Byron Katie Quotes & Sayings

Do you want to meet the love of your life? Look in the mirror. — Byron Katie

The miracle of love comes to you in the presence of the uninterpreted moment. If you are mentally somewhere else, you miss real life. — Byron Katie

If you want to enter a state of grace,
question the assumption you're defending right now. — Byron Katie

Without an uninvestigated story, there's only the perfection of life appearing as itself. You can always go inside and find the beauty that's revealed after the pain and fear are understood. — Byron Katie

My experience is the opposite. — Byron Katie

A mind that doesn't question its judgements, makes the world very small and dangerous. — Byron Katie

Everyone wants peace, inside and outside, and we would all have it if we knew how. Now we know how. It begins with you. — Byron Katie

You don't have to feel bad to act kindly. Love doesn't stand by, it moves with the speed of clarity. — Byron Katie

The best way of leading people is to let them find their own way. — Byron Katie

If I think that someone else is causing my problem, I'm insane. — Byron Katie

You're just suffering from the belief that there's something missing from your life. In reality, you always have what you need. — Byron Katie

You are what exists before all stories. — Byron Katie

That's what I love about integrity. Each time we go inside, that's where it is. — Byron Katie

Personalities don't love.
They want something. — Byron Katie

Any stressful thought that you have about the planet, for example, shows you where you are stuck, where your energy is being exhausted in not fully meeting life as it is, without condition. — Byron Katie

To argue with reality is to argue with God — Byron Katie

Gratitude is what we are without a story. — Byron Katie

Would you rather be right or free? — Byron Katie

I haven't had a single thought for 26 years. I have only understanding. It's somewhat complicated to understand that. I've hardly ever spoken about it. You're in a state of total peace of mind. A kind of nirvana. — Byron Katie

Discomfort is the call to set yourself free. — Byron Katie

Stories are the untested, uninvestigated theories that tell us what all these things mean. We don't even realize that they're just theories. — Byron Katie

Until we question our stressful thoughts, we remain victims of the images in our head. — Byron Katie

The only difference between heaven and hell is believing a thought. — Byron Katie

Who would you be without the thought that happiness depends on someone else? — Byron Katie

If you want reality to be different than it is, you might as well try to teach a cat to bark. — Byron Katie

If our thinking is clear, how could work or money be the problem? Our thinking is all we need to change. — Byron Katie

Just keep coming home to yourself, you are the one who you've been waiting for. — Byron Katie

It makes sense that no one else can cause you pain. That's your job. — Byron Katie

When you're comfortable and secure, it's not enough. The mind doesn't stop there because it has to continue to focus itself as this body, so it moves to pleasure. And pleasure really is a non-existent thing. When we're experiencing pleasure, we're trying to hold onto it as it leaves, so it really isn't pleasure. Pleasure is pain because we're grasping. — Byron Katie

All sadness is a tantrum. — Byron Katie

Everyone in your life is a figment of your imagination
ev en you. — Byron Katie

It is not your business to love me. It is mine. — Byron Katie

Your parents are your projection-nothing more. — Byron Katie

The ego is terrified of the truth. And the truth is that the ego doesn't exist. — Byron Katie

There is nothing that isn't true if you believe it; and nothing is true, believe it or not. — Byron Katie

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

When you're operating on uninvestigated theories of what's going on and you aren't even aware of it, you're in what I call "the dream." Often the dream becomes troubling; sometimes it even turns into a nightmare. At times like these, you may want to test the truth of your theories by doing The Work on them. The Work always leaves you with less of your uncomfortable story. Who would you be without it? How much of your world is made up of unexamined stories? You'll never know until you inquire. — Byron Katie

Everyone is a mirror image of yourself-your own thinking coming back to you. — Byron Katie

You would be amazed at who people are once you know yourself. — Byron Katie

Love is action.
It's clear, it's kind, it's effortless, and it's irresistible. — Byron Katie

The world is what you believe it to be, and it changes as you change. — Byron Katie

When you're focused outside and believe that your problem is caused by someone else, rather than by your attachment to the story you're believing in the moment, then you are your own victim, and the situation appears to be hopeless. — Byron Katie

Im very clear that everyone in the world loves me. I just dont expect them to realize it yet. — Byron Katie

When I believed my thoughts I suffered. — Byron Katie

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

As long as we believe our thoughts, there will always be war. — Byron Katie

Actually, I can't take credit for any of my decisions. I noticed one day that all my decisions were making themselves, and always at the right time. I haven't had to make one decision since then. They are always made for me, and they come from the wisdom that is in us all. I trust that wisdom completely. That trust itself was a decision made for me as inquiry cleared my mind. No decision, no fear. — Byron Katie

We never make a decision. When the
time is right, the decision makes itself. — Byron Katie

The worst loss you've ever experienced is the greatest gift you can have. — Byron Katie

It's only our story that keeps us from knowing that we always have everything we need. — Byron Katie

Until we know that death is equal to
life, we live in fear. — Byron Katie

I love the world, because I love the mind that created the world. — Byron Katie

Clarity moves much more efficiently than violence or stress. — Byron Katie

Romantic love is the story of how you need another person to complete you. It's an absolutely insane story. My experience is that I need no one to complete me. As soon as I realize that, everyone completes me. — Byron Katie

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

It's our nature to be free, and until we're stuck in a stressful belief system, we're pretty happy. — Byron Katie

If you knew how important you are, you would fragment into a billion pieces and just be light. — Byron Katie

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. — Byron Katie

Forgiveness is discovering that what you thought happened, didn't. — Byron Katie

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

If I say, if I talk about, 'I want to be enlightened ... ' it implies a future. And there isn't any. — Byron Katie

There is no mistake in nature. — Byron Katie

I have never experienced a stressful feeling that wasn't caused by attaching to an untrue thought. Behind every uncomfortable feeling, there's a thought that isn't true for us. — Byron Katie

You've never reacted to someone else. You project meaning onto nothing. And you react to the meaning you've projected — Byron Katie

The voice within is what I'm married to. All marriage is a metaphor for that marriage. My lover is the place inside me where an honest yes and no come from. That's my true partner. It's always there.
And to tell you yes when my integrity says no is to divorce that partner. — Byron Katie

When your mind opens, the whole world falls into place. — Byron Katie

Low self-esteem is not possible when you understand the nature of everything. Depression is not possible. The universe is absolutely friendly. — Byron Katie

Nothing outside you can ever give you what you're looking for. — Byron Katie

Bottom line is, if someone says something about me and it upsets me, it's true. — Byron Katie

I do whatever I can to serve peace. My job is the end of suffering. — Byron Katie

Freedom is our birthright. — Byron Katie

I'm most inspired whenever I hear of even the smallest act of human kindness. — Byron Katie

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

Don't be careful. You could hurt yourself. — Byron Katie

When a thought hurts, that's the signal that it isn't true. — Byron Katie

Hurt feelings or discomfort of any kind cannot be caused 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.
What we are doing with inquiry is meeting our thoughts with some simple understanding, finally. Pain, anger, and frustration will let us know when it's time to inquire. We either believe what we think or we question it: there's no other choice. Questioning our thoughts is the kinder way. Inquiry always leaves us as more loving human beings. — Byron Katie

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

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

The pain shows you what's left to investigate. — Byron Katie

You move totally away from reality when you believe that there is a legitimate reason to suffer. — Byron Katie

For me, if somebody tells me to go away, that is an opportunity: for me to give the person a better life, to realize where not to be, and to see what could be even better than being with that person I love. — Byron Katie

Every moment a gift: are you unwrapping yours now, and now, and now? — Byron Katie

It's good that it hurts. Pain is the signal that you're confused, that you're in a lie. — Byron Katie

The world is perfect. As you question your mind, this becomes more and more obvious. Mind changes, and as a result, the world changes. A clear mind heals everything that needs to be healed. It can never be fooled into believing that there is one speck out of order. — Byron Katie

There is no peace in the world until you find peace within yourself in this moment. — Byron Katie

I came to see that the world is always as it should be, whether I opposed it or not. — Byron Katie

Until you can see everything in the world as your friend, your work is not done. — Byron Katie

To think that I know what's best for anyone else is to be out of my business. Even in the name of love, it is pure arrogance, and the result is tension, anxiety, and fear. Do I know what's right for me? That is my only business. Let me work with that before I try to solve problems for you. — Byron Katie

Insanity is arguing with reality. — Byron Katie

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

No-one can disappoint you, only your thoughts about them can — Byron Katie

Sleep just gives the ego a little time out. It has to stay strong in order to be something that it isn't. — Byron Katie

Mind changes, and as a result, the world changes. A clear mind heals everything that needs to be healed. — Byron Katie

The greatest stock market you can invest in is yourself. Finding this truth is better than finding a gold mine. — Byron Katie

Every uncomfortable feeling, every pain, every moment of stress & suffering is for your own self-realizatio n. — Byron Katie

Stress is an alarm clock that lets you know you're attached to something not true for you. — Byron Katie

Seeking love keeps you from the awareness that you already have it - that you are it. — Byron Katie

The person who finds peace inside and lives it, is the one who teaches what true peace is. — Byron Katie

Nothing comes ahead of its time, and nothing ever happened that didn't need to happen. — Byron Katie

It's not possible to have a problem without believing a prior thought. To notice this simple truth is the beginning of peace. — Byron Katie