Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are - A Thousand Names for Joy

Fascinating, two-level way to read this book: I learned about the ways that Byron Katie lives in harmony (ways that I could be applying "The Work") and came to a deeper understanding of The Tao te Ching.

I really enjoyed this book. Provided me with idea of developing a lighthearted framework for experiencing and enjoying the turbulence of life, which I've been writing about on my blog fightingsullivan.tumblr.com/.

I really enjoyed "A Thousand Names for Joy". It's my favorite book to take to the beach or park and read while I breathe in the peace that surrounds me. It's concepts are beautifully simple yet profound.

I enjoy reading the short responses to the Tao te Ching written by Katie. It gives insight to her experience of life and keeps it simple and direct allowing you to roam around in your own mind and see how life flows for you.

This book has become an absolute favorite. If you really get that living in the moment is all we ever have in this lifetime, then this is the book for you. A contemporary version of the Tao, totally user-friendly. Love you Katie!

This book is a lifelong read. This simple book contains the solution to any problem or question that might confront you in your life no matter who you are or what your circumstances are. It clearly makes the point that the only difference between heaven and hell is a thin veil in the form of our uninvestigated thoughts.

I listened to the audio version first (and still am listening now in my 7th month or so) and someone gave me the book...there is stuff in the book that is not on the CDs and I am loving the book version! So incredible!

This philosophy is so abstract I can barely grasp it. I have to read it over and over to even understand what she's trying to say. She wants us to live in the moment and not think about anything in the past of future. I can't wrap my head around that.

Byron Katie will change how you think about almost everything. The book gave me an example of someone who actually lives what The Course in Miracles speaks of. Absolutely Amazing. I reread a chapter nearly every day and aim for the peace she radiates.

Best book I have ever read. Reveals how "enlightened" people see the world, and how they act and react to the incredible dramas that unfold in their presence. Demonstrates how abstract philosophical teachings can be made practical and rewarding in your own quest for a life of peace and fulfillment.

And so I use them ...the words , as tools , pointers Eckhart has been known to say . Katies' WORK is a gift to humanity . It's very humbling to read this book I find .
What an inspired idea, to pair it with her husband Stephen's interpretation of the TAO .
The result is a very powerful transformative tool to those who are open to it .

This book is full of the intoxicating rantings and chronic self-contradictions of a mad guru. Hypnotic. Enchanting. Mind-bending. Chances are, you'll never be the same after reading this book.

In my opinion, that is too high of a price to pay. If you value your sanity, don't waste your time on this one.

In A Thousand Names for Joy: Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are, Byron Katie tries to describe the indescribable state of bliss that is her life, in case we would be moved to experience it for ourselves. I have read it 4 times in 4 months and each time I get a bigger glimpse of what heaven on earth might feel like. I am inspired to do The Work. Thank you Katie & Stephen for this beautiful book.

Heard A THOUSAND NAMES FOR JOY: LIVING IN HARMONY WITH THE WAY THINGS ARE (Random House Audio), written and read by Byron Katie with Stephen Mitchell.The authors–also married to each other–combine to bring together the Work, Katie’s form of self-inquiry, and the Way, the noted translation of the Tao done by Mitchell.I liked how the book gave me greater insight into the four questions that Katie is best known for:
* Is it true? Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
Who would you be without the thought?In addition, I liked her use of real life examples–including this one:
* I have questioned my thoughts, and I’ve seen that it’s crazy to argue with what is. I don’t ever want anything to happen except what’s happening. For example, my ninety-year-old mother is dying of pancreatic cancer. I’m taking care of her, cooking and cleaning for her, sleeping beside her, living in her apartment twenty-three hours a day (my husband takes me out for a walk every morning). It has been a month now. It’s as if her breath is the pulse of my life. I bathe her, I wash her in the most personal places, I medicate her, and I feel such a sense of gratitude. That’s me over there, dying of cancer, spending my last few days sleeping and watching TV and talking, medicated with the most marvelous painkilling drugs. I am amazed at the beauty and intricacies of her body, my body.And this passage really got me thinking about how I view things:* When they believe their thoughts, people divide reality into opposites. They think that only certain things are beautiful. But to a clear mind, everything in the world is beautiful in its own way.Only by believing your own thoughts can you make the real unreal. If you don’t separate reality into categories by naming it and believing that your names are real, how can you reject anything or believe that one thing is of less value than another? The mind’s job is to prove that what it thinks is true, and it does that by judging and comparing this to that. What good is a this to the mind if it can’t prove it with a that? Without proof, how can a this or a that exist?For example, if you think that only Mozart is beautiful, there’s no room in your world for rap. You’re entitled to your opinion, of course, but other people think that rap is where it’s at. How do you react when you believe that rap is ugly? You grit your teeth when you hear it, and when you have to listen (maybe you’re a parent or a grandparent), you’re in a torture chamber. I love that when mind is understood, there’s room for rap as well as for Mozart. I don’t hear anything as noise. To me, a car alarm is as beautiful as a bird singing. It’s all the sound of God.After listening to A THOUSAND NAMES FOR JOY, I now find myself wanting to read some of Katie’s other books.

Coming across this in a local bookstore was a welcome surprise. Her inspired responses to verses of the Tao Te Ching make up this book and they are non-traditional, bold and uncompromising. She talks about everyday experiences she has been through together with more extreme ones such as being confronted with a man with a gun. Sure not everything is 100% consistent, but I'm more than happy to forgive this given the directness of her expression. In many ways this book reminds me of Jeff Foster's "Life without a centre"

The Tao Te Ching is such a wonderful text and Stephen Mitchell's translation stands alone without the need for commentary. I had come across Byron Katie previously and not been too interested as I felt her previous works were geared more towards psychology/wellness rather than non-duality/mysticism.

"The reasons I love rules and plans and religions is that people feel safe in them for a while. And, personally, I don't have any rules. I don't need them. There's a sense of harmony that goes on all the time as things move and change, and I am that harmony, and so are you"

The only reason I've knocked a star off is that upon looking at her website she charges quite a large amount of money for her courses. While there is nothing wrong with this in itself, it doesn't sit completely well with me.

If you are drawn to this then definitely go for it. If you have already read Byron Katie but are not familiar with eastern thought, I suspect this may be a more challenging read. I would encourage you to pick up this book and dive into it - it's well worth the effort and could change your life.

I listened to this book on audio, courtesy of Byron Katie team themselves, pior to my interview with her.

The audio is simply mesmerizing. She has a voice that sounds like the voice of God if there were such a thing. She is incredibly soothing and comforting.

The book content is beautiful, but the concept of the Tao gets very esoteric for me, and I tried to stay with it. I did not multi-task when listening to this audio book and I really contemplated the deep concepts of truth, reality, self, existence, earth, nothingness, everything, identify and so much else, and I wish I could appreciate it deeper.

Sometimes, I disagreed with Katie. Sometimes, she spoke directly to my heart. Sometimes I wanted to hug her and other times I wanted to turn it off because she had lost me.

It is still a 5 star for the profound effect it had on me and will for the rest of my life, no doubt. When I spoke to her, I felt her presence, her amazing presence in the now, in the moment that is here and from that alone, I could see how living and being her must be. She is remarkable. I will continue to appreciate her.

I would guess that this book is much better on audio than text. The emphasis that Katie puts in the right places is necessary and makes it easier to understand. Absolutely wonderful audio recordings. May you find peace and happiness and oh yes, JOY, in listening to the fabulous Byron Katie.

Byron Katie is a "lit" woman of the California desert who in the `80s was extremely unhappy and hard to get along with until one day she woke up enlightened and has been dedicating her life to helping people ever since.

Her self-help method dubbed The Work and referred to by herself as inquiry is a step-by-step self-examination and forgiveness strategy that allows people she would called confused to clarify hurting thoughts about themselves and turn them around to be helping thoughts. Her most famous book is probably the description of her method "Loving What Is" but she has also done another called "A thousand names for Joy" which she did with her husband who has done a translation of the Tao te Ching. He decided to read each of the 81 aphorisms of the Tao to her and record her free-associated take on each of them. It makes for very interesting reading. Here are a couple of samples of her non-dualistic outlook:

14

Seamless, unnamable,

it returns to the realm of nothing.

Ultimately, what is real can't be seen or heard or thought or grasped. You're just seeing your own eyes, hearing your own ears, reacting to the world of your own imagination. It's all created by your mind in the first place. You name it, you create it, you give it meaning upon meaning upon meaning. You add the what to reality, then you add the why. It's all you. The original is wiped out in the wave of the new, which is already old. Thought deletes anything out­side itself

Mind is so powerful that it could take the imagined fist and beat it against a wall and actually believe that you are the person whose fist it is. Because mind in its ignorance is so quick to hold its imagined world together, it has created time and space and everything in it. Mind's ability to create is a beautiful thing, unless, as the terrorist that it often is, it has created a world that's frightening or unkind. If it has, I would suggest questioning the nightmare. It doesn't matter where mind begins to question itself "'It's a tree'--is that true?" Or "'I am'--is that true?" The world that mind has created can just as easily be de-created. It goes back to where it came from anyway. Your at­tachment to it is the only suffering.

Mind can't comprehend "nothing," the absolute, that from which everything flows, the original non-world. To name it "noth­ing" makes it untrue. It's not "nothing," because it's prior to words. "Nothing" is not only frightening to the world of mirrored thought--it's incomprehensible. Mind becomes frightened when it considers being what it was born from, since that can never be controlled or known. Without identification as a body, mind is left to die, and death never comes for it. What never lived can never die.

Eventually, mind discovers that it's free, that it's infinitely out of control and infinitely joyful. Eventually, it falls in love with the unknown. In that it can rest. And since it no longer believes what it thinks, it remains always peaceful, wherever it is or isn't.

19

Throw away holiness and wisdom, and people will be a hundred times happier.

You are the wisdom you're seeking, and inquiry is a way to make that wisdom available whenever you want. My experience is that there's no one with more or with less wisdom. We all have it equally. That's the freedom I enjoy. If you think that you have a problem, you're confused.

God's will and your will are the same, whether you notice it or not. There's no mistake in the universe. It's not possible to have the concept "mistake" unless you're comparing what is with what isn't. Without the story in your mind, it's all perfect. No mistake. Strangers used to hear about me and show up at my front door (this was in 1986), and some of them would put their palms together and bow and say, "Namaste." I had never heard that before--people don't say "Na­maste" in Barstow, the little desert town where I lived. So I thought they were saying, "No mistake." I was thrilled that the people coming to my door were so wise. "No mistake. No mistake."

There's a perfect order here. "Holiness" and "wisdom" are just concepts that separate us from ourselves. We think that there's some ideal we have to strive for, as if Jesus were any holier or the Buddha any wiser than we are right now in this moment. Who would you be without your story of yourself? It's stressful to have ideals that you can achieve only in the future, a future that never comes. When you no longer believe the thought that you need to achieve anything, the world becomes a much kinder place.

Sin, too, is a concept. Think of the worst thing you ever did. Go into it as deeply as you can, from the perspective of the person you were at the time. With the limited understanding you had then, weren't you doing the best you could? How could you have done it any differently, believing what you believed? If you really enter this exercise, you'll see that nothing else is possible. The possibility that anything else could have happened is just a thought you have now about a then, an imag­ined past that you are comparing with the real past, which is also imag­ined. We're all doing the best we can. And if you feel that you've hurt someone, make amends, and thank the experience for showing you how not to live. No one would ever hurt another human being if he or she weren't confused. Confusion is the only suffering on this planet.

I was once walking through the streets of Dublin with a Catholic priest who appreciated The Work and did it on a regular basis. We came to a cathedral, he invited me in, we walked around inside the cathedral for a while, then he pointed to a little booth and said, "This is a confessional. Would you like to step in?" It seemed important to him. I said, "Yes." So he stepped into his cubicle, and I stepped into mine, and I thought, Hmm. What do I have to confess? I searched and searched, and nothing came. Then, through the little window, some­thing did come: he began confessing to me. Later, outside the cathe­dral, we applied the four questions to each imagined sin and turned it around, and he said that a great weight had been lifted from him.

Everyone is doing his job. No one is more valuable than another. The things in the world that we think are so terrible are actually great teachers. There's no mistake, and there's nothing lacking. We're always going to get what we need, not what we think we need. Then we come to see that what we need is not only what we have, it's what we want. Then we come to want only what is. That way we always succeed, whatever happens.

Author Byron Katie in "A Thousand Names for Joy" shares her philosophy on to achieve a life of complete joy and freedom. She made this discovery on her own at forty-three, after ten years of deep depression and despair. At that time, she came to realize that her suffering was not a result of not having control but, rather, it was a result of her arguing with reality. Arguing with what is leads to confusion. Once we are in harmony with the way things are, real life begins, a life that is happier and kinder.

The cornerstone of her transformation was linked to the investigation of her thoughts. She learned that believing her thoughts led to suffering. When she did not believe them, she did not suffer. Suffering was by all appearances optional.

This experience led to the development of a process she calls THE WORK, designed to get what is in our mind on paper (cannot be done in our head as our minds will outsmart us) so we can stop our mind, stabilize our thoughts, and investigate them carefully. She provides examples of how to apply THE WORK throughout the book and in the Appendix, "How to Do The Work." In short form, THE WORK consists of the following questions/actions:
* Is what (the story/belief in your head) you are thinking true?
* Can you absolutely know that its true?
* How do you react when you believe the thought?
* Who would you be without the thought?
* Turn it around.

It has been Katie's experience, directly and indirectly through the work she has done with thousands of others, is that we are the cause of our own suffering - all of it. Joy is available to everyone, always, when one questions the mind in search of truth. I have found that there is real meat and potatoes in Katie's construct and have begun to use it in my own life. If read seriously, most, in their personal search for joy and freedom, will gain from reading "A Thousand Names for Joy".

I bought "A Thousand Names for Joy: Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are" in the audio CD version and fell in love with it. I listen it in my car when I drive every day. It brings me peace, calmness when I listen to both Steve Mitchell and Byron Katie's voice.

The audio version of the book always starts with Steve making a quote and Byron Katie elaborating on the quote. Everything they say rings true to how I truly feel and brings lots of joy and peace throughout the day. For example, Byron Katie would say something related to how she handles the pain of her cornea without a story. Her words truly inspired how I felt about the cold I was had this last week. Prior to Byron Katie, I would sometimes still feel "bad" and "sorry" for myself because I was "suffering" from a cold/flu and unconsciously have beliefs that I need to resist it. I usually would create my own turmoil unconsciously thinking fighting the cold will make me feel better.

However, her view about her cornea's condition made me realize I can certainly living in harmony with the way things (the seemingly terrible cold) are without opposition. That does not mean I sit back and do nothing. Instead, I take medication and take the time to rest myself well without the story "I am the poorest thing". Without the story like Byron Katie was saying, I realize how the cold inspired me to appreciate every breath I take in life. While I had the cold inside me, I had nasal congestion which does not allow me to sit and breathe properly. With Byron Katie's words here, I realize I have taken my health and meditation practice for granted. Without the nasal congestion (without accepting the cold was there), there was no opportunity to help me be aware and appreciate the beauty of breathing. Isn't that wonderful? That was a result from being inspired by this wonderful book and I thank Steven Mitchell and Byron Katie for that.

If you are new to Byron Katie's work, I would suggest reading Loving What Is first. Loving What is talks more about The Work Inquiry process and how the inquiry process changes the view of others thoughts. Although in the beginning A Thousand Names of Joy provided what The Work Inquiry is, I think readers might get more benefits out of it when the experience and read Loving What Is first prior to this book to get the full benefit.

Thank you for reading my review

This book completely blew me away. Over and over I found myself feeling into what Katie was expressing; even though my thoughts are still stuck in past / future / suffering, and I have much work to do, as I read what she was saying, I could feel a lightening in my mind and a lifting of my spirit. This work is so incredibly profound, and I know that much of what was expressed in this book isn't fodder for the mind but has to be lived and experienced to truly be understood - even still - it gave me such hope, such a sense of delight to read it.

I had a kundalini awakening in 1996 but still had a lot of baggage I needed to get rid of. Everyone seems to think this type of spiritual awakening leads to a peaceful life. Like U.G. Khrishnamurti, I've discovered most of what's written about this type of awakening is a bunch of bunk. I had all the cool sensations, along with a new ability to heal, but I was still angry inside. I started on a journey to get to the source.

When I came across "The Work" I was intrigued and gave it a try. It really does work. I've uncovered alot about myself, some of it was pretty earth shattering. I'm a completely different person as a result. I would have given it five stars had it not been for the author's lack of warning as to how powerful this technique is. If a person isn't ready to unearth their hidden fears and emotions, the results can be devastating to a person who is not psychologically ready. I tried this technique with my husband. When we got to a tipping point, I stopped and told him to continue this only when he was ready to face his own truth. It wasn't my responsibility to make him see anymore than it was anyone's responsibility to make Katie see. That's the paradox.

Byron Katie is well intentioned. She offers the work for free on her website. You don't even have to read her book to learn this technique. That's what I appreciate about her. However, she's turned into another self-help guru with her own school. I also agree with some reviewers that state she leads people to their conclusions during her sessions. This contradicts her own awakening which can only come from within. The problem is that every self-help icon is eventually overshadowed by their money making enterprise. However, don't let that fool you. The Work really does work. It doesn't matter what Katie's intentions are or aren't or what her world views are. They're her own, and as she says, it's her business alone. So if you want to mind your own business, I think this is a good starting point to learn how. I think the simplicity in that message is pretty amazing...and true as well.

It is amazing as to how much this changed my life. I'm less reactive because I'm more introspective in my daily life. I only talk when it comes from my heart.

Like her or not...she has tapped into something that really works. If you are super honest with yourself, you can knock out all your demons, samskara, whatever you choose to call them, a lot quicker than with a counselor. Just make sure you are ready to face them before attempting this. Another suggestion: Start a journal when you begin this journey. Record all your emotions and then go back and write about your growth. I've started a chart where I list each memory that is brought to the surface. If this ever takes over, pshycho therapy will be a thing of the past.