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Vicki Woodyard received a B.S. degree, magna cum
laude, in English and Psychology from the
University of Memphis. She was born in Memphis,
Tennessee, and makes her home in Atlanta. She
has spent her life on the spiritual path.
Although Vicki has been writing all of her life,
LIFE WITH A HOLE IN IT is her first book.
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NDM: Can you please tell me about Vernon
Howard; how he became your teacher and his
teachings?
Vicki Woodyard: Vernon Howard taught what is
called The Work, not that of Byron Katie, but of
Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. There is a strong
element of Sufism in it, although Vernon himself
brought forth the teachings in his own way. He
was a powerful writer but an even more powerful
speaker. Those who ventured into his classroom
got jolts of awareness that left one feeling
every negative emotion they had ever managed to
suppress. He did this, not by the content of
what he said, but by his aura. His words were
stripped down statements about reality. He
couched them in teaching stories. He taught
people how to “witness every negative thought
and emotion consciously.” He spoke of the False
Self and the True Self and how to know the
difference. People came from all over the world
to hear him speak. He knew that people were
hanging on his every word to hear “the one word
that would free them,” so to speak, but it never
came. He left his students in a place of
waiting, which is quite effective. He knew what
he was doing.
I ordered a tape of his from New Dimensions
Radio. My husband had just bought a copy of The
Power of Your Supermind, one of Vernon Howard's
books. During that same time, I had a powerful
dream that pointed me in the direction of the
desert, a school with protected windows and a
guide that said, “You have to go down to look
up.” I discovered that Vernon Howard taught in
Boulder City, a little desert town outside of
Las Vegas. I knew I had to see him. Once I got
there, I knew it was the next step for me. I
studied with him for eight years, until his
death in 1992. I didn’t visit often, not more
than once or twice a year, but I studied his
talks and books daily.
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NDM: What happened to you during those
eight years of studying with Vernon Howard?
Vicki Woodyard:
What happened was a slow evolution of
consciousness. Much happened on the inner
planes; whereas my outer life was business
as usual. Vernon did not speak about the
fact that he knew all about each student and
what it took to “clean the machine,” as the
Work speaks of it. In my case, dreams and
synchronicities often led me a deeper and
deeper understanding.
Vernon was much like a Zen master in that he
insisted on being aware and practical. He
said things like “Eating an expensive dinner
is the same thing as losing your soul.” Of
course, this was also a way of separating
the sheep from the goats, something he did
with alacrity. It got rid of intellectuals
and dilettantes. One man left because he
didn’t want to sweep the hall; others left
because they didn’t like the fact that
Vernon wore old clothes and refused to use
anything but simple language. He showed you
the living experience of what you were
actually like.
Anyone studying with him immediately got in
touch with their shadow side; he made sure
of that. I had to deal with age-old issues
of anxiety, insecurity, self-doubt—all the
usual suspects of an ego. And yet when I
faced the music, faced my actual condition,
did things I didn’t want to do, there was
usually some kind of nod you got from him.
You might go to class and find him saying
something you KNEW he was saying just for
you. But woe be unto you if you told anyone.
I gave myself over to his teachings, which
were nothing but the ancient wisdom
presented in his unique way. He was a tough
teacher, a taskmaster, and that is exactly
what I wanted. Little did I know that I
would be tried in the fire to the extent
that I was. I thought when I lost my
daughter to cancer when she was seven that I
had made it through the worst experience of
my life. I began studying with Vernon five
years after her death. He himself died of
cancer in 1992 and I became close to his
secretary. She died of cancer in 1999 and
then in 2000 my husband was also diagnosed
and died in 2004. I was left alone with the
teachings and by that time, I knew about the
word inevitability, another word for
surrender.
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NDM: Who were his teacher(s) ?
Can you also tell me about some of the Sufi
methods, or any types of sitting meditations,
or methods that Gurdjieff used such as Self
remembering, witnessing, and so on?
Vicki Woodyard:
Vernon Howard never named a specific
teacher, although he studied virtually
everything known about the Way. He did speak
of esoteric Christianity, which is about
applying wisdom to our everyday lives, not
just on holy days. At some point, he openly
spoke of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, but by the
time I arrived on the scene, there were no
further allusions to specific teachers.
There was a strong Sufi influence. Irina
Tweedie’s book,
Daughter of Fire,
is
about her studies with a Sufi master. Being
with Vernon Howard was like that. He left no
grass to grow under anyone’s feet.
Self-remembering was key to his teaching.
He showed that inner wisdom could be
accessed and known by anyone through
humility and hard work. He had a way of
shaming and embarrassing the ego that was
fool-proof. Someone said that coming through
the doors of the hall was like going through
an X-ray machine at the airport. All of your
junk was on display. And frequently students
got ill while with him. This happens often
in the presence of a powerful teacher. Anger
is brought to the surface, as are all of the
negative emotions. He said that negative
emotions are interconnected. His favorite
thing to thunder was “You do not exist!”
This echoed the words of Gurdjieff, who said
of his institute, that “Personality scarcely
has a right to exist here.”
NDM: Did he ever tell you how he came
to this realization? His "story" so to
speak, or was he more of the traditional
type, preferring not to discuss this in public?
Vicki Woodyard:
He never spoke about his awakening. He was,
for me, “the iron wall of Zen.” He brought
me straight up against myself and forced me
to look within constantly. The result of
this is that who I used to be is different
than who I am today. I used to be
intellectually top-heavy and he knocked that
out of me, indeed that is the Fourth Way
teaching, that man is out of balance. I
needed many whacks on the head and he would
probably say that the man who gave them had
no need to say whether the stick is realized
or not.
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NDM: When you said that , "What happened
was a slow evolution of consciousness.
Much happened on the inner planes;
whereas my outer life was business as
usual. "
Can you please elaborate on this. What
do you mean by a slow "evolution of
consciousness? Do you mean the way Sri
Aurobindo or some of these neo-advaita
teachers like to talk about it?
Vicki
Woodyard:
I can only speak of it in my own way. I
have read Aurobindo, Ramakrishna, Ramana
Maharshi, Nisargadatta and many others.
The truth is obvious in all of these
men. What I mean is that I was wed to to
the path of awakening. No one had to
light the fire; it burned within me
mightily. It kept me busy, not
meditating or doing service, or anything
but witnessing my actual state of
consciousness. And because I was doing
this so faithfully, things would happen
that were mind-blowing. Wanting truth as
much as you want air IS service, is
meditation. Vernon showed his students
that self-unity is an arduous task. Many
of the neoadvaitins ignore the
discipline of awakening. Someone said to
me, “All of Vernon’s true students will
broken and thrown back upon themselves.”
Sure enough. At the time I learned of
his secretary’s death, I had already
lost much. Then my husband was diagnosed
and I could no longer get to any of the
classes being taught by his students and
that was as it should have been. I was
fledging and fighting for my soul’s
survival at the same time.
I spent five years taking care of my
husband after his fatal diagnosis with
multiple myeloma. During that five years
I went through a daily hell, not being
able to apply any teaching for very
long. I was wracked with grief and a
sense of impending doom. This was the
second dark night of the soul I had been
through, the first one being my young
daughter’s death. As much as possible, I
did my inner work, but I can’t say I did
such a hot job of it. Sometimes one just
has to suck it up and walk on. You might
say this evolved my consciousness in a
pretty drastic way. I learned that I was
enough on any given day. That I was the
Way, even though it might not feel like
it.
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NDM: Can you please elaborate on this
self enquiry method and this discipline that
he taught you? Why do you think you were unable to do a hot job of it;
to apply these
teachings at the time when your husband was
diagnosed with cancer?
What would happen to you exactly?
Vicki Woodyard: He taught what any true master
does, that you are the Self and that the False
Self is constantly obscuring this fact. He
forced you to witness your own darkness, to face
your shadow in order that the light might be
revealed. He gave us permission and
encouragement to study darkness, both within and
without.
I did not do such a hot job of it because I was
thrown into the fiery furnace. When you are
there, all you can do is be there in all of your
misery, just as Christ was on the cross. Vernon
said once, “When you are carrying your cross up
Crucifixion Hill, offer no resistance
whatsoever.” I had to experience my resistance
daily. I never lost sight of the teachings; I
just didn’t want to look into the face of death.
Everything is paradoxical; the best teachings
always are. As I looked deeply into the face of
death, I also looked deeply into my own inner
hell which seemed to be about my husband’s
death. In reality, it was the death of illusion.
You asked what would happen to me exactly? That
is hard to put into words. I would just get up
in the morning ready to face another day of
suffering. At the end of Bob’s life, we were
living in the Infusion Center as he got tanked
up on platelets, etc. and lived to fight another
day. He was finally told by his doctor that it
was time to stop treatment and he didn’t want
to. He was hanging on for my sake. I finally
told him I would be okay without him and he was
able to let go. The death of my husband forced
me back on myself totally. It was a blessed
relief on many levels. I was so tired.
A Zen master contacted me after Bob’s death and
stayed in touch with me for the first year. I
had also been in touch with a man named Peter,
who runs like a thread throughout my book. He
had awakened spontaneously after a series of
strokes and said, “For what it’s worth, I hold
your hand in this.” So I was never left without
help of a higher kind. I also had the support of
an awakened soul by the name of John Logan, who
had beaten throat cancer, and like Peter, was
rock-like in his spiritual support. They did not
come at me intellectually, but with the full
force of presence. I moved into silence and
letting go, rested and healed for years. I am
now in my seventh year alone.
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Christ on the cross
according to
Pieter Paul Rubens
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NDM: So where has all
this intense suffering brought you to? Do you feel healed, whole and
complete or is there something still missing?
Vicki Woodyard:
These days I am at peace. Wholeness is my experience. Ups and downs
arise from within like the heartbeats on a monitor, the experience of
thoughts rising and falling away. All great teachers say the same thing
in different ways, “I am.” Vernon Howard once said he gave the
same talk just using different words. As a writer, that is what I am
now doing.
If anything is missing, I chalk it up to the fact that I have
momentarily fallen asleep. Having a sense of humor is a great help to
me. As I said on my website, “Every guru is trailing toilet paper on his
shoe.” I have stepped in enough “you-know-what” to not mind it so much
anymore. That is the way of the warrior. You just plow ahead until you
reach the still point.
Ultimately nothing is missing, but Lord knows, we have heard that enough
times. Hearing it intellectually is one thing. Living it from the heart
is quite another. Living it from wholeness demands a surrender that
arises from rock bottom.
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Vicki Woodyard:
The book arose as a way for me to make it
through the night (the dark night of the
soul). My writing is quirky and moves
between dark and light, taking the reader on
a journey. I am honest to the core and that
comes across in the book. I simply began
writing about the hell I was going through.
Now that I am living a peaceful life, I
still write in that style. Just like one
painter throws paint onto the canvas and
another stipples it, I write for the sheer
intuitive wholeness it brings to me and
hopefully, the reader. I do not shy away
from suffering, because it has proved to be
alchemical for me. I hope my writing is
alchemical as well. For me, writing is about
bringing the reader to a state of aliveness.
If I want to make them laugh or cry, I am
free to do so. But always behind it is the
Self that I am.
LIFE WITH A HOLE IN IT: That’s How The Light
Gets In is a title that describes my journey
on the path. Holes were poked so that the
light might shine through me a little
better. It is a little book that can be
picked up and read all the way through or at
random. It is easy for me to stand behind it
because living through it brought me to
where I am today. It follows me through five
years of life as a spiritual student and
caregiver for a dying man. Today I don’t
describe myself except on my driver’s
license and other required places. One day,
even that won’t be necessary.
For more info
visit
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