Until the Meditator Vanishes

'Byron Katie traces the cause of all suffering back to the ego-mind and then points the way to freedom. In a departure from her better-known vivisection of judgments and stories, here Katie examines at an intimate level the subtle nature of mental fabrications and that which illuminates them. Katie begins by taking a question from a caller who wants to discern the difference between answers that come from the heart or the head. Together they examine the truthfulness of the thought, 'My daughter is in danger,' and make discoveries that go beyond a simple yes or no. 'I see an image of me,' Katie says, relating her process of witnessing. 'It could take years of meditation for some people to notice this, but I see that image of me witnessing her. Did you find it? So who is that?' Katie says that people think that when they're observing, say, the image of their daughter, that's all there is. But, she says, if you sit long enough, you may begin to notice there is 'a very thin, subtle identity watching, and that is just one more image.' This, Katie says, is the false witness, a fabrication of the ego which she calls exciting and beautiful in its trickery. Once the mind is open to what is being shown through self-inquiry, the nature of identification clarifies. 'This leaves the meditator as witness and not the inner or outer doer at all, until,' she says, 'the meditator vanishes.' copyright 2015 Byron Katie International, Inc. All rights reserved. For more information, visit thework.com.'