Another day being Vicki, thank God the Self is running in the background. You see, Vicki is the one that is continually finding herself in a jam. It is not the Self that suffers!

Once you see this, you can fall back into the arms of the Self in every circumstance. How does this work? Yesterday Vicki made some soup for a neighbor who had just had surgery. She has made it often and it is delicious. But making it for someone else caused her to mess it up. It just didn’t taste as it good.

At some point, Vicki gave up, but not before suffering at the hands of herself. It was then that she gave up and let God handle something she couldn’t handle. Her brother has chosen hospice and she wept a bit about that. She knows that she had no choice but to cry.

Those three paragraphs describe every ego’s failure to maintain control. Vernon Howard used to say that there is no controller. Everything just happens. All true teachers say that and it is ironic that every human being knows it.

Today in America, a decline in democracy is just happening. Despite the best efforts of the Democratic Party, autocracy is winning. This is called fate. Trying or not trying has nothing to do with anything.

If I am doing my inner work, I am able to let go as often as I can remember to do so. Life as a personality is nothing but pain. We may win small victories, but that is just a karmic thing. At best, we are microscopic fish in a macroscopic bowl.

Okay, okay, what’s love got to do with it? It is the soul the loves, not the ego. Those nine words say it all. Love yourself for not loving yourself. Irony and paradox prevail as long as we strive to be who we can never be. Love is always enough. Start with yourself. Stay with yourself as often as you can. Love will find a way home and the ego is nothing but a roadblock.

Vicki Woodyard