How You Can End Suffering

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An Interview with Byron Katie, author of The Work

Ray: But why do so many people feel as if they are sad or suffering?

Katie: If your beliefs are stressful and you question them, you come to see that they aren’t true — whereas prior to questioning, you absolutely believe them. How can you live in joy when you’re believing thoughts that bring on sadness, frustration, anger, alienation, and loneliness? When you believe those thoughts, you think that the world is making you unhappy. But it’s your thoughts about the world that are making you unhappy.

Ultimately, there’s no one who can teach you except yourself. Each of us needs to look at what our belief system really consists of. Look at the concepts that come across your mind and just notice what you believe.

Ray: Some people may struggle to disengage the intellect. How do you undo thinking without thinking? Isn’t inquiry a thought engaging itself, or deconstructing another thought?

Katie: Actually, it’s mind seeing through itself and understanding itself. I like to say that understanding is the power. Without intellect, there’s no story and no world.

The moment it begins to question itself, the mind becomes so clear that it starts working with itself rather than with the body’s identification.

By questioning our stressful thoughts, we come to see that they’re not true. And if we see that our stressful thoughts aren’t true — if we have questioned them deeply and thoroughly enough — what does that leave? It leaves love. It leaves you completely in love with yourself and with a mind that can only project love onto everyone else, as well.

Ray: You don’t use Positive Affirmations though. Why not?

Katie: You can never make yourself believe that you’re lovable, however hard you try. Notice – when the chips are down, what you really believe rises to the surface of the mind to replace what you want to believe. So, after years of “I am lovable, I am lovable,” when your husband lies to you or your mother is rude, the underlying thought “I’m unloveable” overrides all your positive affirmations. What we really believe is what we manifest. What we believe, we see. So, we cannot see what we don’t believe.

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The Mind is not the enemy – Become a gentle observer of your thoughts… try to view unexamined concepts as an invitation to investigate and reclaim your natural state of joy.

Is it Your Business?

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There is nothing so dark that we cannot put it on paper, question it, and set ourselves free.

Byron Katie states that there are three kinds of business – mine, other people’s, and God’s (or nature). Being in other people’s or nature’s business is especially stressful, because for one thing, we have no control over them.

For instance, if I worry about what someone else is thinking, I can make myself insane! And 99% of my guesses are probably wrong. Not to mention I have no power over another persons thoughts. Where would their thoughts come from, anyway? From their own history, that’s where. Instead, I can focus on my own opinions in a situation. I can exert some control over those.

“The next time you’re feeling stress or discomfort, ask yourself whose business you’re in mentally. You may come to see that you’ve never really been present, that you’ve been mentally living in other people’s business all your life. Just to notice that you’re in someone else’s business can bring you back to your own wonderful self.”- Katie