Some thoughts on "The Work" of Byron Katie

"The Work" of Byron Katie is a set of 4 questions that each person must try to answer when he encounters a stressful thought .I see many people using this technique and also claiming to coach others on the same .I have also requested people going through stressful times to try doing "The Work" of Byron Katie and did send some basic info about that etc but quickly found out that not many keen were interested in doing "The Work" . I began to ponder what can be the reason for the popularity as well as the unpopularity of "The Work" .I really do not know how many people who are using "The Work" really using it the way it should be used .
Coming to practical terms "The Work" involves just a simple thing of accepting the reality or accepting the truth of the situation .Most of our problems are due to the fact that we fight with reality without learning to accept them and Byron Katie's key message is that when you fight with reality you loose only 100% of the time .This is the essence of "The Work" or Byron Katie's message . But are we really in a position to accept "The Truth'"or "reality" as it is ? Most of us are heavily conditioned by own thoughts ,feelings , fantasies, opinions and we take them to be real and work hard to achieve them and we encounter resistance in getting what we wanted we cry foul or blame others or pass judgement on others . We never question whether our thoughts ,feelings , fantasies and opinions are true in the first place .So this is the first thing that is needed to be done to lead an awakened life i.e questioning our own thoughts and feelings and understand how much we have been directly / indirectly conditioned by our family , society etc to have those thoughts and feelings .This needs lot of courage .This is exactly what J Krishnamurti has been advocating i.e the need to investigate deeper into our own thoughts and feelings .But J.Krishnamurti never gave any technique as such and left it to each individual to probe deeper and not to escape from this investigation by diverting to other techniques like chanting mantras , using breath control etc which can only temporarily stop the mind but as long as the basic investigation to our own thoughts and feelings are not being done we will be repeatedly keep getting stressed out .That is why Byron Katie gave her 4 questions in the form of "The Work" and I feel that the first question itself i.e "Do you know is it true?" if properly probed will help a person appreciate reality much better .
But most of the people use "The Work" to solve a problem i.e they imagine an outcome for their situation and expect "The Work" to bring out that outcome .This is mostly wishful thinking and "The Work" is not a wishful thinking but a process to understand and accept truth or reality as it is .If a couple is going through a separation then "The Work" will not help them patch up and this is what most people expect but if they honestly do "The Work" then they will understand why they landed up in such a mess in the first place and that understanding will help remove the bitterness between them and give them better insight in to their own unconscious pattern and create necessary space between them to move forward .
So unless and until an individual is willing to investigate the truth of a situation as it is without getting trapped in taking sides to satisfy his own ego or for the cause of self preservation , "The Work" will not be very useful for such a person ."The Work" is only useful for that person who respects and appreciates truth or reality as it is even if it is unpleasant to him /her .

Three Kinds of Business

I can find only three kinds of business in the universe: mine, yours and God’s. Much of our stress comes from mentally living out of our business. When I think, “You need to get a job, I want you to be happy, you should be on time, you need to take better care of yourself,” I am in your business. When I’m worried about earthquakes, floods, war, or when I will die, I am in God’s business. If I am mentally in your business or in God’s business, the effect is separation.

Byron Katie

The World is perfect

The world is perfect.
As you question your mind, this becomes more and more obvious.
Mind changes, and as a result, the world changes.
A clear mind heals everything that needs to be healed.
It can never be fooled into believing that there is one speck out of order.

~ Byron Katie ~

The Work of Byron Katie - Freedom From Stress is Only 4 Questions Away

The Work of Byron Katie - Freedom From Stress is Only 4 Questions Away

All stress comes from believing a thought that argues with reality. And when you oppose "what is" - it hurts.

In Byron Katie's first book, Loving What Is, she illustrates this with a simple and clear example with a cat:

If you want reality to be different than it is, you might as well try to teach a cat to bark. You can try and try, and in the end the cat will look up at you and say, "Meow." Wanting reality to be different than it is is hopeless. You can spend the rest of your life trying to teach a cat to bark...

And yet, if you pay attention, you'll notice that you think thoughts like this dozens of times a day. "People should be kinder." "Children should be well-behaved." "My neighbors should take better care of their lawn."...

These thoughts are ways of wanting reality to be different than it is. If you think that this sounds depressing, you're right. All the stress that we feel is caused by arguing with what is.

So what can you do when you find yourself arguing with reality? You know, when you're sitting in traffic thinking, "I shouldn't be stuck in traffic right now!" Or when the sale you were hoping for at work falls through and you're frustrated because, "They really should have followed through."

Well, you can do one of two things:

1. Believe what you think.

2. Question it.

Believing what you think can be pretty painful. I mean just think about how stressful it is to sit in traffic wanting the cars to move faster! It's about as hopeless as trying to get a cat to bark.

Questioning the thoughts, on the other hand, can open you up to finding peace where you once found stress.

You can start questioning them, or doing The Work, by writing down your stressful thought (the one where you want things to be different than they are) and then answering these four questions:

1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know that it's true?
3. How do you react when you believe that thought?
4. Who would you be without the thought?

Then you look for turnarounds by taking the original stressful belief and looking for opposites to see if they are as true or truer. In other words, to see if they are closer to reality.

Here's an example:

My friend should be a better listener.

1. Is that true?

Yes.

2. Can you absolutely know that it's true? (What's the reality?)

The reality is that she's not better than she is. So, no, I can't know that she should be a better listener.

3. How do you react when you believe that your friend should be a better listener?

I get frustrated and I complain to my other friends. I don't want to hang around with her anymore. I don't want to listen to her either because I want to punish her. I don't respect her and am jealous of her attention when she puts it somewhere other than on me when I'm trying to talk to her.

4. Who would you be without the thought that your friend should be a better listener?

I wouldn't try to convince her that she should listen to me more. I'd feel gentler in my body. I'd appreciate the amount that she *does* listen to me. When she talked to me, I'd be able to listen because there wouldn't be that resentment that I was holding on to. I'd realize that I'm doing just fine in my life even though she's not listening to me more.

Turn the thought around: She should be a better listener.

TA> She should *not* be a better listener. This is true because she's not. She can't be a better listener than she is in that moment.

TA> *I* should be a better listener. Definitely! If I think she can do it, can I even do it?! I should give her what I want from her because obviously it's important to me that friends listen to each other well. So this is for me to live.

The Work of Byron Katie is a path to self-discovery and freedom from stress. Ask these four questions for yourself and find out who you'd be without your story!

"When I argue with reality I lose. But only 100% of the time." - Byron Katie

There Is Just One Thing To Do

When you become a lover of what is, there are not more decisions to make. In my life, I just wait and watch. I know that the decision will be made in its own time, so I let go of when, where, and how. I like to say I'm a woman with no future. When there are no decisions to make, there's no planned future. All my decisions are made for me, just as they are all made for you. When you mentally tell yourself the story that you have something to do with it, you're attaching to an underlying belief.

I would often return from a long trip to find the house full of dirty laundry, piles of mail on my desk, the dog dish crusted, the bathrooms a mess, and the sink piled high with dishes. The first time this happened, I heard a voice that said, "Do the dishes". It was like coming upon the burning bush, and the voice from the bush said, "Do the dishes." It didn't sound very spiritual to me, but just followed its directions. I would stand at the sink and just wash the next dish, or sit with the piles of bills and pay the one on top. Just one at a time. Nothing else was required. At the end of the day, everything would be done, and I didn't need to understand who or what did it.

When a thought appears, such as "Do the dishes" and you don't do them, notice how an internal war breaks out. It sounds like this, "I'll do them later. I should have done them by now. My roommate should have done them. It's not my turn. It's not fair. People will think less of me if I don't do them now." The stress and weariness you feel are really mental combat fatigue.

What I call "doing the dishes" is the practice of loving the task in front of you. Your inner voice guides you all day long to do simple things such as brush your teeth, drive to work, call you friend, or do the dishes. Even though it's just another story, it's a very short story, and when you follow the direction of the voice, that story ends. We are really alive when we live as simply as that -- open, waiting, trusting, and loving to do what appears in front of us now.

What we need to do unfolds before us, always -- doing the dishes, paying the bills, picking up the children's socks, brushing our teeth. We never receive more than we can handle, and there is always just one thing to do. Life never gets more difficult than that.

Byron Katie

Question your Thoughts Change the World

A feeling is like the mate to a thought appearing. They're like a left and a right. If you have a thought, there's a simultaneous feeling. And an uncomfortable feeling is like a compassionate alarm clock that says, "You're in the dream." It's time to investigate, that's all. But if we don't honor the alarm clock, then we try to alter and manipulate the feeling by reaching into an apparent external world. We're usually aware of the feeling first. That's why I say it's an alarm clock that let's you know you're in a thought that you may want to investigate. If it's not acceptable to you, if it's painful, you might want to do The Work.

Thoughts are friends, not enemies. They're just what is. They appear. They're innocent. We're not doing them. They're not personal. They're like the breeze or the leaves on the trees or the raindrops falling. Thoughts arise like that, and we can make friends with them. Would you argue with a raindrop? Raindrops aren't personal, and neither are thoughts. It's the meaning you attach to those thoughts that you think is personal. Inquire. Meet them with understanding. Once a painful concept is met with understanding, the next time it appears you may find it interesting. The next time it appears, you may find it funny. The next time, you may not even notice it. There will be no attachment. I meet thoughts the way I would meet my children. I meet them with love, gentleness, and a quiet understanding.

Byron Katie