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

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

An unquestioned mind is the world of suffering.

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

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

Life

Realization: After suffering from rage, self-loathing, Paranoia and  constant thought of suicide for almost a decade and for last two years she was often unable to leave her bedroom,one morning in February 1986, while in a halfway house for women with eating disorders,  she experienced a life-changing realization, she called it “Waking up to reality”  similar to spiritual awakenings described in Buddist and Hindu traditions under various names. According to her She discovered that, “when she believed her thoughts, she suffered, but that when she didn’t believe them, she didn’t suffer”. She found a joy within her  that has never disappeared.

Death: Alive

Teaching Style: Byron Katie practices a kind of teaching called Spiritual Inquiry, you don’t visualize or meditate or pray, you just ask essential questions.

Fame: Byron Katie is regarded as a spiritual innovator of the  new millennium. She teaches a simple yet powerful process of self-inquiry called “The Work”, which  involves asking four questions and a turnaround that can radically change our life. The Work  has helped hundreds and thousands worldwide find peace. She has taught her method to people at free public events, in prisons, hospitals, churches, corporations, shelters for survivors of domestic violence, universities and schools, at weekend intensives, and at her nine-day “School for The Work. Her work is a is a simple process, accessible to people of all ages and backgrounds, and requires nothing more than a pen and paper and an open mind.

Legacy: Though Byron Katie is not aligned with any particular religion  or tradition, she described her experience as similar to spiritual awakenings described in Buddhist and Hindu traditions under various names. She acknowledged that though she didn’t know about gurus and wise people,  the high desert she experienced was her teacher.

Teachings

Her simple yet powerful process of self-inquiry called “The Work”  teaches to identify and question thoughts that cause all the suffering in the world. It’s a way to understand what’s hurting you, and to address your problems with clarity.In its most basic form, The Work consists of four questions and a turnaround.

The four questions are:

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

This method can be done either by oneself or with another person.First you have to choose something which feels important, and which annoys or troubles you, that someone else does or did. For example: “your mother never loved you”. Then asks themselves or is asked each of the four questions listed above. When alone, one writes down their response, and with another person one speaks their answers aloud.

The Work is meditation. It’s about awareness, not about trying to change your thoughts. Ask the questions, then take your time, go inside, and wait for the deeper answers to surface. After the four questions, the thought is literally turned around to its opposite.For example: “My mother never loved me” turns around to “My mother always loved me,” then one sees if they can find ways that this new thought is equally true, or more true, than the original thought.

As you began living yours turnarounds, you noticed that you were everything you called others. Others were merely your projection. Now, instead of trying to change the world around you , you can put the thoughts on paper, investigate them, turn them around, and find that you are the very thing you thought others were.In the moment you see others as selfish, you are selfish (deciding how others should be). In the moment you see others as unkind, you are unkind.

The turnarounds are your prescription for happiness. Live the medicine you have been prescribing for others. The world is waiting for just one person to live it. You’re the one.

Until you can see the enemy as a friend, your Work is not done. This doesn’t mean you must invite him to dinner. Friendship is an internal experience.

It takes only one person to have a successful relationship that is you.