“When you meet a man you cannot stand, it is almost always because you are the same as he is, only you have not become conscious of it.”
“Notice where you criticize someone else very strongly. You have to be able to bring up the same thing in yourself as you criticize in another person.
The magical side of self-observation is to give yourself a little time before you react to the incoming impressions.” ~Maurice Nicoll
The real “I am” cannot suffer mechanically; it can only suffer consciously. The mechanical suffering is useless. Conscious suffering is what the true path is about. Jesus died conscious. We can suffer consciously in small ways, but only when we remember ourselves. As Gurdjieff said, “Remember yourself always and everywhere.” This is not easily done by sleeping mankind.
A Clean Break
Is it possible to make a clean break from your body/mind and affirm that you are one with the Father?
Although human beings are weak and find this seems too hard to do, I am going to go as deep as possible into the statement that the Father and I are one.
When I read truth, whether in the Bible or somewhere else, I rise up to a higher state of awareness.
Then forgetfulness happens; we must not let that daunt us. We start all over again with the simplest of words, “I and my Father are one.”
Every time we affirm that, a load is lifted off of us.
Gratitude arises, as do our thoughts and feelings. They seem to be paper-thin, whereas the Word is strong.
Keep working on seeing the difference in how you feel when you turn everything over to the Father.
Vicki Woodyard
A Reprise from an Essay from 2022
This is the last day of the old year. And most of us are glad to let it go.
Plunge into the cold waters of reality; it is your only choice if you are trying to wake up, as I am.
There is no such thing as good or bad; there is only letting go.
There must be no questions about HOW to take the plunge.
Other people are in as much suffering as you are, so don’t ask them.
Don’t think, just sink!
Ah, this is what Jesus meant when he said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”
He died to his body/mind and rose the third day.
This is what eastern teachings tell us as well as western ones.
We cannot look to anyone to explain to us how miserable we are.
Just remember, they are suffering just like you are.
Your plunge into your own ego-death, what will it do for you?
It is of some consolation that you cannot die prematurely for destiny is in your own hands.
You will learn how to dive into cold, icy water again and again.
Hallelujah! Something survives, but it is not you.
I have felt so lonely today. January will do that to you. All the false cheer has evaporated and we are left with no expectations and nothing to look forward to except bedtime.
I am molting like a bird. There is a wide part in my hair now that is alarming to me. I am realizing that man is in big trouble. The gates to heaven are closing as God watches man do the Earth in. She simply cannot stand much more, can She?
I have been a student of the Way, but lately I have succumbed to chocolate and watching TV.
Vernon Howard would yell at me to get busy, but I can’t do “busy” well anymore.
I sit on the couch and watch TV. The essays are the birds in the air that fly down to comfort the odd person here and there. We are all lonely even if we have a warm nest and baby birds to feed.
I have an appointment to see an orthopedist about my sore heel. It’s probably a bone spur, like You Know Who has. I need to google the symptoms up.
I got out of the house to buy groceries with Rob and to get a chip in an old filling replaced. Then we had a lovely meal at Papadeux.
Today it has been wet and gloomy. I made some soup with tortellini in it and it was, as Rob said, “gamey.” I ate a bowl and put the rest in the disposal.
You guys all know what I call January and February….Jan-you-ugly and Feb-you-weary!
I have the soul of a writer and the mind of an introvert. I love going to bed at night at the end of a long lonely winter day.
Words are what I share with you, not ideas.
Ideas are intellectual and arid, aren’t they?
Pass the fudge, if you have any.
Vicki Woodyard
The discovery that you are a machine takes a long time of self-observation. As you do the Work, you will also discover your weaknesses. None of us have many strengths when it comes to how we react to things.
Some of us find the Work and always find it interesting. The world has never heard of it and that is a good thing. The Work is hidden within each of us.
The world is made up of mechanical men and women thinking that they are conscious. Just not so. But you must never show that you are working on yourself. That would be foolish and we are foolish enough already.
It’s all about the interior landscape and how it is constantly changing and how it is out of your control. No one wants to see this.
Vicki Woodyard
The Sanctuary of Your Solitude
Solitude is keeping company with the sacred, despite how you feel about it. Once in a great while, solitude sings, keeping time with the foot-tapping of the absolute.
The planetary beings that we are resonate with the music of the spheres. Roy Orbison has the word “orb” in his name.
I have been watching a documentary about The Beatles and they were quite zany, which is a word not heard often anymore. Zany is when you seem a little bit crazy.
When I am at home alone, the sacred comes to call, tipping its hat and tapping its foot. I am writing along in rhythm.
Being bare of words bends your knee to silence.
A beneficent “be-attitude” of grace is a call to pray with no words.
Kneeling among the ruins I realize The Self.
And the Self is Sanctuary.
Amen.
Vicki Woodyard
I am challenging myself to write an essay. This morning I determined to keep telling myself that awareness lies far above thought.
This can be experienced as a clear image of the problem of the moment (and there is always a problem).
For example, I see myself spreading butter on a waffle, or I just put butter on a waffle.
See how simple it is.
The issue is that to keep being aware for more than 30 seconds is a challenge for a sleeping human being.
I go back and study the words of Jesus as he talked to the few. “Take no thought for tomorrow.”
His teachings were warnings and we are in a desperate time of warnings right now.
We must have compassion for the world while knowing that awareness that we are asleep is far more important.
Being is above doing, but we have been brainwashed to think the opposite. To return to Jesus, He said that the poor we will always have with us. So don’t put things in reverse order.
I, of course, am talking to myself. The problem is that she doesn’t listen.
Vicki Woodyard