Feature Story
“The Work” of Inner Peace: An Interview with Byron Katie
by Nicole Pugh
Byron Katie is the founder of a simple yet powerful process of self-inquiry called The Work. For the last twenty-two years, she has helped thousands of people journey to the source of the suffering in their lives and to discover peace through The Work. She is the author of four best-selling books, including Loving What Is and A Thousand Names for Joy: Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are. Vision Magazine had a chance to speak with Katie (as she is commonly known) about The Work and about finding the path to peace within ourselves and the world.
Vision Magazine: Can you explain to our readers who may not know—what is The Work?
Byron Katie: The Work is a way to identify and question the thoughts that cause all the suffering and violence in the world. Every time you are stressed, frustrated or angry, just notice what you are thinking in the moment. There’s a Worksheet you can download from our website that is a great help in identifying these thoughts. Once you write them down it’s easy to question them, using the four questions and turnaround of The Work. The turnaround is a way of experiencing the opposite of what you believe. For example, you may think, “He doesn’t like me.” One opposite is “He does like me.” You find three genuine examples of how that is as true as, or truer than, “He doesn’t like me.” Another opposite is “I don’t like me.” Find examples of that [and] of where you haven’t been kind to yourself. Another might be “I don’t like him.” Finding examples of these turnarounds is an education. You begin to understand a lot more about yourself and the world around you.
Also, there is a very interesting thing that happens. Inquiry gives you an opportunity to make amends, to consult with that person and to ask how you can make it right. Each time we notice our behavior, we can make amends. If we sit and get very still with it, doing The Work is a way of starting our lives over—right here, right now—and living as guilt-free human beings. It really is the end of pain and guilt, because as we do The Work, we wake up to what really hurts us. It’s our thoughts that hurt us, not what others do to us. No one can hurt me—that’s my job. The world can’t make me suffer, only my thoughts about the world [can]. Sanity doesn’t suffer—ever. As we do The Work, all our confusion surfaces, and we can see it. Then it shifts on its own. The moment our minds get clear, the world gets clear.
VM: Regarding the thinking process, you have said, “I am not thinking, I am being thought.” If you are not thinking, then who is?
BK: Actually, why does it have to be anyone? If you look very closely, you’ll never be able to find a thinker. I like to say, “Thoughts happen.” When you wake up in the morning, do you say, “I think I won’t think today?” It’s too late: you’re already thinking! You’re already being thought! It is happening. As you do The Work with these thoughts, you begin to end the war with them. In other words, the mind has been at war with itself. If we don’t love our thoughts, how can we love what our mind is interpreting? In other words, how can I love you if I can’t love my thoughts about you? For twenty-two years I haven’t met a thought I haven’t loved.
VM: How did The Work come to you?
BK: The Work came to me one morning as I lay sleeping on the floor. I was so full of self-hatred that I wasn’t able to sleep in a bed. I thought that I didn’t deserve that. And I had been deeply depressed for ten years, filled with rage, despair, agoraphobia, and paranoia. I used to sleep with a gun under my pillow. Well, on that particular morning, I opened my eyes and suddenly, for no reason, all that darkness was gone. There was a joy that no one had told me about. It filled me completely. There were no thoughts, just that ecstatic joy. I call it heaven. It was as though I fell into it. In that moment, I saw that there was no identification. There was no name for anything, no I, no it, no them, no world—nothing. Then my mind was flooded with thoughts. And instantly I saw that the thoughts weren’t true. Prior to the thoughts, there was just that glorious joy. Then when the thoughts came, it was as if they took the joy and transformed it into an old world. I found that hilarious and I burst out laughing, because I could see the effects of the mind. The mind created this entire world of confusion and suffering, and it wasn’t real. No thought was real! I could see that with absolute clarity. So immediately, whenever a thought arose, the questions arose. “Is it true?” No. “How do you react when you believe that thought?” I suffer. “Who would you be without the thought?” At peace, in joy. All of this was wordless, and it dissolved every single thought. It was an amazing birth [into what I call] heaven.
VM: You have said that all stress we feel is caused by “arguing with what is.” But what if what we are experiencing at the moment is a life threatening situation or a situation that is causing us a lot of suffering?
BK: Of course, you do everything you can to change it. That is kind. What is, is the past. To argue with that is insane. But the fact is that no situation can cause you suffering. It’s only your thoughts about the situation that cause suffering. There is no exception to this. And when we do The Work on our thoughts about the people and situations that frustrate or anger us, then our feelings change radically. Reality changes as the mind that perceives it changes. Knowing how to question our thoughts leaves us as very happy human beings.
VM: Can you speak a little about the work you are doing in prisons?
BK: I have had an ongoing program in San Quentin for about five years now, and it is very, very powerful. I have facilitators all over the world doing the work in prisons, and we have done the work recently in prisons in Israel. When these people—thieves, murderers, rapists—put their thoughts on paper, question them and turn them around, they become free, even though physically they’re in prison. I’ve had many letters from prisoners who feel sane and clear for the first time in their lives. These people actually come to feel enormous gratitude for being in prison. They’re grateful, because they think that otherwise they wouldn’t have found The Work.
VM: So even when someone is in a prison, they can still experience freedom?
BK: I have met people in prison who are freer than most people on the outside. And they are teaching one another. That is true rehabilitation.
When prisoners are released, they are given two hundred dollars and the clothes on their back. The gate shuts behind them. What are they going to do with two hundred dollars? They’re in the same conditions as before, with the same family and the same friends. Some of them don’t even have family or friends left. What are they going to do? Two hundred dollars is just enough to get high and to get a cab to take you there.
But if they have learned how to question their mind, the gate shuts behind them and maybe they think, “What am I going to do? I need to do something.” They can just stop right there. “I need to do something”—is that true? Can I absolutely know that it’s true? What happens to me when I believe that thought? And who would I be without it? They might just sit down with that two hundred dollars and notice the sun in their face, notice what it is like to be on the other side of the walls, and just wait until the next intelligent step came to them. What is the sane thing to do? What is the loving thing to do? When we’re fearful, we act out of that fear, and we can just ruin our lives and the lives of others. That’s the way of it. But when we question our thinking, we become sane.
We are so unlimited! A man who stepped out of a prison like that, if he was sane, could go to the nearest homeless shelter and say, “How can I help? I have been fortunate enough to be supported for the last fifty years and I want to give it back.” There are all sorts of solutions that can’t occur to the fearful mind.
VM: You say in your book Loving What Is that “there is nothing you can do that doesn’t help the planet.” Can you expand on that?
BK: Well, for example, if I just got out of prison and I was living in terror and I did find my way back to my old ways and I did spend that money on alcohol and drugs—which is all I know to do when I am out—then I have supported the drug dealer who then was able to support his children. I paid for their little school clothes to get to school or maybe just bought them a glass of milk.
It all works. There is nothing that is not about enlightenment. No one would harm another human being if they were not confused. There is nothing that is not support. It is just that fearful minds have great difficulty in understanding that. So they are blind to heaven, blind to the goodness that is everywhere.
VM: Somebody could say that the person who decides to buy drugs is supporting the drug dealer and that is wrong.
BK: Yes, and that would be true as well. But the addict doesn’t know another way. He is believing his thoughts, so he doesn’t have a choice. He’s actually doing the best he can, given the thoughts that he is thinking.
I invite you to go back to the time when you did something that you didn’t like, and to look at what you were believing at the time. Notice, as you sit in that situation, how you had no choice, because of what you were believing at the time you did it. That realization levels the field. It lets us understand why people kill, why people rape, why they harm others. We’re all doing the best we can.
The simplest thing is to love. When we believe our thoughts, we revert to a state of fear. We deserve more. We deserve freedom, which is another way of saying that happiness is our birthright. Happiness and freedom are synonymous.
For more information on The Work and Byron Katie, please visit www.thework.com.