June, 2021 Bardo Buzz (03-06)

The Joy of Sacrifice

Secrets of the Sufi Way by E.J. Gold

THE SACRIFICE OF ONE'S PLACE IN THE WORK
Life of Outer Freedom

One must now leave the work for a specific, stated and known interval. One may do no practice of any kind, nor may one have open contact with anyone in the work during this period. One is considered unable to accept help of any kind. One needs to learn from oneself at this stage. One must be able to work through this dilemma of no active part in the work by oneself, without outside help. Then if one wishes to return, one may again address the remainder of the sacrifices if one is still able and willing to continue.


to be continued...

BARDO STATE

by E.J. Gold
November, 2018
-- Excerpt by T. Jones

"So I have something for what ails you. I can explain it to you. About 90 percent, maybe as much as 99 percent of what's bothering you right now comes from the between-lives state, usually third Bardo or a prior life. Sometimes you get stuck in a prior life because it's something that's Bardoesque going on in there and that keeps you rooted to it until you solve it, finish it, fix it, or whatever it might be. Resolution of those things is just getting away from them. You've got to walk away at some point, you can't be thinking about winning and losing and failing and all that. Gotta just let it go or become a ghost, you know, walking around, hanging on as in 'I keep on hangin' on.' That kind of thing.

"You're on the PLS (Past Life Survey) course, which is cheap like dirt. I made it cheap like dirt because I want it to be cheap like dirt, so you don't have a financial excuse. And if you can't afford that, if it's got to be free, tell me and I'll make it free for you. If you can't afford even a single penny, you know it's available to you. I don't want you to use money as a reason why you didn't do the course. I cannot supply the deck. The deck is $100 deck and it is a very expensive deck to produce.

"There are no shortcuts to these things, you are professional or not. It's just a prototype thing. It's not so bad. It's kind of casual. It's very, very serious. It involves the equivalent of two major tarot decks in terms of learning skills and learning capabilities.

"You really need to know how to communicate. A lot of communicational skills will be very necessary here and a lot of people skills will be necessary here in terms of giving people the space to be able to say what they want to say about these things and so on.

"So, of course, you know the whole thing relies upon, basically, three secrets. The first secret is, I think everybody knows the phrase secret, which is that there is no secret. It's all just a question of practice, practice, practice. There is no great secret, mystical secret. It's just practice, practice, practice. And the second big secret is, of course, location, location, location. It's all about location. It's putting yourself in the middle of the cattle path. In this case, the cattle path of the evolutionary process, where you can Be of Service. There is somewhere to be of service, somewhere to serve, and some way to serve. And the third thing, of course, the third secret is it isn't what you take away, it's what you leave behind. The fourth grade secret is it's not what you do, it's the company you keep. And the fifth grade secret is, look out behind you."

THE GREATEST GIFT

by Barbara Haynes

Recently I've been contemplating the many uses and purposes of working in and with a group. The subject appears throughout E.J.'s interactions with groups, in his talks

and in his books. In Visions in the Stone he mentions how valuable it is to have a group to generate the necessity for penetrating a reading artifact. The usefulness of working in a group for the purpose of awakening the machine is talked about in The Human Biological Machine as a Transformational Apparatus.

Marvette reminded me of the effect of the necessity of the group at our recent Community meeting. She had been moved to speak at the 50 Years Celebrating Together Zoom gathering she had attended even though she had not planned to speak at all. The necessity of the group moved her to speak.

The Greatest Gift (cdt265) is an archive talk that asks the question "What is the value of working with and in a group?". The question is examined from the vantage point of our diverse community of individuals. I'm currently in the midst of listening to it and am finding it a great reminder of all the reasons there are for working in and with a group.

Over the last year, it has been a great discovery that we can work together through distant connection. I have been grateful many times for that ability. I hope you will take the opportunity to explore the uses of working in and with a group via "your own personal experience, personally experienced." Even if you have studied this area before, as with all things, there is always a little more to know, to learn, to explore. Happy June!

Archangel Harmon by E.J. Gold, pastel, available as a print on Arches Rives BFK 100% rag paper in a signed and numbered edition.

MUSINGS OF A LABYRINTH READER

"UNDER MY SKIN"

by Marvette Kort

What do I do when someone gets "under my skin"? There's no shortage of irritating sand for creating the pearl. But what am I really reacting to? It's the full-blown 3-D projection of the worst attributes of myself, of course.

Well, who is this myself? It's time to access the tools for loosening identification with this machine (HBM). The trick is in looking at, "Where do I have my focus?"

Listed below are a few easy-access tools I use to upscale.

1) Theater -- Bring a character to life. Using self-observation, you can see which of your attitudes and attachments are obstacles to adopting the manifestation of a character as painted by the author. When applying to my life, I am the so-called author. So I should be able to choose to manifest the character who is considerate and courteous in the current situation.

To practice this skill, one can participate in activities like Sci-Fi Radio Theater. A playful way to loosen the bonds with the machine's most cherished self-image is to work with a group to bring a story to life, whether on a stage, or in a recording studio, or in Zoom.

2) The Doorway Exercise, as given in the Labyrinth Readers Course. Everytime you walk through the designated doorways, say to yourself, "I remember myself as the Voyager whose deepest nature is the Clear Light itself." (Excerpt from "The Clear Light Prayer" -- see the bottom of the page on theclearlight website.) The act of remembering your true nature and the repetition of doing the exercise makes this an effective tool for upscaling.

3) Performing a reading for a Voyager from the American Book of the Dead (ABD). (Hear E.J. read all the chambers of the ABD in the LRS Readers Godd Orb found on the urthgame website.)

When reading, you are dedicating yourself to being of service to a Being. And the efforts required to deliver the instructions banish the machine's dominance, allowing one to upscale and operate on a higher platform.

4) Red-Faced Donkey Exercise as described in Practical Work on Self by E.J. Gold. I have adopted this practice in relation to learning to play the guitar and sing. A fine way to disturb my precious vanity in front of others. With continued efforts, there may be freedom down the road.

5) Getting used to other-than-human life forms. Recently, E.J. made this suggestion, and fortunately, we have an easy way to do this. Go to the Second LIfe Market Place and obtain a furry creature avatar. Then put on your new avatar in the Prosperity Virtual Ashram. Vettizon is trying out a lion from the Library section of her inventory.

6) The mantra for "Invocation of Presence" as conveyed in the title of the book. Using this specific, very direct, method to attract one's presence into one's body, this tool is very effective at banishing all those work energy draining reactions of the machine.

I combine all of the above efforts with the aim of accumulating time and experience outside the bounds of machine domination, just as a student pilot in training works to acquire hours of flight time in the air. E.J. has always recommended "to hang in there" because it's a wind and water method we are involved in.

WHAT REALLY MATTERS?

by Michele Marie

If you were going to die today, what are the things you would most regret not having done or said? Maybe there is something you really want to finish with your family? Maybe there is something or someone precious in your life you haven't taken time to connect with? We put others and things on hold, assuming we will have a tomorrow.

Life is shorter than we think. In taking time to reflect and write out the things you would most regret should you die today, you might make room to do the things that matter most. Let your most important values and your most important work wish guide you each moment.

"Learn to use each hour to the fullest possible profit. Write a detailed plan for your last hour of life. By this little exercise, you will be forced to sink your roots of mentation deeply into the whole question of real value of life as a prisoner in the human biological machine just to understand how to die."

E.J.Gold, Practical Work On Self, chapter 24, The Last Hour of Life p184

Photomontage by Christiane Wolters

WHEN YOU'RE TRAPPED IN THE MACHINE

by Jewel McInroy

"You really have so little choice - so little to decide. You get put through the machine and it chops you up and spits you out. Your life, it's all mechanical, of the machine, until you have free will. You can't be accepted into the Work until you have matured -- freed yourself, and take responsibility for your life, become accountable for your every action. It's not just from coming to a school. It's an active process - you have to take the responsibility for yourself. When you're trapped in the machine, it doesn't matter what you do". E.J. Gold

CAMERA MODE

by Nishit Gajjar

"You -- the real you -- exist solely as a source of attention and presence, beyond all action and involvement with the turbulent flow of biological life -- itself just a secondary manifestation of localized field-effect probability and indeterminacy -- all around you." E.J. Gold

From time to time, the Universe bestows its blessings and throws one into an unknown or, I would say, relatively new modes of existence itself. By the time one settles in a mode, the new mode is already being hurled towards the individual, and thus, there is hardly any time to settle or relax in a specific mode. One such recent scenario yielded an intense mode for me. Suddenly the machine was left on its own and lost "control" over the normal affairs of day-to-day life. So, there were no machine feelings, machine emotions, and machine sensations. No thoughts, no movement, no talking, no doing, no books, no digital world, no connection with gadgets, no music and no entertainment. Nothing! But there was only one active thing and I would call that "Camera Mode." Albeit without a recording button. Just the viewfinder, which sees 320°. Typically, our machine does all the gimmicks, exercises and has to put in a lot of efforts (or some effort) to gain or activate that Camera Mode for it to work effortlessly. As we are not acquainted with that mode of existence 24x7. But over here, it got triggered by itself without any effort on behalf of the machine. And it stayed for a long time"¦

No feelings, no emotions, no sensations. Just a beacon of Attention. No thoughts, no movement, no talking, no judging, no doing, no books, no digital world, no connection with gadgets, no music and no entertainment. No impulse. Nothing! Just a beacon of Attention"¦

That active Attention brought the Being closer to the edge of the horizon while the machine was gasping for air. And, the machine felt and complained, "This is it for me"¦!"

Well, eventually the machine got partially active. Slow movements, talking, doing, reading books, interaction with digital world, gadgets, music, entertainment, everything is back in action albeit slowly. But the beacon of Attention, i.e. the "Camera Mode", is active, too, and not recording much of the information. The mode fades, but the intensity is different now"¦

As Aeschylus said, "There is an advantage in the wisdom won from pain."

Nishit Gajjar (NG)