Believing what you fear
– Byron Katie
makes it true for you,
and that doesn’t make it true
At a general intellectual level, this seems obvious: Holding a thought as true and experiencing it as true doesn’t make it true.
And yet, for many parts of me, it seems not obvious at all. Many parts of my psyche operate as if holding a thought as true makes it true. They mistake mental imagination for what it supposedly points to.
Any time there is any charge on a thought, any time there is reactivity, defensiveness, and so on, it’s a sign that a part of my psyche holds a stressful thought as true.
And to explore that, it helps to have a structured process preferably guided by someone familiar with the terrain. The most effective approaches I have found so far are The Work of Byron Katie and the Kiloby Inquiries (based on traditional Buddhist sense field inquiry).
INITIAL DRAFT
This seems obvious: Holding something as true, and experiencing it as true, doesn’t make it true.
And there is a lot more here.
What does it mean to hold a story as true?
At one level, it means that my mind tells itself that a certain story is true. It has a story about a story.
It also means to identify with the viewpoint of a story. My mind tells itself a story is true, and identifies with the viewpoint of that story. It creates a sense of me and other, where I am the viewpoint of the story.
What makes it feel true?
Whenever a story has charge, it tends to feel true to me. And the charge comes from my mind associating certain stories with certain physical sensations. The sensations give a sense of substance, solidity, and reality to the story. And the story gives a sense of meaning to the sensations.
In what cases is this pointer most useful?
Whenever a story has a charge to me, and whenever it feels true. And that’s not just stories about the world, politics, divinity, and so on. It’s equally much about all the stories I tell myself about myself, people in my life, and how the world is treating me.
How can we explore this for ourselves?
The easiest may be through structured inquiry, often facilitated by someone familiar with the terrain. The most effective approaches I have found are The Work of Byron Katie and the Kiloby Inquiries (based on traditional Buddhist sense field inquiry).
DRAFT FRAGMENTS
At a general intellectual level, this is probably obvious to most of us: Holding a thought as true and experiencing it as true doesn’t make it true.
And yet, for many parts of us, it’s not obvious at all. Many parts