realized.

This time, she didn’t mean her heavenly home, but earth. Hard, merciless, uncaring earth.

“I’m as home as I’m going to get,” she said aloud. “It won’t get better here. So I may as well wipe my tears and plan for the day I’m old enough to leave.” She stopped crying then. A key realization had stolen in upon her: Conditions might stumble along at home, but truth to tell, they were well within the limits of endurance. This suggested the need to accept her station in life.

What an important realization for a child!

The Hand of God

Debra grew up, married, and endured hardships that led to a budding maturity.

Losing her firstborn son, the marriage missing a breakup by a narrow margin, and other such suffering took her to the brink 16

of hopeless abandonment.

One day, depressed and despondent, she sought refuge in church. Catholicism was the faith of her youth. Now she had hit rock bottom. Inside the church, a prayer service was in session, and worshippers all around murmured soft prayers. At that moment, sunk in the depths of despair, she felt a hand of comfort come to rest upon her shoulder. Her eyes flew open in surprise. She glanced back to bless that gentle Soul’s touch, but empty air greeted her wid-ened eyes. No one stood near.

In a way, you could say it was the hand of God through the personage of a divine messenger. God Itself—in ECK we neither say Him nor Her—does not descend into the human theater to move among people in the normal sense.

Yet the Deity does send spiritual messengers, often perceived as angels, saints, and the like. Debra realized it in a heartbeat. A guardian angel had indeed placed a hand of reassurance and comfort upon her.

Debra’s story is a wonderful example 17

of how you, too, may experience a gentle nudging from Divine Spirit (ECK) to help you on your journey home to God.

Even before leaving church, she knew that a gift of grace had touched her with a special blessing. This extraordinary moment of realization was the assurance of an ancient truth: life is more than a random walk. A divine presence had graced her. As a Catholic more grounded in the physical side of life than the mystical, she was startled by such a realization of grace.

It’d come through the touch of a gentle, al-beit invisible, hand.

Eternity Here and Now?

The years passed. In time Debra bore a second son we’ll call Jim. Once grown he took an interest in spiritual things. Debra did too, though life’s trials left raw wounds that begged for more time to heal. She still exercised caution about religion.

Yet her view about the next spiritual step was a childlike one. Intuition whis-pered that when a student is ready, the Master appears, and the resulting linkup 18

is a most natural one. After all, hadn’t she already waited years on end to discover the next step to truth after feeling the hand on her shoulder in church so long ago?

What was another month or year?

Jim, however, with all the exuberance and impatience of youth, took a more direct tack. “Eternity now!” he said.

One day he was reading an ECK book, in back of which was listed a phone number. “What are you reading?” said Debra.

“There’s something in it about eternity here and now,” he replied. “I’m going to call the number and see what I can find out.”

A pleasant, cheery voice came on the line. An ECKist told of an upcoming meeting where someone would explain more about the teachings of ECK.

“I’m going,” he told his mother.

Though leery of any religious teaching other than Catholicism, she decided to join him to ensure no one took advantage of her baby. “Mother, please,” he said, “don’t make a scene.” Jim could imagine her throwing angry accusations at the group. He offered a compromise.

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“If you promise not to embarrass me, you may come.”

* * *

So they set out. Near the end of the introductory meeting on the teachings of ECK, a speaker addressed the group. “To give you a better idea of what I’m talking about,” he said, “I would like to invite you all to sing HU with me.” Then, very softly, he and the others began to chant HU.

HU is an ancient, holy name for God.

You can sing it at home. Simply sit or lie in a quiet place and sing HU (pronounced like

“hue”). This age-old song lets the Voice of God enter you as love, Light, or Sound.

The Light and Sound of God are inte-gral parts of divine love known to but a few.

The twin pillars of God’s love, they are the mainstays of the ECK teachings. In fact, the spiritual travelers of ECK ride them out of the body and into the cosmic seas via Soul Travel, like a surfer riding ocean waves.

This method is a direct route to finding love, wisdom, and spiritual freedom.

* * *

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Debra’s mind drifted to a time three years earlier at a Renaissance fair. Astrology and many other paths had exhibits there.

In a little room where people came to meditate stood a crystal bowl. The host had run a stick with a rubber tip along the edge of the bowl, producing a magnificent, soothing sound. It was most beautiful and heal-ing.

* * *

So at this ECK meeting Debra listened to the others chant HU.
That sound, that
sound!
Where had she heard it before?

Suddenly it dawned on her: it was like the soothing sound at the fair. The stick with the rubber tip running slowly around the edge of the crystal bowl had also made this sound of HU, ancient name for God.

She learned that a recording of a HU

Song was available at the ECK meeting. Full of excitement, she bought one. It surprised Jim. “What are you doing, Mother? You never buy such things.”

She told him about the same wonderful sound she’d once heard at the Renaissance 21

fair. She simply wanted to hear it once more.

A Trip to the ECK Temple

Mother and son became members of Eckankar. Soon after, the Temple of ECK

opened in Chanhassen, Minnesota, a sub-urb of Minneapolis. “Let’s drive to Minnesota and see this place,” Jim said.

“Yes,” she agreed. “Maybe we’ll have a great experience there.”

In her heart she knew she would.

This occasion sparked a dim reminder from her childhood, when she’d sobbed on the bed: “I want to go home. I just want to go home.” She didn’t understand what she had meant then, and even less now.

So they drove from the East Coast with a sadly out-of-date map of Minneapolis.

Many changes since the map’s publication had all but rendered it useless. Upon reaching the outskirts of Chanhassen, they asked a young gas station attendant for directions to the Temple of ECK.

“Never heard of it,” said the youth.

Back on the road, they tracked an un-22

certain route to the town center of Chanhassen, certain of finding the Temple of ECK nearby. But to complicate matters, dusk had stolen upon them. Then, while heading down the main street, a sense of déjà vu overcame Debra. She braked to a stop in the middle of the street.

“Mother!” Jim said. “What are you doing?”

Frozen in wonder at the wheel, she replied, “I’ve been here before!”

Long years ago, a recurring dream had foretold this visit to a small town with what seemed like a year-round winter. Except for a brief spell that natives call summer, the description fits Minnesota.

In her dreams she had walked past a hardware store, and then she would see the town clock. The scene was always the same.

She’d awake to a feeling of dreams more real than waking life. Yet she’d forgotten them until this very night.

“I’ve been here before,” she repeated.

Traffic backing up behind them forced her to move on. Minutes later, they found the Temple of ECK near the edge of town.

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This ECK Temple is a very special place. It’s an outer symbol for the holy temple of God within the heart of all people.

Visitors to it often remark upon a presence—a very definite, loving, divine one.

The temple reflects and resonates with the Light and Sound of God, and many people mention this sense of being in a unique, holy place.

The Great Experience?

Parking the car, mother and son entered the ECK Temple and took seats in the sanctuary. Debra waited in quiet expectation, wondering,
When will I have my
great experience?
Even as the thought arose, a soft voice from nowhere said, “Well, what do you want? Do you need to get run over by a truck?”

Already she’d forgotten the déjà vu of minutes ago.

* * *

Someone once asked me, “How do

people in ECK usually find truth?” He meant: does it hit like a bombshell?

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Yes, it could be an experience to deeply stir the emotions and feelings. Yet more often its subtlety slips past people. So they miss it. Within the hour, Debra had had a marvelous experience of locating the actual town from recurring dreams years long gone. That was the “great experience.”

Great skeptics and doubters often go farthest on the path to God. Someone may ask, “Is there hope for me? I don’t buy this God stuff.” No problem; take your time, for all seekers must proceed at their own pace.

But one truth I can give you is the word
HU
, and the spiritual exercises to find God. Yet the success of these depends upon you. Can you spend a few minutes a day to open your heart to the Holy Spirit? To do the spiritual exercises with love and passion? To give your whole mind and heart to such a self-discipline for a few moments?

If the reply is yes, you are bound to make progress in your quest for the secret laws of life. Today’s mysteries will no longer be mysteries tomorrow.

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A Few Sounds of God

After Debra became a member of

Eckankar, she learned the meaning of a buzzing sound she’d heard for years. That sound is but another of the Sounds of God.