Memo to Myself:

Stop trying so hard!

Yeah, I plead guilty to thinking that if I just tried harder to understand, I could be enlightened. Or that if I got lucky, I could have “an experience” to talk about to others that were still struggling.

I don’t think it works that way because the so-called “others” cannot learn what cannot be taught!

Oh, I have been talking to people via these essays for almost two decades now. And just this morning I felt overwhelmed with ignorance when I woke up. The angst inside is implanted too deeply to be removed by the mind’s efforts to transcend what cannot be transcended.

Vernon Howard told his students this but they just didn’t believe him. After all, he did talk about the True Self. What he never mentioned was his own state of mind. We had to assume that it was ideal. I doubt it. I truly doubt it. His secretary died just as she lived.

Confounded by the whole mess of this life. She struggled after his death. She didn’t enjoy living in a rustic cabin in the mountains. She didn’t enjoy how hard she worked to keep his message alive.

And I know, without using words, that those that gather students around them to hear discourses on awakening, are just as human as anyone else. And being human can really suck and on a daily basis.

I am lucky to have a quiet home in which I can sit alone and meditate. Yet I still have my problems. I worshiped a teacher in Australia that was part of a cult! Now in his death, he is held in disgrace and I wonder why I never figured it out. I loved him because my mother did.

So back to the memo. The main message to myself these days is that “You can get through it but only one day at a time and there will be no earthly rewards for sticking around, so lighten up, Vicki, lighten up. Don’t let anyone online sell you on how enlightened they are. The world is a mess and so are they. That’s how it goes, everybody knows. (Sing along if you know the words.)

Vicki Woodyard