Byron Katie

Byron Kathleen Mitchell (née Reid) (born December 6, 1942), more famous as Byron Katie, is the creator of the self-inquiry method called The Work. She is an American speaker and author and has published five books (by 2009).

Quotes

Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life (2002)

• We are entering the dimension where we have control - the inside.
• Is it true?
  Can you absolutely know that it's true?
  How do you react when you believe that thought?
  Who would you be without the thought?

• The Work is merely four questions; it's not even a thing. It has no motive, no strings. It's nothing without your answers. These four questions will join any program you've got and enhance it. Any religion you have - they'll enhance it. If you have no religion, they will bring you joy. And they'll burn up anything that isn't true for you. They'll burn through to the reality that has always been waiting.

• When I argue with reality, I lose—but only 100% of the time.

• You move totally away from reality when you believe that there is a legitimate reason to suffer.

• An unquestioned mind is the world of suffering.

• No one can hurt me—that’s my job.

• Sanity doesn’t suffer, ever.

• If I had a prayer, it would be this: “God spare me from the desire for love, approval, and appreciation. Amen.”

• You either believe what you think or you question it. There’s no other choice.

• If I think you’re my problem, I’m insane.

• When I am perfectly clear, what is is what I want.

• Arguing with reality is like trying to teach a cat to bark—hopeless.

• How do I know that I don’t need what I want? I don’t have it.

• Forgiveness is realizing that what you thought happened, didn’t.

• Everything happens for me, not to me.

• Reality is always kinder than the story we tell about it.

• I don’t let go of concepts—I question them. Then they let go of me.

• Gratitude is what we are without a story.

• When I walk into a room, I know that everyone in it loves me. I just don’t expect them to realize it yet.

• For me, reality is God, because it rules.

• Personalities don’t love—they want something.

• You are what exists before all stories. You are what remains when the story is understood.

• I’m a lover of what is, not because I’m a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality.

• Everyone is a mirror image of yourself—your own thinking coming back at you.

• “I don’t know” is my favorite position.

• What is is. You don’t get a vote. Haven’t you noticed?

• Until you look forward to criticism, your Work’s not done.

• Thoughts aren’t personal. They just appear, like raindrops. Would you argue with a raindrop?

• There are no new stressful thoughts. They’re all recycled.

• Stress is an alarm clock that lets you know you’ve attached to something not true for you.

• We do only three things in life: we sit, we stand, we lie horizontal. The rest is just a story.

• The teacher you need is the person you’re living with.

• Everyone and everything is doing its job perfectly—no mistake.

• Ultimately, I am all I can know.

• Until we know that death is equal to life, we live in fear.

• There are no physical problems—only mental ones.

• We never make a decision. When the time is right, the decision makes itself.

• The miracle of love comes to us in the presence of the uninterpreted moment.

• The last story: God is everything, God is good.

• When they attack you and you notice that you love them with all your heart, your Work is done.

• Seeking love keeps you from the awareness that you already have it—that you are it.

• Have you asked you?

• We say to others only what we need to hear.

• Nothing you believe is true. To know this is freedom.

• If you want to see the love of your life, look in the mirror.

• Reality is always the story of a past, and what I love about the past is—it’s over.

• We suffer only until we realize that we can’t know anything.

• You can only see what you believe—nothing else is possible.

• I could find only three kinds of business in the world—mine, yours, and God’s. Whose business are you in?

• No one has ever been angry at another human being—we’re only angry at our story of them.

• Just keep coming home to yourself. You are the one you’ve been waiting for.

• The perfect world is created when the mind is free to see it.
• Would you rather be right or free?
• In my experience, it takes only one person to have a successful relationship, and that's me.

Your Inner Awakening

• Don't be careful. You could hurt yourself.
• Defense is the first act of war.

External links

• The Official Website for The Work of Byron Katie
• Byron Katie's blog