There is something missing in non-duality; I have long felt that. Too much emphasis on who you really are takes away the dire need to grow. And we are either growing or dying.

If you have lost a child, and that is my personal example, knowing you are the Self can never take away the personal love you had for that child or for the hole left in your life on earth. And we came into this earth plane to learn lessons. Make no mistake about that.

If I had not had a deep interest in the spiritual realm, I would not have survived the death of a small child. To stay here, I had to live out my purpose. I had a son to raise and a husband to continue to be a team with. It was dreadfully hard. We got through it day after day, decade after decade.

When I begin to write about my experiences on non-dual forums, I found a handful of understanding and grateful people. People that were suffering themselves. Suffering so much that denial was not possible.

But for the most part, female writers in the field of non-duality were overlooked. They were thought unimportant and insignificant. Now that the men of non-duality have taken up the banner of being real, the women are still considered not so important.

There is nothing to be done about this but to make a decision to stay or go. I chose to go. To do my own thing. And so I have, drawing a handful of readers around me that understand that impersonalizing one’s life is not the entire answer. One ends up glossing over so much real suffering.

I write daily essays. I do daily inner work. It is a hard long haul and I do it out of necessity and love. Both contribute to my being able to stay the course.

I have an ebook available. If you are interested, just make a small donation to my website and I will send it to you. It is essay after essay describing what efforts I have made to live and sink deep into the peace of who I really am. Not some perfect idealized being, but someone flawed and flopping around like a fish out of water.

Lately the witness has come to live with me. Like Swami Z in a book I wrote years ago, the witness has infinite compassion for me, the one that struggles with loss over a lifetime. My husband left this earth 13 years ago. In some faraway and infinitely close realm, he watches over me. He must yearn for me to go deeper, to show myself more and more mercy as my time here consumes itself until nothing is left but rebirth.

Read my ebook, but only if you are drawn to the truth of everyday life. There are no non-dual teachers hanging around in my life, but I do have a teacher named Theo that tells me that all if well. And for some reason, I believe him.

Vicki Woodyard
Donate to get the ebook, “The Edge of Enlightenment” here.