Question Your Thinking, Change the World Quotations from
Byron Katie
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ALSO BY BYRON KATIE
A Thousand Names for Joy (with Stephen Mitchell)
I Need Your Love—Is That True?
(with Michael Katz)
Loving What Is (with Stephen Mitchell)
All of the above are available at your local
bookstore, or may be ordered by visiting:
Hay House USA: www.hayhouse.com®
Hay House Australia: www.hayhouse.com.au
Hay House UK: www.hayhouse.co.uk
Hay House South Africa: www.hayhouse.co.za
Hay House India: www.hayhouse.co.in
Copyright © 2007 by Byron Kathleen Mitchell
Published and distributed in the United States by: Hay House, Inc.:
www.hayhouse.com · Published and distributed in Australia by: Hay House
Australia Pty. Ltd.: www.hayhouse.com.au · Published and distributed in
the United Kingdom by: Hay House UK, Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.uk ·
Published and distributed in the Republic of South Africa by: Hay House
SA, (Pty), Ltd. · www.hayhouse.co.za · Distributed in Canada by:
Raincoast: www.raincoast.com · Published in India by: Hay House
Publishers India: www.hayhouse.co.in
Design: Tricia Breidenthal
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any
mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a
phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system,
transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private use—other than for
“fair use” as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews—without
prior written permission of the publisher. The intent of the author is only to
offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional
and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this
book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the
publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.
Some of the passages in this book first appeared in Byron Katie’s Loving
What Is and A Thousand Names for Joy, and are reprinted by permission of
Harmony Books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Katie, Byron.
Question your thinking, change the world: quotations from Byron Katie /
edited by Stephen Mitchell. -- 1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN-13: 978-1-4019-2093-7
ISBN-13: 978-1-4019-1730-2 (tradepaper) 1.Conduct of life-- Quotations,
maxims, etc. 2. Self-acceptance. 3. Reality. I. Mitchell, Stephen, 1943- II.
Title.
BJ1581.2. K34 2007
158--dc22
2006029473
ISBN:978-1-4019-1730-2
11 10 09 08 7 6 5 4
1st edition, October 2007
4th edition, February 2008
Printed in the United States of America
To Bob, Dana, Ross, Roxann, and Scott
CONTENTS
Introduction
I On Love, Sex, and Relationships
II On Health, Sickness, and Death
III On Parents and Children
IV On Work and Money
V On Self-Realization
Acknowledgments
About the Author
INTRODUCTION
The quotations in this book are just reminders. The fact is that you are
the wisdom you’ve been seeking. My experience is that we all have equal
wisdom, and there is no one with more wisdom than you.
You can find that wisdom by doing The Work (which I describe below).
It’s a way to go inside and tap into your wisdom whenever you want. If you
think that you have a problem, you’re confused. Go inside and know what’s
true for you: that is the medicine, that is the freedom. It’s the freedom I
enjoy.
What I love about The Work is that it allows you to go inside and
experience your own freedom for yourself, to experience what already
exists within you: the wisdom that is unchanging, immovable, ever waiting,
ever present. The Work allows you to go there. It’s like going home. You
don’t need a teacher. To ask is to receive, and now you know what to ask.
Don’t wait for the answer of anyone else, and don’t believe a word I say.
Give yourself your own wisdom. You create your own suffering, and you
can end it. It’s as simple as that.
ABOUT THE WORK
The Work is a simple yet powerful process of inquiry that teaches you
to identify and question the stressful thoughts that cause all the suffering in
the world. It consists of four questions that you apply to a stressful thought.
It’s a way to understand what’s hurting you, a way to end all your stress and
suffering. It works for everyone who is open to it, and it has a profound
effect on your whole life. It will affect not only your own life, but your
partner’s life and the lives of your children and your children’s children.
A thought is harmless unless we believe it. 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.
Most people think that they are what their thoughts tell them they are.
One day I noticed that I wasn’t breathing—I was being breathed. Then I
also noticed, to my amazement, that I wasn’t thinking—that I was actually
being thought and that thinking isn’t personal. Do you wake up in the
morning and say to yourself, “I think I won’t think today”? It’s too late:
you’re already thinking! Thoughts just appear. They come out of nothing
and go back to nothing, like clouds moving across the empty sky. They
come to pass, not to stay. There is no harm in them until we attach to them
as if they were true.
No one has ever been able to control their thinking, although people
may tell the story of how they have. I don’t let go of my thoughts—I meet
them with understanding, then they let go of me.
PUTTING THE MIND ON PAPER
The first step in The Work is to write down your stressful thoughts
about any situation in your life, past, present, or future—about a person you
dislike or a situation with someone who angers or frightens or saddens you.
(There’s a sample Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet in Loving What Is, or
you can go to www.TheWork.com and download and print one.)
For thousands of years, we have been taught not to judge—but let’s face
it, we still do it all the time. The truth is that we all have judgments running
in our heads. Through The Work, we finally have permission to let those
judgments speak out, or even scream out, on paper. We may find that even
the most unpleasant thoughts can be met with unconditional love.
I encourage you to write about someone whom you haven’t yet totally
forgiven. This is the most powerful place to begin. Even if you’ve forgiven
that person 99 percent, you aren’t free until your forgiveness is complete.
That one percent you haven’t forgiven is the very place where you’re stuck
in all your other relationships (including your relationship with yourself).
If you’re new to The Work, I strongly suggest that you not write about
yourself at first. If you start by judging yourself, your answers often come
with old motives and with answers that don’t work. Judging someone else,
then inquiring and turning it around, is the direct path to freedom. You can
judge yourself later, when you’ve been doing inquiry long enough to trust
the power of your own truths.
If you begin by pointing the finger of blame outward, then the focus
isn’t on you. You can just let loose and be uncensored. We’re often quite
sure about what other people need to do, how they should live, and whom
they should be with. We have 20/20 vision about others, but not about
ourselves.
When you do The Work, you see who you are by seeing who you think
other people are. Eventually you come to see that everything outside you is
a reflection of your own thinking. You are the storyteller, the projector of all
stories, and the world is the projected image of your thoughts.
Since the beginning of time, people have been trying to change the
world so that they can be happy. This hasn’t ever worked, because it
approaches the problem backward. What The Work gives us is a way to
change the projector—mind—rather than the projected. It’s like when
there’s a piece of lint on a projector’s lens. We think there’s a flaw on the
screen and we try to change this person and that person, whomever the flaw
appears to be on next. But it’s futile to try to change the projected images.
Once we realize where the lint is, we can clear the lens itself. This is the end
of suffering, and the beginning of a little joy in paradise.
FOUR QUESTIONS AND A TURNAROUND
The Work can be applied to any thought that causes you anger, fear,
sadness, or frustration—any thought that keeps you from living in peace.
Thoughts such as “My mother doesn’t love me,” “My boss doesn’t
appreciate me,” “I’m too fat,” “I need to be healthier,” “My children should
obey me,” or “My brother should stop drinking” pass through our minds
many times a day. When you believe these thoughts, you suffer; but when
you question them, you can discover what is really hurting you. 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.
After you’ve filled in the blanks on the Judge- Your-Neighbor
Worksheet, you question each of your statements using the four questions of
The Work, and then you turn the statement around. (The turnaround is a
way of experiencing the opposite of what you believe.)
Stressful thought: “My husband doesn’t listen to me.”
The four questions:
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?
Apply each of these four questions in turn to the stressful thought. Ask
yourself the question, sit still, wait, and allow your answer to surface from
deep within.
Once you’ve walked yourself through the four questions, turn the
thought around by finding opposites to the statement you wrote. For
example, “My husband doesn’t listen to me.” One turnaround is “My
husband does listen to me.” Find three genuine examples of how that
statement is true in your life. There are other possible turnarounds, such as
“I don’t listen to me” and “I don’t listen to my husband.” Find three
examples for each turnaround.
When you question your stressful thoughts, you come to see that
everything that has been troubling you is just a misunderstanding. You
realize that what you believe isn’t necessarily so. This is the beginning of
freedom. The Work always leaves you a kinder, clearer, happier human
being.
I
ON LOVE, SEX, AND RELATIONSHIPS
Nothing outside you can ever give you what you’re looking for.
Once we begin to question our thoughts, our partners—alive, dead, or
divorced—are always our greatest teachers. There’s no mistake about the
person you’re with; he or she is the perfect teacher for you, whether or not
the relationship works out, and once you enter inquiry, you come to see that
clearly.
There’s never a mistake in the universe. So if your partner is angry,
good. If there are things about him that you consider flaws, good, because
these flaws, are your own, you’re projecting them, and you can write them
down, inquire, and set yourself free. 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.
When you don’t love the other person, it hurts, because love is your very
self. And you can’t make yourself do it! You can’t make yourself love
someone. But when you come to love yourself, you automatically love the
other person. You can’t not. Just as you can’t make yourself love us, you
can’t make yourself not love us. It’s all your projection.
Personalities don’t love; they want something. 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). So when I hear people say that they love
someone and want to be loved in return, I know they’re not talking about
love. They’re talking about something else.
I can’t feel angry at my partner without suffering. This doesn’t feel natural
to me. It doesn’t feel resonant. If I meet my partner with understanding, it
feels more like me. So when a thought appears, can I meet that thought with
understanding? When I’ve learned to meet my thoughts with understanding,
I meet you with understanding.
What could you say about me that I haven’t already thought? There are
no new thoughts—they’re all recycled. We’re not meeting anything but
thoughts. The external is the internal projected. Whether it’s your thinking
or my thinking, it’s the same. Let’s meet it with understanding. Only love
heals.
It has been a life’s work to make our partner wrong. Then when we enter
inquiry, we lose. It’s a tremendous shock. And it turns out to be grace.
Winning is losing. Losing is winning. It all turns around.
When you own your share in something that your partner did to you, it’s the
sweetest thing in the world. You just feel humility, without the slightest urge
to defend yourself. It leaves you completely vulnerable. This is the kind of
vulnerability you want to lick off the pavement, it’s so delicious.
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. What do I have to do with it? I am here for your
perception, as if I had a choice. I am your story, no more and no less. You
have never met me. No one has ever met anyone.
