Church, Eckankar

ECKANKAR CHURCH -  Eckankar (meaning Co-worker with God) is a modern-day religion founded by Paul Twitchell in 1965.   It is a non-profit religious group with members in over one hundred countries.  The spiritual home is the Temple of ECK in Chanhassen, Minnesota.

Eckankar is not affiliated with any other religious group.  Followers believe its purpose is to help individuals find their way back to God through direct personal spiritual experiences.  The movement teaches simple spiritual exercises, such as singing "Hu", called "a love song to God", to experience the Light and Sound of God and recognize the presence of the Holy Spirit.  Harold Klemp is the present spiritual leader, known as the Mahanta or the Living ECK Master.

Primary to the teaching is the belief that one may experience the perspective of soul beyond the limits of the body.   Also, the concepts of karma and reincarnation help to explain situations in life as the playing out of past causes.  The beliefs that individuals are responsible for their own destiny and that their decisions determine their future are important concepts to Eckankar.   Eckankar students meet in open public services and classes to discuss personal experiences, topics, books and discourses.

One of the basic tenets is that Soul (the true self) may be experienced separate from the physical body and in full consciousness travel freely in other planes of reality.  Eckankar emphasizes personal spiritual experiences as the most natural way back to God.  These are attained via Soul Travel shifting the awareness from the body to the inner planes of existence.

Dreams are regarded as important teaching tools, and members often keep dream journals to facilitate study.  According to followers of Eckankar, dream travel often serves as the gateway to Soul Travel or the shifting of one's consciousness to ever-higher states of being.

Eckankar teaches that "spiritual liberation" in one's lifetime is available to all and that it is possible to achieve Self-Realization (the realization of oneself as Soul) and God-Realization (the realization of oneself as a spark of God) in one's lifetime. The membership card for Eckankar states: "The aim and purpose of Eckankar has always been to take Soul by Its own path back to Its divine source."

The final spiritual goal of all ECKists is to become conscious "Co-workers" with God.