Esoteric teachings are hidden from the masses. You might say they are open secrets; it is just that the masses are not interested in what the inner teachings of Christ have to say. They attend church and synagog and give lip service to what the minister or rabbi has to say. They leave being unfed.

Because they are unfed, they must indulge in vanity and pride, which bloat their bellies with indigestible food. Starved for what could give them sustenance, they decorate their bodies and homes with outer signs designed to impress others doing the exact same thing.

It is only the few that sat at the feet of Jesus to receive in secret what he so generously gave. He is gone but esoteric teachings live on in the hearts of those open to receive them. They, of course, are hidden and must be dug for.

An individual might dig for a lifetime and only be able to put into practice a few of the precious gems bestowed by the Christ Consciousness. Most begin to dig when the outer teachings fail them. Maybe because of a failed marriage, a miscarriage of justice; it could be anything.

You might begin by reading modern day books designed to help you wake up. When they fail you, as they will, you might then turn to the New Testament. Again, you read the words of Jesus, but they fail to produce a change in you. You continue on with your miserable existence. Nothing changes that you are aware of. But now you know that you are suffering and have no solution.

Vernon Howard appeared for me when I was ready to admit that I had failed to find happiness. His way of teaching was stern and absolute. The ego could not be given precious jewels.

If you are wondering how to find these gems of wisdom, go back again and again to the Book of John in the New Testament. Study it with the intention of seeing that the world cannot awaken, only the few. Now you want to be in on the secret of how to live a meaningful life.

You must retire into your own consciousness; it will be a witness for you. You will begin to see that you do not belong to your thoughts; they are ephemeral and useless. But you don’t know how to access your spirit. “Knock and it shall be opened. Seek and you shall find.” The answers given by Jesus are cryptic and coded. Only the key of humility will open the door. Search for this key until you see that you never wanted it. You only wanted to be admired, respected and richly paid for your life in the world. Now the real journey begins. Take the first step and then the next. One day you will be set free, but only when you acknowledge that you are a failure.

Vicki Woodyard

I was led to Vernon Howard decades ago. I was given signs that led me there and kept me there. He was extraordinarily tough; people either recognized his wisdom and stayed or were offended by him and left in a huff.

I find that having followed his teachings, I now can see right through people, including myself. For we are all “the people we talk about.” We are one in every aspect; we are good and evil intermingled. And when he used the word “evil,” he meant mechanical.

Jesus counseled people to come out from among them. Vernon did the same and I have tried my best to do this. The bottom line is that my social life dropped away a long time ago. I know who I am and where I am going, as long as I remain true to myself.

Four or five people commented on my essay yesterday. Is that enough to keep writing? Well, Jesus said that when two or more people are gathered in his name, there he would be. So the handful that read me are in good company. We know that we don’t have anything to recommend us, for we have seen through ourselves.

My job as a writer is to keep the flow going. I am, however, going to post fewer essays during the summer. I will use the time to recharge my batteries. My essays can be accessed through the blog; feel free to browse.

My message is essentially the same. Become who you are, bloom where you are planted and keep on keeping on. Read the Book of John with your inner eyes open and let it teach you as if Jesus was talking straight to you because He was. You see, time is not an issue when it comes to the eternal verities; time is just a marker and nothing more.

We are those that are not afraid to see how bad off we are; the only way out is to admit that we need higher help than our crazy minds. And rest assured, the help will come.

Vicki Woodyard

Life is about coming clean with God, although most of us are incapable of doing that. I don’t know who or what God is, but I do know that honest people are always hiding something! You see, honesty does not mean capability! And the ego doesn’t know anything but dissembling to itself and therefore to the world and to God. Let that sink in.

We lie because that is the way the ego works. It is formed with a desire to dissemble. This began with the fig leaves way back when. Now we wear expensive clothes and jewelry to lie about who we are. We want to be seen in a certain way and there is no blame in this. It is just something that we should realize.

Take me. As a writer I want to be seen as credible, and I am for the most part. At the same time, I want to be recognized as a good writer, which I not always am. Think of ways in which you like to present yourself as something you not always are. A good parent or a good partner, a good friend or a good citizen, the list is long. There is no fault here; it is just how we are made.

The pain inside is raining down on us, whether it be a gentle spring one or one with frozen pellets of shame.

I recently realized that I am an avoider. Too much pain with too little payoff for me to lie about enjoying socializing. Now it has come down to my being honest about this fact. I prefer remaining at home alone. This also comes down to whether I really want to continue writing regularly or not. My readers are so few and frankly, it does not justify my continuing to write as voluminously as I used to.

I know the truth and it is never a pleasant thing. The word “pleasant” is too weak a word to use. Apple pie is pleasant; getting real is not. Getting real means you share your pain and that is not a social thing.

If there are any of you out there that find my writing meaningful, let me know. Write me an email at vw9633@gmail.com or leave a comment on the blog. Take the time to convey how you feel if I let go of writing regularly. It is a task I do not take lightly. The words flow out easily if I am in the stream of consciousness. Now I am asking myself what God would have me do. I am also asking my readers. Some of you know me intimately, but most do not. Most are content to read me without any involvement on your part. You know who you are; you never donate or comment and that is not exactly fair to me, the writer. Then I become just one more item on a long list in what you read online. I no longer want it to be that way. Life is too short to dissemble or let the truth roll off of your back. The truth demands participation.

Vicki Woodyard

Do not be afraid of your own raw nakedness; in fact, aspire to it. Let the world do its thing, even if it is circling the drain as it is right now.

Do not interfere with your pain for it has something to teach you.

Let it be.

Do not interfere with your confusion as it can result in surrender.

Let it be.

Do not interfere with your body’s wisdom even if it is unsettling.

Let it be.

Do not interfere with God’s will for you even if you want to fight against it.

Let it be.

But how will I know it is God’s will for me?

Surrender to the mystery for how long it takes. That is God’s will for you.

The mystery of loving both life and death gives way to the resurrection.

You will continually die and be reborn, knowing that love is who and what you are.

Vicki Woodyard

The world has always been broken because human beings are broken; the world just reflects this. That is why I turned away from the world a long time ago. It was a time when I heard the words that my only daughter had cancer. Nothing to do but do the best I could under the circumstances. My world had been rocked, as had the world of my husband and our son. He was seven and she was almost four. St. Jude’s became our home away from home, as she had to clock in on a monthly basis.

It was an ordeal to be there. I once saw a gurney carrying a child as pale as death itself. Her father turned to me and said, “There are some things worse than death,” and that is how I felt about St. Jude’s. I am sure his child died, as did ours. My brother opined that they would be doing things to her that would be as cruel as the cancer. Maybe, he said, it might be better to let the cancer take its course.

He was right; she was put on a severe chemo that had her vomiting all night the day she received it. And it only kept the cancer away for a little over two years; then we were right back where we started. Only this time we knew that she would be dead in a year. She died such a valiant death and her lustrous long hair once again framed her little face as she lay in her casket. Sleeping Beauty—we now had our own, only a kiss would not awaken her.

Decades later, her father would receive his fatal diagnosis of multiple myeloma and we laid him to rest two days before Christmas in 2004; he had just turned 63.

So how are my son and I doing? Remarkably well, considering that I have some neurological issues that keep me at home most of the time. I don’t mind this; in fact, it is one of the few pluses of the issues. I can stay home full-time and I no longer travel.

My brother has now been in hospice care for about two weeks. My sister got to see him; she says he is very confused and his daughter confirmed that in an email. She says he can’t figure out where he is or why he is there. His kidneys are failing and he probably cannot see well anymore. The last few days before our little girl died, she was blind.

My soul is broken into pieces that cannot be put back together. My family knows this and they don’t expect me to be strong. So I lead a very small life. Rob and I went to Home Depot today and I got some flowers for the deck.

I am wrestling with whether to return to daily writing on the blog. People, for the most part, have quit donating and I feel there is worth in what I write. At a time in my life when I dare not complain, knowing how financially strapped most people are, I will have to give myself more time to listen to what my heart is telling me. The heart is the only thing worth listening to….

“The monotony & solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind” ~Albert Einstein.

My life is filled with monotony and solitude, so that is why I am so creative! For whatever, reason or destiny, I prefer an empty and spacious life. And yet today finds me fretful.

My brother is nearing the end of his life and I sat in silence for a while, letting thoughts arise. I remember him more as a little boy than as a man. He would wait for me to come home from school and then we would play together. TV was new and exciting and we watched Howdy Doody and other children’s shows. Snickers was one of their sponsors and we learned that they were delicious!

When the Popsicle man rang his bell, we would rush out into the street to stop him. For a nickel you could get a popsicle (that was usually what we got). There were exotic treats that cost far more, but we were popsicle buyers.

My brother would wipe his mouth all the time and he told us that his “spit leaked.” He would never eat what our mother prepared us for supper, as we called it. He existed on bread and mayonnaise for the longest time. Once he told a parent on the street that he was never fed. She knew us well and knew that was a tale he was telling. When the polio epidemic started, he once refused to eat pancakes with powdered sugar on top. He said the powdered sugar was polio germs.

We had reason to be afraid. The woman across the street came home in an iron lung and many children we knew got it. But I digress from my brother’s story.

One time a little boy across the street threw a rock at him and it left a scar on his eyebrow. Our mother was livid about this. The two little boys next door visited us often. The older peed in our milk bottles on the porch waiting to be replaced with full new bottles of milk. But Jimmy Boy, as he was called, filled them for us.

We rescued baby birds that fell from their nests on the big oak tree next door. Our mother always let us try and nurse them back to health, but they always died.

Today my little brother, once a tow-headed little kid, lies in hospice waiting to be carried home on angel wings, at least I tell myself that. I am deeply sad and yet relieved that his suffering will soon come to an end. I am a little girl typing this story. I started writing in third grade and I am still having a go at it. I am glad that Einstein advocated the kind of life that I live. It has proven to be my joy and sustenance.

I pray that for my little brother, a new journey will begin….

Vicki Woodyard

Dear Readers,

Yes, it is that time again, when I ask for summer donations to my blog. Please do not think that you have to give; it is just a way for me to feel that I am making a difference in some people’s inner lives. For we live within before we live without!

Sometimes it is good for me to take a restorative break in order to accumulate new energy for writing. I shall do that over this long weekend.

Please give a bit to let me know that you want me to continue writing during the coming summer months.

I am now posting on Facebook again, too; but it is the blog readers that contribute.

Donate via the link below and thank you so very much.

MAKE YOUR SUMMER DONATION HERE.
Love, Vicki

A Buddha in the Mirror

I see a buddha in the mirror. It is inscrutable, but there it is, everyday. If I could scoop it out of the mirror, I would. That doesn’t seem possible; mirrors are like that. Infuriatingly impartial with ungraspable images. You can see a glass of water in the mirror but you can’t drink out of it.
 
You may think I am dumb to write stuff like this and you would be right. But the buddha in the mirror looks wise. If only I could ask her if she is enlightened but she never speaks. Mirrors don’t have any sound, in case you haven’t noticed. They are like silent movies in that respect.
 
Actually it is a good thing that the buddha appeared before talkies were invented. Otherwise we would have an actual record of him speaking and it would not be in English.
 
In my spare time, and when I can remember it, I ponder things like unenlightened mirrors.  

Vicki Woodyard

Evil always wins in this world. That is why Jesus spoke to the simple people of the world; those that had no real interest in worldly power. What they had was ears to hear.

The older I get, the more I see the truth of how this world operates and how Jesus spoke to the few gathered around him. He was not concerned with the worldly, but with those that yearned for truth and the truth is not interested in worldly power.

Sit with Him awhile in your heart and remember how He predicted the evils we are experiencing today. Read the Book of John, my favorite of the Gospels.

If you are thinking that surely goodness will win if we just try harder, you are mistaken. Everything has already happened and is simply revealed by the Word.

Jesus knew He was going to be crucified and he warned those around Him about it, so they would realize after his death that he had told them in advance. He wanted them to stay awake, but they couldn’t. He knew this, too.

All of us are asleep; that is the way of the world. It is a world in which evil wins. Awakening is for the few. “Straight is the way and narrow is the gate and few there be that enter in.”

Just make some time this weekend to sit with the truth of your being, for it is only in this way that we can overcome the world of our own minds.

Evil in this world is now playing out in the human scene and it cannot be stopped. The only possible thing that we can do is surrender to the God within. In that surrender, peace will be found. That peace is not given to those in power, for they must always be looking over their shoulders.

Wisdom is unassailable; it cannot be touched by the impure. Thank God for that.

Vicki Woodyard

I am faced with the blank page and swiftly fill it with words unfolding on the screen of my iMac. After the writing is done, I choose a photo, and voila, an essay!

This morning I feel no inspiration. What is going on? It is early Friday morning and the news of the world is dire, but so is the news in America. Autocracy is on the rise here as well as abroad. Still we sleep on, refusing to acknowledge it.

The Texas massacre was pure evil unleashed on little children. It has happened too many times before and gun control is obviously lax in our country. That is because Republicans in power are taking money from the NRA. Disgusting that we vote people into power who become rich at the country’s expense.

Donald Trump did not originate autocracy but he fell into it automatically, such is his nature. I pray he is tried and convicted for the many crimes he has committed. His base has been radicalized, more’s the pity for America. They have infested school boards and local government with their hacks.There is no real solution until enough people and institutions pay the price for their corruption. The Republican Party has blood on its hands.

I have no idea why so many people cannot see through Trump. Look at his base and you see people dressed in American flag shirts and red baseball caps. They have made a point to attend Trump rallies like they are partying instead of being played for the fools they are. For no one with an ounce of intelligence would fall victim to his ignorant braying about having lost a certain election in 2020. His base is a mouthpiece for crime.

America is no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave. The January 6 Committee, I pray, will clearly demonstrate this. Congress needs to be cleaned out and the guilty need to be punished.. But this is only the beginning. What happened to eternal vigilance? That is the real question.

Vicki Woodyard