October 2020 Bardo Buzz (02-10)

The Joy of Sacrifice

Secrets of the Sufi Way E.J. Gold

THE SACRIFICES

THE SACRIFICE OF COMFORT
Life of Austerity

Our own comfort prevents us from seeing where we may work and serve. Comfort can be deceptive -- it may be material, mental, spiritual. We may uncover one teacher and school after another, compare their company, wander in the world from place to place seeking the unusual and the miraculous, all for our own comfort without recognizing it as the search for comfort.

We may surround ourselves with the comforts of our lives -- friends, parents, family and home -- whether it be rich or poor, in the struggle to maintain the familiar surroundings of our fathers, cocooned by the buffers of everyday life, cut off by complacency and disinterest form our world and the full potential of our beings.

To make this sacrifice, we live an austere life, disciplined and clean. Surrounded by no objects by which one can attach oneself or amuse oneself, we are confronted by the continuous presence of the deepest self.

Our life is exactly regulated in periods of service, devotions and daily work for the community of the school, personal needs and household routines.

There is no unnecessary talking or whispering, no horseplay or entertainment. One avoids excesses of pleasure in all things. To every activity there are limits in the amount needed. We find and remain within those limits in sleep, food, talking, studying, work, play and other personal functions.

One dresses simply, in a non-egoistic manner, keeping personal and household cleanliness to a fault. In walking, breathing, eating, waking and sleeping, we are responsible for the regulation and manifestation of body and psyche.

We monitor our feelings, inner agitations, attitudes and perceptions with full attention during work, never allowing ourselves a public display of our inner life activities.

To be continued....

RITUAL MAGIC

ICW December 2014
-- Excerpt by Tabatha Jones

"Now, the reason for those to understand how ritual of any kind works, we call it Ritual Magic, who are in ritual, let's say, evocation, invocation -- so they're technical terms for a variety of different rituals. All a ritual means is you do the same thing every time, at each stage.

"You do, for instance, action A, then action B, then action C, then action D, action E, and you don't do them out of order and you don't do them differently each time. You do them the same each time. That's called ritual. I used to use the slogan 'ritualize your life', and I used to teach a method, whereby, you could turn your life into a work ritual that would bring a strong spiritual connection. Here's the point: You have better than that, you have great stuff, you have the Super Beacon, you have so many great things to work with to establish powerful quantum connections.

"Now, when you exercise the Movements, they are patterns and your body is actually an electrical pattern, it's an electrical field. It's an incredibly small one, but, when you use the correct insets, use not just a candle, but the right candle, use the right essential oil, use various kinds of right magnetics, meteorites if necessary -- they're often helpful. You use your standard altar tools, and that would be your Matrix, your Super Beacon, and your ammy, and if you have anything that is a connector in your connector slot.

"One of the points I wanted to make is that the Movements are very, very important because those are ways of encapsulating and coding things; it's like keystrokes. Each of those Movements postures is a keystroke, if you think of it that way. And so you have a structure that's patterned, and that is arranged differently for each keystroke. As it happens, there are 26 postures. The secret is not the postures themselves, but the transitions between them. That's where the secret lies, It is an individual thing. How it happens is individual realization. It's called enlightenment."

TALKING IN THE KITCHEN

An Excerpt from my Journal
December, 2011
Barbara Haynes

The longer I work with silence in the kitchen, the more I see the effects of subtle things and the way they affect the overall outcome of the food.
I was particularly struck by this last Sunday when I prepared the cornbread for breakfast. I came to the kitchen early so that I would not be rushed in making the cornbread and preparing the vegetables for breakfast. When I arrived in the kitchen, I began gathering the ingredients for the cornbread only to discover that there was no margarine. I was dismayed because folks really look forward to the cornbread on Sunday. I decided that I would just make it later in the day.
I went about preparing the rest of breakfast now, having plenty of time to be leisurely about it. When my cooking partner came in, I told her there'd be no cornbread because we were missing the margarine. However, she knew where it was "hiding" and we were in business.
As folks were consuming the cornbread during breakfast, they were all remarking that it was the "best ever". That's saying a lot as I make cornbread every Sunday morning and have been doing so for over a year.
Because so many people said it was the "best ever" I got to thinking about why that would be.
When I first made the cornbread, I was not overly exact in the measurements. I have been trying to make sure the dry measures are all level and things of that type for the last several weeks. However, this Sunday I did not take the time to measure in that manner and returned to the less exact measuring. What did that add or take away?
I had experimented with shifting the medium cornbread in previous weeks. Time constraints did not allow for shifting this particular Sunday.
Though I always use Clover honey, this was a "different" clover honey. Same brand and clover, but "different" just like every batch of cornbread is "different".
I had drawn the card "Love" from the Morgan Deck in answer to a question I had posed earlier that morning. I was thinking very deeply about that as I made the cornbread.
I used a different bowl to mix the wet ingredients.
I didn't stir the dry ingredients together as I usually do before adding the wet ingredients.
When I poured the batter into the pan to bake, I knew it was a good batch. It was silky, shiny and full of itself -- if that makes any sense.
So many things go into the making of the "best ever" cornbread. The thing about it is that by not talking in the kitchen, I was able to really be there for what happened with that cornbread, to observe all the subtleties that were a part of the making of the "best ever" cornbread.
Not talking in the kitchen allows the space for the creation of magic and when cooking is the "best ever," that's what it is -- magic -- all elements coming together in an inexplicable way.

LEVELING UP

Christiane Wolters

We did it, we leveled up in the garden. It feels celebratory. I thought we are now at level 15, Claude thought 16. For those of you familiar with Diablo 2, you know that we are still in Act one normal, maybe ready to take on the Act one boss and move to Act two, and still far away from playing at level 99, or "pro" game. The point is, this year, we leveled up, and did so in several aspects. A number of you are part of it, you supported this, you are connected. This is super and I wanted to acknowledge it and say Thank You!!!! To express this externally, I made wooden signs, painted them (so they last longer) and wrote your name on them and put them right there on the raised beds.

It is only recently that I understood, like actually deeply grokked, that the game of life can be played at very different levels than I had been involved in. Many people indeed play at a different, and in many cases, much higher level. That does not mean there is anything wrong with being a level 1, or 15. And just as in D2, a level 99, a master gamer, has access to all Acts and difficulty levels, a level 15 does not even have a clue yet about the higher levels and what it takes or what is needed or possible there. So until you level up, you don't know. Also, even as a level 15, you can play a good and honest game, a good level 15 game.

Do I HAVE to level up, grow, become more clear, aware, knowledgeable, change beliefs, gain experience? No. No one has to do anything and you could happily and contentedly sip your favorite beverage and be okay/stay exactly how you are now. Your mission may be exactly at the level where you are.

These days I can see there are so many ways to play a more elegant game of life, a better game, a more effective game. Is it needed OR wanted?

"You can change in any way you like, but nothing will help, unless you know what you want".

E.J. Gold.

There are many intelligences, many areas in life, externally or internally, societal, individual, physical body or energy body -- and you can level up in any of them while in this game of life on earth.

We are here. This year we, this group, leveled up in the garden. We leveled up "out there" because we leveled up "in here". YAY. Thank you everyone. It is very cool. It is even fun. At the level I am currently at, greater degrees of inner freedom feel fantastic. Much Love to you.

Submitted by Nishit Gajjar"

You have all kinds of lower primate reactions which eventually get expunged through many, many passages through the Bardos. The cleansing radiations eventually wear down those reactions. It takes a long time until you finally can - not die - but pass freely from this world. Your passage is blocked by those reactions, which deny you the ability to expand beyond your present horizon." -- E.J. Gold.

SOME WISE TIPS

From Chief Weakness and the Work,
Talk of the Month #25
Excerpt submitted by Michele Marie

"You must know yourself, know your weaknesses, the weakness of your machine and the weakness of your essential self. Chief weakness is to the essential self what the chronic is to the machine.

"At the same time that you are able to view the Work because the machine has entered the waking state, the weakness will continue to be present, but it will have no force because the machine has no will in the waking state. The Work and the weakness do not run parallel or in opposite directions to each other. They lie at an angle." He held his wrists together, hands at a ninety-degree angle to illustrate. "This will be so obvious to you eventually... As you progress in the Work, your chief weakness doesn't go away, it actually becomes stronger. It is the grain of sand in the oyster around which the pearl is coated.

"As you learn to observe your organic weaknesses, you will obtain a key to the Work. When you find the Work, you will catch a glimpse of it again and again; you will see work that you can do at that moment, no more, no less. It will hardly ever involve anyone else in any big way. It could be work for the next few seconds, or work that could last for the next year. You must never make the mistake of holding onto or trying to tie down one vision of the Work. Work is very changeable from one moment to the next. My work is always changing, and one must never fall asleep at the wheel....

"You must borrow the will from the Work even to see the Work, as well as to overcome mechanical seduction. The Work must be protected from those without discipline, and as we are in the beginning, we do not have the will to self-discipline. We cannot at first do this on our own. We need special help. Let me put the question this way: How can you overcome your weakness if you don't have the will to overcome your weakness? He added slyly, "I will give you an answer to that question too: you must love the Work more than you love your own life." -- E.J. Gold

Luminous Work and Luminous month to You All!

MUSINGS OF A LABYRINTH READER

DEPESSION, A SEDUCTION -- Marvette Kort

Have you ever sat face to face with your avatar in the ashram doing the Contact Exercise? If you give yourself a fair chance to quietly settle into the space, I think you'll recommend it, too.

E.J. told us when the Prosperity Path Virtual Ashram (PVA) first came into manifestation, that the avatars we had created are in the Quantum world. They are on our path slightly ahead of us. If we allow it, they could help us by drawing us forward, so to speak.

Recently, I needed to calm down and reassess. After sitting with my avatar, vettizon, the following message came to me.

Depression is a seduction that may try to overcome you in today's world drama. Remember, it's all a picture show with the deliberate provocation of fear, uncertainty and hopelessness. Responses like feeling listless, disinterested in anything, struggling with the irresistible desire to go to sleep, feeling unwilling to do ordinary tasks, a general agitation and coming up against resistance to creative activities that formerly inspired you, are all predictable.

This inner turmoil calls for inner work. Ask yourself, "Am I going to allow my bank account of precious time in this space to be squandered by an unfocused avoidance of what is happening now? Am I going to cave into this compelling seduction?"

One's life is measured in minutes. And previously, when in the between-lives-state, you decided to use it for a purpose. Now is the time to take the reigns. Know that help and support is within your reach. However, the operating rule is, "You are the one who gets you there."

I am recalling Peter Sellers yelling, "Now is the time Cato!" But how does that play out? In my opinion, solid advice followed my question.

First, see it for what it is -- playing out of undisciplined, unproductive habits that suck you into identification with your organic identity and the illusion of this dream.

Second, don't deny it, see what's happening. Don't apply judgment -- switch that out for acceptance of where you are and make that your starting point.

Third, you, oh fortunate one, have tools available -- Brane-Power amulets, the SuperBeacon, magically embued jewelry or radiating artwork, to name a few. Many transformational exercises and meditative practices have been offered for one to employ at need and/or on a daily basis. There's momentum built up from doing your practices -- i.e. The Movements, Zen Basics, Labyrinth Readings, posting on the Prosperity Path forum, running the meditation assists in the form of godd game orbs, Quantum Magic Videos or playing Bardo Safaris. That can open gateways in your inner world to recognize the seduction and assist in side-stepping away from the lower seductive magnetic force.

Fourth, you have a circle of like beings who are also in the throngs of personal suffering -- striving to establish a partnership with the machine that's transporting them around in this realm. And take note, one of the main lessons of the American Book of the Dead is to learn to ask for help.

Fifth, you have opportunities of being of service offered in numerous arenas, such as in the Prosperity Path Virtual Ashram in Second Life, getting involved in group projects like the Free University a.k.a. Gorby's Think Tank, the Labyrinth Readers Society, Science Fiction Radio Theater, the PVA Poetry group or the many group and individual creative ventures in music, in creating jewelry, art or developing podcasts.

I hear my plea, "I can't do everything."

Basically you are the one designing your inner world. You are the one who allows it to be overrun by identification with the dream or the one who navigates the many seductions. Utilize your effective tools. Keep an eye on the shape-shifting universe. And engage the guides accessible in the circle to help stay on the path.

I hear echoed through the space, "The way out is the way through." And I am grateful to E.J. Gold for he has embued the Prosperity Path Virtual Ashram with the Work. He made, for those with a sincere wish, a place to find work.

I am putting a bet on what is often referred to as "the 4 lines" from the American Book of the Dead:

"All phenomena is illusion

Neither attracted nor repelled

Not making any sudden moves

My habits will carry me through."