In Yoke

My work as a technology company sales engineer, consultant, and manager has been greatly improved, augmented and complemented by our alliance and association with the folks at Clearview, the group of former Arthur Andersen, EDS, ACS,  and Accenture consultants who have built the Waco Internet Technology Gateway in Waco. This is the datacenter where we now maintain our offices in Downtown Waco. One thing I appreciate so much and have made part of my work day, and sales discipline—is taking painstaking time to prepare—especially for prospect presentations. The guys who have spent their careers as consultants know that this is very much a Best Practice. Now, when we are seeking to make a presentation to a client, or prospect, or even to have a discovery meeting to work on building a relationship, my work mate Josh and I make sure we rehearse that meeting, carefully scripting the message, carefully wording the ideas, the thought processes behind our solution or project plans. What ...

The wine of life is oozing drop by drop, The leaves of life are falling one by one.   – Omar Khayyam Easwaran muses: Like leaves, we come into this life, are here for a few days, and then are gone. Nobody remembers us, and nobody misses us. As long as we believe that we are separate, we inevitably have to die. Our immortality is in the whole, which never dies. In living just for personal profit and pleasure, no matter under what philosophical name we may call it, our real personality withers away. It cannot be otherwise. When you become aware that you are not a leaf but the tree , something amazing happens in your life: you are able to act spontaneously, almost effortlessly, for the good of all. This is the proof of your awareness that you are the tree: everywhere it will motivate you, everywhere you will see what contribution you can make. You won’t have to deliberate the pros and cons. You won’t need a computer to provide you with a plan of action. You will kn...

My life is an indivisible whole, and all my attitudes run into one another; and they all have their rise in my insatiable love for mankind.        ---Mahatma Gandhi We should be able to make all sorts of graceful concessions on things that do not matter in life and yet stand unshakable on essentials.  To do this, we have to be detached from our opinions. I'm not recommending that we be wishy-washy, or lack strength in our convictions, but that we cultivate the forbearance not to force our opinions on others. When we have strength of conviction we will not get rattled when people question or contradict us. Mahatma Gandhi, for example, was not in favor of tea or coffee, but he would make a cup of tea for his wife each morning just the way she liked it.  This is bending gracefully on nonessentials. When it came to essentials, however, Gandhi was unshakable. His dedication to nonviolence was so absolute that he would abruptly call off a successful nationwide program of noncooperation w...

On the one hand I felt the call of God; on the other, I continued to follow the world. All the things of God gave me great pleasure, but I was held captive by those of the world. I might have been said to be trying to reconcile these two extremes, to bring contraries together: the spiritual life on the one hand and worldly satisfactions,pleasures, and pastimes on the other. ----Saint Teresa of Avila Saint Teresa of Avila was a remarkably spiritual woman. Even as a girl she could say passionately, "I want something that will last forever!" Yet this woman who was to become one of the world's greatest mystics went through twenty years of doubt and struggle before becoming "established" in God. If Teresa took twenty years, can people like you and me think of doing it in less? Her words can inspire all of us, for everyone begins with d...

Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make use of a very small portion of their possible consciousness, and of their soul's resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole bodily organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger.-William James Eswaran proposes: "We think we are very limited creatures, very small, good for maybe only fifteen minutes of love or patience before we   have to crack. Instead of identifying with our deepest Self, we are identifying with some biochemical-mental organism. But when you calm the mind in meditation every morning, you will see how far you can stretch your patience and your love   during the day. You will see for yourself how comfortable you feel with everybody, how secure you feel wherever you   go. You will find that you have a quiet sense of being equal to difficult situations.   These discoveries give a hin...