America Looks Inward: to Self-Realization, to Reincarnation, to Inner Guides – Program 5

By: Sri Darwin Gross, Tal Brooke; ©1988

Do the “ancient masters” care about what happens to the earth and the people who live there? Are all religious paths equally valid?

The Ancient Masters

Introduction

Tonight, John Ankerberg will interview a man who claims to be a Living Master, that is, one who supposedly has reached the highest level of spiritual attainment. John’s guest is Sri Darwin Gross, the former leader of the religious group called Eckankar. At one time, three million people supposedly received wisdom through him from spirit beings called The Ascended Masters. He says his body is a unique vehicle which God’s essence uses. The man who is currently the Living Eck Master once said about Sri Darwin Gross:

Excerpt from previous program

Dr. John Ankerberg: Okay, what does it mean to be a living Eck Master?

Harold Klemp: He is the individual who, during contemplation the Eckists… we look to our inner, and many times we will see Sri Darwin Gross on the inner. And this is responsible for a number of healings….

Ankerberg: What does it mean to see him? How do you see him?

Klemp: Just as real as you’re sitting here, John, and myself and Debbie and Mike. We see him and we speak with him….

Ankerberg: Do you remember going out of your body and guiding and speaking to Harold Klemp inside of his inner space?

Sri Darwin Gross: The majority of the time, negative. I do not. I’d have to become like Krishna – a vegetable, have somebody take care of the body and feed it if I were to observe what I’m doing in other bodies constantly. I’m like no one else here in this audience.

Ankerberg: But actually God invades your body and works through you. Do you know that He’s working through you?

Gross: Oh yes.

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As a Living Master Darwin claims that he is in contact with and is guided by nine spirit beings, who call themselves the Ascended Masters.

Gross: When I was confronted by the nine silent ones and when Paul Twitchell confronted me with….

Ankerberg: The Ascended Masters?

Gross: The Masters, the Vairagi Masters. I could have said, “No,” but I chose to say “Yes.”

Ankerberg: You’ve got to counsel with them in the spirit world?

Gross: Yes. In Soul.

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John’s second guest is Tal Brooke, once part of the inner circle of India’s most powerful miracle-working guru, Sai Baba. One day Tal realized he was being deceived by Sai Baba and the evil spirit beings behind him. In desperation he cried out to Jesus Christ to rescue him, forgive him, and become his only savior and lord. In a tremendous demonstration of power – more overwhelming than anything he had ever experienced under Sai Baba – Jesus Christ immediately freed him. Tonight, are millions of Americans being deceived through mystical encounters with Living Masters? We invite you to join us for this week’s edition of John Ankerberg.

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Program 5

Ankerberg: Welcome! We’re talking about some things that are happening in our country – mystical experiences, religious experiences, if you want, that are changing the entire worldview of the people that are having these mystical experiences. What actually takes place? What’s the basis for it? Is it real? Is it evil? Is it good? What basis would the Christian religion have in talking to it? What does Jesus Christ think about that? And what do they think about Jesus Christ?

And tonight, to start us off, I’d like to come to you fellows in terms of a different angle. Darwin, in your book, The ATOM, you say, “Now, in the spiritual worlds, there is a hierarchy. They do not take care of everything, and I am speaking openly and honestly. And if you read the teachings of the Masters properly, you will come into the understanding that the spiritual Masters and God, the Sugmad, including the inner master, do not care what happens in the physical. They are concerned with each and every one of us here individually pertaining to our spiritual unfoldment in other worlds, if you have the desire. If you do not have that desire, the Masters could care less.” And this is what I want to get to. In what way are you going to help if the spiritual Masters say that they don’t really care what happens on the physical plane?

And, of course, Tal, in your book and your experiences, I mean, I read your book and I tasted the dust of India floating in the air. But, I mean, all of the things that happened, because they hold these kinds of beliefs that keeps their society down.

But the second thing comes into a very nitty-gritty area where I was going to with Gail here in a moment, was that after you were married a while, then you divorced. And in your writings when you’re talking about this, you said that “Two people that can’t keep the flame going for some reason or other should not really live together. Even in Eckankar there are divorces, separations, and we’re not saying that we have a cure for divorce. The Eck tends to hold families together and not separate them, but divorce can be on friendly terms with no karmatic bond.”

And I was wondering why it was that there was no Karma attached to divorce, especially in other places where you say that we are to love each other; we are to let none of these things bother us. And yet you’ve experienced two divorces in your own life. What I’m saying is, tell me then, if you’re going to help people – and it’s not supposed to take place down here in the physical plane and only in the spiritual – how are you going to help them?

Gross: Out here. Out here. I deal with three initiations. A point you made earlier about what Paul had set up. Due to what has happened in 1983, the fall of that year, it’s true that a seeker – I don’t care what path they come from; what they had been engaged in spiritually, or some who hadn’t perhaps even read the Bible or come from any other path but are seeking within themselves – they’ll be led to this master in the dream state long before they might even hear of Darwin Gross or read my books or Paul’s. This is age old. A number of people will stop there and continue on their own through different writings and teachings and not step on the path. The choice is the individual’s. I give the light and sound initiation after that. It’s equivalent to the second but allows the individual to unfold to the Soul plane.

The next initiation I give is the Soul level. But it’s up to the individual to unfold himself spiritually. And getting back to your earlier comment about Gail – a lovely person; a lovely woman – we did part as friends because there was a conflict of interest. My, I’ll say, spiritual needs to assist those who ask on the inner – and it’s not necessarily that they might ask in the outer. Very few actually do. I do not take care of the individual physically in any manner nor interfere with their thought pattern or process. That’s the person’s own right and God-given right.

Ankerberg: Is it absolutely logical that once you embrace pantheism – that all is God and God is all – and that the real true thing in life is to get to a god consciousness state, to realize that if we are part of God that we’ve got to experience that, and the thing that keeps us from experiencing that is this illusionary world around us that actually has got to be fought – this is not real? That therefore it’s absolutely, airtight logical that we really shouldn’t do anything in India to clean up the social scene? That really, here, we should get out of social actions because this is all an illusion, this is part of our problem and it’s keeping you from helping people to gain this god consciousness? So, really, does Eckankar have anything to offer for people on the physical plane here and now?

Gross: No, wait a minute. Not necessarily. Let me back up a little bit. There’s a statement that we’re all born free and equal, and this is not so. Everyone that comes into this world is at a different level of understanding and different spiritual level. Some children I’ve encountered since I’ve been on this path and become a teacher, a spiritual guide or whatever you want to call me, have been more spiritually unfolded than some adults that I’ve known. And this is why it’s important, I feel, and have stressed in all of my travels that we teach our children the right virtues.

Ankerberg: But in essence, though, you’re still talking about the spiritual path and you’re really not talking about what other people consider the physical world. There’s no logical way that I can see that you can deal with the logical world if it’s maya – if it’s illusion. Correct?

Gross: We deal with it daily.

Ankerberg: But, I mean, what’s your answer to the problems that other people are experiencing in the physical world, such as divorce, such as the society we live in?

Gross: The Christ-consciousness that you’re talking about, or state, is equal to, perhaps, to the Eck-consciousness or the Eckshura state.

Ankerberg: Well let’s make sure we define terms. The thing that Jesus Christ is offering is He’s saying, first of all, there’s only one God there; and it’s not a pantheistic God. He’s a transcendent God that made everything and we are responsible to Him. We’re made in the image of God, but the thing is we’re not going to become God; we are creatures that God has made. But the fantastic thing is that God loves us and gave us a fantastic demonstration. God proved His love toward us, “That while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” [Rom. 5:8] God, Incarnated in Christ, went to the cross, paid our sin for us! He doesn’t say like in Eckankar, “I give you a do-it-yourself system. You do it! It’s up to you! Etc., etc., etc.” He’s saying, “You can’t do it!” Just the opposite. “You’re dead in trespasses and sins. You need a Savior.” [Eph. 2] And the Savior loves us and has given us demonstration, where here you say the Masters don’t really care what happens unless you first choose. The Bible says, “Before we ever knew Him, He loved us” and gave us proof of that. [Eph. 1:4-6] Which would be another way to say, “Well, listen why not Christ? Why would anybody want a “do-it-yourself” system when you can come into a personal relationship with the Creator of the universe and He says He has made provision to forgive us of our wrong doing.”

Gross: We’re here to take care of ourselves, only. Not our neighbors, in a sense. I love my neighbors, and I treat other people the way I like to be treated.

Ankerberg: But if the whole world operates on that basis….

Gross: Let me finish, John. I don’t believe Jesus died for my sins, or the world’s sin. He may have stated it at that time, that period of time in history for those people that were there. It’s a different time completely.

Ankerberg: And of course that’s the question of whether, as the Scripture says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever,” [Heb. 13;8] or whether it was just for that period of time. If you have the Person called Jesus Christ, and we’ve got historical records from eyewitnesses that were there, that in Jewish society He says, “I and the Father are One. We’re One.” [John 10:30] And the verse we were talking about last week where, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God….” [John 1:1]

Gross: No argument.

Ankerberg: What?

Gross: No argument.

Ankerberg: Yeah, but the fact is, if that’s an actual true statement, and it’s historically verified, then we have proof that the Creator came into the creation and, boy, we’re accountable! As Paul talked to the people in Athens and said, “Listen, now, because of this man coming forth from the dead, His resurrection, this is the proof to the world from God that you’re responsible for your actions, and you ought to repent.” [Acts 17]

Gross: Don’t you have a soul?

Ankerberg: Yes.

Gross: And where did that soul come from?

Ankerberg: God gave it to me.

Gross: It came from God, right? Just like anyone else in this audience or myself.

Ankerberg: Right.

Gross: And the choice, whether it’s Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, Paul Twitchell, or Rebazar Tarzs, is the individual’s to look at and challenge and check it out.

Ankerberg: Part of the thing that the people would hopefully do in checking it out would be to take into account that Jesus Christ does say we are to love our neighbors and we are in a physical world that is a real one, and there are real hurts and He’s got answers to that…

Gross: That’s right.

Ankerberg: …and commands us to be the salt and light to this earth. Let me come to you, Tal, here. You were in India. What did Christ offer to you? You’d been there two years sleeping on the floor, 110 degree heat in the dust of India, eating vegetables till you got sick….

Brooke: Yeah. Right.

Ankerberg: And all kinds of other things.

Brooke: Right.

Ankerberg: We talk many times about these spirit guides and so on being so powerful, it seems like if Christ is….

Brooke: The spirit guides are fly-weights compared to Jesus Christ. As I said this before, what happened to me in that South Indian hotel room when for the first time in my whole life I invited Him to come within. You know He says in the book of Revelation, “I knock at the door and if you in a sense answer and let me in, I will basically come and sup with you. I will change you for eternity.” [Rev. 3:20] What happened to me, after the Indian guru, after other gurus, after my own psychic experiences, is that when that happened and I did invite Him to be the captain of my life – and that takes will, it takes free choice – He absolutely came in and I absolutely changed. I wasn’t perfect, but there has never been anything like that in my life. And so I have the Holy Spirit in me who witnesses to the fact that I’m one of His.

Ankerberg: Let’s go the opposite direction. You also had many bad experiences. You had friends that had bad experiences.

Brooke: Right.

Ankerberg: We’ve talked about the fact, and I feel that in the New Age Movement there’s been a lot of people that have had experiences, had “Jesus” as a spirit guide, and all kinds of things.

Brooke: These spirits are in the business of deceiving people.

Gross: In the lower worlds.

Brooke: Okay. And there are some horrifying accounts of people who got possessed.

Gross: Oh, yeah.

Brooke: Horror stories. And even among some of the so-called “Ascended Masters” there are some real horror stories. In the same way that a culture will reflect its beliefs: India reflects the pantheism. The Bible talks about one day there being a Mystery Babylon [Rev. 17:5] appearing, which is an occult religion, we’ll get into this some other time. In spiritual paths, when you’re in them you reap the fruits of what you’re into. Okay? We could spend an hour on de-programming with the Moonies and other things.

Here’s what we’re getting to. There is such a thing of being possessed with another spirit. I accepted Christ in the hotel room. As an example, for instance, Edgar Cayce at the A.R.E. [Association for Research and Enlightenment] supposedly read the Akashic Records. Paul Twitchell supposedly read them. And Cayce for 20 years, 30 years, gave out life readings, information, and he had a tremendous following. And he was dead sure that he was right and he had given up the Christianity of his family home. He had had psychic visitations from different spirit masters as a child on.

I was a peripheral member of the A.R.E. All these things took place. Very impressive. Some medical healings. Some supposed proof that he was in touch with the Akashic mind. Now and then his predictions were wrong. But this is what a lot of people don’t know and that is that Hugh Lynn Cayce, the son, as well as several biographers said – and this is what a lot of people don’t know – is that during the last two weeks of his life he was told not to give any more life readings because he was being squeezed dry like a glove. Something was being sucked out of him. And right before he died he said, “I’m in an unholy terror, because this spirit that gave me such illumination and so many things that basically mesmerized the world, I am afraid is a demon.”

Gross: What is the Akashic Records derived from?

Brooke: Now let me ask you that.

Gross: The causal plane.

Brooke: Oh, really. Okay.

Gross: Pardon?

Brooke: The causal plane? How do you know? Is that an experience? Have you read it?

Gross: No.

Brooke: How do you know? After everything you’ve told me…

Gross: I’ve been there.

Brooke: That doesn’t matter to me. After everything you’ve told me about written things, about experiences, after all the different masters we’ve talked about….

Gross: Also, Tal, the devil, Satan, whatever you want to call him, Kal Niranjan resides on that plane of the action or level of heaven. It’s below the mental realm objectively and subjectively within each of us. We carry around in our magnetic sheath all of our records from all of our lives, regardless of what we have done or wherever we’ve been.

Brooke: Yeah, I used to believe that.

Gross: I still believe that. I know it.

Ankerberg: The thing that I’d like to throw in is when you talk about the fact of Jesus, one of the things that we have from Him and the disciples is, He says, “Do not believe every spirit.”

Gross: That’s right.

Ankerberg: “But test the spirits to see whether they are from God.” [1 John 4:1]

Gross: That’s right.

Ankerberg: Okay. And the test is that you can recognize the Spirit of God because “every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.” [1 John 4:2-3] The question is, do your spirit guides, would they accept Him as fully God and fully man in one person?

Gross: As you and I? I’ve never put Him down as a teacher, of what He has represented and does represent still. But yet the man did not want to be worshipped.

Ankerberg: Jesus accepted worship on eleven different occasions according to the New Testament.

Gross: No, He accepted, but He did not wish to be worshipped; same way with Buddha.

Ankerberg: Then you’re saying that Jesus, when they worshipped Him, that He, by accepting their worship, was saying that they shouldn’t have done that but since they wanted to do it, He just kind of put up with it and let them think it was okay?

Gross: I don’t know.

Ankerberg: I would find it hard to believe when Jesus is the one that commanded truth to be told all the time. I can’t see Jesus saying, “Well, listen, you know….” In the book of Revelation you find an angel, a powerful angel, and John, who is writing the book of Revelation falls down at his feet and starts to worship him. And he says, “No, you only worship God.” [Rev. 19:10] Now, if that’s part of the New Testament doctrine, that you don’t worship angels, you don’t worship any sub-standard beings, only God, and Jesus knew that, then here you have a man who would be breaking that, who was supposed to be the very leader of truth. I find that a little hard to believe.

Gross: The angels derive off of that causal plane also. You have to understand that during His time when He was here on earth physically, He attempted to get across to the people of the day, of His time, that there is life after one leaves earth. And He used the knowledge that He gained to show that – in other words, open up the heavens and show that some of the angels came down and what have you.

Ankerberg: But the thing is that when I try to verify the things that you and Paul have put into the writings along with other people, it’s in the supra-history, this history that can’t be verified. And the fact is that the New Testament documents that we’re talking about where Jesus proved His deity in His death and resurrection and said these things and did these things and people saw Him do this that we’re basing it on verifiable history.

Gross: Well, if you have a greater desire to expand your awareness, not in the psychic worlds, but in the pure positive God-worlds, when you’re ready, you’ll know it.

Ankerberg: In terms of the New Testament, when it says that God is in flesh, you can point to a person: it’s not a descriptive definition, it’s a denotative definition. You can say, “There he is. Look at him. See him. Real history. Real people. Real death on the cross. Real resurrection.” That’s the world we’re talking in. Everybody can check out the evidence before you jump. We’re going to have questions from the audience next week, so I hope that you’ll join us.

Read Part 6