Best Byron Katie Quotes on Reality and Suffering:
1- “Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late. You don’t have to like it… it’s just easier if you do.” ~ Byron Katie
2- “People try so hard to let go of their negative behaviors and thoughts, and it doesn’t work, or it works only for a short time. I didn’t let go of my negative thoughts; I questioned them, and then they let go of me, and so did my addictions and depression.” ~ Byron Katie
3- “It’s not what happens in life that bothers us. It’s what we’re believing about it that bothers us.” ~ Byron Katie
4- “Just keep coming home to yourself, you are the one who you’ve been waiting for.” ~ Byron Katie
5- “Fear has only two causes: the thought of losing what you have or the thought of not getting what you want.” ~ Byron Katie
6- “Stress is an alarm clock that lets you know you’re attached to something not true for you.” ~ Byron Katie
7- “Our job is unconditional love. The job of everyone else in our life is to push our buttons.” ~ Byron Katie
8- “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?” ~ Byron Katie
9- “Any thought of discomfort or stress is an alarm that lets you know you’re believing an untrue thought” ~ Byron Katie
10- “I am a lover of what is, not because I’m a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality. We can know that reality is good just as it is, because when we argue with it, we experience tension and frustration. We don’t feel natural or balanced. When we stop opposing reality, action becomes simple, fluid, kind, and fearless.” ~ Byron Katie
11- “Peace doesn’t require two people; it requires only one. It has to be you. The problem begins and ends there.” ~ Byron Katie
12- “When a thought hurts, that’s the signal that it isn’t true.” ~ Byron Katie
13- “I can find only three kinds of business in the universe: mine, yours and God’s. Much of our stress comes from mentally living out of our business. When I think, “You need to get a job, I want you to be happy, you should be on time, you need to take better care of yourself,” I am in your business. When I’m worried about earthquakes, floods, war, or when I will die, I am in God’s business. If I am mentally in your business or in God’s business, the effect is separation.” ~ Byron Katie
14-“Hurt feelings or discomfort of any kind cannot be cause by another person. No one outside me can hurt me. That’s not a possibility. It’s only when I believe a stressful thought that I get hurt. And I’m the one who’s hurting me by believing what I think. This is very good news, because it means that I don’t have to get someone else to stop hurting me. I’m the one who can stop hurting me. It’s within my power.” ~ Byron Katie
15- “Every single human being is trying his best. We’re all doing the best we can. But when we believe what we think, we have to live out those thoughts. When there’s chaos in our heads, there’s chaos in our lives. When there’s hurt in our thinking, there’s hurt in our lives. Love thy neighbor as thyself? I always have. When I hated me, I hated you. That’s how it works. If I hate someone, I’m mistaking them for me, and solutions remain hidden.” ~ Byron Katie
16- “Spare yourself from seeking love, approval, or appreciation-from anyone. And watch what happens in reality, just for fun.” ~ Byron Katie
17- “The only thing you fear is the unreality that you yourself have invented.” ~ Byron Katie
18- “The world is what you believe it to be, and it changes as you change.” ~ Byron Katie
19- “The most important relationship is the mind’s relationship with itself. In other words, the ultimate – and, really, the only – relationship you have is the relationship with your own thoughts.” ~ Byron Katie
20- “Pay close attention to the particular thoughts you use to deprive yourself of happiness.” ~ Byron Katie
21- “A thought is harmless unless we believe it. It’s not our thoughts, but our 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.” ~ Byron Katie
22- “If you think the cause of your problem is ‘out there,’ you’ll try to solve it from the outside. Take the shortcut: solve it from within.” ~ Byron Katie
23- “The world is nothing but my perception of it. I see only through myself. I hear only through the filter of my story.” ~ Byron Katie
24- “Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you.” ~ Byron Katie
25- “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.” ~ Byron Katie
26- “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?”
My answer is “Because that’s what love does.”
To think that we need sadness or outrage
to motivate us to do what’s right is insane.
As if the clearer and happier you get, the less kind you become.
As if when someone finds freedom, she just sits around all day
with drool running down her chin.
My experience is the opposite.
Love is action.” ~ Byron Katie
27- “No-one can disappoint you, only your thoughts about them can” ~ Byron Katie
28- “We are never really in control. We just think we are when things happen to be going our way.” ~ Byron Katie
29- “Depression, pain, and fear are gifts that say, “Sweetheart, take a look at your thinking in this moment. You’re living in a story that isn’t true for you.” Living a lie is always stressful. And investigating a lie through The Work always leads you back to who you are. Who you are is not an option. You are love. It hurts to believe you’re other than who you are, to live any story less than love.” ~ Byron Katie
30- “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.” ~ Byron Katie
31- “Since the past is unreal and the future is unreal, all your thoughts are about nothing.” ~ Byron Katie
32- “The whole world is simply my story, projected back to me on the screen of my own perception. All of it.” ~ Byron Katie
33- “It’s not your job to like me – it’s mine” ~ Byron Katie
34- “Placing the blame or judgment on someone else leaves you powerless to change your experience; taking responsibility for your beliefs and judgments gives you the power to change them” ~ Byron Katie
35- “Bottom line is, if someone says something about me and it upsets me, it’s true.” ~ Byron Katie
36- “We never make a decision. When the
time is right, the decision makes itself.” ~ Byron Katie
37- “Happiness is the natural state for someone who knows that there’s nothing to know.” ~ Byron Katie
38- “An uncomfortable feeling is not an enemy. It’s a gift that says, “Get honest; inquire.” We reach out for alcohol, or television, or credit cards, so we can focus out there and not have to look at the feeling. And that’s as it should be, because in our innocence we haven’t known how. So now what we can do is reach out for a paper and a pencil, write thought down, and investigate.” ~ Byron Katie
39- “Nothing belongs to me. Everything comes and goes. Serenity is an open door.” ~ Byron Katie
40- “It’s good that it hurts. Pain is the signal that you’re confused, that you’re in a lie.” ~ Byron Katie
41- “I discovered that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but that when I didn’t believe them, I didn’t suffer, and that this is true for every human being. Freedom is as simple as that. I found that suffering is optional. I found a joy within me that has never disappeared, not for a single moment.” ~ Byron Katie
42- “You’ve never reacted to someone else. You project meaning onto nothing. And you react to the meaning you’ve projected” ~ Byron Katie
43- “I love what I think, and I’m never tempted to believe it. Thoughts are like the wind or the leaves on the trees or the raindrops falling. They’re not personal, they don’t belong to us, they just come and go. When they’re met with understanding, they’re friends.” ~ Byron Katie
44- “When you realize that every stressful moment you experience is a gift that points you to your own freedom, life becomes very kind.” ~ Byron Katie
45- “When we question our thoughts, we see that the craziness was never in the world, but in us.” ~ Byron Katie
46- “If your beliefs are stressful and you question them, you come to see that they aren’t true – whereas prior to questioning, you absolutely believe them. How can you live in joy when you’re believing thoughts that bring on sadness, frustration, anger, alienation, and loneliness?” ~ Byron Katie
47- “No one has ever been able to control his 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.” ~ Byron Katie
48- “Everyone in your life is a figment of your imagination–ev en you.” ~ Byron Katie
49- “Nothing terrible has ever happened except in our thinking. Reality is always good, even in situations that seem like nightmares. The story we tell is the only nightmare that we have lived.” ~ Byron Katie
50- “You either believe what you think or
you question it. There’s no other choice.” ~ Byron Katie
