Books (July 2007)

Katie, Byron and Mitchell, Stephen. A Thousand Names for Joy: Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are. New York, NY: Crown Publishing, 2007.

Byron Katie shares her personal experience of how she remains in a constant state of acceptance and joy through the process of inquiry called “The Work.” In her previous books Loving What Is and I Need Your Love—Is that True? she offered readers a detailed description of how ‘The Work’ can be used – by anyone in any circumstances –when that person is ready to find the truth within themselves and thus change her or his life. However, in this text she provides only a few examples of how her facilitation of “The work” helps others with their issues.

In A Thousand Names for Joy, Katie describes experiencing an ongoing peaceful state of being, which she models for the reader regardless of the personal challenges she faces. She demonstrates how she has found inner peace with the more mundane life experiences to the more complex challenges she faces, such as a tumor on her face or an illness that is making her blind. She has arrived at bringing forth profound insights through a phenomenal epiphany, which she had in a half-way house one morning. Ever since that time she has embarked on the journey of questioning every one of her beliefs and thoughts. This completely changed her life from a place of chronic depression to a place of continual Joy.

The process of the inquiry which Katie has developed is based on the following questions and the resultant turn-around produced through addressing these questions, a process which she claims allows people to experience the opposite of what they believe. These four questions are:
1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
3. How do you react when you believe that thought?
4. Who would you be without the thought? (p. 270)

Book review by Inge Turner, Doctoral student at Holos University Graduate Seminary

 (See more in IJHC, May 2007)