April 2020 Bardo Buzz (02-04)

Each issue of The Bardo Buzz comes with an installment

The Joy of Sacrifice:

Secrets of the Sufi Way by E.J. Gold

The Ethics of Awakening

After the first momentary awakening from the dream, one should seek a guide who will teach one the rights and obligations of a candidate for the Work.

If a seed is not planted in soil, it will not germinate.

For the rose to live, the seed must die.

The novice is the seed. He will not survive transformation.

The conditions of the school create the possibility for the seed to die.

Refusal to activate the impulses of remorse and organic shame is more serious than failure to perform sacred vows. One may still repent until the closing of the Gate of Seven Veils.

When the seeker attains all stations and has mastered each one according to its measure, he is entitled to wear the robe. If he takes the robe, he must observe all obligations attached to the mantle. Before this he should have tamed his nature through the tests of each station.

The seeker should be able to recognize his faults without identifying with them. He must be able to control his animal nature by mental exertion and by examination of conscience.

The seeker must never refuse to carry out an exercise or instruction if given by the guide.

The seeker should follow the stations without impatience, to get to the next one before the present one has been mastered.

One should work with full attention, striving to become active in essence and passive in psyche.

When one abstains from actions of form, only then will he be free of the world.

To render service and hospitality is more valuable than to be engaged in prayer for oneself.

Only if one can do for oneself should one try to do for another.

It is said that the student should not leave his teacher until the heart can see, he can listen to the moment, and obey the Law.

To be continued...

MUSINGS OF A LABYRINTH READER

The Coronavirus was a big issue back in February for us, which was before the American public really started to take it seriously. In this ICW on Sat. Feb. 29, 2020, E.J. had just commented that the supply chain will be broken for awhile. (But then he had been saying this for quite awhile, before we saw anything to indicate a reason.) He next said that he had it "in mind to steer us a course through the dissonant side of this stuff."

And then he went into the following excerpt which struck me deeply. I am an ABD reader who is currently reading consecutive chambers from Angels Healing Journey each day. And for several years before this cycle, I was "doing readings" -- consecutive chambers from the American Book of the Dead every day. Really "grokking" the between-lives state takes getting past the human mind.

The language E.J. uses in the following few paragraphs spoke to a deeper understanding for me. May it open deeper levels for you as well. And may it be a motivator for you to remove any obstacles you may encounter in order for you to do the work you are here to do.

"Every one of the Blueline pieces that we manage to convert over into quantum, which is electronic format, when we can do that and create a binary or hex facsimile of it, what happens is, that burns into the causal level. It creates it as if it never wasn't. It doesn't have anything to wear it down, so it continues to persist. It also persists apart from the universe. The universe does not persist, but what the universe occurs within does persist. Does it exist? No, but it persists.

"This is basic physics. The point is, it works for you in your favor, to your advantage. If you create something in or do something in a quantum environment, a quantum environment exists apart from the universe, is therefore, what you call non-mortal. It's not immortal; it's non-mortal. It's not subject to mortality the way that organic things are subject to mortality, which is simply a change of state; it's not actually anything else.

"What dies when you die is intensely personal. What experiences "˜the crush' is your sense of self, your awareness. After a little bit of passage through, you eventually kind of re-dawn, you come to your non-senses actually, and you re-become aware, your awareness begins to undim, and the cloud of unknowing begins to dissipate. You begin to know again.

"At that point you will say, "˜Oh no, not this again.' And that will be a trigger that triggers all the rest of the rendition flow so it brings you back to creation cycle number one -- that's the objective. At which point, presumably, you do move on to your next job occupation. But if you're not ready to make that jump, what happens to you? You make the jump anyway; it's not up to you."

Marvette Kort

AND SO IT GOES

That tulip I was showing you the last two newsletters? Here you see it on the left, March 19, just a day or two before blooming. The next day, I found it all bent to the ground, and, gently tugging, it came out of the ground like some of the other ones, chewed off at the stem. I put it in water indoors, and it bloomed. Beauty to behold just that one time, instead of every year. So it goes. Whatever the plan was I might have had, nature decided to throw a curve ball. Despite the cats, who I have seen hunting and even chasing a rodent around there, some warm blooded and apparently hungry borrowing mammal took about 8 or 9 of the noon-stop red tulips. Will the cats handle it, or maybe I need to plan for 20-30% more planting, anticipating more hungry days of this furry creature? Maybe, if I want to be assured patches of red tulips, a gopher cage is the way to go?

You just never know how much time you have for anything, including for your soul to grow.

In this realm, time is your most precious currency.

Be happy with what you have now, and have a vision for the future.

Christiane Wolters

FAXL MUSIC REHEARSAL

24Feb2020

"I want to tell you something kind of interesting." The days of non-mechanical -- what's called natural singing and natural music -- are pretty much over for quite sometime. It's all going to be computer enhanced, and so forth.

"And one of the things you'll notice is, almost everybody used the autocorrect for tuning their voice, that their voice is always in tune. But it has a kind of a warble to it, like they're yodeling. And that's starting to become the norm is that sound. It's like, people want to sing me a song. I want to direct you to not the remake, but will direct you to Hitchhiker's Guide in relationship to Serius Cybernetics and the products that are produced by Sirius. Notably the Doors. Glad to be of service."

Sophia, who is 4 1/2 years old, sang and danced onstage with the FAXL band, while her grandparents, who also perform with the band, watched her sing nursery rhymes. It was so cute.

So E.J. stopped playing briefly and offered some information, "People ask, 'Is it a good idea to encourage your kids to do performancing?' That's a great teaching mechanism that's used in a lot of very, very, very smart schools -- to let kids express themselves through theatrics and all kinds of things are learned that way, incredibly, there are so many different things you learn by putting something into performance and then seeing through the performance and then evaluating it, and of course, improving it.

"There'll be a time when Sophia can look back at these videos and look and see the progress that she is making year-to-year as we go, 'Wow!', each time she gets on stage -- there's a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more, and so forth. That's because it's a learning process.

"I'll quote my friend, Bob Segirini, from the Family Tree: 'Knowledge is a steady flow, not what you know.' He was a fellow sufferer under the RCA label. And Bob became a disc jockey on Sirius streaming radio station.

Tabatha Jones

New Orb Training

E.J. spent several days last week working on using Zoom -- getting backgrounds together and experimenting with "how it works". Then his internet connection stopped working. Of course, it was on Friday night so there was no quick restoration.

If you're like me, you often view accidents as getting in the way of the plans you had. But what I have learned over the years is accidents are a way of redirecting. They can redirect our ideas, our attention, our plans. And the other thing I've noticed about these accidental changes of plan is that what happens next seems to fit so much better into what is needed now than the plans I had planned. I observed just such a sift over this weekend.

Being the amazing Shaman he is, E.J used the "accident" of the non-working internet connection to point him in a new direction. E.J. shifted his attention into creating new orbs in Godd and created an entirely new type of orb designed to aid in Lucid Dreaming. And being the amazing teacher and guide that he is, he has taken the Lucid Dreaming Training into the work of Waking in the Dream. Watching that "accident" turn into an amazing new tool was another lesson in being in the moment, not needing to hold to a plan, but letting the universe make the move and following the motion as lovers follow each other.

I urge you to read E.J.'s blog post Dream Lucid Trainers and view the video he made of one of the Godd orbs that can be used for lucid dream training. It's a blog you'll thank yourself for reading.

Barbara Haynes

All Is One

In the course of working on a brochure of EJ's art, we collected quotes from him about the artistic process. In light of the upcoming Easter Workshop, The Magic of Creativity, I thought it might be helpful to pass one along as well as an experience of my own.

"When the art is coming through, the artist is like an interested observer; you're looking at it at the moment of creation..... ". E.J. Gold

Over the years, E.J. has encouraged us to work with various art forms. I recall a time, several decades ago now, we were working with plastalina clay. My remembrance is that a number of our artists were working to make replicas of Aztec face masks for an upcoming museum exhibit, Ancient Faces.

At that time we had a framing studio at the Land -- a roughly hewn wooden structure where Robbert, Menlo, Rick, Rudy and others would work on framing art for auctions. It had soft, natural lighting from skylights in the ceiling and was now quiet and uninhabited.

It was a pleasantly warm, sunny spring day and I decided to take my clay there to work. I sat down with the ball of clay, working it to become soft and malleable. I generally knew the direction to take -- I would make a mask -- but also decided, with my limited artistic skill, to sit with the clay and rely on inner direction to guide.

I laid out the clay in the shape of a face, slowly smoothing out the surface to represent the skin. As I recall, the forehead, nose and mouth proceeded effortlessly. I thought this is almost too good to be true that I am able to do this. Then I began to work on the eyes and, as they took shape, I realized a being was coming through this mask. It was alive. I'll never forget the terror I experienced. I fled.

Looking back from this vantage point, I now see that it is all One, and that everything is alive. Could I go back? I would sit with this being and just be, communicating, sharing whatever was there. I regret not having taken the opportunity and encourage you now to take advantage of this Easter Workshop to explore the nature of reality, and to find and commune with what is real.

Blessings to you,

Jewel McInroy

A Heart of Gratitude

"We offer homage, love and hope;

But above all, we give our gratitude."

E.J. Gold - from The American Book of the Dead

In difficult times, keep a heart of gratitude for all that life brings you.

Gratitude expressed sincerely is a form of giving and it opens our mind for love and compassion, and helps overcoming our self-centeredness.

Habits can greatly help us. When we instill good habits, the momentum of those habits helps us continue the positive actions.

Even if we cannot see at the moment what to say thank you for, keep on saying thank you, as it will change the vibration inside and make us light and open with love, forgiveness and joy.

Gratitude: the Prosperity Path remedy orb
Michele Marie

Join E.J. On Zoom

In the past weeks during the morning show, Gorby's Place, Archive Talks have been played. However, the last few days E.J. has been on Zoom and we invite everybody to join the call.

E.J. is very excited to be able to see us and interact with us on Zoom. For all of us, this is an incredible opportunity to connect with him and learn about the fun projects he has been working on. If you would like to join these calls, stay tuned to Gorby's Place every morning at 6:30 a.m., because there is no way to know ahead of time if E.J. will be on Zoom.

We hope to see you all,

Take care and keep the creativity flowing!

Paula Galindo

Can't snooze the alarm clock now!

And out of nowhere the Alarm Clock started buzzing! Upon waking up, the machine kept searching for the clock but couldn't find it. The sheer joy of snoozing the alarm was soothing and definite allurement to the machine. Whenever the buzz was initiated, the snooze was activated right away. The play went on for a long time. Sometimes team A won, sometimes it was team B. The debate was forever active and ongoing, like an unending spiral.

Day by the day all the alarm clocks started buzzing in the near vicinity. The machine started a deeper and more extensive search on the alarm clock phenomena. What does the alarm signify? And why did it put the alarm in the first place? And why the hell there is no physical trace of it around. The machine just wants to snooze it once more. So that it can carry on with its "extremely important, useless data driven acts".

Without concrete results, the search ended. The machine was exhausted and gave up. And then it saw a book lying on the table. It had notes on Invoking Presence. Just when the eyes fell on that book and the title was read the alarm went off"¦

Nishit Gaijar

DIABLO II

Part one

I have been involved with Bardo Safaris using this software for the past 15 years or so. I kind of divide the game playing into two distinct categories: 1: Learning the intricacies of the game itself, and 2: Learning how game play in bardo safaris fits into and jibes with work on self.

#1: Right from the start I learnt that Diablo 2 is a very, very complicated game... A whole world had been created by its programmers and I saw myself obliged to learn its rules and how it functioned. And even after 15 years of playing, the learning never seems to stop. Here's a thought: many videogamers have proclaimed D2 the best video game of all time. It's a repetitive and unique experience all at the same time with infinite combinations of gear, strategies, powers and abilities.

I remember when D2 was first introduced by the Institute as a work tool. Way back when. As is my wont, I completely ignored the invitation to play. I mean seriously, who in their right mind wants to play video games? Kids sure, but a grown-up like myself? But my wife had other ideas. She bought the game, installed it on her PC and began to play in bardo safaris, keeping me up at night as I lay in bed listening to the sounds of battle, the voices of the NPCs and the grunts of dying monsters in her weekly safaris, which in our time zone was played between 10pm and 12pm. Ouch! "Lower the bloody volume!"

So eventually... Ok, bit the bullet and opted to voyage to California to the Institute to receive personal training in the game of D2. I was given training by C. from whom I was able to somehow pick up the noob nuances of how to move my character, how to strike an opponent who was trying to kill me, how to kill an opposing monster, how to pick up needed items from the ground, to team up with a merc, how to use a TP, how to use a WP... etc. The basics. I returned home, bought the D2 CD set, installed it on my computer and began to play in weekly safaris.

...to be continued

Eric Feingold

Magic of Creativity Easter Workshop

April 11th and 12th

Gather all your art supplies, install and familiarize yourself with the use of Zoom and get ready for a deep dive into the Magic of Creativity.

Because we all we find ourselves in a time of financial uncertainty due to the COVID-19 pandemic the Institute would like to invite all who wish to attend the Easter Workshop to come regardless of your budget. Check out your options and Sign Up Now.

Waging Work

In the Prosperity Virtual Ashram in Second Life during the Zone Box Induction program on Saturday nights from 7-8 pm we will be reading "Waging Work" Talk of the Month #80 and #81. We will be discussing the talks throughout the month of April. All those interested, please have hard copy or download of the talks. The group meets in the Brane-Power Center directly across from the Chen-Rig Temple in the ashram.