Here is an excerpt from Byron Katie’s book “A Thousand Names for Joy.” Enjoy:

There’s nothing you can do with love. All you can do is experience it. That’s as intimate as you can ever be with another human being. You can hug him, you can kiss him, you can pack him up, take him home, cuddle him, feed him, give him your money, give him your life —- and that’s not it. Love is nothing you can demonstrate or prove. It’s what you are. It’s not a doing, it can’t be “done,” it’s too vast to do anything with. As you open to the experience of love, it will kill who you think you are. It will have no other. It will kill anything in its way.

Once you give yourself to love, you lose your whole world as you perceived it. Love leaves nothing but itself. It’s totally greedy; it has to include it all; it will not leave out even a shadow of itself. And everything else falls away, and you are like a tree losing its leaves in autumn, so beautifully. Our pain is in denying love. A boundary is an act of selfishness. There’s nothing you wouldn’t give to anyone if you weren’t afraid. Of course, you can’t be generous before your time. But when you meet your thoughts with understanding, you discover that there’s nothing to lose. So eventually there’s no attempt at protection. Giving everything you have, becomes a privilege.

The only true love affair is the one with yourself. I am married to me, and that’s what I project onto everyone. I love you with all my heart; you don’t even have to participate, so there’s no motive in, “I love you.” Isn’t that fine? I can love you completely, and you have nothing to do with it. There’s nothing you can do to keep me from the intimacy that I experience with you.

When I say “I love you”, its self-love. There’s no personality talking: I’m only talking to myself. Love is so self-absorbed that it leaves no room for any other. Its self-consuming, always. There’s not a molecule separate from itself. In the apparent world of duality, people are going to see it as a you and a me, but in reality there is only one. And even that isn’t true.

The voice within is what I’m married to. All marriage is a metaphor for that marriage. When I make a commitment, it’s to my own truth, and there’s no higher or lower. “Will you have this man to be your husband?” “I will.” And I may change my mind.” That’s as good as it gets. I’m married only to God — reality. That’s where my commitment is. It can’t be to a particular person. And my husband wouldn’t want it to be any other way.

Unless you marry the truth, there’s no real marriage. Marry yourself and you have married us. We are you. That’s the cosmic joke.

If you want to learn more about The Work of Byron Katie, I’d be happy to share some insights about how this practice has moved me forward on my path…http://goo.gl/DkwE22.

With love, Ramgiri