Haven't researched Tony Parsons, but that should be looked at very carefully. Don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but please be very careful out there, this "non-duality" material can be very slippery.

It does seem that Tony Parsons was a follower of Osho/Rajneesh and a member of a commune called Medina Rajneesh in Suffolk in the 1980's.
There is no mention of Osho/Rajneesh on his website www.theopensecret.com
There appears to be no biographical information at all on his website.

What does Tony Parsons have to say now about Rajneesh and his methods of creating and controlling the cult that he set up? That is probably the most important question for him to clarify in writing.

Some groups may be hard to define as a "cult", but the Rajneesh group was a classic cult, that did some very dangerous things, and that needs to be addressed factually and openly.


[www.sannyas.net] Bodhisattva (Tony Parsons) Then: Construction (older sw)
Now:, with Clare 10/95

[www.sannyasnews.com] "I knew him (Tony Parsons) personally as a fellow commune member from Medina"


[www.guardian.co.uk] "Tim Guest's upbringing as a child of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh 'free love' movement in the Sixties left him anything but spiritually enlightened"

Osho-Rajneesh was an outrageous and extremely dangerous cult leader, The Golden Guru. [www.culteducation.com]

Byron Katie is still at it, still able to induce trance-states in such a way to make true believers believe she is a divine superbeing.
Byron Katie is so skilled a rapid hypnotic trance-induction, that she can walk into a room, and start to put people into trance states in just a few minutes. Its possible to learn and develop those skills, but it takes talent and a lot of experience, and BK has both of those.
But many other people are also able to do that.

Interesting that those who already believed in BK, and read her books and materials, project a type of divine energy onto her, as she is doing the conversational hypnosis to them.
Whereas other people were just "confused". That is from the confusion technique in hypnosis which Byron Katie uses, which has been described in this thread. That is the first step of this type of conversational hypnosis, to put people into a very confused mental state.

And the person's husband, as he is clearly not susceptible to trance-induction, is able to see Byron Katie with clear eyes and a clear mind, so he just sees the BK unreality-show for exactly what it is.


___________QUOTE_________________________
[seattlegear.com]

She is an awakener far beyond a teacher or any other titles. She is bless itself in human form, pure love and even not that.
December 31, 2009 7:35 pm | #1

Katie is so beautiful and yes, when she enters a room, the energy change is palpable. Her work and message is life changing for those open to it. She is definitely a divine messenger and gift to us all.
December 31, 2009 8:18 pm | #2

BK came to Miami about a year ago and I took my husband with me to see her in what was a short presentation with a couple of examples, I admire her so much and do the work so I thought my husband would like her too. I was wrong, he called “the work” a joke. Maybe there is terrifying for some to take responsability for ourselves . BTW we have a great marriage, he’s a loving person but not rady for the truth, seems like not ready yet, and it doesn’t mean it won’t change…
December 31, 2009 9:01 pm | #3

Regarding the Shakti. BK is such a down to earth teacher that no one suspects how incredibly great she is as a “spiritual” being. Briefly, Shakti is for most people invisible yet palpable spiritual energy. In this case, its affect was to silence the mind in some, and terrify in others. My cameraman freaked out because he had never experienced anything like it. My other colleague was merely confused. BK is Abolute LOVE and COMPASSION incarnate. Read “A Thousand Names for Joy”…. and weep.
December 31, 2009 9:32 pm | #4

crheath2001Could you elaborate on the info that the shakti was so intense your crew had to end the interview prematurely? I found that very interesting. I really would like to know because I love this woman and what she does for the world.
December 31, 2009 10:13 pm | #5

_______________________________

'Former LGAT Guru followers might consider a radical experiement...no Guru's for 5 years!'

The best possible advice.

I felt a bit queasy at the mention of Tony Parsons as Janaki's new friend. BK was always described as her friend rather than her Guru.
As far as I know Parsons is a fairly low key non-dual teacher. The non-dual teachings have a perennial appeal and are the basis of most religious doctrine, which is why they are so useful to con-artists. There is a familiarity and universality to the appeal. Human beings have a great need to believe and the best con artists, such as Osho, Parsons teacher, mix many true and useful ideas in with the manipulative tricks, its how they draw people in and gain the marks confidence.

A moratorium such as 'no guru's for 5 years' would at least allow the non-dual seeker to begin the business of separating the message from the messenger to see whether the message had any value of itself.

This manipulative process employed by these scammers is a process of quite subtle emotional abuse. It taps into many peoples previous history of emotional abuse (in childhood perhaps) and the ones who get deeply ensnared are the ones who internalise this process and continue it on themselves, or look for the next person who is likely to continue the abuse.

The only way that I know to break this cycle is to become self-referencing, that is to begin the process of deciding what is good and true for myself, rather than relying on someone elses glib interpretation. That takes time and thought and effort and rarely provides snappy soundbites or easy answers.

The 'shakti' doesn't come from BK, it comes from the audience who have been primed and prepped in anticipation of her entrance. BK's great con is the same as James Ray and Tony Robbins---- to imply, insinuate, and lead the audience to believe that the 'shakti' is something that she bestows on them.
Anyone who has been to a rock concert or football game in a stadium has felt this mass emotional pull, Hitler employed it to great effect in his rallies.
Once the myth becomes established it gains currency from true believers who whip themselves and any susceptible bystanders into a frenzy of worship.

Abstention from any sort of guru, teacher or charismatic type for five years seems a wise plan.

And that should include even dead gurus, like Ramana Maharshi.

Often, newly divorced or separated persons are advised to take time between relationships. And on the dating scene
we are told to be careful about dating when 'on the rebound.'

The problem with implimenting this wise advice is it often means giving up socializing in the entire cultic milieu/new
age scene in which gurus and guru following are valued.

Its similar to the way many drug addicts and alcoholics report that they have to create entirely new social networks
to get away from the old scene where multiple triggers exist for drinking and using.

So long as we use something as a mirror to catch and hold our projections, we think the 'projection catcher' is
the Real Deal and we dont examine why we keep needing to go from one 'projection catcher' to another.

As Janaki told her story, she started with her mother's guru who molested her. So we have to remember Janaki was
pulled into this guru scene by her own mother--she got her child rearing and self formatin within the guru scene.

After being pre-formatted by her mother and her mothers' guru, Janaki described getting entangled with Muktananda.
Then, she explored what she thought was native american spirituality and a friend from her Muktananda
days contacted her, when Janaki was back in Holland with yet another teacher, Willem de Ridder.

The pal urged Janaki to meet BK so as to arrange an interview between BK and Willem de Ridder.

Now having left BK, its Tony Parsons.

This is a social scene addicted to mythologizing charismatic individuals. One has to question it.

Earlier there was thisL

[forum.culteducation.com]

Quote

](quote) 'If you're recovering from opium addiction, it's best to steer clear from groups of opium users who have left the den, because they're not recovered addicts, they just think they are since they've managed to pull themselves out of the den. They're still compulsively stuffing opium in their pipes, so they still have a serious problem.'

You've nailed it.

People may get pissed off and leave a particular abusive guru.

But if they've left that one guru's cult , but still cling to their personal cult of the Perfect Guru Who is Waiting for Them Out There Somewhere--- they're still hooked, still in the spiritual rat-race.

They've given up on a particular guru, but are still hooked on the Guru Archetype, the Guru Ideal.

They're still hooked because honestly, they dont yet know of any other way to access their own talent, their own vitality, except by using a Magic Daddy/Magic Mommy myth that requires them to be children and put themselves at terrible risk of exploitation by spiritual crooks who specialize in targeting and molesting 'adult children'--persons who are adult in calendar years, but who, without realizing it, are still trapped in a child's level of development, usually because of unexamined trauma.

Until seekers can question their addiction to perfect spiritual parenting, they'll still looking for the right dealer, who always comes through with the dope and who will be smart enough not to get arrested like the other guy did.

A big part of recovery is not just the process of weaning oneself from the drug; we have to stop romanticizing addiction itself, and the pseudo-romantic lifestyle around addiction. That includes questioning the glamour of New Age/Dharmic/spiritual addiction.

Alcoholics tended to feel ashamed of their addiction and often would drink alone; drug addicts often romanticized their addiction and had entire friendship networks centered upon addiction.

So part of the recovery for addicts to street drugs was they had to stop romanticizing addiction and the lifestyle around it. A man who ran a recovery house told us that he personally screened every movie or CD before letting the residents watch it; he banned all entertainment from the facility if it romanticized drugs or celebrated outlaw mentality.

Another venue where addiction may be romanticized is the Seeker's Circuit, or what John Horgan has called 'The Enlightenment Industry.'

Gurus would not exist without the yearning we already have. A true guru would make us conscious of our yearnings, assist us to grow up, put himself out of business as soon as possible. He would not exploit us in such yearnings. The crooks are the ones who tap those yearnings and exploit our vulnerability. The crooks are the ones who molest adult children--appeal to our adult sophistication, but molest us in the areas where, emotionally and psychologically, we are still children--[i:afc1f20921]and where the crook has encouraged us to remain childish.[/i:afc1f20921]

People blame their ashrams, forgetting that the guru they venerate is the one who sets the tone for the organization. When people are desperate to cling to their notion of the guru as Perfect Mommy or Perfect Daddy, they'll do everything they can to make excuses for the guru, and blame the problems on everything and everyone else--except the one person who has all the authority in the set up--the guru.

Ive heard it said that the definition of a dysfunctional group or guru is the group or leader takes credit for all the good stuff. Meanwhile, responsibility for all the bad stuff is foisted onto the people who dont have the actual authority. Its the trap of feeling responsible with out having actual authority.

A variation on this theme is when the guru designates certain favored disciples to be the 'bad cops'--enforcers of discipline. That way the guru gets to remain perfect, and all the resentment for the abuses of power get deflected onto the enforcers. But the guru is actually still responsible; he's the puppet-master who hides behind the curtain, making the puppets dance. Rajneesh did this--when all hell broke loose at his Oregon facility, devotees blamed Rajneesh'es lieutenant. They refused to see that Rajneesh had orchestrated the entire context in which people regressed and became puppets in relation to him. Some of the puppets were mean, but it was still Rajneesh who put them through their paces.

([i:afc1f20921]A variation is a guru who claims not to be a guru, while still behaving as one, and still being venerated as one. In that variation, the guru is keeping the power while pretending not to have power; all thats happening is he's playing games, abdicating responsiblity for the authority he acutually has. Krishnamurti claimed not to be a guru, but Lawrence Shainberg gives an unforgettable description of how the audience hung on Krishnamurti's every word--the 'anti-guru was still a guru!' --you can read this in Ambivalent Zen [/i:afc1f20921]by Lawrence Shainberg

--Shainberg gave his power away to one Magic Daddy after another until he finally got worn out and gave up on that particular game.)

When investigating whether something is cultic, look for power imbalances. And, look for myth-making and a refusal to fact check.

The person with the actual authority dodges accountability

The people who dont have authority are stuck with more than their fair share of accountability. The shit never sticks to the leader or guru, but has to go somewhere--usually by rolling down-hill and sticking to us.

Leaving a bad ashram or organization is not enough to ensure recovery. Leaving will give you short term relief by removing you from a disorienting, confusing situation. THat part is very good.

Long term, leaving a bad set up will not address the needs and yearnings that attracted us to these unbalanced power set ups and will not help us understand what made the mind fuck feel thrilling rather than chilling

There are some gurus out there who are over the top bullies. They'd be kicked in the butt if they dared behave this way in normal society, but in thier own communities, thier bad behavior is celebrated as crazy wisdom. Their disciples come to believe that they need to be abused in order to make any progress. Anyone who has misgivings is written off as wimpy, not serious about 'the path' or accused of being 'touchy-feely.'

Most people walk out of their lectures and never return--persons who are disgusted by bad behavior. But--a few people stay, and become disciples to these bully-gurus. They tolerate a level of suffering that cause most of us to run the other way. For them to recover, they have to investigate what led them to stay in that room with that bully-guru, when so many other people walked away.

Its not something to be ashamed of---shame doesnt solve this.

You need to feel curious, to investigate this with a kind of friendly curiosity. What was it about that power imbalance that sparked my hope, energized me, made the abuse seem a worthwhile price to pay?

Bad gurus are not universally appealing. But they get their devotees by skilfully recruiting in such a way as to attract and keep the few who are thrilled by power and by power imbalance and by quickly repulsing people who are revolted by power abuse and game playing and would disrupt the guru's game playing if permitted to join the ashram!

Unless we dare to examine our own secret craving for a Magic Mommy or Daddy, we will go through one failed Wizard of Oz after another.

Some of us may crave intensity and equate it with spiritual power.

In an off-line discussion a couple of us speculated that high energy people with bipolar disorder might gravitate to gurus who have untreated bipolar disorder and create wild, crisis ridden ashrams, and call this 'crazy wisdom practice'

Or we just dont know how to energize ourselves and feel hope unless we have a myth--something to crave, some goal to meet.

Mark Miller examined the sitaution around Da Free John and noted it wasnt just a crazy guru who was the problem; it was that people clung to the whole process of mythologizing the guy.

(Mark Miller wrote,)

'The community is at root [i:afc1f20921]a society devoted to glorification and myth-making in relation to DFJ[/i:afc1f20921], who is truly the ultimate example of "Narcissus", the mythical figure DFJ uses to describe those who are unenlightened. This supreme Narcissist requires the constant adoration of not only himself, but also of everything associated with him -- his properties and possessions (including the "holy sites"), and the "murtis" (pictures) of him, etc. These inanimate objects serve as extensions of his huge ego, and the construction of them and/or worship of them serve to usurp huge amounts of devotees time and money.

''... Once people leave the group, there is no guarantee they will stop the "esoteric practice" (ha ha) of DFJ mythologization. That is just one reason why some people you've met who leave the group still believe in all kinds of nonsense about DFJ. [i:afc1f20921]It can be difficult to see all of the ways in which [u:afc1f20921]habitual mythologization [/u:afc1f20921]is operative and to understand the full range and scope of its influence. [/i:afc1f20921]Waking up can take time. Many can't seem to develop much insight into their delusions and commitment to myth-making about DFJ, beyond identifying the crudest and most obviously "cultic" level of it. This is why some of the group's beliefs and assumptions are retained indefinitely by many people, even long after they leave. '

[lightmind.com]

In other words, you can leave a group, [i:afc1f20921]but still retain the myth-making mindset that made the group and guru so appealing[/i:afc1f20921]. Unless you examine your own craving for an energizing myth, you'll remain recruitable by yet another Magic Parent.

You can reject a particular guru, then walk around with a 'guru-shaped hole' in your psyche.

Eventually someone will come along who matches that outline, and the game resumes.

[b:afc1f20921]The habitual mythologization described by Mark Miller is itself the drug. If a particualr guru-dealer turns out to peddle bad shit, or gets arrested, you're without a dealer but are still an addict. You'll then look for another dealer who sells better dope, has a myth that cannot be punctured. Until you question your own addiction, you'll keep looking for the perfect guru-dealer[/b:afc1f20921].

Bruce Warner comments:

'No guru or Zen Master can give you anything other than what you already have. If you ever start to feel that you need your teacher's blessings, his approval, even his passing you on some koan or any other such nonsense, that is the time to run screaming out of the temple like someone had set fire to your panties.

All authority must be torn down. ([i:afc1f20921]That's Warner's way of saying 'Question your addiction to seeking, the addiction that makes a guru seem so necessary[/i:afc1f20921])This goes for my authority every bit as much as anyone else's. There is no Enlightenment. Enlightenment is nothing more than shared illusion. Enlightenment is for pussies who can't face reality.'

'It's one of our fantasies that there is some kind of Eastern mind which is fundamentally different from the Western one. There is not. The guru system, the Zen Master system and every other variation on that theme is just as horrible and destructive to folks with amber skin and almond shaped eyes as it is to folks with white skin and blue eyes. It didn't work 2,000 years ago in Rishikesh, India any better than it works right now in Racine, Wisconsin. Sure it's lasted a long time, but sure has gastrointeritis.

'The only teachers who've really kept the decent traditions alive are the ones who did not play those kinds of games.'

Bruce Warner's review of [u:afc1f20921]Enlightenment Blues[/u:afc1f20921]

[www2.gol.com]

(this guy's website has a great collection of articles. His book, [i:afc1f20921]Hardcore Zen [/i:afc1f20921]is a terrific read.)

[/quote]

A meditation buddy had this on her bulletin board: 'One sign of spiritual progress is you lose interest in the games of submission/domination that are on offer in various theatres of cruelty.'

In other words, you're making progres when power imbalances no longer feel thrilling but instead give you the creeps.[/quote]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/13/2010 02:28AM by corboy.

'You can reject a particular guru, then walk around with a 'guru-shaped hole' in your psyche.

Eventually someone will come along who matches that outline, and the game resumes.'

That statement rang a bell for me. After I left my cult family at the earliest possible age I walked around with an 'abuse-shaped hole' in my psyche for decades. Despite an absolute conviction that I would never get into such a situation again I kept finding myself in situations with a chillingly similar dynamic.

I found a good article by Andrew Vachss that discusses this. I know nothing of Vachss except that he is/was a lawyer and novelist so this is not an endorsement, but the article is clear and informative.

Vachss, emotional abuse

One thing I want to mention, is the comments made about Tony Parsons so far, were mainly from a comment from another person on the Janaki blog, where someone else referenced Tony Parsons name numerous times in a blog comment.

Of course, people are free to do what they like, and its their life.
But its not a great idea to move from Byron Katie, who presents herself as "non-dual" and to move to another guy who is also presenting so-called "non-dual" material.
Even if that person is not as corporate, and doesn't have an army of people working fulltime for him like Byron Katie.

That so-called nondual stuff is literally so tricky, it can lead someone down the rabbit hole in minutes. From a trained persons perspective, what you really see when these non-dual guys start talking, is trance-induction. They throw out paradoxes and confusion techniques, and that is all about conversational hypnosis and trance-induction.
Some people are extremely sensitive to that type of trance induction, and get pulled right in.



In terms of staying away from all Gurus for 5 years, what that could mean, is to stay away from anyone who does the Guru or anti-Guru stuff for a living, or for money.
So if a person has published books, has a website, talks to people on the phone for free or for money, has podcasts, videocasts, and the rest of it, for the sake of clarity, they could be called a "Guru".

To take a point from above, that is to make the person more self-referencing, to cut off the psychological dependence of any sort on these types of Gurus.

Because if one thinks about it, why do people seem to need all these Gurus? There are zillions of them.
They all generally have a similar story...like...I was walking through the park one day, and attained enlightenment. They then tell you they can teach you to attain enlightenment in their books/products/coaching, but only if you DON'T want it. (or some type of non-dual mind-game like that).
Who needs it?

In reality, most of these non-dual Gurus and Anti-Gurus are quite subtle, and spin a fine-mist of confusion, and it lures people in.

But why not go cold turkey, and cut off the influence from these so-called Gurus, and instead just try to think things through, and figure things out oneself?

Another good experiment is to decide not to spend $1 on any so-called spiritual books, materials, or programs/coachings for 5 years too! The library has most good books available. Talk about breaking an addiction to buying stuff like this, for those who might have unread shelves/boxes full of it!

Of course now with the internet, the Gurus have learned and "give away for FREE" lots of stuff on YouTube and on blogs, and they use that like a fisherman uses a worm on a hook.
So even not buying anything is not enough anymore.

So one could even start with 1 year, and say 2010 one won't buy ANY of these types of products/services, or get connected to any professional Guru of any sort for the entire year.
The "connection" most people have with a "Guru" is just in their own minds, as they don't know them on a personal level, even if they think they do.
The trick there is low-level Gurus do make time to chat with people on the phone to make it more personal, but in reality its not. There is an agenda.

But that might be a good experiment, to make 2010 a Guru-free year, and to not spend $1 on any of the coachings, donations, or products.
If that works, then maybe make it 5 years to cut the cord for good.

And of course, all of that has to apply to the New Gurus, the 5.0 Gurus, who's self-presentation is humble, subtle, non-dual, paradoxical, with apparently cheap prices...and the rest of the new presentation.
For example, Guy Finley [forum.culteducation.com] certainly fits the bill of the New Guru, who is running a much more subtle pattern and system.

These days, the Gurus in orange robes running around screaming they are God and sexually abusing their followers are not as difficult to spot. Things have advanced so much in the past decades, that now the most tricky Gurus are the ones that are almost invisible, and present themselves as anti-Gurus, and who wear a nice sweater or suit and speak in soft-tones and paradoxes.

For example, James Arthur Ray presented himself to the media as a simple self-help guy, when in fact he was an extremely dangerous Guru as identified in these threads years ago [forum.culteducation.com] who was using the most powerful group persuasion techniques known anywhere.
James Arthur Ray [forum.culteducation.com]

So one must never be seduced by the "image" of any teacher, guru, or anti-guru, especially these days when techniques are so advanced and subtle. Some wolves are very skilled at putting on a full body sheepskin pantsuit or sweater.

Guru's Version 1.0-5.0 [forum.culteducation.com]

Devising a Self Cure by Using Nonduality to Dissociate, Disown or Bypass Aspects of Pain Laden Self?

To reiterate, I would suggest not only going guru free for five years, in terms of staying away from living gurus, but also abstaining from dead gurus, too.

Such as...Ramana Maharashi, or Gurdjieff, or Castaneda. All those folks are dead, but plenty still relate to them as gurus, still trying to plug up the 'guru shaped hole.'

Its possible to try and plug the 'guru shaped hole' with a dead guru, yet that still does not address the existence of the hole and its cravings.

And I want to emphasize that people often are not doing this consciously at all.

In fact, thats the issue--this seeking behavior appears to be unconscious.

It appears to be a pattern of seeking behavior that originates in a portion of someone's self, a portion of one's self that is dissociatively split off from the subject's conscious awareness, almost like a magnetized homing device that pulls you into something in spite of your conscious desires to do otherwise.

A lot of this is re-enactment of some sort of trauma that occurred before the person was old enough to think or feel consciously, and was young enough that boundary between self and other was not yet fully established.

If you've not achieved a full and conscious sense of yourself vs other, nondual material might actually cloud and fog ones consciousness. One might feel an affinity for nondual material,and for dropping ones self, or dropping ones story, not because one has been trapped in ones self or trapped in ones own story but because you've been already so traumatized that you never fully formed a sense of self or were ever able fully to embrace ones story.

A very well regarded Zen teacher (protected by a pseudonym) tells of having had to seek therapy to deal with personal anguish and relationship problems that his years of sincere Zen practice had not healed.

Quote

(Dr Rubin the therapist asked) Are you abandoning yourself the way you have always been abandoned?”

“I’ve never thought of it that way,” Nordstrom said. “I think there is something profoundly disturbing and true about that.”

By the spring of 2007, nearly a year into the therapy, Nordstrom had a breakthrough — what he called “a tearful reunion with my narrative.”

The gist of it had to do with the way he devised what Rubin termed “a self-cure.” He sought to protect himself against the trauma of further abandonment by pre-emptively abandoning himself. If he wasn’t there in the first place, he wasn’t in a position to be cast away. The Zen concept of no-self was like a powerful form of immunity.

“The Zen experience of forgetting the self was very natural to me,” he told me last fall. “I had already been engaged in forgetting and abandoning the self in my childhood, which was filled with the fear of how unreal things seemed. But that forgetting was pathological. I always had some deeper sense that I wasn’t really there, that my life and my marriages didn’t seem real. In therapy with Jeffrey I began to realize this feeling of invisibility wasn’t just a peculiar experience but was maybe the central theme of my life. It was connected to my having ‘ability’ as a Zen student and to my being able to have a precocious enlightenment experience.

For more, read this article:

Enlightement Therapy' Chip Brown, New York Times Magazine

[www.nytimes.com]

I would advise getting therapy from a professional well trained in assisting persons who are dealing with dissociative issues and to beware of consulting any therapist who offers 'nondual therapy'. Such therapists may be just the right persons for others, but they might not be helpful for someone who has already spent a lifetime using nonduality to rationalize dissociating from problematic aspects of self and trauma.

There is a interesting post by someone with the username "Antara" on the Janaki blog, who claims there were there the day after the alleged cockroach hypnotized Byron Katie.
[janakisstory.wordpress.com]


Absolutely fascinating. Antara says that over a period of 2 years, that Byron Katie found the "language" for what happened, by doing all of the self-helpy seminars, 12 steps, and other material that is shown by Janaki and in this thread.

Isn't that the exact same thing that Byron Katie and Stephen Mitchell have said? That BK didn't have the "language" and that is why she took all those courses and seminars to find the "language".

(insert laughter here).
Yes, like in college, to find the "language" for various English papers, when you take 10 sections from other published papers, and then rewrite them changing a few words, and string them together the day they are due. You see, we knew the concepts in our head, but just had to find the "language".

One assumes, sadly, that some people really do believe that level of smoke and mirrors.

Byron Katie is not enlightened, and never has been.
Byron Katie is an advanced conversational hypnotist and persuader.

The stuff with the cockroach, as explained in this thread, is designed. The cockroach image triggers DISGUST in 100% of humans, and that is a primary emotion. Byron Katie uses that as a Sky-hook, as a "peg", as a place to hang her Stories from. You hear the cockroach fairy-tale once, and you remember it forever. That is its purpose.
And the other Stories are interlinked with that one, hundreds and hundreds of Stories all written/composed/designed by Byron Katie, about Byron Katie's Story which gets injected into people's minds by the BK constant storytelling.

The beauty is that its all subjective, and can't be falsified, the cockroach can't be questioned.

Byron Katie took the classical story of the Buddha, about how he attained enlightenment under the Bodhi tree. (the tree is a symbol within Buddhism, that story is a metaphorical symbol system itself.)

Byron Katie then modified that Story to a halfway house and a cockroach, which is absolutely brilliant. Its better than the standard..."I was walking in a park one day and attained enlightenment" Boring!
Or like Werner Erhard said..."while driving over a bridge".

All these Stories are literally hypnotic inductions. They craft a Story, that has embedded symbols in it, and embedded meanings. This is why Byron Katie repeats the Byron Katie Cockroach Myth (trademark) hundreds and hundreds of times. Every time she speaks, she references it, to reinforce it in the public mind. It becomes the core mythology of the Byron Katie symbol system. Its also a trance induction, which leads people into the "disgust" and pain within their own psyche.
And there is much much more to it than that, as shown in this thead, how its connected with Kafka and Metamorphisis, and even Byron Katies own suppressed book NOG'S QUEST.

Byron Katie, Nog by Rudy Wurlitzer, Metamorphosis Franz Kafka [forum.culteducation.com]

In advanced hypnosis, its very common to use those sorts of images and metaphors, and interweave them inside all of the different stories and inductions.
Yes, Byron Katie is that clever, and that is what she is doing and has done for many years. To the trained-eye, its all being done right out in the open.

That is why some hypnotherapists are also marketing the BK material, they see exactly what is going on, and how its being done. Anyone with training in this area of advanced conversational hypnosis, will see exactly what Byron Katie is doing very rapidly.

About twenty years ago, I went to some open meetings of Narcotics Anonymous.

One very intriguing difference between Narcotics Anonymous vs Alcoholics Anonymous
was that in NA, many steps had to be taken to address the issue of romanticising addition itself.

There's nothing glamorous about alcohol addiction. The stuff is legal, if you're above 18 or so (depending on state of residence), can even be made at home, and because its legal, there is no outlaw glamour.

But in the world of illegal drugs, there is a spurious and misleading glamour, a romanticization of addiction, of the scramble for the stuff, making the connection, scoring.

So the group intro always began with a statement that stories were to keep focus on
tools of recovery. And we were told that no one wanted to hear about who we had known in the drug scene, or how much money we had spent.

Why?

Because the temptation to drop famous names and glamorize the addiction was very, very great in Narcotics Anonymous.

Well, we might want to ponder whether there is such a thing as guru seeking behavior that is analogous to drug seeking behavior, or guru addiction or satori addiction, and whether name dropping is a similar temptation, whether it be name dropping a guru, a famous ashram or shrine, or glamorizing an especially dazzling miracle, the way others in NA might be tempted, unless they stuck with soberity, to talk longingly and addictively, of an especially good batch of LSD or an especially hilarious escape from the fuzz.

This nutty guy at my high school (30 years ago) used to bring in magazines like High Times and Marijuana Monthly--maybe certain magazines and websites serve a similar purpose for the Enlightement Industry.