The Cold Turnkey

In fact, as you get into this practice, you may even find that you want to utilize techniques from Voice Dialogue to help you. You might even want to use techniques from Jungian therapy to help you. You see, each one of us has to find the keys that open our own doors. What I’m doing, and what I’m outlining, is cool. It works, and it helps. When I’m more integrated, and when I can bring my thirty-year-old into doing the mantra, it’s fantastic. The ideal is to leave nothing behindto run away from nothing. I end up manifesting Divine Radiance in my life.

I’m feeling all of that very deeply right now. It’s almost as though I’m feeling the radiance from the viewpoint of different ages simultaneously. Because that period of my life when I was thirty was very, very traumatic, I’m feeling that. But I’m also feeling another time, when I left high school and eloped. I’m feeling my radiance there. I also remember the first time I fell in love with a girl, and I’m feeling that. And that’s all happening for me at the same time, Sean, like those different voices in Voice Dialogue.

We could call this ‘Voice Dialogue with an attitude’, because what we’re doing is saying to each one of these, “How can I amplify your radiance, so that my voice becomes the chorus of all of you, integrated, in connection, and in communion with God?”

So there’s a chorus of voices from the past, and I’m doing my Deity Yoga Practice of the present with my dancing Shiva. That dancing Shiva has never left me, as you know. Since we started, it’s kept going. Now, with the chorus of voices, I feel the flames getting higher, taller, and more powerful. I have more ease, and I’m even more relaxed. You can open up to it. You can open up to create expression. See, the heat is a manifestation of Shiva’s expression. A manifestation of Divine Radiance is the transformation flame. Figuratively speaking, if the logs in a fireplace are my structure, and I’m putting more of me into it, of course it will burn hotter.

It becomes a song that you can sing. It doesn’t have to be structured. It doesn’t have to be Om Namo Shivaya. It can be, “Oh, how happy I am!” Ramananda loved creative prayer. He would say, “It’s very good to read somebody else’s prayer or to do a mantra… a couple of times.” He wanted me to sing the Song of Creation, but I can’t sing the Song of Creation if I’m constantly repeating somebody else’s words.

I’m not myself; I’m stressed and frustrated. I once boasted of longevity, but I now rush patience. The lust nature is another fight; a vice, another brawl. But God, help me to stand, I can’t face another fall. I’m like one who waits on their lover’s call. You know I’m near the phone, but why do I feel you stall? I know what Your able to do, but why won’t You move? In our relationship, am I out of place; out of the groove. Is there a reason why I’m so ashamed with cash issues. You’re financially overflowing, but I’m left to ask individuals. Here’s my struggle: a car repoed, job lost, it’s hard paying rent. I don’t cry about the economy, so why am I bent in a fetal position, confused, and uncontent. Lord, I don’t mean to be negative; I just had to vent. I’m needing strength.

www.originalpoetry.com/give-me-strength

strength:

Do you ever ponder the meaning of life? Why are we here? Perhaps these questions surface when we receive news we’d rather not receive, the passing of an uncle, a beloved aunt, a friend’s spouse who died for the wrong reason. I’m not sure I believe myself when I justify the news by saying this is the circle of life.

I don’t make a habit of reading the obituary columns in the newspaper but occasionally I read about strangers. Many have experienced a long and full life, contributed to society in a meaningful way, were visible within their community. I think how proud their family must be, I also imagine the hurt and grief they are experiencing. I read about the 42-year old father who has succumbed to cancer and leaves behind a wife and two children and I wonder how this is fair. My heart aches when I read about the young child tragically killed in an accident as my eyes fill with tears.

I’m no stranger to death. It scares me and I don’t deal well with it. I find death emotionally overwhelming. It is hurt, compassion, sadness, pain, empathy, love all rolled together that hits like a tsunami.

I’ve lost high school friends to accidents, drugs, and disease. I’ve seen first hand the impact on a family when their young daughter took her own life. Like so many others, I have said goodbye to relatives only after they have gone.

I don’t know why I’m so impacted by death. Its not that I think about it all the time. Maybe I subconsciously fear the loss of a parent, a sibling, a family member. Perhaps I’m selfish, a coward who doesn’t want to die.

Young people seldom think of death, they are to busy living life as if they are invincible. Old people tend to prepare for death and accept the event as a natural and inevitable occurrence. Experience and reality have tempered their emotions. The grief and hurt is still there, so is the reflection on the positive aspects of the individual’s life. For some, their biggest worry is if they will out live their friends, who will attend their funeral.

Maybe this aging process will help me to become less sensitive to the loss of not only those I love, but to those I have only read about in the newspaper. I am thankful my fear of death is more than offset by my passion for life. So it should be.

So where does this discussion of death take us? It could be to the end of a journey, or the beginning of a new one depending on your beliefs. If you were to have a tombstone, what would it read? Here we are back to the question, what is our mission, our purpose, our goal? One accolade might read, “Here lays an honest person who cared about the people around her, respected others and made a positive difference in the lives of everyone she encountered.” If we envision how we want others to remember us, it might provide a valuable compass to aid us down the path of life.

In a perfect world, perhaps caring and understanding might extend well beyond our community and our country. Imagine a common bond based on a desire for truth, justice, peace, and mutual respect.

We can’t do a lot about death. We can very much impact life - our own and others.

Clayton Shold hangs his hat at SalesDialogue Systems Inc. a company committed to assisting sales professionals better understand how their internal conversations impact sales success. Learn more at http://www.salesdialogue.com