“The [true leader] has no job, no purpose, without that call of apparent suffering. It’s his nature to respond. He has no sense of generosity about putting others before himself, since for him there are no others; it’s himself that he’s always serving. It’s painful to believe that anyone needs to be saved. I do The Work with people because they ask me; they think they need it, and that’s what I gave to myself, so of course I give it to them. They are my internal life. So their asking is my asking.”
And their “I’m okay.” Is my “I’m okay.” Their “I understand” is my “I understand.” So I don’t need to offer my perspective to anyone who isn’t looking for it. Why would I argue with anyone’s okayness and understanding? I can just respond in love to everything I see of my true self in all these imaginary “others.”
“Responding to them is an act of self-love.”
Italicized paragraphs from “A Mind At Home With Itself, by Byron Katie and Stephen Mitchell p.26