To HU or not to HU, that is the question

By Marsha West

People all over the globe are singing or chanting the HU. Not hoo, as in whoohoo! It's pronounced Hue as in Hugh Grant. HUers say it is an "amazing love song to God." Just pucker up and Hhhhoooooooo.

Eckankar (Ekan-car) allegedly "the oldest and most original religion in the world" started the HUing thing. Their website explains the HU thusly:

"HU is woven into the language of life. It is the Sound of all sounds. It is the wind in the leaves, falling rain, thunder of jets, singing of birds, the awful rumble of a tornado. . . . Its sound is heard in laughter, weeping, the din of city traffic, ocean waves, and the quiet rippling of a mountain stream. And yet, the word HU is not God. It is a word people anywhere can use to address the Originator of Life."

According to one demonstration video I watched, the HU offers many benefits. For one, it takes less than an hour to HU. HUing is a form of prayer, a form of contemplation. The best part is that anyone can HU. HU alone, with a small group, or a large group. You can even HU while driving. The multi-tasker can text and HU simultaneously! As one HUer put it, you can "be in a business meeting HUing silently while your boss is chomping on your booty."

HUers claim that chanting the HU will put you in contact with "divine spirit." It keeps you centered, focused, clear. "Sing it morning noon and night, wherever and whenever you need it."

Words to describe HU by the youth of Eckankar (ECK) on a video they made are: Love...discovery...bliss...detachment...divine...silence...infinite possibilities. They chirped that HUing "answers all my questions...keeps me calm...reminds me I'm never alone...reminds me someone always has my back...allows me to love life...focus on my spiritual eyes...let my worries melt away." "I say, 'let the blessing be' and I feel like I'm in a new world."

I say, "Blessing? What blessing?" The new world you're entering is the world of the occult! Involving oneself in the paranormal is unwise, unsafe, even addictive!

The ECK website reveals that HU is an ancient name for God. But the god they sing to is not Jehovah. They sing to the ancient Egyptian god, HU. "Eckankar uses the singing of HU's name as a spiritual connection to the Heart of God. They sing the name HU to draw closer to the Divine Being. For the people who follow this faith, the desires are reported to be love, freedom, wisdom, and truth."

WHO'S HU?

Catherine Harris explains:

"HU was particularly important because he was the epitome of the power and command of the ruler. Even after death, HU was of the utmost importance to the Kings of Ancient Egypt. HU acted as the King's companion as the King entered the Afterlife. Through HU, the King maintained his royal authority in the Afterlife. HU allowed the King to cross the waters of his canal and acknowledged the King's authority and supremacy.

"So far, we know HU as the personification of Divine Utterance. However, some legends maintain that he was not just a part of creation, but that he was the creator. It is said that as HU drew his first breath, there was in that sound the essence of his name. Hence, we have the name HU, which sounds remarkably like the sound of an expelling breath.

"With each breath HU expelled, creation took place. The first breath created the Soul of Osiris. His last creation was the Sun. So it is said that HU is the Word of God, the first and the last breaths, HU HU.

"The Ancient Egyptians recognized the Sphinx at the Giza Plateau as an image of HU. The lion was a symbol of power and strength. Used as the body of the Sphinx, this was perfectly acceptable to the Ancient Egyptians. The face of the Sphinx wore the distinctive Red Crown of the Creator and the Osiris Beard. These were hallmarks of the time.

"It's been suggested that Ancient Egyptians would use the Sphinx in a ritual that reenacted the creation of the Universe. It was performed at dusk, as night was falling upon Egypt. This was considered the time before creation begun, when HU (the Sphinx) sat silent.

"When the signal was given, the sound of the first word of creation filled the air, as people made the sound they recognized as that breath, 'Hhhhoooooooo.'

"This 'word,' the Word of God, would be chanted all through the night symbolizing the night of progressive creating. The final act of the ritual came at sunrise. As the sun rose out of the East, the last breath of HU was recognized.

"Sri Harold Klemp, Spiritual Leader of Eckankar, notes, 'HU is the ancient name of God, a love song to God. When Soul has heard this sound, Soul yearns to go home.'"

ECKANKAR PRACTICES & TEACHING

ECK was founded in 1964 by journalist Paul Twitchell (he met his Maker in 1971), an eccentric, occultist, and self-proclaimed soldier of fortune. Twitchell claimed he was the unique incarnation of God on earth, the "Living ECK Master" and that only through him and ECK could a person find truth and salvation. Not surprisingly, ECK contains all the key elements of a cult.

There's not enough space to go into all that ECK espouses. Learn more about this cult here Meditation is an important aspect of ECK. According to Christian apologist Matt Slick its meditation activities are "built upon the foundation of the 'Holy Spirit' which is the Light and Sound of God who is known as SUGMAD. These exercises are intended to bring the person's mental, emotional, and spiritual state into a proper awareness of the self's past lives. The purpose of this is to facilitate the contact and aid of present ECK masters who are on different spiritual planes in the next world. By following their teachings, the subject can remove bad Karma and help in his spiritual progression through various reincarnations."

ECK also encourages Soul Travel where an individual soul leaves his/her body and travels to different places where it allegedly meets other spiritual beings. ECK believes a soul can achieve omniscience through Soul Travel.

Slick continues:

"ECK is the Divine Spirit, or "Current" of life that flows through all living things. Eckankar is a system of belief that seeks to unify the person's soul with Light and Sound which are twin aspects of the Holy Spirit, or the Divine Spirit. The Human soul is eternal and is on a spiritual journey of reincarnation to discover and improve the true self thereby realizing his own true inner divinity. This process can include incarnations as animal forms. Through ECK teachings, people can learn from their past lives and understand their Karma. Journeys in soul and in dreams are aided by The Spiritual Eye, a part of one's inner self that helps him see God and his divine self.

"ECK masters are agents of God, vehicles of the Divine Spirit that guide people through spiritual learning, past life regressions, dreams, soul travel, and meditations. Past ECK masters include Socrates, Plato, Jesus, Moses, Martin Luther, Michael Angelo, Mozart, Einstein, etc. who all allegedly made astral journeys for their discoveries. There are different levels of heaven: 'Astral, Causal, Mental, Etheric, and Soul' and eleven levels of the astral plane. Christ is a state of consciousness.

SHOULD FOLLOWERS OF JESUS CHANT THE HU?

Even if "everyone's doing it" Christians must not dabble in any crazy mixed up belief system that outright rejects the God of Scripture. The god ECK founder Paul Twitchell believed in is "ignorant, internally inconsistent, in need of wisdom and education, negative, unawakened, wondering, poor, unhappy, not content with his creation and in need of assistance." Twitchell also uttered this blasphemy: "You will never find God by searching for Him. He is here and now within you!"

I repeat, ECK is steeped in the occult and devotees who chant/sing the HU will go into an altered state of consciousness (ASoC). This practice can be dangerous! Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross (1542-1591), who practiced Transcendental meditation (contemplative/centering prayer), wrote that "these phenomena, whether acting on the physical, mental, or spiritual organs of perception, distract the aspirant from his search for God and often engender spiritual pride and attachment. Such experiences can also be addictive, leading the searcher away from the spiritual and back to the phenomenal and egocentric."

St. John warned about what could happen during an ASoC:

I am appalled at what happens in these days — namely, when some soul with the very smallest experience of meditation, if it be conscious of certain locutions of this kind in some state of recollection, at once christens them all as coming from God, and assumes that this is the case, saying: "God said to me . . ."; "God answered me . . ."; whereas it is not so at all, but, as we have said, it is for the most part they who are saying these things to themselves.

And, over and above this, the desire which people have for locutions, and the pleasure which comes to their spirits from them, lead them to make answer to themselves and then to think that it is God Who is answering them and speaking to them.

DEVELOPING A CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW

Anyone who espouses faith in Christ must ask themselves: What is the dominant influence shaping my decisions and actions while I'm living in the world?

The serious Christian should hold to a sacred, not a secular, worldview. A worldview is "a theory of the world, used for living in the world...a mental model of reality — a framework of ideas & attitudes about the world, ourselves, and life, a comprehensive system of beliefs — with answers for a wide range of questions..."

According to Randy Pope:

"The Christian who sees his faith as relevant to all of life and culture is in the process of developing a Christian worldview."

Pope goes on to say:

"To truly please God it is incumbent upon the Christian to be constantly adjusting his worldview to fit scripture. The thing that is often more difficult is the application of Biblical principles to each unique situation in life. This requires wisdom, and a multitude of counselors. In other words, Christian, do not try to go it alone. Lean on God and His word, and commune together with other Christians who are seeking to understand His word through His wisdom, peeling away all philosophies that are foreign to scripture."

My point and the point I hope readers take away from the comments above are that the Christian worldview must be biblical. Christians' whole focus should be on pleasing God, not man. Believers must never involve themselves in pagan occult practices. Where does the sort of meditation many Christians practice stem from? Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism. These are pagan religions!

Even after being admonished to peel away philosophies foreign to Scripture, life for many Christians will go on as usual. They will offer all sorts of excuses for the choices they make such as "I don't see what's wrong with it," or "Everyone does it," or "Works for me!" This way of thinking applies to a whole host of unscriptural/ungodly/idolatrous/depraved things Christians take part in. Heaven forbid believers should have to sacrifice life's little pleasures for Christ's sake. Sadly, a growing number of God's people simply cannot endure the pain of being marginalized and mocked by Christophobes. Instead of partnering with God they become part and parcel of our depraved culture. What did Jesus say with regard to living for Him? "If the world hates you ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you" (John 15:18-19).

© Marsha West