163 Top Spiritual and Inspiring Quotes by Byron Katie

Forgiveness is just another name for freedom.

I suffered from severe depression for over a decade. My condition deteriorated steadily. I was suicidal.

When we love what is, it becomes so simple to live in the world. Because the world is exactly as it should be.

Sometimes the concept you're questioning makes more sense to ask just the second one and not the first one.

Seeking love keeps you from the awareness that you already have it that you are it.

I don't need other people to have an open mind for me to be happy. I'm the only one who needs an open mind.

Asking the questions -- that's what changes lives. Every cell in your body is awake with inquiry. And you cannot believe the old thoughts again.

Clarity moves much more efficiently than violence or stress.

Until you can love what is -- everything, including the apparent violence and craziness -- you're separate from the world, and you'll see it as dangerous and frightening.

Inviting people to inquiry is much more powerful to me than describing my experience... When people hear me tell the story, they often say, Oh my goodness, I get it. I get it! But it's not enough.

Any thought of discomfort or stress is an alarm that lets you know you're believing an untrue thought.

You can't have an up without a down. You can't have a left without a right. This is duality. If you have a problem, you must already have the solution. The question is, do you really want the solution, or do you want to perpetuate the problem?

The more you reveal, the more you have to question and the freer you get. Until, finally, you're absolutely exposed. And that leaves you in a fearless position, because you can work in the world without the fear of being found out. That is freedom.

Every (stressful thought) is a variation on a single theme: This shouldn't be happening. I shouldn't be having this experience. God is unjust. Life isn't fair.

With inquiry, every painful story unravels. Freedom is possible in every moment.

If someone says, Katie, you are out of order, over something I've said, or, Katie, you are wrong, if I defend myself or justify myself, then I have just started the war.

When a thought hurts, that's the signal that it isn't true.

The mind's job is to validate what it thinks.

Our parents, our children, our spouses, and our friends will continue to press every button we have, until we realize what it is that we don't want to know about ourselves, yet. They will point us to our freedom every time.

Don't be careful. You could hurt yourself.

When they attack you and you notice that you love them with all your heart, your Work is done.

Peace doesn't require two people; it requires only one. It has to be you. The problem begins and ends there.

Personalities don't love.
They want something.

I love what I think, and I'm never tempted to believe it.

The teacher you need is the person you're living with.

The only time we suffer is when we believe a thought that argues with what is. When the mind is perfectly clear, what is is what we want.

You don't get to vote on what is. Have you noticed?

Thoughts are just what is. They appear. They're innocent. They're not personal.

The miracle of love comes to you in the presence of the uninterpreted moment. If you are mentally somewhere else, you miss real life.

Who would you be without your story?

As long as you think that the cause of your problem is out there -- as long as you think that anyone or anything is responsible for your suffering -- the situation is hopeless. It means that you are forever in the role of victim, that you're suffering in paradise.

All the advice you ever gave your partner is for you to hear.

Nothing comes ahead of its time, and nothing ever happened that didn't need to happen.

The nightmare always becomes laughter, once it's understood.

The world is as you perceive it to be. For me, clarity is a word for beauty. It's what I am. And when I'm clear, I see only beauty. Nothing else is possible.

If your beliefs are stressful and you question them, you come to see that they aren't true -- whereas prior to questioning, you absolutely believe them. How can you live in joy when you're believing thoughts that bring on sadness, frustration, anger, alienation, and loneliness?

Questioning our stressful thoughts, we come to see they're not true.

If you think the cause of your problem is 'out there,' you'll try to solve it from the outside. Take the shortcut: solve it from within.

Reality doesn't wait for your opinion, vote, or permission, sweetheart. It just keeps being what it is and doing what it does.

When I turn the thought around -- the thought that war, let's say war in Iraq, should stop -- the turnaround is the war in myself should stop.

The only way I can be angry at you is when I have thought, said, or done something that is unkind in my own opinion.

Since the past is unreal and the future is unreal, all your thoughts are about nothing.

Everyone has equal wisdom. It is absolutely equally distributed. No one is wiser than anyone else.

All I have is all I need and all I need is all I have in this moment.

Forgiveness is discovering that what you thought happened, didn't.

Freedom is our birthright.

That's huge: just to clean up one ecosystem.

The world is nothing but my perception of it. I see only through myself. I hear only through the filter of my story.

No one can give you freedom but you.

For me, the future lives only here in my mind, as thoughts and images, just as the past does, and I love those thoughts and the world that it produces. I am entirely optimistic about the future.

Stress is an alarm clock that lets you know you're attached to something not true for you.

That's the purpose of stress. It's a friend. It's an alarm clock, built in to let you know that it's time to do The Work.

There is no story that is you or that leads to you. Every story leads away from you.

If you realized how beautiful you are, you would fall at your own feet.

I love being free enough that I can be so intimate with people, and that people are free enough that we can all be intimate with each other!

Whenever you think that your needs are not being met, you're telling the story of a future.

When a thought appears such as Do the dishes and you don't do them, notice how an internal war breaks out... The stress and weariness you feel are really mental combat fatigue.

To understand our own thinking is to understand all thinking.

No one has ever been able to control his thinking, although people may tell the story of how they have. I don't let go of my thoughts-I meet them with understanding. Then they let go of me.

It's not the darkness that people fear; it's what they imagine into the darkness.

But when you think you're supposed to do something with it and imagine that you're the doer, that's pure delusion. Just follow your passion. Do what you love. Inquire, and have a happy life while you're doing it.

Fear has only two causes: the thought of losing what you have or the thought of not getting what you want.

The only difference between heaven and hell is believing a thought.

I realized that it's insane to oppose it. When I argue with reality, I lose-but only 100% of the time. How do I know that the wind should blow? It's blowing!

The most important relationship is the mind's relationship with itself. In other words, the ultimate -- and, really, the only -- relationship you have is the relationship with your own thoughts.

If you want real control, drop the illusion of control; let life have you. It does anyway. You're just telling yourself the story of how it doesn't.

Your most intimate relationship is the one you have with your thoughts.

We say to others only what we need to hear.

We're all looking for love, in our confusion, until we find our way back to the realization that love is what we already are.

The mind usually says, I know, I know, I know. But the don't-know mind is where wisdom lives.

When you discover that all happiness is inside you, the wanting and needing are over, and life gets very exciting.

Lack of understanding is always painful.

Low self-esteem is not possible when you understand the nature of everything. Depression is not possible. The universe is absolutely friendly.

Everyone is a mirror image of yourself-your own thinking coming back to you.

When you think that someone or something other than yourself needs to change, you're mentally out of your business.

If our thinking is clear, how could work or money be the problem? Our thinking is all we need to change.

You can't have your daughter as long as you have a concept of her. When you get rid of the concept, you meet your daughter for the first time. That's the way this works.

It's not easy to find your own way when you believe that you need love, approval, appreciation, or anything from your family. It's particularly hard when you want them to see things your way.

There is no peace in the world until you find peace within yourself in this moment.

Being present means living without control and always having your needs met.

Our job is unconditional love. The job of everyone else in our life is to push our buttons.

Self-realization is not complete until it lives in action.

Thought the mind can justify itself faster than the speed of light, it can be stopped through the act of writing.

The power of one! If I can't stop war in my life, how can I expect politicians to stop war in the world? I can't. And we all have equal wisdom, so if I can do it then I know that anyone can do it if their mind is open to answering just four simple questions and beginning there.

Never be fooled into believing that there is one speck out of order.

The unquestioned mind is the world of suffering.

Until we question our stressful thoughts, we remain victims of the images in our head.

As long as we believe our thoughts, there will always be war.

I'll tell you that for me, one when someone used to say something that was true, one way I knew it was true was that I immediately felt defensive. I blocked it off, and I went to war with them in my mind and suffered all that goes with it. And they were only saying what was true.

When safety is our priority, we live our lives being very, very careful, and we wind up having no lives.

It's very benign, it seems, to think, There's a tree. In fact, it's a very beautiful thought. If someone chops down all the trees, then we think, Oh, my goodness, something is out of order in my world. We begin to think, Who am I in a world without trees?

There's no way that a clear mind can live an unhappy life.

It's a wonderful world when you have what you want at all times.

How do you react when you think you need people's love? Do you become a slave for their approval?

If something happens to your son, your thoughts about not having him in your life is what your terror is. It's not about his life.

The worst loss you've ever experienced is the greatest gift you can have.

The moment it begins to question itself, the mind becomes so clear that it starts working with itself rather than with the body's identification.

You might believe that it's only for their own good, but how does it feel when you try to manipulate the people you love? Are you teaching them that your love is conditional? Maybe through inquiry we can find another way.

If your happiness depends on your children being happy, that makes them your hostages. So stay out of their business, stop using them for your happiness, and be your own happiness. And that way you are the teacher for your children: someone who knows how to live a happy life.

Life just happens. It's what you're believing about life that makes you suffer.

I used to sleep on the floor next to the bed, because I believed that I didn't even deserve a bed to sleep in. And then, one morning, a cockroach crawled onto my leg. I looked at it, and suddenly I awoke from a kind of hypnotic trance in which I had been all my life.

People try so hard to let go of their negative behaviors and thoughts, and it doesn't work, or it works only for a short time. I didn't let go of my negative thoughts; I questioned them, and then they let go of me, and so did my addictions and depression.

As you inquire into issues and turn judgments around, you come to see that every perceived problem appearing out there is really nothing more than a misperception within your own thinking.

I discovered that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but that when I didn't believe them, I didn't suffer, and that this is true for every human being. Freedom is as simple as that. I found that suffering is optional. I found a joy within me that has never disappeared, not for a single moment.

Happiness is a clear mind. A clear and sane mind knows how to live, how to work, what emails to send, what phone calls to make, and what to do do to create what it wants without fear.

And as long as we believe what we believe -- until that is questioned -- there's no progress as a human race. Again, we still have war. So, effective rehabilitation is to question what we believe. When that happens, everyone gets out of prison.

Defense is the first act of war.

Sleep just gives the ego a little time out. It has to stay strong in order to be something that it isn't.

The world is perfect. As you question your mind, this becomes more and more obvious. Mind changes, and as a result, the world changes. A clear mind heals everything that needs to be healed. It can never be fooled into believing that there is one speck out of order.

If you are mentally somewhere else, you miss real life.

I haven't had a single thought for 26 years. I have only understanding. It's somewhat complicated to understand that. I've hardly ever spoken about it. You're in a state of total peace of mind. A kind of nirvana.

If you want to enter a state of grace,
question the assumption you're defending right now.

When we believe in our thoughts, when we tell ourselves a story, we suffer. 'My husband doesn't respect me.' 'I should be thinner.' Those are stories. When there's no story, there's no suffering.

What is perfect health? The unraveling of all imagined states of mind.

The only thing you fear is the unreality that you yourself have invented.

This is the time. This is the place. This is the vastness. Right here is paradise. Always. Always.

Once the mind is met with understanding, it can always find its way home.

When the creative mind is unleashed and understands its true nature, it's unlimited. There's nothing you cannot do.

There is no thought or situation that you can't put up against inquiry. Every thought, every person, every apparent problem is here for the sake of your freedom.

Whatever it takes for you to find your freedom, that's what you've lived.

A teacher of fear can't bring peace on earth. We have been trying to do it that way for thousands of years. The person who turns inner violence around, the person who finds peace inside and lives it, is the one who teaches what true peace is. We are waiting for just one teacher. You're the one.

My experience is that the teachers we need most are the people we're living with right now.

If I had a prayer, it would be this: God, spare me from the desire for love, approval, or appreciation. Amen.

If you want reality to be different than it is, you might as well try to teach a cat to bark.

I am a lover of what is, not because I'm a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality.

One morning, in February 1986, out of nowhere, I experienced a realization. In an instant, I discovered that when I believed my stressful thoughts, I suffered, but when I questioned them, I didn't suffer.

I would go out into the desert. The desert was my teacher. I didn't know about gurus and wise people-I wasn't a reader.

I have had the privilege of losing everything.

Until you look forward to all criticism, your Work's not done.

When you act like a teacher, it's usually because you're afraid to be the student.

Trauma is nothing more than being stuck in what you believe.

Mind changes, and as a result, the world changes. A clear mind heals everything that needs to be healed.

Your True Nature Is Love. There's Nothing You Can Do About It.

Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you.

A thought is harmless unless we believe it. It's not our thoughts, but our attachment to our thoughts, that causes suffering. Attaching to a thought means believing that it's true, without inquiring. A belief is a thought that we've been attaching to, often for years.

All sadness is a tantrum.

I have discovered that in every language and every country I have visited, there are no new stories. They're all recycled. The same stressful thoughts arise in each mind one way or another, sooner or later.

It is easy to be swept away by some overwhelming feeling, so it's helpful to remember that any stressful feeling is like a compassionate alarm clock that says, You're caught in the dream.

Your nature is truth, and when you oppose it, you don't feel like yourself. Stress never feels as natural as peace does.

I have never experienced a stressful feeling that wasn't caused by attaching to an untrue thought. Behind every uncomfortable feeling, there's a thought that isn't true for us.

When you realize that every stressful moment you experience is a gift that points you to your own freedom, life becomes very kind.

You move totally away from reality when you believe that there is a legitimate reason to suffer.

Everything is fine until you believe it's not.

When you become a lover of what is, the war is over.

We don't mature through age; we mature in awareness.

To solve all problems, be here, in reality, now. Recognize that they exist only in a past or a future.

A clear mind heals everything that needs to be healed.

Your mind created the entire world.

The end of the war with the mind is the end of war.

Just keep coming home to yourself. You are the one you've been waiting for.

I don't let go of my thoughts, I meet them with understanding, then they let go of me.

There are two ways to be. One is at war with reality and the other is at peace.

By nature we are wise, kind, powerful, fearless, and absolutely unlimited.