The water that runs through our inner temple is the elemental will to live. We all, if only in our deepest darkest parts, have the idea that “I don’t want to die.” This spirit wells up through our inner temple and either flows out to its proper founts to be received and used as necessary, or it floods the temple floor and mars all the sacred writings making any wisdom a moot point.

That may not even refer to just the physical self, right? Yes, even the spiritual self doesn’t want to die. This is why some people age gracefully. They distinguish between body and genuine life.

Maybe it should be I don’t want to suffer. I don’t want my dignity to die. You do want to suffer, and you do want your dignity to die. The original meaning of the word suffer meant to receive or endure, and you do want to have life experiences, yes? And you do want your dignity to die, because your dignity is why you are ashamed of yourself, and you wish desperately that you would be free of this shame, no? Your dignity is a false god. You don’t want dignity, you want a cookie. You don’t want dignity, you want to sit and cry. Do children care about dignity? They want to feel well. Has your dignity ever made you feel well? At most, I wager it’s made you feel numb. Heroin chic for the ego, and it is the substance that properly should take that role.

You can have love or dignity. I strongly suggest love.

The more people adore you, the less you need your dignity. The more they dislike you, the more you need your dignity. Excellent, but how to adore one who adores nothing? Adoration comes first, and ultimately last. For all the interviews they have done of the dying, they never wished they had kept their dignity. They all wished they had done more of what they loved.

Puppies and kittens are adorable because they adore you. Indeed, so do young children. For them, there is nothing twisted. They can’t twist it. Our cat Daemon absolutely adores my wife when she holds him and gives him a scritch under the chin or between the ears, no holding back, no doubt, just pure joy.

You can feel if your spiritual temple is marred. You will feel strain, unease, strife. I mean strife, not tension. Life is filled with tension, and tension often precedes ecstasy. Your inner temple will feel like fight club more than a sacred place of meditation, and you will feel like you are forever bleeding. But this is easily fixed.

Get your temple straight, put the focus of your adoration back in order, and keep your sacred way with full faith. Your life is your ritual enacted in your inner temple. When your temple is allowed to be the temple of art or knowledge or even passion that it is meant to be, what strife could you really know?

Now for the flip side, temples don’t have to be serene chapels of light. For some, the fight club is sacred. For some, their inner fire is fed by being attuned to challenge, even opposition. They can be artists of conflict, and by conflict I don’t mean violence. When any temple becomes too static, too lifeless, cut off from the bigger spirit around it, the offering made by a priest of conflict is exactly that. It looks like destruction but can be restoration if this person is wise. So the path of temples is broad, and all may find room for expressing their adoration. You just have to remember we are all living together.

So as I tend to like to give a tool for practice whenever I do these talks, ask yourself this. What is my heart consecrated to?

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~