Waiting For God

I listened to a session of inquiry today by Byron Katie entitled The End of suffering - 2 which can be downloaded for free from the link I have provided. At the beginning of the session, a woman, I suppose you could say the inquiree, said, “I want God to make it easy for me to commit to a partnership.” The thing I want emphasise and explore in this post is the concept of waiting for God – expecting God to do something for you.

The woman, the inquiree, correctly identified the fact that holding onto the thought that God should do something for us, that it makes her feel like a victim, bottom of God’s list, orphaned, unlovable, and separate from God.

Without the thought that God should do something for her, the woman related that she would feel more self-worthy, more trusting of self and more open.

During this session of inquiry, Katie raised the point of procrastination: when we hold onto the thought that God should do something for us, we inevitably put off doing what we should be doing. With this thought, God becomes the source of the blame for our not doing something, or something that we expect to happen in our lives, which ends-up not happening.

The turnaround for this session is, “I should…”, or, “I want me to…” It is a matter of self meeting self. If we want God to do something for us – we could be in for a long wait. If we want God to do something for us – we should do it. Personally, I believe in God so the way I see this is that it is God who moves in me. Nevertheless, I concur that holding on to the thought that God should do something, is a recipe for procrastination.

Cancer Meets Inquiry

This session of inquiry at the beginning of The End of suffering - 2, reminded me of one of my favourite sessions of inquiry by Byron Katie entitled Cancer Meets Inquiry which is downloadable via iTunes (for a cost) or for free via the link I provided.

In this session, a woman was saying that God promised all good. She was upset because her church (she is a Christian) promised that God is good and that He would heal her. So when this woman developed cancer, she held onto the thought that God promised all good and that He would heal her. The contraction around this thought brought her stress.

She said she was angry because she didn’t know what she was doing wrong. This is a common thing that happens when people believe in God. When a person becomes a Christian, or believes in any other religion that supports the existence of God, several things happen:

• They have a whole lot of expectations that they believe God can, and should, fulfil.
• They develop a sense of guilt as they wonder what it is they should do in order to appease God’s wrath and to merit His favour.
• They inevitably blame God for all the bad things that have happened in their life and continue to occur in the lives of other people.

The inevitable outcome of these convictions and expectations is:

• God becomes a tyrant who is impossible to please.
• The person feels that they are not good enough and that there is something they must do to please God. They feel a sense of hopelessness.
• They feel like the innocent victim of an unfair world.

This woman felt that she had caused the cancer, she said, “That’s what they say.” She does not say who “they” are – but I would suppose that it is this woman’s church members who said, or subtly implied this. When a person holds onto the thought that they have created their own illness, it causes a person to feel as if they are a bad person and that the illness is proof of that. The thought “I created cancer”, also gives a person the thought, “I created it – I can stop it.” People must realise that they did not choose to be ill.

The Secret to Physical Healing?

There has been a lot of Christian teaching on the subject of healing through faith. Kenneth E. Hagin is known by some as the “Father of Faith”. Hagin’s life story is rather remarkable: he was miraculously healed of an incurable heart condition and blood disease at the age of seventeen. Hagin had several near-death experiences – he even went to the very gates of hell itself – only to be snatched away at the last moment (see Hagin’s minibook “I Went to Hell”).

Kenneth E. Hagin used faith for finances, and particularly, faith for healing in all of his books on Christian faith. Hagin even wrote entire books just on the subject of healing by faith. Hagin would teach that Christians should confess that they are healed – because Christ has already healed them. There are numerous different verses of scripture from the Bible that Hagin used to support this notion, in particular, 1 Peter 2:24 - who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness--by whose stripes you were healed. Hagin would point out that this verse says that we are not going to be healed, but that we are already healed. Hagin recommended finding verse of scripture that say that our need is met – and then confess it, believing that we already have it.

It has only been during recent years that Bible teachers have been reflecting on Hagin’s teachings and establishing why his methods don’t appear to work for most people. Hagin, and similar faith teachers, would say that it is because people don’t believe enough, or because they don’t confess scripture enough. But the real reason is because:

• They don’t believe that God loves them the way they are
• They feel that they are not right with God.
• They believe they must do something to merit the blessing and favour of God.

Byron Katie related how people develop cancer: it is because they attach the thought that they have cancer. People, who have cancer, or another illness, can ask themselves, “I have cancer – is it true?” (You could substitute cancer with any other illness. The turnaround for this is simply, “I don’t have cancer.” Even though the doctor, the lab and medical science says that a person has cancer, they can still question the thought that says that they have cancer.

Without the story that a person has cancer, they would not worry about it. It is only when the thought arises that they have cancer or that God should heal them – that they experience stress. Katie related how she was diagnosed with cancer – she did inquiry and did not worry about it – this is what led to her remarkable recovery from this illness.

I cannot help but feel that this is the key to healing from any physical illness, in fact, healing from any issue in life. The key is questioning contraction around a stressful thought. When people try to use prayer, confession of scripture or affirmations to control their physical health or anything else in their life – they end-up losing the very control they are trying to attain. Whenever we try to control something in our lives we end-up becoming anxious. Our lives would be much better if we just simply relinquished control by questioning stressful thoughts - no matter what other people or established science may say.

Inquiry Based on Persistent Releases

Ever since combining releasing with inquiry – I have noticed some amazing ways that both methods facilitate the other. One example of this is the way that persistent releases provide an indication as to what belief needs to be question using inquiry.

One of the great things about releasing is that you are not encouraged to simply “guess” what the want is coming from. I have noticed that one of the most frequent questions that are raised on the releasing forums by inexperienced releasers is about what wants are behind a reaction or feeling in response to a particular situation. There are often replies to such questions on these forums – some of them sound very convincing, whilst some can be off-the-mark or just fanciful.

The only way that we can truly know what want is behind our reactions to a situation, is by quieting the mind and asking the question, “Does this come from a want for approval, control or security?” Then, wait for the answer to arise from the subconscious mind to the conscious mind; it might take several seconds, but it will come. It will come in words, pictures or feelings – but it will come. Sometimes more than one want arises. Sometimes the opposite want arises, e.g. a want to disapprove rather than a want for approval.

There are times when the basis of a want is rather obvious. For instance, when you are worrying over money-matters, it is obvious that it is want for security. When you are in a traffic jam and feeling impatient, waiting for the traffic to move, it will likely by a want for control. When someone does not seem to appreciate your efforts to please them – it will be a want for approval. But for those times when the want is not so obvious, it is useful to ask the question, “What want does this come from?”

I have found it very useful to regularly ask myself, when experiencing negative emotions or a sense of unease, “What does it want?” The answer will always come if I still my mind and wait for the answer.

We are not always certain if there is a want operating in a situation. If a man sees a woman he is attracted to and is in an emotional state of grief, but then rises to a state of lust, he might actually believe that he is experiencing love. It is only when he asks what want is present – that the truth is revealed. In this situation, there is a want for approval present. Perhaps love is also present, but if that man could release on the want for approval, then he knows that the want for approval was present to some degree. Perhaps the man is attracted to the woman in a way that is natural and in it comes from the higher self, in that case, there is nothing to release on.

We become trained through regular, recurring situations, to know what want is behind our reaction to a certain situation. 1 John 4:1 talks about testing a spirit. Perhaps this has something to do with testing the spirit, the essence of something, in order to determine whether it is genuine and of God?

I know that 1 John 4:1 has been applied in Christian spiritual warfare techniques to ask evil spirits to name themselves during deliverance sessions. In such deliverance sessions, the evil spirits will typically reply that they are a spirit of fear, lying or high-blood-pressure or whatever. But these techniques are really in the realm of the neurotic and the extreme. The secure minded Christians that I know of how no need or inclination to partake in such practices.

The Bible also talks about bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). When we ask what wants are present in a given moment – we are fulfilling, I believe, the requirements set-out in 2 Corinthians 10:5. We are also fulfilling the requirement of Romans 6:12 and Ephesians 4:22 – to name but a few. If we attempt to deal with sin, in the moment, without releasing, we will end-up moving into self-effort with people-pleasing, repression and behaviour modification programs in operation.

These wants, in given circumstances, can therefore become a means of establishing the wrong belief operating in that given situation. Byron Katie often talks about this subject: like when a person indulges in a bad habit of some kind, such as drinking, or they have an outburst of anger, there is always a wrong belief that they are attaching to in that moment. If a person gets into the practice of releasing when they feel stressful – they become more in-tune with their thoughts and feelings. This can only have a good affect on a person’s use of inquiry.

In relation to the example I gave above, about the man wanting a woman’s approval, we can articulate the underlying belief in a very simple way, as follows, “I need ________’s approval – is it true?”

So when we find that there are certain wants in operation in given circumstances, these should be an indication that we need to go deeper using inquiry in order to experience a more permanent relief from that wrong belief. In fact, I am of the opinion, and it is just an opinion, that releasing is a way of gaining a temporary relief from the wants established by wrong thinking. In order to establish permanent relief from those thoughts and wants – I believe that inquiry is the best means of doing this.

The Ticking Time bomb Analogy

I believe that stressful thoughts (wrong beliefs) can be likened to the ticking of a time bomb. Each time we experience a stressful thought, it is an indication that we need to go into inquiry so that we may question it. Over the years, society has learned to suppress emotions and block-out painful thoughts or those thoughts which are deemed to be unacceptable to our moral integrity. Each time we experience a particular stressful thought, or a related stressful thought, it can be likened to another tick of the time bomb.

Complexes

In actual fact, the analogy of a time bomb in the mind is better suited to what I see as being the source of wants: complexes. Complexes are clusters of related thoughts that become connected in the mind in order to facilitate retrieval later on. Anyone who is familiar with memory recall techniques will understand the power of association when it comes to developing a powerful memory. The mind stores information by determining a correlation between a new thought and existing thoughts. Eventually, through continuous anxiety, complexes can become strong and varied in terms of association between different thoughts.

The Time bomb will Eventually Explode

Eventually, time will run out and that time bomb will explode in some way. This might be experienced in the form of a sickness, nervous breakdown, marriage failure, criminal conviction or perhaps just an awkward, difficult or embarrassing situation which could have been simply avoided.

When we fail to heed the warnings that our mind and emotions give us – we are ignoring that ticking time bomb in our mind. In reality, there could be several of these veritable time bombs, waiting to go off when we least expect them to. This situation could take years and years of preparation to culminate in that one, devastating incident to take place. When I say “preparation”, I’m talking about wrong expectations (false hopes), poor decisions, and deceit and so on.

Eventually, the pressure of life will bear down on you and literally shock you into the realisation that the beliefs you held onto so tightly for so long – have brought nothing but pain and misery to yourself and perhaps to those around you. Life throws us “curve balls” in the form of events that show us that we were unprepared for the unexpected. There is something about suffering which seems to have the effect of forcing us to let go of certain long-held ideals – to the point that we are willing to relinquish our hold on the most deep-set and proud convictions.

Inquiry provides us with a means of “collapsing time” by listening to what our heart has been trying to tell us all along. Perhaps it enables us to avoid going through certain painful situations. I don’t believe that it is a means of avoiding so-called negative circumstances and is certainly not a tool by which we can assert complete control over our lives. This is not a quick affirmation we can make or an obligation to fulfil or a sentiment to embrace. No, this is a process that we need to go through: four questions and a turnaround. We need to ask if something is true, if it’s absolutely true, what life is like with the thought, and finally, what life would be like without the thought. This is then followed by the turnaround, which the four questions have prepared us for, so that it is as true as or truer than the thought we are questioning.

The Irony of Anxiety

The irony of anxiety is that anxious people develop an expectation for bad things to happen in their life. For this reason, they are more likely to anticipate negative circumstances arising from seemingly innocent occurrences. But rather than putting a person into a position of control, the desire to control circumstances results in worry, incessant planning and a desperate need for things to go a certain way. The more we worry about things – the less control we have over what happens in our life. So it seems that anticipating negative circumstances with a view of controlling the outcome – is an exhaustive and futile task. Rather than becoming responsible, worry simply makes us irresponsible. Byron Katie often says, “If you want to suffer on purpose – get a plan!” This message echoes the wisdom of Eckhart Tolle, the author of the bestselling book, The Power of Now.

Principles and Formulas

Religious and self-help teaching seeks to identify these ticking time bombs of the mind so that we can deal with them. But the problem is that the provision of principles and formulas does little in relation to our being able to defuse these potentially explosive and damaging thoughts, beliefs, attitudes and desires.

Releasing and Inquiry

Thankfully, through releasing and inquiry we have a means of being able to detect these wrong beliefs; we are then able to let go of the emotions and underlying wants, in the moment, so that we can experience peace. Then, if we are not able to question the wrong beliefs in that moment, we can write them down so that we can question them later.

Writing down Stressful Thoughts

Byron Katie says that when we write down our beliefs, it is like hitting the pause button on our minds. We are able to freeze time, in a sense, when we write down our stressful thoughts. Therefore, even if we forget to question our thoughts, if we have written them down, we can question our thoughts when we check our notes at a later time.

How to Know What Belief to Question – Part 2

Our Built-In Alert Mechanism

We have a built-in mechanism that tells us we are attaching to a belief: it is called pain. When we experience mental stress as the result of attaching to a wrong belief, we know we are to inquire into that belief in order to experience freedom from it. At the root of all of our emotions, I believe, is a stressful thought; without the thought - there would be no emotional response other than the love of God and the peace and joy that it brings. In reality, our stressful thoughts are likely to be the product of not just one, isolated thought, but a whole network of interrelated thoughts: what is known in Psychology as complexes.

The Work is not a Principle

Byron Katie says that The Work is not a principle to follow - she says that The Work is the mind: we are working with the way that the mind works in order to undo all of the thoughts that we attach to - the thoughts that cause our suffering. Byron Katie believes that all suffering in the world is due to our stressful thoughts. Without the beliefs that we attach to things - there would be no pain and no suffering. This concept elicits resistance in a lot of people - perhaps because they want to hold onto the myth that something good can come from attaching to harmful beliefs – as if people would go unpunished if we were to do so and that justice would not be done.

The Power of Unforgiveness

The mind believes that if forgives someone - that person will go unpunished. But we are the ones that experience the punishment when we refuse to let go of harmful thoughts. This concept of holding-up a sense of unfairness simply keeps a person in a painful world was they see themselves as victims and other people as perpetrators. But without the beliefs to hold-up the concept of what is fair and unfair - there would be no more separation, judgementalism and no more suffering.

Surrender to Love by Letting go of Fear

In this condition we are not completely defenceless: it just means that we substitute our own limited and painful fear for God's perfect love. When we surrender to love we experience peace and joy; we also find that love enables our life to flow more effortlessly and things tend to happen when and how they should. It is our own fear, caused by attaching to wrong beliefs, which simply get in the way of God.

How to Know What Belief to Question – Part 1

What Byron Katie’s says is that we should just work with whatever belief arises in that moment. There is no need to seek after beliefs to work with; there is no need to use complex forms of Psychoanalysis; no need to analyse painful experiences from the past. We don't need to read books which tell us what is right, wrong, good or bad; we don't need to read books to find the right principles that other people say we should live according to. In this way, we are able to do away with an entire bookcase full of books that attempt to tell us how we should live our lives. This gives us a great deal more independence and potentially saves us a lot of wasted time and money.

If people become self-empowered (more like God-empowered) they are no longer under the control of spiritual gurus, Psychologists, therapists, advisors and church pastors. There is a great deal of freedom and empowerment to be found by doing The Work.

The modus operandi of The Work is the concept that contraction around a thought is what causes negative thoughts and feelings, and in fact, suffering in general. Byron Katie says that confusion is the only suffering. Katie often says, “If I think you are the problem – I am insane”. This reminds me of a quote from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet: There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. The biggest criticisms of The Work is that it is too simple and that it condones wrong behaviour. But it is not about determining what is good, bad, right, wrong, fair or unfair. Inquiry is simply a means of questioning the attachment to a thought – knowing that it is this attachment to a thought that causes stress and overall dysfunction in life.

The Work – Four Questions and a Turnaround

The Work of Byron Katie^TM: Four Questions and a Turnaround:

1. Is it true?

2. Can you absolutely know that it's true?

3. How do you react when you believe that thought?

4. Who would you be without the thought?

* Turn the thought around (to the opposite, to the other, to yourself); is it as true or truer?

* Find three genuine examples of how this turnaround is true in your life now.

* Can you find another turnaround that feels as true or truer?

To learn more about The Work of Byron Katie, visit: http://www.thework.com/

Heart Meets Mind

The following is a quote of an MP3 of Byron Katie facilitating the Work, which is freely downloadable from the website www.everypathis.org – the session is entitled How to Do a Relationship. I am including it here because I feel that it is a profound explanation of how inquiry works.

“This Work is meditation; the heart gives the answer – not the intellect. What I experience is: the mind has been perceived as an enemy. So we write the mind down on paper and then we ask the questions. In that way, it’s the mind asking the questions. And then if it asks with intention and it really wants to know, if you’re a lover of truth, the mind asks and the heart, which has always been clouded over with all of this thinking, all of this chaos; the mind asks the questions, the four questions, and the heart will give the answer. Every time it will give it in pictures, it will give it in knowing, it will give it in thoughts. And if you wait it will just feed you and feed you and feed you. And the mind begins to just lose itself in that peace it’s always been seeking. It’s the mind finding a home in the heart. And the heart and the mind come to know in that space that they’re the same. There is no mind and heart, there is no separation – it’s merging.

We want to give our bodies a home – let’s give our mind a home. We want to give our sweet children a home – we want to give the homeless a home – focusing always on that so we don’t have to give the mind a home that is safe and that is the power of understanding and truth.

There is no mind and heart. There’s only, you know, the symbol of heart, the mind knows that that’s why it never goes out – it’s coming home to itself. It’s been out there a while. It’s a nice trip out – for me forty three years and its back. And that’s what this Work does, you know, we begin to look forward to it; like look forward to the worst that could happen, we may as well we’ve had a wonderful teacher here that shows us, you know, here it comes.

So this Work is, we go out and the Work is the way back now. So we begin to look forward to the trip and eventually there’s nothing that can stop the flow – it’s an in and out – I, I, I, I, I, I.

There’s no harm anywhere – our story about what is, is the harm we experience within us. And if you should feel the discomfort of that, then If you think this investigation would serve you – it’s an offering.”