Join us today at 5:00 PDT for Science Fiction Radio Theater Workshop at the new Gorby’s Place in the Dark Mall (PVA). As we assemble to read and visualize a scifi story -- the method through which we offer hospitality to the Work -- recognize that one does not need the mind. Engaging attention and holding fast to the discipline “my habits will carry me through” provides the tools needed for our aim. Within this context of bringing the story to life, we can train to function irrespective of the compulsion to construct thoughts and judgements. We have the opportunity to build the habit of working with phenomena, bringing it to life and yet be independent and unattached to the content as it unfolds -- indifferent to its very existence. Let’s look at the excerpt below from The Six Dimensions from the American Book of the Dead (ABD) to reinforce our feeling of necessity for developing this habit of nonidentification with phenomena and operating in spite of the mind ceasing to function. “My mind has ceased to function as it should, and my ordinary logic center has stopped working. I can no longer believe the reality of the planetary world because I see behind it now, and I know what makes it tick. But I don’t know what to do, how to function, without the organic intellectual functions of the mind. I reassure myself: ‘Yes, I still have thoughts. Some part of my mind must still be functioning.’ “I become unsure of my mind, doubting its capacity to maintain itself, its ability to hold on to the structure of the ego. The surroundings become unreal and flat. I am only able now to relate to what’s happening through feelings of like and dislike. This eventually gives way to a state of high indifference about it all. I give up trying to fight to hold on or to direct it, and I become fey and careless. I’m not doing it -- it’s doing me, so I might as well give up and let it happen. “This passes quickly, but the guide has meanwhile had time to begin moving me toward an orientation point in the first stage of movement in the macrodimensional domains that I encounter during this phase of the labyrinth voyage, a point which I have always called ‘Home’. This is the safe space, and once I get there I know it will be all right. I feel that I can’t get there in time. I ask the guide to hurry before it’s too late. The guide tells me that I am going there as fast as it’s possible to go. The sensation and impression of travel is actually the passage of the sequence of events in this first stage, and so it takes a certain definite amount of time before I arrive at the safe space, ‘Home’. “Everything and everyone in the surroundings is going flat. The whole existence has taken on the quality of forms within a dream, and I have realized that I am now in the dream. Everything is preplanned and preprogrammed according to an unchangeable script. I now see life as only a mechanical machine without meaning and significance. It was empty all this time; there was never anything there. None of it was ever real. All the parts were played by mechanical puppets. I was the only one in the drama, and I’m the only one who will ever be in the drama. I feel terror at the fakeness of it all. But I’m sure that I’m real and that the guide is real. And I’m headed for the only place that I’m sure will remain real even when everything else goes. But what’s taking so long? Could the guide have become lost? He had better hurry! It’s happening faster now.” Getting in touch with “I feel terror at the fakeness of it all” can act as a strong motivation for intentionally working with a fake scripted situation, putting attention on it to voluntarily bring it to life, yet remaining unidentified with the scenario to develop as a habit the posture of “real I” separate from all phenomena. And with these consistent efforts in this space one may find that this posture translates to one’s life in the broader sense of it. “All phenomena is illusion” may become personal experience personally experienced. Holding this clearly as our aim, let’s continue with the first story today The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag by John Riverside. The cast of characters: Narrator - Rocky, Jonathan Hoag - Muspelspark, Cynthia Craig Randall - Starananda, Mr. Edward Randall (Teddy) - Grokkey, Taxi Driver - Lost Horizon, Elevator Boy - Loralilah, Mr. Phipps (man in mirror) - Llara34, R. Jefferson Stoles (Chairman of the Board) - Lost Horizon, Mr. Townsend - Bill Who. The second story for today -- Skulking Permit by Robert Sheckley. The cast of characters are the Narrator - Llara34; the mayor - Rocky; Billy Painter, Jane Farmer, Big George Waterman, 3rd voice at the night market, skeegee nuts voice - Starananda; Ed Weaver, Jed Farmer, Alice Cook, Richie Farmer, 1st voice at the night market, 1st someone, girl giggling hysterically, Anonymous sarcastic voice of agreement, Mrs. Ed Beer - Loralilah; Sid Carpenter, Mar Carpenter, Ed Beer, 2nd someone, water jug voice, Anonymous supporter, Mr. Grent - Kemuel; Mary Waterman, Max Weaver, 2nd voice at the night market, Mrs. Miller, Anonymous voice to the boy, Jeff Hern, angry voice from Interstellar Radio/ Inspector Delumaine - auntiematter; Tom Fisher, Stern voice from the Interstellar Radio - Muspelspark. The third story we’ll begin is The Indefatigable Frog by Philip K. Dick with the cast of as Narrator -- Rocky, Professor Hardy – Llara34, Professor Grote -- Starananda, Dean – Loralilah, Pitner – Lost Horizon, Student – Billwh0. See you at Gorby’s Place in the Dark Mall on the Prosperity Virtual Ashram --maps.secondlife/secondlife/Prosperity%20Wharftown/154/99/3202 Photo © 1996 Heidelberg Editions International original charcoal by E.J. Gold.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 19:17:09 +0000
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