neelam.org | volunteer

Neelam's Invitation into Seva

January, 2011
Total play time: 8 minutes, 35 seconds.

Group Facilitation: Our Volunteers

In some of the longer programs with Neelam, there are scheduled evenings where everyone meets with a Program Facilitator who guides and supports the group in sharing and questions. We are pleased to introduce you to the following Program Facilitators.

Lee Byrd

I was lost for a long long time. I used to joke with family and friends, bragging that I had read every self-help book imaginable and still was as lost as ever! (read more, below)

Nina Gogenola

When I first met Neelam, her Presence answered a deep longing within my heart. To sit in Satsang was wonderful. Initially I had some expanded experiences, but grounding this awareness into the body and living from there just wasn't possible. Over time I have come to understand the impact of the past on my body/mind and I am learning to rest in Presence. (read more, below)

Amber Widom

I first met Neelam in the spring of 2000. She was sitting under a canopy of trees, surrounded by sparkling lights, flowers, and students. She glowed in the distance and when she glanced my way, a tremendous wave of energy, excitement and fear flooded through me. (read more, below)

. . . . .

Lee Byrd

I was lost for a long long time. I used to joke with family and friends, bragging that I had read every self-help book imaginable and still was as lost as ever! Craig (my husband, best friend and mentor) kept assuring me that if I just kept taking the steps forward a teacher would appear. Then one day someone urged me to go to Satsang with Neelam - I believe that was back in 2002. I had no idea who Neelam was or what she was saying then but there was an air of hope, a whispered promise of peace...it was as if my path had finally been illuminated.

After Satsang an announcement was made asking for "temporary" office help. I raised my hand and a week later I was hired. I had no clue what I was doing! Oh, I knew how to answer a phone, how to file and how to use a computer. But I had no idea, no awareness of this teaching. It was a job and Neelam was kind and compassionate. I felt then as I do now - very very fortunate!

Over these years I have learned to sit quietly and to simply allow the arisings. I have learned tender acceptance of self and of life as well as a growing understanding of who I really am. I have cultivated the skill of Inquiry, which has become a powerful tool, one that I use countless times a day to sort out life's misunderstandings.

Life happens. At every moment we have an opportunity to either give space to what is here or to fall prey to it. In choosing the latter, I create my own suffering and confusion. My work, my desire is to choose over and over again, the spaciousness of Presence.

My dedication is my loving gift back to this teacher that literally saved my life. Her devotion to her teachers and to the teaching, her constant vigilance in nudging me to know Truth and to rest in Presence, this opened my world, giving me the capacity and strength to simply be here every moment of every day. For this I am eternally grateful!

Nina Gogenola

I met Neelam and began volunteering in 2003. I quit my job for a mail-order catalog and went to work for Fire of Truth in 2006. Lee and Amber were managing FoTs. It was around that time that Neelam had to stop traveling to teach and moved to New Mexico. A group of us formed a team to develop and support the teleconference format.

I love Satsang with Neelam and place a high value on Sangha. Sangha offers me the comfort and support of others who are also in pursuit of Truth.

Now I work as a Hospice Chaplain and I see my needs for self-care and being lovingly and tenderly present. Neelam's adamancy about tenderness and compassion has supported me on my path.

Neelam teaches us that Presence is our Nature and that Presence is always available. She points us towards the direct experience of this Truth. With my commitment to and practice of self-inquiry, deep listening and silence, the realization of my true nature continues to deepen. The resonance of my heart compels me to be of service to Neelam and this lineage.

Amber Widom

I began volunteering for Neelam in 2002, after marrying my husband Bryce, and officially began working for Neelam in the spring of 2004. My son Koen was born in the spring of 2005, and my life took a drastic turn, from full-time work with Fire of Truth Satsanga to full time Mommy Amber! I continued to do very small amounts of seva for Neelam, mostly research, and attended Satsangs with Neelam when she was in town and participated in longer Colorado retreats, during which time another being came into my life, Mina Lotus, who was born in 2007.

Participating in programs with Neelam has provided me with a safe container and lengthened opportunity to delve into deep-seated patterns of conditioning that I could never really see, or let be here - really let be here - prior to these programs. It is here that I have truly realized that both the dark and light, the easy and difficult, the mundane and dramatic, the subtle and intense, the clean and messy, the wanted and unwanted, are welcome here, as they arise and fall in the substratum of existence, in Presence. I am beyond grateful to this lineage and forever in service to Divine Grace.

A bit more background: I am a trained dancer, dance teacher, yoga-lover, morning meditator, CMT, I attended Naropa University and the Art Institute of Colorado, I love art, music, performance, fashion, newborn babies, and black tea with cream and sugar, I like to organize things and get things done, I love to be in the house alone with nothing going on, I attend workshops and programs and read books about Presence, spirituality, community, and parenting, I am a housewife and Mother of two who loves to go on nature adventures (the mellow kind) with my family and I dig attending parties that allow me to dance all night.

And as Papaji always used to say, "May there be peace and love among all Beings of the Universe. Let there be Peace, Let there be Peace, Let there be Peace."