Byron Katie Poisoned By Success?

File under: Gurubusting and Gurus Clockin' Dollars

Seemingly from the inside, folks are beginning to lament the effect her success is having on Byron Katie:

Someone I know who was recently at the "Certification" workshop told me that one of the workshop participants did a "worksheet", that's one of tools of The Work, on Katie asking her to stop talking about all the money that the TurnAround Houses will be making. He also challenged her to stop being fake and having a different public and private persona and actually live what she is telling others to do.

It's hard to accept that Katie has lost her way because it appears that she once was genuine, sincere, and honest. Now it seems she has become fanatical about the agenda of bringing The Work to the world. And in her zealousness she is using her own process of The Work to justify doing whatever she wants to do. She is incredibly skilled at acting kind and caring and she shifts to a very different person once off the stage and out of The Work process.

If you watch Katie in an interview she constantly has to refer back to The Work. In her mind every situation can be handled by doing The Work. As I watch her I see a woman who needs The Work instantly to deal with any confusion or discomfort. It is her only answer to everything.

Katie has a charismatic personality and she has gathered a flock of followers to spread The Work. It's free, but there is a catch. You will be encouraged to go to an event or use a facilitator and it will far from free.

Yes, there is a free hotline which is staffed a few hours a day. But beware, the people who are answering the phone aren't particularly comfortable about what they are in, which is usually way over their heads, and all they will do with your despair is tell you to write down your thoughts and ask yourself some questions. And if you stray from that exact process, in their discomfort with your actual life, they will tell you to stop and stick to it.

If it feels abrupt and discounting and strangely artificial believe in yourself because the person on the other end of the phone is mostly likely scared as hell and doesn't have a clue how to help you other than to say "Do The Work" like parrot.

If you can find a person who hasn't been infected with the BKI Persona virus and has a shred of genuineness left in them, then have them do The Work with you. Meditative inquiry has value at certain times used in certain ways. At other times and used in the wrong way it can get you more lost and further away from the truth of you.

As difficult as it may be if you are in pain and looking for help, trust yourself. There are a lot of confused people in BKI and there is a lot of interest in getting you to give them some of your money. If you feel you are being manipulated stop. Many of the people in BKI want to be helpful and many "believe" they are being helpful. But they are actually very controlling and fearful and they are using this method to mask their anxiety.

There isn't much genuine freedom or joy in BKI, it is on the fast track to becoming a group of burned out believers following a charismatic leader who has become a fanatic and blind to the wrong turn (around) she has taken.

Katie, just stop. Stop the bullshit you are in. Stop acting as though you aren't in this for the money. Stop acting as though The Work is working. Open your eyes and see what is right in front of you. See what is, Katie. Most of the people around you are faking it.

Katie, there is always the opportunity for you to stop this and return to the truth you were once living. Go back to the desert and walk with yourself in quiet. Stop this insanity you have gotten into.

Ask yourself if the world really needs you to end it's suffering or if you really are using the world to distract yourself. The Work is losing it's power because you are losing your way.

Byron Katie is a long way from the conniving type like Sri Sri or the Kracki, but being human comes with faults, and acting like you don't have them only makes them that much more apparent. There is no cure for suffering, Bryon. You can help folks through their lives a bit, but as soon as you begin to believe your own hype, you're doomed as a true guru.

Whacking "The Work"

File under: Gurus Clockin' Dollars

We don't know who this person is, but we're all about this analysis of Byron "Big Bucks" Katie's "The Work":

There is a subtle nuance in the language of the facilitators of "the work" which reveals a deep, internal contradiction between what is practiced and what is preached.

Ostensibly, the work began as an "I" realization, one where Katie saw her own thoughts as projections and the outside world as a reflection of those projections.

From all accounts I have heard of people who experienced some sort of enlightenment, that experience came about from and inward collapsing of something that was blocking perception, and an emerging clarity. This seems to occur spontaneously after a period of disturbance. I have never heard of anyone having an enlightenment experience from performing some method (other than pure meditative concentration/contemplation), especially not from one that involves making noise inside the mind with more words and questions. Words and thoughts are forms of mind activity. The pain of mental activity is not resolved with more mental activity. It is resolved with listening and feeling, which lead into inner silence, stillness, and clarity.

In the application of attempting to teach "the work", a facilitator is immediately violating one of its own principles, namely, to "stay in one's own business." By now, how many other people's business has Byron Katie gotten into? It's difficult to take her preaching seriously when she herself is doing precisely what she recommends to her students not to do.

Furthermore, the moment I try to teach you that your thoughts are a projection of your mind, the idea that you need to learn this, and that I need to teach you, are projections of my mind. If I'm saying to you, "it's all about you", I have stepped outside of the circle of what is true about me, the circle in which I have a real say. It would seem disrespectful and presumptuous for me to delve into your inner dialogue and try to get you to see something about yourself, when my job is to listen and respond from my own truth. I see Byron Katie attempting to impose her own views over and over again in the conversations in her books. It is as though when you are expressing a judgement, it is a projection, but when she is expressing a judgment, she's seeing and telling it like it is. The idea that I know something you need to learn, and that I need to teach you, is a projection of my mind. There is no humility or respect in trying to teach you the "truth", since everyone is born from the truth, dies and returns to the truth, and is the truth. No special courses are required to learn honesty. Life experience and just saying what is on the heart is enough!

We realize that some folks are helped by the Work. Others only lose lots of money. Caveat emptor.

Byron Katie Is Either Going To Enlighten You Or Kill You Trying

File under: The Siddhi of PR

We've never felt much impetus to go after Byron Katie. Good friends are close to her, and all in all, she's not trying to be the font of everything magical and divine, as far as we can tell.

But we don't think you could pay us enough to go to one of her intensives after a reader turned us on to a message board post written by someone who did:

1. A forced 36 hour fast.
2. An day long "outing" where we were left to beg for food among homeless people in the streets of Los Angeles. We were instructed not to take any ID, or anything with us but the clothes we had on.
3. A rich organic diet that sent many people's bodies into shock. Vomiting was a regular occurrence, and was offered as "evidence" of cleansing, and of how powerful The Work really is.
4. Long days with brief breaks for meals. (7 am to 11:00 pm most days.)
5. Long, intense confessional sessions.
6. Deep, excessive probing into one's past traumas. (She used violent Korn music to trigger our worst memories.)
7. No contact with family or the outside world. (We turned our cell phones into the staff.)
8. Not allowed to wear make-up, to exercise, or to eat outside of the diet given.
9. Eating meals and taking breaks in complete silence.
10. Going at least 2 full days as a "silent one", unallowed to talk with others.
11. Being invited to criticize Katie and The School, and those who did were silently, subtly shunned by the group and Katie.
12. Having every doubt and concern about what was going on at The School questioned and "turned around", until no one could trust their own perceptions anymore.

It's all seeming quite culty to us. Her nice lady image aside, it sounds a lot more like psych-ops being run at a CIA black site than anything that could be worth paying for, let alone make you enlightened. Unless being tortured is the kind of thing gets you off. It's certainly all the rage these days.

Update: We just got off the phone with our formerly-inside man. He asked us to communicate two points about the above. The first is that all of these exercises are entirely optional. In his experience (he's taught approximately 700 people in The Work), no one has been mal-vibed by the staff for not participating in any of these practices. Nor does his experience reflect any kind of subtle shunning of those who opened up on The Work in the critiquing session.

The point of these practices is to take folks out of their regular self-image and personality habits, hopefully to engender a quasi-objective platform of self-analysis from which The Work may continue. You're still going to have to pay us to go through any of this, but at least it's not the cult indoctrination operation it seemed to the person who wrote the message board post.