In this article I want to go over a few of the basic teachings of a relatively new religion known as Eckankar, as well as show what scripture has to say on the subject.
Eckankar was created by a man named Paul Twitchell in 1965, at Las Vegas. There are also approximately 50,000 followers to this religion in the last few years leading up to the new millennium. The "Sacred Text" that they use is called Shariyat-ki-sugmad or "way of the eternal" was penned by Paul Twichell as well.
I consider this particular religion to be an offshoot of Scientology since their founder Paul was one of the first of Scientology's "Clears". He believed that he was the 971st Eck master and was taught sound current yoga by Kirpal Singh.
Paul also believed that he was taught this yoga by two Eck masters who were no longer in their bodies. Anyone who takes the bible seriously wouldn't have anything to do with this religion because scripture teaches us to not regard those that have familiar spirits (Lev 19:31). Paul didn't try the spirits to see if they were of God (1Joh 4:1) and as such fell for devils masquerading as angels of light (2Co 11:14).
The yoga that this religion focuses on emphasizes the physical and spiritual techniques which enable one's soul to go past the physical limits of the body and travel to higher spiritual realms of the Sugmad. Please refer to my Hinduism post to learn about the dangers of yoga.
What is the Sugmad? Eck's would call it an impersonal, formless, infinite, and an equivalent to what we call God in theism. The Sugmad also is said to embrace all. Eckankar teaches that our universe was created by some sound waves that radiated off of the divine. When this happened the divine sound current was trapped in the material realm.
This is nothing more than Idolatry and an attempt to dismiss Christ as Creator and trade him for other gods (Deu 32:16-18).
Since Eckankar teaches against a personal intelligent Creator God they will have to find some other way to account for morality. The fact that we know killing, raping, stealing, etc is wrong and that it's ingrained into our hearts is a strong refutation to this anti-intelligent designer belief.
Eck's consider humans as "sparks of god" that are held in reincarnation but they can return to what they call god by listening to the "divine sound" and repeating the "divine names" (mantras). Jesus however condemned this type of prayer (vain repetitions) in Mat 6:7. One of the so-called names is Hu, otherwise known as a druid god of fertility/underworld. It's not good to even mention other god's names (Jos 23:7).
Other practices of Eckankar include meditation, prayer, past-life discovery and conscious dreaming. While Christian's believe that meditation and prayer are good things, the meditation/prayer of Hinduism-like religions such as Eck are quite different than our own. Meditation in Eckankar let's practitioners experience "soul travel", whereas Christian meditation involves meditating on God's word for true spiritual growth (Psa 1:2, Psa 119:148).
Past-life discovery and conscious dreaming are completely un biblical doctrines as scripture teaches that men are only appointed to die once (Heb 9:27), hence there are no past lives. Conscious dreaming is unbiblical because scripture teaches us to be vigilant and sober (1Thes 5:5-8, 1Pet 5:8).
In conclusion I just want to warn my readers to watch out for this religion and don't fall for it's lies.
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