As a species, we human beings tend to put our happiness on hold until something changes. We'll
be happy, we think, when we get what we believe we want or need: more money, a healthier body, a more attractive or understanding
partner, a loving mother, children who behave. Many of us spend our lives trying desperately to get the world and the people
in it to satisfy our desires. No wonder we don't feel any lasting sense of peace; mentally we're continually engaged
in war with reality. And
Katie says that reality is always kinder than the story we tell about it. Haven’t you noticed?
In 1986,
Byron Katie experienced the profound realization that without any story about how life is supposed to be, we are left with
peace far beyond what we hoped to find through wish fulfillment. On the other side of our myths about reality is reality itself,
indescribably joyful-and unknowable as long as we keep trying to change it. Only when we give up "what should be"
can we experience the perfection of "what is."
This "giving up," however, can't be achieved by the thinking mind.
(Hoping to give up attachment, the mind subversively attaches to a concept of liberation.) The remedy that brought Katie her
freedom is something she calls The Work, a penetrating inquiry process of four questions and a "turnaround." By
exposing unconscious beliefs to the clear light of direct investigation, the mind wakes up to its innocent mistake and drops
its losing battle.
Katie’s
web site, www.thework.com, is a rich resource of samples of this brilliant, radical way of questioning the mind and ridding ourselves
of the confusion brought on by our self-limiting concepts.
And everything is a concept. But only everything.
And the only real suffering in this world, according to Katie, comes from confusion.
Trying to change someone is as useless as trying to teach a pig to dance. It
is a waste of time, and it really pisses the pig off.
Gopita delights in helping with self-inquiry, and the process
of dropping all “story” and asking only Katie’s four questions:
- Is it True?
- Can I absolutely know it is True?
- How
do I react when I think that Thought?
- Who would
I be without the thought?
Often one enters a realm of peace and truth and laughter, one’s true nature, trimming concept after
concept after concept, with love, like a kiss. Then, the thought is turned around, and one sees, usually
with astonishing clarity, that the opposite is also true, or as true, and the need for further conversation drops away as
naturally as a morning breeze just effortlessly appears.
The mind rests in its own still nature, until another thought thinks it, waiting, like a sweet,
inquisitive child, to be held and questioned.
Faciliations are one hour in length and cost $115.00. Credit cards are accepted.
Call 818.248-7258 for a free ten minute consultation.
It is highly recommended that a client read Katie’s book, written with Stephen Mitchell,
Loving What Is, and download several worksheets from Katie’s web page, www.TheWork.com before setting up an appointment.
This makes full use of our hour together, as guided inquiry leads us both, facilitator and client,
to our freedom again and again and again.
