Shhhhhhhh….

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Back in the eighties I had a hysterectomy and caught the flu in the hospital. At home, I lay in bed for several weeks wondering if I would ever get better. I had diarrhea that wouldn’t stop, literally. I called Vernon Howard’s secretary, Joan, and asked if she would ask Vernon to pray for me. She told me tersely that he didn’t do that. I whined, I am sure, as I told her I really needed help. She just said, “When you lie in bed, know that you are lying there. The false self has a field day when the body is ill.” She was quite the martinet with all of us.

My diarrhea continued for a couple of more days, at which time I received a postcard from her. She told me to take 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar several times a day. I called my husband into the room excitedly and asked him to go buy me some. When he came back, I took a dose immediately and the diarrhea ended. “Ended,” what a choice of words. It was a miracle, because the gastro guy I went to had sad I was too sick to undergo any tests until I got stronger. I knew something stronger than vinegar was working.

My next trip out to his school, we were sitting around the table at lunch. His secretary was there as I told a couple of students around me about how I got this miracle cure. Joan stood up from her seat and was soon saying directly into my ear, “We don’t discuss these things. Some people would think the Work was about the body.” And I was reproached and rebuked. That is how it went with Vernon Howard. You felt grace was a given but if so, you had better not discuss it.

Discussion ruins everything. That is why I dislike having it happen on my Facebook Page. The opposites are called into play and the intellect now becomes engaged instead of the spirit. Vernon was a strong and effective teacher. Questioning him only weakened his teaching method. I like that approach very much. Online nonduality is a head trip for the most part. And head trips are how we got messed up in the first place.

Vicki Woodyard

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