Hanging Out with Byron Katie

Posted on February 2, 2015

Bringing The Work of Byron Katie to Miami

by Ramgiri Braun, Ph.D.

She comes through the hotel lobby waving. She sits down in the car and it starts. She is in a hurry she says. The hurry to free us of suffering. Why? Because she does not experience us as ‘other.’ She loves herself completely; there is no longer even the slightest distance and separation.

She lives in the realization of being one with all things. Her hurry is the great compassion that arises in the mind free of delusion, in the One Heart we all share.

I say: “It’s great to see you again; it’s been a long time,” and she, “Yes it’s been a while. And I am sure you question that too.” No illusion is left standing. There is time? There is distance? There is separation? Can it be true? Not in the reality of the Heart.

And off we go to bring The Work to a homeless shelter. Who are these people? They are like you and me. Every time we get lost in a stressful thought we have lost our true home, the Heart. How many years have you been homeless like that?

We speak to a lady who works for the shelter; she is brilliant, so filled with love. Where can we find such rigorous aliveness in the halls of power and money?

Then lunch and The Work. We start in the car. Traffic and food are the scenery in which truth unfolds, freedom is found. ‘I’m in a hurry’ is the crystal clear focus on freedom, here and now, in all situations and moments, nothing but freedom. And freedom is love.

In the evening, during the main event at Unity on the Bay, we watch 800 souls strip off some of their burden of mistaken thinking and the suffering it creates.

Truth liberates. It gives us a new identity; the one we yearn for, the happy one, the free one, the one of the Heart.

I caught a few of the many gems of truth during our conversations that day, each one a meditation that can set us free:

The mind is the beginning, the middle, and the end.

There is what we believe about life – and then there is Life.

Defense is the first act of war.

We can’t identify with victims because victims are violent people.

I am who I believe you to be in the moment I see you as that.

If I can’t see you as beautiful, I need to change my thoughts.

If I can’t love my thoughts, I can’t love you, because you can only be (for me) what I believe you to be.

A friend joins us over dinner. Her two-year-old baby girl is in the hospital. We examine fear and cancer and death. There is no pain and no terror that can survive the liberating power of truth. And our friend gets to taste freedom from the true cancer: the cancer of stressful thoughts.

For when the mind is clear no fear can remain – not even a trace. The free mind is based in a love so powerful it dissolves the very foundations of pain.

We speak of love, the most important topic of all. And Katie says, “The thing that broke me was love.”

Love breaks us open, wide open to the brilliant joy of what we are. It breaks us out of the jail of our confused and stressed mind. It breaks the veil of our false identity, of being separate from each other, subject to fear.

That love is much, much more than an emotion. It is the true essence of what we are. It is unlimited. It is life itself.

With The Work we can free the mind of its burdens, so the all-embracing love we are gets room to breathe.

with love,

Ramgiri

Ramgiri Braun, Ph.D.
Annapurna Institute, Inc.
HeartSourcing Yoga

 

Ramgiri and Byron Katie, Miami 2015 – ALL RIGHTS RESERVED – Annapurna Institute.

Tags: , , ,

4 Responses to “Hanging Out with Byron Katie”

  1. hanuman tirtha
    Feb 02, 2015

    Wonderful ,
    The mind is the beginning, the middle, and the end.
    There is what we believe about life – and then there is Life.
    Defense is the first act of war.
    We can’t identify with victims because victims are violent people.
    I am who I believe you to be in the moment I see you as that.
    If I can’t see you as beautiful, I need to change my thoughts.
    If I can’t love my thoughts, I can’t love you, because you can only be (for me) what I believe you to be.


  2. Parthena
    Feb 02, 2015

    Beautiful, thank you.


  3. Lisette Luna
    Feb 03, 2015

    Love, love this Ram Giri. Thank you


  4. Patty
    Feb 03, 2015

    I Love You Both.
    Thank-You and Thank-You!
    Your Work® can move mountains.
    P



Leave a Reply