The Law of Love: Eckankar’s new Mahanta reveals the path to co-workership with God

Part 2 of the interview with Sri Doug Kunin, who was installed as the new Living Master of Eckankar in October 2025. 

Ashish Virmani: Can you speak of the innermost ‘secret laws’ in your teaching?  

Sri Doug: Well, these are ‘secret’ only because generally people are not aware of them or simply don’t practice them. But that is changing. Here are the 3 main laws. 

1. The most important is the Law of Love. It is love alone that takes Soul home to God. Soul exists because God loves It. We are destined to learn to love as God loves.
2. In this world, there is the Law of Karma. Cause and effect. We’re responsible for our actions, and we’ve built up a cosmic credit card of debits and credits through many lifetimes. Reincarnation is a process of working off the debts and learning the spiritual lessons of experience.
3. Then there’s the Co-workership Principle. It is embodied in the word, ‘Eckankar’, which we define as ‘Co-Worker with God’. This highlights the conscious relationship with the one divine force, the ECK, or Divine Spirit. A partnership evolves until Soul becomes one with the One Spirit of Life. The individual does not dissolve into a formless universal One but awakens and maintains individuality throughout eternity.

Those are the three primary focus points, but love is the greatest of all laws. If you have to define God, one good definition is “God is love.”

Parveen Chopra: What was your relationship with the previous Living ECK Master, Harold Klemp? How did he choose you as Mahanta?

Sri Doug: Here’s an analogy: when a calf or foal is separated from its mother in a herd, how do they find each other?They’re separated for a moment, and then, a magnetic force brings them together again. It is a bond of recognition. This is the way it is between the teacher and the one who will be next.

Perhaps it can be seen as Harold and I spoke together at the Eckankar worldwide seminar in October 2025. The video of our meeting on the seminar stage, and our dialogue, may say more with images than words.  

Ashish Virmani: As the Eckankar Mahanta, do you take on the karma of your students?

Sri Doug: Yes and no. Sometimes, but not always. It is a shared responsibility: When a person makes a sincere decision to step on the path of Eckankar, the Mahanta puts their karma into the holding tank, if you will, of the ECK. Then karma is redistributed back to the student in an organized way so they can benefit, not by random chance events of destiny, but in a gradual way to consciously learn the lessons. With this system, it is possible for the student to work off all their karma — earthly karma — in one lifetime.

The more people bring light, hope, and divine love to their worlds, the better life will be. But the ultimate purpose is not universal peace on earth but polishing Souls for the spiritual journey.

~ Sri Doug Kunin, Eckankar Mahanta

Parveen Chopra: For our readers can you share a simple spiritual practice?

Sri Doug: For Eckankar, the primordial universal sound is HU. The HU mantra could work for anybody, of any religion or no religion. When you sing HU with love, it brings Divine Spirit into greater intensity for the practitioner. You could call it a prayer or a sincere request to the Higher Power to be shown the truth. Put your attention in the area of the spiritual eye (between the eyebrows) or the crown chakra (top of the head), then sing or chant HU. Try this at a regular time for a period of days, paying attention to your dreams, and also paying attention to waking dreams which bring messages through daily events that you can interpret the same way you would interpret a dream symbol. So, life is always talking to us.

Ashish Virmani: Eckankar just completed a 60-year cycle from its appearance in the 1960s. What were the characteristics of that cycle vis-a-vis the Days of Light and Hope, which is promoted as your next 60-year cycle?

Sri Doug: The basic ECK teachings—which focus on the Light and Sound of God—have been woven into many cultures and spiritual traditions throughout the world over the long course of history. It was Paul Twitchell’s mission, as the modern-day founder of Eckankar, to gather up the golden truths and give them modern expression. 

Harold Klemp then greatly expanded the writings using a common language that anyone of any culture could understand. He was a pioneer of everyday spirituality while also revealing esoteric realities never rendered into human language.

For the next 60 years, as life becomes more complex, Eckankar will offer spiritual light and renewed hope in creative ways. The ECK path is a University of Soul that teaches spiritual techniques people can use to handle everyday challenges–while still pursuing the goal of spiritual enlightenment. 

It’s not about pious words but acts of giving and service to those around us. That is what will give the Days of Light and Hope their greatest impact. 

Just the fact that we’re having this interview, to me, is a reflection of these Days of Light and Hope when people of different faiths, in different parts of the world, can have a dialogue.  

With spiritual evolution, you do not dissolve into a formless universal One but awaken and maintain individuality throughout eternity. 

~ Sri Doug Kunin, Eckankar Mahanta

Parveen Chopra: We live in a chaotic world; the state of Minnesota where you are based had some cataclysmic events recently. How do you think Eckankar can help in the face of such strife, amid the political, ideological and religious divides?

Sri Doug: It’s up to each individual to act on the goodness already within them. A working knowledge of karma and reincarnation also helps.

The high cosmic overview reveals there are always newer, immature Souls incarnating on earth, trying out their wings in these fields of cause and effect.  Souls have a lot to learn at the early stages of spiritual evolution. Each one has free will. People make a lot of bad choices before they learn better. 

The more people bring light, hope, and divine love to their worlds, the better life will be. Still, things will always swing back and forth in this world. The ultimate purpose is not universal peace on earth but polishing Souls for the spiritual journey. 

Your magazine’s name says it well: there’s no lotus without the mud. And no roses without the thorns. Too often it looks like this life is all mud and thorns. Where is the hope? Hope is in every human heart and the realization that life has meaning and purpose. Eckankar is here to help people survive and thrive spiritually no matter what comes. 

Parveen Chopra: Any message for India, where much of our readership is besides the US?

Sri Doug: I have a tremendous feeling of warmth, joy, and gratitude for India and the peoples of India. In December 2025 our Chennai chapter organized an ECK Soul Adventure Seminar.

We are all lights of God. We all come from the same Source. Follow the path that brings you joy, what brings you the greatest creativity. Follow the path that brings the most love to your life, that makes you a better person. 

As people find truth within themselves, they become the light and hope for all.

For the concluding part of this 3-part series go to

For more information, go to https://www.eckankar.org/