This is actually not surprising. Strange timing. Of course, I wouldn't wish that on her, no matter what. Or on anyone.

I've heard BK talk about her previous diagnosis of cancer, which turned out to be wrong. And, she's been in pretty poor health for awhile, or so I heard through people more acquainted with her.

The blog entry is weird, as usual.

When Stephen was talking to the doctor, my thought was, “Ha ha, ha, ha, I have cancer and you don’t!”

What? I can't see how some strange kind of competitiveness over having cancer when others don't is "happiness", but whatever. And that last paragraph... no, this is not a normal or healthy response to finding out that one has cancer. She lives and dies in me/us? Ummm... no.

Weird. I almost feel sadness over her having cancer, but at the same time, I feel like she has completely invalidated any form of compassion I might feel for her at this time... which feels like a smack in the face.

BK is so confusing.

-jj



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/03/2008 05:42AM by jj52.

All right everyone, please excuse me for picking this one apart. I guess I'm feeling pretty bold... and like someone just raped my mind after reading this... Not to be insensitive to BK's little bout with cancer... but I'm certainly not to let sympathy prevent me from saving myself, and finding/naming the errors here. And, I'm not going to let it dissuade me for seeing her for what she is.



My daughter called me to let me know how her day went yesterday. I love listening to her report her journey into the mind.

Roxann is so very into The Work, her joy, her life, and at some point she asked me what I was up to and for no reason, out of my mouth, I said, “Oh, guess what? I have cancer!” I was thrilled, of course, to report my day.

I can't help but feeling like I'm being given too many details here. Something is seriously wrong with this whole illustration. It's like BK is always saying, "Hey, I'm the big great example. Here is what it's like for me, and this is what it should be like for you. Do as I do."

So, if we do what she does... we would put our own big medical news on hold to listen to our daughter's stuff... out of love and selflessness, supposedly. And then, when asked how we are, we should answer truthfully for no reason at all... nevermind that we were asked and answering, and that is a reason in itself. We should answer out of our mouths. (As opposed to answering out of our rearends?) With no forethought, we should blurt out this big scary news to our child, who loves us and is probably very concerned for our well-being, naturally. And, of course, be thrilled about it... because you're just reporting your day. You're not telling your child something that might frighten her, and you should not show any concern for her feelings at all in the matter... because if she is upset, she just doesn't "get it".

So much for that loving, selfless, "wise" example.



There was silence, and then the line was disconnected.

She called back and said, “Mom, that is not something you say to your daughter as though it were an everyday event.” And of course it was.

I gotta' say... I don't blame her daughter one bit for hanging up on her. Her daughter gave her a very valuable bit of information-- that something was wrong with the way she approached this-- but does she understand that? Apparently not. She's always the innocent one, mind you.

I don't know about most people, but having my doctor call me and tell me I have cancer has never occurred in all my life, and I wouldn't consider it an everyday event. However, I guess we are all supposed to look to BK's example, and minimize our life tragedies into everyday events, in order to end our suffering. And this is loving what is?

Whatever.

The doctor had just called and said that he wanted me to come into his office as soon as possible to talk, that the biopsy showed that I have cancer on my nose, phase 2 basal carcinoma. He wants to start me on radiation for four weeks as soon as possible. I start Turnaround House, my heart’s desire, tomorrow, and am wondering how the days will look as I intend to be there daily with the exception of two weekends.

So, now we have been given enough information to cause some concern, to feel our fear, pity, and compassion for the guru... and we are also being led out of our feelings very smoothly.

I suspect that BK knows very well that her followers have very different consciences and emotional ranges than she does. While she's insinuating they shouldn't feel bad-- which brings guilt, self-blame, and self-doubt-- I suspect she knows very well that they do... and that will draw them in to her web even further.

The example BK is showing us is that having cancer should not concern us, or stop us from doing our other "everyday" events. We should plow on through life, and ignore what's really going on. We should not take our doctor very seriously, or be concerned about the future... instead, we should simply wonder in curiosity about it.

We should feel something very special about the Turnaround House, because like the School, it is "Katie's heart's desire." And, we ought to see this guru fulfilling her heart's desires, living in perfect happiness, and want to be like her.

"Oh, if only you did The Work, you too could have you heart's desire... and be happy through cancer!".


Anyway, my husband and my sons cannot be upset, my daughter cannot be upset, they really don’t know what they are supposed to feel and until they do, they don’t.


What the heck is that supposed to mean? Her husband and her sons and daughter are great examples for us, too... because they do The Work, and therefore, are incapable of being upset by their loved one having cancer. We should strive to be like them, that is the suggestion. And, they don't know what they are supposed to feel... I supposed BK hasn't told them that part, yet. Have they totally forgotten what normal, healthy, sane human beings feel in a situation like this?

Until they figure out what they should be feeling, they don't feel it. My guess is that they won't figure it out, and they won't have a normal response, regardless.

BK won't let them.


For me, I don’t bother. I love life and that is my job.

As for BK, the biggest and greatest example, she doesn't even bother to feel anything or to try to figure out what she should be feeling in this situation. Her "job" description changes a lot... and for now, it's just to "love life." Even though she is no longer living life or feeling a healthy range of human emotion-- a vital part of life-- that's her job.

BK, I think you ought to be fired!


When Stephen was talking to the doctor, my thought was, “Ha ha, ha, ha, I have cancer and you don’t!”

BK is competitive, proud, and really gets a kick out of seeing herself as above others or "special", even if cancer is the difference. She loves being above others, even her beloved husband is not exempt from her on her crazy high horse.


This thought and thoughts like this continue to override anything untrue to my way of understanding and keep me laughing and loving what is mind.

So, BK keeps her mind filled with these insane, narcissistic thoughts continuously. They are powerful enough to override anything that doesn't jive with her way of understanding. She calls anything outside of her understanding "untrue." Those things may be very true, and very real... but as long as she can keep herself convinced that they are untrue, and keep those crazy thoughts going through her mind overriding them... she laughs and loves what she thinks is "mind."

"Mind", by the way, is interchangeable with "Self", "love", "God," and "reality" in BK's fantasy land. These are all ways that she describes that great "nothingness".

Folks, I think we may have just heard a true narcissist describe how she manages to keep herself in denial, and dissociated from her true self... avoiding anything real or painful.

I continue to wonder why people (mind) continue to believe that what never lived can die.

Being the "enlightened" one, she is confused as to why people-- also interchangeable with "mind"-- continue to believe differently that she does. Perhaps it has never occurred to her that the rest of the planet's population could be right?

She believes that she/us/mind/god has never lived, and therefore can never die. Life is all just one big illusion in BK's book... life is but a dream... and she will just keep rowing her boat gently down the stream... merrily, merrily, merrily.

This is so confusing. She loves life, but she has never lived. Well, which is it, BK? How can you love a life that you've never had?

This is also meant to make the reader's question their own perceptions... question anything that doesn't agree with BK's version of reality. YOU are the one who doesn't understand. YOU are the confusing one. Your ideas about life and death are all messed up... can you hear the implications?



It really is quite wonderful to be mind free of physical self-image.

BK is again describing her total and complete dissociation and dis-ownership of her own body. At the same time, she's proving what a nasty hypocrite she can be. She is free of physical self-image? Well, then why the face lift?

And this is the example we are supposed to follow?

No.

Denial is believing that you, as you understand you to be, ever are what or who you are, have been, or ever will or can be.


Now, we're getting a lecture and definition from perhaps the most dissociated person alive on denial. Denial is... believing that your reality is not reality, and that unreality is reality, to sum it up. I suppose BK would know a great deal about denial, then.


I invite you all to inquiry, to your own marvelous death of the body (before it dies) as you understand it to be and to be born of who and what you are not to your mind and then to understand what you are in that, as that unknowable known.

Doubletalk? Jibberish? For those attuned to Katie-speak, this may actually make some sense... sadly.

An "invitation" from BK is like... being seduced to follow her example and directions. She doesn't command, she invites. Well, what kind of a person would turn down an invitation?

What I think she's really saying here is, "Do The Work around all your thoughts on death, your body, my [BK's] cancer. When you do that you will be "born" again to a new understanding... one that is closer to my [BK's] understanding."

What a "wonderful opportunity" her cancer has turned out to be... another chance to bring up strong emotion in people, and get them to do The Work.


I hope that you have followed what I have just written, as so many of you who love The Work for so many months or years have been able to do.

She hopes that you can understand her jibberish... she doens't want to lose you! And, she hopes that you are one of those people whose been hanging around for awhile... and if you aren't, she hopes you will see how special those people are because they can make sense of this stuff... and she hopes you will want to be more like them.


Your own answers to the questions and examples of turnarounds have kept us as one, undivided in peace and beyond, for so many months, even years.

Those people who are doing The Work are special. Their ability to turnaround their thoughts have provided a closeness and a bond that extends beyond, and has been lasting. Don't you want to be a part of this great bonded oneness??

BK believes that The Work is the glue that will bring all the parts of God/herself... in other words, all people, back into one giant conglomerate of "nothingness". She is saying here that those people who are doing The Work are the ones who are doing the gluing. Special people.

Don't you want to be one of them?



I live in you and I die in you, what else is possible? Nothing.

Uh... BK better not be doing anything in me. What else is possible? How about she stay the hell away from me?


I love living in you if you love it, and I can tell you that you live in me and only that, you are my life.

Oh, how seductive. And insane.

If BK is living in me, then I don't love it, and believe me... I'm doing all I can to get her out of my head.

"You are my life." What? BK, why don't you get a life of your own?

BK apparently thinks that we are all extensions of her. I think we are talking about narcissism, here.

I love not belonging to me and you do and belonging to you when I do. What identification have you given me? I live as that.

Interesting how she plays on that sense of belonging that human beings tend to naturally crave.

Well, I have given BK the identification of "cult leader", "guru," "insane person"... "possible narcissitic"... and so much more.

She lives as that.

No argument from me.

Do you love me yet? I welcome you to love beyond the self.

The funny thing is, I do love BK as a human being. I hate what she does. I despise what she says.

Generally speaking, I have no problem loving others. I also have no problem being angry at them when they do cruel, stupid, hurtful things. Apparently, in BK's world, everything is black or white... you can't love and feel anger/dislike at the same time, in her mind.

I've heard BK say before that she is "clear" that everyone loves her, they just don't know it yet. So, if you don't just love her... it's your lack of awareness that is the problem, not the fact that she's munched up your sister until she's unrecognizable, and took her money in the process.

helpme2times said:
I wonder "is it true", the claim she now has cancer? The timing of her report is highly, highly suspicious to me, given the intense critical scrutiny she's been under of late. She just posted the entry last nght at 11:09PM. WTF?

It is highly suspicious... and true or not... the more disturbing thing is how she used the cancer to manipulate the pants off of people reading her blogsite. If anyone should happen to read our posts here and start to stray away from BK's following... well, what a strange coincidence that they could be so easily pulled back in with sympathy, guilt, and sadness... and of course, the "need" to do The Work so as not to feel those things... because BK has cancer.

She doesn't give anyone a break, so I'm not giving her one, either.

-jj





Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/03/2008 07:35AM by jj52.

Quote
jj52
All right everyone, please excuse me for picking this one apart. I guess I'm feeling pretty bold... and like someone just raped my mind after reading this... Not to be insensitive to BK's little bout with cancer... but I'm certainly not to let sympathy prevent me from saving myself, and finding/naming the errors here. And, I'm not going to let it dissuade me for seeing her for what she is.

JJ, you rock!!!

That was an excellent picking apart of Byron Katie's insanity. Notice that I spelled out her name there - bizarre name that it is - rather than just say BK. That's because I'm trying to include her full name at least once in every post I make, so that search engines will pick this stuff up and help people like us make informed choices. Hopefully others will learn to STAY FAR AWAY from BK's stuff. Actually I'm gonna add the words "cult" and "bullshit" here, because those are words I would often plop into search engines alongside "Byron Katie" when I was looking for corroboration of my feeling that "something's off here..."

Hey, I recently came upon a wonderful quote that I think is a rather sane antidote to BK's "Loving What Is" advice. I'm gonna share it here; it's by Nathaniel Branden:

" 'Loving everyone' sounds suspiciously like spiritual promiscuity--the abandonment of all standards."

Byron Katie wrote about...cancer...radiation...death and dying...

Shocking and scary words that can strike fear, anxiety and sadness in anyone who has gone through serious cancer and death in the family...


But in terms of general information, there does not appear to be cause for worry or talk of death or dying in virtually all cases of Basal Cell Carcinoma.

Basal Cell Carcinoma: (BCC)
A very common, non-melanoma skin cancer that almost 1/3 of women will get, very high cure rates of 95-99%, with less than 1/10of 1% chance of metastisizing, treated by surgery, or in some cases X-ray Radiotherapy treatments.

There are no warnings about mortality or death, on the contrary they state most cases are easily treated and cured.
________________________________________________________
[www.patient.co.uk]
-Most cases of non-melanoma skin cancer are easily treated and cured.
-Almost all BCCs can be treated and cured, mostly with a simple operation or other simple technique. They rarely spread.
-Non-melanoma skin cancers include basal cell carcinoma (BCC)
_________________________________________________________
Basal Cell Carcinoma Emedicine.
[www.emedicine.com]

-Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is very common, slow growing, and rarely metastasizes

-cure rates are as high as 95%-99%.
-less than 1/10 of 1% of them metastisize.
-"Mortality/Morbidity: Although BCC is a malignant neoplasm, it rarely metastasizes. The incidence of metastatic BCC is estimated at less than 0.1%"

- up to 28% of women are going to get it at some point.
-"In the US: Each year in the United States, 900,000 people are diagnosed with BCC (550,000 male, 350,000 female). The estimated lifetime risk of BCC in the white population is 33-39% for men and 23-28% for women."

-Treatment: is surgical in almost all cases. There are some cases where "Ionizing radiation: Superficial
X-ray is usually administered as 10 treatments of 4 gray (Gy)".
-That is referred to as X-ray treatment.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/03/2008 08:52AM by The Anticult.

Quote
The Anticult
Byron Katie wrote about...cancer...radiation...death and dying...

Shocking and scary words that can strike fear, anxiety and sadness in anyone who has gone through serious cancer and death in the family...

But in terms of general information, there does not appear to be cause for worry or talk of death or dying in virtually all cases of Basal Cell Carcinoma.

Thank you once again, Anticult, for being a wonderful voice of reason. I have been learning SO MUCH from you!

I invite you all to inquiry, to your own marvelous death of the body (before it dies) as you understand it to be and to be born of who and what you are not to your mind and then to understand what you are in that, as that unknowable known. I hope that you have followed what I have just written, as so many of you who love The Work for so many months or years have been able to do. Your own answers to the questions and examples of turnarounds have kept us as one, undivided in peace and beyond, for so many months, even years. I live in you and I die in you, what else is possible? Nothing. I love living in you if you love it, and I can tell you that you live in me and only that, you are my life. I love not belonging to me and you do and belonging to you when I do. What identification have you given me? I live as that. Do you love me yet? I welcome you to love beyond the self.

This has to be one of the most insane paragraphs I've ever read. It's absolutely incomprehensible. Does she speak like this as well? Do people follow her? Do they think they should understand her and just feel badly about themselves when they don't?

Wow.

Quote
vlinden
This has to be one of the most insane paragraphs I've ever read. It's absolutely incomprehensible. Does she speak like this as well? Do people follow her? Do they think they should understand her and just feel badly about themselves when they don't?

Wow.

I know. Eckhart Trolle seems quite sane in comparison.

Quote
helpme2times
Byron Katie wrote about...cancer...radiation...death and dying...

Shocking and scary words that can strike fear, anxiety and sadness in anyone who has gone through serious cancer and death in the family...

But in terms of general information, there does not appear to be cause for worry or talk of death or dying in virtually all cases of Basal Cell Carcinoma.

However, if Byron Katie is your guru, and you've been brainwashed to adore her, defend her, and look to her for all of your answers and direction...

Those words would be particularly frightening.

And, if you've been thought reformed to ignore all basic common sense, you might have a heart attack over the word "cancer" in relation Byron Katie.

I'm out of The Work now... and I still felt the mind control grips squeezing in.

-jj

Quote
vlinden

I invite you all to inquiry, to your own marvelous death of the body (before it dies) as you understand it to be and to be born of who and what you are not to your mind and then to understand what you are in that, as that unknowable known. I hope that you have followed what I have just written, as so many of you who love The Work for so many months or years have been able to do. Your own answers to the questions and examples of turnarounds have kept us as one, undivided in peace and beyond, for so many months, even years. I live in you and I die in you, what else is possible? Nothing. I love living in you if you love it, and I can tell you that you live in me and only that, you are my life. I love not belonging to me and you do and belonging to you when I do. What identification have you given me? I live as that. Do you love me yet? I welcome you to love beyond the self.

This has to be one of the most insane paragraphs I've ever read. It's absolutely incomprehensible. Does she speak like this as well? Do people follow her? Do they think they should understand her and just feel badly about themselves when they don't?

Wow.

Yeah, she speaks like that a lot... for hours on end during The School. And, strange this is... it starts to make sense after awhile. Unfortunately, I still understand what's she's talking about. I just don't believe it. At all.

-jj

Quote
jj52

Quote
vlinden

I invite you all to inquiry, to your own marvelous death of the body (before it dies) as you understand it to be and to be born of who and what you are not to your mind and then to understand what you are in that, as that unknowable known. I hope that you have followed what I have just written, as so many of you who love The Work for so many months or years have been able to do. Your own answers to the questions and examples of turnarounds have kept us as one, undivided in peace and beyond, for so many months, even years. I live in you and I die in you, what else is possible? Nothing. I love living in you if you love it, and I can tell you that you live in me and only that, you are my life. I love not belonging to me and you do and belonging to you when I do. What identification have you given me? I live as that. Do you love me yet? I welcome you to love beyond the self.

This has to be one of the most insane paragraphs I've ever read. It's absolutely incomprehensible. Does she speak like this as well? Do people follow her? Do they think they should understand her and just feel badly about themselves when they don't?

Wow.

Yeah, she speaks like that a lot... for hours on end during The School. And, strange this is... it starts to make sense after awhile. Unfortunately, I still understand what's she's talking about. I just don't believe it. At all.

-jj

Are you able to translate what she's saying into comprehensible English?