Radical Work

Radical Workexploring transformation in the workplace throughThe Work of Byron Katie

including material by

Kriben Pillay

THE NOUMENON PRESS

Copyright © 2000 by Kriben Pillay

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following publishers and authors for permission to reprint copyrighted material: ‘Gary’s

Incompetent Co-worker’ and the material in the Appendix are from All War Belongs on Paper, copyright © 2000 by Byron Katie, reprinted with the kind permission of Byron Katie, Inc.; the diagram on page 14 is from

Rewiring the Corporate Brain, copyright © 1997 by Danah Zohar, reprinted with the kind permission of Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.; the quotation by Eckhart Tolle is from The Power of Now, copyright ©

1997 Eckhart Tolle, reprinted with the kind permission of Namaste Publishing, Inc.

All rights reservedNo reproduction without permission from the publisher

Printed in the Republic of South Africa by Alba Lithograph, DurbanFormat and design inspired by the Moksha Press publication

Who Am I? & How Shall I Live?Edited by Shirley Bell

The Noumenon PressP.O. Box 1280

Wandsbeck3631 South Africa

NOUMENON SIGNPOST SERIESISBN 0-9584355-1-0

RADICAL WORKISBN 0-9584355-2-9

noumenon signpost seriesA word is no more than a means to an end. It's an abstraction. Not unlike a signpost, it points beyond itself.

For Katie –

whose presence turned me around

In the presence of one who doesn’t see a problem, the problem falls away. Which shows you there isn’t a problem. Go inside and know yourself.

–Byron Katie

ContentsForeword i

Introduction iii

The Work 1What’s Happening at Work 1The Work and Current Thinking about Organisational Transformation 4How The Work Works 8The Work at Work 14A Dialogue on The Work 33

Notes 41

Bibliography 43

Appendix 46

Forewordadical Work is a crystal clear rendering of an authentic teacher's voice. Great teaching can rarely be divorced from the one who teaches. However, great teachers leave behind them footprints of their own journeys. We may call them methods of teaching. A method is like a clothesline on which the teacher's words hang together. The author,

Kriben Pillay, has a rare ability to synthesize knowledge that hangs together. Although this book is focused on Byron Katie's teachings, it incorporates many voices of wisdom in its fold. Kriben Pillay has a remarkable style of writing that brings very subtle aspects of the transformational process within the reach of the uninitiated. This book brings the joy of discovery and eloquence of deep knowing.

RProfessor Debashis Chatterjeeauthor of Leading Consciously: A Pilgrimage Toward Self-MasteryCenter for Public Leadership, Harvard University

Foreword i

Introduction

t is exactly a year since I did the five-day The Work course with Byron Katie in Holland: a course specifically designed for business trainers. Since then my life has not been the same. I

A month after the course, I received an e-mail from one of Katie’s assistants on the course, requesting that I follow-up an offer that I had made to Katie to re-design her booklet, The Work of Byron Katie – a freely distributed, concise manual for The Work – for business. It seemed like a fairly simple task, but somehow the envisioned text did not emerge. In retrospect, I now see that this book needed my own inner maturation of The Work, plus further research, to give it the shape that it now has.

A constant effect of The Work is living a life of synchronicity – of things coming together when needed, almost miraculously, with a great sense of ease. So it was with the preparation for writing Radical Work. Business books with a similar theme began to appear, and Katie’s own new book, All War Belongs on Paper, was sent to me for comment. In effect I did not write this book; it was written for me.

But more about this little book. It is intended as a simple guide to organisational and personal transformation within the context of The Work. There are two parts, and each part serves a specific purpose.

Part One looks generally at some of the emerging radical insights about what organisational and personal transformation really are, and how to bring these about. Rather than repeat these insights through detailed exposition, they have been presented here simply as a framework for understanding the importance of The Work. The reader is encouraged to go directly to the original texts in order to gain further theoretical clarity. Perhaps it is apt at this point to emphasise that this book, finally, is not about theoretical concepts – although these do feature as pointers – but about a workable process that can take individuals and organisations to the place where it is possible to make tangible through experience what much of the new theory is pointing to.

The Appendix is the second part and is taken from the first part of Byron Katie’s manual All War Belongs on Paper. It is repeated here because it sets out clearly the basic principles and methodology, so that the reader can apply these straightaway. However, the reader seriously interested in The Work is strongly recommended to work with the full text of the manual for maximum benefit.

It is hoped that the two parts of this book will work synergistically and have the effect of taking the reader into authentic self-discovery. The beauty of The Work is that no prior background in any discipline is necessary – be it psychology or spirituality or organisational learning. All that is required is the desire to be free of conflict. And this freedom is the beginning of authentic clarity, efficiency and responsibility. In fact the word ‘transformation’ is not exactly accurate, because it implies a changing of one state into another. But in this work – the flowering of our integral intelligence – we see that what we are really involved in is an undoing (in fact, The Work is called The Great Undoing), a shedding of our conceptual world that masks our innate pristine awareness, an awareness which is the foundation of clear thinking and clear action.

Kriben PillayDurban, South AfricaAugust 2000

Introduction iii

The Work

WHAT’S HAPPENING AT WORK?

here are many books, seminars and trainings out in the marketplace about organisational change. Many have perceptive insights about the inadequacies of current models of organisational and human behaviour, but if we take a sweeping glance at the general theme, we are struck by one constant concern: how do we change so that we have

clarity, creativity and efficiency in a world that is constantly changing? How do we change in a world where the old philosophical and scientific paradigms of fixed absolutes do not hold conceptually any longer; absolutes which dictated, to a large measure, the way we thought of God, of identity, of gender, of race, of culture, of ethics, etc. How do we transform ourselves and our organisations fundamentally in ways that are consistent with these new understandings?

TOne of the spin-offs of the insights into the new paradigm of human potential is the plethora of motivational

programmes – of charismatic speakers and seminar leaders using a variety of techniques, some adapted from Eastern spiritual systems, to bring about altered states in their participants so that habitual patterns of thinking and feeling are temporarily cast aside in order that new potential be experienced. These experiences, by their very non-ordinariness and the way they are marketed, are very often equated with the possibility of radical change leading to better relationships and enhanced creativity and productivity. So it is not surprising that the financial investment by organisations and individuals worldwide in these courses is astronomical, partly owing to the hype around the relative shifts that are to be experienced; but also, because these shifts do not last, there is then the move to the next course making even grander claims. Like its counterpart in the New Age spiritual marketplace, it has led to the search for the course that would do it – that would bring about the fundamental change that is intuited in the temporary shifts.

A more balanced view that arose from this experimentation in change is emphasised by psychologist Daniel Goleman:

Too often the only real effect of training, no matter what it’s for, is that people get a short-term ‘buzz’ of energy that lasts no more than a few days or weeks, after which attendees fall back into whatever their habitual mode was before the training. The most general effect of training seminars – no matter the ostensible content—is that they increase people’s self-confidence – at least for a while. 1

Goleman suggests that real transformation begins with developing emotional competencies2 that would bring about a more rounded and grounded development of the individual. Emotional competency has become a buzzword and is seen to be the missing link in making individuals, and therefore organisations, function at their full potential. And while many new training programmes now take cognisance of emotional competency, one can count the number of books that actually tackle the core issue of transformation:3 that we cannot fundamentally transform ourselves, our organisations and our societies if we have erroneous beliefs about who we think we are. Our common perception, for instance, tells us that we are separate, discrete entities, forever locked in battle with other separate, discrete entities. This view makes conflict inevitable. However, if this view is incorrect, how do we change it?

1Notes? Daniel Goleman. Working with Emotional Intelligence. London: Bloomsbury, 1998, p. 249.2 In Goleman’s ‘The Emotional Competence Framework’, there are two over-arching competencies – personal and social. Personal competence has to do with ‘self-awareness’, ‘self-regulation’ and ‘motivation’, while social competence has to do with ‘empathy’ and ‘social skills’. Ibid., pp. 26-27.3 See the Bibliography for books that complement The Work.

Radical Work 1

The Work of Byron Katie, it is suggested here, may be the missing link, because while the effect of its processes is emotional competency, its transformative power is in the way it transforms the way we see and experience ourselves in the world.

However, before we look at how The Work works, let’s see what thinkers at the leading edge of the new paradigm are saying about the nature of our organisations and ourselves.

THE WORK AND CURRENT THINKING ABOUT ORGANISATIONAL TRANSFORMATION

In her book Rewiring the Corporate Brain, physicist Danah Zohar writes about transformation that is really a call for a new psychology of corporate change:

Most transformation programs satisfy themselves with shifting the same old furniture about in the same old room. Some seek to throw some of the furniture away. But real transformation requires that we redesign the room itself. Perhaps even blow up the old room. It requires that we change the thinking behind our thinking – literally, that we learn to rewire our corporate brains.4

In order to accomplish the above in an experiential way, Zohar persuasively argues that transformation requires that we see that, finally, there is no separate self but an inter-connectedness that stems from a deeper Source that is non-separate. To live from this perspective, Zohar argues, is to transform the way we live. In particular, Rewiring the Corporate Brain is about working in a radically different way, where clarity and co-operation replace confusion and antagonism.

Zohar holds up acclaimed physicist David Bohm’s ‘dialogue’ as a way to accomplish this transformation. Bohm was greatly influenced by the inquiries he had with the renowned spiritual teacher J. Krishnamurti over many years, and his ‘dialogue’ approach is his way of inquiry into thinking in such a way that the separate self can see its entrenched positions and transcend them. In an earlier book, The Quantum Society, Zohar writes:

Bohm’s dialogue process itself calls upon its participants to go through the same two stages of deconstruction and resynthesis that the brain (the limbic system) uses … In dialogue, the deconstructive stage is described as a ‘letting go’ or a ‘suspension of one’s own point of view as the only point of view’.

During this stage of the dialogue, one’s own point of view becomes available for analysis along with those of others.5

This process allows one to see issues from a larger place of seeing, and so resolve various forms of conflicts that arise from not listening to the other; of being driven by our hidden, self-centred agendas, rather than exposing these to the light of self-awareness, where, in the dialogue’s call for literal communication, barriers break down and we enter into communion. It is really a process of becoming aware, of living from awareness rather than from thinking. We could also say that it is living without the identities that the mind constructs for us, thereby placing us in a radically different kind of relationship with all of life. It is also, as Zohar points out, about finding rather than knowing. To put it differently, it is about living in a creative state of unknowing: an integral state of intelligence where the mind is used without its dominating our lives with its inherent sense of separation.

The difficulty with Bohm’s process is that very often people are so entrenched in their points of view that they cannot conceive of displacing them, unless they have willingly entered into such an exercise. And the reason for this is simple: we think that we are entirely our thoughts. We have, in effect, taken on an identity that the mind has created for us and, because it feels real, we will often go to war – in big and little ways – to protect it.

It is at this point that The Work of Byron Katie comes into the picture as a more accessible means of bringing about this core transformation.

Simply four questions and a turnaround, the efficacy of the process is that – like the objective of Bohm’s dialogue – the mind is stopped in its tracks. But unlike the unstructured nature of Bohm’s group dialogue process, The Work is structured to meet the way the individual mind works. It may be that those using the dialogue process to bring about what Zohar calls ‘quantum intelligence’ may find that The Work is not only a natural, complementary process to dialogue, but that in the task of bringing clarity to organisations, The Work is a more efficient first process for dealing with inter-personal problems The questions are:

1. Is it true?2. Can you really know it’s true?3. What do you get for holding that belief (story, idea, concept, thought)?4. What would you be like without that belief?

2 Radical Work

The turnaround is simply a reversal of the initial statement of inquiry e.g. ‘Jane is incompetent’ becomes ‘I am incompetent’ and ‘Jane is not incompetent’ (the turnarounds become clearer in the inquiry ‘Gary’s Incompetent Co-worker’ presented further down).

But let’s look more closely at how this process actually deconstructs our thinking, and how resynthesis is effected.

HOW THE WORK WORKS

Judge your neighbourWrite it down;

Ask four questions,Turn it around.

–Byron Katie

The writer Stephen Mitchell, in a website article on The Work, writes:The Work of Byron Katie reveals a fundamental confusion in the center of what is called sanity. Most people have been afflicted with this confusion for so long that they take the suffering it causes for granted. The confusion has nothing to do with the content of our thoughts and beliefs, but rather with the way we relate to them. The Work of Byron Katie clarifies this confusion so fundamentally that one hesitates to call it psychological, and so practically that one hesitates to call it spiritual. The Work is simple and radical. It is a new way of self-discovery and awakening that does not depend on ‘teachings’ or beliefs. It results in a profoundly sane and joyful state of mind. 6

What Mitchell is pointing to is the way the inquiry deconstructs our habitual way of placing the source of our suffering, our problems, on someone or something outside ourselves. In unexamined consciousness it appears that there is a ‘me’ separate from the rest of the world, and that all suffering is the result of the world acting in negative ways upon this ‘me’. But just as quantum physicists show that all matter is fundamentally undifferentiated energy that presents itself mysteriously as particles (an apparent state of solidity) and as waves (an apparent state of fluidity), so the self is both apparently fixed and in flux. However, human beings tend to identify almost wholly with the sense of being a fixed entity that is affected by the outside world, the ‘other’. But all this is a construct of perception, both psychologically and biologically. In fact, Mitchell comments:

… it also has a remarkable correspondence to the new biology of the mind. As cutting-edge neuroscientists move closer to an explanation of consciousness, they have begun to discover the unreliability of what they call the ‘interpreter’, the part of the brain that generates the familiar narrative that gives us our sense of self. In the words of Antonio Demasio, Distinguished Professor and Head of the Department of Neurology at the University of Iowa, ‘Perhaps the most important revelation is precisely this: that the left cerebral hemisphere of humans is prone to fabricating verbal narratives that do not necessarily accord with the truth.’ Or consider this from The Mind's Past by Michael Gazzaniga, Director of the Program in Cognitive Neuroscience at Dartmouth College: ‘The left brain weaves its story in order to convince itself and you that it is in full control…. What is so adaptive about having what amounts to a spin doctor in the left brain? The interpreter is really trying to keep our personal story together. To do that, we have to learn to lie to ourselves’.7

So, my ordinary perception tells me that my problems, my suffering, are caused by someone or something external to me. Physically this may be so, but here we are talking about physical pain, not psychological suffering, which is the psychological response to that pain. To alleviate this suffering, human beings, historically, have fixated on doing something about the other – through war, isolating beliefs, gossip, or some therapy that teaches a strategy for not being affected by the other. All of these keep the other in place, without inquiring whether the other actually exists except in perception, in one’s stories of the other.

No matter what story we have running, the four questions and the turnaround gently unfold the meta-perception (the perception about perception) that all that is causing my suffering – a person, situation, or thing – is the thought I have about it. When I say that ‘Jane is arrogant’, I am in that moment experiencing my own arrogance, no matter what Jane may or may not be. (Can I ever truly know Jane, even if she confirms my perception that she is arrogant? After all, she may be lying, or confused.) In a similar context, Australian broadcaster Ingram Smith, in his explorations into thought, writes of this liberating insight:

Radical Work 3

Perhaps for me the clearest perception of self-deception came suddenly. There it was, as though a ball had fallen into my hand. The separation was gone. He is my enemy, out there. But no! I am the enemy. In me is the feeling, the experiencing. In this my body and mind is the aggression felt. When I know he is the belligerent one, the experiencer is me. The enemy is in my mind.8

The Work thus deconstructs the story that I am holding onto – which is normally fed and enlarged by other stories that I create about a person or situation – by making the mind see that all that is happening to cause suffering are the thoughts that block one’s innate clarity and peace. The resynthesis is effected in the turnaround, in seeing that the other is simply a mirror reflection, a projection of my own thinking. Increasingly, in psychological understanding, the role of projections in self-created suffering is coming to the fore. In The Work, it is highlighted with elegance, as we will see in the transcript of an actual inquiry.

The Work is not about theoretical understanding. It is about directly seeing the causes of one’s problems, stress and suffering. Nor is it about masking our distress with motivational talk – this can lead only to further stress in the long run, because the root of our problems has been ignored; and this root our thinking, the stories we have attached to. However, unlike some spiritual systems which aim for the complete cessation of thinking (which is another form of stress), The Work simply requires that one look at those thoughts that cause unease. As Byron Katie says, ‘If the story serves you, keep it.’

The chief element of the process is the act of writing down the problem, because, as Byron Katie constantly points out, the mind is too swift in its movement to catch all the nuances of the particular story that is causing the distress. By writing with childlike simplicity about the other, we capture on paper all our perceived hurts and resentments, and the hard evidence of the writing makes it all that easier for deconstruction and resynthesis to happen. Byron Katie maintains that eventually the inquiry will become alive within the individual so that writing becomes unnecessary. We could say that the inquiry then leads to embedded self-awareness, where there is a radical shift to an inner observation that is not dominated by thinking, ‘where there is no psychological self in opposition to the world, therefore no inner conflict’.9 This state is the core of the world’s spiritual traditions, but in the application of The Work there is no need to talk about ‘spiritual’ or, indeed, ‘psychological’; it is simply dealing with what is. I am suffering is the what is. The ending of suffering is what is – there is really no need for labels. With this simplicity as its strength, The Work as a transformative tool is suited for all contexts – personal and organisational – where clarity is needed.

THE WORK AT WORK

Because The Work is a simple experiential process and not a belief system, it is ideally suited to all contexts within an organisation where transformation is needed – provided we understand that transformation is being defined here as bringing about a shedding of our stories that obstruct us from seeing clearly. Transformation is not about transforming into my or someone else’s idea (another story) of how things should be, but rather transforming into an openness that is co-operating with the world rather than resisting it. In her book, Zohar10 has a diagram that lists the outcomes of dialogue as opposed to debate – our traditional way of working with one other. The outcomes can be applied to the outcomes of The Work in organisational contexts. I have adapted the diagram slightly in the representation below by substituting the word ‘inquiry’ for ‘dialogue’:

4 Radical Work

Debate versus Inquiry (Dialogue)

Debate Inquiry

KnowingAnswers

Winning or losingUnequalPower

Proving a point; defending a position

Finding outQuestionsSharingEqual

Respect or reverenceListening;

exploring new possibilities

Note: Inquiry (Dialogue) is not necessarily about reaching consensus

To see the validity of this diagram, it would be best to see The Work in action:

Radical Work 5

Reprinted with permission of the publisher. From Rewiring the Corporate Brain, copyright © 1997 by Danah Zohar, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., San Francisco, CA. All rights reserved. 1-800-929-2929

Gary’s incompetent co-worker11

BK: Yes, sweetheart, let’s undo your beautiful self.

Gary: I’ve been listening to quite a few of your tapes, and I have a question I want to ask. Sometimes I hear you say, ‘If you want terror on purpose, get a plan.’ I do a lot of project management. Part of what I do for a living is make plans and then help implement them. What I think you’re saying is that if my attachment to my plan is causing me anxiety and stress, then it’s time to do The Work. It’s not that I shouldn’t plan.

BK: Exactly so. If your plan isn’t stressful, then you’re not attached to a future outcome. That is much more efficient.

Gary: It works for me.

BK: So, let’s begin.

Gary: The context here is that I manage people and projects. Sometimes I have people who work for me who are… Well, I call them ‘As,’ ‘Bs,’ and ‘everybody else’ in terms of competence. I tend to get impatient and frustrated with the ‘everybody elses’. I’m not upset with them when they’re not working for me. Then they’re just who they are. When they’re working for me, then I’m interested in my deliverable.

So, who or what don’t I like? I don’t like Joe because he is incompetent when he works for me.

BK: Okay, let’s run it. Everyone else, let’s see if this is yours. It could be someone you work with. It could be your children at home who did not get the dishes clean enough in the sink, or who left toothpaste on their toothbrush. Find your own metaphor if you think it would serve you.

Joe should be competent. Is it true?

Gary: I think so.

BK: Can you really know that it’s true? Who ever told you that? His resume said competent. His recommendation said competent. It’s all over the place. You hire him and he is supposed to be competent. What’s the reality of it in your experience, is he?

Gary: In my experience, he’s not.

BK: So that’s the only place to come from – reality. Is it true he’s supposed to be competent? What’s the reality of it? That’s what’s true. If you get a level and put it on that table, if it’s not true, the bubble is going to be off to one side. The reality is it’s off. He’s supposed to be competent. Is it true? No. He’s not. That’s it.

So we can keep going over this until we get the ‘Is it true?’ thing, because when you get this you become a lover of realityand move into presence. He’s supposed to be competent. Where’s your proof that is true? Gary: When we hire in my firm, we try to hire people who are very competent because the work we do is demanding.

BK: Your firm hires competent people. That means Joe is competent. Is that true?

Gary: No. He’s not competent. That’s the problem.

BK: So there’s no proof that he’s supposed to be competent – not from your experience. Your experience says he’s not competent. Your company has hired an incompetent employee according to you. Gary: Right. He’s not competent.

BK: Yes. How does it feel when you attach to the lie that he’s supposed to be competent and your experience is that he is not?

6 Radical Work

Gary: By the time he got to me, he was a known quantity. I knew he wasn’t very competent when he was put on my project. That’s where I’m getting stuck, because I understand what you’re saying, but it just doesn’t alleviate the problem. Here he is. Competent or not – he’s mine.

BK: You just moved out of inquiry, Gary, and into the story. Here he is. He’s not competent. How does it feel when you attach to that lie that you want him to be competent and he’s not?

Gary: It’s frustrating and anxiety-producing. I feel like I have to carry his work. I have to clean up behind him every time. I can’t leave him alone to do his work.

BK: Can you see a reason to drop the thought he should be competent?

Gary: It would make me feel better if I could drop it.

BK: That is a very good reason, Gary. Good Work. Can you see a reason that is not stressful to keep that thought that opposes reality?

Gary: Yes. Well, I don’t see what you mean by opposes reality.

BK: The reality is he’s not competent. You’re saying he should be. That theory is not working for you. I hear you say that it causes you frustration and anxiety.

Gary: Right. If I didn’t keep the thought… [Pause.] Okay, I think I’m pulling this apart. The reality is he’s just not competent. What’s making me crazy is thinking he’s supposed to be, rather than just accepting it.

BK: You’ve got it.

Gary: Bingo. Paradise. [Very long silence.]

BK: I love to sit with you in silence, angel. [Pause.]

Gary: I did this one myself earlier, and I just couldn’t unglue it. Now I see it.

BK: You’re really getting the key, Gary. You’re learning the difference between reality and mythology.

Gary: Reality is ‘what is’.

BK: Yes. Reality is much kinder that the fantasy. You can have a lot of fun with this ‘Proof of Truth’ thing at home. He should be competent. Where’s your proof? Make a list and see if any of it really proves that he should be competent. It’s all a lie. There is no proof. The truth is he should not be competent. He’s just not. Not competent for that job.

Gary: The fact is he’s not competent, and I do what I have to do to make up for it. What I don’t need to give myself is the extra baggage of ‘He should be yada yada yada.’

BK: So well said.

Gary: I think it would help me to say it again. All my job-related angst was about thinking that Joe should be competent. The truth is he’s just not competent. The piece that I added, which made me nuts, was that he should be competent. The fact is I’m going to do what I have to do. I’m going to backfill until he’s not my problem anymore. I’m going to do it. By adding that he should be competent, I work myself up into a fucking emotional tizzy.

[Laughter.]

BK: Clear enough?

[More laughter.]

BK: You speak so well for all of us. What people can’t hear from me, they can hear from you. It is precious sitting with you. Who would you be without this insane story that argues with reality?

Radical Work 7

Gary: I would just be in the flow and do what I have to do in my job.

BK: Who or what would you be standing with this man at work without the story?

Gary: I would be compassionate and effective.

BK: Yes, angel. Joe should be competent. Turn it around.

Gary: Joe should not be competent.

BK: You’ve got it. There is another turnaround.

Gary: I should be competent. That is true.

BK: Let’s look at the next one.

Gary: I want Joe to take responsibility for his part of the project.

BK: Turn it around.

Gary: I want me to take responsibility for my part of the project.

BK: Yeah, because until you get the incompetence out of there, you’re not taking responsibility for the project.

Gary: It’s also the project going on in my head, right? I get that.

BK: Good Work. Okay, let’s go on to the next statement.

Gary: He should step up to the plate as an expert in his field and as a project leader.

BK: Is that true? I mean where would the man even get the ability? Hey, you, the one with no competence, you should step up to the plate.

[Laughter.]

Gary: No. It’s insanity. I’m with you. He just does what he does.

BK: How do you react and how do you treat this guy when you attach to this thought, this fantasy?

Gary: I turn into a tough guy. I think he has to get it done quicker, and I’m all over him.

BK: Not very effective. Can you see a reason to drop the story?

Gary: Absolutely. I’m done. I’m with you.

BK: That’s not true. You’re way ahead of me. [Laughter.] So, sweetheart, let’s turn it around.Gary: I should step up to the plate as an expert in my field. I’ll just step up. It’s got to be done.

BK: He’s the expert that brings you the highest rate of competency in your life. No mistake.

Gary: Yes. He’s my teacher. I can feel that.

Do I need anything from Joe? Not anymore. What I wrote down was that I need him to carry his portion of the project. And, I don’t really need that.

BK: Hopeless?

8 Radical Work

Gary: Absolutely hopeless. I need me to carry his portion and my portion of the project if I want it done.

BK: The next.

Gary: Joe is incompetent.

BK: Turn it around.

Gary: I am incompetent.

BK: In the moment that you see him as incompetent, you are incompetent. He’s perfectly competent for what he was to bring you, and that was clarity. That’s what he brought.

Gary: I don’t feel that turnaround. I think I am very competent.

BK: Just not where he’s concerned. You were not competent enough to see that he’s not supposed to be competent.

Gary: That I agree with. That’s my incompetence. I’m with you there. It’s not about the job. It’s about the inner Work.

He needs to be watched even though he is very senior. I need to watch myself. That’s truer. I can be insane sometimes

BK: You have found the internal world. When you see that it’s only your thinking that you need to work with, then every problem you experience in the world becomes a joy to bring to inquiry. I have not sat with anyone who really wants to know the truth that has had a problem – no matter how radical – that doesn’t find his way. This Work is check and check.Gary: I got stuck when I tried to do this myself earlier in the week. I didn’t make that leap from getting away from the outside thing. At the outside level, I was ‘right’. Once I brought it all inside, then all the turnarounds started to make sense. I’m seeing clearly that the outside is just a metaphor.

BK: The guy walks in, you put a story on him. You attach or believe your story and live in the fantasy that he is the problem.

All things are possible. It could be that because you have done this inner Work and gotten clearer about your thinking, you may look at this guy on Monday morning and see a competency that you’ve been overlooking.

I worked the other day with a man that the world says is retarded – zero competence. I don’t think so. The man was brilliant. Brilliant. Up until then there was no way for him to know that. In this Work, everyone has an equal shot at it. High IQs are not needed here. It’s just do you really want to know the truth? Your truth – not the world’s truth – just yours.

Gary: I don’t want to have him or a person like him on my team. I am willing to have him or a person like him on my team. And, I look forward tohaving him or a person like him on my team, because it brings me into my inner space to do this Work. [See ‘The turnaround for number 6’ in the Appendix, p 59.]

BK: You do number six very well. Thank you sweetheart. I look forward to our friendship.

Reflections on the inquiry

Byron Katie’s very first remark, ‘let’s undo your beautiful self’, is an invitation to deconstruct our conceptual world. We notice that Gary moves straight into a questioning mode, which is, in Zohar’s schema, an outcome of inquiry. He is not asserting, he is finding out.

Gary’s problem of the non-cooperation of a co-worker is a universal problem in organisations. Katie’s response is neither to dismiss it as petty, nor to give it greater importance; she simply asks that the workshop participants see whether they can relate to the problem. She invites sharing.

In investigating the problem of incompetence, Katie’s questioning, which is a process of exploring new possibilities, unpacks the perception that Gary’s difficulties with incompetence stem from resisting reality. In most individuals, the perception of this resistance brings about other difficulties – difficulties that seem reasonable in the light of a work situation where competence is required. But these apparent difficulties – for example, the work will suffer – are

Radical Work 9

simply further resistances to what is, because the perception is that the what is has to change for the achievement of the planned goal of the work. The insistent demand to change the what is means that we never allow ourselves the opportunity to see how it came about in the first place; to see, as Bohm points out, ‘the whole coherently’.12

Thus, we never find a way that brings about intrinsic competence. That is, competence – creative action – that is the natural effect of clarity, rather than the stressful action of resistance. Where it is of the former, then we are also in the arena of respect (even towards the incompetent worker, because our experience is then one of non-separation, where the ‘other’ is me) rather than in a power play.

The Question ‘Is it true?’ is the first key to this understanding, which is founded on listening rather than on proving point (as listed in Zohar’s schema).

As the inquiry unfolds, it is increasingly emphasised that our own incompetence arises when we get stuck with the notion that someone else should be competent. At this point, we should be alert to making rash assumptions – that The Work supports incompetent employees. On the contrary, what the inquiry probes is how incompetence arises. In Gary’s situation, it could be said that the recruitment process at his firm was itself somewhat incompetent for allowing incompetent employees to be employed. Re-designing the recruitment process could be one of the spin-offs of clear action. But there are still no absolute guarantees, and an organisation might still attract employees that are competent in one area and incompetent in others (for instance, competent at their jobs, but incompetent at inter-personal relationships, which then leads to poor productivity).

In going deeper into Gary’s frustrations, it emerges that competence, real competence, arises when the individual who has the resistance, the problem, takes one hundred per cent responsibility for the way he feels, through the process of self-inquiry. Anything less becomes fertile ground for his own incompetence. When Gary sees this, there is self-discovery. As Katie points out, we then become competent in dealing with incompetence; resisting incompetence is not competent action – cooperating with what is, is.

At this point the mind might raise all kinds of possible scenarios – ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’. But this is only creating speculation about future action; it is not dealing with the actuality of the now, for it is only now that action takes place, even one’s thinking about action. We are conditioned to look speculatively at things and, while in certain areas of life this may have its proper place, we never see that we are, in fact, not dealing with reality but with, as Katie says, ‘mythology’. However, if the mind is persistent with its objections, the simple way back to clarity is to inquire into these by doing The Work. Clarity can be said to be that condition that arises with the dissolution of fragmented thought through inquiry.

We also notice in this inquiry that Joe’s incompetence is potentially the source of Gary’s own increasing holistic competence, once he has seen that resistance is not the way. As Katie pointedly states, ‘He’s the expert that brings you the highest rate of competency in your life. No mistake.’

The lesson of the inquiry is that the internal world is all that we have; what we think of as the outer world is simply a reflection of the inner. Trying to change the outer is really an avoidance of the inner work. This becomes Gary’s realisation.

The above inquiry then displays all the attributes that Zohar lists for dialogue, except that The Work is a simpler process to attain the same results. Like all genuine inquiry, there is a movement from fact to fact as stories, mythologies, are exposed. The following words by Krishnamurti in effect sums up what took place between Katie and Gary:

This is what breaking through means … That is why we said that there must be observation of the outer and the inner which sharpens the brain. And this very sharpness of the brain makes it quiet. And it is this sensitivity and intelligence that make thought operate only when it has to; the rest of the time the brain is not dormant but watchfully quiet. And so the brain with its reactions doesn’t bring about conflict. It functions without struggle and therefore without distortion. Then the doing and the acting are immediate, as when you see danger. Therefore there is always freedom from conceptual accumulations.13

So Gary moved, through deconstruction, to resynthesis, which, in Bohm’s language, is understanding the ‘sustained incoherence’14 of thought.

Bohm’s ‘‘sustained incoherence’ of thought is really the root, then, of our problems – not only at work, but in all areas of life where we act in conflict. Why? Because thought, by its very nature, divides the world into discrete bits. This has been of tremendous value to mastering the physical world, because inherent to this activity is measurement. But in the psychological arena, the act of measuring, that is, the stories we tell about ourselves and the world, produces a false self, a separate ‘me’. This artificial division, reinforced by the apparent separateness of the physical body, creates fear of the loss of this ‘me’, and our resulting activities, not surprisingly, are mainly about controlling our world through overt or covert violence.

The Work works with the stories that sustain this artificial self, so that they are dissolved in clear awareness, where the intelligence beyond thought is allowed to function.

This is radical work, because there are deep resistances to inquiring into our stories. But only this inquiry will free us. This is the light that banishes the darkness.

10 Radical Work

A DIALOGUE ON THE WORK15

Racism at work

Kriben Pillay: Remember, at the beginning of the seminar I said that we would incorporate the principles of Bohm’s dialogue process into this very exploration of The Work. That is, if The Work brought up any resistances in you as I went through the facilitation, then now is the time to enter into dialogue about this. This may also be a way of experiencing the two processes simultaneously.

Questioner: I have something to bring up, which I feel cannot be cleared by The Work because I don’t see that I’ve created the situation.

KP: Yes, what is it?

Q: It’s a racial incident, when a white customer called me a kaffir.16

KP: Yes, that’s a good one because it’s still so common in South Africa. Let’s see what is happening here. Through the dialogue approach we have an agreement to look closer at our resistances as they arise in the inquiry. Your resistance says that The Work cannot free you from this injustice that you have suffered. Let’s see if this is true.

Q: [Indignantly.] Yes, because I am not a kaffir, I am a black African woman!

KP: Let me sidetrack here and point out that the word kaffir originally meant ‘infidel’, someone who does not belong to the Islamic faith. In this sense, all of us here are kaffirs.

Q: But it was not used in that sense; it was meant as a racial slur. I am not a kaffir.

KP: I understand. So let’s use The Work to see where it gets us, because finally we are interested in finding our own freedom from suffering, so that we then act with clarity, creativity and efficiency. Remember, also, that this is not about the perpetrator – this is not to say that an organisation won’t have disciplinary measures for this sort of abuse – but it is finally about freeing ourselves, and perhaps then seeing that the change that takes place in me brings about a change in the other.

Q: But why should I inquire when he insulted me. He should apologise.

KP: I understand. But did he?

Q: No. I’ve never seen him again, but it still hurts, especially when I see a customer that looks like him.

[Laughter.]

KP: Okay. So, let’s do The Work. How would phrase your statement?

Q: The customer should not have called me a kaffir.

KP: Is it true?

Q: Yes.KP: Can you really know that it’s true? What is the reality?

Q: The reality is he called me a kaffir. And I cannot accept that.

KP: May I point out that the inquiry may appear harsh at times, but all you’ve got to do is just go with it, ‘play’ with it, and see whether it brings about a dissolution of a story that causes you distress. This is a not a belief system but, like Bohm’s dialogue, a way of seeing how we have identified with the mind, with our thinking, where all the stories that we hold become our identities over which we are willing to go to war. But through inquiry, we may discover, as Byron Katie says, that ‘all war belongs on paper’ when we investigate our concepts, our thoughts. And remember, we’re not talking about all thoughts, just those that cause pain. To go back to the inquiry, what happens when you resist reality, the what is?

Q: I become very angry. Who gives him the right to call me a kaffir?

Radical Work 11

KP: How do you treat others when you are in that state of anger, especially whites?

Q: Not very well. But it’s only human to react like this in such a situation.KP: Can you see a reason to drop the thought that he should not have called you a kaffir, and please don’t try to drop it?

Q: No!

KP: Even if the thought causes you stress?

Q: Yes. Because if I let go, then he’s getting away with it.

KP: But, according to you, he already got away, and you are still left with the pain. Is the pain serving you in any way, except making you reactive, and therefore racist, to all the other white customers who happen to look like your perpetrator?

Q: [Pause.]. Yes, I understand, but I still feel it is wrong to let go. I still feel that by doing so I am condoning this sort of behaviour.

KP: Well, what you’ve just said reveals other areas – what we call ‘core beliefs’ – that can also be inquired into later. These core beliefs, very often, are like pillars that are supporting this particular story. But let’s get back to the inquiry. Please see that I am not forcing you give the ‘right’ answers. There are no right answers; there are perceptions that are either true or not true for you. Let’s go to number four – how or ‘who’ would you be without that thought?

Q: I would not be periodically angry and resentful. I would treat my white customers with greater respect and I would be more productive.

KP: So let’s do the turnaround.

Q: No. I’m not saying that he should have called me a kaffir.

KP: Well, no one’s forcing you, but you might take note and see what resistances you have to simply saying it. If there’s pain, then you’re not free. Let’s do the turnaround to yourself and see what arises.

Q: I shouldn’t call myself a kaffir?

KP: Yes, but in place of ‘I’ put ‘my thinking’.

Q: My thinking should not call me a kaffir.

KP: Yes. Let’s look at that. How many times did the customer call you a kaffir?Q: Once.

KP: And how many times has your thinking called you a kaffir by replaying the incident in your mind?

Q: Hundreds. Oh my, yes, I see. I have been insulting me all this time. [Pause.] But what about the man who started it all?

KP: The simplest way to look at it is to ask whose business is it that he insulted you]? [See The Appendix for ‘The Three Kinds of Business’.]

Q: It’s his business, but it involves me; he is hurting me!

KP: But if you didn’t attach what the word means to you to the story, would you still feel insulted?

Q: No. I would be like a child, innocent.

12 Radical Work

KP: Yes, you would be free of the insult, whether it was intentional or not, and from your clarity you would respond. The response could very well be a legal course of action, but this is speaking hypothetically. The Work is about actual discovery; it’s about self-realisation, not prescription. In my own case, I have ceased to react to the term ‘coolie’17, but that doesn’t mean that in certain situations I would not bring it to the attention of the so-called perpetrator that such behaviour is not socially acceptable. But it would be different for different situations. I find that I cannot predict my responses, because The Work, self-inquiry, makes you centred in the now, not in the past or future, except for the purposes of practical living. But, ultimately, the word is just a sound; we attach a story to it and hurt ourselves. Also, going back to our earlier discussion, you will find that our sense of self, our identity, is created by our stories. In fact, there’s not just one identity, but many identities. Another observation is that our mind-based identities thrive on separation, on being in opposition to someone else. Hence the difficulty in letting go of our unhappy stories. So many abused women, for instance, go back to the abuse because they derive their identity from it. It makes them feel they are somebodies. The mind thinks that without these stories it would be nobody, and this can be more terrifying to the mind than the actual abuse But is this true? We can do The Work on this. So, in freeing ourselves from the pain of being insulted we come to a place of freedom where we never perpetuate that kind of behaviour internally or externally. This, then, is a change in consciousness where the part begins to affect the whole, because fundamentally there is no separation.If there have been any resistances to what I just said, we could look at these through inquiry. Thank you.

Radical Work 13

BibliographyBohm, David. 1992. Thought as a System. London: Routledge.

Bohm, David.1996. On Dialogue. Edited by Lee Nichol. London: Routledge.

Bohm, David. 1998. On Creativity. Edited by Lee Nichol. London: Routledge.

Chatterjee, Dabashis. 1998. Leading Consciously: A Pilgrimage Toward Self-Mastery. London: Heinemann.

Davidson, Let. 1998. Wisdom at Work: The Awakening of Consciousness in the Workplace. Burdett: Larson.

Dreaver, Jim. 1999. The Way of Harmony: A Simple Approach to Spiritual, Emotional, Physical, and Material Prosperity . New York: Avon Books.

Goleman, Daniel. 1998. Working with Emotional Intelligence. London: Bloomsbury.

Harding, D.E. 1990. Head off Stress: Beyond the Bottom Line. London: Arkana.

Harrison, Steven. 1999. Getting to Where You Are: The Life of Meditation. New York: Tarcher/Putnam.

Hendricks, Gay, and Ludeman, Kate. 1996/1997. The Corporate Mystic: A Guidebook for Visionaries with their Feet on the Ground. New York: Bantam.

Jaworski, Joseph. 1996. Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Katie, Byron. 1998. Losing the Moon: Byron Katie Dialogues on Non-Duality, Truth and other Illusions . Edited by Ellen J. Mack. Manhattan Beach, CA: The Work Foundation, Inc.

Katie, Byron. 2000. All War Belongs on Paper: The Manual for The Work of Byron Katie. Manhattan Beach, CA: Byron Katie, Inc.

Krishnamurti, J. Meeting Life. 1991. Compiled by Mary Lutyens. London: Arkana

Rabbin, Robert. 1998. Invisible Leadership: Igniting the Soul at Work. Lakewood, Colorado: Acropolis Books.

Smith, Ingram. 1999. The Transparent Mind: A Journey with Krishnamurti. Ojai, CA. Edwin House Publishing, Inc.

Tolle, Eckhart. 1997. The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment. Vancouver, British Columbia: Namaste Publishing Inc.

Weber, Christin Lore. 1996. A Cry in the Desert: The Awakening of Byron Katie. Manhattan Beach, CA: The Work Foundation, Inc.

Wheatley, Margaret. 1992/1994. Leadership and the New Science: Learning about Organization from an Orderly Universe. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Wilber, Ken. 2000. A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science, and Spirituality . Boston: Shambhala.

Zohar, Danah, and Marshall, Ian. 1994. The Quantum Society: Mind, Physics and a New Social Vision. London: HarperCollins.

Zohar, Danah. 1997. Rewiring the Corporate Brain: Using the New Science to Rethink How We Structure and lead Organizations. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

14 Radical Work

Appendix

Excerpted from All War Belongs on Paper by Byron Katie

1.A Few Basic Premises

How it came to be

One day, in a moment of clarity, I realised that no thought is true, every thought is upside down, and that prior to all thought there is peace. This was the birth of inquiry, the birth of the four questions and turnaround.I realised that thinking, feeling, acting and having are not separate, though people experience them as separate. I then understood the chaotic condition of my own humanity. Discomfort begins in the mind and that is where it must be met to be understood and ‘healed’. Now as I notice a stressful feeling, I do The Work.

You may examine anywhere in the circle of think, feel, act, have. Uninvestigated thoughts, uncomfortable feelings, and actions that cause you suffering all point back to mind, where they originate. The Work gives us a way to experience the world as it is, beyond our thinking. This is peace. This is the power of truth.

The three kinds of business

I could find only three kinds of business in the universe: mine, yours, and God’s (however you understand God or a higher power). When I am mentally in your business or God’s business, the effect is separation and loneliness.

If you are living your life and I am mentally living your life, then who is here for me? Of course I am lonely. Being mentally in another’s business keeps me from being present in my own.

To assume that I know what’s best for you is pure arrogance. In the long run, can I really know more than you or God about your life and welfare? This arrogance brings me tension, worry and anxiety.

Fear

Fear is limited to two things:Someone may take what I have or someone may not give me what I want.

‘What is’, is

I have simply stopped arguing with reality. How do I know the wind should blow? It’s blowing. How do I know this is the highest order? It’s happening. Arguing with ‘what is,’ is like teaching a cat to bark. Hopeless.I know that reality is good just as it is, because when I argue with it, I experience tension and frustration. It doesn’t feel natural or balanced. When I recognize this fact, action becomes clear, kind, fearless, simple, fluid and effortless.

The order of creation: think – feel – act – have

Appendix 15

A stressful feeling is the effect of attaching to a prior belief. We think, experience a feeling, and then act on that feeling. In an attempt to alter our feelings, we reach outside ourselves (relationships, sex, food, alcohol, drugs) for temporary comfort and the illusion of control.

When I have a feeling, I investigate my thinking (do The Work) and notice that the feeling changes – order replaces chaos. Chaos results from attaching to an untrue concept, a concept that appears true to me until I investigate it. In the absence of inquiry, even more concepts spring forth from the original lie. This becomes a hopeless attempt to prove valid something that can never bring peace.

I invite you to look forward to an uncomfortable feeling, find clarity through investigation, and meet your own discomfort with understanding. Orchestrate your own happiness. Why wait for anything or anyone outside you to bring contentment and harmony?

2.The Doing

‘Judge your neighbour. Write it down.’

The one criticism of The Work I consistently hear throughout the world is that it’s just too simple. People say, ‘Freedom can’t be this simple!’ I say, ‘Can you really know that’s true?’

Judge your neighbour. Write it down. Ask four questions. Turn it around. That’s all it takes. Inside of you lies complete wisdom.

The first step in The Work is to write down our judgments. Although we have been instructed for years not to judge – let’s face it – it’s still what we do all the time. We usually think we know what’s best for the world and how others should best live their lives.

The truth is that no matter how kind our words and actions appear on the surface, we all have judgments running in our heads. Many of us carry great guilt and shame, as well as many resentments. Some of us move about in a quiet or not-so-quiet rage as the negative thoughts continue to surface. Through The Work we finally have permission to let our painful judgments speak or even scream out on paper. We find that with this inquiry even our most vile thoughts can be met peacefully.

What to write about

Write about any stressful situation in your life – past, present or future. You may choose to write about a person whom you dislike or worry about, a situation with someone who frightens or saddens you, or something that causes you to be ambivalent or confused. You may write about whole categories of people such as men, women, or authorities. Relationship issues, even with God, are a great place to begin.

As you become skilled in The Work, you may investigate your judgments and concerns about such things as death, money, health, your body, your addictions, and even your own self-criticisms. In fact, once you have a grip on it, you can write about and inquire into absolutely any uncomfortable situation or thought that appears in your mind. When you realise that every stressful moment you experience is the gift that points you to your own freedom, life becomes very exciting and abundant beyond all limits.

Now begin to judge the people you have known or those who are presently in your life. Here are some examples:

Mother Father Children Siblings Partner Neighbour Friend Enemy Strangers Roommate Boss Teacher Employee Co-Worker Team-mateSalesmen Customers Men Women God

How to write

I invite you to be very judgmental, harsh, even childish and petty. Write with the spontaneity of a child who is sad, angry or frightened. Do not try to be wise, spiritual or kind. This is the time to be totally honest and uncensored. Allow yourself

16 Radical Work

to express your feelings, without any fear of consequences or any threat of punishment. Let the ego say whatever it needs to on the following Worksheet.

Whether you are working with a simple concern or a major life issue, it’s important that you point the finger of blame outward and use the Worksheet provided. Avoid the temptation to proceed without writing it down. Although the mind is undoubtedly fast and chaotic, it can be stopped in the moment through the act of writing. On paper, thoughts remain stable and inquiry can easily be applied.

On the next page you will find a sample Worksheet showing the specific format for writing your judgments.

Sample worksheet

1) Who or what don’t you like? Who or what irritates you? Who or what saddens or disappoints you?

I don’t like (or I am angry, confused, saddened, etc. at) (name) Paul because

he doesn’t listen to me. He ignores me. I’m angry at Paul because he doesn’t appreciate me. I am angry at Paul because he called me at midnight and woke me up. I don’t like Paul because he argues with everything I say. I am saddened by Paul because he is so angry.

2) How do you want them to change? What do you want them to do?

I want (name) Paul to

love me completely. I want Paul to give me his full attention. I want Paul to be happy and healthy. I want Paul to get more exercise.

3) What is it that they should and/or shouldn’t do, be, think or feel?

(Name) Paul should or shouldn’t

shouldn’t watch so much television. Paul should quit smoking. Paul should tell me that he loves me. He shouldn’t ignore me. He should not expose me in front of my friends.4) Do you need anything from them? What do they need to give you or do in order for you to be happy?

I need (name) Paul to listen to me. I need Paul to share his feelings and be emotionally available. I need Paul to be gentle and kind and patient.

5) What do you think of them? Make a list.

(Name) Paul is unkind. Paul is reckless. Paul is childish. He thinks he doesn’t have to follow the rules. Paul is uncaring and unavailable. Paul is irresponsible.

6) What is it that you don’t ever want to experience with that person, thing, or situation again?

I don’t ever want to or I refuse to

live with Paul if he doesn’t change. I refuse to watch Paul ruin his health. I don’t ever want to argue with Paul again. I don’t ever want to be ignored by Paul again.

3.The Great Undoing

‘Ask four questions. Turn it around.’

The Great Undoing is the opportunity to examine and meet with understanding the stressful experiences that we have endured and have written about on our Sample Inquiry. We simply ask ourselves four questions, and then turn around (reverse) the original statement.

Appendix 17

Sample inquiry

Now let’s investigate the first statement from number 1 on our Sample Worksheet. ‘I don’t like Paul because he doesn’t listen to me.’

As you read along, bring to mind in this process a person or situation that you can relate to in your own life.

1) Is it true? Ask yourself, ‘Is it true that Paul doesn’t listen to me?’ What is the reality of it? Be still. Let the mind ask the question, and wait for the answer that is honest. If you really want to know the truth, the answer will surface to meet the question. It always will.

2) Can I really know that it’s true? Again, consider carefully. Can I really know that Paul doesn’t listen to me? Can I ever really know when another is listening or not? Am I sometimes not listening even when I appear to be?

3) How do I react when I attach to this thought? At this point, I consider carefully how I react and how I treat Paul when I have the thought, ‘Paul doesn’t listen to me.’ Make a list. For example: ‘I give him the look. I interrupt him. I start talking faster and louder and desperately try to get him to understand and listen.’ Continue writing as you go inside and see how you treat yourself in that situation, and how that feels. ‘I shut down. I isolate myself. I eat and I watch television for days. I feel depressed and lonely.’ Be still and experience your life when you are attached to the thought ‘Paul doesn’t listen to me.’

4) Who or what would I be without this belief? I now consider who or what I would be in Paul’s presence if I did not have the thought, ‘Paul doesn’t listen to me.’ Close your eyes and imagine… Paul not listening and you do not have the thought that Paul doesn’t listen (or that Paul even should listen). Take your time. Notice what is revealed to you. What do you see? How does that feel?5) Turn it around. The original statement, ‘I don’t like Paul because he doesn’t listen to me,’ when reversed could becomes ‘I don’t like me because I don’t listen to Paul.’ Is that as true or truer for you? Are you listening to Paul when you are thinking about Paul not listening to you? Continue to find other examples of you not listening (to someone you work with or care about, for example)?

Another turn-around that could be as true or truer is ‘I don’t like me because I don’t listen to me.’ When you are mentally out of your business thinking what Paul should be doing, are you listening to yourself? Do you put your own life on hold when you are thinking that he should listen? Can you think of other examples and situations in your life when you did not listen to you?

The turnarounds are your prescription for health, peace and happiness. Are you listening? Can you give yourself the medicine that you are prescribing for others?

The turnaround for number 6

The turnaround for written statement number 6) is a bit different. We change I don’t ever want to…, to I am willing to…, and I look forward to…. For example, I don’t ever want to argue with Paul again, turns around to I am willing to argue with Paul again, and I look forward to arguing with Paul again.

Each time you think that you are not willing to experience the anger or stress again, be willing to and look forward to it. It could happen again, even if only in your mind. This turn-around is about embracing all of mind - life. Saying, I am willing to…,creates openness, creativity and flexibility. Any resistance that you may have is softened, allowing you to lighten up rather than hopelessly applying will power or confrontation to eradicate the situation from your life. Saying, I look forward to…, actively opens us to life as it unfolds. Inner freedom becomes an expression of love and ease in the world.

For example, I don’t ever want to live with Paul if he doesn’t change, turns around to I am willing to live with Paul if he doesn’t change, and I look forward to living with Paul if he doesn’t change. You may as well look forward to it. You could find yourself living with him, even if only in your mind. Whether you live with him or not, if you are human, you will probably have this thought again and you may feel the associated stress and depression. Look forward to these feelings,

18 Radical Work

because they are a reminder that will bring you right back to The Work. It doesn’t mean that you have to live with Paul. Willingness opens the door to all of life’s possibilities.

Another Sample Inquiry

Next let’s investigate the following statement from Number 2 on our Sample Worksheet. ‘I want Paul to get more exercise.’

For this inquiry, the name has been left blank rather than pointing the judgment at Paul. Fill in the blanks with someone in your own life who you think might need more exercise. As you read along with the example, stop and really take each question in and wait for your answer to appear.

1) Is it true? Ask yourself, ‘Is it true that I want _______ to get more exercise?’ What is the reality of it? Does _______ get more exercise? Whose business is it how much exercise _______ gets? [See The Three Kinds of Business on page 47.] Be gentle. Allow yourself to be with whatever answer surfaces. Observe how easily you tend to mentally revert back into the other’s business.

2) Can I really know that it’s true? Again, consider carefully. Can you really know that it’s true that _______ needs more exercise? Can you ever really know what is best for another on their path or in the long run? Can you know more than God? In other words, are you wiser than reality?

3) How do I react when I attach to this thought? Consider how you react and how you treat ________ when you have the thought, ‘I want _______ to get more exercise and ________ doesn’t.’ Make a list. For example: ‘I start to nag. I separate. I make insulting remarks to ________ about his/her weight and health.’Continue your list. How do you treat yourself in this situation? How does that feel? For example, ‘I get tense. I worry. I feel depressed, lonely, and hopeless.’ When you have run your entire list, be still and experience your life when you are attached to the thought, ‘I want _______ to get more exercise.’

4) Who or what would I be without this belief? Consider who you would be in ______’s presence if you did not have the thought, ‘I want _______ to get more exercise.’ Close your eyes and imagine _______, and for just a moment imagine that you don’t have the thought that ________ should get more exercise. Take your time. Notice what is revealed to you. What do you see? How does that feel?

5) Turn it around. The original statement, ‘I want _______ to get more exercise,’ when reversed becomes ‘I want me to get more exercise.’ If I think ________ needs more exercise, then I need more exercise. Is that as true or truer for you? Are you getting all the exercise that you think you need? Are you doing the best you can? Are you exercising your mind so that it is fit and healthy? How often do you mentally leave your business and experience separation, confusion and loneliness?

Your Inquiry

Now it’s time for you to experience the power of inquiry by applying the four questions and the turnaround to your own judgments. One by one, read the sentences you have written on your own Worksheet (page 62). Investigate each statement by asking yourself:

Is it true?Can I really know that it’s true?

How do I react when I attach to this thought?

Appendix 19

Who or what would I be without this belief?and then

Turn it around.

20 Radical Work

1) Who or what don’t you like? Who or what irritates you? Who or what saddens or disappoints you?

I don’t like (or I am angry, confused, saddened, etc. at) (name)_________ because __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2) How do you want them to change? What do you want them to do?

I want (name)___________to _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3) What is it that they should and/or shouldn’t do, be, think or feel?(Name) should or shouldn’t _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4) Do you need anything from them? What do they need to give you or do in order for you to be happy?

I need (name)_________ to _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

5) What do you think of them? Make a list.

(Name)____________ is _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

6) What is it that you don’t ever want to experience with that person, thing, or situation again?

I don’t ever want to or I refuse to __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Appendix 21

About Byron Katie

BYRON KATIE is one of those rare individuals who was struck by the spiritual equivalent of lightning. She hardly seemed a likely candidate for such a visitation of grace. She had lived for more than two decades under the thrall of money and power. She had made and lost small fortunes, had virtually lost her children to addiction, and had sunk into fits of uncontrollable rage.

In 1986 at the age of forty-three, she landed in a halfway house for women with addictions. Early one morning she awoke on the attic floor where she had been sleeping, just as a cockroach was making its way across her foot. In that moment her entire structure for perceiving reality as she had known it vanished.

For the next three years, Byron Katie experienced non-stop revelations. She had no ordinary memory of people, places or things prior to awakening. She resembled an inquisitive child wanting to know what everything was, how it felt, and how it tasted. She was amazed with each new discovery.

People called her a walk-in, the Lit Lady, awakened, mother, weird, as well as many other names. As she is fond of saying, ‘I am a woman from Barstow. I didn’t know about spirituality and religious traditions. I only read about gurus, spiritual teachers, and such things in the funny papers.’ Yet the spontaneous and simple truths coming from her mouth could have come from any of the great mystical teachings.

During her transition, Byron Katie sometimes experienced the absence of peace so profoundly that when even one uncomfortable thought would flow in, she would react. It felt lethal to her. She understood well that she had to undo each ‘separate’ idea or belief if she were to survive the next plunge into the depths of hell. She discovered that regardless of how kind and loving we are, we all experience misunderstanding, confusion, and apparent chaos until beliefs are unlearned or recognised for what they really are – uninvestigated thoughts.

She created what is known as The Work of Byron Katie by bringing forward her own thought process of survival throughout the three-year period of revelation. Her own internal process gave form to the matching experience known as The Work. She is now dedicated to offering four questions and a turnaround (to those who ask) and offering people the possibility, through a radical shift in perception, to end their own suffering.

There is an immediacy about Byron Katie and an utter simplicity and directness of movement that leaves the air clean of any trace of motive. She is totally present, utterly without effort, and seems literally to ripple with joy. She demonstrates that the peace of God can be experienced totally while living in this world. Heaven and earth the same. She appears and shines as a living role model cherishing each moment and fully loving everyone and everything. She has no desire to be anyone’s teacher or mentor. Rather, she offers her self, her insights and her playful, humorous friendship. She is a friend.

For further information about The Work of Byron Katie, visit her website at: www.thework.com or www.bkinternational.com. South African readers wanting a free copy of ‘The Little Blue Book’, a concise introduction to The Work, should send a stamped self-addressed envelope to: The Noumenon Centre, P.O. Box 1280, Wandsbeck, 3631.

About Kriben Pillay

DR KRIBEN PILLAY, former senior lecturer in the Faculty of Humanities, University of Durban-Westville, is an award-winning writer as well as the innovator of the Transformative Training programmes. He was previously director of the Masazane Open School in East London (a project of the South African Institute of Race Relations) and a lecturer in English at the University of Fort Hare. He was a finalist for the Bertrams African Literature Award in 1992, and was nominated for the 1995 CNA Literary Prize for his acclaimed play Looking for Muruga. He is the editor of Noumenon, a journal that critically investigates issues of transformation. In August 1999 he did the Masters Session course in Holland with Byron Katie, which explores the application of The Work to business training. His writings on transformation feature in a number of international publications, and two new books in 2000/2001 will feature chapters on his work – an Australian book Drama for Life: Stories of Adult Learning & Empowerment, and a book on South African spirituality (to be initially published in Afrikaans as Land van Hoop – ‘Land of Hope’.)

OTHER WRITINGS BY KRIBEN PILLAY

A MIND IN REVOLT : ESSAYS AND POEMS

LEARNING TO SEE : SELF-DISCOVERIES THROUGH THEATRE

LOOKING FOR MURUGA : A PLAY IN TWO ACTS

SOMETHING FROM NOTHING : A BRIEF GUIDE TO SEEING WHO WE REALLY ARE

noumenon signpost seriesThis series of little books are concise, introductory explorations of topics within the nondual

spiritual perspective.

FORTHCOMING TITLESBeyond Fragmentation :

The Nondual Educational Teachings of J. Krishnamurti and Educational Drama and Theatre

Grief and Freedom

THE NOUMENON JOURNALNONDUAL PERSPECTIVES ON TRANSFORMATION

an annual journal(formerly A Newsletter for the Nondual Perspective)

P.O. Box 1280 Wandsbeck3631 South Africa

Email: noumenon@iafrica.comWebsite: http://www.noumenon.co.za

Subscription rates: South Africa R20 All other US$10

All author profits from this book will be donated to:

The Noumenon Centre for Transformative TrainingP.O. Box 1280 Wandsbeck

3631 South AfricaEmail: noumenon@iafrica.com

Website: http://www.noumenon.co.za

The Noumenon Centre is a nonprofit organisation committed to facilitating personal and organisational transformation.

To book Dr Kriben Pillay for speaking and teaching events, write to the above or phone: +27-(0)82-4661745

PRAISE FOR THE WORK IN SOUTH AFRICA

‘If I had known about the ease of application and the general principles used, I would have surely just invested in one course; this particular one based on the philosophies of Byron Katie. It is a non-religious and non-demanding method. You present it with such ease, which made it easy and comfortable to participate – BRILLIANT.’

–Inspector Sonet van TonderCommunications Official, Mayville Police Station, South African Police Service

‘The teachers couldn’t believe how quickly the time passed. No one got bored – we were interested all the time – and now we’re trying to put all we learnt into practice.’

–Rowena CranstonPrincipal, Avon Junior Primary

‘Judging from the participation by the students during the workshop, it was evident that they thoroughly enjoyed it. Subsequent feedback from the students has been very positive.’

–Neeta GathiramLecturer, Social Work, University of Durban-Westville

‘By focusing on the mindset of each delegate, and by addressing the question of values and the imposition of ideas, you captured the imagination of the delegates and unleashed their creativity in addressing the many issues that affect education in our schools. Many of the phrases that you used became favourite catch phrases amongst delegates, who constantly made reference to your workshop when creating their own strategies …’

–Charles M. Pillay Department of Education and Culture, Kwa-Zulu Natal

‘We at Umzinyathi Management wish to extend a word of gratitude for the training workshop you conducted with our team of 28 trainers on the 4 th May 2000. At a feedback meeting ... we received exciting comments on your excellent training. The following are just a few of those:

1. “I now have pride and trust in myself.”2. “I have learned to accept others.”3. “I now know how to deal with negotiation and confrontation.”4. “I now accept people for what they are and not what I want them to be.”5. “I have self-confidence.”’

–Nhlanhla Zulu and Kevin Treffry-GoatleyDirectors, Umzinyathi Utilities Management

4 Danah Zohar. Rewiring the Corporate Brain.. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 1997, p. V.5 Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall. The Quantum Society: Mind, Physics and a New Social Vision. London: HarperCollins, 1994, pp. 235-236.6 See www.thework.com7 Ibid.8 Ingram Smith. The Transparent Mind: A Journey with Krishnamurti. Ojai, CA. Edwin House Publishing, Inc., 1999, p. 165.9 Kriben Pillay. ‘The Nondual Teachings of J. Krishnamurti: The Links with Educational Drama and Theatre’. Nidān: Journal for the Study of Hinduism, Vol. 11, December 1999, p.5.10 Zohar, p. 139. Reprinted with permission.11 Byron Katie. All War Belongs on Paper – The Manual for The Work of Byron Katie. Manhattan Beach, California: Byron Katie, Inc., 2000, pp. 28-33.12 David Bohm. On Creativity. London: Routledge, 1998, p.111.13 J. Krishnamurti. Meeting Life. London: Arkana, 1991, pp. 75-76.14 David Bohm. Thought as a System. London: Routledge, 1992, p. 11.15 This dialogue is a reconstruction of one that took place in a seminar with postgraduate students. For the purposes of being concise, the main threads and essence of the dialogue are presented, rather than the actual verbatim text.16 A derogatory term for a black South African.17 A derogatory term for a South African of Indian origin.

'Thank you for the presentation on Transformative Training in the Business World ... the feedback received from our clients ... was very positive and we commend you on the professional manner of your presentation.'

–Richard WainwrightArea Manager : Sales Commercial KZN, Nedcor

‘I was fortunate to have experienced the transformative work of Dr Kriben Pillay, based on the work of Byron Katie. The process works equally well when applied to one's business or personal life, and is particularly useful when experiencing difficult inter-personal interactions. It ultimately enables one to take responsibility and to systematically resolve a situation through positive actions.’

–Saleem AbdullaDirector, Flexor Consulting