I am sitting in my great room and the October sun is illuminating every object that it touches. It is a wonderland of light.

My writing is a light as well. As Surajit as said to me, “You dip your pen in your sorrows and you write. Your words have become Buddha to wed the earth.”

Sorrow has indeed come to visit me more frequently than to most. I have been forced inward and found an open door into the world of Truth. I can sit and visit it and never tire of what I find.

Simplicity is a powerful key and it touches both the inner and the outer.

Be still and know that the “I am” is god.

Let everything evaporate into the silence.

Then the light touches everything inside as well as outside.

Power is yours.

Strength is yours.

Peace is yours.

Of course sorrow will visit frequently. Earthly joys are tinged with it. The old order changeth, as the old saying goes.

Befriend sorrow or it will run you ragged looking for joy.

Sorrow and joy are brother and sister.

Peace, be still.

Vicki Woodyard

Renewal

There is only one way to true renewal; you must know consciously how terrified you are. This terror is a genetic inheritance and we will go to any lengths to cover it up.

Mine was easily discerned; I had agoraphobia for decades and I did everything I could to avoid socializing with people. (I still avoid it but now know it is because my True Self is not into socializing!) It is the False Self that I trot out to prevent discovery.

If you are wondering what would be discovered about me, it is the same thing that would be discovered about everyone; we are playing false because we are afraid of being found out. It would be found out that behind the facade lurks our basic TERROR of being found out. The ego is a fraud fostered by society. Once you see this, you might say that seeing is freeing.

At Vernon Howard’s school, he had everyone wondering how long they could keep up the facade in the face of truth. He overburdened all of us so that it was impossible to lie easily about how okay we were. Gone was the usual social veneer. In fact, students that had been there for a while almost hazed the visitors by ignoring them, putting their work on them and them skipping away. (This infuriated me.)

Vernon watched it all and occasionally he would admonish the students for their behavior while letting the new students know that he knew what they were going through.

He often talked about the Showcase Personality that must be discarded in favor of being totally vulnerable. I did a lot of crying when I was there. I was indignant about how rudely I was treated by the older students. This was not Sunday school where everyone puts on their best false face; it was an esoteric school hiding in plain sight.

Only the Truth is real. Now I go back and read the book of John in the New Testament and see how closely The Work is addressing the ancient issues of mankind. Jesus is still speaking to the inner man or woman. The Truth never fails; it is we that do.

How does renewal happen? It happens when we drop our falseness and dare to feel the depth of the pain that we are in. This pain happens because we are living on the intellectual level and have suppressed the truth so that we can play false to society.

Time to be truly renewed. Confession is healing. You are never asked to confess to anyone directly. You are only asked to confess to your Higher Self, which is always listening.

Vicki Woodyard

In all things the truth resides, but it is a long and hard journey to reach it. The chattering monkey mind would have you believe in it rather than the truth.

That is the situation, as Vernon Howard called it, and the solution is to know the situation so thoroughly that you can admit that you have fallen from grace.

Without repentance grace cannot enter the picture. And the world is an out picturing of your thoughts.

I try and sit silently after breakfast and always, always, my mind wants to natter on about any number of things. It wants me to “try and figure things out.” What a joke, and yet I fall for it.

Vicki is a fraud. Oh, the spirit of truth is inside her, but fear blocks it again and again and again.

Who is writing these notes?

I am.

Vicki is prevented from interfering with God. And thank God for that.

Straight is the way and narrow is the gate and Vicki cannot get through.

The path is a path of crucifixion.

Die before you die. That is right order.

Vicki is nothing but thoughts in the desert of the mind.

Who knows that?

Not Vicki.

Vicki Woodyard

Words have been my thing; I was born being good at them. As I have grown old, I realize that words are not THE thing. Then what is?

There is no good answer to that question, for questions involve answers and answers involve words. What a conundrum we find ourselves in.

Thank God the soul knows without questions or answers.

Silence is where we gather up all of our problems and surrender them.

The Void is where we now live our life. “Rest in the Void. The Void takes care of its own.”

How do I rest when I am agitated? Such questions lead to restlessness.

Restlessness can be emptied into the Void.

Decades have gone by in which I have studied truth with no clear-cut results.

Results are the result of being mental instead of spiritual.

Drop yourself down into the Void and rest with no idea of what will result.

Compassion lives in the depths of silence.

Vicki Woodyard

There is no free will on the human level; everything is simply happening in the only way it can happen.

Grief and loss happen and we are desperate to control them out of our lives. Nevertheless, there is no free will.

Lack of control happens and we certainly can lay no claim to have control of this.

The mills of the gods grind exceedingly fine. So goes the old statement. In other words, justice happens, but on a far higher level than we know anything about.

Is life hopeless? Only as long as we feel we are entitled to control. Once we surrender, a sigh of relief should be experienced.

Hope is now placed in higher hands than our desperate attempts to achieve control.

Gratitude may arise as we let go and let God. Or it may not. Both are out of our control.

Life is intricately connected and we need not know the how or the why. It just is.

I am grateful to be writing to you and yet the persona is not the Self

The Self runs our lives in imperceivable ways.

Rejoice for now we can all be set free.

Life is throbbing in your chest right now.

Let it be.

Vicki Woodyard

I woke up this morning having slept unusually well last night. I had a big dream. It was not a rational dream; rather it was all about the irrational. These were the bullet items:

Our old dog Bonnie was dying. This was the family dog before I married and moved away. I sat with her for a very long time, just mourning her weakened condition (she was just a pile of bones) All I did was sit with my own compassion for her and at the end of this long period, she came back to life, was fleshed out in front of my eyes.

Bob was still sick and we needed to buy a new mattress. Then the dream scene changed and we were with Bob’s oncologist, Perry. In real life, he retired at age 65 and is now traveling the world. He is divorced and the last I heard he was traveling with his sister to exotic places.

In the dream he was very excited about his new passion. Seems he had met a man who had written a book about possibility. Now he and his wife were both into the new concepts the man was teaching.

I listened with great interest while Bob acted in a very embarrassing way to me. He was making fun of what Perry said while I was deeply interested. Perry said if we dropped by our old Cancer Center, he believed we could get a copy of the man’s book there.

I said that the Director was alienating people by her attitude. Perry said that people were coming back now.

Perry continued to talk about the things he learned from this author. He had spent ten hours on a flight to Viet Nam and although the flight was hard, the trip was well worth the long flight.

Perry said he had always been interested in off-the-wall things like this man was writing about. I remember Perry saying something to the effect that if you took some sort of a bag with you, you could put your head in it and discover these amazing things that you never thought of before.

So we dropped by the Cancer Center and I only recognized one person, a Facilitator there. I asked about getting the book and was given only a very slim pamphlet. I knew the book was big, so I wanted to get the whole book and they said I could order it.

Now I remember another snippet from the dream. We were out of dog food so I sent our son to get some more. He was gone a long time but only came back with bird seed. I was annoyed but he explained that it was a logical decision. He could feed the bird and somehow by doing so, he could then get the dog some food.

It was indeed a big dream about the possibility of change and I am so glad I remember it even in fragments. You know me; I am seeing all sorts of new possibilities and am grateful for the dream. Why? Because it points to the reconciliation of the opposites and what can happen after you rise above the mind. Not in an intellectual way but in a healing way.

Vicki Woodyard

I have had few friends this lifetime. My best friend was from Germany and we were fast friends for ten years. And then the unthinkable happened. My 7 year-old died and I could not carry on a friendship built on cheerfulness. I tried, I really tried, but her sunny smile seemed to make my grief only worse. Her cheer was real, though; and she grieved with me. It was she and her husband that flew little Laurie to Philadelphia to visit the Shrine of St. John Neumann.

She died despite them praying for a miraculous cure, and I withdrew into myself. Fast forward over forty years. She and her husband are living with one of their sons in Santa Fe. The last time we talked to each other was when Bob was dying. She offered their home as respite for me in my exhaustion, but I preferred solitude.

Being an introvert, I have never craved much company anyway. Our friendship was a youthful and untried one. I will always feel bad for not keeping up the relationship, but by then I had learned to honor myself instead of playing false.

Vernon Howard said this: “Friendship with the world is enmity against God.” And I totally get it. Awakening is not about going to church; it is about going within. Once you set out on your true journey home, it grows clearer and clearer what he meant.

I share myself through these writings; other than that, my only friend in real time is seeing her husband through the last stages of Alzheimer’s. The last time I saw her was about two months ago, when she visited us for lunch.

I have learned little during these decades of studying truth and most of it is negative. I see how we play false to friends in order to keep up the facade of friendship.

Those who read my essays are likely introverted themselves; I like to think we understand each other.

Energy is accumulated as we study esoterically. It is foolishness to waste it on empty socializing. I am sure a few of you get me and will agree. If you disagree, that’s okay; I just know what I know. Take what you want and pay for it, as the old saying goes.

God is the true Friend and He lies within the heart. Amen.

Vicki Woodyard

My heart is made of lead. Six words of truth. It can be no other way as long as I am in a human body.

I always try to avoid the pitfalls of this world, but since they are inside of me, that is an impossibility.

So my life is a struggle between how I feel and how I act. I am always struggling and I want you to feel it as your own.

Vernon Howard was an unlikable teacher yet we loved him. He, as he said, painted us into a corner so we would grow so tried of struggling that we would fall down and weep. That is what it takes, he said.

I have avoided truth because that is how human beings are constructed.

The avoidance is the punishment we inflict upon ourselves.

The only coping mechanism I have is being a perfectionist and a quitter.

I have written some pretty good essays but they count for nothing as far as my soul is concerned.

Here’s the contract between me and God. I have to become a prodigal daughter and stand in my rags before my father with a capital “F.”

He does not put a capital “L” on my head for being a loser.

He welcomes me home.

I am a modern version, a walking example, of someone who constantly forgets that she is forgiven.

The weight of sorrow can be lifted, but not before I see how impossible it is for me to continue on my own.

Surrender is my only option and then the shadow is of my Father in Heaven. He is always there for time is one of the greatest of illusions.

I am on my knees before the love I cannot understand.

Vicki Woodyard

There is something that is not talked about enough on the journey to enlightenment.There are two selves in every person. They are the True Self and the False Self. The True Self is your essence, while the False Self is your personality formed to protect yourself from the world.

When you study your emotional reactions and rote behaviors, it is then that you see that you are always running scared. You are not taught this in any school. It is up to you to study yourself.

The results of this self-study are always the same. You uncover your hidden emotions and useless attempts to keep people from judging you.

We are mechanical human beings, puppets in an everlasting show.

Jesus talks about this a great deal and points to what needs to happen. He said that we need to be born again. Today we would say that he was talking about essence versus personality.

The Buddha also talks about it, as do countless sages.

I am now going to tell you how to verify that you are split right down the middle. First vow that you will witness your behavior when you are with other people. This will show you what a coward you are. No judgement, just observation.

You are cowardly because you already SEE that other people are just like you. Fake smiles, fake words, fake life.

The one who sees this IS the True Self!

So how do you feel about other people? I will tell you how you feel about them. You judge them.

The judge in you is the False Self; that is until you can judge righteous judgement. That comes a lot later.

The Book of John in the New Testament is where you can go to feel true comfort and encouragement. “In my Father’s House are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you.”

The place can be prepared and is prepared, every time you study yourself and how you play false in order to protect yourself.

Write down what strikes you in John. Ask yourself if you are currently true to yourself or if you’re just playing a role, hiding out from the Truth. You know the answer to that.

Vicki Woodyard

Life on the planet is becoming riskier and riskier. Conditions are crowded and the destitute are seeking asylum. Just today another load of immigrants was dropped off near the Vice President’s house. They are in need of jobs to feed their families.

The outer mirrors the inner, as spiritual students know. Inside of us are immigrants needing asylum. “I was hungry and ye fed me.” I don’t remember where that Bible verse came from, but it seems to apply.

Joel Goldsmith taught us that the secret of supply arises from within. But babies do not know this; they just know their hunger. Those of us steeped in inner work should be doing it all day long.

In Ukraine the people are suffering and we must do our inner work. In Russia the citizens are in dire straits and we must do our inner work.

My neighbor is going into surgery today and I must do my inner work.

Are you getting the picture?

Your inner work matters. It is a lifeline thrown out to the world.

Do it.

Vicki Woodyard