The Work is about witnessing the life you lead as a personality. It isn’t easy to do this because you want to change things for the better. This is how it goes. First you try and change your family. You meet immediate resistance, of course. And now you have to see how you really feel about things. You feel that you are the victim in a tragedy where everything is stacked against you.

This first stage can go on for years. But you have continued to study. Now your attention begins to be focussed on your own shortcomings. However, this focus leads you to years of guilt and self-recrimination. You have fallen into another trap.

When I began to study the Work as taught by Vernon Howard, things began to make sense and yet I was still stuck in the ego’s efforts to pull itself up by its own bootstraps. Vernon told us this would happen, but we had to realize it for ourselves.

As you know, this inner work will not let go of you. Why? Because it is the first real act of self-kindness you have ever known.

The words of Jesus now reveal their inner meanings to you. The parables are about you, right now!

That is why the Work is called esoteric Christianity.

We take one day at a time; we use the manna of the moment. Now the teachings are everywhere if you bother to look. You recognize them in other versions of truth. You see that Rumi knew, that Buddha knew, that countless others knew what Jesus did.

Jesus knew that the kingdom is within. And that leads one to the pearl of great price. Tag, you’re it!

And so you begin to feed yourself, to nourish the real Self and this protects it from the shabby imitations of those who do not know.

When you see that you do not know unless you look within to verify the teachings of others, you have become self-reliant.

Now the light is coming in through the cracks and your life has changed forever.

Oh, you will forget, but then you will remember again. And this goes on and on and on as more light comes in.

You can’t escape any of the steps up the stairway to heaven. And incidentally, first you must descend the steps of hell. Even Jesus did not escape that. This is not a game you play to accumulate points. It is the way home.

You discard your intellectual knowing for the heart’s wisdom. Selah.

Vicki Woodyard