Part 1 of a 3-part series
In an exclusive 3-part series, A Lotus in the Mud team interviewed leaders and practitioners of Minnesota headquartered Eckankar movement to understand their belief system and teachings in the pursuit of spiritual freedom.
There’s a spiritual movement founded in the US that’s New Age yet retains the essential principles of the great religious traditions of the world. Named Eckankar, it calls itself ‘The Path of Spiritual Freedom’. It contains elements of Soul Travel along with karma and reincarnation, mantra recitation and dream awareness. Eckankar is non-dogmatic yet has a Living Master, also called Mahanta, who guides students on their spiritual journeys. It focuses on the divinity within each individual yet has temples where students and clergy gather.
Combining key elements of Eastern and Western philosophies, Eckankar acknowledges influences from Sant Mat, Surat Shabd Yoga, Vedanta, and Western esotericism.
In October 2025, Sri Doug Kunin was designated the Living Master in an assembly of over 6,000 Eckankar followers. He took over from the previous Mahanta, Harold Klemp, who shaped the organization over four decades. Eckankar is headquartered in Minnesota state, in Chanhassen, a suburb of Minneapolis.
Founded in 1965 by American writer and spiritual innovator Paul Twitchell, Eckankar was a new formulation of ancient spiritual principles contemporized and updated for the 21st century. Its emergence coincided with an upheaval in America – the rise of the counterculture, the civil rights movement and the protests over America’s war against Vietnam. It was also a time when Eastern gurus such as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Thich Nhat Hanh and Daisaku Ikeda were descending on America and transforming its spiritual landscape.
Eckankar believes that Paul Twitchell was part of an unbroken lineage of ECK masters, fully realized souls and teachers who wove in and out of cultures over time. These ECK masters have always been there, influencing the wisdom teachings, giving the spiritual current an added boost.
Students of Eckankar chant the HU mantra and engage in guided spiritual exercises akin to meditation. They journal and learn to interpret their dreams, which are considered a significant spiritual portal, and learn to travel in the soul realms. They place great emphasis on their Mahanta or Living Master as an indispensable guide for their spiritual evolution.
There is an enrollment process for new students to receive Eckankar’s spiritual living courses, which are available all over the world, online and offline.
Parveen Chopra, Founding Editor of A Lotus in the Mud, and Features Writer Ashish Virmani spoke to the Eckankar Mahanta, Sri Doug Kunin, and his wife Sharon Kunin, who has been a member of the organization since 1979.
This 3-part series includes conversations with two of their clergy: Acclaimed jazz musician Rodney Jones and Crary Brouhard.
Excerpts from the interview with Sri Doug Kunin
Ashish Virmani: Sri Doug, you are now Eckankar’s Living Master. How prepared are you for such an exalted position?
Sri Doug Kunin: Anyone who takes this position comes to it with a profound sense of humility. Lifetimes of training have prepared him.
Ashish Virmani: What are our major responsibilities and challenges as the spiritual head of Eckankar?
Sri Doug: It’s the same eternal mission for every Living ECK Master: to awaken the God-knowledge already within the human heart. To help people become aware of who they really are – Soul, a unique, eternal, divine spark of God. In every age, the current Living ECK Master fine-tunes the message for the times. Yet, the same essential truths are always there.
People worldwide are facing enormous challenges. The pace of karma is speeding up. Yet, with these intense frictions of life, the spiritual opportunities are commensurately greater.
Ashish Virmani: Eckankar has not been very well known. Are you opening to the possibility of wider propagation?
Sri Doug: Eckankar already has students in 120 countries. While many people may not know about us, we have a global presence. Eckankar is not here to convert anyone. We honor individual choice and belief. Do the ECK tools and techniques help you find truth? Only you can decide.
But even as a wide variety of our digital communications are expanding Eckankar’s worldwide presence, it’s not about the quantity of people we reach, but the quality of connection.
Eckankar is only as good as its ability to help people connect with the divine principle. Are we able to do that in a way anyone can understand and apply? That’s key.
It’s the same eternal mission for every Living ECK Master: to awaken the God-knowledge already within the human heart. To help people become aware of who they really are – Soul, a unique, eternal, divine spark of God.
~ Sri Doug Kunin, Eckankar Mahanta
Parveen Chopra: ‘Eckankar’ sounds like ‘Ik Onkar’, meaning one God, which is at the core of Sikhism. Is Eckankar inspired by Sant Mat or Radha Soamis of India? For example, the Sound and Light perceptions of God seem to be common with them.
Sri Doug: Yes, there are common roots there. Paul Twitchell, the Eckankar founder, benefited from his study of those paths—and of many others as well. He was a master compiler, an innovator, as well as part of an unbroken lineage of spiritual masters.
In his works Paul relied on expressive Sanskrit words to convey key spiritual concepts. The Sanskrit word for the number one is ‘Eka’. And ‘Onkar’ or ‘Omkar’ refers to the primordial sound of ‘OM’ and to its originator.
Eckankar focuses on the HU as the universal sound behind all sounds. The HU mantra is known to written history in the Sufi tradition. Eckankar shares a link with Shams-i-Tabriz, the teacher of Persian poet, Rumi. Shams is recognized by Eckankar as the Mahanta of those times.
Parveen Chopra: Please share your personal journey of discovering Eckankar.
Sri Doug: I first heard about Eckankar in the 1970s while studying anthropology at UCLA. I already had studied everything I could get my hands on spiritually, including the Bhagavad Gita, Tao Te Ching, Upanishads, and the Bible. Then, a college friend mentioned Eckankar, and talked about ECK Masters like Rebazar Tarzs and Fubbi Quantz. I asked, “How come I’ve never heard of them before?” My friend said, “They are just masters of life.” He meant they usually serve in the background without fanfare.
So, back in 1976, I asked my friend, “Well, so who’s the Eckankar leader now?” When I heard it was an American, I was surprised. I was expecting someone far more exotic, someone from Asia maybe. But an American?
Yet the Eckankar techniques worked for me. So, I gave it a shot. Then, I had a pivotal experience calling on the Mahanta for help — all the self-limitations and biases evaporated.
Souls incarnate over time in many different parts of the world. Eckankar said you can recall your past lives, if you work on it. So, as a new student back then, I got to work on it.
Then came a Soul Travel experience during a contemplative exercise. I was in a conscious state between sleep and waking. I was out of the body, in a swirling vortex. On every spin of the spiral, an image would imprint on my awareness: Egypt, China, India, France, England, the Middle East, Africa, South America, the Incas. I had obviously taken on human identities in previous lifetimes in all these countries.
Ashish Virmani: What is Soul Travel?
Sri Doug: Soul Travel is simply expansion of consciousness. It can be an out of body experience or a near death experience. Yet, the more natural way is a gradual expansion of consciousness that affects the way we live life. Our awareness band expands. Eckankar can be described as the path of total awareness.
Ashish Virmani: Dream Journaling is another major pillar of Eckankar work. Why are dreams important?
Sri Doug: Because dreams expand our awareness of deeper dimensions of living. Dreams are a form of Soul Travel. You get tremendous benefit from a spiritual approach to dreams. Dreams give guidance on every aspect of living: health, career, relationships, problem-solving. Also, dreamers often report vivid lucid dreams with departed loved ones. We can confirm for ourselves that there is life after death. In dreams we go into inner dimensions, and we remember these experiences as dreams.
Dreams bring prophecy. Sometimes this comes as a déjà vu experience when something happens in everyday life, and you have the knowingness: “I’ve experienced this before!”
Sometimes the interpretation of a dream is jumbled. The waking consciousness isn’t able to understand what this dream is about. Dream Journaling can help you remember and interpret your dreams.
Once you set a conscious intention to record your dreams, and bring a spiritual frame of mind to it, you begin to get wisdom to apply in everyday life, as well as to propel your spiritual quest.
Students of Eckankar take an active, conscious approach to dreams. The Mahanta, as the inner guide, helps bring dream experiences best suited to one’s spiritual growth. A sincere request is all that is needed, a person need not be a formal student of the path.
For part 2 of this 3-part series, click here
For more information, go to https://www.eckankar.org/
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