The Messenger - On Love, Sex & Relationships

The following excerpt is taken from the book Question Your Thinking, by Byron Katie. Published by Hay House 10/07 available at bookstores at: www.hayhouse.com

Nothing outside you can ever give you what you’re looking for.

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Once we begin to question our thoughts, our partners—alive, dead, or divorced—are always our greatest teachers. There’s no mistake about the person you’re with; he or she is the perfect teacher for you, whether or not the relationship works out, and once you enter inquiry, you come to see that clearly.
There’s never a mistake in the universe. So if your partner is angry, good. If there are things about him you consider flaws, good, because these flaws are your own, you’re projecting them, and you can write them down, inquire, and set yourself free. People go to India to find a guru, but you don’t have to: you’re living with one. Your partner will give you everything you need for your own freedom.

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Personalities don’t love; they want something. Love is already complete. It doesn’t want, doesn’t need, has no shoulds. When I hear people say they love someone and want to be loved in return, I know they’re not talking about love. They’re talking about something else.

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My love is my business; it has nothing to do with you. You tell the story that I am this, or I am that, and you fall in love with your story. What do I have to do with it? I am here for your perception. I am your story, no more and no less. You have never met me. No one has ever met anyone.

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It’s not your job to love me—it’s mine.

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You’re not being understood. We don’t hear what you tell us; we hear what we think you’re telling us. We impose our story on what you say, and that’s what we understand.

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The only possibility of being understood by someone else is to understand yourself. It’s a full-time job.

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If someone rejects you—and he could only do that because you don’t match his beliefs about how he wants the world to be—it has nothing to do with you. You don’t have that power, ever.

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When you say or do anything to please, get, keep, influence, or control, fear is the cause and pain is the result. Manipulation is separation, and separation is painful. If you act from fear, there’s no way you can receive love, because you’re trapped in a thought about what you have to do for love. Every stressful thought separates you from people.

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

BYRON KATIE excerpted from, Question Your Thinking, Change the World. www.HayHouse.com • See more of Byron Katie’s teachings at: www.TheWork.com

Byron Katie will be offering a workshop Sun, Feb 10, 1pm to 3pm at Conscious Life Expo LAX Hilton 5711 W Century Bl .LA. For tickets call 1-800-367-5777 or www.consciouslifeexpo.com