Byron Katie quotes A Thousand Names for Joy, subtitled: Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are. Part Two CONTINUE

21

The Master keeps her mind always at one with the Tao.

  -The key takeaways from passage #21

Byron Katie refers to the word of God as reality.

“It is what it is,” explains Katie, and it’s so physical—a table, a chair, or the shoe on your foot.

 You can know that reality. It is good just as it is because when you argue with it, you experience anxiety and frustration.

Katie believes that any thought that causes stress is an argument with reality.

“You’re trying to manipulate God as long as you think you know what should and shouldn’t happen.” Writes Katie. Therefore, it is a recipe for unhappiness.”

22

If you want to become full, let yourself be empty.

– critical takeaways from passage #22

When you go inside yourself, for the love of truth, and question even one stressful concept, the mind becomes a little saner and more open.

Katie wants to remind you that no one will ever understand you—not once, not ever. Realizing this is freedom.

As Katie put it, the story of whom someone should love keeps you from the awareness that you are what you’re seeking. It’s not their job to love you—it’s yours.

Love is nothing you can demonstrate or prove. It’s what you are.

It’s not a doing; it can’t be “done,” it’s too vast to do anything with. Once you give yourself to love, you lose your whole world as you perceive it.

Byron Katie, prioritize the concept of loving yourself first! As she put it, Unless you marry the truth, there is no real marriage.

Marry yourself, and you have married us. 

23

Open yourself to the Tao, then trust your natural responses; and everything will fall into place.

– key takeaways from passage #23

Nature withholds nothing from itself until there is nothing to give.

It doesn’t know anything but love. It comes to take the mystery and importance out of everything. She’s not trying to do it right or to impress anyone.

We all give equally. Without our stories, all of us are pure love.

24

He who defines himself can't know who he really is.

– key takeaways from passage #24

 When you love what is, it becomes so simple to live in the world because you understand that everything is exactly as it should be.

Reality is obvious when your mind is clear. It couldn’t be simpler, though people feel something must be hidden behind it.

It’s user-friendly: what you see is what you get. Whatever happens, is good; if you don’t think so, you can question your mind. 

25

There was something formless and perfect before the universe was born

– key takeaways from passage #25

What’s real is nameless. It doesn’t change; it doesn’t flow; it doesn’t leave or return; it doesn’t even exist; it’s beyond existence or non-existence.

It happens when you wake up in the morning. The word is yours. That’s how the world is created.

Before the beginning, there is only reality, formless and perfect, solitary, infinite, and accessible. There’s no name for it or ripple of a name.

The name is Ripple.

In the ripple, the world lake arises.

No ripple, no lake.

26

The Master travels all day without leaving home. However splendid the views, she stays serenely in herself.

– key takeaways from passage #26

Peace is our natural condition. Only by believing an untrue thought is it possible to move from peace into emotions like sadness and anger.

Without the pull of beliefs, the mind stays serene and is available for whatever comes along.

The experience of love can’t come from anyone else; it can come only from inside you.

Love is action.

It’s clear, it’s kind, it’s effortless, and it’s irresistible.

27

What is a good man but a bad man's teacher? What is a bad man but a good man's job? If you don't understand this, you will get lost, however intelligent you are. It is the great secret.

– critical takeaways from passage #27

Love people just how they are, whether they see themselves as saints or sinners.

No one is bad by nature.

Each of us is beyond categories and unfathomable.

When someone harms another human being, it’s because they are confused.

Love doesn’t stand by—it moves with the speed of clarity.

Rejecting people is impossible unless you believe your story about them.

28

 Know the male, yet keep to the female: receive the world in your arms.   

– key takeaways from passage #28

Without a story, I’m neither personal nor impersonal, neither male nor female.

There’s no word for what I am. To call it nothing is as untrue as to call it something.

Who needs a name for it in the middle of life and death?

It does what it does: it eats, sleeps, cooks, cleans, talks to a friend, and goes its way, delighted.

29

The world is sacred. It can't be improved. If you tamper with it, you'll ruin it. If you treat it like an object, you'll lose it.

– key takeaways from passage #29

The world is perfect. As you question your mind, this becomes more and more obvious.

Mind changes, and as a result, the world changes.

A clear mind heals everything that needs to be healed. It can never be fooled into believing that one speck is out of order.

We begin to listen and notice that change through peace is possible. It has to start with one person.

If you’re not the one, who is?

If you know that we’re all equal and doing the best we can, you can be the most influential activist on the planet.

A realization has no value until it’s lived.

30

She understands that the universe is forever out of control and that trying to dominate events goes against the current of the Tao.

– key takeaways from passage #30

How do you respond to a world that seems out of control? The world seems that way because it is out of control—the sun rises whether we want it or not, the toaster breaks, someone cuts you off on your way to work, and on and on.

We have the illusion of control when things go the way we think they should.

Your suffering is not a result of not having control; it results from arguing with reality.

For example, we question our thoughts about how the world seems to have gone wild. And we see that the craziness was never in the world but in us.

The world is a projection of our thinking.

When we understand our thinking, we know the world, and we come to love it. 

31

Weapons are tools of fear

– critical takeaways from passage #31

Defense is the first act of war.

By questioning your mind, you realize that no one can hurt you—only you can.

It doesn’t take two people to end a war; it takes only one.

The personality hates criticism and loves agreement. Actually, for personality, love is nothing more than agreement.

Katie believes A relationship is between two people who agree with each other’s stories. If I agree with you, you love me. And the minute I’m afraid to disagree with you and question one of your sacred beliefs, I become your enemy; you divorce me in your mind.

32

If powerful men and women could remain centered in the Tao, all things would be in harmony.

– key takeaways from passage #32

Wherever you stand, you’re in the center of the universe. There’s neither big nor small.

Everything revolves around you. Everything goes out from you and returns to you.

You’re all you can imagine—inside, outside, up, down. Nothing exists that doesn’t come out of you. Do you understand? If it doesn’t come out of you, it cannot exist.

33

If you stay in the center and embrace death with your whole heart, you will endure forever

– key takeaways from passage #33

The truth is that until we love cancer, we can’t love God. It doesn’t matter what symbols we use—poverty, loneliness, loss—the idea of good and evil that we attach to them makes us suffer.

What I know about dying is that when there’s no escape, when you know that no one is coming to save you, there’s no fear. You don’t bother. The worst thing that can happen on your deathbed is a belief.

When there’s no choice, there’s no fear. Realize that nothing was ever born but a dream, and nothing ever dies but a dream.

34

The great Tao flows everywhere.

– key takeaways from passage #34

Mind appears to flow everywhere, but it is the unmoving, the never-having-moved. It appears as everything. Eventually, it seems that nowhere is where it is.

As the mind realizes one world after another, it realizes non-existence, and thus it can’t hold on to anything.

There’s nothing to hold on to, and that is its freedom.

35

She who is centered in the Tao can go where she wishes, without danger. She perceives the universal harmony, even amid great pain, because she has found peace in her heart.

– critical takeaways from passage #35

A clear mind is beautiful and sees only its own reflection. It bows in humility to itself; it falls at its own feet.

It doesn’t add or subtract anything; it simply knows the difference between what’s real and what’s not. And because of this, the danger isn’t a possibility.

Nothing outside of ourselves can make us suffer except for our unquestioned thoughts. Every place is paradise.

36

If you want to get rid of something, you must first allow it to flourish.

– key takeaways from passage #36

Just like when someone is suffering on their deathbed, you don’t kick them and say, “Get up.”

Likewise, It’s the same when someone is angry and attacking you.

After you’ve inquired a while, you can listen to any criticism without defense or justification, openly, delightedly. It’s the end of trying to control what can’t ever be controlled: other people’s perceptions.

When you’re aware of being a student, everyone in the world becomes your teacher.

In the absence of defensiveness, gratitude is all that is left.

37

The Tao never does anything, yet through it, all things are done.

– key takeaways from passage #37

Try to make yourself do nothing. You can’t. You’re being breathed, being thought, being moved, being lived. There’s nothing you can do not to eat when it’s time to eat or sleep when it’s time to sleep.

If you watch, allowing whatever comes to come and whatever goes to go, you can realize in every moment that you don’t need anything but what you have.

The miraculous life of not-doing has an intelligence of its own. The experience is joy without personality or investment.

38

The Master doesn't try to be powerful, thus she is truly powerful.

– key takeaways from passage #38

The Master doesn’t try to be powerful because she realizes how unnecessary that is.

Power doesn’t need a plan. Everything gravitates to it. With each moment, new options are born.

What matters is always available to everyone. Nothing comes ahead of its time, and nothing that didn’t need to happen has ever happened.

39

The Master view the parts with compassion because she understands the whole. Her constant practice is humility.

– key takeaways from passage #39

It’s the mirror image thinking that it’s the source, misinterpreting It as itself rather than seeing itself as just a reflection of It. which makes it under the painful illusion that it’s separate.

God’s reality—is all of it. The truth is that the ego goes where God goes. The ego has no options. It can protest all it wants, but if God moves, it moves.

I realized that I was none of it, that everything I’d stood for was insubstantial and ridiculous. And what remained from that fell away, too, until finally, there was nothing left to be humble about, no one left to be humble. If I was anything, I was grateful.  Byron Katie

Humility is what happens when you’re caught and exposed to yourself, and you realize that you’re no one and you’ve been trying to be someone.

40

Return is the movement of the Tao. Yielding is the way of the Tao.

– key takeaways from passage #40

You can’t have it because you already have it. You already have what you want. You already are what you want. That’s as good as it gets.

It appears as this now—perfect, flawless. And to argue with it is to experience a lie.

The mind surrenders to itself. When it isn’t at war with itself, it experiences an entirely kind world, the benevolent mind projecting a benevolent world.

Katie explains, Only when you don’t know what you’re looking for can you be open to the answers that will change your life.

41

The direct path seems long.

– key takeaways from passage #41

The direct path might seem long because the mind tells you of a distance and mesmerizes you with its proof.

Byron Katie reminds us that the direct path isn’t long. In fact, there’s no distance to it all. Where are you going, other than where you are right now?

Katie said the direct path means realizing that the beginning and end of every journey are where you always are.

The infinite mind always leaps ahead of itself, leaving the world in the dust. It always exceeds its own genius.

42

Ordinary people hate solitude but the Master makes use of it, embracing her aloneness, realizing she is one with the whole universe.

– key takeaways from passage #42

We’re born alone, we die alone, and we live alone, each on our own planet of perception.

No two people have ever met. Even the people you know best and love with all your heart are your own projections.

Sooner or later, you’re the one who’s left.

After all, you’re the one you go to sleep with and wake up with. You’re the one who orders your favorite food and loves your favorite music. You’ve always been your favorite subject—your only subject. It’s all about you.

43

The gentlest thing in the world overcomes the hardest thing in the world.

– key takeaways from passage #43

The gentlest thing in the world is an open mind. Nothing has power over it. Nothing can resist it.

When the mind first becomes a student of itself, it learns that nothing in the world can oppose it: everything is for it, everything adds to it, enlightens it, nourishes it, and reveals it.

A truly open mind doesn’t have a goal or a purpose other than to be what it is. It’s not attached to concepts of self or other.

44

When you realize that there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.

– A few key takeaways from passage #44

The whole world belongs to you when you live in the simplicity of what is. There’s nothing beyond this, not one thought beyond it.

I’m a success at sitting. I’m a success at breathing. If I died now, I’d be a success at not breathing. Because when the mind is clear, there’s no way to make a mistake.

Reality is kind. Its nature is uninterrupted joy. It’s so benevolent that it wouldn’t reappear. It wouldn’t re-create itself.

It cares totally, and it doesn’t care at all, not one bit, not if all living creatures in the universe were obliterated instantly.

What doesn’t exist, what is beyond existence, is more brilliant than the sun.

45

True perfection seems imperfect, yet it is perfectly itself.

– A few key takeaways from passage #45

Perfection is another name for reality. The only way you can see anything as imperfect is if you believe a thought about it.

There is no frame you could freeze and look at that wouldn’t be the way of its perfect self.

When the mind understands that it is just the reflection of the nameless intelligence that has created the whole apparent universe, it is filled with delight.

It delights that it is everything; it delights that it is nothing; it delights that it is brilliantly kind and free of all identity, free to be its unlimited, unstoppable, unimaginable life. It dances in the light of its own understanding that nothing has ever happened and that everything that has ever happened—everything that ever can happen—is good.

46

There is no greater illusion than fear

– key takeaways from passage #46

We can only be afraid of what we believe we are—whatever there is in ourselves that we haven’t met with understanding.

Fear is not possible when questioned by your mind; it can be experienced only when the mind projects a past story into a future.

When you question your mind, thoughts flow in and out and don’t cause any stress because you don’t believe them. And you instantly realize that their opposites could be just as accurate.

47

The Master arrives without leaving, see the light without looking, achieves without doing a thing.

– key takeaways from passage #47

When you’re grateful, everything comes and goes from a place of abundance.

Everything is always taken care of beyond what you think you want.

Don’t sweat the small stuff. 

48

True Master can be gained by letting things go their own way.

– key takeaways from passage #48

Things go their own sweet way whether you let them or not. The rose blooms without your approval and dies without your consent.

The world runs perfectly. It’s all done without you. It’s all done for you, whether or not you interfere.

Life continually pours forth its gifts and lives itself out in its own sweet way. All you need to do is notice.

49

The Master has no mind on her own. She works with the mind of the people.

– key takeaways from passage #49

Master has no mind of her own. All she has to work with is the minds of the people.

The people’s mind is in her mind because it’s the only part of the mind that is still identified, still believed.

She is good to the good people and those who aren’t good because all she can see is goodness—she has no reference for anything else.

50

She holds nothing back from life; therefore she is ready for death.

– key takeaways from passage #50

Death is everything that has ever been dreamed of, including the dream of myself, so at every moment, I die of what has been and am continually born as awareness at the moment, and I die of that and am born of it again.

Everyone loves a good novel and looks forward to how it will end.

It’s easy to hold nothing back from life when there’s never anything to lose.

51

The Tao gives birth to all beings...creating without possessing, acting without expecting, guiding without interfering.

– key takeaways from passage #51

Everything is one but not the same. No two fingerprints are the same, no two blades of grass, snowflakes, or pebbles.

Each is different; each is necessary.

Someone lives, someone dies, someone laughs, someone grieves. For now, that’s the way of it until it’s not.

52

In the beginning was the Tao. All things issue from it; all things return to it.

– key takeaways from passage #52

The universe has no beginning and no end. It’s constantly beginning, and it’s always over.

The truth is that everything comes from the I. If there’s no thought, there’s no word. Without the I to project itself, there is neither origin nor end.

Even “nothing” is born out of the I because even it is a concept. By thinking that there is nothing, you continue to create something.

The thoughts are what allow the I to believe that it has an identity. When you see that, you see that there’s no you to be enlightened. You stop believing in yourself as an identity and become equal to everything.

53

The great way is easy, yet people prefer the side paths.

– key takeaways from passage #53

The Great Way is easy. It’s what reveals itself right here, right now.

Whatever you do or don’t do is your contribution to reality.

The side paths are your judgments about what you’re doing or not doing. It makes life extremely difficult when you call what you’re doing “wrong,” “stupid,” or “unnecessary”—when you belittle it after it has been done.

Learn from the past by all means, but if you feel any guilt or shame about it, you are just inflicting violence on yourself. The clear way, the great way, is to begin now.

54

Whoever is planted in the Tao will not be rooted up.

– key takeaways from passage #54

We do only three things in life: sit, stand, and lie horizontally. That’s about it. Everything else is a story. -Byron Katie.

You begin to see clearly once you question what you believe because the mind is no longer at war with itself.

Whatever happens, always look for the gift in it.

Katie wants to remind us that there is no suffering in the world; there’s only an uninvestigated story that leads you to believe it.

55

She lets all things come and go effortlessly, without desire.

– key takeaways from passage #55

Anyone in harmony with what is has no past to project as a future, so she expects nothing. Whatever appears is always fresh, brilliant, surprising, obvious, and exactly what she needs. She sees that it’s a gift she has done nothing to deserve.

The Tao doesn’t distinguish between sound and no sound, speaking of it or living it, seeing or being it, touching or feeling it touch her. She experiences it as constant lovemaking. Life is her own love story.

 Nothing comes until she needs it. Nothing goes until it’s no longer needed. Nothing is wasted; there’s never too much or too little.

56

Be like the Tao. It can't be approached or withdrawn from, benefited or harmed, honored or brought into disgrace.

– key takeaways from passage #56

When your heart is cheerful and at peace, whether you live or die, it doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do. You can talk or stay silent, and it’s all the same.

We don’t just notice our thoughts; we see that they don’t match reality. We realize exactly what their effects are, we get a glimpse of what we would be if we didn’t believe them, and we experience their opposites as being at least equally valid.

An open mind is the beginning of freedom.

57

Let go of fixed plans and concepts, and the world will govern itself.

– key takeaways from passage #57

Plans are unnecessary. Reality always shows you what comes next in a clearer, kinder, and more efficient way than you could discover for yourself.

Always know that the way is clear, and when you trip over an obstacle, enjoy yourself to the ground because falling is equal to not falling.

Whatever you think, the reality is the natural way of it. It won’t bend to your ideas of what it should be and won’t wait for your consent. It will remain just as it is, pure goodness, whether or not you understand. 

58

Try to make people moral, and you lay the groundwork for vice.

– key takeaways from passage #58

If you want absolute control, drop the illusion of control. Let life live you. It does, anyway.

You can’t make people moral. People are what they are and will do what they do, with or without our laws.

The best way, the only practical way, is to serve as an example and not to impose your will.

59

She has no destination in view and makes use of anything life happens to bring her way.

– key takeaways from passage #59

When you have no destination in view, you can go anywhere. You realize that whatever life brings you is good and look forward to it all.

Without a belief, you are all things. And when others are experiencing terror, you are the embodiment of clarity and compassion.

You are a living example. 

60

Give evil nothing to oppose and it will disappear by itself.

– key takeaways from passage #60

Everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late.

You don’t have to like it—it’s just easier if you do.

Your stressful world only exists in your imagination.

And then it all revealed to you. Everything turns out to be a gift—that’s the point. Everything that you see as a handicap turns out to be the extreme opposite. But you can only know this by staying in your integrity, going inside, and discovering your own truth—not the world’s truth.

61

Humility means trusting the Tao.

– key takeaways from passage #61

No one has ever known the answer to why. The only true answer is because. Why do the stars shine? Because they do. That’s it.

In reality, there is no why. It’s hopeless to ask; the question can’t go anywhere—haven’t you noticed? Science may give you an answer, but there’s always another reason behind that.

There is no ultimate answer to anything. There’s nothing to know and no one who wants to know.

The goal isn’t to be wise or spiritual; just notice what is. Byron Katie likes to say. “Don’t pretend yourself beyond your own evolution.” Meaning, “Don’t be spiritual; be honest instead.”

It’s painful to pretend that you’re more evolved than you are; it’s kinder to yourself to be in the position of a student than always acting as a teacher.  

62

Why did the ancient master esteem the Tao? Because, being one with the Tao, when you seek, you find; and when you make a mistake, you are forgiven.

– key takeaways from passage #62

What is actual value can’t be seen or heard; it’s nothing, and it’s everything, it’s nowhere, and it’s right under your nose—it is your nose, as a matter of fact, along with everything else.

When you understand that you’re one with reality, you don’t seek because you realize that what you have is what you want. And when you make a mistake, you realize immediately that it wasn’t a mistake; it was what should have happened because it happened.

The more clearly you realize that “would have, should have, could have.” are just unquestioned thoughts, the more you can appreciate the value of that apparent mistake and what it produced. Seeing this is forgiveness in its totality. In the clarity of understanding, forgiveness is unnecessary.

63

Act without doing.

– key takeaways from passage #63

 When you truly love yourself, you can love everyone in your life. Saints or sinners don’t make a difference.

64

Prevent trouble before it arises. Put things in order before they exist.

– key takeaways from passage #64

When the mind understands itself and stops poisoning itself with what it believes to be true, there is no physical experience it can suffer over. 

65

When they think that they know the answers, people are difficult to guide. When they know that they don't know, people can find their own way.

– key takeaways from passage #65 

The don’t-know mind is the mind that is open to anything life brings. When you find it, you have found your way.

If you’re willing to go inside and wait for the truth, your inborn wisdom meets the question, and the answer rings true as if it were a tuning fork inside your being.

When people think they know the answers, it’s difficult for the Master to help them find their way because she deals with closed minds, and a closed mind is a closed heart. Since she understands that openness can never be forced, she becomes very comfortable and listens, she waits for an opening, the slightest crack, and that is when she penetrates.

66

All streams flow to the sea because it is lower than they are. Humility gives it its power.

– key takeaways from passage #66

The material world is a metaphor for the mind. Mind rises into its projections and must eventually return to itself, just as streams flow back to the sea.

No matter how brilliant the mind, no matter how large the ego that takes credit for its actions, when it comes to seeing that it doesn’t know anything, that it can’t know anything, it flows back to the origin and meets itself again, in all humility.

Once you realize what is true, everything flows to you because you have become a living example of humility.

The mind realizes is content to stay in the lowest, least creative position. Out of that, everything is created. The lowest place is the highest place. Humility is our natural response to seeing what’s true about ourselves.

67

Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.

– key takeaways from passage #67

Don’t give yourself less than the best of what is available at any moment.

Beyond what the mind can see is kinder than what it seems—that’s the privilege of an open mind.

Kindness resonates with the way things are. Kindness is sipping a cup of tea without thinking you’re even consuming it. It’s like being your own plant, feeling yourself being watered, beyond any thought that that’s what you even need.

68

The best leader follows the will of the people.

– key takeaways from passage #68

There is no time and space when you don’t have your own will. It all becomes a flow. You don’t decide, you flow from one happening to the next, and everything is decided for you.

69

When two great forces oppose each other, the victory will go to the one that knows how to yield.

– key takeaways from passage #69

There’s no such thing as an enemy; no person, belief, or even ego is an enemy. It’s just a misunderstanding.

An African proverb reads: “When there is no enemy within, the enemy outside can do you no harm.” 

The quiet mind realizes that no belief is true; it is immovable in that, so there’s no belief it can attach to. It’s comfortable with them all.

Your enemy is the teacher who shows you what you haven’t healed yet. Any place you defend is where you’re still suffering. All enemies are your kind teachers, just waiting for you to realize it. 

70

If you want to know me, look inside your heart.

– key takeaways from passage #70

The open mind is fearless in its quest to live without suffering. The mind is often shocked when the questions are asked and the answers are allowed to surface. It has no idea that such insights lived within it.

As the mind learns its own nature, it begins to trust its wisdom. This is its education, the end of all its suffering, delusion, fear, and mistaken identity.

The inquiry continues to kill what you think you are until you discover something else. The questioned mind is pure wisdom and can heal the whole world. As it heals, the world heal heals.  

71

Not-knowing is true knowledge.

– key takeaways from passage #71

To think you know something is to believe the story of a past.

When you know that you don’t know, you’re naturally open to reality and can let it take you wherever it wants to.

Experience each moment frame by frame that is not necessarily connected with any other. Sees it in its own unique ways.

72

When they lose their sense of awe, people turn to religion.

The way is simply what is.

It doesn’t bend to what anyone thinks it should be. It is its own integrity; it is infinitely intelligent and kind.

People will write off even the most straightforward, loving person in the world when they oppose their belief system. They will invalidate him, negate him, obliterate him, prove that he’s wrong, he’s a fraud, and he’s dangerous to society so that they can protect what they really believe is essential. They’d rather be right than free.

It’s a fine thing to love Jesus. Still, until you love the monster, the terrorist, the child molester, until you can love your worst enemy without defense or justification, your reverence for Jesus isn’t real because each of these is just another of his forms.

Everyone is your teacher; the most powerful spiritual practice is hanging out with the people criticizing you. You don’t have to do that physically since they live right here in your head.

73

The Tao is always at ease.

– key takeaways from passage #73

A balanced mind is always at ease. Nothing opposes it, nothing holds it back, it acts as creation unfolding at the moment, and its action is swift and free.

It’s not attached to pleasure because it doesn’t need more than it has already.

Pleasure is an attempt to fill yourself. Joy is what you are. What you wanted to find is what remains beyond all stories.

Life becomes difficult when you are against anything.

74

If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to.

– key takeaways from passage #74

Babies aren’t born into the world of illusion until they attach words to things.

Every story we tell is about body identification. Without a story, there’s nobody. When you believe that you are this body, you stay limited; you get to be small.

If you don’t identify as a body, the mind may occasionally find itself a galaxy, rock, tree, moon, leaf, or bird. It may be identified anywhere in its vastness of itself.

75

Act for the people's benefit. Trust them; leave them alone.

– key takeaways from passage #75

Trust the people to do what they do; you can never be disappointed.

The wonderful thing about inquiry is that there’s no one to guide you but you. Only your own answers can help you. You yourself are the way, truth, and life; when you realize this, the world becomes very kind.

Expectations and no expectations are the same. Nothing has ever happened but a thought. The awakened mind is its own universe.

Every thought makes up the world of what it names joy, lightheartedness, inclusion, goodness, generosity, rapture, and friendship. Ultimately, the mind becomes its own friend.

76

The soft and supple will prevail.

– key takeaways from passage #76

All things change because perception is constantly changing.

Believing that what you want equals what’s best for you is a dead end. It makes the mind stiff, inflexible, caught in a picture of reality rather than open to the wisdom of the way of it.

The heart is just another name for an open mind. There is nothing sweeter.

77

The master can keep giving because there is no end to her wealth.

 – key takeaways from passage #77

Abundance has nothing to do with money. Wealth and poverty are internal. A material thing is a symbol of your thinking. It’s a metaphor for desire, for “I want,” “I need.”

Whenever you think that you know something and it feels stressful, you’re experiencing poverty.

You’re rich whenever you realize that what you have is enough and more than enough.

Money is not your business; the truth is your business. The story “I need more money” is what keeps you from realizing your wealth. 

78

Therefore the Master remains serene in the midst of sorrow. Evil cannot enter her heart. Because she has given up helping, she is people's greatest help.

– key takeaways from passage #78

The awakened mind is like water. It flows where it flows, envelops everything in its path, and doesn’t try to change anything, yet in its steadiness, all things change. It delights in its own movement and in everything that allows or doesn’t allow it. And eventually, everything allows it.

The Master has given up helping because she knows there is no one to help. And since she loves and understands her own nature, she realizes that she is serving herself and sitting at her own feet in every action. So there is nothing she gives that she doesn’t receive in the same motion as the same internal experience.

Even when she appears not to give, that is what she is offering.

79

Failure is an opportunity.

– key takeaways from passage #79

It’s impossible to fail at anything. Every time you think you failed, you’re identifying as a failure. And every time this identification arises, other thoughts surface that attempt to prove it.

Our nature is goodness. I know that’s true because any thought that sees something as not good feels like stress.

If your goal was to go from point A to point C, for example, and you went from point A to point B, that’s not a half-success—it’s a complete success. Suppose you can go all the way to C, good. If you get only halfway, there’s no sane reason to think you failed at that task.

80

If a country is governed wisely, its inhabitants will be content.

– key takeaways from passage #80

If you are content doing the things before you, your mind will not conflict with what you do. It has no reason to; there are no beliefs that would get in the way because the world is internal.

There is never anything alien to the mind at peace with itself. It is its own joyous community.

Reality is a continual creation at the moment, brilliant in its simplicity.

81

The more she does for others, the happier she is. The more she gives to others, the wealthier she is.

– key takeaways from passage #81

Generosity is our very nature, and when we try to pretend otherwise, it hurts when we hold back or give with a motive. A motive is just an unquestioned thought. On the other side of our thinking, generosity naturally appears. There’s nothing we need to do to achieve it. It’s simply what we are.

Because it is not attached to words or things, it is free to give you everything it has, everything it is. Everything in the world is like this, constantly giving itself, pouring itself out into the world, as the world.

This summary is not intended as a replacement for the original book. All quotes and Insights are credited to the above-mentioned author and publisher.

Thank You.

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