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Jiddu Krishnamurti conversation 1970
Sir, surely, is belief necessary at all? Why do we have beliefs? Probably because mostly you believe in something because you don't actually see `what is'. If you saw actually `what is', `what is' in the sense what is actually going on, both outwardly, in the outward phenomenon, and inwardly, then what is the necessity for a belief at all? You don't believe the sun is rising. It is there, and you have seen it. Therefore the whole problem of belief seems to me so utterly erroneous, it has no place with a person who is actually observing the whole structure and the nature of thinking, living, suffering, the agony of existence, the sorrow, and all the rest of it. Belief appears as a means of escape from the reality of `what is'.

So to understand actually `what is' one has to be rid of all these extraneous beliefs and fears, and hopes, and be able to look actually, not theoretically, not abstractly, but actually look what is taking place in the world outside, with all the racial conflicts, with wars, the division between religions - the Catholic, the Protestant, the Hindu, the Muslim, all the divisions have created such havoc in the world. And by observing all that one sees how this has come about because in oneself one is conditioned by society, by the culture one lives in.

[www.jkrishnamurti.org]

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Jay Cruise
Get this J Krishnamurti died in february 1986 the same month Byron Katie claims to have had the cockroach episode that filled her with this amazing insight. That's funny huh?

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corboy
Folks, J Krishnamurti went around claiming he was not a guru.

I invite people to go and get a copy of Lawrence Shainberg's book, Ambivalent Zen.

<snip>

Note: If you get and read Amy Wallace's memoir, The Sorcerer's Apprenctice: My Life With Carlos Castaneda, she tells how at one time Castaneda's inner circle destroyed and discarded books that Castaneda had used...a kind of housecleaning.

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Jay Cruise
Where did she learn her theory and where did it originate? Where did she come up with those four question and the turnaround that has made her so famous?

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The Anticult
Good work, anyone can see the techniques and patterns even in this older book.
As mentioned in the book, Byron Katie went over literally every word in that book with a fine tooth comb.

They are pumping the EYE-GAZING technique even then, as mentioned. That appears to be her primary method. You can see the Suggestions right in the text, framing how people are to interprete her "eyes". They talk about the eyes "shining/blazing" over and over. Obviously, the human eye receives light, and does not shine! She took that from the new testament, in Revelation, where there is some similar talk about shining eyes, etc. The quotes are similar.

QUOTE from REVELATION 1:14: "His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire" [bible.cc]
(notice the hair color matches too! what a comedy).


So even back then, she was preparing her subjects before her first meeting, in the same way Stephen Mitchell and others do now in blogs.

there is much more here to look at, and to come back too...

but notice how Byron Katie makes Christin Lore Weber think she is Jesus Christ II? She knows Christin was a christian mystic, so she pressed that button with ambiguity, encouraging her to Project her WomanChrist idea onto her. But notice how she does it in a permissive way, asking questions, and allowing the subject to come to their own conclusion? That is much more powerful, and is well-studied.

With someone who follows an eastern Guru like Swami Muktananda, she did the exact same technique.

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Jay Cruise
Anticult Katie's first book has a good example of the staring. In A Cry in the Desert author Christin Lore describes meeting Byron Katie and feeling like a mouse in a field being preyed on by hawk. This is obviously somewhat staged by the author under Katie's direction because the whole book is setting Katie up as Jesus beginning with this first meeting. She lays it on way too thick. It is written from the perspective of a new student which leads the reader through the authors reactions, inner emotions and finally onto these desired conclusions.

After pressuring Christin to expose her thoughts and fears and making her clearly uncomfortable she procedes to inject her philosophy into the student which begins with is "all the beliefs you've constructed.. are unnecessary.. only illusion.. Unlearn those beliefs."

From page 16:

All at once Byron Katie looked straight at me. "I'm Byron," she said and smiled.

Never had I seen eyes like that. Later Sandra called them "see-through." Someone else called her the "lit lady." I thought her eyes looked silver. To another they looked turquoise. The thing about which we all agree is that Byron Katie's eyes shine.

"I'm Christin." That was as far as I intended to go, at least untill I found out more about her.

She locked onto me. She seemed like a hawk, I later thought, soaring in on me, and no matter how I dodged she wouldn't let me get away.

"What are you thoughts?" She smiled and waited. What a strange question. Answering it could take all night - a lifetime, maybe. That's why I write books: My thoughts are manifold. I pour them out. Package them. Store them on shelves.

I decided to be careful. It's so easy to be fooled.

"I thought about that on the way over and decided that I want to learn." These were my words. I had actually thought: I'll just sit there and listen and learn. I'll only say something after I'm comfortable and then only if I really have something to say. I don't want to risk too much; I feel too fragile. I don't want anyone to know about the fear that popped out the other day.

"Ah, you are a student." She seemed pleased.

I wasn't a student anymore. I had graduated - lots of times. I had degrees. I had written books, taught classes, lectured, done all sorts of things. I used to be a student. Being called a student reduced me to a beginner in the work to which my whole life had been devoted. On the other hand, just the other day I had felt three years old and as frightened as if I had never learned a thing.

"You might say that," I admitted.

"Tell me your thoughts. What is it you would like to learn?" She leaned forward. Those eyes radiated. She looked like a female Buddha, but also like the hawk.

I started to feel like a mouse in a field. The hawk soared. "I would like to learn about fear," I blurted out. Caught in the open. No place to hide. The screech of the hawk; the shadow of the wing.

"Fear results from the belief that you are going to lose something or not get something you want. There is no exception to this, even as your ego attacks itself." So simple. But it felt like she was reading my heart. She said more, but I can't remember it. Her words hit home. I felt tears slip down my cheeks. My fears seemed childish but at the same time gripping. I was embarrased to admit them but felt powerless to escape them.

"Now tell me about your fears." She waited.

I took a deep breath. "Pretty much what you said. I'm afraid of losing what I love."

"And exactly what is that?"

My mind said no, you can't say your fear aloud. You can't admit you fear childish things. Only uneducated people fear such things. You know better. What will all these people think of you?

"In front of all these people?" I laughed a little, "These strangers?"

"There is only One. There are no strangers here." She spoke with authority. "Now, tell me your thoughts about fear."

I started blurting out a tangle of stuff that caused my heart to race even as my mind rejected it. I ended by saying I felt I was on a threshold of something, but if I stepped over, everything I had believed and accomplished all my life would be shown to be an illusion and I would lose myself. There would be nothing. I knew I was sounding crazy, hysterical. I felt three years old and about two inches tall.

"That's right," Byron responded. She assured me that yes, this would be the end of the world as I experience it. Her eyes blazed. Clean. A pure light. Indescribable. A combination of love and white heat that evaporates impurities. I no longer remember the continuity of what she said. When I try to repeat the words, they sound bland compared to the way they felt when she directed them to me.

"That's right," she said, "all the beliefs that you've constructed to protect yourself throughout your whole life are not needed, unnecessary. You are afraid because you think you are a body. You think you are a body, and you are afraid of death - afraid of nothing, only illusion, belief systems. There is no death. You are using you mind to scare yourself. To shame yourself. You cannot lose the ones you love. It is impossible. You are the one you lost. Others don't belong to you. But you obliterate them in your mind. You are the one who says they die. You are experiencing your own death through the thought. Your fears turn into realities, you create them, you materialize them. Unlearn those beliefs. Do you understand?"

"Who are you?" I asked. Her words sounded like a combination of New Age Jargon and esoteric wisdom. But my ming and its critical functioning felt bypassed. I believed her. Tears ran down my face, and I didn't bother with them. I'd never met a human being like this woman. In a flicker of memory I thought of those disciples of Jesus who came to him in wonder, asking the same question, and he simply said, "Come and See."

"Who do you think I am?" Byron Katie smiled at me. Jesus said that, too, didn't he? "Who do the people say that I am?"