Byron Katie Quotes

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

You can't drop concepts. You can only shine a little flashlight on them as you do inquiry, an you see that what you thought was true wasn't. And when the truth is seen, there's nothing you can do to make the lie true for you again.

There is no thought or situation that you can't put up against inquiry. Every thought, every person, every apparent problem is here for the sake of your freedom.

Since the past is unreal and the future is unreal, all your thoughts are about nothing.

You can't have an up without a down. You can't have a left without a right. This is duality. 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?

If you realized how beautiful you are, you would fall at your own feet.

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.

I came to see that there was nothing to forgive, that I was the one who caused my own problems.

I didn't fight or shame my thoughts, I questioned them, and they stopped shaming me.

Thoughts are just what is. They appear. They're innocent. They're not personal.

It's not a little thing to lose your identification and who you believe yourself to be.

My life is a contribution.

Insanity is arguing with reality.

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

Until the mind is open, the heart stays closed. The open mind is the key to the open heart.

In the fall, you don't grieve because the leaves are falling and dying. You say, "Isn't it beautiful!" Well, we're the same way. There are seasons. We all fall sooner or later. It's all so beautiful. And our concepts, without investigation, keep us from knowing this. It's beautiful to be a leaf, to be born, to fall, to give way to the next, to become food for the roots. It's life, always changing its form and always giving itself completely. We all do our part. No mistake.

Whatever it takes for you to find your freedom, that's what you've lived.

Do you know anyone who hasn't changed his mind? This door was a tree, then it will be firewood for someone, then it will return to air and earth. We're all like that, constantly changing. It's simply honest to report that you've changed your mind when you have. When you're afraid of what people will think if you speak honestly, that's where you become confused.

People don't need sudden revelations. They get what they need when they need it, thought by thought by thought. It's a constant thing when the mind starts to wake up to itself.

When I believed my thoughts I suffered.

If your happiness depends on your children being happy, that makes them your hostages. So stay out of their business, stop using them for your happiness, and be your own happiness. And that way you are the teacher for your children: someone who knows how to live a happy life.

It's difficult to seek other people's love. It's deadly. In seeking it you lose what is genuine. This is the prison we create for ourselves as we seek what we already have.

For me, if somebody tells me to go away, that is an opportunity for me to give them a better life. And that's an opportunity for me to know and realize where not to be. It's an opportunity for me to see what could be better than being with that person I love.

When you believe that your problem is caused by someone or something else, you become your own victim.

The more you reveal, the more you have to question and the freer you get. Until, finally, you're absolutely exposed. And that leaves you in a fearless position, because you can work in the world without the fear of being found out. That is freedom.

My experience is the opposite.

I've heard people say that they cling to their painful thoughts because they're afraid that without them they wouldn't be activists for peace. "If I feel peaceful," they say, "why would I bother taking action at all?"

When you think that someone or something other than yourself needs to change, you're mentally out of your business.

When we question our thoughts, we see that the craziness was never in the world, but in us.

I invite everyone to question their thoughts about their children and allow their children to be free. That's when we stop teaching our children fear.

Rather than understand the original cause-a thought-we try to change the stressful feelings by looking outside ourselves.

What would it be like to let go of wanting things to be other than they are?

Put your stressful thoughts on paper, question them, and have a great life.

If you're yelling within you that they shouldn't yell at you, that is where the pain begins, not with their yelling at you.

Those questions - when you think about a thought, when you're believing a thought or concept and you question it - you realize that it changes things. Every cell in your body is awake with inquiry.

We may appear to be mean but we're really only frightened.

I can't love you as you have been or will be. I can only love you as you are.

I know that even at moments of apparent danger, nothing is out of order or lacking, other than our own unquestioned thoughts about those moments.

Arguing with reality it like trying to teach a cat to bark.

The nature of mind is that it loves everything once it loves itself, just as it opposes everything when it opposes itself.

I'm the one who changes the world if I can follow what I think should and shouldn't be lived in this world.

Love is who we are without our stories.

Who I believed myself to be was a hopeless case. I would wake up in the mornings and notice I was still alive and breathing and hate God, hate myself, hate life, and contemplate ways of killing myself.

The power of one! If I can't stop war in my life, how can I expect politicians to stop war in the world? I can't. And we all have equal wisdom, so if I can do it then I know that anyone can do it if their mind is open to answering just four simple questions and beginning there.

So there's only transcendence in the moment. Nobody can be transcended forever. That's why I say, "Who cares if you're enlightened forever?"

I shouldn't steal in this world.

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

Love is worth living. Why do you trade life for less?