Beliefs, Values, Ethics

ECKists follow their inner perception of the guidance of God and Divine Spirit, aspiring to live by the highest spiritual attributes: total awareness, responsibility, and divine love.

In its official statement on “Personal Ethics,” Eckankar says, “ECKists follow their inner perception of the guidance of God and Divine Spirit, aspiring to live by the highest spiritual attributes: total awareness, responsibility, and divine love….The ECKist accepts full responsibility for all personal acts and decisions.”¹  Eckankar is “a path that values the freedom of the individual above all.”² ECKist Kathleen offers an explanation of Eckankar’s position on beliefs and ethics:

We do believe there are certain universal laws of life and, as a religion, we don’t enforce those on our members. It’s the kind of thing that you learn about and you know after many lifetimes… So there’s universal laws that we believe in, we believe in reincarnation, we believe in the law of Karma, which, in Christianity, would be kind of the reap-what-you-sow kind of thing. So those are universal laws that we believe apply, but there is nothing like if you join Eckankar [people are] gonna say you have to do x, y, and z to be a member... You can participate if you’d like, you don’t have to participate. There isn’t any law.³