You Are Bigger Than The World

You are bigger than the world...yes, you. We all have a sense of this when we come into the planet for our sojourn as such and such a personality. By the time we are in our teens, we have somehow come up with a pretty permanent character to play. And yet, for all the protection it seems to offer, we are constantly in conflict with ourselves.

The spiritual path opens up before us when we come to understand that this conflict can never be resolved by thinking about it. On the contrary, the more we think, the more we sink down into the morass of our egos.

When I began studying with Vernon Howard, he was living in Boulder City, Nevada. He chose it, I think, because it was isolated and in the desert. You really had to make an effort to arrive in his presence. I went for the first time, guided by a dream. I had been listening to one of his audio tapes and knew I needed to see him in person.

He was, in a word, formidable. He allowed no room for anyone to argue with him intellectually. His job was to back our personas into a corner and he did an excellent job. By the same token, his job was also to confirm what our intuition was saying about him. With me, this happened in dreams, in things that students would say to me, and by synchronicity.

He never lied. And it is worth all the effort a student makes to be in the presence of someone without guile. Someone who knows the ego is rotten to the core and bent on keeping its so-called owner in hell. 

I am a lifelong student of truth and luckily for me, I always carry that with me, regardless of any ego shenanigans I might be up to. My husband was a student of truth as well. As some of you know, I have written many essays about our experiences as he bravely faced his death from multiple myeloma. Recently he came to me in a dream. It was wonderful and sad at the same time. That is how the path goes. It’s not about roses, roses, but about roses and thorns. Our egos are thorns that we must reckon with. Our true nature shines on.

There is a new MP3 on Audio 2010. Something about The Bars of Thought...

Just uploaded When The Mind Falls Away on Audio 2010 . Give it a listen. I like it. 

Dear Bob,

Everything is coming together at last. The book is finished. Within the last two weeks, both Rob and I had someone run into our cars and they are both in the body shop. He is walking there right now to pick mine up until I can find a new one. Mine is totalled, but they are going to straighten it out just enough so that I can drive it until I get a new one.

I feel this is a purging of sorts. I cannot feel one negative thing about it. I have learned the lesson well. That no matter what happens, choosing to go through it consciously is the only way out. And when we don’t do that, we are still forgiven.

Our love is fixed in the firmaments. You know that. Just as you know that I am doing fine. Better than fine. Although there are days when I may get discouraged, most of the time I feel my purpose in life is being fulfilled. My writing benefits me first and foremost; and hopefully, a few others.

So it’s on with the book, my love. A new chapter in my life is about to begin and I look forward to it. Of course, time is a illusion, but so are we, so is two-ness. There is only the One.

Love,

Vicki

For the great mystery is contained within us. It is flowing like wine and congealing like aspic. It is breaking our self-concepts into smithereens and dashing us into the pilings of the cosmic pier. The tsunami of the Self is bearing down on us and we are rushing for cover. No more time for tweeting and blogging and texting while we drive. Too late. It’s always too late.

How ironic. After posting the essay yesterday, a lady ran into the left rear side of my car in the grocery parking lot today. Crrrunch. Bang. Reread the paragraph above and make your own conclusions.

I have been so caught up in working on my book that I have not taken the time to enter the flow of intuitive writing, which I love to do. So I am going to clear my head and do that before something else snags my feeble little mind.

I have this to say. In spite of loss and sorrow and not wanting to go on alone, I have, I have. I have conquered innumerable fears for no other reason than it was time. The flow carries us even against our wills. What a mystery we are enacting while we brush our teeth and then eat chocolates before bed. When we strain at gnats and swallow camels. And truffles. And that is who we are.

And who we are not.

For the great mystery is contained within us. It is flowing like wine and congealing like aspic. It is breaking our self-concepts into smithereens and dashing us into the pilings of the cosmic pier. The tsunami of the Self is bearing down on us and we are rushing for cover. No more time for tweeting and blogging and texting while we drive. Too late. It’s always too late.

And there is never enough time to turn our lives around by taking thought. That bus pulled out of the station long ago.

And so we fritter our lives away while cancer or AIDS or whatever is taking someone’s life tonight. And somewhere hearts are breaking and stomachs are tight with dread and nurses bring pills and patients go suddenly quiet and leave on a mystery train.

And who we are suddenly kicks in.  And we do something great. Or not. And maybe a crack opens up in our psyche and an angel wings past it and we feel a chill.  And then we know that we are not alone.

And that we are standing on holy ground and wearing mismatched socks and it’s okay.

And so it goes.

Yesterday my son took some pictures of me. Thought I'd post one.
I knew he'd have to be patient with me since it was Mother's Day. Been feeling good about the book I'm trying to finish. Hopefully it will open a new chapter in my life. I was told I would do this, and it's taken a while for me to realize the dream.

I'm getting excited about the publication of my first book. I'll let you know when the title is locked in. The manuscript is all but finished. In any enterprise, tying up loose ends is the hardest thing because you save the thorniest problems for last. They are not always the biggest, either.


It is, essentially, the story of the five years that as a spiritual student, I struggled with my husband's impending death. Perhaps I feel better because I know how proud he would be that I actually finished it. He was my biggest champion, of course.


There are many things that I couldn't include. Between the lines of the essays lies the heart of the story. Bigger issues than life and death, even. Issues about the soul's purpose in taking a human birth.


I hope to write a follow-up to it in which I write more about how I live my life these days. The essays are already written, for the most part. It is the stringing them together that's the challenge.


Love, Vicki

Went to a Dreams and Mindfulness Session today at Cancer Wellness. Half a dozen of us sat around the table with two facilitators and went into a centered space and shared dreams. This is the most wonderful place. It's my experience that these wellness centers offer more than satsang. They offer a place of continued connection with who you really are. And they are free to cancer patients and family members.


At some point my spiritual path converged with wellness and those two things are working as one.


If the light of the body is the eye, the light of the spirit is "I."


Sometimes disease humbles us like nothing else will. Ironically, the cancer patients that I know are taking care of their spiritual lives better than many so-called spiritual students. The lines blur as the eyes fill with tears.

The Mental Pause

I am going through the Mental Pause. Not the menopause. This comes about the same time, though. Some advaitists teach this as an actual principle, can you imagine? They would have us do this on purpose! They advocate being in a room and staying with the emptiness. Not wondering why you came into the room in the first place. Was it to get some peanut butter or to defrost the refrigerator. Do Zen masters have this problem. Do they just sit and forget stuff, like milk and bread on the way home from the zendo. Are there patriarchs of peanut butter?

The old master sat with

his tongue stuck to the roof

of his mind.

Yum.

I am an advocate of all things tasty, fresh and good for you. I just can’t always remember it. So I end up eating Fritos and Cheetos and Cheeze Whiz and Cocoa Puffs with whole milk instead of soy or almond milk. I am like that in my impermanency. My thoughts are definitely impermanent. That is perhaps why I cannot finish what I start. War and Peace, to me, might include installments of Tvgasm.com and Facebook pages of my nearest and dearest jillion friends. I don’t Twitter because I don’t have time for the inanity. Stop the inanity. Now there’s a good Tweet.

The new master sat

with his iPad

watching the old frog

plop into the virtual pond.

Blog. Tweet.

As I travel through the badlands of this essay on the old gray mare of my mind, I suddenly decide to alight and encamp among the blog rushes growing wild around the virtual pond. Soon I am lost in thoughts of assorted and sundry enlightened ones blogging about their spiritual virtuosity. The reeds and clarinets of awakened egos are suddenly giving me a headache of monstrous proportions. Before I know it, I will be just another nondual celeb faking it until I am making it.  So onto the final haiku:

I dismantled my walking stick today

and sat down on the ground of my being.

Ouch.

Vicki Woodyard

http://www.bobwoodyard.com