January 2021 Bardo Buzz (03-01)

Musings of a Labyrinth Reader

AN EXPRESSION OF GRATITUDE

Marvette Kort

Being able to witness and experience the assembly of many Beings from around the world coming together online is a privilege. I acknowledge an overwhelming gratitude to the one we call E.J. Gold. He generously energizes the underlying matrix that presents itself to consensus reality as a year of Zoom workshops. They have focused on starting with Easter 2020 The Magic of Creativity, Comedy, Influence, Enlightening, Awakening the Heart and Sharing the Blessings.

E.J. guides the group directly and indirectly to exercise one's higher senses of perception and participate in the flow as it upscales in the revelation of the process. The screen of many faces spark to life with their candid expressions of inspiration, gratitude, their synthesis of cognitions, a delving deeper to clarify questions and at times delivering artistic expressions of poetry, humor and music.

At some point, we move into the illusion of separation and walk our path vivified by the conflation of the whole space. And we are open and may aspire to wishing that our small efforts be used to alleviate the suffering of all Beings everywhere.

May your vistas continue to open as we move into the New Year all connected by our shared experience.

The Joy of Sacrifice

Secrets of the Sufi Way E.J. Gold

THE SACRIFICE OF HABITS
Life of the Contrary
Why should one sacrifice one's habits? Almost everyone understands this in an ordinary way.

But there is another more important facet to this. The nature of the Corridor of Madness is such that one is left with the identity and ability to take action in the present only with habits. One could say that in the deepest self, one is nothing but habits, for only habits survive transition. One cannot depend upon the psyche, which provides the mind, body, memory, decision-making apparatus, ordinary good-bad and like-dislike attitudes, forms of consciousness and sense of identity.

Without these, one is left with"¦ What? Only habits -- and how can one remain awake with habits, which are in themselves unconscious and which always in everything will choose unconscious life? We can demonstrate this. It is the body of habits, called the essence, that forms a psyche, allowing it to dominate the organism, make decisions, take actions and control the organism throughout one's ordinary life. This demonstrates the lazy nature of essence if it is composed of unconsciously accumulated habits and not consciously created ones.

The nature of the Transit State is such that one can remain awake throughout the series of events in order to consciously choose one's path. It is not possible to "accidently fall into" the Path of Struggle, as many wish to believe.

One's habit of falling asleep and giving responsibility for the Self to the psyche -- or automatic machinery of a false identity -- must be overcome before one enters the Corridor of Madness -- the Transit State. Otherwise, one will surely rebuild the psyche -- ordinary consciousness -- once again, and one is destined to live out yet another life in the same way. This cycle of repetition cannot be broken by ordinary effort.

As the essence develops little by little, just as the yolk of an egg depends upon the albumen, thus the psyche is not destroyed utterly. Its hold over the essence is broken, and its domination of the organism is finished.

As this occurs, one approaches the door -- marked "Unknown" -- and indeed,, not only unknown but unknowable -- which stands before the Corridor of Madness, through which the psyche is completely broken down and absorbed. At the end, the essence emerges, freshly born without complexity.

The primary habit one can approach at this time, and with which one has genuine and not just imaginary power, is the habit of creating a psyche with which to handle life automatically.


to be continued...

THERE IS ECSTASY IN PAYING ATTENTION

Barbara Haynes

It has been a long and challenging year. You know, as I do, the difficulties we have faced in our global community and I'm sure there have been some personal challenges as well. What I know for myself is the spiritual practices I do each day have helped me stay centered. There are those practices which are always with me like the five minutes of guitar practice and the singing I do with a harmonizer. Sometimes the other voices sound like angels guiding me. Then there are those practices I use from Every Day a Holy Day. I pick an exercise at random and use it for a day or a week. I let my intuition guide me on how long I use the exercise. I

am striving to strengthen my attention -- to see the world more and more through eyes that recognize the higher, the spiritual. These challenging times have helped me work more diligently to strengthen my attention -- to allow myself to burrow down into these practices so that I can know the ecstasy of paying attention. I have learned during this year of challenge that as Willa Cather says "Miracles seem to rest . . . upon our perceptions being made finer so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear that which is about us always." At the beginning of this new year I wish us all the ecstasy of paying attention.

Art: Swept Away by Barbara Haynes

"THE IMPROVISATIONAL CHALLENGE"

Marvette Kort

At the ICW on Saturday, Dec. 12, 2020, E.J. introduced the Improvisation Practice. He's implementing it by creating music with a Stratocaster guitar and the Digitech Trio Plus. After recording in Zoom, E.J. then uploads his videos to his YouTube channel -- ejgoldguru. He invited everyone to view his videos to keep up his channel stats and went on to explain his approach to playing guitar and improvising.

"The guitar has something to do with the music you're making. But actually the music is coming from inside you and going through the guitar. The guitar is the end of the line. It starts with you. So your inner world, your inner life, your inner focus must be clean and clear for you to be a good musician.

"You can't be a good musician if you're focused on the body; the body just operates the guitar, piano or your instrument. The body simply expresses what you yourself, the essential self, is generating. The music originates with you. The body is an expression tool rather than an originating tool. It's going through the body, expressing through the body. The body is carrying out your commands, your mission, as it were. You are the source."

E.J. teaches by example. He demonstrated his process of setting up the Trio Plus a few times before he created the backing track to improvise with.

He said that improvisation is in the moment. When you focus on every note, it suggests the next note. It suggests a timing, a pitch, an intonation. Your focus shows you where you are now and reveals a place to go. You lose the externals when you concentrate in this way. The world goes into the background.

This process is also very apparent when you focus on improvising vocals. And E.J. demonstrated this while skat singing with the T.C. Helicon Voice Live3 Extreme vocals. He explained that most people don't listen to their own voice, but they do listen to others. And he has often recommended working with the T.C. Helicon H1 (a voice harmonizer), which is far less expensive than the Voice Live3 Extreme.

Using the H1, you have the opportunity to sing with 2 other voices, which you can place above and/or below your own voice. E.J. has referred to the voices of the H1 as guides which one can work with in different keys. (There's a knob on the H1 to select the key.)

He also has said that the voices generated function like angelic guides and that angelic guides can't guide you unless you're in motion. They can advise you, but not guide you. So get in motion. Which direction, you may ask? It doesn't matter at this point. Focus on improvisation and see how much you have to cut out of your environment to get there.

Take the "Improv Challenge" in any of the numerous areas like comedy, theater, dance, art, writing or other creative endeavors. Focus anywhere you have the opportunity to improvise, to be in the moment. E.J. also mentioned that one can improvise with a set theme. I understood this to mean that creating a parody of something existing is what he was pointing at. Or taking an existing movie, play, story or situation and transforming it into a musical or comedy piece.

E.J.'s invitation struck a profound note for me on which I could build. He is so willing to share his process of improvisation, of expressing the inner creative force -- getting "into the flow". His process is a doorway I could choose to walk through, a way to let go, tap inspiration and get "in the flow."

TIME OF REFLECTION AND GRATITUDE

Christiane Wolters

It is that time of year, the having gone inward, the time of reflection and gratitude. How has it been for you, this year we call 2020? Did you ride the ups and downs and challenges like an experienced or enthusiastic surfer or did you feel crushed by the waves, or something in between? Did you learn and grow, did the confines of old conditioning and limiting beliefs lift to allow more of the true self to emerge? Creativity, joy, attitude of yes, accept, flow, relax, how did it it all go? I have my answers to this, and also a vision for what is to come. I remember a quote of E.J.'s: "Transformation is 100% attitudinal."

The image is of a monarch butterfly, taken a few of years ago on a Mexican sunflower. There used to be a few in our garden every year, though not so in the last year or this. The historic low count of the Western monarch this year of less than 3000 (instead of millions years ago) makes continued existence of this species very unlikely. Humans are taking and taking more than giving back, more than is needed to allow many other creatures to be. Climate change is one serious consequence. The concept of reciprocity seems foreign to most human cultures.

I remember this one, remember how special it was to see even one, grateful for the honor of the visit. All we ever have is this moment, this NOW, isn't it?

"All phenomena is illusion, do it anyway" - E.J. Gold

A garden that is based on teeming soil life, plants and food and habitat for multitudes of insects and birds and amphibians and reptiles and mammals and providing abundance for humans too -- food for their body and food for the soul - that is the kind of garden I can pour my heart and life into. Sitting with and being in nature, paying attention, sensing and feeling -- doing that, miraculous openings occur, portals open, realizations happen. May this process continue, and may the way how this can serve best for all beings everywhere become clear.

Blessing to you.

HEIGHT ATTENTION

Michele Marie

Extract from My life as a Plant, Talk of the Month #90


"If you own your own attention, then you can do anything," E.J. repeated, "And if you love your work, then for you it's play."

Back in my military days at Fort Benning, I had a sergeant who had a very interesting approach to teaching. Typically, each morning, we young trainees would assemble together in the amphitheater, and stand in tight formation for what seemed like hours, waiting for our commanding officer to arrive. On one occasion, at the onset of our training, we were waiting in formation as usual when suddenly, out of nowhere, a grenade whistled over the wall and landed with a heavy thud within a few yards of the front line, its safety handle cocked and ready to fire. For a couple of seconds, the entire group froze in stunned incomprehension while terror wormed its way up to our brains, finally exploding out of our mouths in a single hysterical scream: 'GRENAAAADE!!!' Two hundred men launched themselves in all directions and dove for the dirt. There was a deafening BOOM!, and a cloud of dust filled the air.

As the dirt slowly settled, dazed faces lifted to see the hazy outline of the sergeant's form gradually materialize out of the gloom. He was smiling. Now that I have your complete attention, he said coolly, and thus began the day's lecture. His reasoning for such a dramatic preface was to ensure that the information he was about to deliver would get through our foggy attentions and perhaps eventually save our lives in combat. He did it because he really cared about us and the lives of the troops we might one day be responsible for. He put us through hell, but what we learned went down to the very marrow of our bones, and even in the overwhelming confusion and terror of combat, we could rely on our training to get us through.

My job with you is essentially the same. I must ensure that you get the information accurately so that you can survive. That's the kind of attention I want you to have at all times. We knew we're not even close to having a fraction of that kind of attention. The unconscious mutates with the flux, but the conscious mutates the flux. Mutating flux is Work. Work is mutating flux.

Just remember, the Three Great Laws that maintain are the cosmic gag writers, and the laws read as follows: THE THREE GREAT LAWS: 1) It's simple. 2) It's funny. 3) It's as high as we can count..."