Philosophical Theses

I’d like to offer a philosophical exposition and defense of Byron Katie’s process called The Work. My claim is that when one goes very rigorously through a large batch of beliefs (“belief” will provide one with that which will be tested through this 4-question directed inquiry), one could come to the following basic conclusions:

One: Whoever it is that I am is “untethered” not just from these beliefs (or forms) but from all beliefs. (Hence, self-inquiry, whose point is for one to discover the essence of oneself, is teed up. On this point, see the last section below.)

When I make this generalization (“all beliefs”), it’s important to grasp that this is an “intuitive leap,” not a strictly logical one.

Two: One is set up to embrace what Richard Rorty called “ironism.” Rorty: “The ironist is aware of the contingent character of all vocabularies and of the contingency that she happens to use a specific vocabulary at a given moment, i.e. the ironist knows that any vocabulary is fickle.”

Three: Even more potently than what’s contained in Two above, one may come to recognize that whatever beliefs that are formed as a result of some experience of hurt or other are not actually truth-bearing statements. That is, all such beliefs are category mistakes (in Gilbert Ryle’s sense). In fact, one comes to recognize that all such beliefs, purporting to be “about” some state of affairs or other, actually only have functional, or pragmatic, or survival value: they worked because to some degree or other they protected (or seemed to) a vulnerable psycho-physical organism from “the slings and arrows of life.” This latter statement is an allusion to Donald Hoffman’s excellent book The Case Against Reality.

Four Liberating Questions

I had better cite the four questions Katie wants us to ask in the case of some belief that’s bound up with suffering. They are:

1. Is it true? 

2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true? 

3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought? 

What emotions arise when you believe that thought? What images of past and future do you see when you believe the thought? How do you treat yourself and others when you believe the thought?

Turn the thought around. [I think the turnaround is best placed after Q3 and before Q4 and thus not at the end.–AT]

4. Who would you be without the thought? [Alternative: “Who are you without any of the beliefs you tested during the turnaround caesura question that comes, I suggest, after Q3 and before Q4?”–AT]

Let’s take a look at one example:

Belief To Be Tested: ‘I Deserve A Good Chance To Make It‘

Suppose this is what you strongly, firmly believe.

Q1: Is it true?

You are to go into “the felt sense” and try to answer experientially, not intellectually. Suppose you feel strongly that it’s true. Suppose you feel that it is. Then:

Q2: Can you know for certain that it’s true?

Go into this question experientially, and feel deeply that the answer is “No.”

You’re now set up for searching Q3:

Q3: How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought? 

Essentially, what you discover in Q3 is that this belief was a formation that came as a result of an ability to make sense of a–or often a number of–deep, unresolved hurts. In this case, a series of impressions, memories, and future-oriented aspirations that rise and set reveal just how often you’ve felt as if you really deserved a chance but didn’t actually get it. You notice anger, resentment, sadness, and hope. Hope? Yes, you imagine also, perhaps, that someone is going to “see your great gifts” and “offer you that amazing, once-in-a-lifetime break.”

Now, during the turnaround phase, you start to see that there’s a fungibility to all suffering-generated beliefs. Couldn’t all of these be equally plausible: “All people deserve a break,” “No one, really, deserves anything,” “I don’t deserve a break, but surely some others do,” etc.?

You are meditating, of course, and what you feel at this moment is that all of these beliefs are free-floating arisings. Each has the same rasa, or “taste.” None are those, from this depth, that you’re attached to or repulsed by.

By the final question, you’re open to being the witness, perhaps, more knowingly. So:

Q4: Who are you without any of these beliefs?

You experience inherent freedom, intrinsic peace, or natural openness.

Argument, Revisited

If you were to go through, say, 10 or 20 beliefs with sufficient rigor, could you not discover that there’s no “granthi” (or knot) holding you to any beliefs? That’s the first claim above.

Might you also start to experientially understand that all beliefs are contingent? Really, you’re starting to stand, knowingly, as the witness who is “beyond” all beliefs. This is the second claim.

And is it possible that you’d start to “piece together” an account according to which all beliefs of this kind are not actually true or untrue but are rather artifacts of a history of trying to survive in what’s deemed to be a hostile world? Might you be a lot looser when it comes to making statements about “how you [as a jiva] are,” about “how others [as jivas] are,” about “how the manifest world or modern world really works,” and so on?

In short, could it be said that, at least, The Work is deconstructing, little by little, the “I am the knower or knowing one” identity?

Two Limitations Of The Work

There are two basic limitations of The Work. The first is metaphysical. The second is practical.

In the first place, The Work is metaphysically neutral. While this neutrality speaks in its favor insofar as it allows anyone to go through the process and potentially benefit from it, it also doesn’t invite one to consider the nature of reality, which is the bread and butter of Advaita Vedanta. That said, it can open one up to metaphysical questions.

In the second place, The Work can’t, on its own, end samsara, since you can always keep testing more beliefs over and over and over again (and, at best, dropping one after the other after the other). However, what hasn’t been dropped is the I-thought (or ego). To end samsara, Ramana Maharshi often tells us, one needs to hold onto “the I,” and to set aside all other experiences–in this case, all beliefs. Again, however, The Work doesn’t preclude this questioning.

The best case scenario is that The Work, through a process of inner purification, opens one up to the kind of metaphysico-practical inquiry that will enable one to transcend all suffering.