Wednesday, 13 September 2017

Question Your Thinking, Change the World by Byron Katie



All quotes from Byron's book


If you think that you have a problem, you’re confused.  Go inside and know what’s true for you.



Give yourself your own wisdom.  You create your own suffering, and you can end it. It’s as simple as that.




It’s not our thoughts, but the attachment to our thoughts, that causes suffering. Attaching to a thought means believing that it’s true, without inquiring. 



A belief is a thought that we’ve been attaching to, often for years.



Thoughts just appear. They come out of nothing and go back to nothing…. There is no harm in them until we attach to them as if they were true.



You see who you are by seeing who you think other people are.



Once you realize the difference between what is real and what is not, you naturally begin to act with clarity and efficiency and to live the life you always wanted to live. 




When you question your stressful thoughts, you come to see that everything that has been troubling you is just a misunderstanding. 



Nothing outside you can ever give you what you’re looking for.



People go to India to find a guru; but you don’t have to: you’re living with one.  Your partner will give you everything you need for your own freedom. 



Personalities don’t love; they want something.



When I hear people say that they love someone and want to be loved in return, I know they’re not talking about love.



Love doesn’t seek anything. It’s already complete. It doesn’t want, doesn’t need, has no shoulds (not even for the person’s own good). 



What could you say about me that I haven’t already thought? There are no new thoughts. 



The external is the internal projected.



Just feel humility, without the slightest urge to defend yourself.




My love is my business; it has nothing to do with you.  You love me, and that isn’t personal. You tell the story that I am this, or I am that, and you fall in love with your story. 



It’s not your job to love me – it’s mine. 



We don’t hear what you tell us; we hear what we think you’re telling us.



When you know that whatever you need is what you get, life becomes paradise.



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



The only possibility of being understood by someone else is to understand yourself.



When you say or do anything to please, get, keep, influence, or control anyone or anything, fear is the cause and pain is the result.



If you act from fear, there’s no way you can receive love, because you’re trapped in a thought about what you have to do for love. 



When a thought hurts, that’s the signal that it isn’t true.



All the advice you ever gave your partner is for you to hear.



You’re living with God disguised as your husband, and he will show you all your unclear places; he will give you everything you need in order to get free.



There is nothing you wouldn’t give to anyone if you weren’t afraid. 



To exclude anything that appears in your universe is not love. Love joins with everything. It doesn’t exclude the monster. 



Any time you find yourself wanting sympathy, you’re trying to get someone to join you in your mythology.



God spare me from the desire for love, approval or appreciation.




Defense is the first act of war. 



If you say one single thing that I have the urge to defend, that thing is the very pearl waiting inside me to be discovered. 



How do you know that you don’t need a romantic partner? You don’t have one.  How do you know that you need one? Here he is!



You can’t control someone else’s thinking. You can even control your own.  There’s no one thinking anyway. It’s a house of mirrors.



You can’t make yourself spiritual or loving. Just be honest and question your thinking.



Pleasure is an attempt to fill yourself. Joy is what you are. 



If you want real control, drop the illusion of control; let life have you.  It does anyway.  You’re just telling the story about how it doesn’t. 



All the thoughts we attach to are about survival, then health, then comfort, then pleasure. 



We’re just waiting for one teacher, just one, to give us permission to be who we are now so that we can all come to know that that’s what is normal for us. 



Investigate the stressful thoughts you have about your condition until you see that it’s the perfect condition for you. 



Who would you be without the story of “I should feel better”?  You’d be free. 



Meet your concepts with understanding. 



The truth is that until we love cancer, we can’t love god.  It doesn’t matter what symbols we use – poverty, loneliness, loss – it’s the concepts of “good and bad” that we attach to them that make us suffer. 



My body can never be a problem if my thinking is healthy. 



Your medicine is whatever appears now. 



When the mind leaves a body, we throw it in the ground and walk away. 



There’s no sadness without a story. 



Reality – the way that it is, exactly as it is, in every moment – is always kind.  It’s the story about reality that blurs our vision, obscures what’s true, and leads us to believe that there is injustice in the world. 



A lover of what is looks forward to everything. 



Life will bring us everything we need, to show us what we haven’t undone yet. 



Before a thought, there’s no one, nothing—only peace that doesn’t even recognize itself as peace. 



To come to that person in fear is to teach fear. 



Here’s what I’ve told my children: “You have the perfect mother. I’m responsible for all your problems, and you’re responsible for the solutions”. 



You should love you. It’s your job to love you.  “I don’t love myself, so you do it” – what’s wrong with this picture? 



If you think you’re supposed to love your children, you’re in big trouble. It just sets you up for shame and guilt. You’re not supposed to love your children until you do.



It’s the dream “I’m stuck” that makes you stuck. 



Who had the solution? Again, me. I realized that I could be right or I could be free. 



You are the mother you’ve been waiting for. 



Your family is a projected image of your thinking. They’re your story. 



Until you love your family without conditions, self-love is not a possibility. 



You don’t have any control over anything.  When you think you should and you see that you don’t, the effect is depression. 



The advice you’ve been giving your family and friends turns out to be advice for you to live, not us. 



Love is a listener. 



Your parents are your projection--- nothing more. 



An open mind is the only way to peace. As long as you think that you know what should and shouldn’t happen, you’re trying to manipulate. 



If you think we should be there for you, you be there for you! It’s not our job. 



What you want money for is happiness. 



The job you do out there in the apparent world is secondary.  It’s only a place for you to judge, inquire, and know yourself. Your true job is to appreciate what is; your primary profession is to be clear. 



We don’t attach to things; we attach to our stories about them. 



You realize that the worst that can happen is a concept. 



Wealth and poverty are in your own mind.  … it’s your story about money that strikes terror in your heart. 



Can you really know that your highest good is to be an artist? How do you react when you believe that thought? You refuse to be content in a job less lofty than that, and when you get a job, you hate it because you think you’re just marking time until you can devote yourself to your art.  So you’re always living in the future, and are never present. 



Whenever you think that your needs are not being met, you’re telling the story of a future. 



The story “I need more money” is what keeps you from realizing your wealth. … Right now, you’re supposed to have exactly as much money as you have. This is not a theory; this is reality. 



A messy mind is a messy life. 



Confusion is the only suffering. Confusion is when you argue with what is. When you’re perfectly clear, what is is what you want. So when you want something that’s different from what is, you can know that you’re very confused. 



If you have a problem, you must already have the solution. The question is, Do you really want the solution, or do you want to perpetuate the problem? 



Fear only has two causes: the thought of losing what you have or the thought of not getting what you want.  In either case, the worst thing that can ever happen is a story. 



Need is a story you tell yourself. 




The world is your perception of it.  Inside and outside always match – they’re reflections of each other. 





The world is the mirror image of your mind. 




To think that you know what’s best for another person is to be out of your business. The result is worry, anxiety, and fear. 




You can’t make a wrong decision; you can only experience the story arising about how you made it. 




To meet people where they are, without any conditions, is to meet my own self without conditions. 




Every fear is the fear of love. 



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



I am always held.  Even in the walking, the earth holds me.