"Enjoying The Show" As The World Burns

[Bluegazer]

A Critique of Byron Katie's The Work

Is Byron Katie’s method known as The Work harmful? Some believe so. There are numerous instances of Katie on stage blaming sexual abuse victims, denying racism, stifling efforts for social change, denying the reality of abuse and accusing people of things they didn’t do. It’s all done

www.gurumag.com

I started reading the article. I was struck by what the aforementioned Katie says:

“If Someone (God, ‘what is’), pulls my baby from me – if that’s what it takes, I’m there. Take the baby. Tear my baby from me. Throw it in the fire….My discomfort is my war with God.

You see, there are NO choices. What is, is.

This is almost a carbon copy of what Theodore Illion denounces in Darkness Over Tibet, in the part that narrates the hero of the history letting himself be eaten by rats and insects and leaving his children to die:

I looked at beautiful Dolma. I looked at the sun generously filling with his radiant light the courtyard of the monastery, and wondered whether the poor hero realized what dreadful blasphemy he was uttering.[...] I compared the poor hero in the Tibetan play with the glorious figure of Hamlet, who intensely feels the dreadful tragedy of being only a man and nothing but man. Being a genius and capable of the most intense feelings, Hamlet suffers infinitely more than the Tibetan hero, but nevertheless he has the courage and nobility of character to face his troubles as a creature without any thought of escape or "salvation".[...] A scene came in now in which the hero exalted the happiness of giving away everything. "If the rats eat the first half of my meal, I give them the second half," he exclaimed, in what a heretical spectator might have called a fit of religious hysteria. [...] Dolma seemed to have a bent for the latter. She asked me whether I considered the attitude of the hero in the play a proper one for a really religious person. " No," I answered. "Shall man be selfish, then ?" she asked. "Is it wrong to try to be good ?" "No, but it is wrong to try to be like God." "But God is good. Trying to be like God leads to goodness." "The creature must not overstep its limits," I said, "by trying to be like God. If he does so, he acts like the angels who revolted against the Creator.​

In short, this Katie Byron, makes the fatal mistake of putting herself on God's level. In the process ruining hundreds of people. That is evil.

Now yes, sorry for the off-topic. But I thought it was relevant because somehow enjoying the show while the world burns involves responding appropriately to every event, be it joy or suffering.