A fitting title for this could be “Love Letters from the Heart.” It is about the monthly initiate report: Do you need to write it or not?

The report is of spiritual service to you. Karma is a very real factor in life, but few people outside the ranks of ECKANKAR have a way to deal with it successfully. So they end up victims of life. As an ECK Initiate, you have the special privilege of putting your thoughts, hopes, dreams, burdens, and fears down on paper and thus release them with the help of the Mᴀʜᴀɴᴛᴀ, the Living ECK Master.

The initiate report is about surrender. In turning over your concerns to the Master, you give up their hold on you. Usually, such cares only produce fear, doubt, and unhappiness. They are not worth the bother.

Your monthly report is but one of several ways to take advantage of the ECK force and drop habits or other faults that chain you to the lower worlds. Some people like misery. If anyone in ECK is of that mind, it would be better to search for another path to God, because it shows a weak desire for the realization of God. Other ways the Mᴀʜᴀɴᴛᴀ helps an individual shed useless karma are in dreams, in contemplation, and in daily life. The initiate report is thus one of several aids to help you reach a better and more happy place in life.

How important is your initiate report?

What do you say in the report?

And do you need to put it in the mail?

How important is it? Some Higher Initiates feel they are above writing a report to the Master because they are done with karma and its effects. That is half true. The Fifth Initiation does allow an individual to call the Soul Plane home here and now, but the fact remains that earth is still a person’s base of operation until he sheds the human body. In the meantime, it’s life as usual.

Even High Initiates need to deal with problems. Just because many ECK Initiates are further along spiritually in this life than even the early saints, the battle with the negative forces won’t end until they leave the lower worlds for good. At the very least, High Initiates find daily karma as much a challenge as does any other ECK Initiate. But the Mahdis and higher are done with most past-life and reserve karma.

So the initiate report can help everyone in ECKANKAR. No one is too big, too wise, or too important to omit this spiritual discipline.

What to say in an initiate report? Some give an inventory of dreams, insights, and other experiences—or even a simple plea for help. The simplest letter ever sent to me had two words besides the author’s name: “Mᴀʜᴀɴᴛᴀ, help!”

Other people tell about the miracles of ECK, such as a gift of healing. Still others give insights into a recent ECK initiation and tell how life is different from before. A chela might speak about a discourse. Such was the case of the woman who caught a glimmer of truth from a Letters of Light & Sound 1 discourse on sin, spiritual law, and karma. Others ask for spiritual aid.

And finally, does the report actually need to go into the mailbox?

Ask the Master in contemplation. You need not always put a report into writing, for it may serve as well to form a letter in your mind and imagine sending it to the Mᴀʜᴀɴᴛᴀ, the Living ECK Master. A good time to do that is on the last Friday of the month. Some chelas say they are too busy to bother with even an inner report. It’s their loss. Maybe if they took the time to keep their inner lines of communication open to the Master, they would find ample time to fit everything in. People are often in a rush simply because they don’t make time for the Mᴀʜᴀɴᴛᴀ.

By the way, the Wisdom Notes in the Mystic World are my “Love Letters from the Heart” to you.