October 2019 Bardo Buzz (01-08)

MUSINGS OF A LABYRINTH READER

How Do I Release My Attachment To My Mother?

Upon receiving news that my 93 year old mother was failing, I realized my response indicated I was attached to having her in the background of my life. I needed to release this attach-ment so it would not drain energy and attention when I needed both to focus on reading for her.

So I asked E.J. the question, "How do I release my attachment to my mother?"

His answer was multifold. His first response was to ignore the thought, go right past it. And don't be around people that will dwell on and reinforce grief at losing her. He said that the dead are more concerned with how you're taking it. It's better for them to not be attached. I have previously used the mantra -- "This too shall pass." And I can reaffirm with an inward posture of certainty -- I Can Let Go.

However, I was still concerned because the attachment I felt was a response in the body, one step removed from the jurisdiction of the mind. His reply was, "What you're looking at is, you are next. You're next in line, you're terminal." That rang true. He continued by saying he would pass on a message from Mata in the Norton Street space, "You're too much in your body." E.J. clarified by saying that it's not that you have to leave your body; just shift your focus from dwelling on it, lift up. To me that meant, lift the awareness out of the depths of identification with the body. Expand the awareness.

The next day I discovered, while attending the online LRS weekly meeting, a prayer by E.J. Gold, published in The Lost Works from the chapter "Spontaneous Surrender." It sounded perfect for working with the machine and the root problem of the body's fear for survival. My strategy is to meditate on it every day. And I have set the challenge for myself to do this daily practice, while lying down and holding the psycho-emotional posture of surrendering myself in Endless Crystal Waters.

The prayer is as follows:

Come to me and lose yourself in me.
The Darkness cannot stand before the Light.
I wait for you to discover me and know me,
for I and the Father are One.
I am your true abode, and the door is open.
Enter and be annihilated in the force of Love.

Marvette Kort

GRATITUDE

For years now I have been grateful every day to have running water, especially hot running water. What an incredible luxury that is, and so soothing for aching bodies in the morning.

Here in Northern California, USA, 21^st Century, we have frequent power outages, which, for where I live, also means no water from any faucet as the well pump runs on electric. Any little bit of wind and weather, and now, during the summer and fall, the fire danger might mean: no electric. These days, I keep buckets filled with water by the chicken coop at all times, because the animals need water every day.

Those folks who are able to be fully functional off-grid, when needed, that is a good idea, a very good idea.

When you -- several times a year, for hours and sometimes days -- don't have power for anything electric, it shifts your perspective on things. We needed a generator just for the fish tank to keep the pump going. But there is gorebaggtv, e-mail, business, air conditioning and fans, or heaters.

Life instantly changes when the electric is out. Gets one to have a sense of how it was centuries ago, or being poor in some forsaken part of the world. Being able to see and feel the world from a variety of perspectives is an expanding experience. But you knew that.

The image is a little dark, but we could not turn any light on, which is how we have drinking water: with a ladle from a large pot, water saved before a scheduled power outage.

Without water, you are gonna be fucked, and the animals and plants, too. Luckily I had watered the tomatoes the day before.

Remember it always: Water makes life here possible. You have a chance to work in and as this body because of water. Once you have water, you can manage somehow.

Don't wait to be grateful for the abundance in your life, and if you are reading this, there is abundance in your life, all kinds of it. Just in case you don't see it, you need to learn a different way of looking.

You will love it.

Being grateful makes you happy.

Christiane Wolters

GETTING CONNECTED

Two years ago, I received a small desk calendar called Wisdom of the East. It consists of sayings of various spiritual teachers that are different every day. Every morning, at the beginning of my day, I read the saying of the day. At this time the day is fresh, a new beginning and I am open to impressions.

Some produce a strong doh, which resonates throughout the body, allowing the wisdom to be absorbed and remain nearby, close at hand, throughout the day.

I'd like to share some of my favorites with you so that you too may benefit as I have. I find some to be thought- provoking while others affirm what we know to be true.

"The gift of truth excels all other gifts." - Buddha

"There is no path to truth, it must come to you," -- Krishnamurti

"Whatever comes, let it come; what stays, let stay; what goes, let go. Always keep Quiet, and always adore Self: this is the essence of living skillfully in the world of appearance." -- Papaji

When the focus of our attention is placed on our inner world -- invoking presence, practices like the adoration of the machine, the Popcorn exercise, then the truth of the saying of Lao Tzu becomes apparent, "The way to do is to be". Our Being(ness) becomes the director -- that force which allows us to skillfully move through the illusion. Life becomes simpler, richer, fuller. We are connected.

"The world is your best teacher. There is a lesson in everything" -- Swami Sivananda

Jewel McInroy

Schrodinger's Cat

ICW July 2, 2016

(excerpt from Getting In the Flow)

by E.J. Gold

So actually, this is about an exploration of how to cause flow, how to cause an energy flow in your life, how to make yourself an instrument of energy, a radiant source of energy, of good healing energy, of good energy in general.

A permanent state of wakingness, which is very stupid, destroys the whole purpose. The purpose of the waking state, and the relative state -- not a sleeping state, but a relative state -- which can still be a very high intention state, is to create a differential and an oscillation, and then a return with a passing through zero. Not a return to zero. A passing through zero. Zero is a passage, not a destination.

I see it as creating what's called a superposition.

In quantum mechanics, they use the Schrodinger's Cat as a common example of the quantum state. So, here we explain Schrodinger's Cat.

Well, it's a thought experiment of quantum mechanics and an atom; they do it as a thought experiment, and this was first proposed as a way to ridicule quantum mechanics. They wanted to make fun of it, to make light of it and show how ridiculous it was.

And they said, Well, what if we put a cat in a box with a radiation detector that would detect the emission from this quantum decay? Because the emission is quantum and we hook that detector to a bomb, a little bomb that would poison the cat, then the cat is in a superposition of alive or dead.

Rather than being a standard probability, like 50% chance it's dead, 50% chance it's alive, that probability is different, because in that case, you're saying there's a single outcome we just don't know until we peek at what the outcome is. But that's not what happens, what happens is a super position in which both states are equally possible, not probable; it's not probability, it's that they both equally exist.

It's like with a hydrogen molecule, which you have the two protons and then two electrons that are spinning about. Well, each electron has equal existence around both protons and the thing is that with a superposition, that gives rise to amazing phenomenon or phenomenons which are observable; we actually see this, and for this to be observed, this quantum state has to be functioning. So that's what gives us some confidence as physicists that it's working.

Photon echo is one such, where you shine a laser into a particular crystal, the crystal absorbs the laser light and then spits it back out. Doesn't seem like much, but for that to occur, it's only occurring because of this quantum state, this super position.

So we have folks who are trying to achieve the higher state versus the relative. But actually, if you have them both, if you get them both running, you go into a superposition. Not where they are, you know -- I accept 50% this and 50% that -- no, it's where both things are true. When they are both true, it opens doorways.
Submitted by Tabatha Jones

CRAFTY EXPRESSIONS

"Almost everything we say and do is some form of negative emotion, whether we recognize it as such or not. Posture, gesture and facial mask are all inexhaustible sources of negative manifestations." - Practical Work On Self, Chapter 3 - by E.J. Gold.

The machine buries its security under a specific set of manifestations. Even if the manifestations may not seem negative according to the cultural norms, anyone with a high level of attention and observation can perceive what the intonation and intention was when it (the machine) conveyed certain phrases verbally, mentally or emotionally. For a long time, I was totally blind to the negative manifestations that people threw at me. Even many of my own manifestations, which seemed "normal" to me were in a way "negative". It took a long time of observation to notice that the masks that I carried, changed, depended on the environment. It was always very subtle. The intonation would be very neutral or passionate, but the emotional element of the correspondence was missing. I started perceiving this in me and others, based on my and their facial expressions.

The stepping stone on this long journey starts with observation. The term "Self-Observation" is kind of vague for initial exercises. Based on its mode of action, the relevant term for primary purposes could be "Machine's Moving Center Observation." The reason for this suggestion is related to the above quote as mentioned in Practical Work On Self, because it is really difficult for us to see how simple posture, or gesture, or facial mask of others (and more specifically and particularly our own) can subtly manifest negativity without the non-phenomenal self's intent. Without observing the moving center's manifestation, all the elements of "Self-Observation" are not action based, but just ideation based. The non-phenomenal self exists only as a source of attention and presence, which the machine can easily overpower and use for its own self-obsessed purpose. As E.J. Gold says in Life in the Labyrinth:

If I tell you the meaning,
Your mind
Will follow the meaning;
As attention follows mind,
You won't get the meaning.
Nishit Gajjar