God has the upper hand. Always has. Always will. Until I come to that final understanding, my ego will keep putting its hand into the cookie jar. Oh, I will have cookies, but they won’t be satisfying. I will continue to want more and bigger ones.

The divine plan is that I learn the lesson in the paragraph above. He will do whatever it takes to teach me this. He will allow me to bang my head against the wall of His Heart until I grow so weary I sit on the floor and weep. That is what I have been doing this summer. This long hot summer of learning.

There is only one lesson in the conscious classroom. Instead of learning it, we get all ADD; we play the class clown, we play hooky, we rationalize, we dramatize, etc. And the whole time God is in charge.

The day God puts His Foot down should be a day of rejoicing but we are too stupid to see that. We are too inert to see the signs that are being given as one door after another closes on our feeble little attempts to run our own lives.

We all know that He sends rowboats, helicopters and any other necessary vehicles to rescue us, but we are wearing blinders. What can He do but put His Foot on our obtuse little necks?

He only keeps it there until we cry, not uncle, but “Father.” And we add, “Thy will be done.” And it immediately is. We see, as the scales fall off our eyes, that only His Will can be done, for our will is but an illusion. An illusion that never works. That is the lesson plan. There is no way around the curriculum.

For me, the lesson right now is about success. I am a chosen vessel (we all are) and I can only be poured when God tips the pitcher, so to speak. Then people have access to pure water and I have done my job.

If we are all vessels of the One, why do we not drink ceaselessly from that one pure cup? Instead of doing that, we are drinking polluted water from condemned wells. These are inner wells, not outer ones. They have labels like “Love, Success, Adulation, Comfort.” But as we drink, we sicken because the labels were incorrect. They should have read “Do not drink.” And we would have grown thirsty enough for the water of life.

I am satisfied that I am ignorant of my one true need. Only love can quaff my thirst and I will pour a drink for the next thirsty pilgrim.

This has been a dark spring and summer for me—six months, two seasons of the year gone. I have been undergoing personal issues that will not be denied. I thought I had survived the two dark nights of the soul that I would be called upon to bear. All of you know my story. Loss of a child, loss of a spouse. My son and I have tried to soldier on, but sometimes the wounded fall and need help getting back up. We are in that situation.

I have also been told that my old life is being destroyed and that I will rise from the ashes a third time. Right now the ashes are sodden with tears. I have put out my own fire in an ironic fashion. Am I down for the count? No way, Jose. My regular readers know that it will take more than depression to bring me down. I am very much a survivor—just one who cries a lot.

We are seeing a family counselor. Yesterday was my time to go alone. I sat there in his office and tried to describe where I am. At the end of the hour, I said, crying, “It just all feels so hopeless.” He said, “I will hold that hope for you.”

“Where do you see hope in us?” I said.

“I see your strength, your core wholeness. It takes a lot of vulnerability to be as strong as you are. I see your son’s intelligence, his kindness. It’s just that the two of you have been through rough storms and have had to rely on each other. Now you need to set your boundaries again, to know that each of you can go on with some hope.”

I said, “Once I was in a group where we were paired off with strangers and just sat and looked into their eyes for several minutes. Then we were asked to give a couple of adjectives about the other person. This is how she described me, “vulnerable and powerful.”

Mark just looked at me and smiled gently. “Yes, what I just said.”

“Where do you see yourself going?” he asked me. “How do you see your life?”

“I see myself living a simple life, where I write and record, walk, have lunch with a friend occasionally. Extroverts can spread themselves thin; I can’t. I stay in one place and go deep. For me, my writing is a calling. It’s about the Word, about being true to it.”

The old house where Mark works is a warm and inviting space. The floors squeak when you walk; you have to hook the bathroom door when you close it. It is groaning under the weight of people like me who are in need of spiritual conversation. I sit on the old leather couch clutching a pillow as I share my story with him.

“I am taking tai chi and after every session I come home and cry more than I have in years. My instructor says I am moving energy and that’s a good thing.” Mark listens to me like I need to be listened to. He is hearing my inner child stir a bit. I am listening to her say she is ready for change, that she trusts Mark and I to help her dance again. It won’t be easy but it is necessary.

I have a dear friend who has the gift of prophecy. She tells me that my life is changing to a higher vibratory rate and it’s all good. Yes, breaking down can be a very good thing, a very God thing. Don’t let people tell you otherwise.

The light is shining on my inner world. But thunderclouds build, discharging the pelting rain that heals old wounds. I shall move mountains; I shall heal the nations. That is what we are called to do. We are not called to sit in front of the TV, be mall rats or act cool in any way whatsoever. The nations are inside of me. They are ready to be free.

These 4 recordings are reprised through the courtesy of Jerry Katz. Enjoy.
#3298 – Tuesday, September 23, 2008 – Editor: Jerry Katz

The Nonduality Highlights – Vicki Woodyard

“You’re better off if you know certain people, and, for me, Vicki’s one of those people.

Vicki has the gift of showing us our heartbreak and our natural state.

Out of crushing heartbreak, most people would run from God. Vicki “ran to” God, or Self. Not as an escape, not to deny that any heartbreak ever happened, but to go deeper into the darkness.”

These talks last five minutes each:

Listen to An important Talk An Important Talk
Reclaiming the power of your inner world, of your inner wisdom. Honoring one’s limits and losses rather than overcoming them. In that honoring we are brought to our knees and we recognize the one truth. One of the great source teachings of VW.

Listen to Zits Incorporated Zits Incorporated
Vicki mixes silliness, the nuts of bolts of life, death, and real reality. “With zits and gas, I think it’s time to start dating again.”

Listen to The Voice Inside of You The Voice Inside of You
“The inner voice is unerringly right. … The world lies to us. This voice is the voice of your guidance.”

Listen to It’s About the Music It’s About the Music
“I knew that my daughter was gone, but I knew that God was not gone. So I set on a path of inner discovery. This path is never ending. But for some of us it is music.”

The summer of 2012 has been a grievous one for me; I suspect it has been that way for others as well. We are witnessing depression on a planetary scale. People are in need of money and jobs, of social cooperation and a feeling of hope. What are we to do?

To speak personally, there is nothing I can do but witness all of the above. I am not a doer, nor is anyone else. In fact, doing is when I notice how little being I have. Doing reduces my being rather than enhance it.

I feel a great sense of restlessness and at the same time, have been advised to “wait.” Waiting is always helpful when done from a place of awareness. Waiting is an energetic gift coded by higher energies hidden within us. “They that wait on God shall renew their strength…”

How can waiting be a gift? It enlarges our energy field, for one thing. It allows new energies to come in to replace the stale air of self-centered thoughts about how things “ought to be.” In fact, we have no idea how things ought to be. The great mystery of life does not operate under the law of the human ego.

I am learning to let go, let go, let go. Let go of my books, my recordings, my self-created purposes. Beyond me there is an “I” that runs the show. My job is to sit back in the lounge car of the Self and watch it unfold. This is the difficult job of awakening to what is, rather than what I want it to be.

See you down the road.

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