I have long wanted to write a few words about Byron Katie. I had the opportunity to watch it live. Her books have a unique atmosphere and depth. When I experience more difficult moments - I come back to these books. The story of her life is amazing… Look at her photo, please. There is something special about her eyes (sick, by the way), about her whole face. Let's get to know her short biography.
Byron Kathy - short biography
Who is Byron Katie? His real name is Byron Kathleen Reid. But everyone calls her Katie. Today she is 78 years old. At the age of 33, she fell into severe depression. At the time, she was running a business, raising children, and living in a small town in southern California. For over 10 years, her condition was stubbornly worsening, she suffered from paranoia, suffered from fits of rage, and constantly thought about suicide. In the last two years of a long episode of severe depression, she was often unable to even get out of bed. Until one morning in February 1986, when she suddenly realized something that had changed her life. Katie calls this experience "awakening to reality." He writes that at that moment when time has disappeared:
I found that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, and when I didn't believe them, I hated, and the same applies to everyone. Freedom is just that simple. I have found that suffering is a choice. I discovered a joy that never disappeared, not even for a moment. This joy is always in everyone.
Soon rumors emerged that an "enlightened woman" lived in Barstow, and people began to seek contact with her, to ask how to find the freedom that radiated from her. Katie was convinced that what they needed was not her physical presence, but a way for them to discover for themselves what she realized.
The method of questioning and inversion that Katie called The Work
In her words, is the embodiment of the questioning that arose within herself that February morning. As reports of remarkable human transformations grew, Katie received more and more invitations to public speaking, first in California, then in the US, and finally in Europe and around the world. She traveled this way for many years. She has visited hospitals, churches, prisons, corporations, women's welfare centers, and universities in equal measure ... She founded the School of Work, which promotes her method and educates more teachers.
Katie is not affiliated with any religion. Interestingly, he is also not very familiar with the classics of spiritual literature. She never studied them. When he listens to quotes from Lao, Buddha, Zen masters, or Spinoza, he says with childish sincerity, “That's true” or “It's partly true, but a little overdue. I would put it that way. "
To date, Katie has written 4 books in which she describes how to end suffering. Like all effective solutions, Katie's method is simple. It is about questioning thoughts that resist reality.
Because according to Katie, she separates us from real reality, from what really is. If we learn to distinguish between what is and what we think it SHOULD be, we will avoid suffering. And while reality cannot be named, Katie says there are a thousand names for joy because nothing is separate and joy is what we all are deep down.
Katie's method consists of the following 4 questions to challenge a selected thought:
Is it true?
Can you be absolutely sure it's true?
How do you react, how do you feel when you believe that the thought is real?
Who would you be without this thought?
Reversal is experiencing what is the opposite of the chosen thought-feeling an emotion related to that experience.
These 4 questions, which Katie calls "Work", seem innocent at first. But their goal is great: they lead us to self-realization of true nature by eliminating suffering.
When we investigate a thought that causes us tension, we see that it is not true. When we finally question a thought, it must never hurt us again, and eventually, it ceases to appear at all. "I don't get out of my mind," says Katie. “I meet them with understanding. Then they break free from me. "
I highly recommend Katie's book. "Loving what is." As her husband writes:
It is a portrait of a woman who is unshakably joyful, both when she is dancing with her granddaughter and when she discovers that burglars have robbed her house, or when she comes face to face with a man who wants to kill her, or sets off on an adventure that is reaching your own kitchen, also when you find out that you are losing sight when you get a low grade on the "Are you good in bed?" or when a doctor diagnoses cancer in her. You may believe that while a few enlightened masters achieved freedom thousands of years ago, such a state is beyond the reach of those alive today, and certainly beyond your reach. "Loving what is" can change that belief.
If Katie's Work will bring you joy - please share it with others. When I think about Katie, I always smile and thank her for being 😊
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