Someone asked me if Vernon Howard taught meditation. The answer is no. I don’t remember him ever leading a meditation. The Work, which he taught, is more about awakening to your true nature, rather than trying to escape into silence. Having said that, he also said that the kingdom of heaven is the space between two thoughts.

Vernon was teaching classes on the Work of Gurdijeff and Ouspensky long before there were popularizers of advaita online. He was not a fan of technical progress and was never online to my knowledge. Now he is on YouTube, scaring people off just like in the good old days. I will say this, if you are on a wavelength with him, you will know it.

I carry some of his energy and at least two people have testified to feeling like they were “fried” by contact with me. One man came to the house and called me after he left. “You can transmit,” he said. “Yeah,” was my reply, “after you left 3 transformers went out.” But that doesn’t wake people up. It just demonstrates that energy is attracted to energy. Like attracts like.

Vernon told the class that if anyone was on the telephone with him and said something critical about him, they would feel a shock through the phone line. My mystical friend, Shelley, said that when I told her that I dreamt of Vernon giving me a charge, she almost threw the phone across the room because she couldn’t stand the power.

But back to what Vernon taught and didn’t. He apparently was cynical of people meditating when they had better things to do, like being aware of their thoughts and feelings and how punishing they were.

Someone asked why he didn’t talk about peace and light. His answer? Because you wouldn’t know what I was talking about. You gotta love a teacher like that. One that will not put up with your sickness, staleness and argumentative intellect. He made you walk the walk and most of us were wobblers.

Vicki Woodyard