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corboy
Reality Check--Today May be the Day Oprah Interviews Cockroach Lady
Thanks for this reminder. I'm going to see if I can find anything out about it...
Okay, here's a link to Oprah's interview with Byron Katie:
[[url=http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahandfriends/oss/20080728_oaf_oss]Ending Your Suffering[/url]]
This is how Oprah advertises the talk:
"Are you ready to end your suffering? According to spiritual teacher and best-selling author Byron Katie, happiness is within your reach. Oprah talks with Byron about her inquiry process called "The Work," which she says alleviates depression, decreases stress and improves relationships—all by answering four powerful questions that will turn your life around."
Notice how it starts out with the grandiose promise to "end suffering" and then backpedals with "alleviates depression, decreases stress and improves relationships".
Okay, let's see if I can stand to listen to the thing...
Fortunately it's only 7 min. and 43 sec. long.
Oprah says that Eckhart Tolle says about The Work, "It is a great blessing for our planet... It acts like a razor-sharp sword that cuts through illusions and enables you to know for yourself the timeless essence of your being."
Oprah: "He goes on to call your book, 'Loving What Is', the key to knowing your natural state, which is joy."
BK on Eckhart: "He's, he's a dear friend. He's a dear friend for everyone."
When asked how did she find The Work, BK said to Oprah: "Well, actually I was living a very confused life. I was so full of self-hatred, I didn't believe I even deserved a bed to sleep in, so actually, Oprah, I slept on the floor, next to the bed. And one morning..."
Oprah: "I know, I read that in the book, but how did you get to that point?"
BK: "Well, I was believing my thoughts, which is what my work is about, not questioning what we believe. And I was believing my thoughts."
Oprah: "Your work takes the message that Eckhart speaks of in 'A New Earth' to the next level. It's about putting it in process on a daily basis."
BK: "Yes. It's like Eckhart is 'what' and The Work is 'how'. [Catchy, huh?!] And we've had these masters throughout the centuries and centuries, but how do we do it? You know, it's, well, The Work is 'how'." [So BK knows something better than all "these masters throughout the centuries and centuries"?]
BK: "Victims are violent people, I've come to see, and I was such a victim, and therefore violent..." [Iffy logic there, I think.]
Oprah: "...you're sleeping on the floor, and tell us what happened."
BK: "Well actually as I lay asleep on the floor, one morning, um, actually a cockroach crawled over my foot, and I opened my eyes and in place of all that darkness was a joy that I just simply can't described [sic]. But what I realized, the thing that is really important, that I realized, is that when I believed my thoughts I suffered, but when I question my thoughts I don't suffer, and I've come to see that this is true for every human being."
Re the cockroach-sparked epiphany, BK further says: "And then all of a sudden, thoughts bombarded. It's like, bombarded 'it'. And, and, in that moment I began just to laugh..."
"It was like this wasn't a me, I didn't even see 'it' as a human being, there was no name for anything, so no belief about anything".
Oprah asks for more clarification.
BK: "I think that it's referred to as the gap between thoughts and, and for me, I have tested that and, uh, today I can't find a gap between thoughts because if, if I think, you know, I was thinking and or we could say there was a thought, and then there was another thought, it's only THAT thought that said I was, that is telling me, that I was silent at all."
Boy, BK really sputtered at the end! I found her barely comprehensible.
I'm not sure if there is more to come from Oprah and BK. I'm happy to report that I found the interview to be a big "so what". I dunno that's it's gonna grab that many people. I really hope that's the case.