I feel they are legit but as with, perhaps, many who awake to Wholeness suddenly they seem stuck in a typically Absolutist, bypassing ‘position’ that heavy denies our Humanness.

While ‘The Work’ of Byron Katie has never resonated with me, as an approach I have heard of way too many instances of harmful advice she has given on this human plane.

I’ll take an ordinary Human...any day...who knows and feels they are already (the) Divine
over
a spiritual Being who denies their Humanity.

Some examples of BK’s teaching… “Boundaries are an act of selfishness,” and my personal non-favorite, “Victims are violent people.”

I was thinking about my history of reading ET, and listening to his talks, and decided to come post in this thread.

I do own the BK book with The Work, I never got into it. I found The Work to be a waste of time.

ET had an immediate effect though and I was reading TPON again and again. This was between 2010 and 2013. This influences me even today.

The most helpful aspects of the book appear to be the things ET cherry picks from different religious traditions and philosophies.

The most harmful aspects of the book, for me, were his personal anecdotes. (Telling the reader not to think, to accept as the truth, lovebombing, if you are reading this book you are spiritually ready, etc)

That said. I had immense state of bliss by reading parts of the book and meditating. Was this all fake?

The ideas that I liked were

-metaphysical things, like you always existed and can never die
-you can come to know yourself through the breath and body awareness
-The present moment is the only place where anything can happen

I'll leave it at that. I am at the point where I feel these ideas are just wishful thinking and used by cults to deceive people.

This has led me to some kind of nihilism void. However I'd rather seek the truth than fall into wishful thinking.

Hello antman,


Quote: -metaphysical things, like you always existed and can never die

There is a lot of evidence out there to suggest that people do actually die. For example, both my parents died, I saw it with my own eyes, it was very real. However, a lot of religions believe in 'life after death', which brings people some comfort - we believe that one day we might meet our loved ones again, in a spiritual dimension. Fair enough, it may happen, but no-one knows, or can ever know.


Quote: -you can come to know yourself through the breath and body awareness

Mindfulness meditation has been shown to relieve anxiety and promote a sense of well-being in numerous studies. However, meditation is not always recommended for people with mental health disorders and should only be used under medical guidance for this cohort.
"Knowing yourself" is a vague term. You could also claim that you can come to "know yourself" through collecting stamps, baking bread or joining a choir.



Quote: -The present moment is the only place where anything can happen

Possibly true, depending on which standpoint in theoretical physics you subscribe to. However, as human beings who are social and who live in a complex organized society, we do need to put some plans in place to make things happen for us. For example, we need to plan to shop for groceries if we would like to eat dinner tonight. It won't just 'happen'. Living perfectly at peace in every single moment is only realistic if someone does absolutely everything for you, all the time. Which I suppose is how Eckhart lives, since he is a multi-millionaire.

Take a look at -

[www.youtube.com]

A member of this message board who went by the name Anticult, quite knowledgeable in hypnotic trance induction techniques, made many contributions to this discussion of Byron Katie.

You can read the posts here.

[forum.culteducation.com]

After Anticult joined, this Byron Katie discussion was visited by many trolls. Without alert daily moderation, the discussion would've been disrupted.

A troll invasion usually suggests that the discussion is worth reading.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/2022 05:13AM by corboy.

I've been studying a lot of YouTubes on hypnosis recently. There's a particular class of rapid inductions called "the confusion induction." I'm guessing that's how BK's "Is that true?" question works. The subject doubts their own perceptions, has nothing to replace them, and confusion results. After this point, they are malleable.

Here's a URL for something Anticult wrote.

Second post from the top.

[forum.culteducation.com]

Here is a list of posts Anti Cult wrote describing a sophisticated trance induction story telling method that goes by the name "nested loops".

[forum.culteducation.com]

To do a search on the CEI message board that covers from discussions many years ago, always select "All Dates" before running your search.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/2022 09:37PM by corboy.

Quote
The Anticult
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.

It's good to have my observations validated.

I literally joined this forum to discuss finding out that a co-worker of mind is a serious follower of Eckart Tolle.

I used to read this forum a lot years ago so Tolle was already on my radar.

This co-worker, who I have found to be an annoying dimwit generally, was all psyched about her trip to another city to see Tolle live on tour. So she is not a casual follower, and apparently doesn't see the issue with sharing this information in a professional context.


I feel like this info might give me some insights into her personality and how to work with her. One thing I've noticed is that she keeps returning to aspects of our project and just marinating in it and not moving on. It's the most conceptual/visioning/philosophizing part of the project, which can be fun but like LET IT GO.


Anyway, I'm looking forward to have a re-read through this thread.

We’ve all seen that one can be awake to Wholeness and yet that, in no way, means one is free from shadow or is somehow a balanced and decent human.

One can be awake to the Oneness and still be creating delusions and, worse yet, harming others in the process.

I have read/watched far too many of BK’s harmful advice she has given out.

Some examples: “Boundaries are an act of selfishness,” and my personal non-favorite, “Victims are violent people.”

Given what I’ve experienced in this life at the hands of former teacher Nome, Russell Smith and Candace O’Denver, aka Candice Rinpoche how does one reconcile such denial of our Humanness…and is it at the expense of covering for actual harm?

This is an extremely dangerous license of certain spiritual teachers to use suffering as a license for abuse. Here is a prime example of highly controlled abuse …and this does not even go into the depths of the more prevalent sexual abuse.

[integrityintruth.com]
[integrityintruth.com]

Furthermore…
The ‘spiritual concept’ that pain and suffering is a necessary component to awakening should be enough to raise ALL red flags.

“Byron Katie says, “You are your only hope, because we're not changing until you do. Our job is to keep coming at you, as hard as we can, with everything that angers, upsets, or repulses you, until you understand. We love you that much, whether we're aware of it or not.””

While no doubt ‘some’ have awakened with the teachings of BK, Tolle and my former teacher, Nome, there is little mention of the number of actual ‘roadkills’ (that was an actual term used by the teachers at SAT) in the process….folks who were/are deeply harmed in the process…myself (and 4-generations of my family) included.

My former teacher…Nome…often said that one could never harm another when he sees them as the same.
Is the following description in the letter to the ASI harm enough?

The following letter to the ASI (Association of Spiritual Integrity) describes a bit of the harm over the course of this past decade and that is still occurring.
Would the following be harm enough at the hands of those teachers??
I was told to ‘just walk away’… :
[www.dropbox.com]