August, 2021 Bardo Buzz (03-08)

The Joy of Sacrifice

Secrets of the Sufi Way by E.J. Gold

THE SACRIFICE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Life of Incoherence

To make this sacrifice, one simply becomes like a babbling idiot, dressing and behaving so stupidly the he forgets his own grandmother and she wishes now to forget him also.

The Great Betrayal -- the moment at which the child decided that life was too complex to meet with the simple essence, and allowed outside influences to form a psyche, must now be found, met face to face, understood and absorbed.


to be continued...

THE MEDITATION OF LIFE

Barbara Haynes

Over thirty years ago I began a search for "something more" in my life. I read many, many books on meditation. I was taken with the

stories of enlightenment and merging into oneness. I attended many retreats, lectures and seminars. I spent several weeks in isolated meditation atop a beautiful mountain in Taos, New Mexico. But, it wasn't until I was introduced to the work of E.J. Gold that I found what I was looking for. It was a practical way. While the ideas, practices and meditations I had read about and experienced previously were useful, they didn't carry me through the day. The emphasis was on the time spent sitting in meditation. When I encountered E.J.'s Practical Work on Self, The Human Biological Machine as a Transformational Apparatus, Life In the Labyrinth, the American Book of the Dead, I was mesmerized with how they all pointed to the use of my life, my very existence, as a way to live consciously every day. I began to understand and to appreciate my life as the place to practice being present and paying attention. I could know myself in the interactions I had every day. Using the tools E.J. made available, I could observe my resistance, my fears, my judgment as they played out in my life. Self-observation did not stop after meditation on the zafu cushion, but continued throughout the day and illuminated the path. The tools I found then have served me well and continue to serve me each and every day. They are more refined and deeper than when I began, but the school has given me the tools I need to make my existence a Meditation of Life.

"Golden Girl"

by E.J. Gold

Available as a print on Arches Rives BFK 100% rag paper, 8" x 10" in a pencil signed and numbered edition of 50 with Certificate of Authenticity (COA).

MUSINGS OF A LABYRINTH READER

Marvette Kort

"Appearing Silent"

Appearing silent on the outer -- no social mask -- but active on the inner in one of the 12 following ways is a current work aim:

1) Blending with the Face of God
2) Embracing the negative manifestations of chat bots
3) Intentionally transforming my food into higher impressions -- I have nothing but myself with which to create the world, out of myself the world was made
4) Performing a moving meditation
5) Touching and blending with a rock momentarily
6) Sensing the confronting of the Clear Light as the mantra is intoned in my mind
7) Accessing a parallel world to acquire and utilize a skill while playing music on an instrument or creating a piece of jewelry
8) Maintaining a state of High Indifference
9) Parking the body
10) Preparing and cooking food with high attention
11) Invoking my presence
12) Appearing as a blank screen for displaying the viewers' projections

As I grow to be quiet outside more of my waking hours, this inner focus list could change. However, the aim to live conforming to "best Bardo practices" will remain the guiding criteria for the center of my attention.

From the song "The Alchemist Said" by Parker Dickson:

"Make the outer the inner and inner as outer,
Then make the two into one.
Be outerly passive and innerly active
And turn from the moon toward the sun."

From Gorby's Songbook

EASTER WORKSHOP

April 12, 2020
Excerpt by T. Jones

What To Do In Hell
by E.J. Gold

I can give you a fun idea, an easy way to create a song - just collect all the "bumper sticker" verbal gems you've heard about the subject, all the memes and themes and streams you can find on it, just a bunch of two, three or four-word slogans, is all you want.

Keep it simple, and stay away from fancy language - what I mean is, eschew didactic obfuscation, like you do in college.

So here's a list of quips about coronavirus. Consider them phrases in a folk song. That's just one song crafted from dozens of commonly used phrases relative to coronavirus, and you can come up with many dozens more, just with a few minutes on Google.

Of course, you can use those same catch phrases on eBay and in YouTube and anywhere you're on social media, but be careful. The best approach is to give helpful advice about coronavirus.

The fact that you can come and go as you're able is one of the key elements in my book of tricks related to how to live in Lockdown, and one way to stay creative and somewhat free of fear is to make up gags, jokes, cartoons, comics, songs, stories and anything you can come up with to HANDLE the fear, which reduces its grip on you. Handling fear doesn't mean making the fear go away. It means doing something creative with the fear. That's what I'm offering. (Check out song below:)

Shelter at Home, Shelter in Place,
Enjoy Lockdown Living, try living in space.

Put your mask on in public,
Epicenter outbreaks,
Let's Flatten the Curve
'Cause that's what it takes.

Social distance your neighbor,
Social distance your friends,
There is no telling when this Pandemic ends.

Wait for Fauci vaccine,
Try walking your dog.
No driving for fun now,
Just take a short walk.
Sitting in Quarantine.

Shut in at curfew,
No contact delivery will keep me from you.
Essential Delivery, Services too,
Stay out of churches and away from the zoo.

Do you have toilet paper at the grocery store?
Can I pick up some new masks at the old
hardware store?

The drug stores are open, the hospitals, too,
They're keeping the med centers open,
For me and for you.

The banks and gas stations are open today,
And so are the Pet shops, so your dog is okay.

There's misinformation, from Trump and his friends,
They're all quite impatient, for the slowdown to end.

So clean up your house now,
And study the clouds,
Make a few paper airplanes,
Practice reading aloud.

Do some painting and sculpture,
Watercolor a scene,
Draw something in graphite,
You know what I mean.

Ink and wash are a favorite,
Jewelry crafting is fun,
Meditation and the Movements
And processionals are fun.

Comedy workshops and classes on Zoom,
There are 100 Avatars,
So there's plenty of room!

Photomontage by Christiane Wolters

MENTATION - by E.J. Gold

Submitted by Michele Marie

"Mentation, like presence, has a definite sound which can be heard by those who are sensitive to it.
Why is it so important to learn mentation, the directing of thought?
Mentation is not an end-in-itself, and we are not interested in control or personal manipulation of self.
Of what use is mentation in this case? For everything we wish to accomplish in our work, we must first be able to mentate with the aim of deep understanding.
Mentation has many uses in the Work.
It is to the Work what the monkey wrench is to the mechanic.
Mentation can be said to be the artistic and proficient use of the mind, elevating the formative apparatus from an ordinary organ in which thoughts are processed to a real center in which presence can become active.
If you can learn to be director of your thoughts, some days you will be director of your moods, sensations, postures of various kinds, states, even your destiny.
Think of a man who has mastered some very skilled craft in which he has learned to combine finesse with ease.
Mentation is real thinking. An ordinary man only knows thinking by association.
To ponder we must bring force of collected attention.
Of course to make mentation, our pondering must be intentional.
Collected attention in relation to pondering makes mentation.

In ordinary pondering, we do not care what may happen and cannot direct our thoughts except in the most general way, and after only a few minutes, we forget our aim entirely.
To ponder means to ask questions until it becomes for you your centrum of gravity, your whole reason for existence for the time being.
With collected attention, we have only one state, but this state can change.
Now you perhaps can catch a glimpse of a possible future for self; if you learn to direct thought, mood and sensation. someday you will be able to direct your Being state.
This is the goal of all personal work.
When I mean "state", I mean the full potential of a moment, the whole scale of your present cosmic attention.

We learn mentation because we know that by this discipline we can learn something we can use some day to master higher ideas.
We know that presence makes Being, but Being no matter how high, can have states. If we cannot direct our states, it is no use to have Being.
To be able to direct our states, we need to have some understanding.
Mentation is just one example of many possible states of Being.
Mentation is a transpace ship which can transport us from one state to another,
from a lower state to a higher state, if we know how to fly it."

Practical Work on Self

Art by E.J. Gold Archangel Pharzuf " Resist-All"

MAKE TIME AND SPACE AND 3-D SPACE OBSOLETE - E.J. Gold

submitted by Jewel McInroy

"A game that you are playing is eternalizing the self. Topologically speaking (in 6 dimensions), you are only one-half of a man, still attention-wise connected to the dimensions of space (3-D) and time. Eternity does not mean extended existence in time, it means walking out of the whole game.

"Make time and 3-D space obsolete. In this way you will cheat death. You will experience life, death and rebirth, but you will be bigger than they are. You can incorporate them."

- E.J. Gold

THE LABYRINTH REVEALS WHO WE ARE

Nishit Gajjar

The labyrinth reveals who we are in a very particular way. It gently coaxes us into unknown lands where we are expected to function at our best, and where we are ruthlessly appraised for our overall shortcomings and aptitudes. It will happen that every once in a while we will find ourselves feeling stuck in a chamber or a strange morphology, and we'll feel the urge to shapeshift. Spaces open up and we experience vivid changes; objects take on an eerie luminosity; distances seem impossibly stretched, distorted. But how dare we think we're equipped for a fast lateral shapeshift across the sixth macrodimensional level so long as we remain in our present condition?

-E.J. Gold.