June 2020 Bardo Buzz (02-06)

Each issue of The Bardo Buzz comes with an installment

The Joy of Sacrifice:

Secrets of the Sufi Way by E.J. Gold

INSTRUCTIONS FOR SANCTUARY

If you are in this room, and you know you are in this room, you are awake.

The work of the work group is "to do nothing".

Reach out actively for the words spoken in Sanctuary, rather than let them come to you passively.

Do not pass on to others outside the Sanctuary what has been given in Sanctuary.

Surrender to the space of Sanctuary.

Work to refine your questions. In Sanctuary everything is taken literally.

Make no effort to get money for the school. The flow of Baraka takes care of all the school's needs.

Do not bring people to the school, nor advertise for students. When the Sanctuary is open, those who should come to it come to it.

If someone belongs in the Sanctuary, nothing you say will convince them to leave. If they do not belong there, nothing you say will convince them to stay.

Do not expend Power-Center energy within the dream. Conserve it for work within the Sanctuary.

The Sanctuary in its prototype-form is the teaching itself.

Do not bring garments from the dream world into Sanctuary.

Assume your post as it is in the archetype. The closer to the archetype every object in the room can be brought, the easier it is to upscale to the archetype.

Only by understanding the function of the dream are you able to understand how it is possible to leave Sanctuary and go into the dream without ever having left Sanctuary.

To be continued...

RESISTANCE IS USELESS . . . or is it?

For many years I have observed myself in a state of resistance to many things that occur in my life.

The internal dialogue is usually: "I don't want to, I'm too tired, I don't have enough time, I don't have the skills, I'm afraid I'll look foolish (if only to myself)" - one ego face-saving excuse after another.

Then a couple of years ago I noticed that once I had done one of the things I had been resisting, there was a great release of energy and my mood was lifted. I continued to observe myself and the way resistance played out in my life. I started using the resistance I would experience as a signal to do "that thing" because I began to understand the energy I used to resist was much better used in other ways. Now I still find myself experiencing resistance, but I no longer "hang out" there. The physical, emotional and psychological discomfort it produces in me is an indicator of an area of my life that needs attention. I've developed tools and methods to use to move through the resistance to that place of release of tension, more energy and uplifted mood. I no longer resist resistance as I once did. Instead, I acknowledge its presence in my life as a blessing -- a guidepost to further self-observation and the gifts that offers.

Barbara Haynes

WHAT IS YOUR NOTE?

Amidst life during the covid-19 situation -- an early heatwave, a super-busy garden, bardo-town in Second Life and jokes -- new inquiries have opened up for me involving listening, sound and silence.

What is your note? What is the sound of your soul, the sound of you? Where does this sound come from?

The other: What is the medicine of sound?

And a new phase of daily guitar practice started.

Pencil Magic on zoom by me is not yet happening.

New dimensions opening, so much not yet explored in this dream of life, the mystery of this life as we seem to know it.

Lately, when approaching this house, freshly painted -- and the picture does not do the impression justice -- I am reminded of what is the Fortieth Chamber in the ABD and I remember how lucky I am . . . Gratitude every time walking up to it.

Christiane Wolters

THE REVERBERATIONS OF A WORKSHOP AT THE LAND

It struck me as I fixed my breakfast in the Land kitchen this morning that the atmosphere changes when a workshop is happening. There is a quietness, a tangible silence that descends upon and moves throughout the house. Our work energy and focus is much more directed. Chatter ceases and our Work presences take over as we quietly go about our duties. Respect for each other surfaces. No demands are made, allowing each other to be and do what they do.

This atmosphere of harmony seems to be the result of the volume of Work force generated from our focused gathering. We each contribute our presence and attention which strikes a doh that reverberates throughout the entire group. Everyone benefits and those benefits reverberate out to everyone and everything in our immediate circle. The larger the group, the stronger the doh, the larger the circle that is affected.

Which reminds me of a recent incident here, near the Ganesha water fountain. E.J purchased the small fountain several years ago and takes an interest in its functioning. Recently, after being cleaned and back to operating, he slowly walked by on the way to his office. He smiled at the flowing fountain and walked up the stairs. As he continued along the path, he stopped, turned and said, "Ganesh is glad to be back doing her job."

The word "job" resonated with me. The importance of working in a real way is always paramount for E.J. He said years ago that our "job" is to unite the Absolute (the outer) with the Shekinah (the inner) and, as a result, bring the creation to life. To make the inner as the outer, the outer as the inner and make the two one. Gurdjieff reiterates this in his statement, "Life is real only then when I AM."

When we do our "job", we strike the doh, which affects everything and everyone around us and who knows how far beyond. Like the recent workshop, the reverberations are tangible and very alive. Everyone and everything benefits.

Jewel McInroy

Musings of a Labyrinth Reader

"The Invitation"

Walk the Prayer Wheel,
The offer is in every step you take.
Can you hear the invitation?
Every day you have the choice.
Words, concepts, languages -- there is no barrier.
"There is no other, I am the Bornless one."
Does it resonate within you?
You can know this only if you yourself, do it.

-- Marvette Kort

1 E.J. Gold, Angels Healing Journey,
(Gateways Books & Tapes / IDHHB, Inc. Publishers, 1997), 3-5.

Excerpt is from E.J.'s Morning Meeting on Zoom, Tuesday, 5/26/20

"You have a virtual world. It's a different world, not the world you ordinarily live in. And the skills of moving around in there, just picking things up, walking, running, jumping, most of those skills have to be relearned as if you were a little baby. This puts you in a very interesting situation because you are already an adult, and you're now learning things equivalent to crawling before you walk.

"A friend of mine who had a community in the 1950s and 1960s said that nobody knows how to breathe, but since they are breathing, they assume they already know how. In fact, he took it further. They don't know how to eat, how to sleep, how to wash themselves; they don't know anything. But they assume they do because they do it, some form of it.

"A musician that can hit every note is not really a musician yet. Just because they can hit every note doesn't mean they're a musician.

"In Second Life, you're learning to operate differently. I'm assuming you can get in there. But some people can't. Don't panic. We can work something out.

"Second Life puts you in the perfect position, which is slightly above and slightly behind your body -- that's the great place for the essential self. So you're always operating from that spiritual place slightly above and behind the body.

"But if you can hit the "˜up' in your camera control, you can go out of the body instantaneously. But as soon as you push the forward arrow to walk, as soon as you move your body, you come "˜Wham!' right back into the body again, exactly as it happens. It's very much like what genuinely happens out of the body.

"What you accustom yourself to in Second Life is operating your body from the spirit point. So you're always slightly out of body. This takes you out of phase with the vibration of the world. It takes you out of phase with the world vibration, which opens you up to full consciousness.

"And you should experience this as you are working in Second Life, where you can achieve higher vibrations simply because you're operating your body from slightly outside." E.J. Gold

REINCARNATION AWARENESS WORKSHOP, Part 2

by E.J. Gold
June 24, 2012, Sunday

"Everything I've told you so far, every word, you have in your own experience. I'm not telling you anything outside your own experience or anything that you can't instantly know about. I'm not asking you to believe anything! As a matter of fact, all I'm going to do is talk about stuff that's in your experience.

"To really prosper means that you are comfortable with what you have and you have enough that you feel comfortable with your life. We have just enough to do what we're doing and to work with the people that we're working with and to give these tools and just enough for that purpose. Never more than just enough, and that's got to be okay. You've got to work within that.

"The idea is that money and fame and power and so forth, these are all tools that you may or may not want to use. Love is a tool, it's actually a power, it's a force, and if you recognize it, it's a force like magnetism and electricity are forces. You realize you can do things with magnetism and electricity. You can do things with them. Have you ever seen magnetism? Ever seen electricity? You pointed out it was lightning. No, lightning is not electricity you're seeing there. You're seeing actually atmosphere burning and you're seeing the light resulting from that. You're not seeing electricity itself, although you pay your electrical bill and if you don't pay it, you don't see anything at night. But you don't see the electricity itself, you just don't see it.

"You don't see magnetism, you see the results of magnetism. So, it's the same thing with love -- you don't see the love force itself. Of course you don't. But it is measurable and it is palpable and you actually can feel it. You can walk into a room where there's a lot of love and you can feel it. You can walk into a room where it's palpably full of love, there's a lot of loving people. And you can walk into a room that is so evil that you want to run screaming. That's a lack of love. Just cold, calculating, heartless creatures. And you can feel it, it's palpable. You felt it. I'm not telling you anything that you don't have in your experience."

Excerpted and Edited by T. Jones

Gratitude and Attention

Through self-reflection and self-observation, we can come to see everything we have, and everything we are, as gifts.

We begin to train our attention to notice what we haven't noticed.

Many people don't truly appreciate what they have until it is gone.

And having lost the opportunity to be grateful, they simply find another reason to be disappointed.

If we wish to cultivate gratitude, we must develop a practice.

We cannot become a grateful person just by thinking that you want to be grateful.

Sometimes we are engaged in a habit like a practice, but we don't think of it as a practice.

For example complaining. Complaining is a wonderful practice if you wish to cultivate disappointment, resentment and self-pity. It is quite effective.

Each time we complain, we get better at complaining. It is like learning to play an instrument.

Most of us are better at the practice of complaining than at the practice of self-reflection.

We have developed a habit to notice the troubles others cause us.

And we have developed a habit to complain to others about these troubles.

But to cultivate gratitude, we need to develop a new habit of attention to notice the concrete ways in which the world supports us each day.

And we can then develop a new habit of expressing our gratitude to others.

Cultivating gratitude, like maintaining strong muscles and bones, takes discipline and will.

Start your practice today and enjoy it!

"We offer homage, love and hope; But above all, we give our gratitude." E.J. Gold
Extract from the Obligatory Reader's Invocation found in the American Book of the Dead

NOTICING HAS A SPACE OF INDIFFERENCE AROUND IT

When I met Iven Lourie, the editor of many of E.J. Gold's books, he was kind and generous enough to gift me a few art books from the Institute along with his poetry book. One of the unusual books from the collection, which caught my attention, was Pen Mind Beginner's Mind - A Mindfulness Approach to Beginning to Draw by Jim Hodgkinson.

As I was scrolling through Jim's drawings and reading his commentaries in the book, I noticed an interesting set of patterns, a pattern clearly defining the implication of an important tool of a being. The tool requires a certain amount of perseverance in order to use it effectively and efficiently. And that tool is part of our Essential Self known as Will of Attention. Page after page, in terms of content and especially in terms of drawings, there was a step-by-step approach shown by the artist on how to use Will of Attention. Well, not directly, but very subtly, as primarily it is a beginner's guide to drawing too! I'm glad that I work in a Creative Field where my professional life requires me to use Mentation and Will of Attention. But what this book taught me was how the same asset of our being can be used and nurtured with simple daily practice, even if you don't come from a creative background! I will share few golden nuggets that I extracted from the book where the artist talks about it:

"You begin to draw, placing attention on the page. Then the tree. Then you notice the mind has chimed in again. And so on and on. Drawing automatically exercises your skill in focusing your attention."

"Noticing has a space of indifference around it."

"All things are possible here

At the nexus of ego and being

If I can just move past the wall of inertia

Built of false beliefs."

Nishit Gajjar.

WANTED:

Co-Creators for City of Godd

No experience required

Co-create a world with E.J. and Claude in the Kitely open sim.

Learn to build in the sim.

Get a free account at Kitely.com. Get in touch and we'll walk you through the next steps.

It all begins with nothing.

Things Are a Lot Cooler Now

Thank you very much to everyone who made it possible to have a new air conditioner for E.J.'s office. Now we're ready for the next Heat Wave.